Daffodil Season

“You know,” Luke said, “I think if you’d just left her there, she’d have jumped out by herself.”

He sounded a bit irritated when he spoke. He knew it was not how boyfriends should speak of their girlfriends but Jess was not like any of the others.

Miranda had just slammed a window onto Jess’s head and she had fallen out backwards. It was supposed to be a joke. Jess had positioned herself on the windowsill with such unabashed artfulness and vanity that it had seemed irresistible to play a prank on her. Also, Miranda thought she’d fall forwards, into the room. It was lucky there was a balcony out there and she hadn’t plummeted down three storeys into the alley at the back of her own house. Jess was just lying there now, feeling her skull pulsate and admiring the stars.

“Do you think the daffodils are ready to eat,” Jess said.

Miranda peered out the window and tried to avoid staring at her splayed legs.

“What?”

“The daffodils. Can we eat them yet?”

Miranda turned to Luke, who was standing behind her. They decided they wouldn’t ask again. Jess called out to them.

“Why don’t you bring them out here on a plate. It’s such a lovely night.”

Jess lay on the balcony with her eyes on the stars. She imagined the shapes and animals that might exist as constellations up there and tried to think of good names for them all. Gideon the holy dog. Eve, of the Garden in the Sun. Dance of the twin dragons who blow flames from their nostrils.

After some discussion in the kitchen about what Jess could possibly have meant by daffodils to eat (and concluding she must have hit her head quite hard), Miranda and Luke climbed onto the balcony holding three ripe mangos on a plate and a knife to cut them with and cigarettes to smoke. Jess had sat up and her oversized glasses kept slipping down her nose. She didn’t need glasses (the lenses were clear) but she’d seen something in a magazine about them being crucial to the “artist chic” look. Jess read a lot of magazines.

“Sorry about before,” Miranda said.

She really did feel bad about knocking Jess out the window. There was nothing worse than a prank that didn’t turn out the way it was supposed to. And now Jess probably had a concussion, on top of it all.

“It was nothing. I didn’t feel a thing,” Jess said.

Luke cut the first mango open and made criss-crossing lines on each cheek so the fruit would fall off in cubes when he turned the skin inside out.

“I want you to feed me like I’m Cleopatra,” Jess said.

She reclined on one elbow and crossed her legs at the ankles. Luke dangled a few slimy pieces over Jess’s open mouth and carefully dropped them in.

“Mmmmm.”

Jess’s cheeks were stretched out like a squirrel’s and the juice leaked out the sides of her mouth. Drops fell off her chin onto the balcony floor.

Miranda watched as Jess chewed. It was a slow and laborious type of chewing and Miranda could see her jawbones gyrate at the backs of her cheeks and her throat swallow the fruit. She wondered whether she should have left Luke to deal with Jess. He was her boyfriend, after all. But she knew she’d feel guilty about the prank going wrong.

“You know, I really wanted a cat when I was a child,” Jess said. “They’re so beautiful and silky and the eyes, oh yes, the eyes. Big green eyes like a Mediterranean girl.”

Jess’s concussion was worse than she thought.

Luke ate the rest of the mango and passed the knife and second mango to Miranda. Miranda didn’t want to talk, so she quickly cut it open and filled her mouth with one side of the sticky, yellow fruit. She wanted a cigarette.

“Again. Miranda.”

Jess reclined again, with her head tilted backwards and her mouth wide open. Her heavy hair curled into the juice that she had dripped earlier onto the balcony floor. Miranda cut a small piece from the other side of the mango she was eating and held it above Jess’s face. Jess smiled from the side of her mouth closest to Miranda and snapped upwards, nearly biting off the tips of her fingers. Miranda’s arm shrank back to her side and she reached for a cigarette.

“Hey,” Jess said.

She sat up and faced Miranda with her arms wrapped around her knees.

“Why didn’t you let me do that,” she asked.

“You were trying to bite me,” Miranda said.

Luke was eating the rest of the mango. He was concentrating hard on savouring the juicy, wonderful fruit and licking every morsel off the velvety inside of the skin that was bitter when he bit through it.

Miranda inhaled slowly from her cigarette before she became aware of how close Jess’s face was to hers. Jess had a big smile on her face. Horrified, Miranda jerked away.

“Do you ever think –” Jess stopped.

Miranda looked at her expectantly.

“Nothing,” Jess said.

Miranda looked at Luke and wished he would look at Jess or, better still, put his arm around her shoulders and take her inside and to bed. Why wasn’t he paying attention? Luke was nicking his thumb on the tip of the knife, which made a faint scraping noise each time he did it. The yellow light of the living room caught occasionally on the blade and reflected on the wall of the house.

“What were you going to say?”

Jess swiftly leaned over and kissed Miranda on the lips.

Miranda sprung backwards from the soft lips and stood up too quickly. The plate with the remaining mango caught on her shoe and skittered across the balcony and under the railings. A few seconds later, they heard the plate smash on the pavement below.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Miranda felt hot and indignant. She marveled at Luke’s lack of reaction. He had stopped flicking the blade against his thumb and shuddered a little when the plate smashed but he never looked up.

Jess smiled coyly. Miranda was still standing up and she started to move towards the window.

“Where are you going?” Jess asked.

“Home.”

Jess stood up and pushed Miranda against the railings on the balcony.

“Nobody’s going home yet,” she said.

“Fine.”

And then she pushed Miranda off the balcony, backwards.

If it hadn’t been so fast or if Miranda had thought to hold onto the railing, she might not have lost her balance so quickly, or Luke might have grabbed onto Miranda’s ankle or leg and been able to pull her back up. By the time Luke was on his feet (he was a bit out of shape), the terrible noise had emanated from the pavement upwards and he could only imagine that her body now resembled the mango that had fallen off the balcony a few minutes before, with its golden juice spilling out of the flesh where the skin had broken open.

With the knife in Jess’s face, Luke backed towards the window and climbed back inside. He closed the window and locked it and went home.

The next morning, after distressed neighbours called the police about a woman’s body on the pavement behind the house, Jess was found in a nearby Accident & Emergency ward with a broken leg and some minor scratches and bruises. She claimed to have no recollection of the incident.