Exposed (8 page)

Even if no one says it
the word rape
hums soft and constant
like water running
through the pipes in our walls.

Not Over the River or Through the Woods

We usually spend Thanksgiving
at Grandma Grayson’s in Connecticut
but my father decided it was best
this year
for us to spend holidays at home.

Customer Assistance, Please

Mom has always been a talker,
making friends and conversation
wherever she goes.

We’d be in the supermarket
picking up pasta salad to bring to a picnic
and she’d start talking to the checkout lady—
when we were already running late—
complimenting the woman’s ability
to scan items so quickly.

“See you soon!” Mom would chirp
when everything was bagged and in the cart.
“I hope so!” the lady would chirp back.
But Dad’s the one at Bag & Buy now
shopping for our holiday meal
because, these days, Mom’s words come
slowly and with effort
and she avoids public places,
keeps her eyes to the floor.

I want to run to Bag & Buy
and tell that checkout lady
to stop tallying up those turkeys

and call my mom
now
because I have no idea
what to do to help her.

Giving Thanks

It’s Thanksgiving
and I’m thankful
Mike’s off skiing
with friends in Colorado.

Dinner and a Movie

Brian pulls into the driveway
and turns off the chariot’s engine.
“That was fun,” I say.

He kisses my neck
and everything fades away.
“And this is fun, too.…”
He kisses my lips. “And so is this.…”

He kisses me more
and I’m grateful
that he keeps going.

Despite the cold outside,
the windows and my entire body
steam up.

When he puts his hand
against my breast
sparks fly.

Wham! Wham!

We pull apart so fast
Brian hits his head
on the driver’s-side window.

“Elizabeth Grayson! Get in the house now!”
My mother stands beside the car, her hand
shattering the barrier of careful words
she and I have been trying
so hard to build between us.

Brian Running

As Mom stomps toward the house
Brian rubs his face with his hands,
says he should go,
leans across me to open my door.

I’ve always admired his speed,
the way he zips around the track
leaving other guys
in the cloud of his dust.

But now I worry, someday soon,
he’ll run away from me
and I’ll be left
hunched over
alone and unable to catch up
choking
on all he’s kicked behind.

Bzzzzz

I storm after Mom into the house.
“We weren’t doing anything!
I was just kissing him good night!”

“It looked like more than that to me.”

I fly up the stairs, hot on her heels.
“What were you doing? Spying on me?”

“I wasn’t spying. I got worried
when you were both out there so long.”

“Worried about what, Mom?
Worried that Brian would
rape
me?”

My words sting
and Mom flinches
before escaping to her room
leaving me in the hallway
still buzzing.

I Knew Nothing

After a fender bender last summer,
Mom screamed at Dad,
“You can pull a ferry into port,
but you can’t avoid a mailbox
in your own stupid driveway!”

I thought that was family tension.

But I was wrong.
This.
This is family tension.

Final Portfolio Prep

Mrs. Pratt claps her hands.
“Time to get serious now, folks.”

I stayed up late last night
rearranging things,
adding in the Vineyard shots,
taking out what no longer fit.

She leans over my shoulder,
her black wavy hair pulled back,
giving off a berry-infused scent.
“Liz, there’s something about these pictures.”

I’m waiting for her to go on,
to say how I’ve really dug deep this time,
how my photos are filled with intensity.
Instead, she puts her hands on my shoulders.
“It’s like you’re trying too hard.”

I dig the nail of my middle finger
deep into the tip of my thumb.

“And you’re forgetting simple things—
the exposure’s off here,
no focal point here.
This one’s good but would be better with a filter.”

I wish she’d stop talking.
I get it already.
What’s the point
of this damn portfolio
if I’ve lost my touch?

“Your original portfolio was really strong, Liz,
and portraits have always been your thing.
I don’t see any portraits here.”

I wish she would just
shut up.

“Maybe stop worrying about new photos
and go through some of your old ones.”

I’ve lost my talent.
I can’t do this anymore.
When I look through the lens now,
I no longer know who I see.

And I can’t go back
to my old stuff.
It hurts too much.

Juggling Act

As tempting as it seems
I can’t run off with the circus.
Because the only one that comes around here,
to the Barnstable County Fairgrounds,
doesn’t come until July
and outside my window
Dad’s stringing his hopes
along with white lights of Christmas.

Final Bell

The last bell rings and students cheer
as they leave Shoreview High for winter break.
I’m not cheering or leaving, though.
I’m heading to the art room.

“I’m glad you came,” Mrs. Pratt says,
sitting at one of the long tables,
the photos I gave her yesterday
laid out before her.

When she first asked me to meet with her
I said no.
What was the point?

Then I decided the point
was to get into art school
and out of Shoreview.

“Tell me what you think are your strongest pieces.”
I look at the photos of Kate.
I will not cry.
Instead, I shrug.

“Liz, I’ve tried not to pry,
because I thought that’s what you wanted,
but I’m sure this has been hell for you.”

My hands are clenched.
I will not cry.

“If you can’t go through these now, I understand.
But there’s great stuff here.”

She holds up the photo of Kate
defying gravity with her soaring split.
My heart rips.
Tears flow.

Mrs. Pratt moves my photos
so they won’t get wet
and pulls me into her arms.

And I don’t worry if it’s okay to cry—
I just do.

When the Tears Stop

I’m too wiped out to be mortified
but not too stupid to see
that Mrs. Pratt is right.

The original photos—
the portraits—
are the better ones.

I’ll use these pictures to get into art school,
where I’ll focus on something different
like landscape photography—
or still-life shots, where all aspects
are controlled by me.

As I’m getting ready to leave,
Mrs. Pratt pulls out a newer picture—
one I threw in to make sure
I had enough shots.

