Exposed (9 page)

He digs his hands deep
into the pockets of his jeans
and kicks at the sand,
“Well, I miss
you.
”

Waves crash along the seawall
and a salty mist sprays his face.
I tell him there’s nothing to miss,
that I’m right here—
that I came straight home from work
like he asked
to be with him.

“Yeah, you’re here, all right.
Acting like everything’s
picture-perfect.”

I tell him that’s not true,
that nothing’s perfect,
as tears mix with sea spray
and I slump down onto the cold, damp sand.
“What am I supposed to do?
I’m a mess!”

“I don’t think you’re a mess,” he says,
sitting down beside me,
taking hold of my hand,
his body a shield from the biting wind.

An Invitation

Brian tells me his cousin Cameron
is having a party tonight in Brewster,
that no one from school will be there.

I tell him I’m not up for a party,
that I just want to be with him.

“I want to be with you, too.
But there’s nothing wrong
with hanging out with other people.”

“Fine,” I say. “Go hang out with other people, then.”

He says he meant we should hang out
with other people
together.

I jump up—“You don’t like being alone with me?
I’m too screwed up for you?”

“Damn it, Liz!” he says as he stands,
brushing sand off the back of his jeans.
“I don’t think you’re screwed up, but
you
do!”

I tell him he has no idea what I think.

“That’s because you don’t talk to me anymore,” he says.
“Talk to me, Liz!”

I can’t.
I want to but I can’t.
And with each tick of silence
I see him sprinting away.
And if he leaves, what then?

I move two steps closer to him,
wrap my arms around his waist,
and bury my head in his coat.
“Okay, I’ll go.”

“What?” he asks,
putting his hands on my shoulders,
forcing me to look at him.

“I’ll go to the party.”

Maybe if I go,
he’ll stay.

Jack Daniels in Brewster

The first sip sears
the lining of my throat.

I swallow hard
because I need to feel
something.

I swallow more
because I need to feel
nothing.

The Party Scene

Some guys are playing quarters
on the black granite island
in Cameron’s kitchen.

I leave Brian there
and make my way to the family room
where music is playing,
couples getting close.

I’m warm and woozy
as I lean my body against a wall,
the vibrations of surround sound
massaging my back.

Cameron is sitting near me
in a maroon upholstered chair.
A girl with a purple stripe in her hair
is on his lap, facing him,
her knees bent over the chair’s curved arms.

I’m close enough to hear her
as he slides his hands under her shirt.
She’s telling him to stop.

He says, “Shhh,”
and I move toward them

in one long stride,
pulling her off him, the contents
of her blue plastic cup
splashing the chair, the wall,
her stark white blouse.

“Did you not hear her?” I scream.
“Because I did!”

She yells for me to let go of her arm,
Cameron says, “What the hell?”
and Brian is suddenly beside me,
leading me out the door.

Wake-Up Call

“Wake up, Liz, you’re home,” Brian says,
shaking my shoulder,
sending things spinning.

“What time is it?” I ask.

“Quarter to twelve.”

I tell him it’s early and he says,
“It’s been a long night.”

A sickly sweet taste
rises to my mouth.
I swallow it down and realize
the fuzzy dream I had earlier
was not a dream at all.

“Oh, Brian—”

He doesn’t let me finish.
“Listen, Liz. I can’t talk about this now, okay?”

He always turns off the engine
for a few minutes
when we get to my house.
But tonight the engine’s still running.

“I’m really tired,” he says.
“I just want to go home.”

And I whisper in his ear, “I’m sorry,”
as he leans across me and opens my door.

He always waits until I’m inside
before driving away,
but the second my feet hit the lawn
the chariot disappears.

Watch Me

I run into the house
and head straight to my room,
but not before Mom comes out of the bathroom
and catches a glimpse of me
bawling my eyes out.

She’s standing in my doorway now
wringing her hands.
A modern-day Lady Macbeth.

“I’m your mother!” she’s wailing.
“Please tell me what’s wrong!”

