Page 2 of Gaga for the Gargoyle
Not everyone made it out alive.
My phone beeps with a notification, and I open it to find a red bubble hovering over a new app.
Kiss-meet.
A dating app? Huh. That’s weird. I didn’t download this. At least, I don’t think I did. Wait. Did I do it before going to work? The night was so chaotic, it’s possible I downloaded it and forgot.
I open the app, and it takes me to a screen to fill out my details.
Okay. I guess this is happening.
Name: Eva
No. Brandon called me Eva. Since moving to Manhattan, I’ve been introducing myself as Evangeline. I left Eva in Upstate New York.
Age: 40
I cringe when entering that number. I never thought I’d be on a fucking dating app at my age. Oh well, maybe I’ll meet someone my age. Or a silver fox in his sixties. Or some hot twenty-something-year-old who wants to date a plus-size cougar.
Height: 5’1”
Eye Color: Blue
Hair Color: Brown
Location: Manhattan
I hit submit, and it takes me to a screen to upload a picture. I choose a recent one that shows off my body. I know men can be weird about fat women. Most want to fuck us but not date us. Right now, I’m okay with that. Like I said, I’m not looking for commitment. Still, I put a whole-body photo so they can’t be surprised that I’m a big girl.
The picture is from my first day after moving here a few months ago. I accepted the nursing job and left the small town where I grew up in Upstate New York. I had to leave. I couldn’t stand being in the same town as my ex-husband anymore, even though I had long moved outof the home we shared and lived in a studio apartment I could barely afford on my school nurse salary.
I’m smiling in this photo. I asked a stranger to take it while visiting the Top of the Rock. It was the first time in years I felthappy.My chipmunk cheeks are dimpled, and my blue eyes light up with something other than sadness and defeat. I’m wearing a purple spaghetti strap sundress, which shows off the floral tattoos along my arms, shoulders, and chest.
The tattoos consist of white heather flowers, which symbolize protection. I also have purple Evangeline lilacs because ever since I was a kid, I’ve been obsessed with the flower that I share a name with. My mother told me Evangeline means the bearer of good news. She said I was her rainbow baby. She always worried something was going to take me away from her.
Not someone.Something.
She’d keep white heathers around my crib and throughout the house for protection. As I grew older, she’d tell me stories about supernatural beings who lived among us. Beings that could be evil. Beings that wanted to harm me. She’d stuff my backpack with the flowers before I left the house for school and made sure I wore the heather bracelet and necklace she made me—pieces of jewelry that Brandon threw away one day, thinking they were trash.
I was furious at him, which prompted me to get the tattoos the next day. He hated them, but I didn’t care. The tattoos weren’t for him or me. They were for my mother who’d been begging me to get them since I turned eighteen.
Me marking my body with ink might have been the moment Brandon fell out of love with me. We’d fight constantly after that, especially if it involved my mother.
He hated that I kept her in my life.
I was ten years old when my father found out she believed an evil being wanted to kidnap me. He sent her away to a psychiatric hospital where she remains today. I try to visit her once a week, but she doesn’t talk much anymore. Sometimes, I go just to sit with her, or read to her, or let her know I still love her.
I haven’t seen her in months, ever since I moved to the city and work a busy job. I don’t have a car anymore either and the train ride to the hospital would take at least two hours because the town isn’t along a main line.
Birdie jumps into my lap and jolts me out of my thoughts. She rubs her face against mine and chirps, letting me know it’s time to eat.
“Okay, Birdie Girl. Let me finish this, and I’ll get your breakfast.”
I take one more look at the photo. My hair is styled perfectly around my face in waves. I gave myself bangs and a wolf cut a year ago, and now I’m obsessed. I’ve always liked the clothes and style of the seventies and eighties, and now I have the hair to match.
“Here goes nothing,” I say and tap submit.
The app processes and takes me to an empty page, where I assume my matches will be displayed. I search for the section where I can swipe or heart profiles, but I must be exhausted, because it’s nowhere to be found. My brain is struggling to function.
