“The Hedgehog House”
The house was like an ornate hedgehog when she looked at it from a safe distance. She tried to think of it as a friendly place. Her new husband Roberto had brought her there. His father, a famous architect, had designed it. And now it was the structure she lived in. Additionally, she had become co-owner of Cleopatra, a Pharaoh Hound. The kind of nervous, overbred animal she had grown up mistrusting. Her parents rescued old dogs from kill shelters. These were the sorts of animals that had always made sense to her.
*
She found herself walking around outside often, appraising the house from afar. Why didn’t it feel special when she was nestled inside it? She reminded herself that the roof was shaped like an endangered animal’s back.
Later, she would fondle her husband and cook up a nice pot of soup. Someday she would stop feeling like a pigeon around him. It was time to be happy. Sometimes she thought of how simple her childhood had been. Her parents with a sign over the door of their rental house that said Poverty Is No Crime. So strange that she would never be poor again. She was not the same kind of person as her parents. If you didn’t own anything, there was still a lot to lose.
*
There were these strange little dark clouds, and they hung directly above the house as if to say, We’re not going away easily. She wanted to walk outside instead of sitting in the sunken living room, slurping a mug of freshly-picked chamomile flowers. She gawked at a cloud that was shaped like a paw. Their Pharaoh Hound, Cleopatra, had such beautifully sculpted limbs. When she looked at the dog, it felt as if she was staring at a movie star. “Why don’t you go for little walk, you seem edgy again,” her husband said. His hair was cropped short. He had buttery, youthful skin because the imported face cream he used was made from the mucin of snails.
“It’s going to rain,” she said.
She thought about it quite often, what a weather wimp she’d become—and then suddenly she wanted to see what the weather was like in Alaska, where she grew up. She googled Anchorage weather. She stared at photos of rain and of women standing in line for soup in a homeless shelter. There were clouds in the sky of her living room. They were on a screen her husband had erected to simulate any type of sky. She could walk out the door and not even say goodbye. If she drove to the airport, she would know how it felt to have everything to lose.
*
When she got together with Roberto, he said she was a thing of value to him despite the fact that she had nothing. This made her laugh. “But I have my cat,” she said. It was true. The cat’s name was Nightshade, and she was black.
“Black kitties scare me, no hard feelings,” he said.
“Don’t be superstitious,” she replied. Men were always intimidated by dark animals. In the same way, they were both lusty and distrustful of her hair because it was long, dark, and curly. Things got stuck in it. After making love to her, lovers would wake up with troubled expressions. It worried them, but they craved it. “I’m glad you feel that I’m someone of value,” she said. He smiled. He offered to take her out for a large, sustaining brunch.
“I live in a structure shaped like a hedgehog,” he had said. That was funny to her. She thought he was kidding. Things felt nice with him then. He fancied her skinny butt, he said, kicking her ass gently with his pigeon-colored boots.
*
When they were courting, she noticed the corduroy of his pants was sticky and lint clung to it. His legs, when she rubbed them, felt like Venus flytraps. He held her hand so tightly it hurt. Moved her hand up and over his excitement. “These are good falconry pants,” he said, kissing the bow of her mouth. She hadn’t known about his hobby, and it suddenly seemed obvious.
“There is a Japanese hawk called Montu that I want you to meet someday.” He winked. She felt excited and sick all at once. It was the first time she slept in his hedgehog home. His ceiling lights had the exquisite, warm glow of kerosene lamps. It felt like she was starring in a movie about a woman in bed with a connoisseur of all living creatures.
She thought about fierce Hollywood actors who might play him. Dennis Hopper, she decided. Then she sensed a shadow over her head. Looked around his house, at the way the light filtered shyly through the lounge, as if protected by rice paper. “I knew you would look good here,” he said, looming.