I shake my head and slam the door.

Mike’s future
may be spent behind bars but
right now
everything’s clanging shut
in a home on Fairview Terrace.

Red Means Go

I’m sitting on the chariot’s hood
when Brian gets off work.
He sees I’m here,
his shoulders slump,
but he holds the door open
for me to get in.

“You okay?” he asks
as we leave the parking lot.

“I’m so sorry, Brian.
I’m
really
sorry.
Are we okay?”

He says the worst thing.
He says he’s not sure.

“I told you I didn’t want to go to the party!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” he says. “You told me.”

He grips the steering wheel,
keeps his eyes on the road.

“Brian!”
I don’t even try to stop the tears from coming.

He leans over and opens the glove box,
hands me a pack of tissues.
“I just don’t know what to do anymore, Liz.”

I ask him what that’s supposed to mean
and he says he can’t make me happy.
But that’s so silly because he
can
, he
does
.
“I
am
happy. I’m happy with
you
!”

“Well, I’m not happy, Liz.”

And with those words
a silence drops
like a curtain at the end of a play.

I ask him if he’s breaking up with me
and he says he doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore,
that right now he’s just taking me home.
“Let me save you the trouble,” I say,
reaching for the door handle.
“Pull over.”

He shakes his head,
tells me he’s not leaving me
in the middle of the road.

“Yes, you are,” I tell him.
And at the next red light
I’m gone.

What Do I Know?

It’s amazing how you think
you know someone so well,
then one day you come to see
that you really don’t know
that person at all.

And you wonder
what that says
about you.

Off the Hook

When I get home
I can’t escape to my room
because Mom’s sitting on my bed.
Without even looking at me she says,
“We talked to Uncle Nate—”

“I don’t care!
I don’t care about Uncle Nate
or the trial
or anything!”

Now, she looks.
“Lizzie, what’s wrong?”
She moves toward me
but I back away.

“Brian and I just broke up.
Not that
you
care!”
I try not to cry
but it doesn’t work.

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry,” she says.
“Of course I care.”

“No, you don’t!”

She grabs a tissue from my nightstand
and hands it to me.
“Is that what you think?” she asks.

How could I not?
There’s no way the hell of my life
could match up in her eyes
to what my brother’s going through.

“I’m sorry, Liz,” she says,
raising her arms in the air.
“I’m doing the best I can!”

I tell her, “I know.
But it’s not enough.”

She’s quiet for a minute
and I feel sad for her, sad for us.
I wait for her to put her arms around me—
to tell me that she really wants to hear about Brian—
when the phone rings.

“That’s probably Nate, he said he’d call me right …”
I tell her she’d better answer it then,
and she hesitates a second
before heading to the kitchen
to take the call.

Framing

The Nuisance hangs my self-portrait,
the one with the bag half-on
or half-off,
on the wall in the art room.

Mrs. Pratt points to it,
telling us that she loves
the way it makes her think
about the subject, about the taker.

“Me too,” says The Brenda Show.

I used to love this part of class,
where Mrs. Pratt focuses
on a particular aspect of a shot
and everyone shares their thoughts.

But this time it’s all about me,
and I no longer like the spotlight.
“I told you it wasn’t supposed to look like that.
It doesn’t tell the whole story.”

“I know, Liz,” she says,
and the Hoopster adds,
“You can’t sum up a whole life in a 5×7.”

Reality Hits

There were moments,
up until this one,
when I could forget about the trial.
I was taking photos,
working extra shifts,
watching The Brenda Show
when I had some downtime.

But now it’s April
and here he is,
Nike sneakers on the landing,
orange toothbrush by the sink,
Cap’n Crunch back
on the pantry shelf.

And I’m pissed off
watching him,
feet up on the coffee table,
remote in hand,
lounging
on
that
couch.
“How can you sit there?”

“What?”
He flips the channel.

“How can you so casually
sit
there
?”

He turns to look at me.
“Would you like it better
if I were sitting in jail?”

