Due to the extraordinary circumstances surrounding COVID-19, the Alcalá Review has elected to delay the publication of Volume 5, Issue 2, until the coming fall.
In the meantime, we are pleased to offer the following preview material, which includes a downloadable sample of the forthcoming print edition and a selection of poems read by AR contributors and staff members Davontae Reed and McKenna Christian.
by Joe Duffy
The sun set earlier in November, usually between four and five o’clock. Cooper stood leaning against the kitchen counter with two eyes on his wristwatch. It was four-fifteen in the afternoon and the streets were beginning to darken. Broad shafts of sunlight stretched through the windows, pouring over dusty hardwood planks.
He waited. The sun dangled above the sea, reluctant to set. Cooper scooped up his mug and downed the rest of the cold, bitter coffee. The mug’s handle was in the shape of a whale’s tail, with MONDAYS BLOW inscribed across the front. Mary had gotten it for his birthday—sometimes he wanted to throw it away just to forget about it. It was his last good mug though, so he kept it. He scraped the stray grounds from his tongue as he made his way to the sink. It brimmed with crusty cast iron pots, grimy dishes, clusters of forks in murky pools. He glanced at his watch again: four-nineteen.
He walked past the kitchen counter to the living room, where ivory blinds were strung up in bundles over the tall, sand-speckled windows. He opened the closet opposite the front door and peeled a thick black windbreaker off one of the wire hangers.
The formerly golden sunlight had turned now to wilder, more violent streaks of pink and red that reverberated off the bungalows lining the thin grey alley. Cooper stepped outside and crossed his small patio, closing the grated silver gate behind him.
A breeze rushed him as he stepped into the alley. He shivered and proceeded along towards the beach, which sat maybe thirty yards from his front steps. As he hurried over the shaded concrete, music trickled from rooftops, from different homes in different alleys. Crossing the back road which split the alley, he overheard chatter from the burger joint around the corner. A woman broke into laughter. The scent of fried onions drifted through the evening air in warm tendrils.
He crossed the empty boardwalk and hopped over the waist-high barrier. Cooper paused on the barrier and kicked off his tennis shoes, slipping a finger in each of the heels and starting off again. He went left but froze after a few steps. Further down the beach, a group of men and women who looked to be about Cooper’s age were huddled around a roaring bonfire. They sat in bright beach chairs and kept beers holstered in the armrests. They even had a green canopy spread over them, but it trembled in the wind. One of the men worked desperately to bury its aluminum legs in the sand.
Cooper turned and headed the opposite direction. The beach was nearly empty in front of him. A young couple much farther down had their backs turned to him. They pranced along the shoreline, hands clasped together. The water coiled back and pounced at their bare feet as they yanked on each other’s hands, laughing and dancing in the direction of the boardwalk.
Cooper checked his watch one more time: four-thirty-nine.
He bit his lip and buried his free hand deep in his jacket pocket. The time was approaching and he couldn’t miss it again. Too many times he had come out to the sand too late. It had always been a source of conflict between him and Mary—she never liked to keep people waiting. He didn’t either, but sometimes the hours simply escaped him. He had been very careful today though. He had kept himself awake, alert, wary of the moment approaching.
The bottom of the sun sunk below the horizon, into the cool blue water. It was as if the ocean pinched the sun’s belly, its plasma guts spilling over the seascape.
Only another minute or two, Cooper thought, a matter of seconds and the sun will be swallowed until morning. Now was the time, as he well knew, but he held off for a few more moments because he had begun to think that the experience became more vivid the closer the sun came to vanishing. He had come out too early before and, during those times, she had still come along, or he had coaxed her along at least, but the whole thing felt as though it may slip away at any moment, like it was nothing more than a vivid dream. He would look at her once and then look back only a second later and something seemed different. She felt like a palmful of water—if he grasped too tightly she would trickle between his knuckles.
Cooper took a seat in the sand and tossed his tennis shoes aside. A last dot of light hovered over the water. He took his hand out of his jacket pocket. His fingers emerged wrapped around a crinkled pack of cigarettes. He flicked open the top and looked over the contents. Stowed on the inside were three cigarettes and a lighter. Flipping the pack over, his thumb traced the Drumstick Milds lettering, reminding him of how badly he wished he could find another pack of the same name. He had looked and looked, but every time he stopped in a bodega or smoke shop they had always turned the pack over curiously in their hands, scratching their heads and sheepishly admitting that they had never seen the brand, or at least hadn’t seen it sold anywhere in years. Cooper was fairly certain, however, that another pack, even by the same name, wouldn’t do the trick. There was something uncanny and miraculous about these cigarettes. Perhaps Mary had known that.
He removed the lighter and a single cigarette from the pack. As the final streaks of light licked the horizon, he put the lighter to his mouth and flicked. Nothing. He flicked a second time and, again, nothing. His stomach churned and his eyes sunk. He flicked it over and over again, cupping his other hand over the tip of the cigarette and working frantically with his thumb. Looking out over the sea, he could no longer see the sun but still saw its brilliant orange glow. Come on, he urged, please, come on. His deep green eyes began to well with tears. Each attempt conjured feeble sparks that quickly flashed and died. Come on, come on, come on. He managed a little flame and held his thumb down on the lighter wheel until it was numb.
