Glass Houses

by Sofia Christensen

Arianna was accustomed to the cramped musty smell and monotonous roaring that accompanied her thirty-minute train ride to work every weekday morning. Each day she sat with the only two friends she had the patience to deal with at 7 am—a book and her coffee, which was routinely poured into the mug lovingly made by the class of autistic children she’d worked with two summers before. Arianna was careful never to bend the pages of her book, to balance her cup gracefully between her seat and the wall of the train, and to keep mostly to herself, smiling occasionally at the other passengers that grumbled and shuffled their newspapers in strange unison. Today was not particularly different than any other day Arianna had spent on the train, except for the hazy sheet of rain that had spontaneously decided to descend in the middle of a sunny week in May. After leaving her apartment, she was running too late for the train to turn back and put on a thicker sweater—an unfortunate inconvenience, she now realized, as she pressed her arms more tightly to her side in a sad attempt to warm her thin body.

The train stopped with a sticky lurch, and as the doors slid open, Arianna was momentarily distracted by the frantic syncopated footsteps of passengers scrambling aboard, squeezing past their neighbors to snag the last remaining seats—poorly padded as they were, the chairs proved more comfortable than being sandwiched by two strange bodies with unfamiliar scents. Across from her, a blonde woman in her late twenties sat down almost uncomfortably, crossing her legs immediately and quickly angling her face toward the window. Arianna stopped reading mid-sentence as she sensed movement across from her, pausing for a half second to look up through the blurred and striped vision of her brown bangs at the woman facing her. It took hardly a second to glance from the tips of her rather small feet and up her long legs to the top of her head. The blonde woman was clad in tall black boots, dark slim-fitting jeans, and a grey sweater that clung to her skin and accentuated the gentle curve of her waist and bust. A thin chain rested against the slight crater of her collarbones, and perched conspicuously on the edge of her nose was a pair of enormous sunglasses, despite the rain that now splattered aggressively against the sides of the train. Arianna went back to reading and sat up straight, neck curved downward slightly as she turned the page with the pad of a finger. She took a quick sip of coffee as she did, letting the dark bitter taste rest a moment on her tongue before swallowing. She was thoroughly engulfed in her novel. It was her fourth time reading it, and yet the book looked freshly bound—the pages lacked creases, the cover still had a slight sheen.

The woman facing her was now rummaging desperately through a slouchy leather purse. Though the faint tinkering of keys, lipsticks, and pens was barely audible to Arianna, the violent arm movement disturbed her glazed-over connection to the small spindly words on the pages. She looked up, wide-eyed, brushing a thin strand of hair behind her ears. The woman seemed embarrassed, though her eyes were still impossible to see through the dark plastic lenses of her glasses, which gleamed under the dim train lights like impenetrable obsidian stones. With a faint smile, she seemed to find what she wanted—a sleek black cell phone, which buzzed gently in her palm. She snapped it open with a lithe flick of her thumb, and it was obvious she did so with ease—phone calls were no rarity for this woman. She slouched slightly into her seat, sliding the phone to her cheek, and said a breathy, “Hello?” Arianna’s attention was elsewhere. Across the aisle, a middle-aged woman had wrapped her thin arms around a pole, steadying herself as the train shook its way across an overpass. Poorly dressed, bags under her eyes, dirty fingernails, Arianna realized this woman was not in good health, and as she knew that no one else around would care enough to do so, she gathered her things, stood up, and offered up her seat. Balancing her mug and book precariously in either hand while she managed somehow to maintain a steady stance against the pole, Arianna smiled down at the woman she’d helped out. The blonde woman was still on the phone, occasionally pulling at the well-maintained ends of her hair, fidgeting slightly as if unsatisfied by her seat. The woman’s voice began to crescendo from a quiet mumble to an exasperated and loud tone. Groggy heads turned slightly in her direction, momentarily distracted from the monotony of their ritualistic reading of the newspaper. “I don’t see what’s so hard to understand. I just had to get it fixed. I was so sick of everything, Mom. It was a safe procedure, and you know it’s not my fault. I wouldn’t have had to do this if it weren’t for what he’s put me through. Look, I…” Suddenly, with a strange leaden heaviness, the woman’s purse slid from the seat, and in her frantic haste to stop it from reaching the floor, her gargantuan sunglasses slipped off of her petite face, bouncing underneath her seat. Face flushing to a deep pink, the woman leaned over quickly, attempting to find the glasses as quickly as possible, but they were out of arm’s length. Arianna glanced up as the bag fell, and when the woman sat up, unable to reach the glasses behind her seat, Arianna stifled a conspicuous reaction.

