After the Kiss
Page 14
living proof
she comes to school with you and at first you think standing there in the main office that there is no way they will let her in, that they will laugh in your face and point her to the door. but she smiles and introduces herself and explains she’s your cousin visiting and she shows them her id and they print her a name tag that says lucille. you cannot believe it, how lucky you are and you almost run out of the office to show her your locker to show her the hallways and the wide clean bathrooms. you show her your first class where you will be going in a few minutes you round the corner so you can show her your friends. and in an instant they are all swarming around her and making her laugh and telling her what she’s missed since you’ve been here. she is easy and cool with them but shooting her eyes at you—she thinks sam is too hyper, thinks edgar too cute for his own good, thinks autumn is just ridiculous and ellen a good choice of a friend. you see all this in her face standing there talking to them, wondering a little if you’re mixing milk and vinegar but she is kind and she is laughing and they are all interested to see what she will tell them about you. you are trying not to show her off like a bowling trophy, trying not to stand too close, but she is your proof to them that you existed before—proof you were a person before they ever saw your face.
Becca
Brother’s Arrival
We shine when he comes home.
Not just
bathroom porcelain, fresh-folded laundry,
glossy wood floors, and
clean, well-stocked fridge, but
our daily-grind faces,
now bright with smiles.
With him here
—even for only a couple of days, before
he meets friends in Florida for the rest of break—
Mom’s voice is a bird,
hopping
from room to room,
her feathered hands
refluffing her nest.
Brother in the Backyard
It is weird in a good way
to come home from school
and find Ian there,
one leg slung sprawled up
on the back of the couch.
He is smiling-glad-to-see-me,
tired of watching TV all day,
and doing his own laundry.
He is ready to talk,
even to me.
We make Cherry Cokes the real way,
head to the backyard
and the old iron chairs
underneath the fig tree.
It is like old times but not.
Now I am grown-up too,
with a job, and heartbreak,
and secrets of my own.
I tell him about the redhead,
getting over Alec,
about Nadia,
and feeling like a fool.
I tell him about
my secret college
and worrying
what mom will say.
At one point he pulls
a joint from his pocket
and I act like I’m not surprised,
like it’s perfectly fine.
He squints when he inhales,
and I try not to stare,
wondering if he does this always
or just when
deep in thought.
Eventually he looks at me, says,
You’re
swimming so hard in this ocean.
Don’t you know
if you float,
it will always hold you up?
He explains that Mom may freak,
but my grades are good enough
—better than his—
for a dynamite scholarship:
maybe even
a full ride.
That Nadia may have been cool at first,
but she’s just a work friend.
Those people are fun,
but not your whole life.
He says I have no idea
what’s coming ahead for me
the doors waiting, wide open,
for me to walk through.
You’ll understand when you get there,
but I’m telling you
—and I mean no offense—
that high school seems so important
but . . .
And then he shrugs,
done with it all.
It has been
a lot of talking from him,
a lot more
than usual.
It is annoying he’s so arrogant,
so dismissive and sure,
—he doesn’t have to live with it, he doesn’t
have to be here—
but I say nothing,
just sip my Coke,
the cold cherries falling,
hard and sweet,
against my teeth.
Hypocrites Don’t Make Good Friends
All Freya says about Nadia is
What a bitch. Then she wants to know
when I’m going out with the redhead,
when we move in for the kill.
But her plan is not a plan to me anymore, just
some silly Barbie game
played by little girls.
I wait
until guitar,
until I’m sitting next to Jenna, working
on our duet.
I tell her
what Nadia did, testing
our own small new friendship,
seeing if she will accept me
and my messy life.
She covers her mouth with her pale hand,
wide-eyed, not believing,
then she strums a few chords, and out comes a song:
Hyp-o-crites
don’t make good friends;
hyp-o-crites
aren’t nice.
I match her chords on my own frets, strum along,
until we’re screaming with laughter,
screaming together.
How to Assemble a Rockin’ Literary Magazine
First, weed out
the stupid stuff: the maudlin, the self-praising,
the kooky and plain weird.
Clear the work surface and present
sixteen stories,
twenty-two poems,
some senior photography,
and three charcoal sketches
from a kid
in ninth grade.
