Chapter Text
John palms the nickel and flips the card and lays it down beside the others, spread out in a crooked fan across his piece of sky blue felt. You can see the notch cut from the card’s corner (and the little loop of thread trailing from his sleeve, with the paper bouquet tied to the other end, and the red dot inked on the back of the queen of hearts, and the coin-sized pocket stitched clumsily to his cuff), but the room is stuffy and the air is still, and it weighs down heavy enough to crush you into utter lethargy. now tell me, madam, says John, was this – oh crap, hang on, it’s here somewhere – was THIS your card?
You roll your head towards it. nope!
what, for real? no kidding?
for real!!! You drop your head back down onto one of the armchair’s arms. Your legs are slung over the other: the pleated red skirt you’re not allowed out your bedroom without is rucked carelessly up above your knees, and your feet are bare and muddy from trampling early crocuses in the vast and beautiful front yard earlier. If you tilt your head just the right way you can feel the longest tangles of your hair brush the parquet. You haven’t felt so listless since the last time your windows were padlocked to stop you climbing out. pranks are your thing john, ive got ALL sorts of better stuff to be getting on with ;)
wow yes, that is definitely the case! i am suddenly totally convinced by your story, even though i have heard you cry yourself to sleep because you know you will never pull a prank like i can. He claps one hand to his heart, right where the little red spoon logo is stitched onto his shirt, and rolls his eyes theatrically upwards. good job, jade, i have never been so – but it’s one sarcastic flourish too many, and the nickel tucked between his palm and the pad of his thumb slips free, and bounces onto the table, and rolls across the varnish and rattles and rattles round its axis till it slows and settles, and topples down flat.
lol, you say.
that is such bullshit, says John.
big words for such a lil shrimp, says your mother.
You jolt upright and John jerks backward, and you smear mud across the armchair as you drag your feet off it and he shoves his piece of felt with its fanned-out card deck hard to the side and it slides straight across the table. In the doorway, backlit by the warm hall lights, your mother cuts a sleek silhouette.
i didn’t mean to, John starts, and stops and tries again: what i mean is i did not say what you think i said, or, uh, what you probably think i said? because what i actually said was. um. it was. bull. ball.
Tap-a-tap-tap: her lacquered yellow nails on the door’s carved panels. The last playing cards float down with no breeze to lift them.
ball. baaall... pit. ballpit.
buoy, she says, i aint got beef with your dirty mouth. tuna can it
awesome, he says, in relief, and hunkers down in the shadows beside the table to scoop his cards back up. You look at the back of his head. It is dark and neatly-combed.
and you gill: upstairs
ima brush every tangle out that hair a yours
looks like a hurricane hit a kelp garden god DAMN
Your fingers dent the armchair’s dark rose upholstery and small dust clouds puff out when you grip tighter. no, you say.
you reelly wanna make me come over there and fetch you
im not doing anything you say you bitch!!!
beach, suggests John, helpfully, and he ducks beneath the table to retrieve some errant cards from the floorboard cracks they’ve lodged between. Wide tracks cut through the dust behind him.
cmon lil fishbait
you fucked with ma flower borders
its offishally fair i get to fuck with you back
um since when has anything youve ever done in your whole life been FAIR?????
And then your skull is shattering – or it’s not, but – a sound so loud and high there’s space for nothing in your head except it, shrilling from one side to another and reverberating down every passage in your brain – you double up and grab to get your glasses off, your Crocker-brand glasses, and the dark room is swimming in salt tears and
and silence. You gasp for breath like it’s a seizure.
quit questionin your elders and betas, says your mother, coolly. lets shake a fin and get upstairs
you cant, and your breathing steadies, you cant do that to me
im your mom little gill
i can do whatever the shell i want with you
Slowly, you slide your glasses back on: no sound. In the high corners great wispy drapes of cobwebs hang, perfectly still in the airless room.
jade, says John, and he sits back on his heels. The knees of his red pants are grey with dust and his hands, when he shrugs towards you, are dusted grey in the creases. you’re making kind of a big deal out of this.
i hate you, you tell your mother.
you heard the bouy, she says.