4/24 (After Dinner):
Located another lone wolf. She stares at me a lot, which is a little unnerving and also flattering. Either I’m way more gorgeous than I’ve been giving myself credit for or she knows I’m not cut out for Clique Life either. We went to the same activity today and I watched her glue a feather to a piece of construction paper. It’s goddamn kindergarten up in here except everyone’s crazy. When lunch was over she threw this napkin at me and at first I thought she confused me for the trash, which would be totally understandable, but then I realized she wrote two words on it: WILD GEESE. I’ve spent the last hour googling “Wild Geese” like it contains the cure for cancer. It doesn’t, but Mary Oliver’s poetry does seem to help a certain malignancy.
4/28 (Kind of Giddy):
Girl Red and I communicate nearly entirely with looks, besides the eighteen napkins she’s thrown at me, each containing a line of “Wild Geese.” I’m afraid to talk to her because I think it’ll ruin the whole mute thing we’ve got going on. Meanwhile the therapists say I’m doing great. My pants feel tight but at least this legging-as-pants trend is still trending.
4/29 (Dispatch from the Dining Hall):
There’s been contact with a foreign object: looked like a hand, felt like life from another universe. Occurred east of the white rice and west of the mixed greens. I was holding the tongs used only for the green beans when Girl Red put down the white-rice spoon and then… contact. A stirring. (Of the food, mainly.)
4/30 (In the Middle of the Night):
Just woke up after a very disturbing dream about Girl Red. Need to wash my underwear ASAP. Like, who am I? Is it normal for a freshman in college not to have had a boyfriend? Ugh, I’m the last person who’d ever be chosen to draw boundaries on the map “Normal.”
5/1 (In Bed with Headlamp):
Code Red. Where’s Girl Red? She didn’t have to say good-bye, but she could’ve at least waved.
I close my journal and sigh. There’s no point in denying the hunch I have when I’m around her, which is that the big hunger, i.e., the worst kind of aching human hunger, will be satisfied if I can touch her. Because, see, the big hunger isn’t anything celery or even cheeseburgers can fix. It’s the grumbling emptiness of needing to kiss another person, but not any person. My prom date, Billy Taylor, was “any person,” and everyone else in the world is “any person” too.
Well not everyone else. I’m counting on there being one exception.
CHAPTER SIX
I spend the next few days madly applying to hospital internships and volunteer positions and want ads for lab rats. Each time I start an application, though, I run into the same problem I did before and so have about sixteen documents listing only my name and age. The issue with planning your future is you have to plan for it before it’s already happening.
When I’m taking a break from applications to torture myself on the elliptical in the basement, Sara texts me about coming to a yoga class with her. I agree to come if she buys me a juice, which is how we end up at the Coffee Place with her getting our usual: French toast bagel with hazelnut cream cheese. It’s all I can do not to get it too, but then I remind myself how gloomy the prospect is of wearing a smock for the rest of my youth.
“A green monster, please,” I say at the counter. There’s an illuminated doughnut sign on the wall behind the register, and the air is so thick with buttery gluttony it’s hard to breathe. I force a smile when I’m handed a large cup of green sludge.
“Doesn’t that taste like ass?” Sara asks, with her mouth full of bagel.
“Yeah, like a tight ass.”
She rolls her eyes at me and I don’t tell her she has cream cheese on her mouth.
“You’re beautiful, Danny. Don’t make me bully you into believing it.” I turn around to leave and she pinches my butt so hard I nearly choke on all my liquid vegetables. I pinch hers back and the person behind the counter looks at us like we’re twelve, which is exactly how old I feel. She jumps on my back and I carry her to the car.
“You’ve muled the last two times. It’s my turn next,” Sara says when I deposit her at the door. I lean back to catch my breath, and the metal of the car is hot on my back.
“No, thank you. If we wanted to break your back, we could do it in much more interesting ways.”
While we drive, Sara talks my ear off about Ethan and their fancy date last night and how they drank champagne and how now she has a champagne headache.
