Nicole Hebdon has been published in The Kenyon Review, The New Haven Review, The New Ohio Review, and The Antigonish Review, among other places. She is currently working on a collection of speculative short stories, as well as a horror novel.
Morgan got the job. Celebrity personal assistant. Finally, after a decade in New York City, she had a job that wasn’t synonymous with babysitter. The Celebrity read her resume carefully, nodding at each of her titles: Daycare instructor. Nanny. Caretaker. Housekeeper.
“The Pembertons recommended you,” The Celebrity said.
“Yes,” Morgan said. They hadn’t even consulted her. She had been applying to tutoring positions for months, knowing that when Jonathon Pemberton went to kindergarten she wouldn’t be needed anymore. She had endured group interviews in crayon-scattered rooms with girls fifteen years younger than herself, had eyes rolled at her when she said she had her GED and CPR certification, and then, one day as she was folding Jonathon’s little plaid pants, Mrs. Pemberton said, “Our friends are looking for a live-in. We set up a meeting for you.” She was so grateful that she cried in the laundry room before putting Jonathon to bed.
But the Pembertons had not recommended her. They had given her away.
Morgan realized this as The Celebrity gave her away, this time right in front of her. “You’ll really be working for my wife,” he said. After five minutes as a celebrity personal assistant, she was already demoted. “She has some surgeries coming up, and she’ll need help around the house, remembering her medication, things like that.”
“I’m sorry to hear she’s not feeling well. I will do my very best to—”
“She’s fine,” The Celebrity interrupted. His words were a summon. The door squeaked open. “This is Josie,” he said. Long-legged, big-lipped, with a sheet of hair, Josie was the kind of woman that Morgan saw everywhere in the city, as hurried and common as the deer back home. Morgan had to force herself to really see her, instead of flattening her into the décor. The Celebrity didn’t allow them introductions. Instead, he talked about the comeback movie he would be away to film.
When he was finished, Morgan felt she should ask a question to show she was thinking ahead and that she was invested. “What kind of surgery are you having?” she asked, still looking at The Celebrity.
“I’m turning into a doll,” Josie answered.
Morgan turned to her. Josie explained what turning into a doll consisted of, but Morgan didn’t hear a thing; all she could do was look at Josie’s shiny teeth. Morgan tried to see the rest of the woman, but Josie’s form seemed to expand and shrink, like sunlight bouncing around a room, only her teeth staying solid and still.
“They are all very little surgeries,” Josie said to Morgan, after showing her the blueprints for what she would become. It was a hand-me-down phrase. The doctor who created the plan had said it to her husband, and her husband had said it to paparazzi, and now she was saying it to Morgan. “I’ve already had my palm-lines altered and my knees lifted.”
She waited for Morgan to react, but Morgan stayed hunched over, eyes flitting.
“I know.” Josie looked around, too. “So much white, right? Rich people love white. Did you see the chandelier in the foyer?”
Morgan shook her head. “Do you want me to go look at it?”
“It looks like it’s covered in pigeon shit,” Josie said.
Josie waited again.
Morgan cleared her throat, but nothing came out.
“So our first surgery together will be dimple deepening,” Josie said, jabbing at her cheeks. “That’s tomorrow. And then I’m getting my ears rounded on Thursday.”
“The appointments are that close together?” Morgan asked.
“Well, they’re all very little surgeries,” Josie answered, and for the first time their eyes met. “They won’t take long to heal.”
Morgan nodded. Her eyes fell to the ground.
“Who has white carpet?” Josie snickered. “So impractical, right?”
Morgan straightened her posture and relaxed into her chair. “The Pembertons wore a lot of white denim,” she offered.
“That’s what I’m talking about.” Josie smiled. “Rich people love white.”
. . .
Obsession ran in Morgan’s family. It boiled in her blood. She knew Josie’s blueprint should have shocked her, but she had seen her family members ravaged by their own fixations too many times to be phased. She respected Josie, really, and how open she was with her obsession, how she wore it, how she let it shape her body. Rich people, she thought in Josie’s voice. Rich people can obsess gracefully.
When Morgan was eight, she went to a barbeque at the house of a woman she thought to be her aunt. The woman smelled like dried flowers, like the country gift shop on Main Street that sold sweet wormwood and fancy teas. Morgan expected the woman’s home to look like this gift shop. Instead, it was filled with dolls. The top of the fridge, the counters, the china cabinets were all lined with chubby plastic babies. “Why do you have so many dolls?” Morgan asked.
