The boy in line at McDonalds in front of Michelle had a hair whorl just like Michael’s. The man in front of that had a slouch just like Michael’s. The woman in front of that had a nose just like his, and she liked to imagine her as his mother. Taking the order from her was a teenage boy who had acne like Michael’s and looked almost cool enough to be one of his friends.
“Excuse me, miss,” a voice behind Michelle said in her ear, making her neck feel exposed.
She turned around, her hand on her purse.
The man who had spoken was wearing a gray jogging outfit. His wide smile lacked two front teeth but appeared eager to please. He reminded her of her six-year-old brother presenting his latest artistic masterpiece/mishap.
“Yes... sir?” she asked nervously. Other people were politely eyeing the ceiling or floor in feigned fascination.
“ ‘Sir’! How polite! May I spare you some change?”
She was about to make up an excuse about being a high school student on financial aid when he pulled something out of his pocket. It was a small worry doll that looked just like her, down to the large pink birthmark under her right eye. She stared incredulously at it for a moment, then imagined it as a way to start a conversation with Michael. “You wouldn’t believe the crazy thing that happened at McDonalds this morning, man...”
“How much for the doll?” she asked him. She’d be willing to pay as much as twenty dollars, but no more, she decided.
“Because you were so polite, despite my appearance, I’ll give you a free trial run,” he said, exposing his toothless grin. He noticed her staring and snapped his lips shut. Without moving them much, he said, “Go ahead. Sing it.”
“Sing... what?”
“ ‘All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.’ It’s all right; I won’t be offended.”
“No, I... no.” She laughed uncertainly.
“What is the one thing you want most in the world right now?” he asked her.
“To get into a good college,” she replied.
He licked his lips and scratched his head. Dandruff flakes drifted onto his sweatshirt. “But not really, right?”
Michelle looked around again. Everyone else appeared to be genuinely uninterested this time. They were only interested in whether she gave him the money, not whether grad school was her highest priority. They weren’t listening any longer.
“Here,” he said, and dropped the worry doll into Michelle’s palm.
She was in a bathtub, pregnant and older by about fifteen years. Memories drifted into her mind, new ones to account for the lost time.
She remembered catching Michael after band practice. He had freckles and a button nose and big pants. He reminded her of her best friend from elementary school who moved to Florida. She remembered showing him the doll and him exclaiming that it looked just like her.
There was something about her going to Yale while he studied business and marketing at the local community college. There was something about him cheating on her, but apologizing.
Now she struggled to stand, but couldn’t. There was something wrong with her knees.
That memory came back, too.
Michael stood in front of her. She was doing her hair in the mirror in the bathroom. She was talking to his reflection. He’d been losing his hair and perhaps cheating on her again at work. When she accused him of the cheating, he’d snapped, “not that you’d know about cheating,” and, without warning, shot her through both knees.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, and put her in the bathtub with bedsheets to staunch the bloodflow. “You’re mine and I just... want it to stay that way.”
She was in too much physical pain to point out the hypocracy of the statement. The blood flow wasn’t stopping, just flowing into the sheets; the color did most of the screaming for her.
Her son, who was ten at the time, had heard the gunshots. He stood in the doorway, staring at her in the bathub. “Whoa,” he said. “Mom?”
Michael Junior hadn’t remembered his father when he was well. Michael had been the bassist of what was commonly assumed to be a promising local band. They split up for college, leaving Michael behind in the remnants of his dreams.
She didn’t notice what was going on with him until she married him.
It all began with his allergy to peanuts.
Allergy to peanuts sounds innocent enough, but suddenly, about halfway through his senior year of college, Michael stopped eating in the cafeteria. He was afraid that he would get hives. He began buying his food at the supermarket and preparing it himself.
Michelle thought it was sweet that he always made her romantic dinners in his apartment. She married him half a year later, never noticing that in the past half-year, they had never gone out to eat once.
But then he stopped shopping in certain aisles of the supermarket because they were near the aisle that contained peanuts. She stopped sending him out to buy the groceries because he returned without many items.
Then he began distrusting his friends. He was afraid that they would slip peanuts into his food for enjoyment at his expense. He stopped going to their houses and would only talk to them on the phone or on the internet.
He began stopping his trips to anywhere that had food. Gradually, he fell into the rut of only going to work – and nowhere else, ever.
He began to suspect her comings and goings.
Now she lay in the bathtub. She’d never gotten medical attention for her knees. The only people she’d seen since that incident were Michael and Michael Junior. But lately Michael wasn’t coming to see her. Every day, Michael Junior brought her food on a tray. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been in the bathtub in the same scraggly robe. Michael Junior was her only gauge of time. He was looking older, she thought. She wasn’t sure how old he was, but he wasn’t ten anymore.
She wondered how they were managing to afford the house. She wondered how she was going to have her baby if she wasn’t allowed to leave the bathtub.
She somehow knew not to ask if she could leave. She wondered what they’d told her family so they never visited. She wondered how old Michael Junior was and why he wouldn’t tell her where his father was. She wondered whether the whole situation was having adverse psychological effects on him. She tried to imagine what he’d say about their situation to his future wife (or husband; that was okay, too. She’d prefer to have grandchildren, though).
One night it occurred to her that perhaps Michael Junior had gone and shot Michael through the knees in the other bathroom. Like father, like son. Maybe she’d request to have them moved to the same bathtub. That would be romantic. She’d always loved Michael, since the first time she’d seen the band perform. Hell, she was seeing the drummer at the time, but Michael lit up the stage.
Around her neck was a worry doll. It was what had brought them together. When he got over how cool it was, Michael had told her if she had any worries, to put the doll under pillow at night when she slept. When she woke up, they’d be solved. She said she was worried about Friday night (a bold move, she startled herself more than she startled him). He told her he’d solve that worry. She’d put it on a necklace that night and hadn’t taken it off since.
But now Michael Junior was in the room with her tray. He looked worried about her bulging belly. It had been ten months. As if on cue, the pain began then, so sharply that she pulled at the doll and the necklace snapped off.
The doll landed on the greasy McDonald’s floor.
“No takers?” the old man in the gray sweatpants asked.
She stared at him, incredulous and disoriented. The memories of the bathtub were beginning to fade.
He lifted his furry long eyebrows halfway up his forehead. “Sometimes,” he told her, “the hell you know is better than the hell you don’t know.”
“Sometimes you have to take your chances,” she replied.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. He smiled.
Later, after she had left, he pulled out the doll, which was now naked and faceless.
“Works every time,” he said, smiling at the corners of his mouth and shaking his head very slowly back and forth. “Like a charm.”
