Dolores
You can never depend on girls named Dolores. They weren't made for guys like us. They will meet you at a Dodger game, while you make your way to the top of the stands with a textbook under your arm. They will say things like, "Baseball is my life," only baseball won't be their life. Every other moment will be their life. They will live out their lives in the middle of the night, sitting in their cars smoking menthols, or walking home alone through the streets, careful to keep their eyes down on their own feet. They will live up to their name, Dolores, which was chosen by their mother because of how much it hurt to give birth to them.
At the beach, while you explain about the tides, your Dolores will tell you that the silence between waves is her favorite part of the ocean. "Like Mother Nature is holding her breath," she will say. You will love her for that. You will wrap your arm around her waist while sitting on the beach, and you will breathe in her second hand smoke.
When your Dolores spends the night, she will bring over a stuffed hippo named Dandy. Dandy will get in your way while you are on top, trying to go slow and be a gentleman, trying to keep from finishing too soon. You will stare at the gap between Dolores' teeth, and for part of that moment you will hate it, and for part of that moment you will love it, and you will thrust as if you were thrusting through that gap in her teeth.
Her cell phone will ring in a movie theater. She will answer it, the blue screen making her ear glow, and afterwards, she will lean over and tell you that her father has been arrested again and will be deported in two weeks. "So you want a blow job?" she will whisper, and she will unzip your jeans, and while she is going at it, you will try to remember if she has ever talked about her father before. You will realize that she has not, and with a new curiosity for her life, you will ask her if you can see the inside of her house.
On a Sunday, while her family is at church, your Dolores will take you through her small house, leading you over the plastic toy cities her younger brother built, making you feel like a giant. On the wall, you will see a picture of her grandmother showing off her tattoos and biker jacket and sunglasses. There will be a leopard skin chair in the corner of the living room with a burn in the seat and, underneath, an empty pie tin with a bag of pot lying inside it.
Your Dolores will take you to her room, which she painted sky blue to remind her of heaven. Pictures of her friends will be tucked in along the edge of her mirror. "You have a lot of friends," you will say. "I used to," she will reply, and she will point out the friends who have been shot in her neighborhood, and it will be over half of them.
Your Dolores will put her hands in your pockets and kiss you there, under her heaven, while the angelic eyes of her lost friends watch over you. Dolores' heart will pound against your own, breaking the rhythm that beat so steadily for nineteen years of your life. You will get a catch in your throat. You will gently ease out of her embrace. With her hand held in your trembling hand, you will go down on one knee as if you were about to propose, but instead you will only be able to apologize, head down and crying, hating yourself for reasons you don't understand.
For you, school will start in fall. You will enroll in Biological Physical Chemistry and Biochemistry and Physiology—and California Literature to keep yourself balanced. When your Dolores calls, you will not pay attention to her and she will be happily sarcastic when she tells you that she'll call you later.
She will call you later, but again you will not have time to talk to her. You will say, "You have no idea how hard it is to have responsibilities," and she will be so quiet you can hear the sprinklers running on the other end of the telephone line.
A week will go by. A month. You won't notice because you are busy trying to do well on your midterms. You will get A's in your classes. You will forget how to get to the house with the leopard skin chair, a house which was in the bad part of town anyway. Your Dolores will not call again.
One night, four years later, as you are home packing to go off to your new life, you will discover Dandy, the stuffed hippo, wedged between your bed and the wall. You will rescue it and dust it off and wonder if you have an address to mail it to. But there's no time to look for that today. Pack it in one of the boxes. Take it with you for now. Display it on your bookshelf. Wait for someone to ask you about it. Then, tell them about Dolores, about a time when things weren't quite so clear for you, about a time when you didn't know exactly where you were going, about a time when the ocean held its breath and you were in heaven.
Ekleksographia:
Wave Two
March, 2010
Fiction
Davin Malasarn
Davin Malasarn lives in Sherman Oaks, California. He was a 2008 PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellow, a finalist in Glimmer Train's 2008 Very Short Fiction Contest, and First Runner Up in Opium8's 500-word Memoir Contest. He has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes.