By Betti L. Lee

         “Mom!  Look at the Wolfman one!”  

         Although most of the shops on Pearl Street were brimming with items of sheer fascination, the hologram store was the one that had pulled my 10-year-old son in like iron to a magnet.  The walls were festooned with bluish images, looking three-dimensional and alive enough to breathe.  The largest decorated the front window, transparent but far from invisible.  It was a mako shark slashing through a coral reef. If you stood back at least ten feet and walked horizontally to the window, he appeared to swim through the water in search of his next meal, teeth glinting in gleeful anticipation, eyes following your every move.  It was eerie.

         “Mom!  You gotta come look at Joker!!”  The Joker Alex enthusiastically dragged me over to see was Nicola Jokic, top scorer for the Denver Nuggets.  Here was the savior of the Denver Nuggets, the high-flying young man who was close to being revered, tongue dangling from the mouth as though he was preparing to take the crucial shot.  I looked at it perfunctorily and then at my watch.  The store was about to close, and we were the last customers. 

         “That is a good one…” murmured the proprietress over my shoulder.  She was a tall, rapier-thin blonde with long, blood-red nails.  Her face, laced with a spidery web of wrinkles, was decorated with an icing of pancake.  Her eyes were plastered with a shade of blue not seen since 1965.  She wore stiletto heels and spoke in an enunciated whisper.  “…but, over here is what I consider the very best.”  She had placed her claw on my shoulder and was steering me to the back of the store.  I glanced at Alex, who looked at us quizzically, then thrust his hand into mine. 

         On the back wall was a small walnut cabinet, held on by large, black bolts.  It had an ancient lock clasping the mouth of a rusted hinge, and into this, she placed an ornate, black key.  She removed the lock, and the door screeched open as though crying out that its secrets were not for our eyes.  

         The little cavern seemed to hold a light; indeed, the illumination source rested on a red velvet throne.  The frame was as ornate and ancient as the lock that had protected it, a vined and leafed pewter creation encircling a disk of blue light.  It was a hologram of a quality that I had never seen, depicting an animal – a lizard – his back a landscape of knots and bumps, his face a study in contrasts, grotesque yet strangely adorable and engaging.  He was resting on a rock, his tail curled around him comfortably.  The entire disk was approximately 1½” in diameter, and it possessed an inner light, a glow of health and life. 

         “Your son is so taken with my toys; I think he may find this one a great treasure.” She had a way of whispering that made my skin crawl.

         “Hey, that’s really nice of you, but he doesn’t need anything as expensive as this.” I was speaking in a choppy, breathy, scared voice.

         “Who said expensive?  I will give you such a deal!”

         “Buy it, Mom!”  Alex was mesmerized by the blue glow, the lizard seeming to look into his eyes.

         “N-n-n-aw.  That’s ok.  Let’s go, Alex.”  I was moving away, holding his hand, when he thrust his allowance, twenty dollars for the month, into her hand.

         “No, Alex!”  I almost yelled.

         “A sale is a sale!  It is yours, Alex.”  She snatched the bill and ferreted it away into her long jeans.  “Love her, and she will always keep you safe.” She whispered.  They had made the exchange, and I gave Alex the evil eye.

         “Please, Mom?  He’s so cute, and I love him already.”

         I looked at the lizard.  He was rather cute, his slitted eyes so real they bored into my own.  He was not sinister at all.

         “Ok.  Let’s go now.”  To her, I said, “Any tax?”

         “No.  Enjoy, Alex, and keep her safe.”  She folded the disk into his hand.

         We nearly ran from the store – Alex because he was afraid I would change my mind and make him take it back and me because my willies were really starting to show.  The woman had given me the creeps and it felt good to get back out on the street in the fresh air.  I looked at the lizard again when we were safe in the car.  It was just an ordinary hologram – albeit an exceptionally well-done hologram – in a pewter frame, no more or less.

         “Her name is Loretta.” Alex quietly cooed as he stroked the lizard.

         “It has a name?”  I squeaked.

         “Of course, Mom.” he said as though I were obtuse.

         “It’s a she?”

         He nodded.

         “How did you name it Loretta?”

         “That’s her name.” he sighed.  “I just know.”

         Now, my son was giving me the willies.  I started the car, put it in gear, and home the three of us went.