Cooper drew in and puffed streams of smoke from the corners of his mouth. Drawing in deep, he exhaled a great cloud of smoke and coughed a bit, turning his head and spitting as far as he could. He had given up smoking years ago and only returned to it for these kinds of occasions.
He leaned back and dug his left hand deep into the sand behind him. He watched the waves as they rolled over the beach. Any trace of light had all but evaporated and the sand felt cool between his fingers.
Bringing the cigarette to his mouth, he took a second drag. He exhaled and the smoke wafted towards the water and drifted upwards between Cooper and the glowing moon. The waves began rolling in at a quicker pace. They crashed against the shore and erupted into little clouds of sandy mist.
The third puff of smoke was already swirling in his mouth. When he released it, the cloud floated forward and revealed the vague outline of a figure standing directly before him. Not the full figure, no, but the shaft of a nose, the hollow of a cheek, the curve of a woman’s chest. Cooper saw these features for a fleeting second before the breeze quietly carried them away. Now it was quiet again, and there was nothing except for the sand and the waves and the sharp moonlight.
By the fourth drag, he could feel her underneath him. His buried hand felt a faint movement beneath the surface, a tossing and a grumble as if something had been awakened. Cooper turned his head to either side and saw that he was alone on the beach. The ground trembled lightly around him and grains of sand rolled off the tops of mounds, seemingly by their own accord. The trembling grew more powerful and expanded beneath Cooper. Veins of wet sand from great depths rose to the surface and sputtered in every direction.
The head emerged first and the rest of the body followed. She sat up bent at the waist and reached in the direction of her smothered toes. She fell back and lifted two balled fists, letting out a deep yawn. Then she turned and looked at Cooper.
“Care if I have a drag?”
“Of course.”
The cigarette hung limply between the two of them. She reached out with a peeling grey hand and took the thing between them, putting it to her lips. Her flesh was a rotting grey-blue which peeled in some places more than others. The bone pierced through a few of her fingers and peeked through her cheek facing the moon. A haunting glow illuminated the coarse bone and reminded Cooper of her cotton white complexion––of how, at one time, she radiated beauty and youthfulness. She had brown hair thick with streamers of seaweed and algae, barrettes made of small shells and broken sand dollars. As she pulled in her breath and the tip of the cigarette flared, Cooper reached over and stuck two fingers inside her hollow eye socket, pulling out a tiny crab whose legs thrashed helplessly between his thumb and forefinger. With a flick of his wrist he tossed the crab aside and it scurried away, darting between piles of sand.
The waves had settled. The water moved slowly and quietly across the sand. The earlier disturbance in the tides had distracted Cooper from the beating of his own heart. Now he felt the thumping in his chest. He felt the blood pulsing beneath his skin, the veins carrying the blood from his heart to his cheeks to his hands, all the way down to his naked toes, wiggling in the moonlight.
Cooper turned to look at her once again. She grinned at him, the cigarette dangling from her lips. He reached over and placed his hand on her thigh. His hand was met with a thin, slimy film and he felt repulsed by the alien texture. He almost drew away but by an effort of sheer will kept it there, caressing slowly back and forth. She used to have a small mole on the tip of her nose. She would occasionally look at herself cross-eyed in a hand mirror and toss out things along the lines of, It looks pretty dark today, huh? Like, especially dark. Not sure what to say to things like these, Cooper would just chuckle. What’s so funny? Cooper never knew what to tell her. He felt that he always laughed at the wrong times.
“I can’t remember the last time I had one of these,” she said.
“Must have been last summer.”
“With the hatch of your Forester lifted up. And my blanket over the two of us.”
“Yeah.”
“It used to bother me when you let ashes fall on the blanket,” she said. “But then—all those holes and burns—they were like little pictures. Abstract brushstrokes.”
“You’re right. Maybe we should start ringing up galleries.”
Cooper almost laughed, then stopped himself. He kept his hand on her thigh.
Lifting the cigarette from her fingers, he leaned in even further, planting a kiss on her cold, swollen lips. Cooper allowed it to go on as long as possible, feeling her lips squirming beneath his, but eventually pulled away. Her seawater fragrance and that briny mouth were too unbearable and he came close to vomiting. He almost spit over his shoulder, and would have blamed it on that bitter tobacco taste he had never learned to like, but decided against it.
The cigarette burned at the filter and stung Cooper’s fingertips. He brought it carefully to his mouth and took another puff. She yawned beside him and he felt her stirring in the wet sand. Then she rose to her feet, put her hands on her hips, and stuck her chest out towards the water. She raised her head to the moon and closed her eyes. It appeared that she was taking in the smell of the sea.
She opened her eyes and turned to Cooper.
“You want to go for a swim?” she asked.
“You know I can’t.”
“I do?”
“Well, maybe not. I’ll stay here.”
“I’ll bet the water is nice tonight. Come on, you never wanna go with me.”
“Someday I’ll come with you, but I’m just not feeling it tonight. Sorry.”
