Mona by Kate Clark

Mona does not know why her belly started growing. She is not concerned with these sorts of details. But then there it is, filling her scrawny abdomen right full, stretching round taunt, right there it is. A precious little bulge buried beneath her scratchy blue uniform- hideous, suffocated by her starchy white apron- unbearable. Damn poly-cotton blend, doesn’t breath a lick. Her baby would only wear white linen.

The bulge is barely visible to those who don’t know about the change, but for Mona it is pretty much the only thing she can see. Four months to be precise. That is how long it has been growing for. The change is something nice. It makes her think differently, act differently. Pretty soon nothing will be the same, thank god.

Five-o-fucking clock. The blaring buzz tells her so. Dammit. Mona shrinks further into the warm pool of sheets swirled around her. She curls her legs tight up to her round belly. Her head heavy falls back onto her pillow and dips back into sleep. In her sleep Mona dreams. This morning Mona dreams she has very white teeth, so white. So white they outshine the diamonds that drip from her ears and neck and fingers and toes. The blaring buzz floods the backdrop of her dream. It shakes the diamonds and fills her head tight with a pounding ache. It grows stronger and stronger, louder and louder. Most of her knows that she has to get up now, but the rest of her likes to think her teeth are white as light and the blaring buzz will stop on its own. She lies on her back and holds her belly between her two palms. She decides to get up. Her feet hit the cold hard floor and she turns off her alarm. The blaring buzz is still stuck in her head.

Yes Ma’am. What can I get for you? Of course Sir, right away Sir. So sorry Ma’am. My fault Sir. So sorry about that. Right away. Yes, of course, yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Have a nice day.

Not a thought, not a thought, she would not allow herself a thought, too harsh too early. Mona ducks her head into the pelting cold. She tenses and shutters under the rushing wet. Mona knows to expect the cold, it has been this way for some time, but still it comes as a shock to her body. She presses her thighs together and pinches her shoulders tight up to her ears. Not a thought. The ice wave rushes hard and washes over. It quiets the blaring buzz that throbs between her eyes and pulls across her shoulder blades. The pelting cold presses her shoulders down and cools the burning throb in her back and feet, washing and cooling and calming and numbing until she has no aches, no feet, no back, no thoughts.

“Mona… could you…Mona… will you…Mona… would you… I need you to…Mona…Mona…take my shift...take out the trash… clean the… fix the… make the… Mona could you...Mona will you…Mona I wouldn’t ask but… Oh and could you take these boxes with you on your way out to the dumpster.”

She turns her head and forces her face into the wave of mean cold that washes and wakes and numbs her. Mona loves showers.

It is Saturday, the weekend. Mona hates the weekend. The weekend means getting up earlier and getting home later, working harder and resting none. This would mark her fifteenth day in a row of five-o-fucking clock. If Mona had a weekend to herself she would most definitely take turns sleeping and showering, eating of course too, but mostly just showering and sleeping. Two nights ago Mona slept harder than she had in a long time. She slept and she dreamt and believed for a moment that she would wake to the sound of a humming baby.

Mona stands naked on the bathroom mat, drips wet. She catches a glimpse of her profile in her fragmented mirror and smiles. Her belly gently curves outward from the rest of her figure. She does not mind that her arms and thighs are growing thicker too. Mona softly presses the towel against her stomach and gently rubs her belly with the fluff of her towel. Her hair still drips streams of wet down her shoulders and onto her stomach. She roughly rustles her hair with the towel to stop the drips.

Four cups flour, three fourths cup sugar, three teaspoons baking powder, two teaspoons baking soda, one half teaspoon salt, one and one half sticks butter mix

Four cups flour...three teaspoons baking powder...one half teaspoon salt…mix

Four cups flour…two teaspoons baking soda…three-fourths cups sugar…mix

Mona lets the oatmeal thicken in the pot while she sets out the orange juice, toast, jam, eggs, pears, butter, raisins, and yogurt. She hates getting hungry while she is at work. The only thing for her to eat at the bakery is sugary-butter-flour-yuck. Wall to wall the bakery is lined and packed with rows and heaps of maple-chocolate-cherry-glazed- frosted-sprinkled cookie-cake-donut-rolls. Years and years of five-o-fucking clock. Years and years of making, selling, eating, packaging, arranging, re-arranging makes Mona want to vomit. She has not eaten a crumb of it in four months now.