“I collect them,” the woman explained. Morgan understood this because her mother collected plates that had pictures of dead celebrities on them. But plates were glass and fragile. They were grown-up things, so it made sense that her grown-up mother collected them. She did not understand why her equally grown-up aunt would want to collect something for children.
“Why?” Morgan asked.
“When I was little, my family was very poor,” the woman explained as she reached for a doll sitting on a bookshelf. Dust floated about the doll and turned a hot white in the light, like tiny orbiting suns. “And I didn’t have a doll, but my neighbor did, and she would let me hold it.” The woman handed the doll to Morgan, who knew to use both arms, so that the bends of her elbows became a cradle. “But only for ten seconds,” the woman went on. Morgan looked down at the doll. She had black freckles across her face, and her hair was whiter than an old woman’s. Morgan thought, this is what a ghost child would look like, and she had the urge to put her fingers beneath the tiny white dress to feel the cold of the porcelain. “She would count down from ten. Then she would snatch it away.” And in demonstration, the woman plucked the doll from Morgan’s arms.
Morgan learned two things that day. The first was how quickly she could fall in love. The second was knowing that someday she, too, would have something she could not get enough of. Morgan took these realizations and put them in a place where she could know them, but never have to talk about them. Eleven years later, in a hospital in Long Island, she opened that part of herself again to store two more pieces of information. The first was that the cheapest coffins are made of Styrofoam. The second was that when a baby is stillborn, the mother is allowed to hold him, and dress him, and the nurses will offer to take photos of this, as if he is a normal baby, as if the purple will drain from his face and one day the mother will be able to point to the photo and say, “Look how small you used to be.” The mother is given time with him, probably more than an hour, but there is so much to do, so many memories to create, that an hour feels like seconds counted down.
. . .
The Celebrity left four days after Morgan moved in. He visited the apartment occasionally, and he took Josie away to a spa or the Hamptons every other weekend, but for the most part, it was just Morgan and Josie. It wasn’t until after he flew to Europe to film his doing-his-own-stunts-so-can’t-be-old-and-washed-up-movie that Josie acknowledged Morgan again. Josie wanted to talk, but only for a few hours a day. Morgan brought her painkillers or fresh band-aids, and then Josie invited her to sit down on the couch as she talked over bad TV. “I feel like I’m sitting on a marshmallow. Did you ever live in snow country? The snow, it sucks up the light, so it glows at night. It’s so bright in here all the time that I can’t see anything. I stub my toes on the sneaky little end tables. You do, too. I can hear it. Rich people. They love white. And chapped lips. Why are your lips so dry, Cheryl? Oh, because I was sailing, and I forgot Chapstick like a dumbass.”
After her bursts of energy, Josie would shuffle away to be alone for the rest of the day. After Josie was gone, Morgan had nothing to do. She had never been one to snoop, but began to out of necessity. She glided through the apartment, lifting lids and opening drawers, finding always emptiness. She went into The Celebrity’s study only once. He had a poster of himself hanging behind the desk. The photo had been taken when he was really famous, back when he played in teeny bopper movies about proms and keg parties, when he had been a teenager himself. Morgan thought she saw a real teenage zit on his cheek, and she laid her body across the desk to get a better look.
She was embarrassed for him and let her eyes drop. She jumped up. On the floor, beneath his desk, was Josie lying still.
“I was looking for a book,” Morgan explained and walked toward The Celebrity’s anemic bookshelf. She huddled there, waiting for Josie to lunge at her, to scream, to accuse her of stealing, but Josie stayed on the floor. “Are you okay?” Morgan asked. “Are you okay? Are you okay?” Each time, her question louder.
“I’m fine.” Josie smiled, but when she walked away, her movements were stiff. She looked like a mechanical toy right before its battery died.
. . .
Morgan started to spend large portions of her day on her phone. There she could snoop and not worry about tripping on anyone. There was a cult of women like Josie: women trying to turn into Barbies. Morgan found them online. They wore outfits made from pink plastic. They injected fat into their toes, so it hurt less when they walked on them all day, their heels pristine, hovering. But Josie wasn’t online. This puzzled Morgan. Why did she put in all the effort if she didn’t want to show it off?