“You poor thing.” I frown dramatically in her direction. “Last night I talked to my air conditioner until three a.m.”
“We’re gonna find you a boyfriend,” Sara says matter-of-factly, and I wonder if it’s ever occurred to her that I might not want one. “This summer is gonna be the summer. He’ll be sweet and smart, and we’ll finally have a place to put your V card.” I look out the window and count the pieces of visible litter on the side of the road, wishing I didn’t always feel like I was carrying another Danny on my shoulders.
At the studio Sara hands me her extra yoga mat and starts talking about “connecting with my body.” In spite of the yellow-polka-dot walls and tired aphorisms stenciled in glitter, I’m the tiniest bit interested. I’ve never heard Sara talk about anything this way; she’s not competitive about it and doesn’t want a lot out of it like she does tennis and guys. As we lay our mats in the back corner of the room (upon my request), I start thinking that maybe Sara and I can’t ever be who we were before, but we can be someone older.
I’m about to try to nap when Bugg walks into the room, causing my stomach to drop into my pelvis. There’s no staying cool as Sara waves her over—there’s something too unsettling about the two of them together. I know the definition of a fake person is someone who acts differently depending on who they’re with, but how else am I supposed to know how to be? Luckily, the instructor comes in and tells us to lie down and shut up, well not quite like that, but either way it saves me from a three way. Like, a three-way conversation with Bugg on my left and Sara on my right.
“Never thought I’d see you here, Danny,” Bugg whispers, then leans over me in a huge wave of cinnamon and cigarettes. I wonder why Bugg thinks she’s above the lie down/shut up message. “Sara, what sort of sexual favor did you have to offer her?”
My face heats up like a bad idea.
“Terrible, terrible things have been promised,” Sara whispers back, then pokes me. “Just kidding, I asked nicely. That’s the best thing about Danny. She only pretends to be against everything, but you can get her to do anything.”
I throw one of the blocks at Sara and the instructor looks over at us with a very nonpeaceful, nonyogic look.
“What? It’s a good thing that you’re a chameleon!”
The class gets going and it’s not as terrible as I expected, but it’s definitely not something I feel I need to do again before I’m fifty. The piece of linguine teaching the class has us putting our bodies in all sorts of positions, which makes my stomach rise up out of my yoga pants like pizza crust in the oven, expanding and expanding, so that my tank top comes up. I peek over at Bugg’s mat and realize the same thing is happening to her except it looks good on her, sexy even, maybe because her face looks so happy. I don’t want Sara to think I’m checking Bugg out so I look at Sara too, and make like I’m confused about what to do (which isn’t inaccurate). Sara, on the other hand, looks like a yogic angel, bending over herself like bones are nothing. At one point I end up sitting down on my mat and looking around at everyone wondering what it is that I like to do, because clearly this is not it.
As we pack up to go, Sara and Bugg are talking and I figure I should make a quick getaway, in case Bugg is telling her all of my secrets. It’s not that I’m threatened by their friendship; I just think I’d sleep better if they didn’t know each other. I walk over to them armed with an excuse about having to jog home to work out a kink in my hamstring so that I can help my parents clean the garage.
“Still see you tomorrow?” Bugg as
ks, and I don’t know why I’m so horrified that Sara might know we’re going to a poetry class together, but she’s engrossed in her cell phone anyway. I praise Jesus for modern medicine, i.e., technology, then nod and sprint for home. Well, maybe sprint is too strong a word for it.
At one o’clock on Thursday I arrive at the Yellow House Studio. I hate to be critical, but considering it’s a place dedicated to creativity, I think the Yellow House Studio, which is a yellow house and a studio, could have been a little more creative with its name. I look around for Bugg but don’t see her, so I approach the porch, where a woman with a long neck and purple lipstick is sitting.
“Hello, dear,” the woman greets me, as if we’ve been searching the ends of the earth for each other and have finally met after a hundred years of separation.
