Free True Things About Me A Novel (Deborah Kay Davies) by Deborah Kay Davies Page A

greetings. The whole enterprise seemed a little heavy, so I tried to be jaunty. Who do you think you’re staring at? I joked. The thing didn’t blink. It certainly didn’t talk back. I opened it up a little, though I felt squeamish. Then I got spooked; it seemed so sad and angry. The whole area looked like a punched eye. I thought I detected a look of reproach. In the end I whispered, Goodbye and good luck. I felt we both needed that. Then, at the last minute, quickly, Have a nice life.
    I was feeling hungry all the time. I stocked up on the things I wanted to eat: lots of meat, like Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby . Chicken and chops, sausages and burgers. Big slices of ham, each piece hanging out of my mouth like the tongue of a camel. Faggots like lumps of roasted brain. I ate everything in front of the mirror. It was amazing how stupid my face looked when I chomped. I vowed never to eat in public. How could the people I’d eaten with keep a straight face? Or even prevent themselves from sicking up? God! I was glad I’d had this opportunity. I could at least save myself that embarrassment ever again. Drinking wasn’t much better. As I sipped my face looked simultaneously wounded and emotional. And nauseatingly pious, as if I’d been insultedfor my faith and might break down. But this was all good, I thought: self-knowledge, and then the moving forward thing.
    I decided it would be interesting to conduct an experiment. You know, go over to the dark side. So I stopped combing my hair. This was a big concept for me, and really out there. The stunning thing was that as the days rolled on and my hair got wilder and wilder, it began to look better and better. Why had I ever bothered? My slavish attachment to straighteners suddenly seemed insane. The new look was more grown-up. More don’t-fuck-with-me-ish. Even a bit rock-chicky. The messiness said something to the world. I felt like maybe I was a dangerous bitch, someone very temperamental. Someone men would fall passionately in love with.
    It was a joke, of course. And I told the mirror, So who are you kidding, you loser? I knew I had to get tough. Get out of your bedroom, you adolescent twit, I shouted. You with your bird’s nest hair and your horrible vulva and your stupid, stupid chewing! Nobody likes you! You can’t even stand yourself! (I said everything with an exclamation mark attached.) Take a long, hard, honest look at yourself for once! The portion of my room reflected in the mirror was so impoverished, so drab, so totally full of aloneness, it pierced me to see it.
    I gazed at the discarded plate of bones on the bed next to me, the straighteners on the floor, and I cried with complete abandon. Me-in-the-mirror and I cried bitterly together. I felt for her, she felt for me. But even as I blubbed I knew I would have to stop soon. I swear that once, after a sobbing bout inwhich I cried into my hands like someone in a Victorian painting, I peeped out through my laced fingers and she was greedily watching me with the faintest of smiles on her face. The second she saw me looking she dropped her shaggy head and started bawling into her cupped hands again.
    I sat up and hiccuped. Why doesn’t he love me though? I asked her. Why? Why? It felt comforting to indulge in repetition. I sounded like someone in a play. Why? She shook her head slowly and shrugged, miming one of those haven’t-got-a-clue faces, which was surprisingly annoying. Perhaps he does, I suddenly thought. Perhaps he does, and he can’t show it. Perhaps he needs me to help him. She looked sceptical. And also maybe you should get lost? I said. Honestly, what do you know about anything? You miserable, insincere cow! In a flash it occurred to me. Maybe he’d been trying to tell me something. Perhaps he wanted us to move in together, something huge like that, and he found it difficult. That’s why he’d been a little touchy. It made sense. I reluctantly glanced in the mirror. My reflection had her