“Suit yourself.”
She flashed him a toothless smile and made for the water. Her long legs glided confidently across the sand. Seeing her silhouette in the moonlight, Cooper’s eyes were drawn to where that long, black hair brushed against the small of her back. He watched her slim figure dance across the luminous sand, admired her hips as they swayed freely in the dim light of the cold beach.
Cooper watched as she reached where the tide met the sand. She stretched a foot towards the water and, after a great deal of hesitation, slowly dipped it in. Then she turned to look at Cooper again, who smiled and offered a thumbs-up. She bounded into the gentle waves, skimming the top of the sea with soft, mutilated fingers. The ocean swelled and tossed and flailed wildly, a brilliant, crashing maelstrom. The water seemed to turn a hideous shade of black. Thunderous crests rose above her head and battered her down.
Cooper lost sight of her. She was there one moment and then a wave came along and took her the next. Afterwards, the crashing subsided and the water was smooth and glassy. All that remained were scattered canopies of soiled white foam floating on the surface. Cooper took the cigarette and crushed it into the sand. He stood up and gathered his shoes, carrying them in one hand, the extinguished butt in the other. He strode across the sand, hopped the barrier a second time, and threw the butt away in a nearby trash can. As he neared his home, the smell of the sea became less and less intense.
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Joe Duffy is a senior studying English at the University of San Diego.
This piece was originally published in the Fall 2018 Issue, Vol. 4 Iss. 1.
by Leilee Ghassemi
Anita Farahani was simultaneously married to and divorced from him.
Married back home, but divorced where she lived, which was maybe more important. She did not belong to him anymore, legally. She did not have to share anything that was hers. She was single, legally, but tethered by their daughter.
When Dina was born, Anita cried. Not because she was emotional, or because he hadn’t bothered to show up to the hospital, or because she was in pain. She cried because Dina was living proof of her imprisonment. Dina, whom she had loved and cared for for nine months, was finally in her arms, but all she could think about was how easier life would be without her. Dina was a part of him, which meant Anita was too.
“I wish you were dead.”
Dina’s voice was loud, but words, after a lot of repetition, lose their meaning. Anita tried to focus on the document she was reading, but angered by her lack of attention, Dina marched up to her. Her knuckles whitened around her phone, in sharp contrast to the crimson case.
“I hope everyone you love falls dead,” Dina said. The malice in her voice might have surprised others, but Anita recognized it from him. She had lived with it for years.
“I’m going over these documents, Dina, I need to focus,” Anita levelled. She reminded herself that Dina was only fifteen, reminded herself that this was her father talking, mixed with hormones. She thought of the therapy session scheduled for the next day and took a deep breath.
“For custody?” Dina snatched one of the papers from Anita’s grip. “For fucking custody? How many times do I have to tell you that I want to live with dad?” There it was.
“Dina, you can’t live with him, he wouldn’t be able to take care of you, you know he’s fighting this, trying to get custody, just because he wants to piss me off.”
Dina laughed. “Yeah, I know that. I don’t fucking care. I want to live with him to get away from you.”
Anita could almost smell the hatred. It lingered in the air, it spewed off her daughter, it had contaminated their home. It smelled like him. Without thinking, Anita stood up. She felt red in the face. “For money? Because he lets you go wherever the hell you like? What is it?”
“I just hate you,” Dina said, calmer now, which made the hair on the back of Anita’s neck rise. “Why is that so hard for you to fucking understand?”
Anita did understand. She understood all of it. She wished she was dead, too.
Anita met him when they were both seventeen. It was possible that she was initially drawn to him because he was her parents’ worst nightmare. He didn’t want to go to college, he hated his family, he wore baggy pants and tight-fitting tees and never took off his shoes when he walked into a house—didn’t even ask if he should. He had a huge inheritance, but he blew it all on a fancy house and other things that he did not need and the rest on gambling and drugs. He spoke no English at the time, a fact that Anita’s parents believed made him beneath them in every way possible because they were American citizens and they had travelled the world and everyone who was anyone in Tehran knew English. He had a cold stare and a long beard that he almost never trimmed, but he loved Anita. He loved her more than Anita loved him. He read her Persian poetry and played her traditional music on his setar. The night they got married, he told her he loved her more than she could possibly ever love herself and that he would always know what was best for her. Anita regretted not running then and there for the rest of her life.
Her parents realized quickly that unless they helped the couple, their daughter would end up pregnant out on the streets. So, Anita’s dad, an extremely wealthy bank owner, signed over one of his accounts to him. Told him it was to take care of his daughter; it was for them to start a family together. In their first years together, he was too stubborn to touch that money, even though he didn’t work, and Anita loved him more because of it.
It was years before the version of him that Anita had created for herself started to crack. He did nothing around the house. If he ever did pick up a dish to clean, he would break it. If Anita called from work and asked him to make some rice until she got home, she would walk into a smoky apartment and to an unusable pot. But it wasn’t until she became pregnant with Dina and recognized the permanence of what she had done that she started to hate him. And that was when he turned on her, too.
