*Fiction — May 29, 2021
Marjorie and Ben
Image by Xiao Yue Shan
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First, they rode the Ferris wheel. Their car, with its plastic bench still warm with the heat of the previous couple, rocked gently as the wheel turned. At the top of the first revolution, Ben placed his arm over Marjorie’s shoulders. She tensed, smiling with visible effort.
“Sorry,” said Ben, removing his arm. He’d pulled her close out of habit; he hadn’t meant to force her to pretend.
“No,” said Marjorie, pulling Ben’s arm back over her shoulders. “No, Ben. Shit.”
“You don’t need to.” Ben tried to remove his arm again. This time, Marjorie reached up and grabbed hold of it. Their car descended down the wheel into the flash and clang of the fair. There was the smell of fried dough and of livestock; there were bells, alarms, and a bang that repeated at odd intervals and sounded like a gunshot, but, Ben decided, couldn’t be. They sailed past the platform and back up the other side of the wheel and the fair receded again. The Ferris wheel creaked; summer wind ruffled through Ben’s hair. It was a Saturday. The Monday before, Marjorie had told him she was worried they weren’t really in love, explaining that she’d always thought love peaked at the complete melding of consciousnesses, their two wholes coming together to become something profoundly more whole. Instead, Marjorie explained, three weeks before their wedding, she felt only his separate, depleted half. What if they were wrong, she asked. What if what they had wasn’t love, but something very close, so close it was nearly indistinguishable, but not it, not exactly.
“Let’s go on a trip,” she’d concluded. “I think I just need to go on a little trip. With you.”
So Ben booked a cheap but decent motel room and drove Marjorie up the rocky coast. After the fair, he planned to take her to the room, which promised an ocean view, and give her a bracelet he’d purchased for their wedding. The bracelet was yellow gold, with links so small its chain looked like a shining piece of thread. Ben was proud of the bracelet. To him, it seemed like something a husband would give a wife. All week, he’d been taking it out of its box and draping the delicate thing over his palm. On Friday night, after she’d packed and gone to sleep, he’d wrapped the box in tissue paper and hidden it beneath the backseat of their car.
After their third time around, the Ferris wheel slowed. A teenaged attendant opened their door and beckoned them out. Marjorie and Ben stumbled onto the platform as another couple was whisked into their still-moving car. Ben watched as the couple scooted close then lifted up and away.
Ben couldn’t wait to be a husband. He believed the role would suit him; all his favorite things were quiet and steady. He liked to bring Marjorie coffee and a poppy seed muffin every Sunday morning and he preferred seeing music at outdoor venues, where children danced on sunny lawns, over shows in dark, crowded bars. Crises like these did happen with Marjorie. She was prone to self-doubt, heightened by a tendency toward the dramatic. He wanted to tell her this was all of her own creation, that last week she was content and next week she would be too, if only she’d let this idea go.
Instead, he asked her if she’d like to check out the livestock tent.
“Sure,” she said. She bit her bottom lip. “I did want you to put your arm on me. I’m sorry I made it strange.”
“You didn’t make anything strange,” said Ben.
“It only makes it stranger when you don’t admit it.”
“There’s nothing to admit.”
“I flinched when you touched me.”
“You did,” said Ben.
“And that’s not strange?”
“No,” said Ben. “Not everyone wants to be touched all the time. This isn’t any bigger than that.”
“I’m just worried,” said Marjorie.
“I know. But I’m not. Do you trust me?”
“Of course.”
“And I trust you,” said Ben.
Marjorie more than trusted Ben’s read on things: it was her philosophy, her religion. Ben—smart and collected—understood her so well.
“Darling,” he said as they watched three miniature ponies zip around their pen, “I need to pee.”
They found a half-circle of porta potties near the carnival games. Marjorie waited for Ben in the center, watching a field mouse skitter around near a group of teenagers. After a few minutes, one of the girls spotted the mouse and shrieked. The boys in the group jumped into action, stomping the hay-covered ground with their thick black boots.
When, five days before, Ben responded to Marjorie’s love panic with an assurance so breezy it seemed flippant, he awoke something within her, deep and thrashing.
“You’re an extra thoughtful, sometimes extra nervous person,” he’d said, “Of course you’re checking how you feel about me. But nothing can hold up to your kind of rigor. It’s not a fair test.”
