Stormin' Normandy

The clouds wove themselves in and out around the silhouetted steeple. They ducked and dove and perched at the black tip, balancing themselves in the dusky blue sky, all in order to get a better view as Normandy Botch plodded down the street. People didn’t usually call Normandy a “pretty” girl. Sometimes they said she had “character” or “integrity,” as if that were somehow indicative of her medium, doughy frame. If they were trying to be nice they usually said she was “handsome.” The clouds thought Normandy was pretty though. They loved the way she clunked, heavy-footed yet tentative and aware of her own awkward nature. They thought the way the uncertainty sparkled in her eyes made her look full with life, possessed in a way. Like the front of her face was capped with two buttons of green and black, beneath which crackled a great vitality, peaking at the seams. They wished she would smile once in a while though.
Poor, poor Normandy Botch. When she got home the television told her she was ugly. It wasn’t that direct, of course, but the sentiment was there. Hey girl! Tired of lashes that quit on the job? Lips that lose luster? Skin that blemishes, dries, washes out, darkens, wrinkles or sags where it’s not supposed to? All this new makeup could help! I mean, not that you need it, you’re a beautiful, confident, sexy woman! We just want to help you let the rest of the world know just how beautifulconfidentsexy you are. Normandy hated how the television always wanted to talk as soon as she got in the door. Even a few minutes to herself, to unwind, would help. Everyone was just too negative. It was a lot to take on at the end of the day. Pulling hard, smoke bit and snaked down windpipes and alveoli as Normandy’s throat clenched and pulsed. Tears tugged at the corners of those baby greens. The Weatherman was nice. He was never all Don’t you want to put yourself in designer pants, Normandy? or Hey Normandy, want to wash your hair? He had a soft, forgiving smile and talked to her gently when she needed him to. Hey, so it’s gonna be cloudy today, but it’ll be sunny this weekend! That’s not so bad, right? It wasn’t so bad! Normandy could tolerate a cloudy day here and there. Color always looked richer under the soft grey, defused light. Weatherman and the clouds, she guessed they were alright. The clouds didn’t say a whole lot, and were frequently thick and ominous, but they usually had the common decency to keep their distance while making their threats. Sometimes they came and stayed for a few days, and sometimes they went away, but they rarely spent too much time one way or the other.
Beautifulconfidentsexy. Normandy traced a shaking finger over her paper-white thighs as she exhaled. They were lightly spotted. Soft greens and purplegreys pecked at her where she had collided with tables, or corners, or desk legs. When Botch’s fingers grazed her blotches she shivered. Never daring to show bare leg, the bruises stayed hidden all day behind denim or cotton. Now, alone, her private acknowledgement of them thrilled her slightly. They were small, beautiful reminders of the human frailty she worked so hard to cover up. Outside the wind howled, brushing away the few clouds that clung in the sky, leaving only the blank sky, and eventually the moon to stare at her with its barewhite, milky, cataract-painted eye.
Normandy wouldn’t mind the moon so much if she could sleep through its judging stare. She filled her nights with warm and soft things. Glasses of milk, favorite books, soothing CDs, fuzzy blankets. Nightcaps of drugs and alcohol. Nothing helped though. Through some oldmagic combination she hoped to divine a map to a place inside of herself where the dreams waited in patient, satisfying eight-hour stretches. Sometimes, late at night, she begged and pleaded. To the moon, the lights, the pillows. Anyone who would listen really. Sleep never came though, not beyond the fifteen minute cat-naps that taunted and tormented more than they helped.
The customers at work misread the bags under Normandy’s eyes. To her, they were more bruises, caught from hard contact with prolonged, insomniac nights. The customers knew they had meant a lack of sleep, but figured them to be of a different nature. More enjoyment-based. Nights spent flying too close to the moon, dancing, drinking, boisterously celebrating a life lived to the fullest. The signs of wear-and-tear that an irresponsible, fun-loving girl her age would only naturally carry, rather than the shadows of a night of disappointment and failure. Her coworkers simply assumed she was on drugs. This made Normandy turn red, flush with resentment. While it was, technically, true, it was not the cause of the dark-blue half-moons that waxed on her cheekbones. She may have had a flower-child-style experimental streak, but she did not spend her nights climbing the walls, chasing bugs, shaking with strung-out chatters and tremors. The occasional shot or bowl pack didn’t make you an addict, did it? Something else to add to her list of late-night worries.
Forget her coworkers anyway, though. Normandy hated them. Snippy, pretty girls with sharp, hostile smiles who thought that working in a clothing store meant they were “in the fashion industry.” They plugged away and nodded as customers shouted in their faces and pretended they were happy at a job that they hated. They didn’t understand why Normandy had trouble doing the same. They called her a “bitch,” and “dumb,” and “a dumb bitch” when they thought she was out of earshot. They made fun of her for riding a bicycle to work. She didn’t think they had to like her, or even pretend to like her, but she thought they could at least have the common courtesy to leave her alone. All she wanted out of work at the shop was to have easy access to the garments in order to study the new incoming styles. Construction came easy to her, but people always told her that her designs were weird and ugly. Eventually she fretted so much over these reactions that she found herself unable to make anything at all. She managed to sit in front of the sewing machine for hours at a time, her foot hovering just above the peddle, unable to press it in, longing internally for the day when she could find the inspiration that would make others like what she produced.
