After the Kiss (20 page)

I will set her on fire,

this grass girl becoming nothing

but disappearing smoke.

Absentminded

Everyone's leaning over a laptop,

staring intently at the screen,

learning about layout,

uploading all our stories,

and dropping them into place

for the writer's forum magazine.

There's a visiting guest

teaching us the ropes,

showing us about margins,

choosing our fonts.

He is tall and blond and his name is Lain

and Sara's so intwatulated

she can barely sit still.

This is what we've been working for,

what I

couldn't wait to get to,

but now they are all

just goldfish in a bowl to me—

a baseball game

on TV

with the sound down

halfway through the sixth inning,

and I don't know who's at bat.

There is

only one thing I see, everywhere—

please.

A Paralyzed Girl Doesn't Flinch When She's Kicked

For days the numbness has entombed me

—a mannequin marching

in a life that was once mine—

uncertain, undecided

and decidedly unkempt.

There is still

a swath of cotton around my mouth,

around my face,

and three inches of thickness

between me and the air.

So it doesn't hurt me

—it doesn't pierce—

when I arrive the next time at work,

and am called to the back—before clocking in.

Emmett—Mr. Siegel—is here at his desk,

and Margot is unable

to look me in the eye.

I am told I am

let go.

It's not working out—

I'm not taking this seriously, and there're

too many mistakes.

They have covered my shift.

I am free to go now.

Here is a check

for the days I'm still owed.

He says thank you again,

and that's all there is.

My spine has been severed

so I can't feel my legs

as I walk out the door,

and I can't even turn

to look back and wave.

There's nothing I hear,

nothing I see,

not even Nadia

with her sorry good-bye.

Aftershock

For

six

whole

minutes

I

can't

breathe.

Head

pressed

to

the

steering

wheel—

crying

so

hard,

my

stomach

comes

up.

Epiphany

The fear is a force

moving me home,

driving me

where I don't want to go.

I will have to tell Mom

what happened today,

and she will want to know
why

and I'll have to explain.

Explain how he showed up,

how I've been making mistakes,

how it's been hard to focus

with everything going on.

I'm two paychecks away

from paying back the car,

the rest would be college—what I was going to save.

I practice the answers:

They just worked me too hard.

What did they expect—

I'm only in high school.

And even in my ears—still stuffed with cotton—

my voice is too tinny,

the words ringing false.

There is

only one answer:

Alec got in my way.

And it hits me, too true,

so I say it out loud,

knowing I can't

let it happen

again.

hope for shasta

you are out in the yard watching the dogs—two of the beagles were adopted yesterday apparently, and their sister lopes around, uncertain, trying to provoke the dalmatian mix and the boxer called optimus, but both of them are more interested in the new strange man who stands quietly at the edge of the yard, the one you've seen before a few times, the one the dogs think has treats in his pocket. one of your hands is on shasta's belly and the other traces circles in the dirt, still fixating on all the stuff you don't know. the man interests you too though. he likes to come and pet the dogs, to just look—but you are trying to set an example for them, trying to be cool, trying to make him do the work. he walks his way slowly along the cinder block wall, one foot over the other, sidling in his khakis and his blue diamond tie. the dogs run up to him and sniff his knees. he reaches down to each one, pats them on the head. but soon it is obvious he's working his way over to you, and eventually even shasta's watching when he finally comes forward, stretches out his hand.
i'm john,
he says, and you tell him your name, the dog's
. hello, shasta,
he says in earnest, holding his hand out only a little, letting shasta's hesitant nose sniff toward him.
i'm not allowed to come home with another dog,
john says eventually, his eyes looking out at the puppies but his hand still held out in shasta's direction. shasta, who is leaning over now, licking
the man's fingers. your hand goes back and forth, along shasta's furry back, and his tail thumps once, twice. you don't know what to say and are more interested in seeing what shasta does, watching how he stretches—invisibly—even closer to this new man. his heart is thumping in its rib cage under your hand that rests in his white-freckled-fur, and you want to whisper
he's not that great
, and also
go for it—don't be afraid
. watching him—watching them together—there is a tension inside you that you want to suspend, a sudden understanding you want to take home and bottle, to hold on to and keep for later when you really need it. here, sitting in the dusk, stroking shasta with this stranger, it is suddenly very clear to you the necessity for caution and the deep need to let it go.

hope for you

mom has the letter from berkeley sitting right in the middle of the dining room table when you get home from the shelter. it was too weird to go to the coffeehouse tonight—you still don't know what to do if you see coffeecounter girl again.
i waited until you got home,
mom says, though she can barely wait anymore for you to put down your bag. she doesn't know this is the only real application you've sent—that you will not go anywhere if you can't go here—and you wish she weren't standing here, that you could open it on your own. you didn't think you wanted to go, but now with the letter here and knowing their international programs and your squandered funds and your revised future plans, you are terrified you won't be accepted. you sit down at the table, slide the envelope to the edge. if you want to know things better, here is your first chance. as soon as you open it you will know something, at least, and that will be a start. you drag the letter opener mom set out on the table slowly across the top. you pull out the two-page letter.
congratulations
is all you see.