         Alex kept Loretta in his headboard, pausing whenever he was near his room to look in on her, pat her, and stroke her. The top of the frame had a ring, and I asked him if he would like me to put a cord through it so he could wear it around his neck.  

         “Naw.  I don’t think so,” he said.  “That’s kinda girlie.”

         “Well, Loretta is a girl, isn’t she?”

         “Yeah, well, maybe, but I don’t want to wear her around my neck.”

         The week my roses began fading was the week Alex’s love for Loretta began to wane, as is the way of the ten-year-old.  Even though the desire may be strong, they cannot muster enough concentration to love an inanimate object for very long.  He was more interested in teaching his dog, Zoë, to jump over hurdles. Zoë was part fox terrier and part poodle, the runt of the litter and all of eight inches high.  Hurdles were a significant undertaking for both of them, and Alex felt he needed to devote all his non-school hours to perfecting her form.  Meanwhile, Loretta languished on the headboard.

         One afternoon, I noticed her as I was putting away the wash.  The color had faded from the disk, and Loretta was a mere shadow. 

         “Poor Loretta,”  I whispered, and I could have sworn I saw a brief flash of blue light.  “I’ll wear you.”

         And wear her, I did.  I found a black silk cord and strung it through the ring.  Adjusting the knot, I hung the piece around my neck.  It was heavy, and I could see Alex’s point about not wearing it. Moving to my room, I looked into the mirror.  It was a beautiful piece and hung against the black of my turtleneck; its elegance could not be denied.  It seemed to have regained some of its blue glow, and I stroked it as I’d seen Alex did.  I immediately felt contented and peaceful.  From that day forward, Loretta and I were a pair.  I wore the hologram around my neck every day, with every outfit, dressy or casual.  Alex happily gave me the bauble because, he said, “She gets lonely.”  

He was right because in my company, she glowed.     

         The month Alex bought Loretta, I had taken a new job, and though the position was one I enjoyed, the manager was one I could not.  We were like two predators, constantly circling each other.  Many nights I went home and cried from some hurtful remark she had made, her voice pitched to its usual fingernails-on-the-blackboard timbre.  But I had to have a job and a good one to support Alex and me.  One afternoon, while Genevieve was sternly warning me about my failure to complete a task, I stroked Loretta.  The disk had grown warm from lying next to my chest all day, and it was soothing to fiddle with.  I looked at Genevieve and thought, “I wish you would disappear.”  

         Genevieve was a handsome woman, though desperately overweight.  She had tried many diets to no avail, and the inability to lose weight was the source of her miserable disposition.  Her husband had been trying to cajole her into exercising with him to help her, but she said, “Exercise is only for women who want to look like men.”  Go figure.

         “Did you check with Mr. Ratcliffe before he went to his meeting to see what he might need?” she asked imperiously.  There she sat behind her desk, the chair torqued to its fullest height, and this, coupled with her great bulk, allowed her dominance of the room and, therefore, me.

         “Well, no, I didn’t.  But he told me earlier that he was set for the day.”  I answered hopefully.  

         “You are truly a sorry excuse for an assistant,” she stated, her prominent jowls and lips puffing out in exasperation.  “He is your main concern, and you’d best start remembering it if you intend to continue working here at Plymouth.”  I left. 

         “Yeah, just dis-ap-pear!”  I mouthed to Loretta, giving her a stroke.  I could almost feel the knobs on her back.

          The next day, Genevieve walked into the office and announced, “I am going on a new diet, and this time, I will not fail!”  Her determination was a tangible presence, and for the first time, I truly felt she might reach her goal.  Indeed, within the week, her jowls were not as pronounced.

         Weeks passed, and Genevieve was losing weight at a phenomenal pace. We could see the flesh peeling off each day.

         “Genevieve, you are looking well,” I said one day.

         “Thank you,” she said curtly.  “Did you transcribe those phone calls I sent you?”

         “I only have one left”

         “You should have had those done yesterday.  Better get on the stick, kiddo.”

         The thing I detested most when dealing with Genevieve, were the withering looks of pity I had to endure from my coworkers.  I made my way back to by cubbie.

         Stroke the lizard.

