Love Makes You Real

The body wasn’t as bloody as Charlotte pictured a dead body to be. It was bloody, just not as bloody. There were two irregularly shaped holes in the flesh, dark openings that could only result from a gunshot. The body’s pale skin would have been more shocking if the Chicago winter weather hadn’t caused everyone else to look the same. Her purse was missing.

            Charlotte was leaving the drugstore when it happened. She often went to pick up the morning after pill, or the “fix-it” pill as her boyfriend, Steven, deemed it. He refused to use a condom because they made him “feel nothing” and she never got birth control because it gave her headaches and made her breasts tender. So she walked to the drug store each time and bought Plan B. The pharmacist knew her well. His slight smile was meant to comfort her but she knew it was concealing great judgments. “Good luck” he said as he handed her the pharmacy bag and Charlotte wondered what good luck consisted of in her situation.

            She stepped out into the harsh early morning sun, pharmacy bag in hand, and gasped as she nearly crushed the body’s fingers under her foot. She had seen a dead body twice before this, once at her aunt’s funeral when she was a teenager. She and her father were the only family members who went: her aunt’s alcoholism and gambling burned all of her bridges. Her father warned, “Don’t you ever end up like her” with the faint smell of whisky on his breath and she was afraid.

            The other time was a stabbing in an alleyway by her apartment and she shielded her eyes and kept walking as the police rolled out the yellow tape.

            She had never seen a body in the middle of the sidewalk before. It was almost obscene; she knew she couldn’t have been the first person to walk past this body.

            Charlotte turned to leave but her eyes stayed fixed on the body. The girl seemed to be around the same age as Charlotte, which sent a rapid shiver down her spine. The front pocket was vibrating as a cell phone fought for freedom, hitting the cement with a light thud.

            Without thinking, Charlotte reached down. She watched the phone jerk in her cradled palms, like the worms she used to dig up when she was little. She would watch them writhe in pain as she cut them in half with a stick. Her curiosity got the best of her.

            “Hello?”

            “Tracy honey, I got anxious waiting, I’m down the block so don’t leave.” She sounded like every word was using her last breath. Charlotte pictured an old lady making her last call from her deathbed.

A shrieking “Oh my God” exploded behind Charlotte and she knew instantly that someone was finally having a normal reaction to a corpse on the sidewalk. She didn’t turn; she kept the cell phone to her ear and feigned conversation though she knew full well the person on the other end had hung up. A man with tired eyes and thinning blonde hair quickly crossed the street to calm the woman, unaware of what he was getting into.

After Charlotte was far enough away to take deeper breaths, an elderly woman shuffled past with an expressionless face. The woman walked to the forming crowd and Charlotte could see her staring down at the body for a few moments. The lady turned quickly and shuffled back towards Charlotte and her mouth seemed to be moving as if she were talking to herself.

When the old lady got close enough to Charlotte she eyed the pharmacy bag and Charlotte felt a little part of her pleading that the lady didn’t have x-ray vision. Charlotte didn’t remember much about her grandmother except for when she’d sigh fottere il mondo in her thick Italian accent. The last piece of advice she offered before passing was not to become a putanna. Charlotte was sure her various created meanings for the word would give her much more pleasure than the actual definition of the remark from her beloved Mema. Even so, the old lady’s darting eyes made Charlotte’s body stiffen, summoning the powers of her long since passed grandmother.

The older lady stopped a moment and then laughed to herself.

“Tracy I almost walked right past you. Did you find the vitamins you were looking for?” Charlotte felt the woman grab onto her arm. At a loss for words, she just smiled and contemplated ways to let this woman know she had the wrong girl. A strengthening sense of guilt and panic made Charlotte instantly overwhelmed as she watched the woman stare at the crowd of people. She spat out “Let’s go this way” more thunderously than she had intended as she darted down an adjacent block.

The lady dominated the conversation, describing the dinner she was going to make for New Years in a couple of days. Meanwhile Charlotte only half listened, overcome by feelings of bewilderment by the situation and responsibility for this woman’s future heartache. Once they neared a small, one-story home Charlotte stopped short of the front porch.

Charlotte tried to think of a way to say things as delicately as possible, like when she tried to explain to her mother that she had no choice but to go back to the institution. Even at that young age Charlotte could see her real mother, the compassionate and thoughtful mother she knew, slipping away. The manic symptoms of her mother’s disorders grew more and more unbearable. Charlotte remembered crying as she hugged her mother goodbye and watched her father drive her back for the last time. That was over a decade ago though.

“I’m sorry, but don’t you see that I am not Tracy?” The old lady stopped and studied Charlottes eyes as if she thought the answers to her questions would be behind them. Her eyes lingered for a moment at Charlotte’s lips and then the woman grabbed for Charlotte’s hand as if she were going to fall. “I’m sorry” Charlotte whispered.

