After The Girls of Summer

Lauren Becker

When he is sweet, Alex runs his right thumb along Shelly’s left eyebrow.  The thick hairs mostly cover the scar where he split her skin the first time.  He smooths the remnant as though it happened long before she knew him.  Like she fell off her bicycle when she first rode without training wheels.  Like she tripped the first time she wore high heels.
…..Tonight Alex flirts with the pretty blonde who works this summer as a lifeguard at the shore.  Shelly looks but has long since stopped seeing.  Her eyes glaze of their own accord.  Her mind takes her nowhere.  Nowhere is as good a place as any.
…..Alex reads these summer girls like Archie comics.  They are always Betty – sweet and ripe for ruin.  He is older and smells like someone accustomed to manhood.  He is masculine in a way these girls do not know.
…..He glances to let this one know he sees and goes back to talking with his buddies.  He does not go to them. The girl walks to the bar and orders a shot of Cuervo.  Alex assesses her with the admiration they all crave and holds up two fingers.
…..He likes for Shelly to see.  She sits a few stools away in a short skirt and tube top he chose, clothing too young for a 40 year-old woman who looks her age.   The summer girls laugh at her.  She smiles and sucks at the ice cubes in her gin and tonics.  She and Alex met in summer.
…..He does a few more shots with this one, who holds his stare as he snakes his hand up her thigh, as far as her shorts will allow.  He suggests they go outside for a cigarette.
…..He likes for Shelly to know.  He takes them out back for rough sport.  Only one time each.  It is his form of faithfulness.
…..On occasion, a man talks to Shelly, offers to buy her a drink.  She hardens her face, says no.  On occasion, they read her disinterest as a challenge.  She knows they are programmed to want to break a woman and put her back as they like.  Alex watches.  Even when he isn’t there.  She is the way he made her.
…..She knows the ass-molded seats in the emergency room.  Last time was her right wrist.  There was a lot of time between that and the visit before.  The kick in the stomach that ensured her emptiness..  He was tender and sorry for months before the pink slip he held on her made him grab her by the wrist and pull her to the parking lot.   She didn’t fight when he threw her against the truck.  The crack of her wrist was only an early ending.
…..The summer girls don’t matter.  He had more patience then.  He always comes back.  She is the way he made her.

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Lauren Becker lives in Oakland, California. She is Editor of Corium Magazine and writes for The Nervous Breakdown. Her work has appeared in Pedestal Magazine, Annalemma, Wigleaf, Pindeldyboz and elsewhere.

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