“I really love this one, too,” she says.
“It’s so interesting.”

It’s my self-portrait.

“It’s not supposed to look like that,” I say.
“I wanted the bag to cover my face,
but the timer went off before
I could pull it all the way down.”

“Talk about how things
can be interpreted differently,” she says,
turning the photo toward me.
“I thought you set the timer to catch yourself
taking the bag
off.
”

Pit Stop

I’m so happy to be away from school,
sitting on the floor in Brian’s room
opening my Christmas present.

It’s a necklace, with a silver charm.
A palm tree.

“For Tahiti,” he says,
and this is no way matches up
to the new pair of sneakers
wrapped in a box beside me.

I kiss him, long and slow,
until he pulls away.

“I have something to show you.”
He gets up and goes over to his desk
grabs a thick manila envelope
and brings it to me.

The label, in the upper left corner, reads
U
NIVERSITY OF
M
ASSACHUSETTS
A
MHERST
,
and I know what it means,
and I know that western Massachusetts
is eons away from the tropics.

He’d been hoping to get in,
early decision,
and he did.

I squeak out how happy I am
and bury my face as I hug him,
trying to hide my tears.

But I know he knows
when he squeezes me and says,
“It’s not too far from wherever you’ll be,
and just a pit stop on the way to Tahiti.”

He wanted this.
He worked for it.
He deserves it.

But this pit stop isn’t a rest area.
It’s a crater, opening up
swallowing me whole.

Christmas Dinner

“Thanks for supporting me,” Mike says,
when Mom finishes instructing Dad
on the proper way to carve a turkey.

“Don’t be silly,” Dad says,
lifting his eyes from the butchered bird.

Mom looks at Mike like he’s handed her a present.
“Of course we support you.”

Dad holds the platter out to me
and I stab a piece of meat with my fork,
choosing to give my family
the gift of silence.

New Year’s Day

Brian’s at a family brunch
that I didn’t want to go to,
and I’m filling out college applications
because I’ve made a resolution
to get away.

I snort when I get to an essay choice
from the Museum School:
“What individual (artist or otherwise),
event, or personal experience
has had a profound effect on your art?”

I write about Annie Leibovitz
because she’s a willful woman—
because she’s
the easier choice.

Oh, Daddy

Dad comes in as I’m finishing the essay.
“How’s the college stuff coming?”

I’m not sure he wants an answer,
maybe he’s only asking so that
something
will fill the empty air that hangs between us.

I want to run into his arms
and give him a tight squeeze.
I want to tell him
everything.

I look up into his hazel eyes
and the laugh lines,
the ones he says he got
from smiling so hard
when his children were born,
now look like cracks in
hard, parched earth.

“It’s coming along, Dad,” I say,
pushing my chair back as I rise
onto the balls of my feet
and lean in to kiss
my father’s weathered cheek.

Dipping

It’s Sunday morning and I sit beside Mom
on the cream-colored couch in our living room.
I need to know some things
and this couch—
the only one in the house I’ll sit on now—
is as comfortable a place as any
to search for answers.

While Mom pours over the obituaries,
a habit since Gramps died,
I reach for the front page of the
Cape Cod Times
.
The lead article, “The Polar Plunge,”
has a photo of folks smiling as they leap
into the icy surf at Bright Penny,
a yearly fund-raiser for cancer research.

“What if he’s found guilty?” I ask,
stepping into unchartered seas.

“He won’t be found guilty!” she says
with such force that I shift my gaze
and notice her hands clenching the paper,
her once-long nails chewed to nubs.

“But what if he is?”

She raises her eyes from the dead
and glares at me.
“Guilty? You think he’s guilty?”

I jerk my feet out of the frigid water.
“I mean what if he’s
found
guilty.”

With this reworked sentence
her hands unclench
and she lays the paper on the table.

“He won’t be,” she says, as feeling begins
to return to my toes.

Done and Gone

Applications filled out.
Recommendations in sealed envelopes.
Slides of photos carefully arranged
in plastic slide-holder sheets.

I kiss each package in front
of the scruffy-faced man
who works at the Shoreview post office,
my lips chilled from February’s frost.
He raises his eyebrows and says,
“Important stuff, huh?”

I nod and say, “Very,”
as he stamps the words
F
RAGILE
, H
ANDLE WITH
C
ARE
onto my hopes for a future.

Some Celebration

It’s early Friday evening
and Mom’s taking me to dinner
to celebrate sending my portfolio off.

As we head toward The Big Surf,
she makes a quick turn.
“I just need to stop at Nate’s to sign some papers.”

So now, instead of pulling scallops
out of baked stuffed lobster,
I’m in Uncle Nate’s office
sitting in this under-stuffed chair
covered with scratchy upholstery.

“Lizzie, I’d like to put you on the stand,” he says.
I let out a short, high-pitched laugh
and turn to face Mom, who at any minute
will jump right in and tell him that’s ridiculous.

But Mom’s eyes keep shifting
from my face to her lap.
She says nothing.

“Is this why you brought me here?
You knew what he was going to ask me!”

My mother looks to Uncle Nate,
who stacks some folders,
opens a desk drawer,
puts the folders in.

“I just need you to establish a time line,” he says.
“To say what time you left Kate and went upstairs.”

He’s still talking
but I can’t make out the words
with the phrase
You left Kate
echoing in my head.

Bird’s-Eye View

The seagull is pecking
at a dead crab—
a Saturday afternoon snack.

“Can you put the camera down
for a minute and come over here?”

Brian’s words distract me.
The bird flies off.

“Brian!” I jerk my head toward him,
the camera strap cutting into my neck.
“I missed the shot!”