The area around the woman’s nose was pathetically swollen, with an aggressive purple hue that bloomed beneath her tired eyes. It was off-putting and unexpected on a woman so beautiful and put together, and the fluorescent lighting of the train did nothing to alleviate the subtle gruesomeness of the bruises. Under a set of thick curled lashed, she looked down uncomfortably, unable to cover her face with the glasses any longer. The phone had fallen onto her lap, and she picked it up quickly, saying, “Sorry, I…uh…dropped my phone. Yes, I’m recovering; I just hate all these painkillers. Okay, mom, I’m getting off at my stop soon so I need to go…Okay…yes, love you too…bye.” She snapped the phone shut with frustration, covering her eyes lightly with her slender hand, letting a breathy sigh escape her mouth. Even with the woman’s hand over her eyes, Arianna could still the bright and angry mangle of bruises on her face under her eyes, but it was still obvious that she was absolutely beautiful. With the slim waist, the full bust, the perfectly pouted lips, this woman still proved that she had the looks. But Arianna felt no sympathy. She found these kinds of women unbelievable. With the leather purse, the perfectly styled hair, and the high-end jeans, it was apparent that this woman was well off. Yet here she was, obviously recovering from a nose job, whining to her own mother about how she needed to do it for her husband, boyfriend, whoever it was. Though the woman had her neck bent downwards in an embarrassed and self-pitying fashion, Arianna was filled with skepticism. This woman had so much to be grateful for, so much luxury in her life, and her biggest trouble was that—how tragic—her nose was just a little too long or round, a bit crooked. Here she was spending disgusting amounts of money on things that didn’t matter when women, like the one Arianna had given up her seat to, were ill and unfortunate, in need of help. As if a new face would quench her petty desires, the woman had formed herself to fit a perfect mold, and Arianna was appalled. In a modern world, that women couldn’t learn to appreciate the simpler things in life seemed preposterous. Every day Arianna did her best to contribute to her community. Whether it meant giving a few dollars to the homeless on her way to the train station, or even just taking the time to pick up a piece of trash from the park pathway, she never failed to feel the humble satisfaction of giving. She looked back over at the blonde woman with a newfound feeling of pity. She would never know that feeling; she would ride through life with an eight hundred dollar purse on her shoulder and the satisfaction of looking into the mirror in her newly remodeled bathroom every morning at the face that had been so artfully yet coldly reconfigured by another human’s hands.

The woman looked up suddenly as the train squealed to a stop. Evidently, this was her station. With all the grace of a three-legged giraffe, she managed to gather the mass of her miscellaneous tinkling possessions and exit through the murky glass doors onto the platform. Arianna noticed the perky round shape of the blonde’s butt, and wondered how much she’d paid for it. A pretty penny, she was sure.

*******

Ellie stepped off of the train car, and was immediately hit by a veil of rain, which sprinkled onto her sweater leaving dark spots of water to cling to the tiny fibers. The fifteen-minute walk home was not a fun one. Just a block into her trek, pushing past gray figures that hunched under crooked umbrellas, she was almost soaked through and her jeans clung with damp dark fingers around her thighs, weightily absorbing rainwater. The wind was sharp and went easily through her clothes, and her bones ached from the cold. When she finally reached the stoop of her apartment building, her hair was slicked to her face in wavy locks, and she paused for a minute to catch her breath before unlocking the door and turning the cold brass handle. The elevator was broken for the fourth time in two weeks. Ellie took the stairs. Upon entering her apartment, she dropped the bag Mark had once bought her, the boots, jeans, and cashmere sweater he’d given her as gifts, and grabbed a pair of sweats, a white tank, and a towel. She lay down on her bed, exhausted but happy to be home from her graveyard shift at the hospital. Staring up at the white ceiling, she brought her knees up to her chest and curled up the way she used to when she was young. Ellie had neither adjusted to the new apartment nor to the feeling of being alone when she came home from work, fixing meals for one in a tiny kitchen.

After that night, there was no way she could have stayed with him. Not when he’d actually hit her. She remembered the fight clearly. They were arguing in the hall on the newly carpeted floors, and Mark had gotten so angry so quickly, yelling with unyielding and jealous suspicion about the man he’d seen Ellie having coffee with. These petty fights were typical, but this time, he took a step forward and came at her with a frighteningly lithe swiftness. Ellie felt the sharp crushing pain in her nose, heard bone crunch, and could suddenly taste the blood in her mouth, feel it oozing warmly from her nose and lips. Her vision blurred in deep gray patches and everything went numb—her face, her mind. She woke up in the hall later, face pressed to ground. Mark was gone. The sun was setting, casting a low light across the floors, and the walls glowed dully. The throbbing in her nose and her mouth made itself known, and touching her face lightly, she winced in pain. The mahogany-framed mirror in the hall revealed a swollen face, darkened by the mass of blood that had dried in a macabre manner on her nose and around her mouth. Ellie stared at the stranger, and the stranger had stared back with equal astonishment and grief. She drove herself to the hospital, the radio on low volume, projecting the faint sounds of some symphonic orchestra or another.

Dr. Barnes had since then corrected the mangled state of her nose, about three days ago, and Ellie took on a new ritual. Before leaving her apartment, she got out the ice and her sunglasses. After eating with the cold pack pressed to her face, she removed the ice and replaced it with the glasses, shielding herself, hiding her bruises from judgmental eyes. And today had not been particularly different than any other day Ellie had spent on the train. Although dropping her sunglasses was unexpected, it was nothing like the narrow-eyed looks she’d gotten from that woman with the book and the mug. Ellie pulled the white covers up around her, mulling slowly and indiscernibly between hazy thoughts. This new life was different and unfamiliar, but it was not worse. She loved her job for keeping her busy with important things, helping her forget more and more every day the cause of her bruises. Her cheeks were still numb from the cold, and she shivered delicately beneath the cool sheets. Pressing her damp head to the pillow, she closed her eyes to sleep and prepare once more for another graveyard shift. Her nose ached lightly and the gray light made faint shadows on the covers that innocently imitated the spatter of bruises on her face. As the rain pattered indifferently against the windows behind her bed, thirty blocks away Arianna stopped to give her umbrella to an old couple. She entered the glassy building in which she worked, smiling contentedly at starting her day off just right.