Page 56 - WTP VOl. XIII #2

Monocle (continued from page 42)
shrugs. Then a moment later, he continues. “I dare you
to wear it in public—I dare you to wear it to work.” “No.”
There are about 15 nos and then Via’s signing the check and somehow she’s made the bargain that if in 72 hours Isra hasn’t contacted the girl that blocked him then Via has to wear the monocle to work.
As she walks home, Via soothes herself with the thought that quite literally Isra has never not done that because he pursues relationships where actions like trying to evade a blocking are appropriate. He’s exactly why she hasn’t dated a man in years.
Two days later, she gets a Facetime from her brother while she’s eating peanut butter out of a jar. She quickly puts it aside. No one else has the gall to Face- time her—no one else doesn’t mind seeing her face.
“What’s up.”
The phone is shaking like crazy. “She fucking texted me, dude! She unblocked me!”
“Oh, really?” Playdumbplaydumbplaydumb. “That’s great!”
Isra’s laughter is so raucous that the phone starts to reduce his noise and his voice comes in chunks. “You know—means—have to—MONOCLE.”
“Don’t you want to talk about this thing with, um, Nikki?”
“Her name is Monica. So, no. Don’t deflect —” “I’m a professional.”
“Fuck off.”
Via opens her mouth to argue, but she can’t. She feels like her jaw is jammed. There’s nothing she can say. She doesn’t want to do this —it’s going to be mortify- ing—but she also can’t find it within herself to protest.
Isra hangs up.
She doesn’t unpause her show. In silence, she paces the empty house. She avoids her own reflection in the windows. She was eleven when she lost the majority of the eyesight in her left eye. It happened when she woke up. She just woke up and the room was spin- ning and when she could look in the mirror her left eye was lit through with blood vessels, as if she was
possessed. The doctors couldn’t figure out exactly what happened, and no steroid could make the eye de-cloud. And then, as the weeks passed, her left eye grew filmier, reflective, heavy.
Before last week, it’d been 15 years since she looked herself straight in the eyes for more than two sec- onds. Was it fear? Was it disgust? Was it the fact that looking herself in the face would force herself to acknowledge—to accept—the way that she was?
She doesn’t know. She doesn’t care. But she’s thinking about it now.
~
“Why are you wearing that?” There’s a nasty curve to Xiomara’s smile. It seems those pregnancy hormones only go so far.
They’re in the lounge, sterile and chemical-smelling. Via’s got a water in her hand that she keeps taking a sip of every time she gets anxious. “I don’t know.” The paper cup is empty.
“You don’t know?” Some water runs over Via’s hand while she’s getting it from the canteen.
Via shrugs. “Is saying ‘because I want to’ not good enough for you?”
“Why are you like this?” A giant groan echoes from Xiomara. “Why can’t you give me a real answer? For once?”
The paper cup is empty again. Words simply spill out of her mouth, out of Via’s control. “I don’t owe you anything.”
~
Her next patient is named Judy, and she looks like a Judy in that her glasses are five lenses thicker than she thought was possible. She’s not doing that eye-dance, though. Nor is she simply ogling—there’s a glazed- over look folks with dementia get even when they’re focused, and Via learns not to read into it that much.
Then, Judy says something that sounds like, “Uncle Bill?”
Via stops what she’s doing. “Is everything alright?” “A fine-looking gentleman, my Uncle Bill.”
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