Matt Leibel
One morning she shows me black-and-white stills of her little sisters. They are all
pretty, they all look just as vibrant as her, smiles just as gorgeously epic and racily
wicked, even in flat two-dimensional glossies. She asks me if I can guess which one is the
one who is getting married and I make the right call; it’s a younger sister. When she
mock-applauds, it reminds me of the flapping flippers of a seal. The image is pleasant;
seals are cute, it’s because of the whiskers, this is an indisputable fact of the
universe, and I feel entirely sure at that moment that she agrees with me.
I stock jelly beans in jars on my desk so that she will come by more often and pick out
her favorite flavors. She hates blueberry but loves popcorn. I am vaguely sad that she
does not like blueberry more. To me, it is the best thing in the world other than the
crackling capriciousness of her facial expressions. I love blueberry to death and am
ambivalent about strawberry and yet this is how crazy I am for her: one morning she comes
to me with a sweet, sweet smile and explains to me that she really wants to have a
cinnamon Pop Tarts but the machine (which is stocked so as to alternate between cinnamon
and strawberry) is stuck on strawberry so would I be willing to buy a strawberry Pop Tart
to help her out? Of course I would.
You could imagine my disappointment when one day she declines my jelly beans and
proclaims that henceforth (okay, she doesn’t actually say "henceforth") she
was going to concentrate on eating Healthy (she means Healthful, so what?), and that as a
result, jelly beans were out, and carrot juice was in. She made a monumental effort to get
me to drink carrot juice and I’m willing to try it for her but it’s way too
fucking healthy (sic) for me to drink it when I am out of her sight. Next page