If Anita had left Tehran sooner, she could have gotten an abortion, like how she managed to get her divorce in the States once he followed them there. So perhaps it was fitting that she was still married to him in the country where she had her daughter. The two seemed to go together, no matter what.
From the moment Anita ran away from their house in Tehran to the moment she stepped out of the LAX airport, it took a total of twenty-four hours. During those twenty-four hours, she crossed continents and oceans and put him as far away from herself as possible, but she still felt like she couldn’t breathe. Her throat felt tight and swollen, her lungs would not expand and contract. She hugged Dina and breathed in her scent in the back of the cab they took to Yasmin’s, her old colleague who had moved to LA years back. The plane and airports hadn’t destroyed the stench of sweat and cigarettes off of Dina. Anita wondered if the smell would ever go away; wondered if her daughter would reek of him forever.
Dina was then only six years old and Anita, unable to think of anything that wouldn’t worsen the condition of her breathing, started to tell her daughter everything that she could recall about their life. She told her which hospital she was born in, told her about her grandparents’ beautiful home with the maple trees in the yard, told her about the street her kindergarten was on with the willow trees that arched over the cars, reaching each other from opposite sides of the street. Dina was dosing in and out of sleep, but eventually her dark eyes found Anita’s and she asked what was going on.
“Remember the orange and black cat that had kittens behind your auntie’s place? Remember how cute they were? Do you remember that trip we took, when dad was away, and went by the sea?”
Eventually, Dina started crying. Probably out of exhaustion, but in the moment Anita felt like she had upset her by talking about all the things she could never see again. Of course, Dina didn’t know that. Anita soothed her and kissed her head.
“I just want you to remember,” she said. But what she really wanted was to choose what Dina would later remember because she needed her to forget the rest.
Dina told Anita that she barely remembered the house she lived in for six years. She remembered little about the city, and almost nothing of the country as a whole. She had one memory of being around four or five years old, sitting on the cold marble floor and looking up when she heard a loud scream. She saw the white kitchen countertops littered with what looked like black dust, she saw the sparkling chandelier and finally saw the toppled over statue of the bearded man. She remembered wondering why his beard was suddenly red. She asked him once about the statue and he said it was of Hafez, the poet, and that it was a birthday gift for Anita when they first started dating.
Dina recounted this memory, leaving out the blood, on their way back from therapy. Therapy was supposed to be helping her remember. It was the only reason they went back, since Anita had long given up hope of the sessions helping them reconcile.
“You don’t remember me in the corner?” Anita asked.
“No.”
“You don’t remember him?”
“He wasn’t there.”
Anita drew in a breath. She wanted Dina to remember more than anything. She knew it was the trauma that was making her forget, she knew it was her brain’s way of protecting her, but if Dina was to have any future, she needed to remember. “He threw me against the statue.”
Dina rolled her eyes. “Not even a bulldozer could throw you against anything.”
Anita felt a sharp pain across her skull, starting from under her left ear, where the scar was. She felt the scream that threatened to escape her throat, but she swallowed hard and pulled over instead. She couldn’t drive safely with the pain and the last thing she needed was to give him and his team of lawyers a valid reason to take Dina away.
“He—” Anita croaked, “He destroyed our lives. I don’t know what to do to make you believe that.”
“I believe you.” Dina turned towards her. “But that was how he was towards you. He destroyed your life, he actually lets me live mine, unlike you.”
That was something Anita had heard a thousand times before. It had started with minor things. He would tell Dina that if she stayed with him he would let her have her older friends over the ones who never said hello to Anita and hung out with Dina because her father provided alcohol. Then he started to catch up with Dina after court to tell her things he claimed he’d heard from Anita’s lawyers: “Mom is thinking of sending you to boarding school,” or “Mom’s gotten a court order to bug my house,” or “Mom’s bought software to check your phone and she can track your location.” They were never ending.
Anita watched her daughter. Dina had bags under her eyes. She’d lost nearly fifty pounds over the past year. There were strands of her brown hair on her light blue jacket, so many of them that Anita could see them without looking too closely. Dina didn’t break eye contact. She stared at her mother’s green eyes, at her reddened cheeks, at her scar, and at her clenched jaw.
Anita wanted to reach out and hug her. Just for once, to reach out and pull her daughter into her arms without thinking of him. Of how much Dina hated her because of him. She wanted to smell her hair, even if it smelled like him, and kiss her forehead and take her somewhere far away. Somewhere she wouldn’t be able to run away from, somewhere they could stay and wait and talk and work through all his lies and emotional manipulation. Instead, she remembered the time she packed their bags, lied about taking Dina to his place and instead drove to Yasmin’s cabin out in Big Bear. That was when Anita was hopeful, when Dina, then twelve years old, would still sometimes come sleep in her bed. Sometimes she would talk about school, or even about how tired she was of the custody battle, without being prompted. The trip, however, made everything worse. Dina almost got herself killed hitchhiking back to Los Angeles. She left her phone in the cabin, not wanting Anita to track her. After the incident, Anita’s friends told her that Dina was too far gone, that Anita was better off letting her live with her dad. “There isn’t anything you can do anymore,” they said, “You’re just making her hate you more, making it harder for yourself, and you’ll never have a life of your own.”
