Spa/Croissant

Velvet and her friend Mel were in the gravity sauna. They hung in silk mesh hammocks twelve feet above sage embers, and Velvet was almost at her limit. She tipped her tongue as a drift of ash flew towards the ceiling ventilation, melting like a snowflake. Mel looked serene, though her limbs were quite pink. She had Big Mama Boobs, nipples like doilies. She had slender legs, enormous feet, and a Hawaiian toe ring she was unable to remove.

“I just started a business,” Mel said. “It's called The Chorus. You pose a question to the Chorus like, 'what should I spend five-hundred-dollars on, paying off my credit card or new boots?' and give it a time limit, like fifteen minutes, and users can vote. At the end of your time limit, the Chorus has made your decision for you!”

“But what if people say something mean like, 'Just kill yourself instead'?” Velvet said. Her mouth felt like it was coated in sand.

“No comments. Just the two choices you're caught between.”

“It's just for little things, or things like, 'should I break up with my boyfriend, yes or no?'”

“I imagine people will use the Chorus for all sorts of things, but the Chorus only really works for specific and well-posed questions.”

“OK and what about when someone asks, 'I'm really depressed and have no will to live, should I kill myself, yes or no?'”

“You're making me uncomfortable, I'm setting my boundary,” Mel said. She drew a square in the air. It framed her face.

Velvet rocked in her hammock, kicking off from the baking stone. “Jesus, Mel. Do you really think that total strangers know best?”

“No, not me,” Mel said. “People. People love this stuff. People are so stupid.”

“People are so stupid,” Velvet cooed, content that they were getting along again. Her heart slid from where it had been.

Both women looked to a crack in the stone wall, widening to a crevice of blinding light. Mel shielded her eyes with her hand. Through the sauna door, a woman emerged with a stiff haircut in black basketball shorts and a black bra. She took the cord wrapped around an iron loop, and lowered Mel's hammock to the platform.

“Lash and scrub,” the woman confirmed, lifting Mel with surprise strength to her feet.

“Mew,” Mel said. She wanted to leave the sauna too, but she was too weak to gesture to the attendant. Her time would come, she knew. A similar woman would lower her hammock and peel her from the cedar boards of the platform. Velvet didn't get lashes like Mel. She could picture it— Mel on her belly, her neck propped like a cobra, while the antennae of butterflies were glued to her lash line.

Velvet waited in the polar tub for Mel to finish her treatments. She treaded water, fluttering her arms so she didn't have to rest her feet on the icy bottom, her legs were as tight as boards, and she dragged them heavily. Fresh snow carpeted around the tub. Velvet's footprints disappeared with each snowflake; they were now just the slightest scoops in the snow. She tried to concentrate on the cherry tree beside the pool, lift up the trunk, up the black branches, through the rice paper blossoms, and past the painted sky. She was unsure how long she'd been in the tub—somewhere between one minute and one hour. A dove satisfied its gleaning from the cherry tree's base and flew to a top branch, knocking snow into the tub.

“Fucker!” Velvet growled, her breath fogged, and the bird tucked its beak, its rosy belly like a blush.

Mel emerged from the back room. The sauna sweat had dried in her hair and it fell in crunchy mermaid waves. She skipped over the snow and lowered herself in the polar tub, sucking air through her teeth.

“So about The Chorus,” Velvet said. After a few moments, recognition hit Mel.

“Who's gonna make it?” Velvet asked.

“Oh, you just pay someone,” Mel shrugged, and started telling Velvet a story about a mean woman at work.

Velvet tried to listen, but her gaze was drawn to Mel's eyes. Her lashes moved like waving wheat.

“You should go to my gal,” Mel said pointing to her eyes. She was used to hypnotizing people. “I can't believe you go to the spa and don't get lashes. That's like having a croissant without butter, honey, and a cup of tea.”

“Do they pull the antennae off the butterflies in front of you?” Velvet asked. Her nailbeds were indigo.

“I don't know,” Mel said. “They tape my eyes shut.”

 

 

Airport/Fast Food

Velvet was waiting for her friend Murph to pick her up from the airport. On her flight there had been a weather disturbance on the middle leg of the journey, and for four hours the airplane had turned in a series of slow looping spirals like a child's roller coaster, making it impossible for beverage service. Velvet had felt so dehydrated that she had licked the airplane's window in hopes of condensation. Now on the curb, she was still reeling.

