Be Straight with Me

by Emily Dalton

  You laugh and say,

  “It’s my deformed heart.”

  And I’m in disbelief—the good kind.

  Then you make a joke about how

  you never thought you’d be

  buying jewelry for a girl

  on Valentine’s Day,

  as you help me with the clasp.

  And it’s weird.

  And it’s perfect.

  Now here we are surrounded by diapers,

  and you’re pouring cheap champagne

  into red plastic cups on my desk.

  You hand one to me and take

  the other for yourself,

  raising it up high.

  You clear your throat theatrically and make a toast:

  “To graduating from Pampers to Pull-Ups.

  Babe, my babe, will you be my official babe?”

  I roll my eyes

  and heave a sigh,

  but there’s nothing sarcastic

  about the way I kiss you.

  YOU’RE FINALLY MY BOYFRIEND

  and it lasts about a week.

  INVITE ONLY

  At the beginning of the week

  I help you convert the twin bed frame

  in your dorm room into a double

  with a large sheet of thick plywood.

  We slide Sophie’s donated double mattress

  up over the wood and then stretch

  your gray cotton fitted sheet around the corners.

  The bed now takes up three-quarters

  of the tiny single dorm room,

  but, “It’s fine,” you say,

  because “all we need is this big bed

  and each other.”

  And then you fall down onto the mattress,

  and you pull me down with you into a long kiss.

  At the end of the week, we lie in your bed,

  side by side on our backs, and we stare up

  at the ceiling and grumble back and forth

  to each other about how many nights a week

  we should be sleeping in the same bed.

  “Three nights a week. And it should be

  an invitation . . . not assumed.”

  You’re telling me how sometimes

  you just want to stretch out

  like a starfish in your bed at night.

  But all I’m hearing

  is how

  you don’t sleep well

  when you have to share your bed

  with me.

  We go to sleep

  without saying goodnight,

  and in the morning

  I ask you whether we’re in a fight.

  You look like you’re sorry,

  and I already know why.

  “Maybe

  I’m still not ready

  to be in a real relationship

  with you.”

  I feel like an idiot for believing

  we could finally work, but

  it’s easier to be mad at you

  than at myself.

  WINTER CARNIVAL

  Last night, I made out with A.J. Peterson

  behind an ice sculpture, and I guess

  some people saw.

  You and I sit across from each other

  at the kitchen table in Palmer, tapping ash

  into an old teacup and arguing about

  our relationship while a rowdy, drunken snowball fight

  carries on outside and “Call Me Maybe” blasts from the

  basement.

  You like to make up nicknames for all

  my exes and flings, and when

  you angrily refer to A.J. Peterson as

  “Diap-Diap Diaperson,”

  neither of us can keep a straight face.

  And now we’re laughing hysterically, starting

  an ongoing joke about how all my exes have

  a Facebook group together and

  you and Diap-Diap Diaperson

  are the newest members.

  COURSE EVALUATIONS

  I’m taking Modern Logic because

  I need a math credit, and by the time

  I’m done with the final exam, my brain

  is at one percent battery life.

  I’m staring down at the course evaluation form now,

  the columns of empty circles lined up behind

  bolded words—

  Strongly disagree

  Disagree

  Neither agree nor disagree

  Agree

  Strongly agree

  —my eyes start doing that thing

  where the words blur out of focus

  and then the world blurs out of focus

  because I wish I could give you

  an end-of-semester evaluation

  to answer on the Likert scale:

  I am gay.

  I am straight.

  I am bisexual.

  I am jealous.

  I am confused.

  I am delusional.

  I am in love.

  SECOND SUMMER AT THE RANCH

  It’s not hard for Val to convince me

  to return for another season at the 4UR Ranch—

  this time, without my sister.

  That’s how I meet Grant.

  He’s a twenty-five-year-old ranch hand from Athens, Georgia,

  who looks like a dad model in an L.L. Bean catalog,

  but slightly sinister,

  with his piercing blue eyes

  and pointed canines.

  Grant has a girlfriend back home,

  and there’s something about the way he smiles

  at all of the female staff and teases them

  that irks me.

  So I avoid eye contact when I drive by him

  in the housekeeping golf cart

  and when he drives by me

  on the riding lawn mower.

