“You see me right?”
I nod.
“That’s only because you know my dad. You know my name.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t exist to the world out there. This is how we are.” Looks at me, “Get it?”
YES YOU DO
“You mean…”
OH JESUS
“What don’t you understand?”
I hold up the doll, “By ‘we’ do you mean ‘us,’” referring to the inanimate doll, “or ‘us,’” pointing to the room as a whole, meaning all the hauntings within the house.
“I mean ‘us’ as in everyone that watches the media. Everyone that watches one of your fights. Everyone that—”
“Laughs…”
THERE YOU GO INTERRUPTING PEOPLE AGAIN
She nods, “Right.”
For a while we are silent, sitting there thinking about all of this while Sarah brushes her hair. When she’s done doing that, she wanders over to her dollhouse, takes the one I’m still holding, and puts them back in position.
She sits next to the dollhouse, facing the opposite side.
“Why are you sitting there? You can’t see into the house that way.”
“Yeah I can. I see from the outside looking in. I see into the house the way anyone else would if they really wanted to look.”
SILENCE
We sit in silence. I resist talking to myself until the words seemingly escape me like they did:
RIGHT ABOUT NOW IT HAS STARTED
RIGHT ABOUT NOW IT’S THE BEGINNING
OF THE END
Sarah isn’t put off by this, “How is the fight going?”
I shrug, “It’s still round one. Feeling each other out.”
Realizing how odd this is, I narrow my eyes, “How do you know?”
She makes a face, “My dad is at the fight, duh.”
DUH!
“You are very mature for your age, you know that?”
“I have to be.”
“Who takes care of you anyway?”
She looks into one of the dollhouse windows, “I take care of myself.”
“‘James’ used to right?”
She shakes her head, “I took care of ‘James.’”
“What?”
“Dad wanted someone to watch ‘James’ just in case.”
JUST IN CASE
“Just in case I…”
She nods, “Yeah. You tend to lose track of yourself.”
“Yeah, but everyone changes, right? Everyone doesn’t stay the same like we maybe want to. I know the media wants the same from someone when it’s good but that just doesn’t happen.”
She turns the dollhouse around, “Yeah.”
“So you agree?”
WHAT DO YOU CARE?
“Yeah,” she grabs one of the female dolls, “I agree.”
Sarah stands up and walks back to the mirror.
She brushes the doll’s hair.
THE SILENCE
She asks again, “How’s the fight going?”
“It’s going well. Round three. I am pressuring ‘James’ with straight shots to the face. The judges and commentators seem a bit surprised that I am able to take some of the momentum of the fight away from ‘James.’”
She nods, “Yeah.”
THE SILENCE
I ask her, “You already know all this, don’t you?”
She turns, looks at me, a straight face, and returns to the combing of the doll’s hair.
I don’t know what that means.
YES YOU DO
No I don’t.
But okay, let’s change the subject.
To what? Umm…
“So…”
Sarah interrupts, “Are you actually going to get knocked down five times?”
YEAH
“Yeah.”
“That’s unheard of.”
I shrug, “It’s my last fight and—”
“And you want to make it perfect.”
WHAT IS WITH ALL THE INTERRUPTIONS?
“Yeah. I was going to say ‘good’ but perfect is better.”
Sarah replies, “Perfect is the right choice.”
I have to ask…
“You are going to ask about my dad right?”
“Yeah.”
“Go ahead and ask.”
YES, GO AHEAD AND ASK
“Does he think I’ll be remembered?”
WRONG QUESTION
Sarah sighs, “What’s the question?”
I reconsider, opting for something simpler:
“What does Spencer think of me?”
REALLY?
Sarah doesn’t say anything until she returns to the dollhouse and rearranges the layout.
The house shakes.
DOES SHE REALLY HAVE TO KEEP DOING THAT?
Doing what?
CHANGING THE WAY THINGS ARE
“Yeah,” Sarah says, “change is good.”
THE SILENCE
We are silent for some time. I watch Sarah reconfigure the entire dollhouse. The house sounds like it’s about to collapse. I cringe but hold back, choosing to imagine the silence I used to loathe.
“How is it that you are able to predict what I’m about to say?”
She laughs, “You’re not serious are you?”
Umm.
“Oh, you are.” Sarah laughs, “You are talking to yourself and you don’t even realize it! That’s a really bad habit.”
“I am?”
“It’s really bad, yeah. It’s bad because you don’t realize that you’re having a separate conversation with yourself.”
“Yeah…”
“Like there’s a whole group of people, an entire audience, listening to your every word or something.”
Sarah can’t stop laughing.
“I admit it’s bad but can you please stop laughing?”
“Oh,” she clears her throat, “sorry. But I guess you’re used to being in the spotlight. Dad always said you treated everything like it was on camera.” She moves around one room and attaches it to the attic.
It’s this room.
The entire room shakes violently. For one brief moment, I watch as one of the windows looks like it’s about to shatter.
But doesn’t.
“It’s okay,” Sarah says, “I do this all the time.”
“Why do you change everything around?”
“I like the challenge.” She turns the dollhouse around so that I can see inside, “I like figuring out what fits where, and how it will affect the dolls that live in the house.”
“Do you have names for the dolls?”
She frowns, “No. I never thought they needed names.”
EVERYONE NEEDS A NAME
Sarah laughs.
“What?”
“You are talking to yourself again.”
“Oh man,” I sigh, the windowpane shaking, “it must be bad if I can’t even notice the difference.”
Sarah shrugs, “That’s what this is all for.”
WHAT IS IT FOR?
“You realize you’re asking a child, right?”
I pretend to laugh, “Well, age is relative in my opinion.”
“Good answer.”
“Thanks.”
WHAT HAPPENS NOW?
Weren’t we talking?
I was asking a question, I think.
“You’re a wreck, you know that?”
I lie back in the bed, “I know…”
Sarah hands me a doll, “Let’s play a game.”
WHAT KIND OF GAME?
“Here, take this doll.”
“It’s a little girl…”
She makes a face, “So?”
OKAY, OKAY
Sarah assumes the role of the father, the dad, that doll that had represented me during my theoretical fight.
“We talk like this.”
“Like this?” I do my best to mimic the high-pitched voice of a young girl while Sarah does her best to mimic the low guttural voice of an adult male.
She smiles, “Yeah!”
As the dad figure, she asks me, “What round is it?”
“Round ten.”
“It’s almost over.”
I nod, “Yeah it is.”
Makes a face.
Whoops, I broke character. In the guise of the doll, I repeat myself, “Yeah it is.”
“How does it feel to have ended your career?”
I think about this, “I don’t really know what to feel.”