The Celebrity was online. Always. She started checking his Instagram and Twitter throughout the day, but was careful to never like a post, or even follow him. She did not want to be a fan. Online they lead different lives. The Celebrity was sarcastic and topical, and Josie was a smiley spoiled wife who always had her husband’s arm around her. He posted photos of them together, and Morgan did the math to figure out when the photo had been taken, and if she had been in the room with them. She often was, though she never remembered them posing. This infuriated her. She was living in their house with Josie every day, and they lead a separate life from her. They were impenetrable.
Then she saw the baby leg. Disproportionately fat and blushed like a flapper’s knee. A doll. Morgan felt as if she could yank on it and pull it out from the phone. She felt the secret place inside her exhale and quiver in fear of its new life. She flicked through the photos. A closed fist in a Gucci purse. A bald head reflected in a crystal vase. A bulge beneath a pile of scarves. There was a baby doll in every picture of Josie. Morgan reached out, and she ripped something. She was in. Or something was coming out. Either way, for the first time in years, she wanted something, and that want was searing. Now she knew what she had been looking for.
. . .
Morgan grew bolder. She wandered the house freely, stepping over Josie when she came across her. She stopped asking Josie if she was okay. Josie stopped springing up to exclaim she was fine.
Morgan looked for the baby. She stopped thinking of it as a baby doll, or tried to at least. The word haunted her. Sometimes it felt as if she and Josie spoke a language that consisted of only that word. Doll. Doll. Doll. Doll. Doll. She heard it in her sleep. Doll. Doll. Doll.
After their sixth surgery together, Morgan found the baby. Or rather, she saw the baby. She was in the same room as it for a good ten minutes, dabbing at Josie’s splitting, spitting skin, (her face was rejecting cheek implants) before her eyes narrowed on it. It was on Josie’s bed. Its toes and ankles sticking out from under a pillow. It looked more realistic than it had in the photos. Less bulbous. Less shiny.
“Can I hold that?” Morgan asked.
Josie winced. Her eyes disappeared beneath the swollen pockets of her face. “No,” she gurgled.
“Okay, I’ll just bring it to you then,” Morgan said. She reached over Josie to grab the baby, but Josie latched onto Morgan.
“No,” Josie hissed, or spit. Or maybe she couldn’t help it, the way her voice sounded, with her face so swollen. “No,” Josie said again.
Morgan thought she heard splintering. Morgan looked down at Josie’s hands, expecting her plastic nails to break off, leaving a trail of spikes in her skin.
“I’m fine,” Josie said, and released. Morgan held her arm out for both to see. No spikes, just four red crescents where Josie had been inside her. Four blood moons.
“Okay,” Morgan said. “I’ll go.”
In the hallway, Morgan kept her arm up straight, so that she didn’t dribble onto the carpet. She watched her crescents fill and turn to new moons. The heat started there and traveled up her body until she was so angry that she was sweating. She put her arms to her side and walked back toward Josie’s room.
That was assault. She could sue!
She was going to stand up for herself for once. She raised her arm to thud against Josie’s door, and her blood streamed down, thick like a ribbon, but then she heard the crying. She stayed like that, her arm up, and listened. No, no, it wasn’t Josie. It was a baby. A real baby. The cry was fragmented, broken up by hiccups and gasps. It was too ugly of a cry to ever be recorded by a toy company. It was the cry of someone desperately trying to get enough air. It was the cry of something coming to life.
. . .
Josie’s mouth bled constantly after her canine lengthening. She cried and out fell red, and something else, something colorless and iridescent, that bounced in her palm. Josie kept crying, even after her eyes had teared up, and the glob kept growing in her hand.
Morgan didn’t know what to do. She asked Josie, “Do you want me to call The Celebrity?” and Josie wailed in response. She asked, “Do you want me to call an ambulance?” and Josie stomped her feet. She asked,“Are you okay?” and Josie didn’t answer. She still sat with Morgan on the couch, fake doctors and ex-strippers swearing on the TV in front of them, but she said nothing.
Three days after the lengthening, Morgan went to the couch, but Josie wasn’t there. She turned on the TV. Josie didn’t come. She flicked through the channels. A comedian had hung himself. A supermodel had drunk herself to death. The mayor’s wife had walked into the ocean and did not come up. There were rich people dying on every channel. Morgan sighed and stood up.