consolation prize

you spent the last two days working on the invitations: real ones, with hand-stamped filigrees and mom's best handwriting. you even dug up your old calligraphy kit and its antique wax seal, held the match to the wax and then pressed down, hard. now it is before school and you are handing them to everyone, even edgar, and they all raise their eyebrows but are cooing with delight. they won't take off for spring break until saturday, and before they go you've decided to party. mom's already planned the hors d'oeuvres and punch and dad's stringing lights all across the back porch. it will be a real party, a gatsby party, the kind of party you've never gotten to have in other cities, moving around and barely accumulating enough friends to take out for pizza. but now you have a gang of them and it is your senior year and you are all going away soon, so you will have this party you've always wanted and who knows how it will turn out but at least you'll have this. you tell them to bring music you tell them to dress up, and they are bubbling and giggling and you feel light as a bird. there are things you're afraid of, things you can't control but there are also things you are glad for and what's wrong with that?

purging and leaping, leaping and purging

there's a postcard you want to write but there's something else you need to write first. coffeecounter girl is not here to hand you your cake but it's not her day and you need to concentrate, anyway. you're not sure if you'll send it but it needs to be said:
dear alec,
you start,
we were both fools.
you want to apologize, you want to slap his face, you want to insult him, you want to say thanks. you type all of this and you type some more, things you didn't know you were thinking until your hands started to move.
i was hiding my heart and you were hiding yours too and we played hide and seek together, and both of us lost.
you say more than you mean to, you don't say enough. you tell him about chicago, you tell him about sharks. you imagine him thinking you're crazy, imagine him understanding, imagine him ashamed, imagine him glad. you wonder what he'll say back or if he'll even open it at all, seeing it's from you, and you type with a fever, you type without fear. you say he's a bastard, you say you understand. you say that you hope he finds peace in his life, that he dies alone. you are angry and righteous and embarrassed and sad, and for the first time in a long time you're okay with it all. writing, you are a girl on a trapeze, swinging high in the air. you know there is no one on the other side to catch you. but your costume is spangly and all eyes are on you and at some point you'll leap—at some point you'll
flip. and there may be no net—though it may also be intact, you can't see—but at this point the jumping is everything—it's all that you've got. and as you write you understand this, you understand you won't hit send, but for now you are swinging, swinging, swinging wildly in the air. your eyes are open, your arms are outstretched.

wanted memory #1

you'd been dropping by the institute after school and on weekends—mom had gotten a membership—saying hi when he was working and hanging out together sometimes after they closed at five, going to the artist's café for coffee and pie, just walking around the city—up and down meandering, to the river, to state street or back to the loop, you didn't care, just walking and talking—you'd been doing this for a couple of weeks now. and with him you were never restless but simply wanting more and more, feeling more at home with him each time. you could never stop watching that mouth when he talked, but at some point it got so you almost didn't
want
him to kiss you, because this felt different and you wanted it to stay different, wanted him to be
here
and
now
instead of an escape to somewhere else. he was so tall—taller than you—and when you walked together sometimes you would hook your arm around his, and he would always press it closer to his side with his bony elbow and it was nice. he would talk about philosophy he would talk about history he would ask you questions about where you'd lived and where you wanted to go. you would talk about art you would tell him about your parents and interchangeable friends, you would go to the palmer house together and simply look at the beautiful ceiling. and then one day you were walking—it was dark out
and you were both in your long coats, scarves up to here and he had leather gloves—and you both saw it at the same time: the first flakes of snow floating down against the black glass, and he stopped then and turned to look at you and the snow was floating down behind him, just in little bits and he took you in his gloved hands like maybe you were something carved in expensive wood, and his face came down and your whole neck got warm tilting up to him and you said
what are you doing?
and he was so close to your lips, close enough for you to feel as well as hear him say
something i should have done a long time ago.
and then you were kissing right there on the sidewalk and the first snow was falling down, melting before it even reached you.

a new purpose

$7,376.42. $7,376.42 in a box you have saved, saved and squandered and squirreled and squashed. $7,376.42—each bill every nickel passing and passing through your hands, comforting you, consoling you, helping you fall asleep at night. and you thought it was useless, it meant nothing—not what it meant before anyway, not what you wanted it for. but now you understand it adds up to something different, can mean something else. and it is hard to let go, to imagine alternatives, but you are bold with unknowing, you are ready to explore. so you find yourself online, you are checking out tickets. the price is nothing to you—you have so much saved. you will explain to your parents, they will think it is cool, spring break in chicago. you click
purchase now.

I Know I Have Been Ignorant (with apologies to Dorothy Parker)

I know I have been ignorant at your side;

But what's past is past, and all's to be.

And worthless the day, to linger any more dolefully—

Beautifully it lived, and hideously faded.

I will not write any more of hearts betrayed.

And you, being hurt, may have your tears for me,

But I will not offer you fidelity

You'd be, I think now, a little unworthy.

Yet this is the need of a girl, this is her curse:

To continue to feel, and give, and give,

Because the throb of giving is still sweet in me.

To you, who constant gave me vows and verse,

My last gift will be my absence, so you too can live;

And after that, my dear, we'll both be free.