The eczema on Davey’s left cheek has its own topography now—ridges and valleys that add half an inch to his profile. He thinks his face is wide enough as-is. His name is Davey. Davey Jones. Davey Jones, like the pirate.
Davey wonders if he could be ruggedly handsome—if he could clear up his eczema and drop a stone or two.
Jez thinks Davey’s odd but not ugly. Davey thinks Jez is hot and daydreams about her tan lines. She’s got straight dark hair and caramel skin that makes him think she’s not fully white—maybe half-Filipino.
“Ever heard of Gwen Stefani?” he asks, nodding to the CD in his shopping cart.
“Hollaback Girl’s actually way deeper than it seems.”
“Yeah, for sure.”
Yeah. For sure.
Davey doesn’t know what to talk to women about because he isn’t one. He’s starting to sweat—which is bad news, because anxious perspiration means worse eczema. Worse eczema means even less chance Jez (short for Jezebel) would sleep with him.
“What’s wrong with Gwen Stefani? Too old for your taste?”
She doesn’t answer this time. The note Davey stuck in her till this morning soured her mood. It was a drawing of a ponytailed stick-figure woman holding a dandelion saying How dandy! She knew it was from Davey because he wrote his name in cursive—which is mostly just a “D” with toilet paper stuck to its shoe—disguised as one of the sunglassed sun’s rays.
She finds this behavior very unattractive for a twenty-eight-year-old man. Davey thought it would be funny.
“You get my note?”
“I don’t think I want to see any more notes from you right now, Davey.”
“Why? I thought it was funny.”
He’s really sweating now. Skin flakes from his eyebrows, and when he wipes them with his shirt, they smear into white skid marks. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so expressive with his eyes. His face needs to stay still if he wants to avoid flaking.
He hopes that one day Jez will look at him the same way she looks at the time clock—her ponytail swaying as she turns, her eyes sparkling, slow-blinking. One day, once his skin clears and his confidence returns.
Jez is thinking about lunch. An apple, Cobb salad, a few crackers.
The automatic doors open, and he steps into the heat, his face already burning. He imagines his skin peeling clean.
“Ooh, this my shit, this my shit
Ooh, this my shit, this my shit.”