One Lie, Zero Questions

I’m in a windowless room with a woman

who lies about her age. They told me

to do it, she coos. She starts dancing

as if there is music playing like some

sort of possessed Lolita doll. She’s

older than me and an actress, but I

feel like a volunteer mentor at a middle

school. She pauses from her watered down

hip hop moves. You have to protect me,

I’m a girlie girl, she says, even though

she is a grown woman and I am slighter

than her. She is a stereotype. She is

rainbow sprinkles and soft-core porn.

I command her to dump out the contents

of her oversized purse, in case there is

something in there that can help us.

She looks at me with wide eyes after

her tiny objects have scattered across

the floor. I’ve never heard her ask a

question. I pull a flask out of my own

purse and sigh.