I’m bored of being pretty. I tell Cleo I’m going to start a girl fight club. She smiles at me over her vodka cranberry, (sourdough bitch), and tells me I’m not supposed to talk about it. I can see the ovation in her eyes. I want to scrape the smugness off her with the painter’s trowel she used to put on all that makeup. You should try exfoliating, I tell her, if you want to get rid of that snaky complexion. She’s already not paying attention, her face buried in the fluorescence of her phone.
Mother superior of a digital mass, Cleo needs to check on her parishioners every few minutes in case their devotion starts to wane. I tell her if she checks me in I’ll eat her first born child. She laughs by pushing air out of her nose and tells me I’ll have to ask the clinic if they still have it. I ask Cleo if she ever gets bored of being apathetic and she shrugs out her response. My phone vibrates in my pocket but I leave it where it is. I’m not hungry enough to follow through on my threats.
Jessie and Dylan show up dressed like yacht club DJ’s, sock-less feet in seasonal shoes, rolled up khaki’s and V-neck cotton affectations. Cleo turns each cheek to receive their thin lipped tributes. I listen to them tweeting their intentions at her in sentences without character. They chart the night out for us by way of invitation. Seismic Collapse are playing a secret set, they say, in a warehouse in West End. Dylan winks at me through his bangs and asks, would I like to come? I can feel my vagina drying up like a salted slug. From underneath the table I text Cleo, no, with seven exclamations. I hope she’ll get the message, but telling Cleo what you don’t want is like chumming in the ocean.
A Few Short Words 