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Alex boards a plane for Reagan National. From Reagan National it’s the yellow line and transfer to the green. An old dude sits in the corner of the car with his big duffel bag, drumming on the duffel, singing nonsense words through his no-teeth mouth. She glances up when the tunnel turns to light, makes eye contact with the old man and he smiles his no-teeth smile, points to himself, his eyes, then at Alex and hugs himself. Her mom drives them from Greenbelt to the church in Baltimore. Uncle Ernest gives a eulogy except here they call it a verbal witness, just like they’ll call the slideshow a visual witness, because everything that happens here has to be some form of watchfulness. He says that he knew the end was coming because he had a dream his mom was dancing in heaven, awaiting the arrival of her husband. At the end, the congregation prays for the souls of those who doubt. Back at the row house, everyone eats deviled eggs and those mini-hot-dog-biscuit things, while the young cousins play video games. Aunt Jessie finds Alex hiding on the stairs and tells her not to sit there, everyone can see up her dress. She come downs and watches the kids playing their racing game. Jason says, “This man is dumb, he keeps getting up again and I run him over all over.” And then shrieks with that unique laughter of a 7-year-old killing something. Alex says, “Maybe you should just play the game and stop running him over. That kind of makes you the dumb one.” Jason says, “He never runs out of blood. Blood, blood, blood.” And Eunice laughs from the word’s repetition or Jason’s infectious delight but Trout (née Troy) is too focused, he is driving very carefully in the lines and never hitting anything, except once he gets too close to a hydrant and it starts spraying water and he bites his lip a little upset. Alex is standing on the airport shuttle waiting to get shuttled over to the other terminal when this lady walks over, looks her straight in the eye and says, “I’m so glad I found you!” Alex stays quiet, realizing this lady has seriously mistaken her for someone she knows even while staring straight into her face. A guy and his wife argue about whether they have to go through security again at the new terminal and whether they have time for it if they do. At security, Alex had done everything right, stepped inside the scanner, hands above head, nothing in her pockets. She stepped out, and the TSA person said wait, I hit the wrong gender, go back in. And Alex stepped inside the scanner, hands above her head, nothing in her pockets. Alex calls Honey as soon as she lands. The delay means Honey will have to go right back to work after she picks Alex up. Alex sits at a booth in the bar, and takes her book out of her luggage. She is studying to become an EMT, and has this huge textbook filled with pictures of all the things that could be wrong with the person’s body. Girls in sheer tank tops and pink lip gloss and gold eyeshadow come in and sit at the bar. They drink sangria and eat Oreos out of a purse. And tequila. They take selfies and laugh loudly. Every once and a while the one with the bangs swings her hair over her shoulder and scans the bar, like she’s waiting for someone to notice her. She announces she has to pee and her friends announce that they all have to pee too. Alex goes outside to smoke, and on the curb there is a magician praising Jesus with a bird in his hair. He says, these miracles I perform are small compared to the miracles God performs every day. He snaps his fingers and there is a flame and he says but God makes the sun rise in the morning and set in the evening and he snaps his fingers again and the flame goes out. People walking by steer around him and his talk of miracles. At the end of Honey’s shift, they get into the car. “What did you read about today?” Honey asks. “Airways and orotracheal intubation.” “Like putting a pen in someone’s neck?” “Yeah, like that.” “How was the funeral?” “You know. Sad.” “You okay?” “Yeah, thanks.” They drive back to the apartment they share. Well, Honey has the bedroom, and Alex, the couch. Except on nights Alex joins Honey in bed. “You sleeping out here tonight?” “Yeah.” Around 1am her mom drunk dials. “Freddie?” she says. “Freddie, I don’t know where you are. I just went outside to… Freddie?” Alex hangs up on her. Around 2am, Alex knocks on Honey’s door. “Yeah, come in.” Honey in bed with her glasses on, her blond tracks thrown up into a messy bun, in a big white t-shirt inside-out. Alex lays on the foot of the bed, feeling worshipful of this Honey and inescapably drawn to her, the Honey lit by the glow of the lamp on the nightstand, all the weight in her torso and thighs settling into the squish of the mattress and the pillows, all the features in her face blending together un-contoured and un-lined, smelling clean and of the lotion she’s rubbed on her cellulite thighs and ass, her stretch-marked breasts and arms. “I was just reading about the decline of bee populations. Have you heard about this? It’s so interesting, even the scientists don’t know why it’s happening.” Alex crawls up towards the head of the bed, and Honey lifts her arm to let Alex slip beneath it and lay with her head on Honey’s chest. “I’m pretty convinced it has to do with the decline of the feminine. We’re out of balance, you know, like that book I was reading, about the energies and how capitalism has warped the value of feminine energy.” Alex is just tired and mad at her mom, but stays where she is. “I mean, it just makes sense because bees are matriarchal of course they’re hurt by fluctuations in the worldwide feminine energies. Did you know female bees are more closely related to their sisters than to their children? Yeah, pretty cool.” In the bathroom Alex places her hands on her breast tissue and pushes in. Like this it’s kind of like they’re just impressively bulked-up pecs. It makes her shoulders look broader and her hips less curvy. Like this she’s a slim but fit guy, maybe the kind that runs cross-country. She bites her lip and tilts her head down to one side. She hears Honey open the balcony door probably to water the plants and she feels a little guilty for wishing gone what makes her beautiful to Honey. Alex has a text from her aunt and from her ex. Her ex has the body of a human god and the personality of Chicken Soup for the Soul. He thinks they have connected on a spiritual level because they have loved each other, and that alone makes it worthwhile to keep in touch. Alex still has a picture of his abs set as his picture in his contact info. She’s honestly not sure if it’s more to lust over or be jealous of, or maybe she just left it there out of laziness. Honey’s seen it, but she says it doesn’t bother her, because Alex and Honey are supposed to be together, to be each other’s primary soulmates, and so Honey doesn’t have any reason to worry about Alex’s relationships with other people. Sometimes Alex wonders about why she ends up like this, with people who are convinced of things, fateful people embedded in destinies with a design. For everyone’s sake, she stays pretty quiet. Most nights she sleeps on the sofa. Her Aunt Jessie wants her help to convince her mom to come back to the church and stop “making a fool of herself over every man who’s got shined shoes and waves.” Alex chooses to ignore the request. Her ex talks about his job and the date he went on and a trip to Boston he wants to take and wants to know how she’s doing too, and if she gets a chance, they should meet up and talk, just to catch up, it’s been so long. Alex puts on a sports bra and shorts and wanders into the kitchen to microwave a cup of water. She pours a little lemon juice in it and opens up her EMT book. To the section with the horror pictures of what lungs look like coated with tar. She imagines Aunt Jessie texting her mom, wanting help in convincing her to stop “destroying her god-given body with that foul-smelling poison.” Walking to the bus stop, she lights up while still half a block away. It’s a chilly morning and she can see her breath and now the smoke curl. While she waits, an ambulance passes, sirens on, and she follows it with her eyes, envisioning all the juicy injuries and accidents it could be heading towards. ✱✱✱
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