13
Nicola didn’t just glue me back together.
At my request, she also ripped my frilly white dress off, tossed my veil out, and cut my blonde ringlets down into spiky tufts.
My stuffing she replaced with the Bubble Wrap from the glue gun’s box, shoving it through the tear in my side until I felt full and firm.
She told me she wasn’t really a needlework sort of person, but that wasn’t a problem.
The duct tape she wrapped around my torso did the job just fine.
She couldn’t find my missing eye or my right arm, so she made me an eye patch out of torn lace to cover up my gross gaping eyehole and retrofitted a random stick from her yard into a new arm.
It was roughly the right size and shape as my other arm, which she liked, and the end was sharp, which I liked.
I’d been a little worried I wouldn’t be able to use it properly because it wasn’t part of my original doll body. But my essence/ectoplasm/immortal soul/whatever wasn’t fussy. I felt myself stretch out into my new and reattached pieces, prickling as I took root.
In other words, if bits broke off, they ceased to be me, and if bits got added, they became part of me. I was like Grandpa’s axe, Halloween edition. My parts didn’t have to be original, as long as they were attached.
It felt so good to have attached parts again.
My legs weren’t pretty. The glue made them lumpy and twisted, and my left foot was missing.
Nicola capped my ankle off with a wad of glue, which functioned well enough, but balancing on it was a little hard and gave me a lurching, mismatched stride.
I didn’t care. The pirate walk matched my eye patch, and my legs didn’t have to be pretty, just functional.
“You’re the creepiest little thing I’ve ever seen,” Nicola said as she watched me stagger around the workbench. “Seriously. You look like you’re from a horror movie, and not one of those artsy ones neither, but a gross weird one that only sickos watch.”
I preened. Thank you.
She sucked unhappily at her bottom lip as I made another lap, studying her handiwork. “You know, there’s a new mall being built in town. It’s not finished yet, but there will probably be a toy shop or something when it’s done. Maybe then we can get you some better legs.”
I like my legs.
“Or maybe I can get something online. Etsy probably has doll legs.”
I like my legs.
“You’re just saying that to be nice.”
When have you ever known me to be nice?
That got a smirk. “OK. Fair point.”
Once I was a little better at walking, she picked me up and carried me out of the shed, across her tiny scrap of backyard, and into the house.
It was the bottom floor of an old duplex apartment, original wooden floors and elaborate light fixtures made somewhat less illustrious by the cheap, naked light bulbs.
“Rent is two fifty a week,” Nicola said as she set me down. “I accept cash or direct deposit. No checks.”
I ignored her, enjoying the extra space to stretch my new legs. Walking was easier without my skirts or veil, but it still wasn’t easy. I lurched up the hallway, almost fell over as I turned, and kept one hand on the wall as I made my way back. Nicola watched, leaning in the doorframe.
“It’s terrifying when you do that,” she said.
Do what?
“Go super fast.”
Time must’ve slowed down while I was walking. I hadn’t even noticed. It’s scary when you do it too.
She frowned. “Explain that one. Slow. Like I’m stupid.”
I can’t, I admitted. I don’t know how it works. Not really. But time is screwy when you’re dead. Sometimes it goes fast, sometimes it goes slow. I can control it. A little. Mostly, it controlled me, but that was a detail I wasn’t quite ready to admit just yet.
“Time is screwy when you’re dead,” she repeated slowly.
Yep. So, eh, if I move really fast, or if I’m still and don’t respond for a really long time, don’t worry.
“Right. Sure. Great. That’s . . . that’s a thing, then, I guess.”
Yeah. It sucks. I stood for an awkward few seconds, the thread in my neck straining as I gazed up at her.
And, eh, I just wanted to say thanks again, for buying me, and fixing me, and not smashing me.
I reached out to put my doll hand on the denim of her jeans in what I hoped was an appreciative gesture. You’re a true friend.
“Why are you touching my knee?”
I removed my hand. Sorry. Just . . . seemed like the thing to do.
“You’re so weird.”
You’re talking to a ghost through your hearing aid, I reminded her. Welcome to Weirdville, population two.
“That’s a dated reference.”
That’s a reference?
“Two fifty a week,” she said again. “Plus the forty cents you still owe me. Just because you’re dead doesn’t mean you get to escape capitalism.”
Call my lawyer, I replied, and tottered away. Collect it out of my will.
“You have a lawyer?” she asked.
Nope. Don’t have a will either.
She snorted but didn’t say anything else.
I wobbled around the house, discovering and exploring a living room, a kitchen, a narrow bedroom, and an even narrower bathroom.
The apartment had clearly seen better days, but it was cozy, clean, and sparsely furnished, which felt strange, but not in a bad way.
There were no stacks of stuff, no boxes, and only a couple of cabinets.
For a while, Nicola watched me explore, a figure standing in the doorway, or leaning against the wall. Eventually she must’ve gotten bored, because she left me to it and went about her business, sometimes in a blur and sometimes in a slow creep.
I wasn’t sure what I was looking for as I wandered around Nicola’s home.
I found a few interesting things. A small collection of books, none of them classics, stacked up on a shelf in the hallway.
An air vent in the kitchen I was pretty sure I could hide inside if I ever needed to disappear.
A fern sitting in the corner of the bedroom, green and clearly well loved.
I wondered what it had that the plant in the hallway didn’t.
