Tiffany

Tiffany was a perfect Tiffany, she dyed her blond hair blonder and wore it wet, crimped or curled and up. She smoked Salems or Winstons and her mother told her she had stunted her growth. True enough at sixteen Tiffany had small bird bones and tiny features but her mom had smoked since she could buy looseys from the drug store and didn't have much room to talk. She was just over five feet tall and had milky skin, looking slightly malnourished but she rarely ate much. She would leave the table early and sit on the wooden porch swing smoking menthols, texting her friends about their boyfriends, texting Dom.

Dom always wanted to go down by the lock, back through the tunnels of buzzing bushes and low hanging leaves whose saw teeth caught her hair, like a spider teasing out a single strand of silk. They used to go for a walk around the park, or to buy a Mexican coke at the little bodega and drink it out on the bridge, but once she agreed to go down by the canal that was the only place he brought up. He was a senior and he had a car, both pluses. Her friend dated his friend and had set them up, and Tiffany liked piling in the car and going to the mall or the ball field where they would smoke a joint if no games were going on. She could talk to the other girls while the guys threw the ball around in big cottony arcs.

The broken asphalt turned off of the main road and ran along the still water of the canal, alternate smells of mildew or laundry soap. The leaves sat on the surface like a carpet, sometimes so thick it looked like quicksand from a fairytale, if she tried to step on it and sink to her waist Dom would have to save her with his heavy arms. Over the concrete bridge where the water break rushed below and then down the steep and narrow steps, slick with flower petals like the treacherous footfalls of a princess bride. Thick and wild greenery lined either side of the long stone jetty, Tiffany wasn't sure why it was there except to walk on, there was no water here to hold back, but verdant waves lapped your feet. Dom walked ahead and pulled Tiffany by her doll hand, passing over empty cups and condoms, graffiti faces and names spray painted on crosses. At the end she glimpsed the gray and rushing river through the hole in the trees that opened onto a little gravel beach.

They sat on a cold blanket and he started nuzzling her neck. She shrugged him off but he persisted. "I don't feel like it right now."

Dom puffed his chest and threw his arms up in the air, "Jesus Christ, what now?"

"I just don't feel like it, it's gross here." She smacked mosquitoes away from her white legs, they were drawn to the apple vinegar smell of her hairspray.

"You always have an excuse, just relax." He started kissing her again.

Tiffany thought she heard someone on the path behind them put Dom pulled her face back in. She kissed him with her eyes open, looking out onto the water. An emerald headed mallard and his mate were bobbing in a whirlpool like bars of soap. They cleaned themselves with their flat bills, ruffling their feathers then meticulously smoothing them down. His marble eye caught sight of Tiffany and Dom, and as he spun on the water he turned his head to keep the couple in his field of vision. Tiffany watched him, his jade head catching the setting sun The duck quacked once to his companion and she looked too. Dom put his hand under her bra strap, the two birds revolved in the backwater not taking their eyes off the scene.

"Dom, Dom, stop." She tapped his shoulder until he pulled his head away, she knew she could always speak to him in the language of mixed marshal arts.

"What is it?" he said, now completely irritated and doubting where the night would end up.

"Those ducks are watching us."