from bostonfoodandwhine.com
She'd
been dating the guy for a while, long enough to be invited to sleep
over while his kid was in the house. Up till then she’d only ever
visited when the kid stayed over at the mother’s, which wasn't
often because she had a mental health problem no one liked to talk
about.
The
kid had a frog in a tank. A white frog with red eyes like circles of
ink drawn at the end of a sentence. Like punctuation marks. It sang
at night, loud calls, that sounded like a comb being rubbed back and
forth on the edge of a table top. Looping vibrations that rose out of
the water. She heard it calling, all night long, even in the next
room.
She
sat and watched the frog as it ate, gulping the red worms that they
dropped in small frozen blocks into the tank. It scooped them into
its mouth with its hands, looking like a starving man who still
remembered his manners. They really did look like hands, its front
feet. Pale with thin fingers, each tipped with a tiny black claw.
She
watched the frog while her boyfriend and the kid hung out in the
sitting room watching TV. She was supposed to wait in the bedroom
till they were done. The kid didn’t like her. Didn’t want to be
in the same room as her, so she had to wait, be patient. Let him come
around in his own time. These things take time, and the kid didn’t
need another mother. She didn’t argue. What did she know about
children?
Her
own mother had told her she wasn’t the mothering type. Too hard to
please, too fussy and now look at her – on the shelf, past her
prime, difficult to love. The frog swam to the surface of the tank,
broke the skin of the water and took a breath. It floated for a
moment, its red eyes unblinking before kicking its thick back legs
and settling back on the pebbles at the bottom. They watched each
other, frog and woman, as the sound of laughter, canned and real,
popped their liquid peace from the other room. She checked her watch,
not long to wait, soon the kid would go to bed and then it would be
her turn.
On
her way over to his place she passed a fancy looking sweetshop,
decked out like it belonged in another era, a pink and green striped
awning shading elaborate glass jars filled with brightly coloured
sweets in the window. She pulled into the parking space outside the
shop. Inside, the owner wiped down the counter with a cloth while she
stood and tried to choose from the confusion of colours and shapes
and flavours.
Sorry,
she said. I can’t choose.
The
owner smiled, his cheeks pushing up into his narrow temples, shifting
his glasses. He was clean-shaven, but he reminded her of her
Economics Professor, with his soft grey hair and thin lips. He pushed
his glasses back up his nose and waited while she peered into each
jar and container. Finally she bought a mixed bag of everything,
hard-boiled fruit sweets, soft jellies, chocolate nut chunks, sugar
mice, a jelly snake. The guy weighed it all on a scale.
£30,
he said.
Jesus,
she breathed. But she paid and watched as he tied the package with
ribbons. When she arrived her boyfriend took the sweets and put them
on the counter.
I
thought the kid would enjoy them. I want him to like me.
That's
sweet of you, he said.
You
going to give them to him?
Later,
he said. Then he kissed her on the cheek and went through to the
sitting room and the TV and the kid.
It's
lonely, she said, that's why it calls like that.
He
laughed at her. He was wearing a T-shirt with a joke caption on it,
like a teenager would wear. Little things like that were beginning to
irritate her. He grabbed her foot and pulled her across the bed
towards him. The frog’s rasping call carried on through the night.
But
a few nights later it escaped, pushing up out of the thick yellow
water with its bunched flexing legs and plopping onto the carpet. She
found it, barely alive covered in fluff and hair like a dropped
sweet. She washed it off, feeling its pulsing, slick body in her
fingers. It survived. But then it did it again the next night and
then again and each time she rescued it and put it back.
I’ll
get a lid for the tank, he said.
I
told you it's lonely, it's looking for a mate, she said.
He
laughed at her, Oh yeah? The frog thinks does it? Has romantic needs?
How
do you know it doesn't? she said. She watched it, its unblinking eyes
watching her back.
Do
you think maybe I can come and sit with you and the boy now? It’s
been a while.
He
looked at her, his chest rising and falling. Maybe, let’s wait and
see. These things take time.
But
the next time she visited he let her in, kissed her on the cheek and
ushered her away from the sitting room, closing the door behind him.
She walked down the hall, not bothering to take off her shoes,
despite knowing the house rule. The tank was empty. She reached in
and stirred up the water, lifted the small rock where it sometimes
hid. Nothing. It had gone. She pushed open the sitting room door, and
stood there the blue light of the TV washing over them all.
Hey,
what’s up? he said. The kid stared at her and then turned back to
the TV.
Where's
the frog? she asked.
Gone.
Just
like that?
Yeah,
just like that.
Have
you looked for it? Her voice had shifted up out of her chest and into
her throat.
No,
why bother? It’s gone, I’ll just get him another one.
The
kid sucked on his fingers, his round face pink and scrubbed in the
light.
Another
one? she said.
Yeah,
he said. I’ll replace it. Why don’t we talk about this later? You
go and get a drink and get comfortable.
She
nodded, and turned to go.
Babe,
he said, shut the door behind you.
And
so she did.
from latestfunnypics.blogspot.com
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