“Hi, I’m Danny, here for the poetry class? I’m not enrolled or anything. My friend… well, she’s sort of my friend, told me about it and—”
“Danny, yes, don’t worry, Bugg mentioned you might show up.” She stands to give me a hug and I wonder why she’s wearing an apron, especially such a violent one. The cartoon carrots, beets, and broccoli are spurting blood and tears, and the knife that’s drawn to look like it’s coming from her pocket is dripping green, orange, and purple.
“I’m Cynthia. I’ll be leading the poetry workshop.” Her voice is soft and doesn’t fit the vegetable-serial-killer tone of the apron at all. “Tell me, how do you like your eggs, Danny?”
“Sorry?”
“You can tell a lot about a person by how they like their eggs.”
“Oh… usually I’m a vegan.” Well, usually is a bit of a stretch. “But scrambled, I suppose.”
She grins and takes a tube of lipstick from the pocket of her apron. It looks sweaty and displeased to be uncapped. “Interesting. I eat mine nearly raw.” Visions of salmonella swirl in my head while she applies the lipstick, still making direct eye contact with me. I think it’s some sort of test and I shift from one foot to the next, wondering if I’ve passed.
“Here, I have a name tag for you.” She puts the lipstick away and hands me a sticky piece of paper from her other pocket that says DANDELION. I want to ask how she knows the horrendous legal name my parents gave me back in their hippie days, but that seems rude, considering the time she’s taken with it. The letters are curled, and in the top right corner she’s drawn a yellow flower. I put it above my left boob, which, frankly, is the nicer of the two.
“Come on in. The classroom is in the back. You’re going to love our group.” She goes on to tell me in a humble way how her dad was this famous poet-slash-professor who died a couple of years ago and wanted his estate to be a place for writers. “I’m doing my best with it.”
I tell her it’s great because it is. The ceilings are tall and the walls are papered with tiny white flowers. Plus, it smells like pie. Score. Then we get to the back room and there’s a large wooden table with people seated around it. My heart does this weird fluttery thing when I see Bugg. I feel like I have to do something, so I do the worst thing imaginable and give her two thumbs-up. Two thumbs-up. She sticks her tongue out at me.
“Welcome, everyone,” Cynthia says, taking a seat at the head of the table. “This is my favorite class to teach because we’re going to dive deep into our creative and emotional selves over the next eight weeks. If you all don’t cry at least once, I will consider myself a failure.”
She winks and it isn’t corny. Even though I’d rather sever my taste buds than cry in a room full of people, I have to admit there’s something nice about her, despite the dystopian lip color, vegetable-serial-killer apron, and strange little haircut. I sneak a look at Bugg. She’s also looking at me. Where do you find velvet overalls and how is she not sweating herself into an aquatic life-form?
“To write the perfect poem, you have to be perfect, then write a poem,” Cynthia continues. I gulp, hoping perfection is a metaphor. While she describes the methods of achieving said perfection—lots of writing prompts and a mandatory thirty minutes a day of journal writing—I look around at the people who volunteered for this: an older man with thick-framed glasses, a younger guy with gauges, and a nervous-looking woman with gray-streaked hair. “Poetry isn’t strictly poems. It’s about taking your raw material and cooking yourself,” Cynthia explains, and I shiver despite the heat. That explains the apron… sort of. “Over the next few weeks, you’ll be writing to develop your voice as a writer in preparation for the final assignment, which will be a credo you write to yourself. I’m not going to say anything else about it because I don’t want to ruin the surprise, but keep in mind that you’re working to get closer to your truest center. Now let’s do introductions.”
Everyone in the room smiles and shifts in their chairs. My stomach starts to feel queasy. How am I going to get through eight weeks of this artsy-fartsy emotional stuff, especially in the company of Bugg?
“How about your name and why you write,” Cynthia suggests, and we start going around the table. The introductions are as awkward as you would expect given the cast of characters, and I wish I had a Life Saver or something to occupy my mouth. Bugg and I are the last to go.
“I’m Sally Bugg.” She pauses and pulls a little bit at one of the curls hanging by her waist. “I write,” she says slowly, “because it’s the one thing I’ve never felt I could lose.”
