Fiction
I left home without underwear, the eve of my twenty-eighth birthday, allowing my tampon string to swing freely between my legs.
My sister declared a fancy dinner was the only appropriate manner to celebrate a solar return. She made the reservation weeks ago, without consultation. I’ve never been big on Italian.
She picked my birthday dress but scoffed at the sight of my thong lines. At Ristorante Giulietta, spotting visible panty lines would be like being served burnt pizza.
“Bruna, you’re twenty-eight. It’s time to get a real job.”
Her voice pierces the air like a squawking parrot, oblivious to commuters sharing the crowded streetcar. I want to shove a cracker into her mouth.
Ana moved out of the city after meeting her now-husband. Moments like this, I worry she’s been in the suburbs too long.
An older man in shiny loafers won’t take his eyes off me. My skin feels like it’s on too tight. There’s a real possibility this dress is see-through. Maybe burnt pizza isn’t the end of the world.
I fidget against the seat’s itchy felt, and my thighs chafe. They’re already raised and rashed from this unavoidable heatwave.
Our stop is called out, and I stand up before the doors have a chance to open. Moisture builds up between my toes and the faux-leather soles of my shoes. The interiors have been lined with Band-Aids for weeks now.
Summer in this city will boil you alive. I melt into the scalding asphalt, allowing my skin to tighten and sting. Blisters line the back of my sore heels, but I ignore my rotting flesh.
“Don’t squint—you’ll make wrinkles.”
Ana is thirty-three and works in public relations for a creative marketing agency. I’m not entirely sure what that even means, beyond a hefty salary that allows for a Ristorante Giulietta budget. Her husband is a marketing executive, another expensive title I don’t entirely care to grasp.
She looks at the small pimples behind my bangs when she speaks to me. My redeeming quality is the mid-century modern apartment I call home.
The only reason I can comfortably make rent as a barista is that I pay one-third. August, the lawyer I’ve been courting for two years, pays the rest. We’ve been living together for six months. If I had been uglier at twenty-eight, I’d be living with my parents.
We celebrated our parents’ thirty-fifth year of marriage a month ago and had to ask them to kiss for the camera. It might have been easier to ask them to divorce. I imagine a similar future with August. At least our children would be attractive. My sister is playing a riskier genetic lottery.
Ana takes a few steps ahead of me, leaving an eager gap of space between us as we near. The street is lined with takeout joints and deteriorating brick walls, details of resilience against a neighborhood being devoured by gentrification. The sounds of binaural beats are my cue that we are close. Embarrassment prickles at me when the sharply contrasting painted white brick is in view.
The restaurant can sense this is not the kind of place I would intentionally dine.
“Bruna!”
A spike of pain stabs through my chest when a face once known, now unfamiliar, stands to greet us. It’s not Ana’s fault for extending an invitation. The last thing I recall saying to Bianca was that ugly rots outward from her core. Filler is useless. She sits across from me now, and I am reminded by her smile that ending our friendship hurt more than a breakup.
The seating bench—a swell of dark, sumptuous leather—cradles the full half of the table. Ryan, my insufferable brother-in-law, rises to pull me into a hug.
“Happy birthday, Kiddo.”
He addresses me by the name he knows I despise. Not because he’s only two years my senior, but because it implies some sort of emotional proximity and camaraderie that isn’t there.
I suppress my screaming inner voice, indulging their cravings about my life at the table with as few words as possible. Work is going well. August is doing well. I swim around personal details, a lone fish in shark-infested waters.
“It’s been too long!” Bianca reaches for my hands to give them a squeeze.
Not long enough, I want to say.
Ristorante Giulietta has Bianca’s stamp of approval. I watch as she blends into the scene, eyes expectedly scanning around the moody restaurant. Not for a person, but for a place. We are the Instagram generation, experiencing the present as a capturable memory. One of the teak benches, beneath the ivy, above the checkered tiles, would make a perfect post.
A small procession of waiters slips out from behind the leather bench, all in black, all impossibly lean, as if the job requires cheekbones. Their identical movements give them the air of a cult, rather than servers.
Bowls the size of seashells are passed around the table, each holding a single pillow of ravioli. A smile breaks from my lips, a laugh stifled. It takes a second to realize the serving size is intentional.
“This smells delicious,” someone says. I don’t care to look at the dish. My laugh would sneak out if I did.
This four-course service is said to be leading the city’s culinary revolution, Ana says. It’s impossible to get a reservation here without knowing someone. I’m a very lucky girl.
There are no empty tables in the restaurant; the only unoccupied seat is that beside me. My eyes eventually fall to it, knowing exactly whom it was meant to seat. Ryan stares at the side of my face, eyes burning through my flesh. He bought a bigger watch for his dainty wrist when August graduated law school. A Rolex, he said.
Overly dressed in a suit, Ryan speaks like a politician rallying a crowd, killing all other conversation at the table. My attention seeks refuge from his beguiling monologue, but my gaze finds no other anchor.
“So, where is August tonight?”
The empty chair won’t go unnoticed.
