Read Between the Lines

by Jo Knowles

  Moving to the music coming from a window nearby.

  When I walked down the street, she jerked her chin at me.

  Let her eyes travel up and down my scrawny body.

  Her mouth made a curled-up expression of disapproval.

  Like I am not her kind. Don’t belong on her street.

  The girls behind her made catlike noises to echo her body language.

  She was right.

  I am not her kind.

  But maybe not in the way she thinks.

  I couldn’t help watching her, though.

  Because she was beautiful, even with the cigarette and the curled-up lip.

  She stepped forward, twirling her cigarette.

  Whatyoulookinat?

  She said it loud and tough. Fast. Like the four words were one.

  Whatyoulookinat.

  Like a bully would say just before he punches you in the face.

  Maybe she could sense, even on that first day, that I was looking at her.

  The her she seemed meant to be.

  This her.

  Not the one at school.

  There, she wears jeans and a hoodie that seems to swallow her.

  Same as most of her actors.

  They sit at a corner table in the caf at school.

  Trying to be invisible like everyone else, besides the jocks and beauty queens.

  There, she tries to hide. Blend in.

  In the one class we’re in together, she slides down low in her seat.

  Wears her hood even though it’s against the rules.

  It’s the only trace of her rebellious side.

  This her doesn’t belong in that place.

  I wondered if she recognized me from that place, too.

  Is that why she curled her lip? And dared me to walk on her own turf?

  Whatyoulookinat.

  Maybe.

  I almost stopped walking but tripped instead. My face burned.

  The bones in my legs had turned to flimsy cardboard that couldn’t hold me up.

  She smirked but didn’t laugh out loud. Too cool to let the sound leave her lips.

  I walked faster the closer I got, knowing I should look down at the pavement as I passed.

  Or at the sky.

  Or anywhere but toward her stage.

  My eyes didn’t care about should, though.

  They crossed the narrow street to find her as I struggled with my cardboard legs. Forcing them to move one foot in front of the other.

  Her hair was long and black and patent-leather shiny.

  Her cigarette dangled dangerously from her left hand.

  I was wrong about the prop.

  A tiny swirl of gray escaped from the tip, up and around her bare arm. Like a pet snake-ghost.

  She was a smoking statue queen.

  She sneered at me as I watched.

  I still couldn’t stop.

  She took another step forward. Stuck out her chest, proud and unashamed. Daring me to look right there.

  But it was her eyes I wanted to look at.

  Her friends moved in closer.

  Ooooh. You show him, girl.

  Like she was about to come after me. And kick me off their street.

  They weren’t the same cast as the quiet group in the caf, hiding under their baggy sweatshirts and tight jeans.

  Here, they were fearless.

  I picked up my pace and tried to get past them without tripping again.

  But the smooth, even pavement suddenly felt like waves under my feet.

  They all laughed as I walked past with wobbly legs.

  I don’t know why I looked back once I’d made it beyond them.

  Whatyoulookinat? she asked again.

  My cheeks felt like a candy fireball after you lick the sweet part off.

  I shrugged, willing the heat to melt away.

  I stopped and stood there while she waited for an answer.

  She jerked her head at me, then lifted her fist in my direction, like a threat.

  Then, her skinny middle finger slowly rose out of her fist in a wordless gesture.

  But I didn’t feel the silent insult.

  If she couldn’t say it out loud, I couldn’t hear it.

  Wouldn’t.

  Maybe she didn’t want me to.

  She swiveled around on her heel so all I could see was her long black hair — a leather cape cascading down her back.

  Or a curtain falling, letting me know the show was over.

  I turned and fled.

  That night I dreamed about her and that skinny finger and her hair and her angry face.

  And the sound of her voice.

  Whatyoulookinat?

  As if she had to ask.

  At school, I searched for her. For the others, too.

  But they were like silent shadows, moving through the crowd. Pretending not to see me.

  Pretending I couldn’t see them.

  Like we were each other’s secret.

  I didn’t tell anyone about them.

  Not even my best friend, Nate.

  I don’t know why.

  On my way home the next day, I paused at the same street and considered skipping a block just in case she was there again.

  Even though I wanted to see her, I didn’t want her to see my skinny cardboard legs.

  Didn’t want to be sneered at by her crew. Hissssssss.

  But my feet wouldn’t let me skip her street.

  I wobbled forward and spotted her right away.

  She was standing on her stage, laughing with her friends.

  I wondered what was so funny. Because they hadn’t seen me yet.

  She leaned her long graceful back against her graffiti-covered wall like she was a part of it. Like it was holding her up.

  Or maybe it was the other way around.

  She took a deep slow drag from her cigarette and blew tiny clouds of gray into the sky.

  I walked slowly so I could watch her a little before she knew I was there.

  When her friends saw me, they got all excited and walked to the edge of their stage.

  Oooh, Sapphie. Here comes your boyfriend.