Murph pulled up in his brown car. He was hunched over the steering wheel in a coat made of teddy bear hide. Murph looked like a fifties milkman. He had a chin that pointed upwards, a puffy jaw, and a good hairline. He heaved himself out of the car, put Velvet's suitcase in the trunk, and told her to buckle up as they speedbumped out of the airport roundabout.

“Next time, I'm coming back as a woman,” Murph said. “You have no idea how good you have it. Who paid for your flight?”

“My mom,” Velvet said. She wanted to hold something in the car for support, but the leather strap in her eye line made her suspect she was in an ejector seat, and so she seesawed in Murph's car.

“See what I mean?” Murph said.

“Can we get something to eat?” Velvet asked.

They stopped at a fast food place near the airport. Everyone inside the restaurant had a suitcase; the wheels of their rollerboards squeaked and squealed like a mouse chorus on the red and white checkered tiles.

Velvet really just wanted a water and to sit down, but she felt pressured and so ordered a coffee. Murph paid for it along with his food. She followed him to a table by the trash can.

Murph got a burger between two flappy lettuce slices that he dipped in ketchup with each bite. Velvet put her coffee to her nose, but still smelled gymnasium.

“I took my girl out a few nights ago. Just to get into the club it's $20. Then we had two beers and two tequilas—$75. You don't realize it when it's not your cash.”

Murph ate his burger, wiping ketchup from his fingers onto the printed paper placemats.

“My girl always wants to go out, so I say, 'Fine, this time it's your treat.' We get dressed up. We go to a nice dinner. We split an appetizer, get two entrees, two beers, no dessert. A hundred bucks with tip. Then we go to the club, she pays $20 for me to get in. In the club we get two beers and two tequilas—$75. After that she says, 'Baby, I can't take it anymore!' So we go home. One night and she had enough. That's why we don't go out anymore.”

Velvet waited behind a child to fill her water cup. He was wearing shoes with hidden wheels in the soles, and slid back and forth as if he were hovering slightly above the ground while he depressed the lever for ice, filling his cup one ice cube at a time.

An employee in white pants, a white shirt with pearline snaps, a white sailor's cap, and a checkered red and white cloth folded into an apron and secured with a kilt pin at his sacrum, dipped his mop into the yellow plastic basin. He swirled the mop in the opaque gray water, in which several drinking straws bobbed. He wrung the mop and slapped it onto the red and white tiles, mopping down the sloping edges of the sinkhole. It was about three feet in diameter with three orange caution cones alerting patrons to its danger. Down Velvet looked into the sinkhole, exponentially blackening to the bottom of the pit that she couldn't see, its depth intuitive, and her breath catching, reluctant to send it down the sinkhole.

A single glittering ice cube slipped to the floor. The child tilted back his head and slurped from his cup. Lemonade spilled in two streams, meeting in a river at the pit where his Adam's apple would be. He finished the drink and “ah”-ed stickily. Rollerboarding away from the soft drink fountain, he dropped his cup into the sinkhole. The mopping employee frowned as the sinkhole expanded another inch.

Velvet gave up on her water and sat.

“Can I have a fry?” Velvet asked Murph.

“Sure,” Murph said, pushing the cardboard boat to her, “You can have the rest.”

 

 

River Snake/Haircut

Velvet and her friend Mel walked across the bridge to exercise class. The river was a dried cement slab, a trough of gray water cut through. Plastic bags bobbed like bullfrogs. An overturned shopping cart, dried algae witch's hair, the bent cage of the cart the rib bones of a dinosaur. Under the bridge there was a snake, an escaped reticulated python. Velvet had seen it once, orange scales, overlapping lavender circles on its spine like ∞ repeating forever. The snake lay in the trough with its mouth open, waiting, ready to eat anything that came down the river.

Indian summer, hot October evening, car exhaust and woodsmoke and Mel's shampoo made the air murky apple cider.

“That's what I want my armpits to look like,” said Mel, and she pointed to the concave joint of Eucalyptus tree branch, where the bough met the trunk. The bark was stripped from the branch, the branch plastic gray-white, the arm of an android.

Later, Velvet smelled the tree, like soil, slightly mentholated, smelling nothing like skin. Skin smelled like spiced bread, or condensed chicken noodle soup, or sour cut grass.

