by Jill Malone
“No.”
“Well, we are.”
“OK.”
“I had a good time last week—the dancing.”
“Yeah.”
“Cool.” Joe flicks his pencil against his notebook. “The new Kelly kind of freaks me out. When did she go all Fabulous Humanitarian on us?”
“Nate explained it to me last night. I’ve been underestimating his charm.”
“Of course.” Joe laughs. “He charmed the bitchy cunt right out of her.”
“Joe!”
“All right over there,” the sub calls, rattling her paper at us. “No talking.”
We duck our heads, and snicker.
“You are such a bad guy,” I tell him.
“Hey, I mean it as a compliment.”
“She’d be so pleased.”
“Don’t tell her,” he pleads. “I think she could take me in a fight.”
“Joe, I really want to play soccer.”
“I know you do.”
“Don’t you think—don’t you think maybe I could manage both? Play in the band, and play soccer?”
“No gigs on Thursday, no practices Monday night?”
“You never know. I’d get study hall again instead of gym, and last year, Jennifer Cairn starred in the senior play, and played varsity soccer.”
“She was a lousy Sandy.”
“Stay on topic.”
“You’re right,” he says. “She managed to do both. She looked like a junkie there at the end, but she managed. And it would be tragic to miss you in those little shorts with the socks pulled all the way up to your knees.”
Joe walks me to English, and we pick Alicia up along the way.
“My obituary is so embarrassing,” Alicia says, “I don’t even want it read when I’m dead.”
“I wrote like thirty drafts,” I tell her.
“She should have had you write each other’s obituaries,” Joe says. “At least that would have been interesting.”
“She can’t be interesting,” Alicia says. “It requires character. If she makes us read these aloud,” she adds, glaring at us, “I’m going to leave. I’m serious. I’ll walk right out.”
Once we’re seated, Alicia breaks her last stick of lead, and borrows some from me.
“There’s a war on, you know,” I tell her. “You should be better prepared.”
“You’re going to get tired of saying that,” Alicia says. “Not soon enough, but eventually.”
“Well.” Overhead surveys us with her mole eyes. “Since Cole and Alicia have so much to say, they can read their obituaries first. Cole, come on up and read for us.”
I stall a moment, just in case Alicia walks out. Nope. Up front, by the blackboard, I unfold my paper and look at the class. “You’re sorry to have died,” I begin. Ruth, the first girl I ever saw wearing white braces, laughs. I cough once, then start over. “You’re sorry to have died. Not because death was painful, it wasn’t, but because you’re beyond feeling anymore. The first kiss, and the last kiss, don’t matter, or the suck of the wet playing field on your cleats. Your brothers’ lumbering gait like giraffe on the savannah, your mother’s lullaby in the feverish dark, your father’s story voice, they’re forgotten now. Gone are fireflies and cicada shells, the sound of a minor key. Here in this box, neither comfort nor chill. The sun cannot burn your neck, or freckle your skin. Outside, the soldiers crouch with their guns, and the engines drone, and the children open their books to begin again. Valor and fear have no weight here. You can’t hear girls laughing, or the bugle’s call. The bracelet taken from your wrist, misplaced at some distance, in some time you no longer recall. Without surname, fingerprints, first person. Beyond indifference and corruption, you don’t even sleep now.”
I cough again, and glance at Overhead. Her eyes are closed. I hesitate, waiting. Did I bore her into a coma? Her eyes blink open, and she says, “Cole, read that once more, if you would.”
I swallow and start again.
“Thank you,” she says when I’ve finished. She reaches out her hand for my paper. “An inventive approach to the assignment.”
“Maybe she had a stroke,” I tell Alicia in the hallway afterward. “She can’t actually have meant to compliment me.”
“I can’t believe she made us read our eulogies aloud. The woman is just wrong wrong wrong. And don’t you even think about complaining. Yours was good, and you got a gold star in front of everybody. No, don’t you say another word to me about it. I want to forget the whole dead thing.” She flings her arms up like a hallelujah, and shoots down the stairs.
