The Parallel Apartments (73 page)

“But there
is
something inside!”

“Shake it. Doesn't make any noise. Empty. See? Let me put you to bed. Want a juice box?”

Babette lay in bed with her purse and the little doll inside. She sucked on her juice box. She took the doll out. She tried to bite it. She bit as hard as she could. It tasted salty and dry, like the dirt in the backyard. She rolled it around on her tongue, tasting the alley, Mander and his brick, Green and his nest, Dartmouth's gravestone, the bitter tulip petals, the raspy wooden fence, the flaking paint on the picnic table, the handle of the screen door, the cool, weedy dirt in the cracks in the walk.

Babette spit the doll out into her hands, dried it on the sheet, picked off the last flecks of green and red paint, popped it back into her mouth, and, with the last sip in her cran-raspberry juice box, Babette Balaguer Moppett swallowed the littlest doll whole.

This book would have foundered long ago without the encouragement, heed, and counsel of the following: Rebecca Beegle, Robert and Cathy Cotter, Karen and Joe Etherton, Melissa and Brian Dempsey, Maria La Ganga and Keith Harmon, Bug and Betty Cotton, Ron DeGroot and Mary Jo Pehl, Carly Nelson, Adam Krefman, Adam Eaglin, Andi Winnette, Jude Spaith, Wayne Alan Brenner, Nancy Gore, Jackie Kelly, Kim Kronzer, Gaylon Greer, Diane Owens Prettyman, Pansy Flick, Delaine Mueller, and so many others I have surely and inexcusably failed to mention. My profound thanks to all.

Bill Cotter lives in Austin with the performance artist Annie La Ganga.

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