The Fleabag Question

Life with a very common little ghost

At a party, celebrating two friends’ divorce. We are twenty one, and neither were ever married, it’s Saturday and we love each other. It is loud, and spacey, and we all know this house has evil in it, has had evil in it, so evil in here, we all stand around while a boy skitters over the speakers, picks at the wires, though music is still playing.

The Fleabag question, again the Fleabag question: five years of your life for the perfect body.

We both think. They hug a balloon — one of five red foil stars, sluggish against the low ceilings — and ask me again. Maybe one year. But not five, too long. And even then, how long til you would be standing slouched in front of the mirror again.

Before leaving home, I wrapped a piece of black lace around my head. The lights are low and they are watching the divorcees move, mingle. We pressed our hands over the others ears, blocked out: oh, but you were right, that is better.

One year. One year gone, felt like a victory in the moment, just one year. Trudging, it falls flat, deflated. One that I had already lived? Couldn’t do it. Dragged my lips over a collarbone, picked blackberries out of an alley, laughed in the water while the sun slipped down, us sisters.

Maybe a year to stop asking this fucking question every six weeks.

We make latkes for dinner, go to two stores for real potatoes because its not as fun with frozen. When I worked at the restaurant, I fried off 200 in one night, went through two gallons of oil. None left in the pan, all soaked up. I mix a finger of horseradish into sour cream, mix it in a mug and lick my thumb. Max, sweet, ridiculous: you look beautiful. I feed him, we leave into the cold.

Tonight, I am refusing the draw of the pipe, the hate, the hand that pinches. Go do something worth doing, this is so whatever. Read a poem, remembered a drive. Watched the snow in the street light, sat in the window.