At lunch, Bangs and Joe have a table, and a box of pepperoni pizza.
Bangs winks at me. “I couldn’t bear to watch you eat another peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”
“I’m tired of school,” I say.
“We should ditch and go to the shore,” Joe says.
“I’ve never ditched,” I say.
“Never?” they ask.
“Well, just first period.” The pizza isn’t hot, but tastes spicy and fattening and perfect.
Someone hung a bunch of yellow bows up around the cafeteria. At the table next to us, three boys aim and flick bottle caps at the drama girls.
“Stop!” the girls squeal between bouts of giggles. They attempt to launch caps back, and hit Joe instead.
“Sorry!” they cry in the same chorus.
“What are you guys up to?” Stacy Masteller asks, as she slides into the chair beside me.
“Pizza?” Bangs offers.
“Thanks. I’m fucking famished. What a shitty day. I just got detention for chewing gum. Since when does anyone give detention for gum chewing? Fascism. Mr. Crucifelli thinks he’s in the Gestapo or something. And why is watermelon so offensive, you know what I mean? He said the outcome might have been different if I hadn’t chosen watermelon. What does that even mean? This pizza is seriously good.” Bangs hands her another slice, and a napkin. “Is it true you guys are playing Stoked this weekend?”
“Yup,” Joe says.
“What’s the cover?”
“Five bucks.”
“I am so there,” she says. Another bottle cap slaps our table and wings over Stacy’s shoulder. “Once more with the bottle cap and I put my fist through your asshole.” For the first time, the drama girls hush. “I’m fucking serious,” Stacy tells the three boys beside us.
“Whatever,” one mutters as he turns back to his tray.
Bangs’ grin stretches around his entire head.
“Anyhoo,” Stacy says, turning to me. “I have a letter for you.”
“Yeah?”
She digs in her denim purse. “Shit. Hold this.” She hands me her comb, her styling gel, her mascara, and three lipsticks. “Oh, I have more watermelon. The day keeps looking up. You guys want?” She passes watermelon to each of us. “Maybe it’s in my coat.” She roots through the pockets of her jeans jacket. “Weird. I just had it.”
As the bell rings, and we climb, slowly, from our plastic chairs, Stacy pulls the envelope from her purse. “There. He said to tell you he meant to send a proper letter, but he didn’t have any stamps.”
The bell rang like ten minutes ago, but Tabitha Goddard is just standing at the podium not speaking. She is entirely red—a full-body blush—and appears to be waiting for Jesus. When she gets up in front of the class, trembling and vermilion, you actually give odds to fainting versus a seizure. Her speech topic today: The Right to Die.
I open my letter, and read.
Dear Nicole,
You know The Cure’s lyric from “Disintegration”: “A woman now standing where once there was only a girl”? They meant you.
Desire should be straightforward, right? You see what you want, and you go after it. Never mind rejection, and mixed messages, and fear, and the possibility of failure. See. Claim.
I told him to wait. I told him to take his time and savor and enjoy the buildup. Not to scare him. Not to freak him out. But I did. I freaked him out. Maybe
that doesn’t matter to you. Maybe it’s too late, and nothing will help. But I had something to do with this, and I want to say how wrong I’ve been. How sorry.
We learn early, move after move, base after base, in different economies, sometimes in different languages, that no one stays. We learn early not to be sentimental. Boxes get lost, furniture broken, orders change. We learn to disengage. He loves you. He’s an idiot, but he loves you. He’s afraid. He’s unkind. And he loves you. That hasn’t changed. He’s a mopey little shit if you want the truth. I actually feel sorry for the guy.
Mike
I have to write my own eulogy, but Jeremy gets his brother to write his love letter.
Tabitha Goddard bangs her fist on the podium and scares the shit out of us. She’s fiery—her speech as well as her skin. Outside, the day blues, and a wet snow falls indiscriminately.
Tyro. Noun. Beginner; novice; person lacking experience in a specific endeavor. The vampires craved the blood of twenty teenaged tyros.
