Our Town by Kevin Jack McEnroe

towel on her head, cream-colored and wrapped up like vanilla soft-serve ice cream. A towel on her head and a towel on her body, nails done, toes done, and a face on—finally a face on. She opened a small drawer with a white handle and found her pillbox—an overused cigar tin that read Red Cloud—high grade, handmade —and featured an Indian, smoking, in traditional Confederate garb as he sat on a mare on a beach by the dunes.
    When Dorothy first moved to Los Angeles, she was told she was too heavy to compete with the other girls. Thin is in. That’s what they told her. Always is, always will be, they said. You can always be thinner. So they sent her to doctors who gave her things to lose weight, and when those things kept her up at night, they gave herother things to put her to bed. Then things for if she was anxious, and others for after a long day. Things for going out, and others for staying in. Things for if she felt like crying. Things for if she became frightened, and others for if she felt lost. Things, and more things. Every type of thing. They were all different colors, but, outside of baby blues—which were only for sleeping!—it didn’t matter much. They all helped. She picked up a varied and wide-ranged assortment. She closed her eyes and swallowed the handful without water. She didn’t need water anymore. Then she opened her eyes. Now soon she’d be pretty.
    Dale changed in the other room. Today—these days—he wore his sideburns longer and his hair longer and his shirts more open, with a gold cross medallion against his hairy, manly chest. It hung askew, above his heart. The stone in the jewel’s center was rock crystal—his moonstone—surrounded by a white-gold crucifixion. He leaned forward at the edge of the bed and pulled on his brown suede moccasins with a shoehorn, his necklace now dangling between his chin and ribs. His green dinner jacket lay folded in half beside him and beneath that were a white-dusted razor and straw and mirror. He’d just finished what he had left over from yesterday. He didn’t yet need more. Not for an hour or so, anyway. Once his shoes were on, he stood up, rolled up the white sleeves of his shirt three folds, and walked to the bedside table where a rocks glass was filled halfway with Scotch whiskey. His ice had melted. His drink was watered down. Dorothy entered, still swathed in towels, and the light from the bathroom behind her provided a rather lovely silhouette.
    “How long’s it gonna be ’til you’re ready?” Dale asked, swishing the contents of his glass back and forth before him.
    “Fast, ’cause I already did my makeup,” she replied looking for her hairbrush. “Can’t you tell?” she said as she smiled and turned toward him, looking up at the ceiling and clasping her hands and blinking and fluttering, like a bug.
    “Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You look great. You know you look great. But you have to get ready. You gotta be ready soon. I don’t wanna belate.” He paused. “Seriously, Do. I don’t wanna be late again.” He sat back down on the bed and looked down at his shoes’ ornate brown tassels.
    Dorothy stood in front of her bureau and stared at her drawers. She stared awhile longer before, newly energized, she reached into her purse beside the bed and took out a Lucky Brand cigarette from a crumbling soft pack. She didn’t, yet, smoke menthol 100s. Next they’d be Mistys. And then eventually Virginia Slims.
    “What are you doing now?” Dale asked at Dorothy.
    “I’m thinking of an outfit.”
    “How long is that going to take?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “What do you mean you don’t know?”
    “I don’t know, okay? Once I figure something out I’ll give you a fucking update.” Black eyes. No pupils. “And anyway you badgering me is only making me take longer.”
    Dale put his fingers to his closed eyelids. “Oh my God,” he said, dropping his head and shaking it and sucking on the inside of his cheeks.
    “Oh yeah?”
    Dorothy