Sometimes Marjorie’s love for Ben was so overwhelming she wanted to slice him open and climb inside. She wanted to eat him, to marry him, to be buried in the same grave as him. But still, there were times when she felt she didn’t know him at all; when, running into him in their kitchen or looking at him across their couch, she was startled by the stranger living behind Ben’s familiar face. She wanted to know that he, too, had moments of panic, moments when all her features remained the same but didn’t add up to the woman he knew. She needed a reaction from him, any kind. Some women had partners who wept without control. Some had partners who hit them.
The mouse darted around legs and out from under descending boots, impressively quick until, suddenly, it wasn’t. In the group of teenagers, all movement stopped. Legs stilled and hands returned to sides. Even from a distance, Marjorie could see the mouse dead on the hay. She looked around for some means of consequence, but it seemed she was the only fairgoer who’d noticed.
Marjorie strode over to the group.
“You had no reason,” she said. To her surprise, the boys didn’t defend themselves or mock her. Instead, they lowered their heads and kicked at the hay.
“We’re outside,” she continued. “It was an animal, just existing. Outside.”
“We’re all really sorry, lady,” said one.
Marjorie thought she should stop—they were kids, they understood they’d done wrong—but there was the mouse on the ground in front of her. Its body was flattened and divided into three sections: crushed head, crushed middle plus one curled foot, and the other foot plus its thin, gray tail. Between these pieces, a gooey matter, laced with peanut organs, was blackening in the open air.
“Look,” she said, pointing down to the mess. “What’s wrong with you?”
The tallest boy began to cry. “I felt it happen. Under my boot.”
“No it was me,” said another.
“No,” said a third. “I felt it. I’m sure.”
Marjorie looked from boy to boy. Suddenly, she could also recall the sudden give of a shattering skull beneath the sole of her shoe. This made her want Ben. Where was Ben?
Marjorie turned. Ben stood ten yards behind her. His arms were crossed. He watched with a curious smile.
“I have to go to my husband,” she said to the boys, who nodded tearfully. She felt she could speak paragraphs to any of them without even forcing her thoughts into words. Her whole self gaped toward the boys; she was an open wound.
Marjorie approached Ben, ready to enfold him into this intense communion. “Come meet these boys,” she said. “We killed a mouse.”
“You killed a mouse?”
“Well, they did.” Marjorie felt herself receding. Soon, she’d be alone in her body again.
“With what?”
“Their boots.” Marjorie paused. She reached for Ben’s hand. As he automatically wove his fingers into hers, her isolation grew. “One boot killed the mouse, though everyone was stomping.”
“Jesus,” he said. “That’s barbaric.” He shook his head. “Boys.”
“Talk to them?”
Ben shrugged. “It isn’t a crime to kill a mouse. I can’t do anything about it.”
There were moments when Ben found Marjorie stupid or physically repulsive, but he kept them to himself. He felt it was his duty to withhold the small, fleeting things that would hurt her. Ben guessed that those teenagers had found Marjorie strange. Watching from a distance, he had. But he kept quiet. He didn’t tell her how unattractive she was, flushed and sweaty with self-importance, as she certainly would have had their roles been reversed. Instead, he led her away from the porta potties toward the livestock tent where they pet goats, fed chickens, and entered a raffle. He bought them some deep-fried Oreos, which they ate at a picnic table near the stage where the raffle would be called. Marjorie didn’t say much. A crowd gathered by the stage. Long after they finished their Oreos, a leathery man in a suede cowboy hat tested the mic.
“This first one’s for Sweet Queen Anne,” he said, once he had the crowd’s attention. “Tonight’s second-place pig.” He chose a ticket from a fishbowl balanced atop a stool and read the number aloud.
“Ben,” said Marjorie. “That’s us.”
“Really?”
“What are we going to do with a pig?” she asked.
“Anybody?” said the MC, reading the number again.
Marjorie stood and waved the ticket in the air.
“Well, come on up, sweetheart.”
Ben watched Marjorie edge her way up. The crowd did its best to part for her. When she reached the stage, the MC helped her up. Marjorie handed him the ticket, searched the crowd for Ben, found him, and lit up. There she is, thought Ben. Hi.
“Who you got out there, beautiful?” asked the MC.
“My fiancé.” She looked at her feet, shy.
