Prettiest Doll by Gina Willner-Pardo

city way. My heart beat fast, just hearing his voice.
    â€œUncle Bread?” I was going to say “It’s me,” but before I could get it out, the intercom crackled and Uncle Bread said, “Liv?” in the old voice that I remembered.
    â€œYes. Me and a friend.”
    â€œOh, my God.
Jesus.”
Then he said, “Come up. Push the door when you hear the buzzer. Take the elevator to the third floor.”
    Inside, the lobby was plain, with a brown-tiled floor and two rows of metal mailboxes just inside the door. The smell was like a mix of the girls’ bathroom at Dale Hickey Junior High after the janitor’d cleaned it and the chop suey from the Pagoda Palace on Mound Street. When we got on the elevator, I looked at Danny and whispered, “It smells funny,” and he said, “That’s what it smells like when you live next to other people.” He said it like someone who knew everything about the world, who just wasn’t going to be surprised, even if that elevator had stopped at the second floor and a dang zebra had gotten on.
    But I could tell from the way he kept his eyes on the floor numbers over the doors that it was all an act.
    On the third floor, I stepped out into the hall, and before I could say “Hi” or “I missed you so much,” Uncle Bread was holding out his arms and saying, “Oh, my God!” and I couldn’t remember if I started crying just then or if I’d been doing it quietly in the elevator the whole ride up and not even knowing.
    â€œIt’s all right. It’s all right,” he whispered into my hair, and I couldn’t stop shaking.
    Then he picked me up, still hugging, and carried me into the apartment. In the front hall, he put me down and kneeled in front of me. “How’s my girl?” he said, and then I started crying again.
    â€œBless my soul,” he finally said. “What we need is some Kleenex.”
    He disappeared for a moment, and I became aware that Danny was still standing out in the hall. “Well, come in. Come
in,”
I whispered loudly, waving him forward with my hand.
    â€œYou should introduce me,” Danny whispered back.
    â€œI will. Get in here, though,” I said, irritated that Danny thought maybe there were politeness rules I didn’t know.
    Uncle Bread came back with the Kleenex. He was still thin, with red hair so pale it was almost pink. He had a half beard covering just his chin and upper lip: that was new. And his face looked older in some way that I couldn’t pin down—not wrinkled, exactly, more like paper that had been crumpled into a ball and then smoothed out.
    He was wearing green pajama bottoms and a gray Mizzou sweatshirt with the sleeves shoved up to his elbows. His bare feet were so white against the blue rug that I thought of clouds in the sky, the thin, wispy kind with no rain in them.
    â€œAre you all right?” he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he handed me a tissue. “Now blow.”
    I wiped my nose and pointed out into the hall. “By the way, this is Danny.”
    Uncle Bread turned around and said, “Well, for Lord’s sake,” and held the front door even farther open. “Come on in, Danny. I’m so sorry. I didn’t even
see
you.”
    Danny shuffled in, blushing. I wondered if he was thinking that it sucked to be another person in the same room with two people who already knew each other. Or maybe he thought Uncle Bread didn’t see him because of how short he was.
    Once Danny was inside, Uncle Bread closed the front door and turned back to us.
    â€œOkay. In the living room
now,”
he commanded. Holding the Kleenex box to his side like a football, he headed through the archway, holding his other hand high over his shoulder and motioning that we were supposed to follow.
    The living room walls were the color of a Band-Aid, not white like I was used to, and the floors were shiny, uncarpeted