Excerpt: Look How Our Bones

At the bottom of the hill all I’m left with is my long johns.

And that’s when she appears.

You’d never believe it, if this were really to you.

Well, you would. Of course you would. But that’s what you’d say.

“No way.”

“You’re pulling my leg.”

“Sophie? Cute little neighbour girl Sophie? Mulberry Crescent Sophie?”

“That’s nuts.”

Or maybe you would shrug.

You always had such an easy shrug about you.

Up for anything, in our world where anything only came in three and a half flavours.

Either way, I’d say, “Sophie. I swear to god. The Sophie we know of old.”

You’d say, “Holy sugar,” or “Oh man,” or “Oh wow,” and smirk, “Is she fat? Please tell me she got fat. Does it make me a bad person that that was my first question? I’m just scientifically curious about what Sophie would look like with some chub on her, I swear.”

It would be a tough one to answer, because of course when it comes right down to it it’s just that she’s not in the ninth grade any more. And I guess she went to college somewhere in the meantime, put on the freshman fifteen or more and lost most of it, like the rest of us. She has substance now, but the short answer is no, no, she’s not fat. Broader, fuller, almost voluptuous you could stay, certainly inhabiting more than two dimensions these days -- but no, you couldn’t say that she was fat, even if you were having a mean day.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen her.

At least, I don’t think so.

I thought I was making it up before.

Imagining things.

Not on purpose.

I don’t know.

The back of a girl with the right kind and colour of curls holding onto the vertical pole in front of my seat on the bus would be Sophie.

The profile of a new intern hunched over and squinting to learn how to thwart the sacred magic of the xerox machines in the dim light of the photocopy room would be Sophie.

The live model in the lingerie shop window would be Sophie.

The still model in sequined, lacey white on the cover of a brochure for a wedding boutique that comes into my mailbox one morning would be Sophie.

Somewhere in this city there is (or was) a whole room full of Sophie.

At least, it looked like her. I didn’t stick around to find out for sure.

I never look them in the eye.

Until now.

Now I’m lying at the bottom of the hill in the park in my grass-stained long johns and Sophie is standing over me. I fix on her eyes before the sun-smear of my vision will let me see who they belong to, and then it’s too late.

That’s how I got here, if you wanted to know.

You would want to know.

She doesn’t look too surprised.

Did Sophie ever look surprised?