*
She grew up with the happy stink of dogs and missed it, wondering if there might be something wrong with Cleopatra, who had no hair and no smell. Roberto had owned Pharaoh Hounds since he was young. “My life has been one long Egyptian dog chain,” he said, winking. He had her flea-dipped on a regular basis, even though she was never around other dogs. “It’s a good breed for falconry,” he said.
She didn’t know what that meant, as the dog seemed frightened of conflict. Whenever he raised his voice at her, the dog scooted out of the room. She had yet to accompany Roberto and the dog out to the field. She had yet to see a pigeon savaged to death close-up and personal.
*
He asked her again to evaluate exactly how much she liked the house. On a scale of one to ten, please rate it fairly and squarely, he said. She didn’t know what to say. She felt as if he was asking her to lie. “Ten and a half,” she said and smiled with her lips stretched out. He hugged her, and then he was walking out the door with Cleopatra. “Next time you will come with us,” he said. She sort of nodded. After he left, she sat down and tried to remember a day from her childhood. She was an underslept, itchy child, as her parents didn’t have the money for soft bedding. The sheets had sad-looking holes and sharp little threads. And yet she always believed everything was just right.
*
She sent Roberto a text message right after her breakfast. Right after stuffing a piece of very buttery organic croissant into her mouth. She thought of Nightshade, who was rescued and adopted by a group of cat-loving nuns, and how she had begged him to let her bring the cat along. She had thought of Nightshade as her child.
I have never been so angry, she typed in a text. She didn’t say she was leaving. She couldn’t explain that she felt as if she was soaking in brine. That she finally understood that in some way, he was hunting her.
She sat there quietly before sending the text message. A small suitcase of her old clothes next to her legs. She thought about his corduroy pants and wondered if she would eventually miss them. She’d be giving up breakfast oysters, midnight champagne flutes, a sweet nervous dog with no doggyness about her. Would be saying goodbye to his roof shaped like a hedgehog’s spine. She sniffled and listened to the childlike sounds her body was making. Was she being impulsive? She sent the text and heard a terrible swoosh.
He texted right back as if he’d been always been waiting for her to break up with him in the rudest possible way.
He texted a goofy emoticon with stars flying out of its eyes. This is the way you do it? it said. Next, he texted a photo of Montu. The falcon had pale eyebrows and large dark eyes. This is what missing you feels like, he said.
“The Happiest Couple in the World”
1. She grew old with her partner, an accountant who she first became attracted to because he was safe. “I love you deeply, I want to live the rest of my life with you,” he said on each anniversary, when he appeared in the living room in a flamenco pose, a rose between his teeth.
2. He had always understood how much she hated parties, why she distrusted people who were too nice, why she wanted to adopt a pet just as soon as one of the other ones died. “Maybe we can adopt a reptile next time,” he would say. “Or a rabbit.”
3. They lived in a cheap and practical town and had very few cultural needs. She settled in well, made good solid friends who came over and shared winter recipes.
4. She learned how to knit, to quilt, to sew. She had two grown children, both easygoing professionals with comfortable smiles.
5. When he slept, he snored like a soft old bear. In the middle of the night, he offered her the warm, dark cave of his shoulder. Understood how much she needed to feel like a secret to him, even though they’d been married for years.
“Cavities”
I sat with him in a café and we ate potato salad and drank Italian sodas. All around us, sad-looking people walked happy-looking dogs.
I let him slide his hand over my knee skin. I did not blink, just sat there like an empty driveway. He was in charge. I had one hundred dollars left in my bank account, and my car needed better tires.
“Do you want anything else?” he asked, and I did not.
The potato salad sat heavy in my stomach. Hunger seemed like the tiniest part of being alone. He took me out for two meals each day. On my birthday, my last pair of reading glasses broke, and I let him have the rest of me. While he did that, I thought about Laffy Taffy, the candy I loved as a kid. How it ruined my teeth, but I wanted it anyway.
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From First Law of Holes by Meg Pokrass. Used with permission of the publisher, Dzanc Books. Copyright © 2024 by Meg Pokrass.