“He works late on Thursdays,” I say, hoping Ryan returns to his solo performance.
“He’s working late on your birthday?”
I stab the soft pillow of ravioli and twist my fork around, dragging it through the smear of cream sauce.
“August just started at a fancy new law firm,” my sister answers, stretching out the words fancy and new in a singsong way. I feel the envy squeeze out of Bianca’s tiny pores.
Butter drips off the ravioli as I plop it into my mouth, struggling with the mouthful to avoid talking.
Ryan continues to speak about a man’s priorities—a favorite topic of his that endlessly bores me. His ongoing, unspoken masculinity contest with August feels rooted in homoerotic undertones. The decay of his brain seems to accelerate in proportion to his social media activity. He’s an alpha male, Ana says. He can’t help himself.
The others sip at his words like communion wine, bewitched by a man who mistakes noise for thought. I picture spores rising from his damp tongue, his mouth breeding humidity fit to lure in pests that worship mold.
* * *
Our seashell bowls are gathered up and replaced by a thick slab of polished wood in the table’s center. The waiter interrupts Ryan’s spore dispersal to introduce the second round of antipasti.
Gorgonzola, he says, is an Italian blue cheese with mold added during the production process to impart a creamy texture. It is known for its signature blue and green veins. The mold is safe to eat.
I’m skeptical of the hungry mites in my company. Suddenly lactose intolerant, I stick to the cantaloupe, prosciutto, and figs.
“I don’t want to stuff myself so early on,” I say, replacing Ana’s offer of cheese with the one craving she has always encouraged: diet restraint. She, too, lowers her fork until we are all left watching Ryan indulge.
A yellowed leafy plant wilts over the table next to us. I long for a glimpse at the soil, to know if it is dry or overwatered. Both are fixable conditions, though the latter could lead to root rot and attract gnats. Maybe that’s why Ryan and Bianca sit closest to the rotting plant.
“How is everything tasting?” the waiter asks.
“Fantastic,” Ana says, licking off her already-dry fork for a third time. I imagine mold spores building an empire in Ryan’s body.
Her response triggers an approving nod from the waiter, and the third course is served on dainty ceramic plates.
I search for a flicker of hunger lodged in someone’s throat and miss the dish’s introduction. Truffle mushroom of some kind.
Perhaps these overpriced famine-sized murmurs in place of meals are why the upper class stays thin.
The fungus in front of me is just another form of rot; its smell is so seductive that I can’t help closing my eyes as I inhale.
“So are you thinking about going back to school?” Ana’s question is posed more like an opportunity to mention that I dropped out of college.
“I might.”
The delectable smell isn’t strong enough to distract her attention.
“You might think about it?”
I reach for my glass of water, hoping the pregnant pulse of silence inspires Ryan’s next speech. Instead, all three look at me for a response. I take my time with a slow gulp, watching impatience spread across Ana’s face. The glass empties faster than I anticipate.
“I might think about it.”
She smiles, a disappointed mother smoothing down her child’s unruly hair. Ana will embarrass me to assert social dominance, but she’d never humiliate me. Sisters know better. My humiliation would only spill back onto her.
“Are you still working at that coffee shop?” Bianca chimes in, her face plump and tight. I want to poke her cheek with the prongs on my fork to see if she pops.
Instead, I nod and return my focus to the irresistible scent hovering over our table. Ryan hasn’t said anything: he’s too focused on expanding his greedy gut. The scrape of plates is unavoidable. Each crumb left feels strangely dystopian.
“I’m honestly starting to get full,” Bianca muses, interrupting my first bite. I study her jowls, expecting them to fill with saliva and droop down like a dog’s, like my own, but they are frozen in place.
“Right! It’s shocking how filling everything is,” Ana agrees.
When their smiles meet mine, their eyes call me fat. Not only am I Ana’s dropout sister, but I am the chubby one too. It occurs to me she might be sketching a mental blueprint of my apartment. Tiny details flicker into place, the parts of me that don’t make her flinch. Soft, round, and olive-toned, I am my terracotta couch.
“I am happy to help, ladies,” Ryan smirks, sliding over Ana’s plate before she has a chance to bring a first taste to her lips. I watch as she hesitantly eats the only bite and minimizes her reaction to a simple mmm.
Our mom would hate these expensive scraps, and even more the way her daughter has thinned into something brittle. I may not be married, but at least I am still hungry at twenty-eight.
I guard my portion and attempt to revel in the fine-dining experience. The dish is delightful, the lack of conversation disturbing. I would rather my sister take another jab at me. It feels worse to sit in silence and guess what she is thinking.
Bianca’s unsettledness materializes in the gaps of silence.
“What kind of work do you want to get into?” she asks me.
“I am considering art school,” I admit aloud, surprising myself.
Ana looks down at my plate’s saucy remnants while she speaks.
“Are you trying to give your immigrant mother a heart attack?”
My life’s blueprint, once carefully designed by my sister, tears and rips with every decision I make on my own. I don’t know the right restaurants or the right way to celebrate a birthday. I have never worked a stable nine-to-five.
