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In truth, you continued to shower as the eye watched you. You looked up and the eye moved away, but you knew that the eye was aware that y ou had sensed its presence. You continued to shower, closing your eyes and turning your face towards the shower jets, occasionally glancing up as the eye stole away. You continued to run soap over your body and you washed your hair. When you got out of the shower, you sat on the floor and massaged lotion onto your legs. You stood at the mirror with a towel around your waist and plucked your eyebrows. You dressed and went back to your room. "We have to do something," the woman from the outside says. Maybe someone she knows is looking for a flat-mate. You study her profile -a small nose, Irish features, freckles. She is glamorous, almost model-like, but she also looks fun. You like her. "Tell me about your sister," you ask. "Younger or older?" "Older by a minute and a half," she replies. "She is my twin." There have always been other women: the facialist, the woman who prints the business cards, the shower attendant at his father's nursing home, the occasional Tuesday afternoon shopper, standing in the dressing room in her lingerie, separated from adultery by a flimsy curtain. You know about them all. Your boyfriend used to take you with him to his weekly therapy session. He would hand you his knapsack before he went into the office, and in the waiting room you would read the last days' entries from his journal. You felt guilty about this at first, but later, you real ized that he wanted you to do it. He wanted you to know about all of them, what their skin felt like, how they tasted and sounded when he went down on them. He told you what they talked about afterward, the questions they asked about you, the sense of triumph some of them felt by seducing another woman's man. Sometimes, in his entries, he confessed his love for you. He told you that he knew he was hurting you, and that the first thing he thought about after the women left was you. Those were the times, he wrote, that he called you for no reason, just to hear your voice. Your boyfriend would emerge from the therapist's office smiling. You have known about them all, but this is the first time you have seen one of them face to face, heard her voice, studied the freckles on her shoulders. "We are total opposites," the twin says. She takes a photograph out of her wallet. The two sisters are leaning against one another, back to back, smil ing. They look like a butterfly or a Rorschach test. 14
The owner of the glass bottom boat tells the tourists that they are looking at the bottom of the sea. But you know there are places where sunlight cannot penetrate, where the fish have bioluminescent organs and huge eyes, so they can find food, or glowing lures, so they can draw their prey in. Farther down, blind ones live on the bacteria they've sucked down in the mud, or they wait fo r carcasses sinking down from shallower depths. The ex-prostitute has a Ouija board and tarot cards. She has turned out all the lights, and you light the three candles you brought from your room. o'clock." "He's out on a drunk," she says. "Won't be back until at least four You sit at an old table. It's a faux antique, probably purchased in the 1940's or SO's to look as if it came with the house. Somehow it got left behind, and now it has various initials carved into the veneer. "What should we ask," she giggles. "Do you want to know about your man back home?" "I already do," you say. She takes out her Ouija board. "Let's ask about the house." She closes her eyes and says to the ceiling, "Are there any spirits here tonight?" At night, there is a knock on your door that wakes you up out of a dead sleep. It is the custard-cup woman. She looks exactly the way she does whenever she discovers her custard cups missing - flustered, annoyed, and as if she is going is to cry. "The phone has been ringing for the last hour. The first time I picked up and told him that it was the middle of the night - I thought maybe he did n't realize the time difference. Now he keeps ringing and hanging up on me." "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," you say as you follow her back to the house. You pick up the phone and whisper, "They're going to kick me out if you continue to do this. Is that what you want?" "But I'm worried about you. Everyone is." "I'm fine." "Your mom called me this morning to find out if I'd heard from you. I told her I was about to call her to ask the same thing. " "Don't call again. They'll kick me out and then I'll have to move somewhere else. And then you won't even know where I am. How would you like that?" "Why are you doing this?" "Don't call again .... " 15
Page 2 and 3: northridge review fall2003
Page 4 and 5: 1 Historical Insignificance 8 Hiros
Page 6 and 7: EDITORS NOTE }-lere are your editor
Page 8 and 9: ass cheek with turquoise ring-weigh
Page 10 and 11: sTOP )'ou've never read Kathy Acker
Page 12 and 13: ernove his socks blacker than an Ar
Page 14 and 15: I I You put away old prints war toy
Page 16 and 17: Below Madelena Montiel You are in a
Page 18 and 19: your bed is floating on waves. The
Page 22 and 23: As you return to your room, you are
Page 24 and 25: fo a Male Pop Musician Hollie N. St
Page 26 and 27: }3ryce Canyon J(en Cran Aman's back
Page 28 and 29: steel shanking. They've got diamond
Page 30 and 31: more than survivor's talk, because
Page 32 and 33: of a stunt crew to prepare him for
Page 34 and 35: ecause of the absurdity of seeing a
Page 36 and 37: een joined by the thousands of loss
Page 38 and 39: old palace of sweet cedar you retur
Page 40 and 41: Mother, my Mother, Under these vast
Page 42 and 43: fat Housebound Guy in the trailer h
Page 44 and 45: ��o Would you like to join uth?
Page 46 and 47: fingers and wearing the same get-up
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Page 50 and 51: 0 S- 9. circus act, but I know you
Page 52 and 53: 0 (5:"' c� Charity looking eon fu
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Page 57 and 58: against the patio's ledge, catching
Page 59 and 60: "Come Long-Vanh. Take a hold of me.
Page 61 and 62: stiff and golden in the sunlight. F
Page 63 and 64: hand, Thanh lashes at the food in t
Page 65 and 66: pie through gardens, break windows
Page 67 and 68: Manifest Destiny Madeline Osborne F
Page 69 and 70: Wild Velvet jody DiSalvo breathing
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a basket of chicken, especially dur
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would do my homework in the back, b
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69 rose Tifany Austin the moment te
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The Buyers or The Home Owners Rache
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I could have been sitting ... or la
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PROMPTER: Nothing. JASON: You expec
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Dreaming with Angela Amber Norwood
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ning, you still believed in your in
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When she will sing, people will fee
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Exchange Last Day of May Hollie N.
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� .E you gotta hate the fucken pi
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s h e w 0 u 1 d s a y of l ow �s
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uf' the trip she thought it would d
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have to walk the rest of the way."
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"It was the longest twenty-minute w
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Bill remained slow and steady, keep
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.... . 0 0 This is it Melanie Neckt
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willie nelson is singing You Were A
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I tell her I'll see what I can do.
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107
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decide what I feel. I'm wearing Aju
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Marie Calendar's DeAnn Jordon A fam
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Waking Up in Sicily Keith Onstad Iw
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top-secret ingredient measuring lab
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* There are no secrets on any Air F
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I nodded my head, and for a few min
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LACKHEADS "PET HATE" - Say Men, Gir
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