Giraffe People

by Jill Malone

  “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  “It’s Thanksgiving,” he says. “We’re all here.”

  “You’re wearing a tie,” I say, as I sit up.

  He’s on his knees, beside the couch, his tie red, his collared shirt white, and his pants a navy blue. In a tie, he’s doubly gorgeous: older, somehow, more civilized.

  “You’re not playing Scrabble,” he says.

  “No, I was sleeping.” Maybe we’re compelled to make obvious observations.

  “How was the dorm?”

  I flick my glance around as though it’s a hacky sack. Apparently, I should be better dressed, and more organized, and ask questions like, “Hey, who all’s coming to Thanksgiving? And what’s the dress code for the meal?”

  “Mike’s here?” I ask, catching his voice from the sea in the next room.

  “Yeah, he surprised my folks this morning.”

  Jeremy climbs to his feet, and places another piece of wood on the fire. Though the doors’ metal handles are insanely hot, you pretty much have to be sitting on top of the fire to be warm. Still, it lends a homespun, traditional sound to the festivities.

  “Do you know who else is coming?” I ask.

  “No idea. Once I heard your name, I kind of stopped listening.”

  “You are the saccharine king.”

  He winks at me, and hands over a peppermint candy. “I told Mike about your gig on Saturday, and he said he’d take care of it—make sure we can go and everything. He’s excited to hear you guys, especially after I told him you cover Red Hot.”

  “I think Meghan’s mad at me.” I’m so close to him when I whisper this that I can see a weird little reddish hair on his jawline that he missed when he shaved.

  “Why?” he whispers back.

  I shrug. “I thought it’d be like on TV, you know, the bright, overstuffed dorm room, and everyone running around in slippers eating chocolate and listening to college radio. You know, like that. But really it’s just another indoctrination center for Army robots.” I tell him a watered-down version of the fight in the rec room—lay blame on the instigating sugar-high of Oreo-girl—and about Meghan’s weirdness, and the sprint we took afterward in the dark, how she ran until she was gasping in a kind of hoarse bark. “And this morning, she was snippy.”

  “Snippy?”

  “For real.”

  Meghan’s mom comes through with the huge box of chocolates Kelly brought, and offers us some. We take a little time trying to figure out which are filled with caramel or strawberry cream.

  “Don’t you two play Scrabble?” she asks. Her accent is comforting, warmer somehow, and more musical than the grating ax chops of east coast speech. We shake our heads, and she beams at us. “Well, don’t think a thing about it. Help yourselves to another piece, go on now.” We do, and she beams again, and then takes her light in to the others.

  Jeremy and I have sunk into the couch, our socked feet on the coffee table, our fingers woven together. At some point, I’ll need to change out of these jeans.

  “Maybe she’s stressed about her parents’ visit,” Jeremy says. “Or maybe it’s just school. Mike says he has a ton of reading that he’s supposed to get done over the holiday. That he really shouldn’t have made the trip at all, except he needed to get away from his dorm and his roommate and all the sameness.”

  Sameness is what I miss most right now. I have no place to be solitary in this house; guests staying in my room, guests at every meal, Jeremy in his tie.

  Roaring from the dining room, and Meghan and her father appear to have won the Scrabble contest. Sometimes, I have lousy manners. “Do you want a Snapple?” I ask Jeremy.

  “Cherry?”

  I come back with one for each of us. Cherry Snapple tastes fermented, like maybe it’s a little alcoholic; anyway, that’s what we’ve decided. The first time I had one was at Jeremy’s house. He gave it to me, and then stood so close that my arm kept brushing against his chest. I expected sparks, flashes of blue static; and later, on the staircase, he kissed me, and the static shocked our lips.

  Mike has broken away from the dining room, and hugs me now. His hair is longer than I have ever seen, nearly down to his chin, and he’s wearing cords and a button-down shirt, but you can see the ridiculous insignia of his t-shirt underneath.

  “Drop Your Pants?” I ask.

  “It’s a dry-cleaning place.”

  “Right,” I say. “And no chance of anyone here misinterpreting it.”

  “Where’s my Snapple?” he asks.

