DOLL LEE

She sat at the square table—white cloth slung over—stiff as a corpse, with Suzanne to her left and Jack directly across from her. Posture was important to Lee, especially in situations that did not merit her attention. She liked the thought of observing herself perched upright from a third, separate eye. Lee fixed her eyes on her chosen subject, a fresco of swirling moss and black serpent-like creatures on the wall behind Jack. As she stared, one of the watery, rounded strokes transformed itself into an eerie figure with a seahorse tail, so she averted her gaze from the nitty-gritty. Over the past few years, Lee had grown accustomed to four-course dinners of shiny plates and rows of cutlery and dish names most struggled to pronounce (it only struck her recently how many alternative names there were for animal parts—oh, the futility!).

At first, Lee relished the sensation of belonging to this three-person family. Suzanne and Jack were old friends of her parents. Since she began attending the military school just a town over from the city, they had repeatedly insisted on hosting her; what had started as an occasional meal escalated into frequent weekend stays, during which Lee marveled at Suzanne and Jack’s independence from one another, unlike her mother and father who acted as an inseparable unit. Suzanne and Jack were not tied down by inflexible expectations such as nightly dinners together, and while Jack was away on business trips, Suzanne’s self-sufficiency remained undisrupted. Yet romance still existed between the two, and they were bound by real interests, even if they were as simple as their shared Russian lessons or their joint collection of funny tchotchkes. Perhaps due to their extended childlessness, perhaps as a function of higher-order ersatz parenting, this independence was extended to Lee, who sunk comfortably into their doting, but never imposing, attention. They invited her to share her views on the demolition of Robert E. Lee’s statue or the rise of mental illness among her generation, and, in the process, taught her the value of conversation for pure recreation.

Most Sundays, Suzanne would set a breakfast tray that held a mug of coffee, a cinnamon pastry, and a glass vase holding a singular white tulip on Lee’s bedside table in the morning. The first time Suzanne knocked on the guest bedroom door, Lee jolted upright, still uncertain of where she was, what this deep blue room she was swimming in was. Even through her morning haze, she could make out Suzanne’s strawberry blond hair shining softly under the sun rays, the tendrils that framed her spectral white face. Her presence was so light, so non-threatening that Lee felt her body sink back into the bed without an ounce of guilt. This bore no resemblance to her routines at school, where she was abruptly woken up for room inspection, or at home, where she had to partake in her share of the household’s chores, first trimming the lawn and then scrubbing the previous night’s dishes. Here, she was free from the risk of scolding.

Often on a sly mission of playing cupid, Suzanne invited men over to her hosted dinners whom she hoped Lee would find an interest in. To “win them over,” as Suzanne would say, she would help Lee curate a look for the evening. One night, Suzanne lent Lee a vintage Alaïa pleated skirt, and Lee eagerly brought it to her room to try on. Once dressed, she did a petite twirl for Suzanne, who was pleased to see Lee coming out of her shell, leaning down to give the beaming young woman a kiss on the cheek: “Oh, Lee! You look lovelier in it than I ever did!”

Raised to be punctual, Lee would sometimes find herself waiting for tardy Suzanne. With the door to her bedroom ajar, she would watch with fascination as Suzanne reached her final stage of getting ready: picking a brooch from her collection. She habitually donned a gold leaf brooch on her left breast that Lee could not help but stare at each time, and each time, she swore the jewels got larger and heavier in size. She wondered how such a tender part of the body could support such weight.

During her last stay, Suzanne had taken Lee out to shop. As Lee stood inside the dressing room, Suzanne handed her a gown that she had taken off the boutique’s rack. Just as Lee had squirmed her way into the dress, popping her head out of the sequined cloth, Suzanne barged in, appearing behind her in the mirror.

“May I?” Resting her hands on Lee’s shoulders, Suzanne gestured to the zipper along Lee’s back. Her close proximity brought Lee some discomfort, but she nodded anyway. Suzanne then proceeded with her swift hands of care. Nonetheless, after a few fruitless tugs, Suzanne gave up and made a tsking sound under her breath.

“Lee, dear... I don’t think you fit into this. How can it be? This is a size 36.”

