- I look at my watch. "It's almost pumpkin time. Where's Tony?" We find him a little ways over, lying in the middle of the street, on an island that's been adopted by the local Kiwanis Club. His eyes are closed. He is listening to the music of the traffic going by. I climb over the divider and tell him study group's almost over. "I know," he says to the sky. Then, as he's getting up, he adds, "I like it here." I want to ask him, Where is here? Is it this island, this town, this world? More than anything in this strange life, I want Tony to be happy. We found out a long time ago that we weren't meant to fall in love with each other. But a part of me still fell in hope with him. I want a fair world. And in a fair world, Tony would shine. I could tell him this, but he wouldn't accept it. He would leave it on the island instead of folding it up and keeping it with him, just to know it was there. We all need a place. I have mine—this topsy-turvy collection of friends, tunes, afterschool activities, and dreams. I want him to have a place, too. When he says "I like it here," I don't want there to be a sad undertone. I want to be able to say, So stay. But I remain quiet, because now it's a quiet night, and Tony is already walking back to the parking lot.
- She trudges off. It is clear that he is supposed to follow. We hover for a second. Our momentary outro of regret.
- Ted is smart and good-looking, but he doesn't use it to good effect, like a rich person who never gives to charity. His world rarely expands farther than the nearest mirror. Even in tenth grade, he likes to think of himself as the king of our school. He hasn't stopped to notice it's a democracy.
- "I do declare," Infinite Darlene does declare, "what has gotten you so distracted?" It is here that I feel the limit of our friendship. Because while Infinite Darlene feels comfortable telling me everything, I am afraid that if I tell her something, it will no longer be mine. It will belong to the whole school. "I'm just looking for someone," I hedge. "Aren't we all?" Infinite Darlene vamps ruefully. I think I'm off the hook, but then she adds, "Is it someone special?" "It's nothing," I say, crossing my fingers. I pray that it's not nothing. Yes, I pray to my Big Lesbian God Who Doesn't Really Exist. I say to her: I don't ask for much. I swear. But I would really love Noah to be everything I hope he'll be. Please let him be someone I can groove with, and who wants to groove with me.
- "Don't look now," she whispers. Of course, I turn and look. And there's Kyle Kimball walking by. Turning away from me like he might catch plague from a single bubonic glance.
- "Two sixty-three," Noah tells me. "?!???" I reply. "My locker number," he explains. "I'll see you after school."
- Self-esteem can be so exhausting. I want to cut my hair, change my clothes, erase the pimple from the near-tip of my nose, and strengthen my upper-arm definition, all in the next hour. But I can't do that, because (a) it's impossible, and (b) if I make any of these changes, Noah will notice that I've changed, and I don't want him to know how into him I am.
- The minutes are ticking away. I hope Noah is equally delayed, and that we'll arrive at his locker at the same time, one of those wonderful kismet connections that seem like signs of great things to come.
- "We've got to talk," she says. I do not argue. She pulls me into an empty classroom. History's great figures — Eleanor Roosevelt, Mahatma Gandhi, Homer Simpson—look down at us from posters on the walls.
- "Jesus died for our sins," Noah says solemnly. "What?!?" I reply, choking back my thoughts. "I was just seeing if you were listening. Your face went far away for a second." "Well, I'm back now."
- In retrospect, this is a stupid, stupid decision. Because as soon as they show up, Infinite Darlene walks past, clicking her tongue and swishing away. Then, even worse, as Chuck and I are nodding hey, Ted appears behind him. He stops for a second and takes a good look at what we're doing. He, too, walks away irate, betrayed. I feel like a dust mite. And I still have to get through lunch. Chuck is a short guy but he works out a lot, so as a result he's built like a fire hydrant. Most of the time he acts like a fire hydrant, too. Conversation is not his strong suit. In fact, I'm not sure it's a suit he owns.
- I get a smoothie, but Chuck goes for a VegCola. "I don't like fruit," he explains. "No offense." Only his "no offense" offends me. But because he's my best friend's new boyfriend, I let it slide. (For now.)
- Do you have any cute girlfriends? Dogface doesn't count." (He and Joni go way back; she calls him Dungbrain.)
