jaguar

by Kyle Cox

Wendolyn sat on that plastic-lined couch, gripping the sides of her skirt and pinning them tight against her thighs. The adults were talking in the other room. Deciding. She was always uncomfortable now, but there was a new pain, almost sharp, past annoying, running up her spine. Jutting. She arched her back and twisted against the clear plastic cover to try to get comfortable, which made it squeak, which made her mother stop and lean back from behind the kitchen wall to glance in an almost sympathetic way. That flower print blouse. Mother’s glance hardened into a glare as her eyes fell to Wendolyn’s belly. Nancy shook her head and disappeared behind the wall. Wendolyn glanced down and noticed that round belly pooching out from under her blouse. Gross. She hated how her belly button had become an outie. She crossed her arms to pull her sweater over it.

Through the mumbling jumbles and rising and falling volume, she was able to make out certain words and phrases. 

“Best for everyone…”

“That’s our one condition, my condition…”

“Blessing. Irresponsible. Discretion. Doctors. Grateful.”

Of course, so grateful.

Once finished, the adults surrounded her in the living room. The couple she had just met leaned together to her right. The man was taller than her father with a nice suit and slicked hair. He perched his gray eyes on her with a tight, polite grin, his hands folded in front of him as if he should be holding a hat. The woman just watched her, stared with her amber eyes. Like plastic toy eyes. She was too pretty. Wendolyn was on display like that stuffed jaguar. She looked down at the woman’s feet. Black, smooth leather with a giant buckle like the hat of a pilgrim on Thanksgiving. She couldn’t look back up.

“Wendolyn… Wendolyn,” her mother repeated, this time a little louder and a little sterner “Do you understand?”

She knew enough to just nod, stealing one glance at her father who watched on with the most pained of the four smiles.   

“Well, we have your information,” Wendolyn’s father said. “We’ll be in touch.”

The man shook her father’s hand like a real man. His wife followed him out the door, only peeling her eyes away from Wendolyn long enough to shake her parents’ hands and escape under her husband’s arm.

After the door latched, Wendolyn’s father let out a long sigh before his hand slid down the door frame and his head dropped forward. Her mother stood hunched in the corner, propping her head up with a tangled knot of arms. Wendolyn didn’t look up from the ground until they both, separately, left the living room—her mother back to the kitchen, her father down the hall.

Once she was alone, she uncrossed her arms and stared at the belly. She placed her finger on the bulging belly button and pushed until the stabbing pain made her wince.

A few weeks later, the real pain came. And the fear that had grown in her belly with the baby preceded it. After only a few hours waiting alone on the bed, Wendolyn was given a gas mask and told to count. She was still awake, but the pain and fear faded as she floated up into a cloud, hanging from imaginary hooks screwed into the back of her heels with her head drifting over the edge. Two strong hands gripped her ankles and yanked them out and up so that her hands and hair fell toward the hospital bed. She could see herself below. Exposed.

Other hands gripped her and took liberties. She felt strangely complicit staring down at her own writhing body. As the doctor and nurses did their business below, she felt something new. A claw, maybe, drug its nail up her back and the pain that had nagged under the surface split wide open with contact. The claw plunged through her and snatched her spine, rolling and crunching her vertebrae like rosary beads between its thumb and fingers. She squirmed like a virgin. Pain melted into a soft pocket of pleasure. Her eyes rolled and she raised her left hand to her nether region, stealing one last look at the girl on the bed below her, then closed her eyes and moaned. The baby was crying. She was certain she saw him. 

When she awoke, she was propped up uncomfortably in a different room. Behind her was some type of contraption shoved into her back, must be some part of the hospital bed, forcing her to sit up awkwardly, her chest sticking out. Her mother was there resting a hand on the bed but not holding Wendolyn’s. 

“How do you feel, dear?”

Wendolyn started to speak but as she shifted in the bed, the pain lit up her spine. She shot an arm behind her. She squealed as she felt shards of bone protruding from her back. She sat forward but skin stretched and split in one of the worst places. Her mother gripped her elbows and shoved her back into the bed, bones creaking.

“Stay down.”

She was sobbing. “What is it?”

“Shh.”

She was pinned back to the bed, writhing and crying under her mother’s weight, the first hug they’d shared in a long time.

Wendolyn didn’t see Timothy until he was two. He was living with his new family in a big house on Molasses Lane. On the car ride over, she wondered if he was sticky. A lot of toddlers are gross. She wondered if his eyes were still green. This was for the best.

He was a slow walker but a fast talker. He could put together complete sentences but still hobbled around on the balls of his feet. Always surging forward, always on the brink of falling on his face. He’d make five labored steps before diving to the floor and crawling twice as fast. This was to be the first of several agreed-upon visits. The rules were clear. She was to come with her mother only and she was not to hold the child unless he wished, or his parents offered. She was to play the role of the neighbor girl, her mother’s idea. The Baileys reluctantly agreed. The entire arrangement was her mother’s idea.