“Hmm, that’s too bad. It’s okay, Suzanne, I don’t really like wearing tight things anyway. It’s beautiful, though.”

“Let me just say, men do find a woman more attractive when she wears something that accentuates her assets, that hugs her figure! Trust me, there’s no need to hide, you can just shed a couple pounds.” Her voice edged on condescension.

“Erm, I guess. But I think this is just my body, I don’t know...” She searched for more words. None came.

“And Lee? I’m only saying this because I’ve come to care about you immensely, but I need you to put yourself out there, you know, with those boys that come over. If you don’t put in the work to not be shy, they’re not going to notice you.”

“Oh, right,” Lee felt herself blush. “Well, I don’t know, none of them really appeal to me. But—oh—yes, I know. I can do better.”

“Yes, sweetie.”

+++

As time went on, Lee’s eyes gradually adjusted to Suzanne’s closet, brimming with garish, gauzy fabrics. She wondered if Suzanne valued anything, her spending habits madly unbridled and her burn rate excessively wasteful. Each engagement of Suzanne’s appeared to be a diversion, a method of filling time in the company of others. On multiple occasions, Lee had spied Suzanne meticulously planning a social function or task to complete in her calendar for nearly every hour. When someone had to cancel a plan, Suzanne would violently cross out the event and replace it with another to the point that innumerable red scribbles pervaded each day, dispensable names and signs. It seemed as if Suzanne had to run herself completely dry so as not to have to confront a hollowness: a hamster on a wheel who only knew to run, spinning toward nothing.

+++

At dinner, Lee observed Jack and Suzanne under the restaurant’s warm tinged light. Jack wore a perpetual look of disgust, lips fish-like and cheeks pudgy. His countenance provoked a deeply unsettling feeling, as though something black and wet could crawl right out of his pouty mouth at any moment. As for Suzanne, Lee could see that the hairdresser’s heat had oppressed her blond tresses until they had lost all their natural buoyancy, with nothing but bristly sheaves of hay now falling from her head. She had a withered air about her, semi-absent as she jotted down notes for her upcoming interview with Town & Country. Lee’s reproachful gaze was interrupted by a rather loud clap from the waiter towering over her, amplified by the restaurant’s hollow dome-shell.

“...Good evening and welcome to The Vine.

I don’t believe I see any familiar faces here, so I will just give you a brief introduction to our restaurant and its origins. We are a farm-to-table institution, so most of our raw ingredients are imported fresh from the Land of Volcanoes. We only serve warm chestnut water, which is highly effective in flushing out one’s sinuses and aids in digestion. Personally, I swear by this as a cure for those who are particularly prone to gastritis, superior to any other drugstore find...”

As he spoke, Lee felt as if she was trapped in molasses, each limb halfway between relaxed and oppressed. She had always been sensitive to air flow—its fluctuating temperatures and humidities—and had noted the spacious room’s excellent circulation. It was remarkably situated so as to attain such a level of feng shui, yet she found herself beset by a feeling of unbearable stuffiness.

“Tonight’s set menu consists of six courses accompanied by a flight of digestifs. Your meal will begin with a star-shaped honey oyster that has been suffused with lilac dye and dipped in an aromatic Uygher spice, second comes the brittle black tar bean—don’t be afraid of its color! Third is a leafy medley of mesclun and pickled cacti, whose uniquely non-poisonous hyacinth flowers hail from our very own flower garden. The fourth is my personal favorite, featuring the bellies of freshwater otters bathed in a thick Japanese sake marinade. The fifth brings in a pasta dish of 87 beet-dyed noodles, each peppered with royal gramma scales and yellow salt. And finally, the sixth is a light sphere of fermented mint injected with basil and rosemary, to cleanse your palate and let those emulsions of flavors sweetly dissipate on your tongue.”

Once he was done speaking, Suzanne and Jack simply nodded with finality, indicating they understood and that he could now leave. Lee winced on the waiter’s behalf as he went to each of them, asking, out of breath, if they would prefer sparkling water. Jack waved the man away and snapped a curt no. Lee shook her head in a low, subdued manner, and Suzanne didn’t bother to look up from her phone. The waiter slipped away.