“I want to throw a birthday party,” Dina said, without looking up from her phone.
Anita blinked. “What?”
Dina rolled her eyes. “Nevermind. I’ll just ask Dad.”
Anita thought back to the last time that happened. When Dina turned fourteen, Anita, in an attempt to mend their relationship after the trip, let him throw her the birthday party that she wanted. He called Anita at four in the morning, panicked because Dina had passed out, and she went over to be met with a trashed home and at least a dozen wasted underage kids. Anita remembered walking into the room where he had laid Dina down in, only to be met with a curly-haired boy in neon green swim shorts pulling on her unconscious daughter’s shirt.
Anita didn’t know what to do. She tried to think of something to say before this Dina, her Dina, was gone again. She said, “When do we do it? Do you want it to be on the day of your birthday or the weekend or—”
“The weekend of the 24th.”
Anita frowned. “Next week? But your birthday is almost a month away.”
“Alright fine, I’ll just ask Dad then.”
Anita rolled her eyes. As she started the car, she took a deep breath. “The 24th it is.”
There were more preparations than Anita was anticipating. Dina didn’t want anything specific, except for the whole ordeal to appear “casual.” By this she meant that no dinner should be served because that would be too awkward. There were to be appetizers, “cool” things people could just pick up and walk around eating. There was to be no cake. The lights were to be dimmed. Anita was to stay upstairs.
Anita agreed wholeheartedly. Dina didn’t ask for alcohol, didn’t even try to steal the keys to the pantry where it was stashed. But, most importantly, the minute Anita told him that she was throwing the party, he stopped calling. Dina said she hadn’t received a call either.
“Maman,” Dina called from her bedroom, while Anita mixed stew.
She almost dropped the wooden spoon into the pot. Dina hadn’t called her “maman” in years. She tried to recall the last time and remembered that it was the day he arrived at LA, when Dina was ten years old. Anita got the call from Yasmin, who knew one of his cousins. Anita repeated how over and over, knowing that there was no way he could have afforded a trip to the United States, even if he had somehow gotten a visa, until Yasmin said, “He used the money from your dad’s bank account in Iran. The one he had access to.” Anita didn’t remember collapsing on the floor, but she woke up to Dina’s pleading voice: maman, maman, maman.
“Maman?”
Anita looked at Dina. She turned off the stove and laid the spoon over the pot. Dina sniffed the food and made a face, “See, this is why I didn’t want you cooking for my birthday.”
“Ghorme sabzi used to be your favorite.”
Dina didn’t say anything.
“Did you need something?” Anita asked. She found it difficult not to comment on Dina’s use of “maman,” but knew that she would hate it if she did.
“I need to go shopping.”
Anita nodded and started walking towards her purse. “How much?”
“Can we go together?” Dina didn’t look up from her phone as she spoke and her fingers flew across her screen. Anita stared at her. She felt a pit in her stomach where she should have felt a spark of happiness. Dina’s behavior was so out of character that Anita couldn’t help but run through all the worst possibilities in her mind: Was she drunk? High? Shouldn’t Anita be able to tell? Had her dad put her up to this?
Dina glanced at her quickly and then put her phone away. “Or you can just give me two hundred bucks.”
“We can go together, if you actually want us to.”
Dina shrugged. “Dad can just give me money, if you won’t.”
“We’ll go together,” Anita gulped.
Dina turned the corner of her lips in a way that, if Anita hadn’t known better, she would have thought almost resembled a smile.
After their shopping spree, Anita and Dina drove over to Yasmin’s. Even though Dina didn’t particularly like Yasmin, or anyone close to her mom, she made no objections when Anita made the suggestion. Yasmin and Anita sat down for tea while Dina went into the other room.
“So, how was it?” Yasmin asked, taking out the chamomile tea leaves that she reserved for Anita. She put up her grey hair into a bun before filling up the kettle with water.
Anita dragged her hands down her face. “I don’t know what is going on.”
Yasmin watched her. She could see the exhaustion in her friend’s face and could see the fear that clouded her eyes. Anita started to talk about their day; how Dina had actually been tolerable, how they had taken turns trying on new things and how Dina hadn’t pushed her when she set a limit of a hundred dollars. Dina used the money to buy an outfit for her party, then spent the rest on beanies, scarves, and oversized sweatshirts that were apparently the new trend.
“He hasn’t called ever since Dina started acting this way. I’m starting to worry. What if he did something or said something to her?”
“Would that be a bad thing? It would mean she’s turned to you.”
Anita gave her a look. “I need to know what he could’ve done, Yas. You know what he’s capable of.”
Yasmin shook her head. “He wouldn’t hurt her.”
Anita didn’t say anything. Her phone buzzed with a message. She groaned. “My lawyer says Reynolds, his lawyer, is still threatening to take full custody. They also say I should stop fighting it because Dina is old enough to make her own decision, and that they seem confident that she’ll choose him.”
“Would she?”