“Josie?” she called through the house. “Josie, are you okay?”
The Celebrity’s dozens of glass cabinets were all fogged up. It looked like Josie had caught mist and locked it away. The door of the master bedroom was wide open, flooding the halls with humidity.
“Josie?” Morgan asked firmly, from the other side of the hall. “What’s going on in there?”
She heard grunting. The closer she got to the room, the more delicate the sound became.
Josie was facing away from her, sitting on the toilet seat, piled in towels. There was one draped across her legs, one wrapped across her torso, one around her hair, one shawled her shoulders. She looked like a child in a homemade mummy costume.
“Josie?” Morgan forced herself to sound gentle. “Do you need help?”
Josie swiveled so she was facing Morgan. One of the towels drooped, revealing the baby pressed up against her chest. Against all the white, with the steam blurring Morgan’s sight, the baby’s skin looked a newborn-red.
Morgan thought she asked Josie what she was doing. Morgan thought she offered to help. Morgan thought she threatened to call The Celebrity, but her heart quieted after a moment and she heard herself clearly. “Doll Doll Doll. Doll Doll DollDoll Doll? Doll Doll! Doll Doll Doll.”
In response, Josie bent her neck and spit a wad of silicone and saliva in the baby’s mouth.
. . .
By the morning, Morgan had decided to leave. She hummed as she packed, so that she couldn’t hear any wet feeding sounds. She knew leaving was the rational thing to do and had every intention to do it, but as she was rolling her suitcase down the hall, Josie called out to her. “Morgan?” The echo made her sound especially small and pitiful. Morgan decided she would go to her, one last time. That was the kind thing to do.
Josie was in her room. Sitting on her bed. The room was in disarray, which is to say, it was spotless, but some pink sheets were peeking out from beneath the white comforter, and a rainbow of pill bottles had been left on the vanity instead of hidden in the snowy owl cookie jar. Josie wasn’t crying. “I can’t move my arms,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Morgan asked. She stayed beneath the doorframe. She didn’t want to bring her brown suitcase into Josie’s view. It would look like a sack of dirt to Josie.
“They’re stuck like this,” Josie said. She stood up and walked in a clumsy circle, so that Morgan could see from all angles. To Morgan, it looked like Josie was holding her arms hinged at a ninety-degree angle: the classic Barbie arms.
Morgan took Josie’s right hand and tugged on it. It felt heavy and hard, like a permanent thing cemented in the ground. “Should I call someone?” Morgan asked.
“I need something from the closet.” Josie ignored the question. “And I can’t reach with these arms. You can go, but please. I can’t reach. The box. It’s a big box.”
Morgan knew the box. She had never gotten a good look at it during her snooping, but her hands had fallen on it plenty of times when she was caressing the items in Josie’s closet (all too small for her to try on, so she had to settle for rubbing the items down her wrists). “Yeah, sure,” Morgan said. She tried to sound casual, but she felt like she was getting away with something, like she was unwrapping some secret item from her mother’s hope chest. She pushed her suitcase out into the hall and went to the closet.
The colors inside assaulted her. Neons. Cheetah. Pink camo. She grabbed the corner of the package and pulled it out. Real Alive Again, she read. Real Alive Again, in script down the box. Real Alive Again Corporation, in the ship-to address. She heard Josie inhale and waited for the exhale, but it never came. Morgan stood there, with the neons and the cheetah and pink camo swaying around her, and the words Real Alive Again shouting at her. She reached into the box and pulled out the baby.
It didn’t feel plastic. It felt warm in her arms. Josie was next to her. Her fingers jabbing into Morgan’s back. Morgan turned. Josie was a cradle. She put the baby in Josie’s arms, and between them, the baby kicked and cooed.
Morgan cried out, but Josie didn’t seem surprised at all.
“I was never the kind of girl who played with dolls,” Josie said, looking down at the baby. “Dolls were like mannequins or swimsuit models to me. They were the promises of womanhood. I would pick up a Barbie, place my thumb over its whole face, and imagine my face in its place. Then I would put my finger on my own chin and wish that my cleft would disappear, and that my eyes would turn green, and that my hair would straighten.”
Josie bounced on her heels, and the baby’s mouth turned up. Morgan gasped.
“But that never happened,” Josie went on.
