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I remembered the sweet powerful taste of pop. Tommy Feathers had stopped for coffee when he was hunting wolverine. He tossed a bulged red and white can on the chopping block. “You’ll have tat one springtime,” he joked. He was sober; that meant he was laughing and friendly, not frothing about naluagmius starving his family, stealing food out of his children’s mouths. We had sat around waiting for it to thaw. We could have bought pops in Takunak but according to Abe, pop cost money, wasted aluminum, and was bad for our teeth. Nothing for something. Why not drink water? Now Iris was describing the high school friends and fun we’d always worried we missed out on, and I wondered why I hadn’t bought myself a few Cokes.

VERA: Have I told you about the lesbian who tried to seduce / me?

EMMA: Yes.

VERA: She showed up at the house, saying she has suck a big, whaddayacallit.

EMMA: Clitoris.

VERA: Clitoris, right, and she said it would be terrific, and all that. And I said no thank you, and she went away. Nice woman. Very pretty, actually.

The ensuing inquiries found the girl to be a teenager, though she weighed only fifty-nine pounds and was only fifty-four inches tall. She was in much worse physical shape than at first suspected: she was incontinent, could not chew solid food and could hardly swallow, could not focus her eyes beyond twelve feet, and, according to some accounts, could not cry. She salivated constantly, spat indiscriminately. She had a ring of hard callus around her buttocks, and she had two nearly complete sets of teeth. Her hair was thin. She could not hop, skip, climb, or do anything requiring the full extension of her limbs. She showed no perception of hot or cold.

At my desk, with my pen, pencil, markers, ruler, and thick white paper, I was in command. And when I drew the superhero who was my alter-ego, I gave him—i.e., myself—what in all my shyness I didn’t have: a girlfriend. She was as pretty as my limited skills could make her. Her name was Laura.

I’m good enough to get the once-over in the bar at The Restaurant, I see them thinking my

smallness is appealing, my ass and face are cute enough, I see them thinking that short haircut

might be sexy. I’m always in a backless cocktail dress and heels, I’m flat chested and a tad

muscular so they ask me if I’m a dancer and say Call me sometime, let’s have a drink. It took

me a while to understand you’re supposed to work that for your money but you can let the

willingness fall right off your face when you turn around. It took me a while to understand that of

course men fling their entreaties out in swarms, like schools of sperm, hoping one will stick.