Anita thought of all the times she got Dina back only because the law was on her side. Every time she took Dina away from him, she was screaming and threatening violence, and Anita grew more terrified. She knew that after every incident and every threat that he had received from her and her lawyers, Dina hated her a little more. The situation became more helpless the more Anita fought. She was tired of going to court and tired of having to make friends and family fly in from Iran to testify against him, tired of having to fight to be a mother. She felt humiliated; the situation was a constant reminder of her mistakes and she just wanted to forget he ever existed.
Anita looked away from Yasmin. Tears burned her eyes, but she glanced up at the roof of the kitchen to stop them from spilling, then over at the refrigerator door. There were pictures of Yasmin’s family and Anita’s chest tightened at the thought of her own family.
“None of this would have happened,” she whispered, “If he didn’t have the money.”
Yasmin took her hand. “You can’t change that.”
“If I hadn’t scared my parents into thinking I would run away with him, my dad would have never given him access to our money. He could have never fucking followed us here.”
“Anita, this is why I keep saying you need to go back. You need to take legal action there as well. End this once and for—”
“It’s not possible.” Anita shook her head. “I would never win and you know that. It’s a miracle I won here, considering all the tricks he pulled. And I would only ever put myself through that for Dina and she— she might just willingly go to him.”
For a moment, Anita considered the day they’d had, and started to entertain the possibility of Dina wanting to stay. What if she was right and he had done something that made Dina hate him? What if he finally told her directly that he didn’t even want her?
“I think things might be changing.” Yasmin smiled. The kettle whistled. Yasmin poured three cups of tea, then disappeared into the living room to take one to Dina. Anita texted her lawyer the usual response: They’ll have to go back to court to take her.
A few seconds later, Dina walked back with Yasmin. Dina pulled up a stool to the counter and sat next to Anita. Her phone buzzed, but she didn’t turn it around. “Did you tell aunt Yasmin about my party?”
“She did,” Yasmin said. “I hope you have a lot of fun.”
“I will,” Dina shrugged. “Mom kinda made it all happen the way I wanted it.”
Anita and Yasmin stared at her for a moment until Yasmin awkwardly chuckled and nudged Anita. “I’m really happy you feel that way,” she said.
Dina nodded and looked down at her lap. She reached out her arm and gave Anita a quick side hug, then walked back to the living room.
Anita was happy to stay in her room during Dina’s party. She paced the room, smiling whenever she could make out Dina’s loud laughter through the music, and frowning every time she thought of him. It was unlike him to go so many days without calling Dina or Anita. He would never leave them alone. Anita took a deep breath; she thought back to what Yasmin said right before they said goodbye: “For the first time in a while, Dina is being your daughter. You need to enjoy that.” And she was. Anita felt genuinely happy. She felt lighter and lighter every day that she would come home to a Dina who wasn’t screaming or yelling or trying to run away. She would even occasionally get a half smile. She sat down on the bed, smiling to herself. Maybe Yasmin was right.
The music changed to a rap song with too many words that Anita was uncomfortable with. Normally, she would go down there and ask them to change it, but it wasn’t worth possibly losing whatever it was Dina and she were building together. She would be more ok with a million things if it meant Dina would stay with her; safely and happily. The mental image of the two of them living together peacefully almost made her laugh out loud. What would he say to that? She could almost see it; his eyes would glaze over the way they did when he was seeing blood. He would probably try to charge at her, forcefully take Dina, yell that he would not stop until he got back at her for running away from him. But Anita would have the law on her side, and most importantly, Dina herself. They would go away again, without telling anyone this time, and he would never find them.
She pulled out her phone and called Yasmin. As it rang, she walked towards the blinking printer in the corner of her room and absentmindedly turned it off. She spotted a piece of paper in the trash can that she didn’t remember throwing out. It looked like whatever had been on it had only printed halfway, but Dina’s name at the top caught her eye. She pulled it out.
“Hey! I was just about to call you. How’s the party going?” Yasmin’s voice filled her ears.
“It’s a ticket,” Anita said.
“What?”
“He’s bought her a ticket to Toronto. He— is that where he is? Is that why we haven’t heard from him?”
Yasmin could hear Anita’s breath quicken. Before she could say anything, Anita said, “The date—”
She hung up. She clutched the paper, threw the door open and ran down the stairs. The air was stuffy with the smell of sweat, there were boys and girls left and right, dancing, sitting on the floor, making out against the kitchen counter. Anita pushed past them, asking over and over if anyone had seen Dina. Someone yelled out that she was smoking out back. Someone else said they saw her leave with someone. Anita checked the backyard, checked the bathrooms and the pantry and finally went to the living room. Something bright red caught her eye on the table. It was Dina’s phone. She grabbed it, and to her surprise, it was left unlocked. Instead of floods of group messages and flirty texts, Anita found only two chats: one with him and one with Reynolds, the lawyer. She opened the one with Reynolds first. He’d asked her what she’d be willing to do for him to get custody.
Anything, was her first text. I’ll say she beats me if I have to. She’s psycho. She’s never gonna let me live. Anita could barely read with the way her hands were shaking. She opened the conversation with him and scrolled up.
I just landed. Are we still good? His text read.
Yea, she’s so stupid, she actually thinks I want her to throw me a party or something.