  Sapphie. Sapphire.

  The blue gemstone.

  Hard, cold, beautiful . . . and precious.

  She cleared her throat real loud and stood with one hand on her hip, the other holding that miniature baton cigarette.

  Her actors moved closer to the edge of their stage, ready to attack.

  She looked me up and down without shame.

  Like I was something she might like to hunt. To taste.

  And maybe spit out.

  I waited for her to make up her mind.

  She jerked her chin at me.

  Whatyoulookinat?

  Her voice was softer than it was on that first day.

  She knew the answer.

  I wanted to nod again and tell her:

  Yeah, that’s right. You know.

  But instead I shrugged and kept walking. Walking until even though I couldn’t see her, I was sure what she was going to do.

  I stopped. Breathed. And slowly looked back over my shoulder, trying to appear as calm and nonchalant as possible.

  I’m not sure but I think one corner of her mouth jerked up before her friends could see.

  A smile.

  For me.

  She lifted her powerful bony fist and stuck her beautiful finger up at me.

  It felt more like a salute than a dismissal.

  The actors laughed and went back to half dancing to their window music.

  Playing with each other’s hair.

  Lighting each other’s cigarettes.

  But she stood apart. Watching me look at her.

  A diamond. A sapphire.

  In the rough.

  All the way home, my chest burned like the candy fireball had moved into my heart.

  The next day she was waiting for me again.

  Whatyoulookinat?

  This time, it sounded like she wa
s happy to see me.

  Her actors laughed and pointed at my skinny legs.

  But she just smirked as usual and struck a pose.

  Raised her finger at me.

  She put her cigarette to her mouth and kissed it. Then blew the smoke-kiss in my direction.

  I breathed in deep, as if I could suck it in.

  It was the same the day after. And every day the following week, too.

  I always walked real slow as soon as I caught sight of her and before she caught sight of me.

  I’d stay on my side of the street and pretend not to notice her and her dancers, and they’d wait and pretend not to notice me, too.

  She always waited until I was almost past them.

  Whatyoulookinat?

  Her voice was deep and smoky sexy.

  I’d shrug and hope my voice wouldn’t crack, but manage a quiet, Nothin’.

  Then she’d say, Yeah, right.

  As soon as my back was to her, I’d take five paces before I turned around so she could flash me a quick fireball smile.

  Then flip me off.

  I’d nod, like I knew it was a compliment.

  The actors would laugh and dance faster.

  She would smoke.

  And I would walk home happy.

  She was always smoking. Always smoking and waiting. For me.

  That’s how it was with us.

  It’s November now, and the last week before Thanksgiving break. I won’t see her for a while.

  I wonder if she knows our days are numbered.

  I wonder if she cares.

  When I get to her street, I pause and listen for the window music. The voices.

  I walk more slowly the minute I hear her name.

  Her friends elbow each other to look my way.

  Here comes your boyfriend, Sapphie.

  Her cigarette hangs loosely from her fingers, as if she wants to let go but can’t.

  Our eyes meet on purpose for the first time.

  I let my mouth turn up the way hers does for me.

  When she sees, she laughs.

  You poor puppy.

  As soon as she says it, it is exactly how I feel.

  Like a puppy whose master told him to “stay” while he walked away.

  That’s me. Standing on my side of the street watching her like I am some sad dog.

  I feel my hound-dog eyes droop with dejection.

  She seems to wait to make sure no one else is watching before she lets the left corner of her mouth perk up.

  She juts out her chin the way she does.

  Whatyoulookinat?

  She brings her cigarette to her mouth but doesn’t put it in.

  She watches me and waits.

  She flicks the tip with her pinkie and ashes fly from her hand like magic stardust.

  Yo!

  You gonna answer me?

  I startle at the sound of these new words and how they sound from her mouth.

  My stomach dances.

  I suck in the air and imagine I am tasting her smoke from over here on my side of the street.

  I hold it in my chest, and it burns like that candy fireball trapped in my heart.

  You, I say, sending the heat back her way.

  Her friends crack up, but she steps forward.

  My chest, my heart, my everything glows like the embers on her cigarette, waiting for her response.

  She steps forward, expressionless.

  But her eyes are sapphires.

  Ha!

  She barks the word at me, then takes a cool, long drag and lifts her chin higher in my direction.

  She eyes me up and down in her usual, wonderful, awful way.

  I try to look taller.

  Slowly, her lips bloom and open into a real smile as she gives me the finger.

  I lift my chin back at her and feel my own finger go up.

  She crosses her arms and nods approvingly.

  But she doesn’t wave me over to her side of the street.

  I know now that she never will.

  I don’t fit on her stage.

  Just like she doesn’t fit on mine.

  Not at school. Not on this side of the street.

  The heat seeps out of me.

  I didn’t want this good-bye.

  But Sapphire is standing there watching me.

  Waiting for me to move on.

  I nod and turn away.

