American Chordata: Magazine of New Writing Issue One, Spring 2015 | Page 32

14 • FI CTION

I invite Carson to come to the library and work with us, on one
of the afternoons he is not at a job. I immediately regret doing so,
but it is too late to take it back.
When he sits with us, the whole dynamic changes. Ellen keeps
her lips pursed and her face stern. Maurice is silent and avoids eye
contact. I wish that he had not chosen today to wear a dirty T-shirt.
He smells like yesterday’s sweat.
Carson makes small talk and asks about our interests and daily
schedules, but we all know that he is not like the rest of us.
Ellen has added feathers to her hair. Three brown, spotted
feathers dangle from the lock of blue hair along with several earthen
beads. I wonder if Carson thinks this is tacky. I wonder if I would
appreciate the feathers more if he were not sitting next to me.
Sometimes you see your friends as beautiful because you love
them, but no one is really beautiful. It is only loving them that
makes them so. Other times you look again and see what the rest
of the world must see. And then you are forced to make excuses
for them.
I wonder what excuses Carson has made for me. When he tells
me I am beautiful, I want to ask for the specifics and the comparison over time. Have my freckles aged? Has my cellulite spread?
Have I said anything to expose a lack of knowledge or a simple
mind? No one is beautiful always. Sitting next to his friends at pub
trivia, at dinner parties, at taprooms, I feel as big and embarrassed
as Maurice. I forget that Maurice has a lovely and affecting smile.
When Carson suggests we have a housewarming party, with a
guessing game as to how many people will fit inside our home, all
I can imagine is a crowd of strangers breathing our air, until there
is no more left for the two of us. I feel sick in my stomach.
“Why can’t we invite Ellen and Maurice?” I say, after he lists
some of the people who will come.
“Of course we can invite them,” he says. “I just didn’t think this
was the kind of thing they’d enjoy.”
“Everyone enjoys a party,” I say, even though I know that Ellen
and Maurice would not enjoy such a thing and I don’t actually want
them to come.