He hadn’t responded. She’d said, Yeah, I told her I wanna go shopping with her and she bought it. I can’t wait to just live with you. He’d responded with a smiley face.
Thinking about the warm clothes Dina had bought and how she had insisted on throwing the party on the 24th, Anita scrolled down, past all the texts she’d sent him that had mostly gone unanswered, and arrived at the last one: Leaving now. She still doesn’t know. I’m gonna leave my phone cause I know she can track me. I’ll buy one at the airport to call you. She was truly her father’s daughter.
Anita could hear her heart pounding against her chest. She started considering her options. She could call the police, or airport security, which would be faster, tell them that she has full custody, that would stop her— she wasn’t allowed to travel without permission from both parents— she could even drive there herself, to avoid scaring her with the police, or she could just call him and tell him that he needs to tell her to go home because maybe Dina would listen to him and—
Anita drew in a breath. Her head was spinning, but her thoughts slowed. She sat down. She could hear the music and the cheers and screams, but everything felt oddly quiet and still to her. She steadied her hands. She could hear the voice of her friends echoing in her mind: she was never going to be able to live like this. Dina was the knife he held up to her throat; she was the chain he had around her neck. An odd calmness overcame her as she thought of her with him, faraway in Toronto.
She turned off Dina’s phone, then her own, then stood up on the table. A few people immediately started staring at her, but it was difficult to get everyone’s attention.
“I’m calling the fucking cops,” she screamed, her voice carried through the house. Someone lowered the music. “Unless every single one of you leave right this second.”
A few people waved her off, some grabbed their coats and walked towards the door. Some kid gave her the finger. Watching them, Anita thought about what would happen to Dina. She had always thought of the worst case scenarios: addiction, crime, or worse. She wondered if Dina would realize the truth and come back before all of that, but couldn’t bring herself to imagine it, her apologetic Dina, without running to her. And she knew she couldn’t— not anymore.
“I’m calling the cops.” Something about her voice startled them this time; they looked at her as if she was crazy, some yelling out fuck you’s, but all eventually cleared out.
Once the last couple of them left, Anita stepped off the table and spotted a vodka shot. She downed it without thinking, sinking into the couch. She had never taken a shot before. She almost started to laugh at the thought, but the breath she took was released in sobs instead.
Leilee Ghassemi is a Senior at USD majoring in English with a Creative Writing emphasis and minor in Philosophy. She is pre-law and hopes to go to law school after graduation.
This piece was originally published in the Spring 2019 Issue (4.2).
by Quinn Cain
It has been five years since the passing of his wife, yet Ron Clementson still does her laundry. He doesn’t like the way her clothes smell when they sit in the closet too long without being worn, dust creeps in and the fibers become stale. Every two weeks, he walks down four flights of stairs to the basement of his apartment building, and does two loads of laundry. The first load is usually composed of a few personal items, mostly sweatpants and socks, while the second load is far more intricate.
Sunday evening is Ron’s favorite time to do laundry. The machines are usually empty because everyone else has already finished their chores, and he is able to bring down his radio and listen to Billy Joel, his wife’s first crush. He plays it loud, but not loud enough to mask the humming of the rotating drums in the background.
The first load is fairly straightforward. Ron approaches the washing machine, opens the door, and with one sweeping motion lifts his sweatpants and socks out of the basket, and into the empty compartment. He pulls three quarters out of his right front pocket, and inserts them through the slot along the metal panel, turns the dial to Normal, and presses the Start button. As the water begins to fill the machine, he pours a half a cap of green colored detergent to the indicated line, and closes the lid. After this, there is nothing left to do but wait. Once the cycle has expired, the same process is done when transferring to the drying machine. It doesn’t really matter what setting to place the timer at, as long as the clothes come out dry. Ron finishes his first load of laundry before starting the second, folding promptly after drying to completion.
Ron takes his sweatpants and socks up four flights of stairs to his apartment, where he spends a few minutes opening drawers and closing cabinets before making his way back to the closet. With the now empty laundry basket, Ron makes his way to the back of his closet. Placed above him are four neatly staked piles of clothes, which he places in the basket and promptly steps back out into the light. A sudden rush of delight greets him as he casts his gaze across the brightly colored fibers crawling on top of each other in the basket below. He makes his way back down the four flights of stairs, with speed and purpose, eagerly waiting to begin his second load of laundry.
The first load usually tends to take around an hour and forty-five minutes, so it is usually well past nightfall as Ron begins his second rotation. In the past five years, only one time had there been another person doing laundry this late, and Ron knows for a fact that person no longer lives in the building. He enjoys the privacy, because it allows for a more intimate setting, one that is loud but silent all at the same time.
This time, Ron is more careful when placing the items into the washing machine. He reaches for his silver Panasonic RF-P50 Pocket AM/FM Radio. He presses softly on the dial and rotates it slightly upwards towards 97.3 FM, his favorite 70s, 80s classic rock station. Gripping the device tightly he uses his thumb to pivot the knob to a volume that is just loud enough to make him forget where he is. Turning back to the machine he lunges out with his left hand and firmly pulls the basket close to him. With a slight grin, he reaches in and picks up a lemon colored sundress with white, lace straps, and shakes out the wrinkles. She wore this dress on their third date.
