Vacuum in the Dark

by Jen Beagin

and he didn’t work out because he was a plumber. And he liked to drink a little.

“It was worse than being raped . . . Mommy,” Mona said. “Anyway, my point is, I don’t feel any animosity toward Chaz. What I resent, actually, is being born.”

It hurt to admit that, you know. It’s partly why I did drugs for so many years. But I’m awake now. Wide awake.” She belched softly. “It sucks being awake.” “Tell me about it,”

Then, at the automatic doors, Frank stopped and looked back at her. She figured he’d forgotten something—his jacket, maybe—but he was looking at her face. “Yes?” she said. “Just waiting for you to catch up,” he said.

Strange, she thought, how affected you are by malice when you’re a kid, how a mean word or look can unravel you, how devastating cruelty feels when you’re too young to protect yourself. But eventually, after all those defense mechanisms are firmly in place, it’s the so-called positive shit—mercy, not malice—that brings you to tears.

When he returned from the outside world, she asked him if he wouldn’t mind if she spelled his name with a K. “Why?” he asked. “Because a K has a spine,” she said. “Plus, I rarely call people by their actual names.” He smiled and passed her a roast beef sandwich. “Is it okay if I call you Lum Lums?”

“We’re out of wine. Will you carry me to the liquor store?” He nodded. “Also, I’d like to sleep next to you again tonight,” he said. “If that’s okay.” “Naked,” she said. He shook his head. “I’ll be wearing two pairs of pants,” he said. “One of them will be backward.” She laughed.

Kurt’s father had bought it off a Swedish immigrant who’d named it Little Sweden,

and very distinctly remembered being a bee in a past life.

“We’ll run away someday,” Kurt said. “Just not yet.” He meant never, she was beginning to realize.

“Like night and day,” she’d told him. He had only blinked and said, “But night and day are part of the same twenty-four hours.”

The problem was, while he was sharing, expressing, confessing, and sometimes crying, she couldn’t stop yawning.

He’d been plumping her with extra cheese and guacamole and basting her with mojitos. If she became hugely, disgustingly fat, perhaps they’d live happily ever after.

“Caras vemos, corazones no sabemos,” she said. “ ‘Faces we see, hearts we do not know.’ ”

“You’re still in touch with her?” “Of course,” she said. “Who else am I going to talk to?” “Me,” Dark said. “I’m here now.”