Morgan flicked her eyes in Josie’s direction. Josie’s chin was smooth, her eyes were emerald, and her hair was the straightest she had ever seen. But she didn’t want to waste her time on Josie. She reached out and put her fingers on the doll’s knee. “What does it run on? Is it electric?”
“Put your hand on his chest,” Josie instructed.
Morgan felt the thump of some kind of heart.
“Smell him,” Josie said.
Morgan put her nose on his scalp. He was sweetly unclean. But still, even the most specific smells could be simulated.
Josie smelled him, too. She sighed into his naked chest. “You can hold him,” she whispered.
Morgan took him in her arms, and she knew right away that he was real. Or real-ish. He felt heavy and small all at once. Whole and breakable. Distant and immediate. “Are they all like this?” Morgan asked. “Is that what they are?”
“No, no,” Josie said, already prying her limbs between Morgan’s. “He’s special.”
Morgan spun away from Josie. “Not yet,” she said. “I’m not done.”
Josie could not reach out to take him back.
. . .
When Josie lost her leg mobility, the baby learned to reach. He pinched the air with his fingers, beckoning for Josie from across the room, where Morgan hoarded him in the corner. When Josie’s neck grew stiff, the baby’s skin turned peach, and his shiny plastic hair softened to a blonde moss. When Josie’s spray-tanned fingers fused together into a mass that resembled a block of cheese, the baby’s chest began to rise and fall.
Morgan ordered Josie a wheelchair online, and pushed Josie to her appointments, but after nearly fifty surgeries, doctor after doctor refused to see her. Doctor after doctor talked about the Hippocratic oath. So instead, Josie found doctors online. Each time they came, the appointment was shorter and more expensive than the last. Each time they came, Morgan hid the baby away from the all-science men, and their tests, and their knives. Afterwards, the baby reached for Josie’s implants, and if she wasn’t in too much pain, she’d let him suck out the fillers. He’d kick with new energy, and Josie would stiffen. She fizzled like a pop falling flat.
Morgan Googled Real Alive Again babies. Hand-painted, small batch dolls made realistic and individual through the use of weights and rooted hair, the internet told her. There was nothing about breathing, or blinking, or eating. Their realism makes them ideal movie props, as well as objects of comfort to those who have lost a loved one.
When Josie could speak, she asked for the baby. And sometimes, Morgan put him in her lap, but she always kept one of her hands around his ankle, to make sure he stayed warm and real. “How is this happening?” Morgan asked. “Did you wish on a falling star?”
The baby pawed at Josie’s wrists, wanting to be closer to her, wanting to latch on to her, wanting to melt into her. “I didn’t do anything,” Josie answered. “I just bought him.”
“Money,” Morgan said. She had seen the prices while Googling. She knew she would never be able to afford her own, even a non-magical model.
Josie’s skin became too hard for needles to penetrate, and the doctors stopped coming.
The baby grew fat and teethy. He crawled on the floor and laughed so loudly that Josie shook out of her petrification, for a moment. Each time, he giggled. Even without the help of the doctors, Josie continued to harden, and the baby continued to grow.
Morgan lost track of time. She bought exotic milks (llama, rabbit, almond), but the baby refused to drink. She melted dolls down in a soup pot and ground porcelain figurines to a powder, but he wouldn’t take anything from her. He chewed on Morgan’s fingers though, and that was enough for her. She plucked credit cards from Josie’s purse and bought the baby tiny cashmere sweaters, a pacifier studded with crystals, stuffed animals made from the leather of dead zoo animals. She bought everything she knew she never would have been able to give her baby.
Josie stayed in her room. Morgan was not neglectful. She combed Josie’s hair and changed her clothes, and reposed her. She slid Josie’s eyelids down, so that she couldn’t know when her shoe collection was pillaged. She even brought the baby to Josie once a day, so Josie knew that he was safe.
Morgan wanted to be happy. She wanted the baby to be hers. She fantasized about her own baby. She imagined burying him in a real wooden coffin, with blue satin pillows. She imagined a real stone monument in place of the little plaque that had been provided. She imagined her baby’s soul lying dormant in the doll, waiting for her to show up on Josie’s door, and then perking up at the sound of her voice that he knew so well, because could a baby ever forget a mother’s voice?
Morgan wanted to be happy. Morgan wanted to love the baby as a mother would, but she knew she didn’t because that love could never break the surface of her jealousy.
