When I played my first piano recital, my mother said the air was so thick she needed a knife to cut it. My doll and I wore black like real piano players. I played “Ode To Joy” perfectly while people watched. The other girls wore pink. The other girls made mistakes, but people clapped anyway.
My doll doesn’t like pink, and she never makes mistakes. My mother doesn’t think she talks, but how else would I know Cairo is the capital of Egypt?
My mother took us to a meeting. We got to play in the corner while she talked to a bearded man. A nice man with suckers. My doll spit at him, but he wasn’t looking. “Want a sucker?” I asked her. She likes suckers.
She tells me again about her warehouse in China, about the dolls she met there, until we hear my mother whisper, “I’ve never tried taking it away,” and then we are listening carefully. “An old baby monitor will do,” the man waves his hand. “No need to buy anything new.”
The bearded man, the nice man with suckers, is saying goodbye to her. “Do not challenge the belief, and check the footage nightly. I’ll see you next week.” We sneak four pink suckers from the desk before my mother makes us leave.
In my room, I do not look at the stuffy on the bookshelf. It was not there yesterday. I set up a picnic. My doll cuts the air with the steak knife I stole from the dishwasher. She serves it on plates like cake. We say grace and eat air thick with eyes.
