“What American Girl Doll do you have?” She asks me, with her hands behind her back and her chest stuck out. Her hair is washed and perfect. Her dress is expensive even though it’s only for play. I want that dress. I want to cut that hair.
I have the one with no money and greasy hair, I say. The one whose sister cut her hair with the rusted, sticky scotch tape scissors and told her there was nothing she could do about being so ugly. The one whose mother did not want to hold her at birth. The one whose father could really be anyone.
“What American Girl Doll do you have?” she asks me. She steps closer and scrunches up her face. I think she smells me, but that is not my fault. No one has made me wash in weeks. No one has been keeping up with me.
I have the one who has been watching that younger neighbor boy too closely, I say. Showing too much interest in his daily habits. The one who keeps a pack of lady slim cigarettes in the space between her soiled mattress and the metal frame it sits in. She smokes while she follows him, and she doesn’t even cough. She’s even offered one to that little boy, but he didn’t take it. She would have to do it a different way.
“What American Girl Doll do you have?” she asks me, cocking her head to the side to look at me like I’m something she’s never seen before. Even though I’ve seen her for so long.
I have the one who has been told to stop putting her hands around her classmates’ throats, I say. The one who got in serious but quiet trouble when she stuffed sand in the mouth of that girl with dimples on both sides of her face. That girl could not breathe.
“What American Girl Doll do you have?” She asks. Her friend is standing behind her. They look exactly the same. Her friend will not be asking anything. Her mouth is shut.
I have the one with a friend, too, but not really a friend, I say. She’s just good at being told what to do. She’s good at keeping her mouth shut, too. Until she isn’t. For now, she helps. She’s sweeter to the little boy and is able to get him to follow her like a dog to the spot they planned on.
“What American Girl Doll do you have?” She asks me, grabbing her friend’s hand and then shutting her mouth in the same exact way her friend’s mouth is shut. Good. Nobody better say a fucking word.
I have the one who draws what she’s done. She’s proud of it and turns the drawings into her teacher. She loves the sound her teacher makes when she sees them. Later when the police ask what those red marks are on the dead boy’s stomach, she says it’s her own name. Read it, I say. That’s the one I have.
Mary Thorson
Mary Thorson lives and writes in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She received her BA in Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and her MFA from Pacific University in Oregon. Her stories have appeared in the Los Angeles Review, Milwaukee Noir, Worcester Review, Rock and a Hard Place, Tough, among others. Her short story, “Book of Ruth,” will be appearing in Best American Mystery & Suspense, ’24, edited by Steph Cha and S.A. Cosby. Her work has been nominated for Best American Short Stories, A Derringer, and a Pushcart Prize. She hangs out with her two feisty daughters, the best husband, and a dog named Pam when she isn’t teaching high school English, reading, or writing ghost stories. She is represented by Lori Galvin at Aevitas Creative Management. She is currently working on a novel.