Fix

Hut’s history.
We watched training videos on YouTube.
Then she suggested we memorize
the Burger Hut Mission.
That is going too far,
I said.
She laughed.
At the interview
I stood, hunched, next to
the deep fryer with my hands at my sides,
my eyes forward,
sweating,
like a guilty suspect in a lineup.
Lidia answered the questions
glancing at me
as if I was in on it all.
She wore
long sleeves. I wore
many yards of fabric over
hard plastic.
She still had one hand.
I was still crooked as hell.
This wasn’t going to work.
But then
Lidia placed her hand on her heart.
I did the same.
And together,
we recited the Burger Hut Mission
as if it were the Pledge of Allegiance.
We got the job.

“Lidia”
“LIDIA?”
“Lid?”
“Stop talking, you’re moving your feet.”
Her voice is muffled down at the end of my bed where she is painting my toenails.
“Lidia.”
“Eve, you’re killing me.”
I pick up my foot. “Is that red? I thought I said blue.”
“Blue makes your feet look veiny.”
“Are my feet veiny?”
“Stop moving.”
I slowly turn my head to face my telescope, wondering if Lidia considers this moving. Dust sparkles around him in the sunbeams like it can’t settle on something so darkly beautiful. He brought her. To me.
“Lidia?”
“Eve!”
“No, I was going to say something.”
“What?” she asks, sitting up from my feet and glaring at me. But it’s her loving glare.
“Well?” she asks.
“Now I forgot.”
She lets out a frustrated huff and returns to my toes.
I didn’t really have anything to say. Besides her name. Which she knew.
The sun is shining into the room. Another day. Here. Inside. Staring at my collages moving like snakes across my walls.
Outside, in the world, things may be happening. Cars driving. People working. Clouds drifting. Trees growing. But in here, all is still. The only sound is the soft murmuring of Mary Fay and my mother working together out in the living room.
“Remember the Burger Hut, Lidia?”
“Why are you thinking about that dump?” she says, her hot breath tickling my feet.
“It wasn’t a dump,” I say.
She doesn’t answer.
“Lidia?”
“Eve! Really?”
Oh my god. Did I just say it again?
“I’m so fucking sorry, Lid. It just slipped out.” I laugh. I can’t help it. I laugh and laugh and it sounds like I’m laughing inside an empty tuna fish can.
“‘The Burger Hut promises…,’” I say, positioning myself for the pledge.
She jams the nail polish wand into the bottle and shakes her head no.
“‘… every burger will be the most delicious charbroiled burger,’” I continue in a solemn manner, “‘ever to be flipped on a grill.’”
“‘To be joined…,’” she grumps. She can’t help herself, and we finish strong. “‘… by the crispiest fries. The iciest drink. The cleanest table. In the happiest of huts.’”
The doorbell rings.
My mother’s voice. Speaking Spanish.
Thomas Aquinas is here.
She always has to do that, annoyingly practice her awful Spanish the second she sees him.
His deep voice speaking slowly and clearly has me immediately pull the sheet up closer to my chin while I do not picture him standing twenty feet away from me on the front steps, in one of his yellow T-shirts, his long dark hair tied back, that old jean jacket, his thick wrists—
The front door closes.
I hear my mother walk into the living room and off into the kitchen.
Then, silence.
I do not look down at her.
“He brought my homework.”
“Hmm,” she says.
“School Within a School program partner. He has to.”
“Hmm,” she says again.
I rummage for a Roxy and then turn my head to change my view. To change my thoughts. My hair scratching against the pillow. Blinking up at the ceiling, I try to sigh without moving.
“Lidia?”
She doesn’t answer.
“You forgot your hand during the pledge,” I say.
“Are you sure you want to talk about hands?” she asks.
I close my eyes. Because my head hurts from the throbbing in my back, my hips, my heart.


The Hand
The hand was due to arrive
by UPS
at any moment.
Maybe this moment. Multiple
sketchy
tracking numbers
making it impossible to
know.
Our chins bobbed to attention
at the sound of every
motor sloshing over
wet road.
Though Lidia and I
both knew
the sound we sought was the
slow, low rumble
of a
large brown truck.
Keeping it secret
from her parents
meant the hand would
ship to me.
Cosmetic hand prosthetics
custom made of
silicone,
the website read.
Cosmetic.
As if a hand was the same as
longer eyelashes or
redder lips.
Another motor.
Another car.
It was late.
It would not
be today.
So Lidia
went home, but
I stayed
at the big picture window.
Waiting.
Dreaming.
Of it arriving
when Lidia was absent
because I
loved imagining
the moment
I’d call and shout,
Your hand is here!
There’s always a difference, though,
between the imagined moment
and the real one.


The Real One
You were cranky.
I wasn’t ready when you pulled up.
“As usual.”
But god, Lid,
you knew how hard it was to
wrap a body in a brace.
But I know
slow can be frustrating.
Slow can suck.
Plus,
it was New Year’s Day and that meant
no box—so no hand, leaving us
no choice but to head to the mall
to spend the day looking for—
sigh,
hats.
You were going through a hat phase.
You were always going through
some phase.
The slippers-as-shoes phase.
The two-pairs-of-socks-at-once phase.
The wild-patterned-tights phase. And now
the very long-running
hat phase.
That morning
you were wearing a hat
I’d never seen before.
A little black fedora.
You caught me eyeballing it as I
struggled into the passenger seat
of your rusty Toyota.
“Respect the hat,” you said,
completely aware of the shade
I was throwing.
Okay—so you looked
fucking adorable in it.
Maybe this was why
I hated the hats.
Because you looked
so good in them.
Hat, cute skirt, and
your usual—
an oversize hoodie to
hide the hand you didn’t have.
Along with my ankle boots
you’d borrowed a year ago and were
never planning on returning.
You looked good in those, too.
You looked good in everything,
because your bones weren’t
twisting in circles like
some sort of lazy river.
I also wore my usual—
overalls to hide my brace
on the inside of my clothing.
Was it a better look
than wearing my plastic shell
on the outside?
Probably not,
but it made me feel better. Even if between
the clasps of the overalls and
the Velcro straps of the brace, I had to
regulate my liquid intake
because stripping down to pee
in a public restroom was
seriously impossible.
Before you pulled from the curb,
you reached into your lap and
brought forth a floppy knit visor.
For me.
This was not your
first