Thinking about the one day her coworkers found her sketch book, though, still put her on the verge of tears. She had left it sitting out in the break room only to hear them using some choice synonyms for “tacky” and “garbage” to describe it right before she walked back in. “Oh, Normandy!” they cried, snapping it shut as she rounded the corner into the room. “We found this, is it yours? We didn’t have a chance to look through it and see.” Normandy sometimes wondered how they had such an easy time fitting lies between such straight, tightly laced teeth. At the time, she really had cried. She felt the blood pooling in her pale cheeks, a savage heat that made her look drunk. She had barely managed to tear away the book and stomp out of the room before the first trickle leaked from her irises. Now, later, she just felt the dull, throbbing frustration and anger that always stuck with her from embarrassing moments. A painful, white-hot residue that built up behind her eyes. Beautifulconfidentsexy. Stupidawkwardugly. A couple of hits later and Normandy was ready for sleep. Sleep just wasn’t ready for her.
The next day the clouds seemed to roll in closer just to spite her. They had grumbled and rumbled all morning while she toyed with clothes and make-up. Thick, black clouds, all mascara and eye shadow. Smoky and dry as a bone. Patient fuckers, she thought. She could feel them watching, waiting. As she peddled to work she kept one eye skyward, dreading the impending soaking she would surely have to take. It never came. Instead, right outside the store, a peel of thunder plucked through the air, strumming the tight strings that comprised her nerves. It struck a powerful chord that sent her skidding across the parking lot, the bike stopping before she did. Her face met the cool concrete with a sickening smack immediately in front of the ash tray all her coworkers huddled around. Of course they laughed. The coworkers, the clouds, everyone. She would have laughed too, if she hadn’t been so busy hating her life.
The only one who didn’t laugh was Wednesday. He didn’t seem to enjoy the shop either. He stuck himself in the stockroom any chance he got. Unloading boxes, organizing shelves. Anything that kept him from the front, where he had to speak. It wasn’t so much that Wed had anything against the other people in the store, he just didn’t understand them. Whenever the girls smiled at him he wondered how many insults they were waiting to spit as soon as he turned around. He heard the way they talked about anyone who wasn’t in the room, and he was sure he was no exception. The only one he felt like he did understand was Normandy. Normandy didn’t look cold, or calculating. She just looked tired. Wednesday could both comprehend, and respect, tired. So while Normandy Botch spent her horrible day licking her internal wounds, Wednesday spent the same day trying to figure out how to make her smile.
When Normandy’s shift was over she unlocked her bike and stared hesitantly at the road that stretched out in front of her. Dark grey macadam meeting dark grey sky in a dark, shitty horizon. No rain yet, but plenty of threatening balking. Ready to saddle up and meet her soaking destiny, Normandy almost launched herself into the old red coup that rounded the corner of the store. Wednesday swerved and stopped in front of her, facing her across the empty passenger’s seat.
“Get in,” he told her, though not unkindly. “It’s supposed to start drenching any minute, and your bike’ll fit in the back.” They spent the short drive home sharing deep drinks from the satisfying communal bowl of complaints about work. And school. And life in general. When they got to her apartment building the clouds looked dark as night. Maybe it was night. Normandy had a hard time counting AMs and PMs when she stopped sleeping. Wednesday had put the car in park and got out to help her liberate her bicycle from the back seat. When all was said and done, rather unexpectedly, he hugged her.
“You’re a sweet girl, Norm. You’re smart, you’re funny, and you’ve got a killer sense of style. And fuck anyone who says different.”
When Normandy got upstairs, she shut the door and smiled. Stepping light as a dream, she didn’t even wake the television as she drifted into her bedroom. Shucking the dead weight of her work uniform she paused to notice, for the first time, the scraped hole the pavement had left on the leg of her pants, sticky on the edges with dried, brick-red blood. Self-conscious shame had dulled the pain all day. She hadn’t even noticed the small, scabbed nick on her shin. Now she traced her finger lazily over its edges. Another trophy to hang on the wall next to the bruises on her thighs. As she worked her fingers up to inspect them, she noticed they already seemed to be fading. The felt cool and ticklish to the touch and sent shivers up her spine. Outside, fat pellets of rain began to smack off her window.
Laying back in the cool sheets, Normandy let her fingers wander. As the rain picked up, she felt the familiar rush of blood settling in her cheeks. A faint but white-hot light swelled behind her eyes. As the storm swelled and rolled outside, she thrashed the sheets off the bed. That familiar heat, but this time, no embarrassment. Thunder groaned. Rain flowed freely. A strong breeze even shook and shuttered the windows for dramatic effect. Normandy hadn’t seen a storm like this since she was sixteen. The kind of rain that washed the world clean, sweeping the garbage down the storm drains. As the sun that had never appeared that day set, the chorus of clouds sighed and smiled. And Normandy Botch slept.