She needed to know for sure.
“Was he a movie prop?” Morgan asked Josie. What she meant was, Did you lose someone, too? Is this miracle for me or you?
“Hubby bought him for me,” Josie answered. Her voice, when she had one, was higher-pitched than before. It reminded Morgan of squeaky toys.
“Why?” Morgan held the baby’s head, but he did not want to stay put. He searched Morgan with an open mouth. Why are you more deserving of this miracle than I am?
“I only wanted a few surgeries, three actually, and that was it. I wanted to get them all in the same summer and be done with it. And I did, but there were complications with the last one. I bled a little too much, and then I miscarried.” Josie’s eyes moved from the baby to Morgan’s face. “I didn’t even know I was pregnant. No one did. Not even the doctors.”
“They would have given you a pregnancy test beforehand.” You weren’t careful enough. You killed him with your neglect.
“They did,” Josie said. “They aren’t always accurate. Anyway, he got me the doll, and I kept it in the closet. I wanted nothing to do with it. I got a nose job a few months later, to cheer myself up, and I thought I heard knocking from the closet that night. They gave me prescription grade painkillers, so I just assumed I was high. I stopped thinking about it until I got my eyebrows lifted, and the knocking was back. I went to the closet, and there he was, kicking. It didn’t take long to figure it out after that.”
Morgan rubbed the baby’s back. “To figure what out?” she asked.
“He’s my baby,” Josie said. “And for every piece of plastic or synthetic fat I put in my body or glue to me, that somehow turns a little piece of him real. I can save him. I can bring him back to life. I did save him. He’s alive.”
“He doesn’t drink or sleep,” Morgan said, but what she meant to say was, He’s not totally alive.
“Neither do I.”
Morgan sighed. The baby reached for Josie. He was choosing Josie. Morgan’s neck grew warm, and she knew she was going to cry. She was stupid. She knew only the wealthy were chosen. She had always known that. Why had she even allowed herself to fantasize?
Morgan swung the baby away before he could touch his mother. “You didn’t deserve that,” Morgan said. You don’t deserve him.
“You sweet thing,” Josie said back. “That’s nice of you to say.”
Josie’s phone jingled from where it was on the vanity, and Morgan read The Celebrity’s throbbing name. She held the phone to Josie’s ear with one hand and pressed the baby to her chest with the other. As The Celebrity described his Return-To-New-York press tour, Morgan made a plan of her own. She would take the baby. Josie could buy another miracle, and then a dozen more. Josie could have another pregnancy, or pay someone to have one for her. Josie did not need the baby.
. . .
Having a sedentary employer made it easy to steal from them. Morgan dumped out the brown clothing in her brown bag and put the baby’s best toys in it. Not that he ever played with Morgan, but she figured he would when he had no other choice. She kept the bag by the front door, so that when The Celebrity called, she could grab it and flee. Morgan was not cruel. She would wait for The Celebrity to return, so that Josie would not be alone.
She bought a calendar and marked the date of The Celebrity’s return in red. She forced herself to notice time. She counted down the days on the baby’s toes.
Four mornings before Morgan had planned to leave, she found Josie in the kitchen, her clunky hands around a coffee cup. “Hello,” Morgan said hesitantly.
“He carried me in here,” Josie explained. “He wanted to surprise me.”
“Oh.” Morgan dragged her hands across the wall, so that she was steady when she walked. A foot from Josie, she asked, “Does he know about the baby?”
Josie glanced at her cup, and Morgan lifted it to her own lips.
“Not yet,” Josie answered.
“Did he notice…?” Morgan gestured toward Josie’s arms and legs.
“Men don’t notice things like that.”
Morgan set the cup down. “I’ll get your morning medication.”
Josie’s room smelled like latex. This made Morgan’s heart drop. Maybe that was the baby’s smell. Maybe Josie moving out of the bedroom had already taken a toll on him, and his soft skin was already turning to film. She pulled out the box and scooped him up. He was still warm. His mouth was still wet and gaping.
Morgan slipped on Josie’s least glamorous pair of shoes and rushed for the front door.
“What are you doing?” Josie asked when Morgan entered the kitchen. Morgan didn’t answer. “What are you doing?” Josie repeated as Morgan passed the breakfast nook. Morgan didn’t answer. “What are you doing?” Josie screamed as Morgan moved toward her suitcase.