“I think she would support me,” I bluff, and the orchestra of scraping plates crescendos. Our waiter interrupts the building symphony before it climaxes.
“Shall we continue with our dolci selection?”
Ryan gives an affirmative nod, signaling the staff to collect our plates.
I feel myself starving to death when the fourth and final plate is placed in front of me: a dollop of mousse as dessert.
Nobody reaches for their dessert spoons. It is the last remaining utensil untouched above our underplates. A warm, expectant flush climbs my neck.
An a cappella “Happy Birthday” begins. Bianca and Ana reach for their phones to record my reaction. I nervously smile. Perhaps everyone knows I am an unwelcome guest in a world I don’t belong to. The song is longer than I remember it. Nobody accompanies the lone singing waiter, who places a round chocolate cake in front of me.
Mindful of social media content to be shared, I offer the flickering flame a toothy smile before blowing it out.
Chocolate cake and I parted ways at my sister’s fifteenth birthday party, after I overate and ended up covered in it an hour later. I haven’t touched it since.
Ana’s face reveals nothing, but I am desperate to spot the smallest smirk. I want it to be on purpose and not another fragment of me she’s forgotten about.
She tucks a knife’s handle into my palm and guides the cake toward the blade. The servers part. Phones have lowered, Bianca’s attention absorbed into her screen.
“Baby piece for me, please,” Ana says, moving my wrist so the cake slice is halved.
“Do you want to split that?” Bianca raises her head, referencing the already baby-cut piece, and Ana lights up. She takes the knife from my hand, serves Bianca her half, and cuts Ryan an equally skinny piece.
Ana wipes the excess frosting off the blade and onto her napkin, handing it back to me clean and shiny. Bianca flips her phone face down, patiently waiting for me to cut myself a slice.
I look at the faces around the table and then the cake in front of me, its dark frosting glossy and smug. A presumptuous itch creeps up my throat. I am an animal about to perform a trick.
I press the blade down and serve myself a generous slice. I don’t bother moving the slice to my plate, instead dropping the knife to shove the first forkful into my mouth. It’s far worse than I remember.
Thick frosting clings to my teeth, and chocolate smudges my lips. I take monstrous bites and ignore the choked stillness. I slice a second piece before I’ve swallowed my last bite. I am ravenous, gluttonous, smearing chocolate on my cheek. Ana’s silence is hot and accusing. Each bite grows more desperate, like someone possessed. Ryan laughs heartily like I’m one of his favorite red-pill comedians. The cake disappears slice by slice, and the sugar glued to my cheek rots my gums.
The room narrows to Ana’s cutting stare. I look up to Bianca, a pigeon picking at her cake crumbs, unable to maintain eye contact with me since I caught her in bed with my college boyfriend. I can’t stop, eventually shoving the last bits of the cake into my mouth with no regard for the crumbs in my hair.
“Let’s hope August keeps you on the payroll,” Ryan grins widely, with his usual charm and timing.
Ana drops her fork and presses two fingers to her brows before they have a chance to furrow.
“I give a great blow job, don’t you worry,” I wink, downing the rest of his water glass before rising from the table. I’ll need cavities filled after this.
My belly comfortably sticks out as I make for the door, my exit unannounced, my smile childlike and ridiculous.
The instant fumes of car exhaust and frying oil choke me, thick and unrelenting. Queasiness hits before I even have a chance to think.
I stagger along the sidewalk until every step under the beating sun is agony. I ignore the curious eyes of passersby, my stomach twisting with each uneven step. By the nearest alleyway, convulsed with nausea, my body betrays me. I vomit violently, doubled over next to a dirty dumpster. For a moment, the dark, viscous sludge that leaves my body makes me wonder if I was possessed.
Rot, again, proves inevitable. The sun slants down and shines off the sticky puddle, turning my private stunt into a grotesque public performance marked against rocks and tire tracks.
I swipe my mouth with the back of my palm and hear Ana’s thoughts as I dig around in my purse: a gross, chubby girl, tightly sucking the tip of a gross cigarette. It’s chic and European, I counter silently, finding only a skinny, half-smoked joint. I spark it anyway. I need both distraction and company on my stroll.
My phone vibrates. I acknowledge it, half-expecting an essay from my sister.
August. Had to make sure my girl got her taste of home today.
The text is accompanied by a photo of sweet corn cake, a nostalgic treat I didn’t even know I was missing until tasting it through the screen.
When my sister married, the first vowel of her name changed from Uh-nuh to An-uh, as if part of her had stepped out of reach. My refusal to be Brianna instead of Bruna left me behind.
I step onto the streetcar sticky, stoned, and starved. In a few hours, I will be twenty-eight. Eighteen, plus the ten-year-old girl still smeared in chocolate cake.
Isabela Caxarias is a writer and filmmaker based in Toronto. Her work explores themes of grief, girlhood, family, and identity, with a particular interest in first-generation immigrant experiences. She is drawn to storytelling that is attentive to voice, memory, and self-reflection.