         I had begun to notice a subtle change in Loretta.  If I held the pendant at a certain angle, and allowed light to flow over the surface, she appeared to have grown.  When we had first gotten her, her tail, which was banded in silver, curled near the base of her neck.  When tipped, it now seemed to curl up and around her head.  The changes were visible at only certain angles, but the most disturbing part was, her growth could only be viewed by the light of the moon.

         By the second of December, Genevieve had lost fully one entire human from her body.  She was the shadow of her former rotund personage, and her body had adjusted to the new ensemble of skin by obliging it and pulling it taut.  She had no sagging; indeed, she appeared to have gotten a facelift, liposuction of the upper arm, and the tire, which had at one time surrounded her midsection, was but a memory.  She was beautiful.

         “My husband cannot get enough of looking at me.”  Modesty was not Genevieve’s strongest inclination.  “He loves to hug me and tell me how gorgeous I am.  I will look fabulous in the dress I bought for the Christmas party!”

         Her smug attitude was more disconcerting than the scolding she administered to me for not updating the organizational chart.  The one thing she had not lost was her fishwife shrill voice, calling out to all who chanced to listen about the uselessness of one of her employees – me.

         Stroke the lizard.

         Genevieve decided that if her husband liked her at the current poundage, he would adore her twice over if she was thinner.

         “You can never be too rich nor too thin.” she stated.

         “You can never be too rich.”  I murmured.

         She proceeded to lose, and it seemed to be coming off at an even faster rate than before.  By the end of the following week, she resembled the stick person from the game of Hangman.  None of us were brave enough to tell her it was time to quit, so the inevitable happened the following Monday morning.

         “He’s gone!” Tears coursed down her gaunt cheeks.  “He said I was getting too thin!  He said he had nothing to hang on to!  I tried on a dress, and it looked like a feed sack!”

         Indeed, her husband Rafe had made his way out of their home on Sunday night, vowing never to return to the scarecrow she had become.  She admitted she had begun eating again, but the weight didn’t seem to stick.  It was a stellar week of torment brought on by her emaciated condition.  She ate as though her very life depended on it to no avail, and she regurgitated a record number of epithets not only on me, but also on other unfortunate employees who had not crossed her.

         That night, I noticed Loretta’s tail had curled up and over her head past her left ear.

         Stroke the lizard.

         Genevieve did not come to the Christmas party.  She did not come into the office the next Monday, nor did she call to tell any of us she would be late.  By 10:00, we decided to go to her house since she was only a few blocks away.  Taking the precaution of calling the police before leaving, three of us drove the blocks to her home.  The door was ajar.  Officer Reid had arrived and preceded us, cautiously pointing the way with the barrel of his gun.  

         “Hello? Mrs. Conyers?”  Not a word.  The house was as quiet as a tomb.  The living room was festively decorated for the holiday, tree lights agleam.  We slipped from room to room, my hand clutching Loretta, my heart filled with dread.

         Finally, we reached the bathroom.  There beside the scale was a pile of clothing: dress, slip, panties, bra, pantyhose, and shoes.  Nestled in the skirt folds were a pair of earrings, a necklace, and Genevieve’s wedding ring.  There were no signs of violence and no sign of Genevieve.  She had disappeared.

         After asking every imaginable question, the police shooed us away, and we returned to the office. The remainder of the day passed peacefully, and around quitting time, the police called. It appeared Genevieve had vanished into thin air.

         That night, we had dinner on the patio by the new moon’s light.

         Alex and Zoë happily showed me the act they had been striving to perfect throughout nearly two seasons.  Zoë would run around the homemade track, vaulting over one very low hurdle. Another slightly higher, and finally, another nearly twice her height, turning around in a circle and jumping into Alex’s waiting arms.  It was a performance worthy of Barnum, and the two beamed with glee at my approval.  When they returned to the house to get a well-deserved drink of water, I looked down at Loretta.  I had been dreading looking at her all day and had avoided even touching her, but now my fingers crept the familiar path to her back.

         Stroke the lizard.

         I held her up to the light.  Her tail, S-curved about her body, which had transformed into a bloated, pulsing mass that throbbed in tune with a heartbeat.  The knots on her back glowed and rippled sinuously, quivering with what seemed to be delight.  Her slitted eyes twinkled with satisfaction, and as I watched, a long, red tongue slowly snaked from between her reptilian lips, flashed in the air, and then disappeared.  I heard her whisper:

         “Yum!!”

         Stroke the lizard.