I take too long to answer
because what I’d like
is for none of this to have happened.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought,” he says,
turning back to watch TV.

Almost Over

On Friday morning, as we drive
to the Barnstable County Courthouse,
Mom turns to Dad and says, “We’ll get past this.”

She says
this
as if it’s a marker in the road like:
Once we get over the Bourne Bridge we can stop to pee
.

But instead of being sturdy,
made of steel,
this
feels like something
too rickety to cross.

Bearing Witness

“That’s not right!” I say,
when Uncle Nate tells me I’m sequestered—
that I can’t be in the courtroom
during any testimony but my own.

“I’m sorry, but it’s the law.”

This doesn’t fly with Mom.
“The jury should see that we all support Mike!”
That’s her need, not mine.

I do want to be there
but for different reasons.

Even though
nothing I say can help Kate,
and what I do say
might make things worse,
I want to be
in that courtroom
to make up for not being
downstairs.

Sequestered

I do my time in the witness room
watching made-for-TV movies,
trying to keep my mind off the show
taking place down the hall—
the one without a scripted ending.

But I can’t help wondering
if she’s on the stand yet,
if Uncle Nate is making her feel
like she’s the one on trial.

At around one p.m.
Mom, Dad, Uncle Nate, and Mike come in.
Dad says to me, “The first part is over.
They presented their case.
After lunch, it’s our turn.”

“What did Kate say?
Is she okay?”

My brother crosses the room
like he’s in a meet.
“What do you mean, is she okay?
I could go to jail because of her!”

It’s true. He could go to jail.
But will he?
And if he does,
whose fault would that be?

All Eyes on Me

It’s odd to be called as a “witness”
when I didn’t witness
a damn thing.

Taking the Stand

Kate’s not allowed in here—
she’s sequestered, too—
but as I move up the aisle
I see Amanda and Dee Dee
seated behind Kate’s parents.

Dee Dee gives me a warm look
and I can’t tell if it’s pity or compassion
and I’m not sure it matters anymore.

I sweep my eyes around the room
when I reach my spot on the stand.
Brian’s not here and I know there’s no reason
for me to expect he would be.

Still, I stare at the courtroom doors
hoping he’ll burst through them
like tape at the finish line,
but he’s finished with me.

My family is here.
Mike, his hand on his temple,
Mom and Dad behind him,
staring at me, willing love
or their idea of the right words
my way.

To Tell the Truth

My throat is dry
my body is shaking
I keep thinking I’ll say
the wrong thing.

Uncle Nate sticks
to the questions we went over,
and I’m sure, to the jury,
they seem pretty straightforward,
but answering them on the stand
feels a hell of a lot different
than it did in his office.

When he gets to the question
about why I went upstairs,
I say we had a fight.

He asks what we fought about
and I tell him,
“I thought her boyfriend was boring,
I told her she was staying with him and giving up dance
because she was afraid to take risks.”

What made me think getting that off my chest
in this room, of all places,
would make me feel better?

“It would be taking a risk
for her to have sex with your brother, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, but …”
“Thank you, Miss Grayson.
No further questions, Your Honor.”

Yes and Yes and Yes and …

“How long have you known Ms. Morgan?”
“About ten years.”

“And you were best friends for most of that time?”
“Proud to be her friend?”
“Trusted her?”
“Shared personal secrets?”
“Called her your ‘forever-best’ friend, didn’t you?”
“You are aware that Ms. Morgan has claimed she was raped?”
“You understand rape is a serious charge?”
“That one convicted of rape might lose not only his reputation
but also his freedom?”
“And you understand that, even though it’s not fair,
being raped might damage the victim’s own reputation?”
“And yet Ms. Morgan has come forth to say that she was raped
by the defendant, right?”
“Would it be fair to say that someone who would make up
such a story would be dishonest and dishonorable?”
“And for all the years you’ve known Ms. Morgan,
have you known her—your ‘forever-best’—
to be a dishonest and dishonorable person?”