“Darn,” said the MC, “My heart just broke into a million pieces. When’s the wedding?”
“Two weeks,” said Marjorie.
“I like a challenge.” The crowd clapped and hooted. The MC pinned a red ribbon onto the thin strap of her sundress and pinched her waist. Marjorie tensed. The MC laughed and pinched her waist again.
“We got a bashful one, ladies and gents.”
On stage, Marjorie sucked in her cheeks, holding back tears. Ben stood. He began to make his way toward the stage.
“I’m not going to hurt you, honey,” said the MC. He laughed again, grabbing her bare shoulder and shaking it.
Halfway to the stage, Ben watched Marjorie look toward the picnic table, then, not seeing him there, panic. He waved to her and she found him, her eyes filling with tears. He gave her a thumbs-up and mouthed I’m coming. She squinted back at him, so he mouthed it again. He was almost to them now. He knew the man was harmless—just a gross old flirt, trying to entertain— but Marjorie’s fists clenched and unclenched at her sides. Her mouth quivered. Ben thought: look at me. I’m coming for you, and she did: Marjorie looked down at Ben with an expression that winded him like a punch in the throat, shook her head no no no, and reached for the MC. Taking his tan face in her hands, Marjorie kissed his open mouth. Ben stopped, five feet from the stage. His mouth seemed to fill with blood. Marjorie pulled back and ran off the stage.
“Well,” said the MC. He chuckled uncomfortably. “Well. Huh.” He shrugged and then took up the fishbowl again. “Let’s hope whoever wins the first-place pig is half as pretty and just as grateful.” In the center of the quiet crowd, Ben listened to the winning numbers through pounding ears. The ticket belonged to a bald man in a Hawaiian shirt who made kissy faces at the MC once he mounted the stage. Ben’s hands were cold. His face felt hot and tight. His brain thudded against his tender skull. He watched the next two winners claim their prizes and then went into the livestock tent.
Sweet Queen Anne lay on crushed, dirty hay. She sprawled on her side, all stomach, expanding and contracting with each breath like a giant lung. Beneath wiry bristles, the pig was the color of skin, spotted blue, black, and gray. Ben thought of his grandfather’s scalp. He read a sign posted on the pen that said the pig was four years old and three hundred and seventeen pounds, and then exited the fairground, taking a yellow school bus to the overflow lot. Ben unlocked their car and sank into the driver’s seat. His mind replayed how scared Marjorie had looked on stage, how much she’d seemed to need him. When he realized that he wanted to drive away, leaving her there, Ben threw the keys onto the passenger’s seat.
Tall, portable streetlights illuminated the grass lot. Each had a set of rugged tires and a loud generator base. The bus pulled up every twenty minutes, letting out another batch of fairgoers who spread out among the cars laughing and slamming doors. After a few minutes of headlights and confusion, Ben was left alone with the buzz of the generators again.
First, Marjorie went back to the porta potties. Next, she searched the rows of livestock and the arcade stalls. She felt very hot, very swollen, like she was about to burst through the thin shell of her skin. She found them in line for corn dogs. She approached the tall one first.
“Hi,” she mustered.
“Hi?” said the boy, then, “Oh, the mouse.”
Marjorie nodded. The mouse.
“Are you getting a corn dog?” asked the boy. “You can totally cut.”
“I was considering it,” lied Marjorie. She got in line with the teenagers, thinking of the MC’s sour lips. Suddenly, she felt very old. She was overwhelmed with the desire to see herself from the outside to make sure she hadn’t wrinkled and grayed.
“You know,” said one of the boys, “We were talking about it, and we still can’t figure out who did it. All of us remember feeling the crunch.”
“Me too.”
“Wait, seriously?” asked the tall boy.
“Yeah.”
“You weren’t even stomping.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Nuts,” said another boy.
“Did you know that every tree in the world is connected by a network of roots?” said the girl who’d shrieked. “They can all talk to each other.”
Every tree in the world was certainly not connected, but Marjorie appreciated the girl’s effort. She understood what they were reaching for. Still, they remained separate people in line for corn dogs at a fair. Marjorie thought again of the MC’s mouth. It had been hot, wet, not Ben’s. Once, in a moment of passion, Ben had told Marjorie that there weren’t any deal breakers for him. Even if you drowned all our future children, I’d still want you, he’d said.
