Don’t Mention It
by Claire Hopple
I take things personally like anyone else, including the quote on my chocolate wrapper.
“Today is a bubble bath day,” the foil tells me. Its triumphal sparkle does not help.
I’m supposed to be meeting my friend Nicole at the town carnival. But her cancellation text appears and congeals to my mood as I enter the premises, dismantling my developing ring toss strategy.
She is supposedly conducting a last-minute interview with a gentleman from the internet. She has a penchant for peeping toms. She hires them to watch her through her bedroom window. The things people will do for a decent night’s sleep.
A tornado came through last night but never touched down. Still, the high winds had harvested mangled clumps of debris and a collective nimbus of anxiety.
I spy a field trip permission slip in a divot and hope that this boy Asa made it onto the bus before it puttered over to the science museum.
Maybe it’s just as well that Nicole couldn’t be here. I planned on confronting her about unapologetically dating a guy in the animal testing department of a popular makeup brand. They use hamsters. So I guess things could be worse.
I don’t know who else to invite. The number of available people is dwindling. I try not to read into it. I don’t really have what it takes, anyway, the overwhelming sense of guilt endemic to friendship.
As the crowd expands to the size of my interpersonal limitations, you bump into me. You hit right into the talismanic jar of tonsils at my side, nestled in my bag, which collides with my hip bone and most definitely leaves a bruise.
Lowing in moderate discomfort, I’m distracted, but I think I can identify you among the townsfolk. They’re the same faces pretty much every day, but they all have different ways of ignoring each other. Yours is new.
I forgo the funnel cake and decide to chase you. You couldn’t have gone far.
I pass those partial mannequins in a shop window downtown. The severed torsos next to the crotches-with-legs.
Is that you down the hill with your buddies?
The tollbooth attendant at the corner parking garage might lead me to the right place. I could question the parkers inside to see if they know you. They can navigate tight turns and breathe easily under low ceilings while straining to keep pressing engagements. What can’t they do?
Okay, I guess this is happening. I approach the guy behind the glass box in the garage. He has a clipboard. He is clearly in charge. He has a pen too. Looks like a felt tip.
Of course, a clipboard can belong to anyone. I know that. They’re not just for the responsible. I’ve grown to respect those who can literally go places and complete ordinary tasks, seemingly without incident. This may have something to do with feeling like I’ll spend the rest of my existence doing penance for my brief stint as a child.
I’m swallowing excessively.
“They’re doing big things with pens these days,” I say to him.
He looks up.
I make like I’m trying to pay for parking, but I’m still on foot. My mode of transportation has not changed.
I flee, then return to the fluorescent field. Nicole’s here. She’s lying on the hay bale in front of the spinny ride. She’s prone. She’s prone to lying prone, on bales across the country.
“There you are.”
“He was a no-show,” she says, swinging her leg.
She stands up, stretches.
We linger at a kiddie pool filled with rubber ducks. Nicole promises to win me an
oversized alligator.
“If you run into my dad, avoid saying the word ‘umbrella’ at all costs. In fact, never speak the word in his presence. I’ll explain later.”
I tamper my curiosity, ask, “Can you hold a seance for a living person?”
“Definitely not.”
You may be thinking: It was just a bump. These things happen in crowds. Why am I searching for you?
These are understandable thoughts.
Recently, I inherited my aunt’s house. She died a while ago, but nobody felt like doing much at first. My family consented to moving me in while passively avoiding any removal of her possessions.
Steeped in her belongings, I fear I’m slowly becoming her.
Even the fragments that remain—crumbs in the little drawer under the stove, runes of nail holes and scuff marks on walls—exert their influence.
Could a house be considered one large lost and found?
We circle the horde of bicycle cops. Two teenagers make out on a bench. Tractor engines and generators pummel our ear canals.
Then there’s our catching up, Nicole’s embellished tales, my shrugging off of coworkers in shorts emerging from the Ferris wheel line, her craving for foods impaled by sticks, and our eventual dissolving into the night.
I have yet to see that oversized alligator.
Claire Hopple is the author of four books. Her fiction has appeared in Hobart, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, New World Writing, Timber, and others. More at clairehopple.com.
