I didn’t even want the dolly.
Mommy bought it for me a while ago when we went to the store. She said we needed bread on the table, which is why we couldn’t watch TV anymore. I didn’t understand why we only needed bread. Mommy can cook really well. The night before, she had made chicken, and we hadn’t had chicken in a long time.
The store where we sold the TV wasn’t like the regular stores. In regular stores, there are bright lights and ladies at the door. They were happy when you walked in. At home, no one was there when I came home from school. I was by myself until nighttime. Mommy came back from work, tired and not wanting to play. She only wanted to watch TV and drink that stuff that looked like apple juice but wasn’t.
The pawn shop had a funny smell. It reminded me of the time I tried to cook a hot dog on the stove and burned it so bad it turned all black. That was the smell. Everything in the store was old. Nothing was new. I was scared. There was no nice lady to say hello, just an old man standing behind a table. He was very old. His beard came all the way down to his stomach, and it was white.
He smelled like the store. Or maybe the store smelled like him. Maybe he had lived there forever.
Mommy gave him our TV, and he gave her money. Then he looked at me. He looked at me the way people look at something they want to buy.
“Hello, little girl. What’s your name?”
“Stacey. What’s your name?”
“Well, that doesn’t matter now, does it?” He smiled at Mommy but kept his eyes on me. “Would you like to see something pretty, little one?”
I looked at Mommy. She nodded. “Just for a minute. And don’t break anything or we have to pay for it.”
The old man lifted a box from the floor. It was big enough to have a toy truck inside, and I don’t like trucks. But when he opened it like a book, he found a doll inside. She had yellow hair like a movie star and a red dress like fire. She looked like she was going to a party where everyone would be happy all night long. I wanted to go to that party too.
The old man closed the box and set it back on the floor. But before he did, he looked at me again, and I didn’t like that.
“How much?” Mommy asked.
“For your little girl? Nothing much at all. Ten dollars.”
Mommy looked at me. I could tell she wanted me to want it. “Well, how about it, Stacey?”
“Okay.”
The old man changed the doll’s dress to a yellow one—I didn’t see what he did with the red one—and put her in a red paper bag with handles. I held the bag all the way home. It wasn’t heavy, but by the time we got back, my hands hurt, and my arms ached, the way they do when I carry in all the groceries by myself. We put the food away. I took the doll to my room, but Mommy said she would look nicer in the living room, so she put her on the shelf near where the TV used to be. She stepped back and looked at her. For a second, she seemed happy.
─
On Friday, I went to school. I like school because it’s not home.
At school, I can play and talk with my friends, and my teacher, Ms. Lenmark, is there. I think she’s nicer than Mommy, but she’s my teacher. Her class is fun. We read stories, paint pictures, and cut out snowflakes in winter. The only thing I don’t like about Friday is that I can’t come back until Monday.
I came home and let myself in with my key. I went to the kitchen and made a bowl of cornflakes. I usually eat cereal and watch TV, but we don’t have a TV. So I went to the dolly instead.
She stood on the shelf looking pretty. The old man had sent me home with three dresses—yellow, blue, and green. I put the green one on her and stepped back. She was beautiful.
Then I got cold.
It was warm outside—I know it was warm outside—but suddenly my hands were cold. Just my hands at first, the way they feel when you hold a glass of ice water too long. Then it moved up. I was cold all over, like I’d stepped into winter without a coat. The dolly was in my hand, and my hand was shaking, and it fell to the floor.
Very slowly, warmth came back.
I stood there looking at her on the carpet. She didn’t look pretty anymore.
I didn’t want to touch her. I went to the kitchen, got the oven mitts from the drawer, and picked her up with those. I put her back on the shelf. She stood there in her green dress. I pushed the hair off her face. Her eyes were blue, but with the green dress, they looked green now.
I got a cold again. I put the mitts back.
─
Mommy came home late, after I was already doing homework. She looked tired and angry, the way she looks when something happened at work she doesn’t want to talk about. I went to bed, brushed my teeth first, so she wouldn’t yell, and came back through the living room to find her asleep on the couch. I got the blanket from the chair and laid it over her so she wouldn’t get cold. I stood there for a second looking at her. She looked different when she was asleep. Nicer.
Then I went to bed.
The dream was different this time.
Before, dreams were like watching TV; I could see and hear everything, but I wasn’t really in it. This time I was inside. The dolly was there, but she was the size of a woman, dressed like one of the nice ladies from the regular store. Except she didn’t tell me to have a nice day. She didn’t smile. She looked at me and didn’t look away, and her eyes were like two rooms with the lights off.
“Stacey, don’t you like me?”
“No.”
“Why not? I like you. I’ll always be here. You won’t have to be alone anymore.”
Something in me wanted to listen to that. It was only for a second, but it was there. Then I looked at her hands. Her nails were long and red and sharp like the knife I use to cut hot dogs, and her arms were stretching toward me, and I didn’t want them to reach me.
“No. I don’t want to stay with you.”
She kept coming. The nails were almost at my face.
Then I woke up, and I cried.
The dolly was on my bed.
I was pretty sure I had put her on the shelf. I thought I had. But I’d been tired, and sometimes when I’m tired, I do things and don’t remember. Maybe Mommy moved her. I don’t know. But the way she was sitting on the bed, she was facing me. I don’t think Mommy would have put her facing me.
─