“I’m sorry,” Morgan said.
Josie stood up. Morgan heard crackling. She thought she saw parts of Josie splinter off and then disappear in the light. “What are you doing?” Josie screamed and threw her coffee cup. Porcelain and coffee rained down. The baby cried out, and Morgan thought about how much it resembled her own cry.
“You didn’t lose a baby,” Morgan screamed back. “You lost a pregnancy. It’s not the same thing.”
Josie didn’t say anything. She clenched her jaw and her fists so tightly that her whole body trembled.
“Hey,” The Celebrity called from the hallway. “What’s going on in there?”
Josie spun around to face her husband. “She’s stealing from us.”
The Celebrity came into the kitchen with his face scrunched in anger. Morgan had seen that face before, in scenes where his good guy character yelled at the school bully or the abusive boyfriend or the neglectful father. Morgan jerked backwards in fear, hitting her elbows against the wall.
“She’s stealing the Real Alive Again,” Josie went on.
The Celebrity looked from Josie to Morgan and then back to Josie.
“The doll,” Josie screamed and thrust her arms toward Morgan. “She’s stealing the doll.”
The Celebrity swiped the baby from Morgan without taking a step closer to her. “This?” he asked, holding the baby up by its two little wrists.
“Yes,” Josie dragged out the word in horror.
“Stop,” Morgan said quietly, watching the baby’s legs swing in front of her. She let her eyes travel up its body. The baby’s limbs were abstractly chubby and a crude fuchsia smile was painted on its face.
“You guys are fighting over this thing?” The Celebrity asked, jerking the baby above their heads, so it looked like he was dancing.
“Put him down,” Josie demanded. When that didn’t work, she fell to her knees. “Put him down, please.”
Morgan didn’t say anything. She looked at the doll, grotesquely cute, and then at Josie, a swollen human being with visible pain radiating from her body. She wondered how she had ever seen them as anything else.
“You guys are fighting over the dolly?” The Celebrity went on. “You can’t share it?” He bent down so that the baby was closer to Josie, and she leapt up to grab it, but too late. He had pulled away again. Her body smacked down on the floor. “You guys should consider joint custody. It will be better for him.”
“No,” Josie said softly.
Morgan couldn’t move. She wanted to go to Josie. She wanted to pull her up. For the first time since she had started the job, Morgan wanted to help Josie.
“You don’t want joint custody. Okay, okay.” The Celebrity cradled the doll in his arms. “I know. We’ll just cut it in half, and you can take the feet,” he said pointing at Morgan, “and you can take the head.”
“She’s going to fall apart,” Morgan said to The Celebrity.
“Oh, the dolly is a she?” The Celebrity asked mockingly.
“No.” Morgan stepped forward and put her hand on the doll, just to make sure. It was neither warm nor cold. “If you cut that thing in half, your wife is going to fall apart.” The Celebrity looked down at his wife, and Morgan watched him take in her body, the snot rolling down her face, the peeling skin, her filler-fat neck. He put the doll on the chair and reached for Josie, but he didn’t touch her. He let his hands hover inches from her face.
“My baby,” The Celebrity said.
“My baby,” Josie said.
“Baby baby baby baby baby baby baby.”
“Baby. Baby baby?”
They were speaking in a language Morgan didn’t know. They were in their own little world. Morgan took one last look at the doll and then opened the door to the elevator. She closed her eyes and felt herself fall fourteen stories. The lobby gleamed in gold and yellow marble. Everything suddenly looked unreal to her. The doorman was fuzzy. The walls quivered. It was like the whole building and everything in it was a headache she could blink away. Morgan knew that she would never live in a place so regal, or smell so nice, or eat so well again, but when the doorman opened the door to the gray outside, she stepped outside. It was more color than she had seen in months, and her eyes hurt as they adjusted to it.
She focused on the line outside a coffee cart. A girl mouthed the words she was texting on her phone. A teenage couple whispered into each other’s mouths. A mother loudly chastised her son for pulling on her earring. People ran and skipped and danced to car radios. Someone was swearing. Someone was asking for change. And she understood it all.
She jerked forward as someone slammed into her shoulder. “Keep moving,” he shouted at her as he walked by. Morgan rubbed her shoulder and took a step into the current. “You’ve got to keep moving,” she heard the man scream ahead of her, to some other unseen person stunned by it all.
