tiffany promise

inheritance

Our mothers wander from beer-joint to beer-joint on Telephone Road after dropping us at the Santa Rosa Theater with sandwiches stuffed in our coats. Sometimes they use butter instead of peanut butter, but we don’t complain. We watch cartoons while they can’t be bothered.     

We take ourselves to kindergarten with diapers full of shit. We learn to read by memorizing liquor-bottle labels; we learn to add by counting jukebox-change. When our mothers are too fat too fit behind the wheel, we drive their beat-up caddies to middle school, let boys feel us up in the backseats. We leave home at sixteen—maybe even fourteen. We marry and un-marry and marry again. We learn how to smile without showing our teeth.

We don’t read poetry or drink hot tea. We burn toast and apply too much eyeshadow. We don’t bake pies or attend AA meetings, we date ex-cons and drink Colorado Bulldogs for lunch. We stop having hangovers at twenty-two. By thirty we are through.

 Instead of staying in highfalutin’ hotels on tropical islands, we check ourselves into the hospital for free drugs and clean towels. We get our tans from the hijacked bed in our girlfriend’s den—after her electric’s cut, baby oil and sunshine’ll do just fine.

We don’t do crosswords or speak French or know a goddamned thing about the opera. We chase the dog around the yard in bathrobes and foam curlers and instead of wasting time in the tub, we wipe the dirt from our necks with damp rags and douse ourselves in baby powder and Love’s. We apply layer after layer of polish until our nails are as bumpy as moon rocks.

We don’t have motherly dispositions (or time for condoms) but claptrap mouths, and spider-eyes, and hands that read more than lifelines. Our backbones are snaked, our tongues are thick, our nutrient-empty milk leaks thinly from our pushed-up breasts. We’re always looking for men to be week-long fathers—month-long, if we get lucky—and we hike up our skirts to show off our prickly legs. We’ve heard the word bitch one too many times.

We’ve never had a bank account, our bras work just fine. We stockpile Aqua Net and strawberry Lip Smackers; Campbell’s for the kids, Eskimo Pies for us. We fall asleep with our makeup on at least three times a week, we don’t bother with the nicotine yellow that stains our fingertips. The heels often break off our shoes, so we carry superglue in our pocketbooks, along with coupons, pacifiers, tampons, bobby pins, popcorn, and extra Lee Press-Ons.

We wander from beer-joint to beer-joint on Telephone Road after dropping the kids at the Santa Rosa Theater with sandwiches stuffed in their coats. Sometimes we use butter instead of peanut butter, but they don’t complain. They watch cartoons while we can’t be bothered.       

Tiffany Promise was awarded an MFA in creative writing from CalArts in 2010, and an MA in psychology from CIIS in 2013. Her stories and poems have recently appeared in High Shelf, Blanket Sea, Gingerbread House, Black Clock, and are forthcoming in Peculiar and Sunspot; she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2015. Tiffany just finished her first novel, Eggs, under the mentorship of Francesca Lia Block, and is currently seeking an agent. Tiffany lives between Los Angeles and Victoria, B.C., with her five cats and very sassy toddler, Poesie Moon.