When Moths Fall Asleep

2.5 - pleasure

The girl behind the counter wasn't actually any younger than Angelina herself, but she seemed like such a little soul. With her thin brown hair pulled back in a careful braid, eyes done out in eyeshadow and her shirt buttons open to the fourth one down, she seemed so indomitably young that Angelina was almost charmed by the sight of her.

"I'll just have a chocolate croissant, please," she said to the girl.

The look she received back reminded Angelina that she was not, in fact, a crinkled old woman of such astronomical experience that she was now exempt from all judgment. No, to this girl she probably just looked like an unkempt, underfed twenty two year old, which wasn't necessarily untrue. It pained her a little to think that no one could see the grit that lived in her now, that type of blister steel that doesn't usually blossom on a person until much later, the type of tenacity that, in a person, makes all things miraculous rather than strange. But no one could see it in her, so to the world, she was just dirty and unforgivable.

The girl nodded. "That's three seventy five," she said. Her eyes flitted from Angelina's face to her name tag left over from her shift at the restaurant, down to the stroller beside her, sides rocking with her baby's pungent energy. "How old is he?" she asked.

Angelina looked up from her wallet wide-eyed. She felt herself smiling. How nice it felt to have her small expectations for this shallow-looking girl disproved in however miniscule a way. "He's two," she said. "His birthday was just last month, actually."

"Oh, cool." The girl looked away again, already having extended herself too far. She took the croissant out of the case and shoved it into a wax paper sleeve.

While she was doing this, Dewey's foot pulsed steadily against her leg, kick, kick, kick, kick. She stepped away, wincing at the pain in her feet. She still had her work heels on, having forgotten to pack a pair of flats with her. The shoes pinched the sides of her feet and made her knees feel weak.

Dewey stretched his leg out farther, toe tapping against his mother's leg again. When he touched her she flinched away physically, a shudder flying down through her body.

After a long day of daycare, Dewey was always a little extra affectionate, whether that was manifested in hugs or in words or, like now, in little nonsensical acts that made her want to put him in a box and shove the box onto the sidewalk until she was ready to revisit him as a part of her life.

Angelina looked down at him and shook her head sharply, no.

The girl rang up the croissant and while the receipt printed, they stared at each other and gleaned nothing more than they had before from each other's eyes. To one, the other seemed pitiful and cold. To the other, her opponent was simple and dispensable. The girl handed her the croissant and Angelina said, "Thank you." Dewey clapped his hands, but Angelina didn't look at him.

She wheeled him to a table at the back of the shop, dainty white chairs with intricate designs chasing each other up the back. Angelina placed her food on the table and unbuckled the toddler. Before she could lift him out, Dewey's energy exploded out of him. He shoved his way out of the stroller and hit the ground with his palms, laughing. The stroller backed dejectedly away and Angelina stumbled back with surprise.

"Don't do that," she grumbled. Dewey wasn't listening. She heard his little feet smacking away on the floor as she reached out to reclaim the rolling stroller. Tucking it close to the wall, Angelina collapsed into the little chair and felt only the slightest amusement that the sigh of the chair under her weight matched the one she held inside.

For that moment, Dewey didn't exist to her. Angelina's ming lapsed into a brief, clean, quiet place that cradled her tortured body with warmth.

It lasted just until she heard the thud of a little body hitting the floor, then the familiar three-noted "Wa-wa-wa" that signaled the beginning of a tantrum. She felt it in her core like a hot ripping, making her red all over with fury. Her feet smarted and her head pulsed and nothing, really, would have made her stand back up from that chair, so she didn't. She didn't even look over her shoulder. The crying had already begun and she knew that everyone else in the shop was thinking, why don't people control their children?

Maybe, she thought, if I don't look at him, no one will think he's mind. And really, she wasn't so far off. There was another woman sitting two tables down with a much more maternal air about her, all put together in her pantsuit and ponytail, and she would seem to the passerby a much more likely candidate to be Dewey's mother, maybe if not for the sandy skin tone that he shared with Angelina, the button nose, the bony cheeks, the freckles. If it weren't for those, then maybe.

She took the pastry out of the bag and began picking at the flaky skin while Dewey sobbed in the center of the shop. Guilt knocked, shouted through the door -- what if he's hurt, what if he broke a bone, what if someone takes him, it's all on you -- but Angelina wouldn't open to it. Was it such a crime to want a minute, just one minute all to herself?

Because inevitably, just when she got home and kicked away these awful shoes, Skipp would be there in the kitchen, waiting for her to put on an apron and make him dinner while he complained about the day at Betty's, scooping ice cream for shift after shift. And she would just listen, because who was she to complain about anything when her gallant husband worked so hard for his minimum wage?

He never asked about her day, and at this point, if he had, she wouldn't have known how to answer. Angelina tried not to think about it too much. A week ago when Ellen had taken her out for lunch and asked her, over iced tea, "How are you doing?" Angelina had found herself so floored by the question that she could not brush it away at first. When was the last time she had spoken about herself? Such lengths of thought had scrolled by like ribbons unspooling, all the ways she was doing, but of course, she did end up saying, "Fine. I'm doing fine. You?" and then Ellen talked about herself for so long that Angelina forgot that she'd ever been asked at all.

She bit into the croissant and even though it was only mediocre - stale edges, thin, bitter chocolate -- Angelina closed her eyes and sighed again to herself as though it was the most delicious morsel of food to ever pass through her lips. It did bring her a certain amount of relief after having eaten nothing but an apple and a cup of coffee since breakfast.

Dewey wasn't crying anymore, and Angelina couldn't imagine where he could be now. She thought of the three dollars and seventy five cents, quarters counted into the girl's hand. That was one less box of Cheerios, wasn't it? One less new pair of pants, one less piece of candy on Christmas morning. She took another bite and felt sick at her own selfishness.

But Angelina didn't stop eating. She held her aching head in her hands and thought, wasn't a bit of selfishness warranted every once in a while? If she spent all of every day running after Dewey, comforting his tears, forfeiting all her money to his cause, then, well, would she really be a person anymore at all?

Dewey came stomping back over soon, a cookie clutched in his little fist. Angelina couldn't be bothered to find out if he'd stolen it or if it had been given to him. Either way, it kept him quiet for the next five minutes, and that little snatch of pleasure in the calm bakery as the sunset was all she needed to keep afloat until next time.