  So I bring another. And Mike tells us about college, using the word anticlimactic more than could possibly be appropriate. He seems more solid than I remember; still slight, but more muscled, and the little ridge of acne on his neck is gone.

  “Is there anything you like?” I ask him. He does this flippy thing with his hair, to get it out of his eyes, just like Bangs.

  “I like working on the school paper. That’s pretty cool. And I’ve started jamming with some guys. They’re good. We’re talking about gigging. What about you, little rock star, playing shows on Saturday nights?”

  “Don’t get excited, it’s our first.”

  “Second,” Jeremy interjects.

  “Well,” I say, “sort of.”

  “They’re rad,” Jeremy says.

  “Oh rad.” Mike grins at me. “I can’t wait.”

  “Can’t wait for what?” Meghan asks, sitting on the bricked ledge that fronts the fireplace.

  “Cole’s gig on Saturday night.”

  Meghan says, “Oh,” tucks her legs up, and stretches her hands in front of the glass doors. You’d think we’d all be burning up with so many bodies in the place. The rest of them file in, and take places on the floral couches, while Nate and Kelly pull the piano bench out to sit down.

  “Something hot to drink?” Dad asks. We will beverage you to death in this family. He takes orders for hot chocolate and tea and vanishes.

  Jeremy hasn’t let go of my hand. His is sweaty now, and tucked between us, will only get sweatier. I haven’t sat in this room for a while, and am surprised by the quilt samplers on the wall beyond Nigel and Meghan’s dad. Cross-stitched flowers and Bible verses are my mother’s standard decorating motifs, and are displayed above the piano, and on the wall behind Mike and Jeremy and me. But the two large quilt samplers on the common wall—the greens and blues and purples—are new, and kind of cool, like dappled art.

  The knickknacks are all the standard shit my parents have had for ages: brass swans, and pastoral beer steins, and three little porcelain dolls dressed as Nate and Nigel and me to match a professional photo we had taken when I was six.

  Nigel and Mike play a game of chess, right in the middle of us, and everyone else tries to keep some kind of conversation going. Meghan’s dad asks us questions about school, and sports, and our hobbies. He’s super nice, and if he’d quit staring at me so intently—with the same unwavering eye contact as Pepper employs when you’re eating French fries—he’d be a little easier to talk to.

  “Do you enjoy military life?” he asks the room at large. “The moves, the new schools and bases, the transitions?”

  “Transitions,” Mike laughs, moving his bishop. “That’s the kindest way to look at it. Here kid, have a new place, a new start, and we’ll stay just long enough for you to make a couple of friends, and then we’ll offer you another opportunity, in another place.”

  “Would that be a No for you, then?” her dad asks.

  Mike leans back, flicks his hair. “I don’t know. I see the kids now, at Penn, who’ve never lived in a new town, and I feel, I don’t know, sorry for them. They’ve never had a chance to know anything else, and they’re still in shock. Homesick. But I went to three different high schools. That’s too much transition for anybody.”

  “What about you, Nate?” Meghan’s dad asks.

  “I’ve just been here for high school, but I had five elementary schools, and two junior highs. I envy those kids who know all
the same kids from kindergarten, but I don’t want to be one of them. I think I’d get bored in one place all the time.”

  “So you’re glad your dad’s military?” he asks.

  Nate’s face closes instantly, and he glances at me, because in this, despite everything, we are co-conspirators. We know the military part has nothing on the chaplain part—the endless church activities: services Sunday morning and Sunday night, youth group on Wednesday evenings, and Bible school in the summers, and all the verses we’ve memorized, and all the prayer groups we’ve attended, the choirs we’ve sung in, the hymns and baptisms.

  Her dad studies both of us. “What?” he asks.

  But we cannot be disloyal. Cannot explain the weight of God, of ministry. The expectation held by every parishioner that the three of us would exemplify a spiritual perfection, an unwavering goodness, which children of ministers must certainly have.

  Dad comes in with two large bowls of caramel corn, and a bunch of napkins. Meghan’s mother follows with a tray of tea and hot chocolate.

