Little pasta ghosts still cling to the sides, the remains of a bag of instant Halloween soup: a consolation prize for Lisa, who was in fact delighted to fish ghosts out of the much-too-tomatoey-smelling liquid, and thereby gradually forgot her defeat. Leonie threw in a package of colorful plastic spiders she’d gotten at the discount store as a bonus. With the distribution of the creepy animals, the washing off of makeup in the bathtub, and dinnertime, the night passes quickly. Felicia’s swollen lips shine under a layer of ointment; she wheezes, open-mouthed, her breath warm and smelling of children’s toothpaste. Lisa is completely exposed—her nightgown has ridden up to her chest, showing her skinny legs, which are long and tight with muscles. Blue and purple bruises, the marks of monkey bars and bike crashes, dot the fair skin of her legs. A pair of underpants with cat faces covers her hairless crotch. It would be so easy to destroy her, Leonie thinks—it wouldn’t take much strength, her bones would break easily, her flesh is tender.