5:59 am: Mona bursts through the back door of the bakery. Phew, not late. To small-town German-Catholics there is no such thing as late. There is hard work and beer, but no late. A gust of cool winter morning sneaks in with Mona and disrupts the heavy baking air that lulls the white aprons as they shuffle dough from bowl, to table, to pan, to oven, to cart, to shelf. Herds of zombies, hair nets, red eyes, flour stains, push their carts to and fro. No words exchange, no music either, too early for that, or maybe to too late. Just the sound of squealing wheels and achy carts pushed to and fro. It is a sight no donut-loving customer would even know to imagine. 6 am, their day nearly through. By noon they will all be fast asleep, but mounds and heaps of warm round dough- all varieties, are now ready to be sold. And sell they will, small-town German-Catholic work ethic is great for business.

Mona loosely ties the apron strings behind her back so that her apron will drape gently over her stomach. She hates to think of anything pressing into her full round belly. She tucks her hair up under her cap, it itches already. She scrubs every patch of skin on her hands and forearms, dries, then washes again. Mona stretches the time before she must settle into her position behind the rows and stacks of sugared nasty that stand between her and the rows and lines of customers. Mona smiles fiercely.

“Can I help you?”

Mona’s coworkers are whispering again. She does not care. She knows this is what they do. They complain about their children, brag about their grandchildren, and gossip about everyone else. When Mona is not helping in the back she spends her time at the counter alongside a fleet of sixty-something, thick-wristed, whisker-bearing ladies. They get up early, work hard, feed their husbands supper- on time, and take pity and jealousy on anyone who doesn’t. Their German accents are thick and sometimes cruel. They are not mean to Mona, but they most certainly do not go out of their way to make her life easy.

None of them asks Mona who the lucky father is. She knows it is because they do not like what she is doing. She is not married. She does not even have a boyfriend. She knows that they are afraid to ask. Afraid she will shrug her shoulders when they ask. Truth is, Mona does not remember. She cannot explain how it happened. Still she thinks it is strange that not one of the ladies she works with has mentioned her growing belly.

They whisper a lot to each other, this she knows, but Mona has no idea what they whisper, what they say when they whisper, what they call her.

“It just ain’t normal, the way she is.”

“Just not right.”

“Hush, she may be crazy, but she ain’t deaf.”

Mona feels sorry for them. Most of them have worked in the bakery longer than Mona has been alive. Mona knows that is too long for anybody.

“Good morning Sir. Can I help you?”

“I need two dozen chocolate cake donuts, one dozen raspberry bizmarks, four custard-filled long johns.” The man’s eyes do not lift from the rows of maple-chocolate- caramel-nut-mint-cherry inches below Mona’s face.

“Would you like those in a box or a bag…here you are sir…. your total is…thank you, have a nice day.”

“Thank you, have a nice day.”

“Thank you, have a nice day.”

“Thank you, have a nice day.”

Mona hates these words, more than she hates cookies and cakes combined. She is good at smiling though, so she goes on like this for some time. She does not want them to have a bad day. It’s the sound of it that bothers her, stiff and ugly- unnatural the way it comes out of her mouth. Mona checks the clock. Mona keeps checking the clock until it is time for her break.

Red-faced and panting Mona now sits by herself in the windowless quarantine that is the employee “break room.” Mona holds her face in her hands. She smears the wet across her cheeks with the back of her hands. Her eyes still fill and flood. She wipes them away the best she can. Mona slumps forward in her seat. She rests her head on the back of the flimsy plastic chair. The small bulge that is her tummy stares straight at her. Overhead she hears the muffled clumping of the donut-eating customers and the achy screaming wheels of the pastry carts, hauling pans and pans, rows and rows, stacks and stacks. On the outside of the door, two strips of duct tape in black marker read, BREAK ROOM. Mona used to spend her fifteen-minute break sipping burnt coffee and snacking on donut holes or broken cookies.