- Whenever my mom makes pancakes, they are usually the shape of states or countries. It's how I learned geography. If this seems a little bizarre, let me emphasize here — I am not talking about blobs of batter that look like California when you squint. No, I'm talking coastlines and mountain ranges and little star imprints where .the capital should be. Because my mom drills teeth for a living, she is very, very precise. She can draw a straight line without a ruler and fold a napkin in perfect symmetry. In this regard, I am nothing at all like her. Most of the time, I feel like a perpetual smudge. My lines all curve. I tend to connect the wrong dots. (Joni tells me this isn't true, that I say I'm a smudge because I can see my mother's precision growing inside of me. But let me tell you—I could never make two separate pancakes that fit together the way my mother's Texas and Oklahoma do.) My parents steal glimpses of Noah. He steals glimpses of them. I watch them all openly, and nobody seems to mind.
- Finally, Jay starts to talk about practice, and Noah and I get our share of the edible nation. My mom asks us if we want more ("I can do provinces, if you'd like"), but we both take a pass.
- The anger I feel towards Joni for sharing my thoughts with Chuck begins to reach the boiling point again. I vow to talk to her at the first moment I can catch her without him. That moment never comes. They don't even take bathroom breaks from each other. My testiness is a little offset once Tony jumps into the backseat with me; now I have someone to share glances with. The first glance—me wide-eyed, Tony's eyebrow raised— comes when Chuck hijacks the radio and blasts some Testosterone Rock, the kind of music best suited for "professional" wrestling compilations. The second glance—me squinting in disbelief, Tony looking to heaven—is prompted when Chuck starts to sing along and chastises us for not joining in. As if I know the lyrics to a song called "Sh ' All Mouth." Joni doesn't sing along, either, but she makes a lame attempt at drumming on the steering wheel. At one point, she accidentally hits the horn, which cracks Chuck up. "Nice toots," he chuckles. Third glance—me and Tony each pleading, Get us out of this car now. We head to the local diner, the kind of place where you need a mob connection in order to get your song on the jukebox. The waitresses are perfectly lacquered, the waiters freshly slicked. The menu is the size of a wood plank and takes as long to read as the morning paper. Breakfast is always served, most of the time as dinner.
- Since I was a little kid, I've been doing this thing I call Going Elsewhere. It's almost like meditation, but instead of blanking myself out, I try to color myself in. I sit in the middle of my room, on the floor, and close my eyes. I put the tunes on the stereo that will take me to the right Elsewhere. I fill myself with images. And then I watch them unwind. My parents and even my brother are pretty cool about letting me do this. They never ask me why I need to leave. They respect my closed door. If someone calls on the phone, they tell the caller I'm Elsewhere and that I'll be back soon. When I get home after school, the house is empty. I write a note on the pad lying on the kitchen table— Elsewhere—and head to my room. I put on Erasure's "Always" and take off my shoes. I sit in the exact center of the room. When I close my eyes, I begin with red. The colors come first. Red. Orange. Aquamarine. Flashes of solid color, like origami paper lit by television light. After going through colors, I picture patterns — stripes, slants, dots. Sometimes I pass through an image in a split second. Others I hold on to. I pause on the way to Elsewhere. And then I'm there. I never have a plan. I never know what I'm going to see after the colors and patterns are done. This time it s a duck. It splashes into view and beckons me forward. I see an island— your usual desert island, with crystal-blue water, perfect beach sand, and a palm tree angled in an arched slant. I pull myself ashore and lie looking at the sky. I can feel Joni pounding at a door, but I don't let her in. When I go Elsewhere, I travel alone. Shells ring my shadow. I reach over and pick one up, expecting to hear the sea. But the shells are silent. Tony walks by and waves. He looks happy, and I'm glad. I hear volcanoes in the distance, but I know I'm safe. The duck waddles at my feet. I laugh at its movements. Then it plops down into the water and begins to glide. I follow it in, wanting a swim. I begin to sink. I am not drowning—there is no struggle, no fear. It's the opposite of floating, a simple downward fall. I am pushing through the empty water, unaware of what lies at the bottom. I expect rocks, fish, wreckage. But instead I find Noah in his studio, slashing colors into a canvas. I try to see what he's painting, but I can't. Then it occurs to me that he's not painting a picture. Instead he's painting emotions, and every color he uses means hurt. I try to swim away, but I hang suspended. This isn't Elsewhere; this is Somewhere. I try to switch back to colors and patterns, but all of them now come from Noah's brush. I try to go back to the beach, back to the volcano. But even the music in my head is telling me there's no escape. And I know this. I am floating back to the surface now. Noah grows smaller, his room diminishes. But I know it's my ultimate destination. He's where I want to be. I don't open my eyes. Not yet. I am back now; I am sitting in the absolute center of my room, my brother's footsteps new on the stairs.