“I just won a prize pig,” she told the teenagers.
“Nice,” said the girl who’d shrieked.
“Hit us up if you need help with all that bacon,” said one of the boys.
Marjorie started. She hadn’t realized a prize pig was for eating.
“Oh,” she said.
Marjorie insisted on paying for all the teenagers’ corn dogs, but, once she opened her wallet, remembered Ben had all their cash. The tall boy paid for hers, which she ate as she rode the shuttle bus from lot to lot, trying to remember where Ben had parked. By the time she found him, she’d finished the corn dog and discarded the stick. He didn’t ask her where she’d run to, and she didn’t tell him. Instead, she climbed into the passenger’s seat and rode quietly beside him to the motel, thinking about the corn dog. She decided that it would be a secret, one private thing hidden from this man who knew everything she ate, everywhere she’d been, and everything that worried her, not because he pried but because she always wanted to tell him.
A two-lane highway separated the motel from the coast. Their room was on the second floor. If they opened their dense, plastic-lined curtains, they’d have that promised view of the Atlantic, but their single window faced a walkway shared by everyone on the second floor, so they kept the curtains closed. Marjorie sat on the edge of the bed. She asked him if they were still getting married. He could tell from the way she asked that she already knew the answer, and this made him feel stupid and weak. He lay down on the bed, curling his body around her. He’d do anything to fit in her lap.
“This is a good spot,” she said. “Do you think they’ll have breakfast in the morning?”
“No.”
“Because this seems like the kind of place that would.”
“They don’t.”
“How are you so sure?”
“I booked the place.”
“Well, you didn’t know the highway would be right here. So you don’t know everything.”
“Are you trying to make me upset?” asked Ben, intending to break their conversation wide open, but, as he spoke, he felt he was still skating over the surface of the problem. He saw the sturdy frozen layer where they played and he saw the dark currents swirling beneath.
“Of course I am.”
Ben’s chest tightened. Marjorie couldn’t break through either. But what if she could? What would become of them if they were able to hack through the ice? Ben imagined the gaping hole, the dark rushing water. Or worse, what if they hacked and hacked, only to watch the water freeze as soon as they exposed it to the cold air? Marjorie eased herself down beside him. Together, they scooted up the bed so that their heads were on the pillows. Ben pressed his forehead to Marjorie’s. He was terrified. Outside, someone pulled a roller bag along the shared walk. Ben kissed Marjorie’s face, her shoulders, and her wrists. Then, remembering the bracelet, he pulled away.
“Hold tight,” he said. Marjorie sat up, surprised. Ben grabbed the keycard from the bedside table.
“Where are you going?”
“I’ll be right back.”
Outside, the air was exhilarating. Ben felt giddy, un-tethered in the lonely dark. He would give her the bracelet; she’d need his help to fasten its tiny clasp. Ben swept his hand back and forth beneath the backseat. He found the box beside his ice-scraper. Jogging back up to their room, he blew the gift clean of sand and crumbs. He swiped the card, opened the door, and discovered the room empty. Ben looked from the rumpled bed to the armoire sloppy with his discarded pocket things, imagining her walking the shoulder of the dark highway, leaving him—she could be so stupid, so impulsive and destructive—and hated her. Then, he heard the hiss of the shower and saw the steam curling out from beneath the bathroom door. Ben sat on the bed.
He turned the gift in his hands, trying to coax the anger from his body.
The shower turned off. “Ben?”
“I’m here.”
“Can you come in?”
He did. She sat on the closed toilet, naked except for the towel she held tight around her shoulders. Her skin was blotched, body loose from the heat. She’d been crying.
“I thought you’d hear the shower and come in,” she said.
“I didn’t know,” Ben said. “How could I have known?”
“Why did you go outside?”
“I was getting you a surprise.”
This information made her sob suddenly and deeply, like she was gasping for air. “And I ruined it,” she said.
“You didn’t.”
“I did.”
Ben knelt down beside her and rubbed her red thigh. He’d give her the bracelet in the morning. He imagined leading her down to the coast and pulling the package out from behind his coat. She’d be surprised, delighted, there would be gulls and crashing waves.
“Nothing’s ruined. Here.” Ben stood and turned the shower back on, sweeping the curtain aside.
Originally published in No Tokens Issue No. 9. View full issue & more.