“I want my arms just like that,” Mel said dreamily, looking at the tree branch that looked almost like an arm.

Exercise class was in a white room with slippery white floors and walls. The ceiling was one big mirror. Velvet and Mel and the other girls lay on their backs with a pea-green ball the size of a schoolroom globe between their thighs. The instructor, with her wet ponytail and threatening tan, yelled over the music, and Velvet tried to bring the ball to her nose, keep her shoulder blades cemented to the ground, keep the natural curve in her lower back, keep her neck swan-like, tuck her chin and tuck her hips. She could do maybe two of the commands at once. Velvet sneaked a look at Mel, who struggled too. They completed the set with the globe-sized ball, and then were given a ball the same shade of green, this one the size of a pommelo, and had to do the whole thing over again. Velvet's palms slipped on the floor; she flipped them up. In the mirror, she looked crucified. The instructor yelled at her. The next ball was the size of a jawbreaker. A shooting pain spread from Velvet's hip crease, and she wondered if it was constructive pain or if she was doing it wrong. The instructor demonstrated the new move. She held the last ball, the size of a pea, between her knees, shot it into the air, and caught it between her thighs like a Venus flytrap. The ball was actually a pea. The instructor used a towel to wipe the mashed pea, and told the girls to get to work. Velvet held the pea between her knees, but could not hurl it into the air like the instructor had. It rolled into her shorts.

Coming out the door of exercise class, Velvet was so fatigued she crashed into the wall, scraping her shoulder on the stucco, the stucco leaving a tic-tac-toe scratch. She heard the honk of a horn. A man in a brown car had pulled up to the curb in front of exercise class and he seemed to be waving at Velvet.

“Is that Murph?” Mel said. It was Murph— now barely recognizable, his hair buzzed, shorn close to the scalp. He looked like a de-loused waif. He looked so different that his car looked different. His face appeared larger, head larger. His ears pink nautilus, like hotel soap in a hotel dish. She could see the ridges of his skin stretched tight over bone. Velvet, embarrassed, knew exactly what he would look like skinless, his skull a seashell.

Velvet and Mel approached, and Murph leaned on the passenger seat peering out at them from the dark interior of his car, a cigarette smoldered in the ashtray.

“Your head,” Velvet said, though she had tried to say something different.

“I stopped going to the barber since we moved, so my girl tried to cut my hair. She did all right at first but then she got cocky. What are you girls up to?”

“Exercise class,” Velvet said. “We hate our armpits.”

“Huh,” Murph said. “Need a lift?”

“No thanks,” Mel said before Velvet could reply, and Murph drove off.

“He's such an asshole,” Mel said. Blue now, her face a yellow moon under the streetlight, a bat breeze taking up her sweaty black ribbon strands of hair. She looked angry.

Velvet watched the taillights of Murph's car disappear over the bridge, her weary legs, arms like they were wrapped in bunting, she felt wound-up to the point of spinning, and had the sensation of being in the wrong space, that this moment with Mel in front of exercise class could exist without her presence, that her body belonged in Murph's car, carrying over the bridge, the long muscle of the river snake stretched in the dark below. Almost seemed easier, to be one muscle without anything else to worry about.

 

 

Winds

During the winds, Velvet lost her driver's license and had to ride her bicycle. She jimmy-rigged a flashlight to the top of her helmet, put the flashlight on the strobe setting so the street jumped out at her in hot, white bursts. She rode on the sidewalk too, coasting the slopes and falls of the driveway dips, her fingertips kissing steer horn handlebars. The strobe flashed on the tawny underbellies of magnolia leaves, their green shells, and white confectionary petals tossed by the wind.

A dust devil spun into her path. She pulled a black bandana over her lips and nose, and shut her eyes as the blast hit her. Dust, debris, whipped her face, Velvet wobbled on the bike. Unable to balance, she opened her eyes. A cinder from the dust devil shot into the caruncle of her right eye. She back-peddled to stop, and jumped down, her crotch spared by the rocking chair curves of the cruiser.

“Jesus fuck,” she said behind black bandana, and shielded her eyes from the winds with her forearm. She tore off her helmet, left the bike on its side, and crawled on her hands and knees, feeling her way to a hedge.