  After everyone has dug in, and is perched within reach of additional handfuls of caramel corn, Meghan’s dad asks again, for Nate to explain himself. Nate shrugs.

  “What are we talking about?” Dad asks.

  Meghan’s father fills him in, and Dad, interested, sips his cocoa. “Don’t stop on my account.”

  But it is on his account. Always. Every shift we have made, every move. The arbitrary, heartless orders are always on his account.

  “I’m glad I’ve lived on this base,” Jeremy says, shifting everyone’s attention. “When we moved here, my junior year, I was angry: halfway through high school, and starting all over again. But with all the chaplains’ kids on this base, everyone gets how hard that is. How you’re always held to a different standard. You’re a subset of a subset, but you’re not the only one.”

  Meghan’s dad looks Jeremy up and down, then scrutinizes the rest of us, and, amazingly, I don’t catch a reprimand in his eyes, or pity either.

  “No,” he tells us, one by one, and kindly, “you’re not the only one.”

  I’m full. It’s a weird feeling, but I’m not sure I can eat a second piece of pie.

  “You’re not going to try the pumpkin?” Mom asks, holding a plate out to me.

  “Well,” I say. The pie looks delicious—how often do you get to eat anything with pumpkin in it? She adds a dollop of vanilla ice cream for good measure.

  The kids have gathered in the living room while the adults sip coffee at the table like civilized people. They all asked for tiny little slivers of pie, and are complaining now of having no self-control.

  “I don’t know if her mother came,” Kelly is saying. “I only know Stacy said she was on her way. She was crying. She kept saying, Everything is over.”

  “In the nurse’s office?” Nate asks.

  “Yes,” Kelly says.

  “So it’s true,” Jeremy says.

  I have no idea what anyone’s talking about. Stacy Masteller just went through a detox program. She’s been back in school for maybe a week. We all thought it was crap that she had to come back before Thanksgiving break. Seriously, she couldn’t have a few days at home to prepare for everyone at school calling her a freak and a loser?

  “What’s true?” Nate asks Jeremy.

  But Nigel is the one who answers. “Stacy’s pregnant.”

  “How is she pregnant?” Nate asks.

  “That guy from the mall,” Nigel says. “That old guy with the sideburns.”

  “Are you serious?” Kelly asks. “She slept with that guy? He’s practically thirty.”

  “How do you know?” I ask Nigel. Stacy Masteller has the worst luck I’ve ever heard of. She breaks an ankle jumping, drunk, off the roof of their quarters; she’s sent to in-patient detox without any cover story at all; and now she’s pregnant. She’s officially mythical. You kids want to end up like Stacy Masteller? There lies the grim path to Stacy Masteller.

  “We saw her,” Jeremy says. “Nigel and I.”

  “She said that mall guy was the father,” Nigel says. “She said he wouldn’t even take her phone calls.”

  Stacy and I were friends for a month. Her mom took us to see Pet Sematary in the theater. It was surreal: she bought our tickets, and snacks, and everything, and then sat in a different row as though she didn’t know us.

  “She’s a sad girl,” Mike says.

  “You mean like pathetic?” Nate laughs.

  “No, I mean unhappy.”

  “And unlucky,” I say. The phone rings; Mom answers and calls for me. It’s Bangs.

  “Happy Thanksgiving,” he says.

  “You too.”

  “I know you have a gig on Saturday night, but do you want to hang out during the day? We could pick you up—Gabby and a couple of her friends, and you and me. They want to go to the shore.”

  “My guitar lesson ends at 11.”

  “So after?” he asks.

  “Sure.” I give him directions, just in case Gabby needs a crib sheet. I feel like a walk. Like being in the house with all these people after too much rich food is making me kind of woozy. This phone call is my chance to escape; it’s an opened window.

  Meghan comes into the kitchen with a stack of forks and dessert plates. She rinses them and loads the dishwasher. Maybe I should just ask why she’s mad.

  “Do you feel like a walk?” I ask. She doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t answer. I’m starting to be angry about this whole thing. Sorry I’m not psychic or whatever, but navigating your stream of consciousness is not my forte. “You know what, forget it. Just stay here and be mad. You with the silent treatment is one long stretch of boring.”

