Sleeping Alone, Together

A story about a middle aged woman and her teddy bear. Go to andrewhenleywriting.wordpress.com for more of my writing.

Angelica lived alone and slept with Hector every night. Hector had a caramel brown complexion, was slightly tubby and was hairy and bald at the same time. He had dark expressive eyes that glimmered in the sun and always had a Mona Lisa smile that certainly showed emotion, you just couldn’t tell which. He was also a teddy bear.

 

Hector was an old bear. Angelica was now in her late 30s, and she had known Hector since she was just a child. He had been a wise old bear even then. They were pretty much married by this point. Angelica had no other husband. Or children. Or nieces and nephews. Or friends, or even co-workers she could optimistically call friends, because she worked at home, proofreading and typesetting cookbooks.

 

On February 13^th, she fell asleep with Hector gripped tightly in her pale arms that were beginning to varicose. By Valentine’s morning, he had rolled around uncomfortably the way real husbands do. Angelica woke up and thought about all the couples who would be having sex that morning. Or that night. Or any time in the next year. And all she had was Hector. They had kissed when she was a teenager, but that was just so Angelica could practice for real boys. It was largely unnecessary.

 

Angelica lived her life wading through treacle, which slowed down everything in her day-to-day. That morning, she shuffled to the front door of her bungalow to pick up the mail. A bill, some junk and a cheque from her latest cookbook job. But there was something else. A pink envelope, lying next to this mail but not with it, as if it was something deserving of its own pile entirely. On the envelope, Angelica’s name was written in calligraphy. No one had written her name in calligraphy before.

 

Inside the envelope was a Valentine’s card with hearts and lips and teddy bears on the front. Inside, in calligraphy it told her, ‘I love you, don’t ever change’.

 

Angelica’s heartbeat raced and rollercoastered with thoughts of who it could be from, and whether it was a joke. She doubted that it was a joke. No one knew her well enough to play such an intimately cruel joke on her. The treacle was washed away. She went upstairs to pick out a dress. Angelica had slept in an unflattering grey nightie, which she removed in the bedroom to stand naked in front of the mirror. She could not remember the last time she shaved anywhere, and her body was spotted with hedgehogs. She sighed and turned to face Hector.

“You know Hector, you’re the only one who’s seen me like this in over 10 years.”

 

Angelica had no sexy underwear, and very few sets that were not ugly and entirely built for comfort and practicality. She eventually found a yellowish bra and vaguely matching knickers that would have to do. Amongst all the loose, stained t-shirt and baggy jumpers, she found two dresses in the wardrobe. Angelica thought she must have bought them for some friend’s weddings, back when she still had friends. One of them had monochromatic black and white stripes, and she remembered that one. The other was pastel blue with lace collar and cuffs, and she can’t remember ever wearing it.

 

She held them both by the duck’s neck crook of the hanger, and superimposed them in turn in front of her body. She held them out and asked Hector which one he preferred. His stuffed, inanimate arm appeared to be pointing at the pastel blue, so that was the one she chose. In her dress, she put on white high heels and decorated her face in makeup. It was the first time in years she had worn makeup, and the creams and powders and waxes felt alien to the skin on her face.

 

Angelica spent most of the day out, pretending she could fit in, and wondering who could have sent her the Valentine’s card. After her errands, she sat in a coffee house and watched young couples kiss. Girls with flowers in their hair and boys with fire in their eyes. Later, she went to bars, where the girls lost their flowers and the boys showed their fire. They don’t make her cry the way young people sometimes did.

 

Under the bored, watchful stars, she returns home in a stiletto stumble, roses were on her doorstep. She took them inside and fawned over them with glassy eyes. That night she slept in her dress and heels. And when she got cold, Hector pulled the quilt up to cover his wife.