  But I can’t always avoid interactions

  with him because one day I need to radio him

  to bring a cot from storage to a guest room,

  and the next day to set and check mousetraps in the lodge,

  and a week after that to help a few frantic housekeepers,

  caught in an afternoon downpour,

  get the back wheels of their cart out of the mud.

  And then, at a staff bonfire down near the Rio,

  I’m sitting next to Val, drinking a Corona,

  when Grant lunges in front of me and knocks

  my beer bottle into the grass, sloshing foam

  all over my T-shirt and jean shorts.

  “What the fuck, dude?”

  Before I can say anything else,

  Val shrieks, and one of the waitstaff guys

  down near the riverbank shouts out an “OH MY GOD”

  that echoes against the ridge beyond the bonfire.

  Grant stares into my eyes as he gets up

  and dusts himself off, and it’s now registering

  that while he did just forcefully push me

  and spill beer all over my clothes and his,

  he also just jumped in front of me

  to keep a speeding soccer ball

  from hitting me

  square in my face.

  HARD TO GET

  Now there are whispers that Grant

  has broken up with his girlfriend, and

  wet, hot steam tumbles out from the

  stainless steel panels of the industrial dishwasher

  as he walks into the Dish Pit kitchen

  where I’m rinsing soup and salad dressing off

  the first round of
dinner plates.

  At the end of our shift, Grant catches me

  stealing a cookie from the guest cookie jar, and

  my heart pounds in my chest as I mutter,

  “Just making sure they’re stocked.”

  And then he sits down at the table

  across from where I’m eating dinner.

  “So, why do you hate me?”

  He sounds genuinely hurt, and I realize

  how childish I’ve been acting . . .

  being mean to a boy to get him to like me,

  like a little kid shoving her crush in the sandbox.

  I accuse him of being a tease to all the girls,

  and his response makes my heart beat faster.

  “The only girl I actually want

  to flirt with here won’t

  give me the time of day

  unless I corner her while

  she’s stealing cookies.”

  I don’t know how to react so I roll my eyes

  as he moves closer and leans against the wall.

  “I even saved her life once. Jumped in front of a bullet for her.”

  A BOW ON TOP

  At the end of the summer,

  Grant and I go for one last hike together, and

  it starts to pour just as we’re nearing the top

  of the Palisades.

  Thunder and lightning and mud and fog

  land us beneath an apocalyptic sky.

  We’re not sure whether it’s worth carrying on . . .

  and then, suddenly, the gloom disperses,

  clearing to majestic wisps of cloud

  below the peak, and

  the longest, fullest rainbow

  I’ve ever seen in real life

  stretches directly overhead.

  I’m standing under the colored arch of mist,

  hand in hand with a guy who reminds me

  that relationships can be easy

  and simple

  and normal.

  THE BEGINNING OF THE END: SENIOR YEAR

  It’s the first party of senior year.

  I haven’t seen you,

  or even talked to you,

  in three months.

  You stand in the doorway with a beer;

  I’m sitting on the couch.

  As soon as our eyes meet,

  I get up and step over all

  the legs to get to you.

  You meet me in the middle of the room.

  We stare into each other’s eyes a moment

  before hugging, and I feel

  suddenly

  like a different person—

  the person I had missed being all summer with Grant.

  “Hi, Maxwell,” I whisper as we embrace,

  and it hurts so good to remember all over again

  how perfectly we seem to fit in each other’s arms.

  “Hi, Daltwell.”

  Joanna joins us as we reminisce about

  all the silly things that happened abroad,

  and as the three of us stand there,

  drinking and laughing,

  I feel pangs of nostalgia for when

  we were all best friends.

  Then Frank Ocean’s “Super Rich Kids”

  bumps over the speakers.

  I slink to the beat,

  leading you with my eyes

  to an open space in the crowd.

  We dance and laugh

  and dance some more,

  just like the old days.

  The next morning, we wake up

  together and spend

  the day showing each other

  new music and funny videos

  and rolling around in bed.

  You’re kissing my torso,

  and we’re both giggling

  as you reacquaint yourself

  with the three moles speckling

  my stomach and ribs.

  You used to refer to them

  as the Jonas Brothers,

  and now you’re renaming

  them Harry, Ron, and

  Bilbo Baggins.