“Oh, Jack, doesn’t Lee’s makeup look darling? I brought her to see Misha in the salon today. Just a tad bit of contour does wonders!”

Jack studied Lee for a brief moment, then replied in the most detached manner:

“Ah, mm-hm, yes, dear. It sure does seem like you two have been spending a lot of time together while I’ve been away! I pray, please don’t whisk her away from me, Lee!” Jack wagged an index finger at her and laughed, but lately, Lee hadn’t really found his jokes funny anymore. Her performing abilities, already weak to begin with, were increasingly being tested. She resorted to a sheepish nod.

By the time they were served the fourth course, Lee had named a plethora of things about Jack that annoyed her. Between each phrase, he would pause, gliding his tongue along his side gums. That same unsettling feeling crept in as Jack looked on with cold eyes boring right through her. Stuffing his face with the freshwater otters, he chewed with his mouth open, his jaws loose, the thick tail trapped between his even thicker lips. Lee could hear Jack’s teeth work as they ground against the otters’ pure, solid fat. Even though Suzanne would berate Lee for the occasional mindless open-mouthed chew, she didn’t make a single remark about Jack’s noises. Suzanne, on the other hand, had cut her otter portion into perfectly equal pieces. After a couple of chews and an unconvincing “yum!” she put her fork and knife down and left the uneaten meat on her plate. Inhaling too deeply at the wrong moment, Lee felt the fishy stench attack her nostrils, stinging and shriveling up her airways. Jack neglected to wipe the dish’s brown residue off the creases of his lips, so Lee was forced to look upon his dribbling sake mouth and glacial eyes. Trying to stay unaffected, Lee limited her air intake to reduce the nausea that loomed over her.

With the extraordinarily drawn-out wait times, moments of silence grew. During these intervals, Jack’s stomach emitted these prolonged, subdued groans. Lee could hear his stomach clenching to suppress these sounds, to no avail. Noticing that others could hear, Jack had compulsively been ejaculating new subjects into the conversation for the sake of his bodily dignity.

“Mark and I checked out the Cascade Club the other day. It’s pretty new, on the Upper West Side...more like between Broadway and Amsterdam. You can’t miss it—it has a stunning façade, very art nouveau, yes, very fresh for that neighborhood.” Lee curled her toes inside the patent leather shoes from Suzanne that squished her bunions.

“Mm... If I am going to go all the way to the West Side, I’d much rather frequent RBS. Their facilities are clean and classic. They don’t have any of those terrible frou-frou women, or God forbid, those tasteless members that have only gotten in because they’re sleeping with Pal Malone or Skeeter Dillard,” accompanied by a crinkling of the nose from Suzanne.

“Aha, Suz! You have a point there. Say, it’s been well over an hour since that sleepy waiter came by...?” Jack glanced down at his watch, which, as Lee had carefully noted, he had been doing for the past 40 minutes. By now, his belly was audibly angry and indignant, refusing to be snubbed.

Jack eventually called over the waiter, ready to blast. She braced herself for Jack’s explosion.

“Listen here, I’m going to say this very nicely, we’ve been waiting here for an hour for the next course. Can you explain why it’s taking so long?”

“Of course, sir, I understand completely. And I do apologize—the kitchen is exceptionally busy tonight.” At this response, Jack clenched his jaw and sharply sucked in the air through his gritted teeth.

“Right, but you don’t in fact seem to understand. I’m fucking ravenous. My stomach is pissing me and all of the other guests off,” Jack banged a fist on his protruding belly. The waiter remained unruffled by this unsolicited gesture.

“Ah, yes... May I interest you in a complimentary glass of our locally-sourced red wine while you wait? You’re in luck, because we also have an array of fresh cardamom-infused bao buns. Chef’s secret special.” The waiter cupped his left hand to his mouth for this last part with a whisper.