- She is dressed immaculately in a vintage Charlie's Angels T-shirt and white pleather miniskirt. (I have no idea how she pulls it off. In fact, I have no idea how she pulls it on.)
- "How's it going?" she asks me. "I can't even begin to tell you," I say, then blurt out the whole story. "Oh, honey," she says when I'm done with my wallowing, "it's like my grandma used to say: Just when you think life's got you in a gutter, a tornado will come along and destroy your house."
- "The only problem being that (a) he thinks I'm getting back with my ex-boyfriend, (b) he thinks I'll only hurt him, because (c) I've already hurt him and (d) someone else has already hurt him, which means that my hurting him hurt even more. So (e) he doesn't trust me, and in all fairness, I (f) haven't given him much reason to trust me. Still, (g) every time I see him, I (h) want everything to be right again and (i) want to kiss him madly. This means that (j) my feelings aren't going away anytime soon, but (k) his feelings don't look likely to budge, either. So either (1) I'm out of luck, (m) I'm out of hope, or (n) there's a way to make it up to him that I'm not thinking of. I could (o) beg, (p) plead, (q) grovel, or (r) give up, but in order to do that, I would have to sacrifice my (s) pride, (t) reputation, and (u) self-respect, even though (v) I have very little of them left and (w) it probably wouldn't work anyway. As a result, I am (x) lost, (y) clue-free, and (z) wondering if you have any idea whatsoever what I should do."
- Three hours later, he calls. My mom answers the phone. "Tony!" she says, all happiness. "It's so good to hear your voice! I've been stocking up on macadamia nuts, so you'd better come over soon. I can even pick you up or drive you home, just like old times. You're always welcome here." (Man, I love her.) "In the next election, I'm voting for your mom to be the next God," Tony says when I pick up the phone.
- It's a fine line between love and stalking. I decide to walk it. I want to do right by Noah. Show him, Tony said. But really, I'm guided more by what Tony's shown me. I will not hesitate to say who I love. On the first day, I give him flowers and time. The night before, I unlock my closet of origami paper—over a thousand sheets of bright square color. I turn them all into flowers. Every single one. I do not sleep. I do not take breaks. Because I know that as well as giving him the flowers, I am giving him the time it takes to make them. With every fold, I am giving him seconds of my life. With every flower, part of a minute. I tie as many as I can to pipe-cleaner stems. I arrange bouquets and lattices, some topped by cranes. In the morning, I garland them throughout the halls, centerpiecing it all at his locker, so he'll know that they're all for him. Every minute, every crease is a message from me. On the second day, I give him words and definitions. This isn't to say I talk to him — no, I don't do that at all. Instead, I start a list of the words I love— resplendent giddy trollop — and then I add definitions — resplendent—shining brilliantly; giddy—lighthearted and flighty; trollop—an untidy or immoral woman; prophetic—predictive, especially when ominous; vitreous—of the nature of glass; dulcet—pleasant to the ear; melodious. The words don't have anything in common. But that's what I like about them. There are so many words in our language; we get to know so few of them. I want to share some of the strangers with Noah. After I jot down the words—a hundred in all — I rewrite them nicely on a long scroll, under the heading: Words to Find and Know in this World
- A note is an update or an entertainment. A letter is giving of a part of your life — an insight into your thoughts beyond mere observations.
jan 8 2014 ∞
jan 8 2016 +
jan 8 2016 +