  When I tell you how

  I always used to want

  to get those moles removed,

  you cluck in disapproval

  because you love them

  in a way that makes me

  like them, and nothing

  can touch this

  perfect moment

  until

  you catch a glimpse of my phone—

  the background of me and Grant—

  and you grow quiet,

  and minutes later,

  you’re gathering up your things.

  ROYAL BALLS

  The truth is

  I haven’t even spoken to Grant

  on the phone since I left the ranch

  a month and a half ago,

  and as I drive to the airport late

  on a Friday night to pick him up,

  I feel the same old nervous jitters setting in again—

  the ones that make me feel

  like I’m disguising myself

  as a female stereotype,

  passive and delicate.

  But it’s exciting.

  Joanna and Sophie buy a bunch of liquor and beer,

  move my speakers

  from my room to the back porch of our house,

  and invite all of our friends over.

  I sit on the kitchen counter drinking Coronas;

  Grant stands next to me, making conversation

  with Theo and Paul about being from the South . . .

  Meanwhile, you’re all

  alone

  in the big house on Dub Street,

  losing your mind, feeling

  like all of your friends have gone

  off to the royal ball

  and left you

  in a sullen pile

  of shattered glass slippers

  and spliff ash.

  TO KILL CHIVALRY

  All weekend Grant is such a gentleman—

  holding doors for me,

  pulling my chair out at dinner,

  and carrying my backpack on a hike near campus.

  But the more chivalrous he is,

  the more I long for

  shoe-shopping in Europe with you,

  or binge-watching episodes of The Bachelor,

  or you accidentally slamming a door in my face

  and then laughing at my scowl.

  And the truth is,

  it’s almost a relief,

  two days later,

  when I drive Grant back

  to the Burlington airport

  for his flight home.

  ON THE DRIVE BACK FROM THE AIRPORT

  It’s dark.

  It’s been raining all day,

  and my mind is ready to curl up

  and disappear into sleep.

  I think about reaching out to you,

  if only to apologize for the party

  you felt you needed to avoid.

  About halfway to campus, I descend

  a back-road mountain pass,

  the drowsy fog clouding my thoughts,

  and it feels like my car is floating.

  And suddenly the car fishtails,

  swerving back and forth, like

  a bottle revving up for the spin

  at a middle school make-out party.

  I panic and stomp on the brakes.

  The tail end whips forward.

  The tires lift off the road,

  and the car flips clockwise
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  over the passenger side,

  tumbling twice down the decline,

  landing right-side-up

  perpendicular to the road

  on the inner shoulder

  closest to the mountain.

  In those elongated seconds, I feel

  like I’m bent backwards, hovering

  beneath a limbo stick—

  unsure whether

  I’m about to fall.

  I’m facing the steep incline of the mountain.

  A loud whirring of white noise

  emanates from the static radio,

  its buzz filling the empty silence.

  All the lights are on inside the car,

  illuminating the sparkling, granular crumbles

  of tempered glass that litter the floors and seats.

  The windshield is smashed in,

  ripped from the seal at the top,

  pushing the rearview mirror

  down toward the center console.

  A Macintosh-scented car freshener

  that my dad got me for Christmas

  dangles just over the gear shift.

  My seat belt is tight across my body.

  Then all at once, the rest of my being

  comes crashing into real time.

  The searing memory of what just occurred

  jolts through my mind in a rush of adrenaline.

  Feeling more awake than I have in months,

  I look around at the crumpled windshield,

  the concave roof, the missing mirrors,

  the broken glass everywhere,

  and understand that I really am still here,

  still living in the middle of it all,

  without even one tiny scratch.

  I click the seat belt loose

  and turn around to survey

  the back seat, also glittering

  in granular glass.

  I sit in the car, processing the scene,

  the odd sight of the keys still in the ignition,

  the gear shift still in drive, and

  the glowing blue dashboard screen

  still showing the current station,

  as if I can just hit the gas again

  and continue driving.

  And then I’m shaking like

  I’m about to erupt,

  and I don’t feel real

  even though I know I must be,

  and the most unsettling part is

  the mere sight of these things,

  being able to believe in them,

  realizing that they would

  still be here to be seen

  even if I

  wasn’t

  here

  to see them.

  BACK AT THE HOUSE

  The girls sit with me

  in the living room

  as I relive the accident.