Sprinkle heavily with satisfied smiles, let
one or two editors brag about their favorites.
Now comes the part where
you have to decide
what will be first and
what will come last.
Suggest
that Kalends
should be at the end.
(Because it is the longest and
because it ends—like the school year—
in May.)
Leave the rest
to the rest of them. Experiment,
test the ocean.
See if it will hold you
if you simply
float.
Practice Good-bye
Before it is even
time for school,
we have to say good-bye. Ian’s leaning
out the window of his car,
all three of us waving
until he is gone.
Mom is trying
not to cry, but I hug her and
she gives in.
We hold on to each other
—already missing him—wondering
what it will be like
when next time
it’s me.
New Glasses
Just because someone gets new glasses
—and can finally see—
doesn’t mean
the world has changed.
Even though I am seeing them
—different—for the first time,
the clouds were always clouds.
Now though,
instead of white blank blurry f
uzz I find
rabbits, shades and shadow, wisps and whorls,
a smiling face.
Afternoon after school and I am
returning to work.
Nadia chirps, What took you so long?
And I smile,
a quick hug.
She is still
tiny and muscled, still
brightness and sun.
The world hasn’t changed,
though for me it is different.
She hasn’t changed;
I can just
finally see.
Smoke on the Horizon
And then from nowhere he appears,
a text it’s hard
—but not impossible—
to delete from my phone:
life has lost its glow
without the fire of you. let
me relight these coals.
Camille
coffee klatch
you take her to the coffeehouse. inside it is cool and blue and yellowlit and you order coffee and doughnuts and ask for them to be heated up. coffeecounter girl is there and she looks surprised but says nothing in front of your friend whom she’s clearly aware she’s never seen. she hands you the coffee and she gives you your change and you want to explain about luli but then why would she care. and luli looks around with happiness and says she’s pictured you here and it isn’t quite what she expected but it’s not that far off. and you sip your coffee and you watch her happy mouth biting into fat cakey cinnamon doughnut amazement and you feel for the first time you really are somewhere—you’re really here—and then she says, okay. now what the heck’s going on? and sitting here with her you have forgotten the feeling of being burnt to ashes blown away, and it is hard to remember four days ago when you were weeping but she flew all the way across the country for you and abandoned spring break, so you owe her something, you owe her an explanation. so you start where you think is the beginning, with seeing the catcher, and you tell her about the surprise of him, how everything was so whirlwind and you were following your gut, when she stops you with laughing and you feel yourself blush. that guy wasn’t your gut, she says arching an eyebrow and dropping her voice. and she wears the face that says she’s going to lay it out straight for you, and you’ve seen this face before and you know how she gets and you are confused and a little mad and this wasn’t exactly what you wanted her here for, but it’s like a kick in the stomach the words coming from her now: telling you’re a tinman who pretends he has no heart, who bangs around into other people wielding an ax.
listening to luli
in the dark you are lying there thinking about everything, thinking what she said and what you said back. she is breathing soft beside you in your big iron bed and you want to wake her to keep talking more. but she has said everything and you have said everything and the only thing left is for you to wait and see. luli is the trapeze girl, leaping—flinging herself into experiences and people and life. so you thought she would have been crazy about the catcher idea, but tonight it turns out you were totally wrong. your heart’s in chicago, but you don’t even know it, like it’s so simple, so you’re living like a robot and it’s sad to watch. you’ve got to stop gun-jumping, preparing for good-bye. you’ve got to trust a little if you want your heart back. lying here now you can feel your real heart burning underneath the blankets, can feel the blood racing in your fingertips and down to your toes, with no answer to her other question about what would have happened if you’d kept her at arm’s length, if you’d been a shark then. and yes it worked once in this instance but she is a rare diamond—most people forget you most people aren’t her. so you have to be careful or else you’ll get crushed. it’s better to make a clean cut instead of a tear. you are flying away soon, you are going to leave. but now the choking tears come because you remember your sad savings, how it isn’t enough. you probably aren’t flying anywhere, might even have to stay put. and with that thought your heart beats hard inside you wanting to get out, wanting to fly, wanting to escape, to go back where it belongs.
