The Paper Man. Gallagher Lawson
nearly choked on his first bite. He cleared his throat and said: “I imagine it’s the same as people eating meat. Is eating meat strange to you?”
She grinned. She tipped her bowl for him to see the noodles.
“I don’t eat meat.”
Underneath the table their stomachs moaned like two whales singing in the sea.
5
HER NAME WAS MAIKO, AND SHE WORKED IN THE DISPLAY WINDOW of Willard’s, the largest department store in the city. Three days and three nights a week she was a fur model, wearing anything made of fur: rabbit berets to foxgloves and mink stoles to weasel earmuffs and muskrat-trimmed boots. Sometimes, she shouldered a sable purse. She and two other girls modeled in a display not larger than a small waiting room, and smiled and waved at those who walked by.
“There was no notice,” Maiko said. “This morning, when I climbed into the display window, ready to work like any other day, I found two new women waiting for me. They gave me the cold shoulder.”
Michael blinked uncomprehendingly.
“They were actually mannequins, Michael, and I soon learned they were to replace all the live girls who worked as fur models. My supervisor who had hired me a year ago—she was a family friend—explained that it was a way to cut costs. It came from the top, and she had no say in the matter. Fur sales were slow in the summer. She offered a position at the perfume counter, but I turned it down.”
“Why?” Michael asked. He pushed his empty bowl toward the center of the table, a habit from his life back home. Michael had been exempt from washing dishes because of his paper hands.
“At the perfume counter, you have to talk to people. And they want you to tell them what scent is best for them. It’s a lot of work. I know because I’ve talked to the girls who work there. But as a fur model, you don’t have to say anything. The customers just look at you and wish they could be you.”
She sat back and her chair creaked. She looked extremely tired now that she had eaten, but she continued.
“I stayed late, this last day. After all the other models left, I stayed to walk between the arms and legs of the mannequins and act as if we were all at a rooftop party. Normally the other girls and I walked and posed to an unspoken rhythm we all followed, always giving each other distance to take a turn at the front of the glass. The mannequins wouldn’t allow this. They stayed in one spot, commanding the center. I was like a hamster in a maze.
“Modeling had been my dream, and after failed auditions for fashion shows, I had settled for a job as a fur model. I say ‘settled,’ but I loved being the sophisticated girl in the window. Everyone recognized me, and everyone wanted to be me.” She smiled to herself.
“That’s got to stand for something,” Michael said. “Couldn’t it help you get a job at another store?”
“Willard’s is the store here in the city. Anything less and I might as well be a waitress. Or a girl on the street.”
That last day, she said, only a few shoppers who passed by paused to watch her. As she clumsily squeezed past the tall mannequin with outstretched arms, the frosted mink scarf draped over her shoulders caught on the thumb of another mannequin and was yanked off. The shock of cool air on her exposed neck made her freeze in place. The other girls had never done something like this to her. Just then an older woman walked by, glanced once at the scene, and saw Maiko, motionless as the mannequins. The woman, scowling with boredom, moved on.
“I panicked,” Maiko said, massaging her damp hair. “But I realized something. I realized that the perfect model is one whose expression never changes.”
Outside the window, she had seen the rain begin to pour. It streaked the glass, and the last of the people outdoors ran for cover. The sky darkened. The mannequins continued to stare out into nothingness. Maiko watched them watching nothing until a hot current boiled up inside her chest.
“I had to do something. So I smashed them. They all broke apart at the joints, losing their wigs and fake eyelashes. Then I sat down and….” She shook the thought out of her head.
“My supervisor paid me in cash for the remainder of the month. I gathered my things in my purse, took one of the store’s umbrellas, and then decided that I deserved a real going-away gift. I put this maribou cape inside my coat before buttoning it up. Maybe this is a good thing for me, losing the job.”
They listened to the music muffled by the rain. In the next room, the steady dripping continued.
“Do you like the music?” she asked.
“It’s very nice. Is there a city orchestra here?”
“Not yet. This music is from the north. All radio stations are up there.”
He imagined going to a concert hall for a live performance by an orchestra. The lights would illuminate the players and hide the audience in darkness.
She bit her fingernail and it produced a searing memory in Michael of doing the same to his own real nails when he was still a boy of flesh and blood. Maiko marched away.
“Would you like to see my mushroom collection?” she shouted from down the hall.
“Excuse me?” He went after her, where she stood with a closet door open. Inside, the bottom shelves had racks of planters filled with a variety of mushrooms: tall, spindly ones with miniature white caps, large ones the size of a tea saucer, and some with their dark, purplish gills curled around the edges. The smell of them was overwhelming. He stepped back, worried that he would take on the scent, absorbing it permanently into his skin, as paper was want to do.
They returned to the kitchen with a cardboard shoebox, where she unpacked several balls of yarn, a cushion, shaped like a mushroom that was stuffed with pins, and a handful of spools of thread. With her chin, she pointed for him to sit closer.
“It just so happens that I’m a very good seamstress,” she said. “You don’t know how many other fur models were rescued from shame and ruin because of me.”
“Shame and ruin?”
“They could have lost their jobs. When their outfits didn’t fit right, they would ask me to do quick alterations to them. Take out the hem here, tighten the darts there. You’d be surprised how small alterations can make something the perfect fit. Take off your shirt.”
“My…?”
“I’m going to fix your arm,” she said.
His segmented fingers loosened his tie and fiddled with the shirt buttons, but he couldn’t do it with one hand. She waited for him as he struggled. Eventually, he turned away to have a modicum of privacy.
“Don’t worry. I don’t care what your body looks like.”
“It’s not that,” he said, thinking of the dents and soggy spots he had discovered on his torso earlier.
“We should check for more damage. Here,” she finally said, and quickly undid the buttons. She opened the two panels of his shirt like a book. Michael’s reflex was to cover himself with his hands, but he only had one arm to do this. She calmly lowered his good arm and said, “You still need to dry. Look here, you’re soaking wet.” Her fingers grazed his ribs; he flinched. “Are you ticklish?”
“No,” he said quickly, then: “I don’t know.”
“Relax.” She tilted her head to study his shoulder socket. Michael, to avoid seeing his body in the light, glanced up at the water stains on the ceiling. “I want to keep the repair as close as possible to the original.”
First, she popped the flattened fingers of his detached arm back into shape. Then she began to sew.
“Does this hurt?” she asked.
“Not at all,” he said. He held his breath as the thread moved in and out of his paper skin, and saw how the arm