  And then she hugs me. It’s crazy—premenstrual crazy—like there should be warning labels. She’s holding on so tightly that she’s pinching my neck. “I’m sorry,” she says. My shirt muffles her voice.

  “It’s OK.” I pat her back. What is Stacy Masteller doing for Thanksgiving? How do you top detox and pregnancy at 16? Her mom’s really nice. She has one of those dry senses of humor, and a super-soft voice. How do you tell something like that? Hey, Mom, this sick dude with sideburns got me pregnant. Mom, you know how embarrassing rehab was, well, I think I’ve discovered something even harder. Mom, I can’t catch a break.

  Jeremy and Nigel and Mike come on the walk with Meghan and me: the five of us in the windy dark not speaking. Every house lit up and cheerful.

  Indelible. OK, so this might be my favorite word ever. Permanent, indestructible, unable to be forgotten, or blotted out. Adjective.

  Late Friday night, Meghan and I have books spread out on the dorm beds; Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars on the tape deck; and I finish Geometry and another draft of my stupid poem.

  We ran five miles this morning; Meghan has the meanest kick. I beat her in a sprint the last hundred yards, but another few steps and she would have retaken me. Except for five hours practicing with Doggy Life, I just sat around and ate. They had another Scrabble championship, so at least I missed that.

  My fingertips are sore. I had calluses before, but apparently they weren’t enough. We practice in Joe’s garage, and his mom came out with hot chocolate and brownies for us about halfway through. She’s short and chubby and has a little bald spot on her crown. Heaped with whipped cream, the hot chocolate alone would have made me love her, but caramel brownies with walnuts! I kind of wanted to hug her, the brownies were so good.

  “What’s your poem about?” Meghan asks.

  “Oh, you know, being a kid. Sort of what that means or whatever.”

  “Read it to me.”

  This is what I read:

  My barefoot granny slices

  bites of apple,

  teeth for drowning in a brown

  sugar bowl. Her sometime red hair

  piled high but not staying.

  Granny is whistling, awkward and low.

  White blender rumbles

  eggs into flour. On linoleum tile my shadowr />
  catches. My little black curled

  beneath her green counter. Spoons

  and saucers can wait

  for a while.

  Mother whisks wild—

  a sound like ducks landing.

  Butter in pans, bubbling

  brown pools. Outside, my father

  paints the deck, kneeling—a color so yellow

  I hear it inside.

  His coveralls blue as my granny’s

  whistle, his back’s to the window:

  the clatter of pans.

  Aunt Joanie talks funerals,

  Yahtzee, gardens. August scarred

  in its cantaloupe way.

  “Jesus,” she says.

  “It’s corny, right?” I ask. “Granny is the most embarrassing word I know, but it’s truer, for the weirdness of it, I think.”

  “Let me read it.”

  I hand her the latest revision, and think maybe I should have written a sonnet instead. Historical cheesiness is more acceptable.

  “Is this how you see?” she asks.

  “No, it’s how I remember.”

  “How long have you been working on this?”

  “God,” I say, “like days. The first couple drafts rhymed.”

  “Cole, this is really good.”

  “Good enough for Overhead to give me another A–?”

  “I like sometime red hair best.”

  “Thanks,” I say. I kind of want to burn the poem now. I think she just feels bad about being a jerk before. Granny is seriously the worst word. I’d rather say penile than granny. For years I just referred to her as my grandmother unless she was present, but then I read in this book how granny is commonly used in Britain, and it seemed less horrible somehow.

  She hands the poem back to me. “So you’re going to the beach with Bangs tomorrow?”

  “Yes.” And I cannot wait. I thought I’d be away the entire day—my guitar lesson, the beach, the gig—but it turns out my guitar lesson was cancelled on account of Thanksgiving break, and no one told me, so I get to have another three-hour breakfast with too many people asking too many questions. Somebody told Meghan’s dad that I decided not to play basketball this year, and he’s all over that. He said choosing to play in a band and writing a letter to my coaches were acts of self-affirmation. What does that even mean? This is my self. This. I’m a fan. Enough already.