My Cardboard Balcony

by Belinda Roddie   This is the sort of thing that only happens to incredibly profound people. I guess that's why it happened to Julia instead of me. It happened on a bizarrely warm November night, the reds and oranges of the trees outside my apartment window glazed with humidity. I was in the tiny kitchen when they called Julia, who was watching a TV crime show that she had previously recorded. The kind of show that had two female leads, and every viewer wanted to see them become lesbian lovers. I focused less on the quirky doctor's dialogue and more on the hardened mashed potato residue left in the pot. "I told you to let the thing soak," I had scolded Julia, but she had tossed her head back defiantly, the brown curls on her forehead bouncing. "Sor- ry ." And it was always that weird emphasis on the second syllable instead of the first. Sor- ry. But I never questioned it. The phone went off when my arms were elbow-deep in soap water, so I asked

He braided her hair for her because her fingers were stumpy and clumsy and she kept them heavily bandaged. His friends would tease him about, saying he was too good at it and that obviously meant he was gay. But the little boy liked working with hair just as much as he liked working with the little girl's hair. "You'll look so pretty," he told her, his voice shaking. "Like a princess." "Like a princess," she repeated, and the bandages became her jewels.