Jack took this skittish remark as an insult, and the menace in his voice began to seep out:

“That’s rich. You know, I’ve been waiting for you guys to prove yourselves, but I just can’t anymore. What the HELL is up with these PLAY FOODS you’re serving me?! I’m PAYING for your SERVICE and your LABOR and this is NOT up to par.” Lee waited for Suzanne to interrupt—say something, do something to shut Jack up—even a stern look would have brought her some comfort. Nonetheless, Suzanne sat there unstirred with hands calmly crossed over on the table and vacant eyes looking on.

“I’ve been to Scorelli’s Cavern, Flora, and Le Moustique—all SECOND-TIER restaurants, mind you—and they’re ASTRONOMICALLY better. I mean, I read about this place through MICHELIN!” The yolky whites of his eyes bulged out of their translucent sockets and his face pulsated with boiling blood.

“I’m sorry to hear that, sir. Most people enjoy our playful, experimental atmosphere.”

“—YOU! Damn it!! I’ve had ENOUGH!!!”

“...Again, I am sorry. We have a lot of guests to serve tonight. Your dishes will be out soon.” out, do not worry, sweetie.” He remained crouched over, clutching his stomach as if in pain. Frankly, Lee was confused—what was this circus show she was witnessing? They had manufactured their own reasons to be upset, ruining what could have been a pleasant night. With Jack’s furrowed brows and Suzanne’s docile eyes, both suddenly looked pitiful to her. Even if she had not been an active participant in the hostility toward the waiter, she still shared a table with the tantrum-throwing adults. Knowing Suzanne found it unattractive for a lady to be defensive, how on earth was Lee to sit there, nose up in the air? Her weak complicity up to this point made her shiver. As her breathing became shallow and her head dizzy, she gripped tighter onto the table. She was compelled to act before the possibility of being misunderstood exceeded her capacity to at least feign the illusion that she had control.

On a whim, rather desperate, she knocked over the fragola digestif, so that the liquor sloshed out of the glass, reddening the white and streaming down into her lap.

“...Suzanne? I’m sorry, but erm, I think it’s that time of the month. I’m afraid I’ve bled everywhere. I have to leave.” Not waiting for a reply, Lee rose to her feet, gave a salute to the two mouths, and scrambled out of the restaurant.

As she exited The Vine onto Park Avenue, she let out a sigh and started walking uptown. The wind whipped around and the shadows of the branches of trees trembled on the concrete. The black sky protected her; she felt a part of this bowl of movement, safe on the smooth pavement. Tonight felt like a rectification of all the previous occasions in which she had felt the same sense of oppression, yet had not outwardly reacted. For her, nothing was worse than inconsistency in character.

“FOR GOD’S SAKE, JUST ADMIT THAT YOUR KITCHEN IS MEDIOCRE! NO MORE OF THE GAMES!” Lee scrunched up her eyes as Jack’s shrieking rang in her eardrums. The veins in his forehead swelled as if they wanted to escape his furious folds of skin. The red spectacle was aglow for all neighboring tables.

As the waiter hurriedly left the table to get the manager, Lee and Suzanne sat in painful silence until the tension died down a bit. Jack took three great inhales and exhales, his hot breath reaching Lee’s cheeks. Suzanne outstretched her arm to place her hand on his, which he immediately slapped away. She nodded tenderly, placating him with a “we’ll have it sorted

At times, it overwhelmed her to think about how once others imposed their perceptions upon her, these singular identities would then fuse into monoliths, representative of her whole. She grasped how malleable she could be in the eyes of others and it was precisely the lack of control she had over this inevitable occurrence that frightened her. Suzanne had fed this fear, and Lee had in turn almost let herself be swallowed up. As she sauntered on, relaxing her shoulders and unclenching her fists, she understood the precarity of her projections and believed that through her release from Suzanne, she was closer to shedding her weak and childish self. And so despite it being well into the night, and despite the fraught nature of being a young woman out alone at such an hour, Lee carried on with her strides and impregnated herself with her own self-imagined sufficiency.

ANAÏS B‘24 is currently looking for potential sugar parents.

Zoe Mikic´ R’23 “Unsent Letters” Nylon mesh, thread, tissue paper, rainwater I’ve been considering the envelope as a form that simultaneously protects and exposes the content inside. I offer these letters to be read but never received by the one they were for.