speaking to shasta
of course luli loves the shelter, and of course they love her there. you have been to little five points you have gone up to phipps, you have walked around decatur you have swung on your porch. this is the last place she’ll see before leaving you tomorrow and it is perfect and it is heartbreaking how the dogs adore her like you do. there is cleaning and some scooping and donated food to put away, but luli’s there helping with her pointy braids and her unflinching hands. then it’s your favorite—taking them out in the yard—and once they’re out of their cages she snatches up two puppies to cradle near her neck before lily makes her put them down because they need to practice with the leash. since there are two of you you get twelve all at once, and the puppies all press their paws toward you like elementary school kids raising their hands to be picked. you choose jasper and leona, and belly with her limp, three dogs new since last week and the sibling beagles who arrived all at once. last you pick shasta with his sad longing eyes, eyes that never smile with his mouth because he’s been here for so long. outside you loop them around the perimeter twice, insisting on behavior, teaching them how to heel. when they’re done with their drill you unclip all their leashes, let them run, jump on each other, bark as much as they want. but old shasta stays by you watching the crazy puppies who are sniffing under bellies and biting one another’s ears, luli happily tossing stick after stick. you crouch down and ruffle shasta around the neck the way he likes and he flops on his back so you can move to his belly. you are not sure when this happened really, when you picked him as your favorite, but somehow it has happened and as you half-sit there on the ground your hand going up and down over his tender stomach, his paws open and his face watching yours—he knows you will leave him, everyone does—but looking at him you think you might be getting it, think you might understand.
last words
you are up super early because luli’s flight is at eight thirty and she has to get going to the airport. last night you packed her and you talked some more, you told her about not-europe, you told her other things. and she said this was an opportunity she said it was a sign that maybe your original plans weren’t the right ones and you needed to consider other avenues of adventure, but also maybe there are other ways to make it there if you look—you just never know. and you were already sad watching her jam her dirty shirts into the zip pocket of her suitcase, trying to squeeze in all the stuff that she’d bought. leaving’s not a new thing to you—you know all about good-byes—but this morning in your pajamas you are quiet at the breakfast table nibbling your bagel because sure yeah you’re sleep-bleary but mainly this is one good-bye you aren’t ready for, one you don’t want to say. when she leaves you will be left with everyone else, mainly yourself, and it is rainbows and candy corns with her but how do you go back to real-life sawdust and cardboard with your hands still streaky with sugar, with glitter still in your eyes? but then it is quarter after six and it’s really time to go and dad takes her bag to the car on his own way out the door. and you can’t believe she came all this way to you, can’t believe she was really here and now she is leaving and you are going to cry. but she grabs you close to her and she tells you be beautifully brave and then while you’re standing there in the driveway with your bare feet, waving until the car disappears, her last words are in your brain all over your body reverberating everywhere and blurring your eyes. it all comes together then how she knows you, how she knows, how she whispered in your ear: just write him back.
a small chance
heart still heavy with luli gone and the long day before you—you are not sure you can face the weekend talk, the routine plans—so before it even starts you decide to just go up and ask ellen—forget about the lake house forget about cruising—what about a simple, old-fashioned spend the night? you are ready to wince with regret, you are ready for her to think you’re in third grade, so when her face lights up and she says she can bring som
e dvds you take that as a good sign and make it a date. now she is on the floor with her feet in the air against your bed—you are lying on it looking down at her, watching her point and unpoint her toes. she has taught you something called pillow flipping you have watched an episode of family guy you are both half-drunk from eating so much raw brownie batter, and now she is telling you about some guy named hunter you’ve never heard of before—a boy she met at summer camp a boy she is in love with a boy she has been writing and calling for two years now but who lives in virginia and whom she never gets to see. and you are up on your elbow now looking at her like she’s grown a whole new face and you must have a strange expression on, seeing her, because she stops and says what? like maybe you think she’s the one in third grade. it is a worried face you’ve seen before—a face you know—so you just say that sounds familiar. and now there is a quiet bridge slowly arcing between you. it is invisible and unsteady but it is there. you are not sure what you will tell her next and what you will keep to yourself. maybe she will laugh at you, maybe she will listen. maybe she will leave you in the end but then, like luli says, maybe she won’t.
Becca
Alternate Plans
I was planning to tell her one day soon over fancy dinner:
chicken piccata, a hearty salad,
those baguettes
from the Mercantile