The cotoneaster was trimmed mausoleum-sized. Velvet pushed her way into the hedge. Inside the hedge-box was a red water pump on a cement plank. Free of the winds, she picked the grit out of her eye, resting on the carpet of dried leaves. She pulled the bandana from her face and breathed in, not deep, pure breaths, the air not overly fresh, but rather like the old air of a dry cave. Much better than the winds. Regretful about the abandoned bike but didn't have the inclination to move, luxuriating on the leaves beneath her, the crushed leaves released the fragrance of almond. The red pump was cheery, meters at its base with spinning red arrows, a slow drip of water. She could use the pump as a table, or to line-dry her clothes. The cement slab would be good for food prep, correspondence. She could sleep where she was, her legs straight before her, back resting against the hedge, sinking into the hedge slightly, stems like acupuncture at the nape of her neck and along her spine. As soon as she closed her eyes, she could sleep right there. She picked a berry from a cluster, not quite pink, but green in places like rainbow sherbet. She bit in with one tooth, the teeniest nibble. Astringent, parched her mouth, she immediately spat. Velvet rose to her knees and lowered her head to the drip. It took a few moments to get a mouthful, taking in the water drop by drop, the droplets dissipated on her rough tongue, every drop delicious. When she was done, she rolled back into her previous position, not quenched, but sustained, liminal. She could stay here for quite some time.

“Velvet?”

“Yeah?”

“You OK?”

Through the break in branches, Velvet saw Murph lift her bike from the sidewalk. She pushed out of the hedge. The kickstand of her bike squeaked as Murph booted it into place. The winds had died down, a hot breeze picked at individual follicles on Murph's coat made of teddy bear hide. He handed her the helmet, strobe flashing, and she fastened it onto her head. He wore a pair of red framed welding goggles, the dark lenses flipped up, the elastic yellow and black striped band constricting his head.

“Why are you walking?”

“My girl's got the car, she's working tonight.”

Now, Velvet saw the squat pale house behind the cotoneaster shelter, dry grass fenced in with pickets, a shake roof, a light not in the front room, but seen through the front window, back in the further reaches of the house, the glow a kitchen light.

Attracted to the strobe light, an Idia moth, wing pattern like wood grain, floated beside Velvet's ear. Murph scanned the empty street, took a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket, and offered one to Velvet. She blinked. She hadn't had a cigarette since the winds. Last week cleaning her apartment, Velvet had found a butt, and sucked on it, pulling scorched tobacco through the filter, tasting like the walls of an old hotel.

“I'll put it out before the winds start back. Got a light?”

Velvet found one in her backpack, a gold foil lighter shaped like a gold brick, on one side the design of a four leaf clover and the word “lucky,” on the other side, Roman lettering like a headstone that read “GOLD” and “999.9” beneath it. She handed it to Murph.

“I'm not worried about starting a fire, I'm worried about the fines. $5,000 between me and my girl last year. They make all their money during the winds.”

Murph lit his cigarette, the smoke dusting the air.

“But now my girl doesn't smoke anymore because she wants to have a baby. I told her, 'Yeah, but who's gonna watch it?' That's why she's working tonight, to get into the Union.”

“I'm going to lie down for a bit,” Velvet said.

“In there? There's bugs and shit.”

“I'm fine. Can you put my bike next to that magnolia tree?”

“Sure, no problem,” Murph said.

Velvet moved towards the cotoneaster. As she backed into the hedge, she watched Murph, cigarette between his teeth, push the bike by its steer horn handles, the tick-tick-tick of the wheels as he pushed, the strobe on her helmet reflecting in his goggles so she could see the dark hollows of his eyes only in flashes, the strobe turning his goggles into mirrors, his eyes into mirrors.

Velvet awoke to apple cider. She knew it was a fire, but was slow to react, stiff in her hedge-box, she was unsure if burning wood smelled like apple cider, or apple cider smelled like burning wood. She climbed out of the hedge-box on all fours.

The house's roof was on fire, smoke on the winds. In the distance, she heard the scream of a fire engine, and rolled her bike from the magnolia tree, getting her bearings. Embers from the burning house floated up on the winds to the house next door, licked the frayed shingles as tinder. Velvet watched the bud of a flame bloom beside the weathervane, and another roof began its surrender to the blaze. She pulled the black bandana over her mouth—the whole neighborhood would soon burn. Wood cracked, smoke scratched her eyes. The whole neighborhood would go up soon, houses into ash. She needed to move, she couldn't move. She could always just wait there, in the bush. It wouldn't be so bad to just wait.