“That’s not how this is done, dear,” her father had said. “You can’t expect them to take over this type of responsibility and then do it on our terms.”

“These are my terms,” her mother had said and that had been enough. 

Wendolyn sat on the plush leather couch across from Joan. She had gotten used to the spiney bones, some over a half foot long, sticking and catching on every chair she sat in but never leaving a mark. She could both feel them and not feel them at the same time. Or rather, at different times. Wendolyn had only mentioned her protrusions once since that day in the hospital. Her mother had threatened to take her somewhere. Or tell her father. She wondered if this was the opposite of what Uncle John’s friend felt since he’d lost his leg in the war. Now, instead of tingling, they almost tickled in a strange way. What’s worse, she could never really get comfortable. Never slouch. What’s best, she had learned long ago that no one else could see them.

It was Nancy that seemed to teeter. She was enthralled but timid, waiting for permission to address the boy. She tried to tamp down ecstasy once she was allowed to tug him up onto her lap. Wendolyn saw her mother smile, truly smile, for the first time in over two years as she examined his little green truck. Wendolyn hated her for that. She might have hated Timothy.

She still couldn’t look Joan in the eyes, but the doting mother was too busy to stare at her now. As if the only interesting thing about Wendolyn was no longer a part of Wendolyn. She watched the green-eyed boy crawl and roll and grab toys and try to force them into her lap. 

“This is my truck,” he said through a proud smile. 

Wendolyn could only nod and smile and feign interest. How was she supposed to act with him? She could feel herself trying to smile. Smaile? Maybe that was the word for a painful smile that you wished no one else could see.

“Come here, Timothy,” said Joan. “Do you want some more of your cookie?”

As he turned, Wendolyn felt a niggle in her knee and straightened her leg and the little boy tripped over her shoe and fell. She almost reached out but stopped herself and Timothy landed face-first on his toy truck. The two women froze, bouncing glances between each other and Wendolyn and the boy until he straightened himself and crawled to Joan. That had to have hurt, but he didn’t make a peep. Just went on like some dumb animal.

It was a quiet car ride home until Nancy could no longer help herself.

“Well, what did you think?”

“About what?”

Nancy opened her mouth as if to speak but left her chin hanging there, like a fish. After a moment she started over.

“Well, she certainly dotes on him. Though I don’t think he should be eating so many sweets and so close to his naptime. Do you think she normally lets him eat a cookie like that before his nap?”

“I don’t know, mother.”

“Maybe it was just a special occasion since Miss Nancy came to visit?”

“I don’t know, mother.”

Nancy scoffed and shot her daughter a glare. A word seemed to start at her tongue, but she cut it off and let it hang and die, shaking her head. 

“He’s just adorable.”

Her spines twisted into the seat.

Wendolyn took a job at the corner market with Mrs. Lieberman. It was mostly quiet and dull, but it gave Wendolyn an excuse. Mrs. Lieberman didn’t seem to like her, but she liked that she showed up on time and was always volunteering for extra shifts. It just so happened that these extra shifts coincided with Miss Nancy’s planned visits to the Bailey house. What Wendolyn liked most about the job—other than the excuse and that it was quiet—was that she had a tall backless stool to sit on behind the register. It was the most comfortable place she ever sat.

When the store was empty and Mrs. Lieberman was gone, Wendolyn would lean forward and press her face and stare through the glass counter at the ugly little baked goods that no one ever bought. Mrs. Lieberman’s mother made cookies and tarts, most of which would end up in the garbage. The fact that she was no longer supposed to eat sweets, along with her growing absentmindedness, made for an untested and often inedible product. Once, it seemed like she substituted the sugar for salt. Another time, a customer complained of a weird chemical taste. Wendolyn wondered what had been swapped this time. But as far as the elder Mrs. Lieberman was aware, they sold out by the end of each week. Keeping that secret was another one of Wendolyn’s duties.

On Tuesday afternoon, Arthur happened into the shop. When the door chimed, Wendolyn assumed it was Mrs. Lieberman’s mother and peeled her face from the glass and stood up. He was already staring. She blinked and they stared, and she sighed. He gulped and glanced around.

“I, uh, didn’t know you worked here.”

She looked down. There was an oily imprint of her cheek and a small puddle of drool. She grabbed the edge of her sleeve and dabbed across the glass counter in no real hurry.

“Okay.”

He stammered and stopped a couple of times before managing, “How are you?”

“Fine.”

She snaked a hand behind her and fondled the tip of one of the lower spines. They had become rounded at their ends. He watched her.

“My parents. Um…” Art was looking around the shop the rest of that sentence and then remembered his errand. “Well. I have to pick up wine for my mom.”