“Could you help me up these stairs?  You know they always give me some trouble.” The old lady began to lift her foot sluggishly as though it weighed a ton. “You know you’re very silly. Not my Tracy? Well, I don’t get the joke. It’s not very funny.”

“I’m sorry ma’am but I am not kidding. I just wanted to make sure you-“

“THIS ISN’T FUNNY TRACY. I DON”T LIKE THIS JOKE SO STOP IT!” The old woman began to whimper and cough, as Charlotte stood frozen in place at a loss for words. After a few moments of silence Charlotte helped the lady into her home.

The house gave off an instant feeling of comfort for Charlotte. The light pink fuzzy carpeting found its way between Charlotte’s toes, the off-white walls held framed pictures of John F. Kennedy, Elvis, and Pope John Paul II, and the fireplace gave off just enough warmth as to not make the room too stuffy. There was an all black cat sleeping by the fireplace, only when it stood up Charlotte realized it was missing a leg.

“Shakespeare missed me! Yes he did…my baby…” the woman cooed in the cat’s direction. “Hunny why don’t you put your stuff in your room and get washed for lunch.”

Charlotte felt like she had already gone too far by entering this lady’s house. “Oh, I don’t think I can stay that long-“

“Well, where could you possibly be going?”

Charlotte ran her fingers along the walls while glancing down at her toes. She knew she couldn’t stay but she didn’t want to leave this woman alone.

“Maybe I could call a relative or a friend you haven’t seen in a while to come have dinner with you?” The old lady lowered her head and stared at her fingers for a few moments. Charlotte realized that there were no relatives and she had just made the old woman feel worse. Eventually, the old woman turned and walked into the kitchen and started boiling water.

It took Charlotte a long time to step into the bedroom. She felt uneasy invading this girl’s space. She saw in the closet that layers of colorful clothes sat in a pile like a condensed uneven rainbow, leaving the rack of hangers empty. She wondered what kind of person would leave their room in such a mess until a pang of shame made her stop, her father told her to never disrespect the deceased. She turned toward the dresser and opened a cigar box that held jewelry. She took out a ring that caught her eye and put it on. She had no idea what kind of person Tracy was, besides her lack of cleanliness, but Charlotte still envied her. Charlotte imagined the old lady bringing home these pieces of jewelry, each time with a different story behind how it made her think of Tracy before handing it over with a kiss on the cheek or a hug.

“Tracy, I know sometimes I can be a handful,” The old lady was standing in the doorway with a large wooden spoon dangling from her hand like an at ease soldier “but we’re family and all we’ve got is each other. I will always be there for you and I know you will always be there for me.” Charlotte tried to think of one good reason why she couldn’t stay. Why couldn’t she stay exactly? Nothing came to mind. Charlotte had never known the kind of love that the woman was describing, but she was convinced now that she was worthy of it.

            Later on, the screen of the cell phone flashed bright neon blue with the name Sarah and Charlotte was hesitant to answer. Who was Sarah? Charlotte imagined a friend, a close friend. The kind of friend who was over so much that they were considered a part of the family. Charlotte pictured her and Sarah giggling like schoolgirls as they painted their toe nails and flipped through magazines. She reenacted this scene many times when she was younger, but she never had someone to play Sarah’s role. Nail polish bottles were often left abandoned on the coffee table when the charade tired Charlotte’s imagination. Charlotte glanced at the cell phone once more. She grew excited for Sarah to come over but ultimately decided to call her friend back another time. Tonight she wanted to dedicate her time solely to her grandma. She walked back to the house, her home.

            They spent the rest of the day sitting by the fire and watching television. When her grandmother fell asleep Tracy crept into the bedroom. The first thing that caught her eye was the pile of clothes that was still plaguing her closet floor. Her grandmother had been nagging her to hang them up for days now but she hadn’t found enough time to dedicate to the task yet. She glanced at a picture taped on the wall of two girls sitting on a bench holding ice cream cones. That was Sarah on the left. Tracy recalled how the ice cream felt as it dripped off the cone and slid slowly down her fingers. She laughed when she remembered that Sarah’s entire scoop had fallen off moments after the picture was taken. Sarah was always the clumsy one.

Early that morning Tracy was awoken with a wave of nausea. She ran to the bathroom and as she was throwing up her grandma brought in a cool rag and held it to her head. “There, there. Let it all come out” she said soothingly. Tracy appreciated how her grandma always helped her when she was sick.

As Tracy rinsed her mouth she heard her grandma call from the hallway, “I was thinking . . .would you like to do something different for New Years? I mean we could go out to eat or order in or-“

“Don’t be silly Grammy,” she called back “you know your cooking is my favorite part of the New Year.” Tracy loved the idea of the New Year and how it promised an opportunity to start over. She grabbed for her purse and pulled out the pharmacy bag. She started to take out the pregnancy test though she already knew. She couldn’t wait for the child to meet her family.