A Strained Relationship

My name is Jimmy Sprenger. I’m sitting across the coffee table from my girlfriend, Sandy. She is settled far back on the old blue loveseat with the rip in the back, arms crossed, scowling at me.I am sitting on the edge of the even older brown recliner, my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands. I cannot see Sandy scowling, but I can feel it. She moves with a slight rustling and I look up for a moment. Her drawn-on brows are beetled down over her eyes, two large black buttons whip-stitched onto her face with black thread. Her plump, batting-filled left hand taps impatiently on her right arm with a soft suppuration of fabric against fabric. Her mouth, like her eyebrows, is drawn on and drawn down.

“Well?” she says, finally. Her voice is the same as ever, rich and slightly accented by California. She flips a string of red yarn hair from her face with a toss of her head, but it falls immediately back into position.

“It’s just temporary,” I say. I hope I’m right.

Two weeks ago, Sandy started at Weygandt-Ellis University with a full academic swim team scholarship. She had been lean, supple, and strong; blonde, with blue eyes and perfect skin. She had been taller, too. The Sandy sitting across from me is somewhat changed from the Sandy of two weeks ago, however.

“I’m a goddamned Raggedy Anne doll, Jimmy!”

And she’s right. My girlfriend is a Raggedy Anne doll.

She’s also dead.