“We don’t sell wine.”

“Oh.” He looked to the floor. He looked stupid. “Do you know where I can get some?”

She glanced at the door. “So, you’re eighteen now?”

He took a step toward the counter.

“Yeah. Last month.”

“I don’t know anything about wine.”

“So, you’re, um, sixteen now?”

She nodded and sat back onto the stool. The door chimed as the elder Mrs. Lieberman marched to the counter with her latest batch. Pralines. Wendolyn spread a smile.

“Looks like someone has been busy.”

“Oh, yes dear. I found this old recipe. These were my husband’s favorites.”

“They look pretty good,” Art chimed in, trying too hard. “I love pralines.”

He reached toward the plastic-wrapped tray, but the elder Mrs. Lieberman tugged it away from him in defense. “They are 25 cents for two. Or a dollar for eight.”

Art looked a bit offended and confused, no doubt running through his inventory of coins in his pocket and weighing that against how much such an act would impress Wendolyn. She decided to let him off the hook.

“He’ll take two, Mrs. Lieberman. I’m buying.”

She retrieved a quarter from her purse and slid it across the counter. Mrs. Lieberman sat the tray down and eyed her timidly.

“Well, how sweet of you?”

She took the quarter and glanced at Art before turning and walking out the door.

“Goodbye, Mrs. Lieberman.”

Her smile followed the old woman to the door but waned as she turned back to Art. He grinned at her and looked at the door.

“Well, I’d better get going. The wine.”

“Okay.”

Arthur took a step toward the door.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

He looked back, hopeful like a puppy dog.

“Your cookies,” she said, peeling back the plastic and pinching a pair to hold out over the counter. He turned and took them, and she sat back down and slid the tray into the glass display.

“Would you maybe want to hang out some time?”

“I don’t know.” She sat up straight, her protrusions flexing as she pushed her chest forward. She locked eyes with him. “Maybe.”

Art, as he now liked to be called, was less awkward but he still had kind eyes. She could tell that he thought about doing the right thing and that he thought he was doing the right thing. Still, she could tell he liked her and that was worth something.

He had picked the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. He loved animals. She remembered him once, after, going on about jaguars and how strong their bite was. Or was it leopards?

A stuffy woman with a plastered-on smile guided them through the museum. Wendolyn had wanted to refuse the tour, but they had shown up right when a group was about to get started. Before she could come up with a polite reason to decline, Art perked up and agreed.

“Perfect timing,” he’d said. He was still too scared to be alone with her. When they weren’t fucking.

He got overzealous but she tugged the crook of his elbow until they drifted to the back of the group. He figured it out eventually. They moseyed through the Hall of Architecture and through the Gallery of Miniatures. Infuriating meticulous little shadow box rooms with expertly contrived furniture matching a specific period and theme. They made her anxious. Art interlaced his fingers into Wendolyn’s in a way that would indicate they belonged. Through the Dinosaurs in Their Time and past the Ice Age and into the Age of Mammals. The group settled around the rhinoceros display, but another exhibit had caught Art’s eye. He turned so abruptly in front of her that the two collided, and a woman behind Wendolyn ran into the protrusions, causing Wendolyn to wince. “I beg your pardon,” said the woman as she circled around Wendolyn back to rest of the group.

But Art was already dragging her by the hand toward the Jaguar Diorama. Her shoes scuffed and she almost tripped as they came to a halt in front of its glass case. Inside a stale mother looked over three cubs as they pawed or stared or tore at an iguana she’d provided. The lizard was depicted maliciously, crowing for its life as a little clumsy Timothy ripped the best flesh from its neck.

She heard the stuffy tour guide from behind as the rest of the group approached.

“These jaguars are one of our oldest exhibits, taken from the U.S. and Mexico border. At the time, it was their northern-most range…”

Her eyes were dull and hollow, but not because of the little marbles or whatever they used. It was the face and the space she held as she clung, exhausted, to the rock, staring down on those greedy savages.

“As you see, the much larger, stronger male is posed with his back to them, accentuating the difference in size. But this is a mischaracterization for the sake of comparison. Once mating season is over, the male has no use for the female or her offspring.”

She looked up to Art, his eyes hollow and large and oblivious. He giggled at the gore as his big stupid finger jabbed the glass.

“But notice the look of the fur of the young and how it develops into those beautiful rosette patterns so familiar to jaguars.”

Wendolyn let loose of Arthur’s hand and reached back to fondle her lowest spike.

Photo of Kyle Cox

BIO: Kyle Cox is the Editor-in-Chief of The Accent, an Arts & Literary Journal at the University of Science & Arts of Oklahoma. He is finishing up his undergrad in English Literature. He has been a professional sportswriter for nine years and his fiction has been published by Libre Literary Magazine.