"Telephone" by K Chiucarello
Four girls sit down to play telephone. The first girl has a frilled red dress that cuts slightly above her knee. The sleeves are cap sleeves, bubbling poufs encompassing floral princess qualities. She pulls pieces of fudge from a tupperware container her mother prepared for her earlier in the day. She offers pieces to the girls next to her. They all decline. The girl to her right, the girl with loosely braided pigtails, has ripped denim on, a striped tee, her breasts completely covered but tight against the shirt’s fabric. She could not care less whether you hear her snapping her gum or not. The girl to that girl’s right wears a necklace with her grandmother’s name inscribed on it. Her eyes are wide and blue and her ribbed shirt dips into a V, pointing down to a body she does not yet understand how to operate. She nods as she receives any news through their imaginary telephone. She is a good listener and although she wears her grandmother’s name around her neck she is totally independent, herself and her beliefs. The final, fourth girl does not want to be there. You can tell this in her posture, how she slouches in her chore coat, how she is reading a book when the game begins. She doesn’t deserve derivative joy from a child’s game if she’s not paying attention. You agree, don’t you?
The game starts and ends with the first girl. She creates the scenario. She shapes the sentence. Then she whispers that information to the girl next to her. Sometimes she will skew the news. Sometimes she will whisper the news so low that the girl next to her has no other choice but to make a new sentence on her own accord. Sometimes the news will be so blunt and so shocking that the receiving girl will question what she heard. This is a game of desperate believability. The last girl announces the final verdict of the statement. Perhaps the sentence is not altered at all. But the power lies in the first and simultaneously last girl because only she confirms or denies the original sentiment.
Deirdre, the girl in the red dress, closes her eyes and lets the last of the fudge dissipate over her tongue. She takes a deep breath in and lets a smile pin out as her lids open to life. She leans over to the ear of the striped tee girl, the girl whose breasts have outgrown her body. She says Last night I saw Tommy fingering Becca down by the river. She lets the last word ring and echo onto the other girl’s flesh. As the two girls’ cheeks pull hot away from each other, the girl in the striped tee turns to the girl in the red dress. The girl in the striped tee knows this to be untrue. Becca, the last girl in this telephone line, was with her last night. But the girl doesn’t question the movement of this sentence. This is the game, after all. Rules are rules.
She leans to the girl with the plated necklace and, to cover Becca, she changes the sentence to Last night I saw Deirdre down by the river and Tommy was with her. She releases this information into the air knowing that Tommy is Becca’s boyfriend, and one can only assume that when someone says something false they are taking a mirror to their own self. The girl with the plated necklace pulls back and has a look of confusion on her face. She looks to the girl in the striped-tee, asking her with her eyes, Are you sure?
The girl with the striped tee says back with her eyes, I’m sure. The girl with the plated necklace does not want to hurt Becca by being the first to relay news of infidelity but she does so anyhow. She does not question what she has heard or what she is taught. She leans to Becca and prefaces this by saying Sorry, Becca. Then she touches her lips to Becca’s ear and says Last night I saw Deirdre down by the lake with Tommy.
Becca looks around the room, at the three girls. She asks what lake? She says fuck you Deirdre. And that’s the last time the girls see each other. After that Deirdre never thinks about Becca ever again. The girl in the striped tee starts saying, I don’t have many girl friends. I’m more of a guy’s girl. The girl with the plated necklace doesn’t reiterate her opinions anymore to anyone really. And Becca, well she calls Tommy up and asks, Do you want to meet up, go down to the river?
K Chiucarello is a writer and editor living outside the Catskills. Their work has appeared in Longleaf Review, Pithead Chapel, Maudlin House, them., Hobart Pulp, and others. They currently read and review for Fractured Lit. Find them on Twitter @_kc_kc_kc_.