He remembers because it was the first time he kissed her, and her lip-gloss tasted exactly like lemon. He told her she looked like she tasted, but she didn’t think it was funny so she made him wait until the fifth date before she would kiss him again, and that was just fine with Ron.
He took the dress in his right hand and placed it gracefully on the bottom of the drum.
Next, he looks over to the basket and picks out a small black T-Shirt that reads Fleetwood Mac in gold lettering, suspended over a picture of the band.
She had worn this to every concert she went to, even if it wasn’t a Fleetwood Mac concert. She didn’t care and neither did Ron because she looked good in it and she knew everyone else thought that too. Ron loved how they enjoyed listening to the same music, but now he doesn’t go to concerts because he doesn’t think it’s worth it.
He uses his hands to crumple the T-Shirt into a ball and tosses it in the machine.
He then pulls out a pair of Levi’s Genuine Blue Jeans out of the basket and tosses them over his shoulder. He pulls out three more T-Shirts and drapes them around his neck. He reaches to the bottom of the basket and grabs on to the remaining items, pulling them upward towards his face, inhaling deeply as the scent pierces through his nostrils. The wooden closet has spoiled the fresh scent of the green colored laundry detergent; the kind that his wife had always said was the best smelling kind. Craving that familiar scent, Ron disrobes the laundry from his body and places everything in to the machine. He reaches for the green detergent and drizzles the liquid throughout the inside of the drum, not worrying about filling to a certain line. He then grabs hold of the dial and turns it even further upward to Heavy Duty, signaling the rush of water flooding inside of the machine. Ron watches as the water slowly consumes the clothing within it, starting to bubble as the temperature reaches higher and higher. Ron presses Start, firmly shuts the lid, and takes a step back. He listens deeply to the pounding of the rotating drums, as the beat becomes synonymous with the music in the background. He can feel the machine working—the gears are churning, the belts are pulling, the motors are pulsing. Time is slow, but the machine is fast. Ron stands there with his eyes closed for the remainder of the cycle, hoping it just might last forever.
The timer sounds, and Ron takes a moment to readjust before opening the machine door. He can smell the green detergent filling the air with the distinct smell of clean. He rejoices in completing the first cycle, as he begins to transfer the clothing to the dryer. He turns the temperature up to its highest setting and presses Start as fast as he could. The deep humming electrifies the room and the clothes beat ceaselessly against the metal drum. Ron puts his hand on the top of the machine and can feel the warmth escaping from within. He closes his eyes and imagines holding his wife’s hand tightly, the way he used to hold it each time they sat in the doctor’s office together, wondering what they were going to tell them next. Ron would hold one of her hands between two of his, and squeeze as tightly as he could, using his thumb to stroke the back of her hand. He imagines her warm body between his arms when they used to wait for the bus to take them to the hospital in the middle of winter.
The timer sounds off and the machine crawls to a halt, as the humming, too, begins to subside. Ron leans up from the top of the dryer, and takes a long breath. The clothes inside are still loud from all the heat, as the hot air escapes from the chamber. Ron promptly folds his clothes, and makes his way back up the four flights of stairs, returns the laundry to the place it will sit for the next two weeks, and crawls in an empty bed.
This piece originally appeared in the Fall 2017 Issue. Photography by Jose Ibarra.
by Katie Collins
“How do you want to die?”
He asked it suddenly, thumbing the pages of a forgotten book in his lap.
Fairy lights draped incandescent around the saguaro. Winter in Arizona.
“I guess I would want it to be quick,” she said. “What about you?”
He leaned over, grabbed her hand, laced his fingers through hers, squeezed.
“Anything but drowning,” he exhaled. “You know I can’t swim.”
The pool water breathed. A bee circled lazily on its edge, dipping one leg in, two, a wing.
The rest happened all at once: four more legs, a second wing, thorax, head.
She could have used the skimmer. The bee only needed a platform.
It didn’t struggle long.
He took her to Caruso’s for dinner after Christmas.
The restaurant only seated forty and had Italian-import marinara sauce.
The waiter brought out the dessert cannolis and two forks, cleared their dinner plates.
She stuck one candle in each, a 2 and a 4.
She always thought 24 months sounded more serious than two years.
He laughed and blew out the candles. “Happy anniversary.”
She found him outside that summer, hung on a velvet mesquite.
The branches were sturdy, hardly splintered under his weight.
The saguaros loomed stark against amethyst mountains.
He hadn’t picked a high enough branch.
She looked up what happens to a body hung without its neck breaking.
Carotid artery closes, capillaries burst.
Oxygen isn’t cut off fully for almost ten minutes, hanging.
How long does a minute feel while you’re dying?
She hadn’t seen him in six months.
At the funeral she spoke about the time he’d thrown up on their jet ski ride in Puerto Peñasco.
His mother planted cactuses in November.
In spring they bloomed bruised magenta.
This piece originally appeared in the Spring 2018 Issue. Photography by Lauren Koumelis.
the alcalá review 