Bugg’s sleeveless blouse is buttoned up all the way under her overalls, and her arms are husky and very white except for a few doodle-like tattoos on her wrists. She has a small brown leather notebook in front of her and a pen with a fuzzy end like you get at the second-grade book fair. It’s not that I didn’t notice this the other night or a couple of months ago, but it’s worth saying again that she’s beautiful. And I can say that because any human can acknowledge the beauty of another human, just like a ceramic pot can acknowledge the craftsmanship of another ceramic pot. Chances are it’s not sexual. It’s artisanal.
“Lovely,” Cynthia says. “Absolutely lovely.” I can tell she’s going to be saying that a lot. “Danny?” She turns to me and it’s so silent I can almost hear the sun cast shadows on the table.
I make intense eye contact with a water stain a few inches from my hand, and begin. “Um, I don’t really write. I keep a journal but it’s not literature or anything, and I’d probably have to take someone hostage if they read it. But sometimes when I’m writing it feels less like I’m drowning—only slightly less, but less.” In my peripherals I see a few people nod solemnly. I have a feeling they also paint their toenails black to properly reflect their souls.
“Lovely,” Cynthia says again. “Let’s get started, then.” She takes out her notebook and we all do the same. I can’t believe I’ve taken my journal into the public domain, but it’d feel wrong to write in anything else. When she dumps a pack of sharpened pencils onto the table, we each take one then look at her expectantly.
“Let’s go for fifteen minutes and the prompt is ‘Things that make you cold.’”
The room becomes silent except for the sound of pencils scribbling. I look at mine impatiently then tap it on the table, wondering how I ended up with the constipated #2. I start nibbling on the eraser, which I haven’t done since fourth grade when Sara enumerated the ways it was not only gross, but likely to give me an oral infection.
A few minutes pass. I write a thing or two down, wonder how many calories there are in the granola bar I packed, feel a pimple forming on my chin.
“Three minutes,” Cynthia warns.
As I add my last bullet she points to me. “Read for us, my dear.”
I blink. Where was the call for a volunteer? Surely this is a violation of workshop etiquette. My face is very warm. I think my upper lip is sweating. I clear my throat in an attempt to get more air into my lungs and begin.
“Things that make me cold: One: car rides to unfamiliar places. Two: ice cubes, ice storms, and ice hockey. Three: when my therapist brings up my eating habits, which are subpar at best, but bet
ter than they were when they were worse. Four: the thought that bones are alive. Five: department stores with too much AC. Six: people with very white teeth. Seven: vegan promises I can’t seem to keep.” I go on for a little bit longer, feeling more and more embarrassed, which must show in the unprecedented amount of blood that’s rushed to my face.
When I’m done, my hands are trembling but there’s an unfamiliar lightness in my body. Cynthia thanks me for letting her put me on the spot. “Free writes are great for revealing our subconscious thoughts. Reading them is good too. Embarrassing of course, but it’ll make you more confident writers.” She smiles her purple-lipped smile. “Are you set to share your poem this week, Bugg?”
Bugg nods, then starts. “September.” Her voice is husky and she speaks noticeably slowly, not like she doesn’t have enough to say but like every word is important enough to not be swallowed by the next.
As far down as Virginia
they turn and fall
there’s nothing human about them
but their scent
is there any scent as sweet
as dying leaves?
She looks up and we make eye contact because I’m too slow at looking away. Cynthia sets the timer for fifteen minutes and the workshopping begins. Philip, the younger guy, thinks the title could use more work, Larry wants her to play with line breaks, something about the enjambment not working, and Irene loves it. Simply loves it. As for me, I alternate between staring at her and the water stain on the table and then back at her again.
“Danny, is there anything you want to add?”
Gotta appreciate Cynthia’s effort to throw me a line. “Nope, it was baller.” Which is a word I’ve never said before and immediately regret saying now. “Particularly the ending.”
“Baller, yes, excellent. Well, I think that’s good for today. I made lavender lemonade if you guys want to hang out outside for a bit and get to know each other.”
Love & Other Carnivorous Plants Page 5
