The empty stocking of the mouth hole looked like a prototype of a synthetic digestive organ. Its color was a near-pink gray; it glistened in the morning sun streaming through the kitchen window. When he began to put it back, Hazel had a memory of watching a magician packing his tricks up after the show, stuffing endless feet of colored scarves back into a small black top hat.
“Good talk,” Hazel concluded. “Hey, do you mind if I keep that body box? Can I take it back to my porch room?” She’d realized there probably weren’t any cameras inside the box, at least not at present, so she could get a few solid hours inside it with the lid almost shut, where no one else would see her. Byron would find some way to have any comforting hiding spot she found networked by nightfall, but at least she’d get to do it once.
“If you can get it back there, sure. It’s heavy as hell. The deliveryman asked me if rocks were inside. I said, ‘Nope, I ordered a new girlfriend!’ and he really cracked up. Had no idea I wasn’t joking!” Despite the fact that the top layer of Diane’s face was sitting on the table, propped upright against the napkin holder, her father tenderly kissed the doll on the cheek. “I have to go to a goddamn doctor’s appointment,” he said. “This becomes your social circle when you’re my age, Haze, doctors’ appointments and funerals. You’re either dying or trying not to.”
“Always best to keep busy. I’m gonna try moving it. What time’s your appointment? Do you want me to come with you?”
“No need. There’s a small bus that comes right to my house. The driver’s a bit of a talker. Hates his wife. Complains about her the whole time. For his sake I pretend I’m married to an awful woman too.”
“Why can’t you tell him you’re a widower?”
“That’s boring. Plus it makes most married men envious. No one wants to hear good things about other peoples’ lives, Hazel. If I have any aged wisdom to impart to you, it’s that.”
“I like hearing good things about you, Dad,” Hazel said, because she felt like she should. But she couldn’t remember ever hearing something good about her father.
“You might not want awful things happening to your loved ones, sure. But what if I’d been a super-brilliant guy and you’d followed your same trajectory of flunking out of a mediocre college? If you hadn’t married up to the financial stratosphere afterward, of course. Wouldn’t you have wished I were less of a superstar? Wouldn’t my fame have made you feel insignificant?”
She’d never thought of this. Byron’s fame hadn’t made her feel jealous as much as defective for not being able to like the guy. “I don’t know, Dad. I think I would’ve been proud.”
“Huh. Well, that kind of makes me feel like shit, Hazel. Sorry I wasn’t more impressive.”
“Come on.” Hazel resisted the temptation to add, Then maybe put your sex doll away during breakfast hours, or cover up her face and cleavage with a birdcage drape at the table.
“I’m pulling your chain. But I’ll be honest; it was hard for me, a little bit, to see you so high up on the hog. That sounds awful, but I’m too old for secrets anymore. You having all that money, it made me feel like I’d only been your dad by accident. Like you’d gone and left us for your true people.”
She knew what he meant, actually; she’d found it hard to bring any piece of her old life with her into her new one, and vice versa now that she’d returned. The Hub was like a portal that immediately shut behind her so no aspects of her previous self could follow.
“Well, you’re officially my dad again. I wouldn’t have a roof over my head if it weren’t for you.”
“That makes me nervous for different reasons, but okay. Let’s have a moment.” He held his arms up limply and rotely, as though readying to be lifted into a bath by a caregiver, but Hazel understood to go in for a hug. Her whole life, he’d always seemed afraid to deliver too much pressure, which made the end result feel halfhearted, like he was worried she might be about to throw up on him. But this one was more extended than she remembered his hugs being in the past, and that balanced out its featherweight grip and almost made it seem like her father wanted the embrace. It was an improvement—if he’d been practicing on Diane, it was helping.
“Diane’s staying home with me, I assume?”
“Correct. She and I haven’t been out on the town. Not sure that’s in the cards for the future either. Man, would the bus driver love to get a look at her plumbing though.”
Her plumbing? Hazel felt excited about taking a peek when he left. Was looking unethical? Like a form of snooping since Diane wasn’t hers? “Do you mind taking her to the bedroom and tucking her in, Haze? I should go wait out front. These appointments are a whole-day production. When I get back I’ll probably be ready to drink some gravy and hit the hay.” Hazel hoped he was using “gravy” as a euphemism for alcohol. She glanced at the contents of the open pantry. Unfortunately, he seemed to mean actual gravy.
“Sure, Dad. Have a good one.” There was the sound of her father whistling over the Rascal’s electric motor as he wheeled toward the door, then silence.
Now that they were actually alone together, Hazel felt too shy to look between the doll’s legs, particularly if Byron did have surveillance in the house and was watching. No—she’d be professional, like a nurse’s assistant.
“Hello, Diane,” Hazel offered as she fixed the doll’s face. “Guess I’m going to put you down for a nap now.”
First she tried a “bride-across-the-threshold” carry, but the doll weighed more than Hazel expected. It felt a little mean, but because the doll was so top-heavy, Hazel had to tip her forward and hold her by the waist, then drag her toward the bedroom. If she gave it the right context, it actually wasn’t hard to think of Diane as human: Diane was a friend who’d had way too much to drink, and now Hazel was helping her to her room. Once she got Diane situated beneath the blankets, her head atop the pillow, Hazel could also think of Diane as a long-term coma patient, except without the sadness—it didn’t have to be tragic that Diane would never wake up since she’d never been awake.