But the thing that stopped me was the shower.
It wasn’t fancy. Small, freestanding, and squished into the corner behind a plastic see-through curtain. The black and white tiles clacked beneath my porcelain feet as I approached.
I stood in it for a long time, staring up at the tap and, above that, the showerhead hanging from its mount, dizzyingly high. I hadn’t had a shower in . . . years. Nicola had said it had been years. I didn’t think I could now, not without the fabric beneath my duct tape getting damp and gross.
Some ablutomane I was.
Not that it mattered. I didn’t sweat. I didn’t cry. I didn’t need to be clean. But for some reason that piece of lost humanity felt sharper than it should’ve. A loss I hadn’t thought about until now, which paled in comparison to everything else that had been taken from me but which still hurt.
When I heard the TV, I made my way into the living room and stumbled up to the sofa. Nicola was already there, curled against one of the armrests, a microwave meal steaming softly in her lap. Time must’ve been going slow while I approached, because she flinched when she saw me.
What are we watching? I asked as I tried to climb up onto the sofa. It was harder than it looked, the cushion above my head plump enough that I couldn’t find purchase.
“The Walking Dead,” Nicola answered.
Seriously?
“I thought it was about time for a rewatch,” she said, and spooned some pasta into her mouth. “Felt topical.”
I never saw it.
“I’m not going back to the beginning.”
That’s cool. I’ll just . . . eh . . . I hadn’t got further than putting my arms up onto the sofa cushion.
With a sigh, she reached down, picked me up by my duct tape, and dropped me into the empty space beside her.
I wriggled around until I could see the TV.
As promised, there were zombies on the screen.
They weren’t any better at walking than me, which was weirdly validating.
They also weren’t as creepy as me, which was also weirdly validating.
Who’s that? I asked. Where are they going? What’s going on with her? Why are the subtitles yellow? Why is that guy wearing that weird hat?
Nicola took out her hearing aid.
Which, honestly, fair.
For the rest of the night, I watched the zombies move across the screen, sometimes with a flicker, sometimes in a slow slideshow of frames, and sometimes in real time.
Nicola ate her food, curled onto her side, and started to snore, which reminded me of Cookie even though her snores were small and gentle and his were loud enough that Grandma used to say he was sucking in the curtains.
It was the closest to normal I’d felt since the night Kyle killed me.
It was the closest thing to whole I’d felt since then too.
Which, absurdly, made me want to cry again.
The numbness that had consumed me while I sat on the shelf in Trash N’ Treasure peeled back; the pain of everything felt raw and new again.
What Kyle did to me.
Grandma’s crying echoing through the walls.
The look on Auntie Dawn’s face when she saw me move.
I still didn’t know what had happened to Grandma, or Cookie, or Auntie Dawn. I didn’t know where Kyle was or how I’d get to him. I didn’t have a plan. But I had something. I had a whole lot of somethings. I had Nicola. I had legs. I had this spot on the sofa, which was better than any shelf.
I shouldn’t have wanted to cry.
But I did. The need to cry twisted deep in my stitches and puckered the plastic in my Bubble Wrap.
But, still, I couldn’t. Instead I hugged my limbs around myself and stared at the TV, watching zombies rip apart humans until the Are you still watching?
message popped up. Weirdly, that was the thing that woke Nicola.
She stirred, cursed, and stretched, bones clicking audibly.
I watched as she stood, collected her discarded microwave tray, and then, almost reluctantly, scooped up her hearing aid and hooked it onto her right ear. “You’re really real, right?” she whispered, not looking at me, voice dry and croaky. “This isn’t just some long, elaborate dream, right?”
Yeah, I replied. Sorry.
“Shit,” she said. “Shit, I . . . This has all been . . . I gotta go to bed. I have work in the morning.” She turned toward the door.
Hey.
She paused. “Yeah?”
Can I . . . um . . . keep watching?
She turned back to me, gave me a long look. For a moment I thought the answer was going to be a resounding “No.” Perhaps even a “Fuck no.” Then, without a word, she picked up the remote, started the next episode, and dropped it next to me on the cushion.
Thanks.
“I have work in the morning,” she said again, and moved toward the door.
Sweet dreams, I called after her.
She froze. If the TV hadn’t been playing, I would’ve assumed time had also skidded to a halt.
“Nope,” she said after a few seconds of what I could only assume was some intense internal buffering.
“Nuh-uh. You are way too spooky to be saying shit like that.” She whipped back around to glare at me. “Try again.”
Try again?
“Say something less scary.”
“Sweet dreams” isn’t scary.
“It is coming out of your undead arse. Try again.”
I’m not undead. You need flesh to be undead, like a zombie, or a vampire. I’m a disembodied—
“You’re doll-embodied. That counts. Try again.”
OK. Fine. Nighty ni—
“That’s worse. That’s way worse.”
Don’t let the bedbugs b—
“‘Have a good night,’” she said, holding up a finger, “‘see you in the morning’”—another finger—“and ‘sleep well.’” She waved her three fingers toward me. “Those are the three ways you’re allowed to wish me a good night. Nothing spooky. Nothing weird.”
Sleep well, Nic, I sang out in my creepiest voice. Have a good night. I let my head flop unnaturally to the side. I’ll see you in the morning.
She rubbed her face. “I want my forty cents back.”