  I walk down my side of the street, feeling her eyes on me as the distance grows between us.

  You, I want to say again, even though she already knows it.

  I was always lookinat you.

  But instead I just keep walking.

  I don’t look back when I turn the corner and walk the next block.

  She’s out of sight now. Gone.

  That’s what I’m thinking when I step into the street without waiting for the cross signal.

  That’s what I’m thinking when the car hits me.

  I don’t feel anything.

  I just hear the thud.

  My body twists in a way I didn’t know it could. Then gray pavement rushes at me.

  For some reason I don’t think pavement, though.

  I think asphalt.

  That’s what my grandfather calls it.

  I reach out with my hands and feel the roughness of it as my hands slide across with the rush of my fall.

  Then my face hits.

  Scrapes.

  The asphalt is surprisingly warm for a November day.

  I lie there, thinking about this. About my face. On the warm asphalt.

  And how it is slowly starting to feel wet.

  When I glance around, I think I am looking through a tunnel.

  But then I realize I am looking through the bottom of a car.

  I can see all the pipes and rusty metal parts.

  A door opens. The metal creaks.

  I wonder how old the car is. Probably as old as my grandfather’s clunker.

  Small clear and yellow shards of plastic rain down on me in tiny diamond shapes. Like a broken stained-glass window.

  I study them, thinking, headlight.

  That’s a funny name.

  I roll away from the car and peer up at the sky.

  It isn’t blue today. It’s gray. Maybe a little green.

  How many shades of blue and gray can the sky be?

  I wonder if the choices are infinite or if there is a set number.

  A head blocks my view.

  It is a man’s head and he is peering down at me with curiosity, as if I am some sort of roadkill he’s never seen before.

  Me, a rare bird.

  Not Nobody.

  I blink.

  He blinks.

  “Wha — ?” I start to say.

  “You’re OK,” he answers.

  He has brown eyes and a beard. Trimmed. Odd. With a little patch under his bottom lip.

  A goatee gone wrong. I’ve seen it before. At school.

  The janitor, I think.

  And then Nate’s words, soul patch, and I think how funny that sounds, too. A patch of soul.

  I tell myself I need to remember this. The details.

  So I can tell the police in case I die.

  I laugh, realizing if I die I won’t be able to tell them anything.

  The janitor keeps pacing back and forth, not taking his eyes off me.

  The broken plastic crunches under his feet, and he swears with each step.

  Shit, he mutters.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  He stops and stands over me again.

  His head sways above me. I can’t tell if he is actually swaying or if I am just dizzy.

  “Am I OK?” I ask him.

  You’re just a deer, he says quietly.

  “Huh?”

  Shit.

  He walks away.

  The car door creaks shut.

  Tires turn close to my face.

  I squeeze my eyes closed, waiting for him to finish the job.

  Nothing happe
ns.

  I blink again as the pain I knew was on its way hits.

  Hard.

  It starts with the stinging on my face.

  Then a strange sharpness in my legs that I’ve never felt before.

  I don’t move, just let the pain spread through my body.

  There was a car.

  And it hit me.

  There was a man with an annoying beard.

  The janitor from school.

  But he took off.

  The side of my face is on the asphalt.

  No. Pavement.

  I might be dead.

  No. If I was dead, I wouldn’t be thinking, I’m dead. Or be able to feel this . . . pain.

  There’s a stinging from my palm to my elbow. It scrapes against the pavement as I try to roll over.

  I stop trying.

  “Are you all right?”

  I try to turn my head toward the voice.

  Someone is leaning over me again.

  A girl this time.

  With the sun behind her, I mostly just see her silhouette.

  The sunlight behind her is like a halo.

  And now I do wonder if I’m dead.

  The angel bends down.

  “Jesus. That’s gotta hurt.”

  Would an angel say Jesus?

  “Can you move?”

  She touches my shoulder. It is the only thing that doesn’t sting or stab.

  She reaches out her hands to help me sit up. They feel tiny in mine. Like a little kid’s.

  But now that I can see her face, I know she is not one.

  She is Claire Harris from school.

  The object of countless discussions between me and Nate.

  I can hear Nate’s voice in my head now.

  Dude, Claire Harris just touched you.

  I wait for the new pain to settle down again.

  And think of Nate and his broken middle finger.

  And how he’s Finger Boy now.

  But I am still Nobody.

  Except that I’m the one staring at Claire Harris.

  A small dog sniffs my elbow.

  This has to be a dream.

  She is like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.

  With Toto.

  I look down, expecting to see a yellow brick road.

  Maybe I’m dead after all.

  Claire helps me stand.

  This must mean I didn’t break every bone in my legs.

  Also, not dead.

  The little dog dances anxiously around us.

  “I’m just gonna walk home now,” I say shakily.

  “Are you sure you’re OK?” Claire asks.

  I jerk my head down the street. “Yeah. It’s not far.”

  “We’ll walk with you. Just in case.”