Mona now spends her break devouring oranges, carrots, apples, pasta, milk, yogurt- anything anything anything and everything but cookies. She loves to think about the healthy baby she is growing inside of her belly. She likes to think about the life she will make for her baby. All of these thoughts make Mona glow and grin. A stack of baby books sits on the table in front of her. Mona holds her stomach as she eats and thumbs through one of the books. Agatha? Angela? Agusto? Bella? Would it be a Cara? Davon? Grant? Mona thinks about her palms how nice they feel against her smooth tight stomach. Mona does not like to look at or think about the backs of her hands. They are unsalvageable- leather. Mona has had a job since she was twelve. The wear of each working day is there in her hands, warped and wrinkled and dry, but her palms are still smooth, smooth as she strokes the white of her belly.

“Chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry?” Mona asks the woman at the counter. The woman’s teeth are white, so white. Her neck, ears, and ring finger sparkle with diamonds. Her hands are smooth and young. She bounces a gurgling, giggling, pig-tailed replica of herself on her hip.

“What do you think Gabby?” She singsong sings to her little girl.

Mona glows and grins, she loves being so close to the little girl and her mother. She pushes her lips out crooked and widens her eyes to amuse the little girl as her mother studies the contents of the glass case. The little girl claps her hands hard twice and squirms in her mother’s arms.

“What a beautiful little girl you have.” The woman shifts the bouncing girl to her other hip.

“Oh, well thank you, we’ll take six of each.” Strange she does not mention Mona’s belly.

Mona takes great care in handling the cup cakes. She pretends like these cupcakes are for her own little girl. She puts extra tissue down to line the box. She alternates the cupcakes, chocolate, strawberry, then vanilla, over and again until she has filled two white boxes perfectly. She wraps the boxes with red ribbon and takes extra effort in tying the most perfect red bows. Her eyes fill with water. She blinks back all of the tears that she can, but more and more keep coming. Some fall onto the little girls white boxes. She hands one to the woman. Mona smiles as hard as she can and hopes that the woman does not notice the dampened splotches. Mona touches her stomach and watches the woman walk out of the bakery door. The bell on the bakery door chimes with their exit and the little girl waves to Mona through the glass door, still bouncing and clapping and smiling.

Mona tries very had not to think about it- how unfair it all is. She tries desperately not to think about it -how tired she is, so tired, she hurts. She doesn’t think about how much longer she must wait, nor about how much harder she must work, no, not a thought. She hopes the little girl will enjoy her cupcakes.

Mona sees a red-ribbon, the box has been left on the counter. She grabs the box and rushes fast after them. In her rush Mona’s foot catches on the corner of the bakery cart hidden behind the counter. No step, leg staggers, neck jerks, arms flail, grip tightens, Mona stumbles hard. Feet fall away, front launches forward, tumbling hard, falling hard, Mona flat onto her front. The white box rips from her clutch and smashes hard to the ground, just out of her grasp. The cupcakes are mangled and broken, smothered and sad. The red ribbon lays limp and the white frosting bleeds brown. Mona presses her flush wet cheek against the floor. She wants very badly to hold the tiny cakes in her hand and put them back together, but she cannot. Mona remembers the cupcakes are not even hers. The cakes are not hers, never hers. This thought is too much for Mona. She heaves and gulps hard for air. Every breath is unreachable. She pants fast and quick fast and quick, and yet her lungs cannot grab air, heaving and gulping and panting and panicking. A cool wet cloth presses into Mona’s forehead. A strong thick palm steadies and squeezes her flailing fist. Mona’s frantic fleeting thoughts are forced into the background by a thick steady voice.

“Honey breathe. You’re going to be fine. Blow out. There you go. You’re going to be fine honey. You are going to be just fine.”

Mona wants very badly to believe her, and so she lets herself believe until she gets her breath back. The air is still full of weight and her breaths are loud, but they are there. Mona crawls to her knees. It is not easy. Her front now aches along with her back and neck. She steadies her shoulder against the counter and lets the strong arms help pull her up, gradually pushing and pulling and hoisting and heaving Mona is up. Mona is glad she has her breath back, but she knows she is not okay. Knows she has not been okay for some time.

“I need to go now,” Mona tells the woman. The woman nods, but her eyes are confused. Mona takes off her apron and walks out the door.

Months pass and the women at the bakery still go back and forth about what happened to Mona, which direction she went. It will probably remain this way- unsettled. But one thing is certain, pretty much nothing is the same.