It’s midnight. Joe and I finally persuaded the sentry to let him drive onto the base. I had my I.D. card, but the guard kept saying I’d broken curfew, and couldn’t be admitted onto the base until 6 a.m.
“Curfew is 2 a.m.,” I told the guard.
“Not when we’re at war. When we’re at war, curfew is midnight.”
“For Chrissake, it’s three minutes till midnight.”
“Not by my watch.”
“You can’t be serious. We play in a band. I’m rarely home by midnight.”
“Then,” he said, “you’ll rarely be admitted back onto the base.”
“You must have a list of exceptions,” I said. The sentry blanched. “You do, don’t you? Nicole Peters.” I reminded him.
He returned to the guard shack, and checked his clipboard. In a moment, the gate raised and he waved us through.
“Don’t say anything,” I warned Joe.
“Is he going to let me back through?” Joe asked.
“If he doesn’t, come around back. I’ll leave the door open for you.”
“Maybe I should just stay.”
“You’re cute. Thanks for the ride.”
“Tomorrow.”
Midnight. I stand on the pavement looking up at Jeremy’s attic room. The glow may be from the fish tank, or the desk lamp. I’ve had two beers. We played for sixty raucous fans, and made $175.
I smell of cigarettes and pot and beer. The backdoor of Jeremy’s building is unlocked. I climb two steps at a time, stepping near the railing.
At his door, I wait for my heart to slow, for my breath to quiet, and then I try the doorknob. It opens. In flannel pajama bottoms and a white t-shirt, he’s sprawled on the carpet on his belly. When he looks up, his eyes widen.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
“I got your brother’s letter.”
“What letter?”
“Your brother wrote a love letter for you.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t he tell you?”
Jeremy stands, and smoothes his black hair down. His pajama pants are blue plaid and ridiculously large. Three of him could fit inside them. I take the letter from my coat pocket and hand it to him.
As he reads, Jeremy colors a Tabitha Goddard shade of red.
“You really didn’t know?”
He shakes his head.
Well, that’s awkward. I come marching into his room with my two-beer logic, and my bar perfume, and the guy doesn’t know anything about the letter. “I’m sorry I barged in here. I thought you knew Mike had written that letter. I thought you expected me.” Oh, worse and worse. “I’m sorry,” I say again.
“Don’t go.”
I stop. Faced away from him with my hand on the doorknob. A turn and two steps from an exit—a graceless, desperately desired exit.
“It’s all true,” he says. “Mike’s letter. Every word. Except none of it was his fault.”
Warm and close, the boy and his room. He pulls my coat off my shoulders, and spins me toward him. Oh, I’d give my right hand for a piece of watermelon bubble gum.
His face scratches mine. Sweet and sour, his breath gasps between us as he yanks my skirt up and tells me the bathroom floor will be easiest to clean.
I hold my breath until I think I have to tell him to stop, and then the tension is gone, and it’s not horrible at all, and then he’s finished.
“I’ll get a towel,” he says.
I prop up on my elbows and see a small shallow puddle of blood. So this is it. This puddle of blood. I don’t feel like I’ve compromised my soul. More than anything, I’m sleepy. Jeremy mops the floor with a towel, and hands a second one to me.
“We probably shouldn’t shower,” he says.
I wrap the towel around my shoulders before I realize why he handed it to me. Even the cold of the tile is comforting.
“High five,” I say. “We totally did it.”
He doesn’t move or meet my hand. Poor sportsmanship.
“OK, then,” I say, bundling my clothes together. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Marching Papers
Quiescence. Noun. Inactivity; stillness. Sunday should be a day of quiescence, but instead we’re dragged to church every week. (Just kidding, God.)
Kelly has her right leg propped on one of the metal kitchen chairs, and a huge ice pack draped across her ankle. We’re both in our black Umbro soccer shorts and Monmouth Regional sweatshirts. We smell sweaty and look windblown, and should have showered after practice.
Today is Mom’s birthday; Nate took her on some totally fabricated errands in order for Kelly and Nigel and Dad and Meghan and me to prepare a lavish dinner. Except Kelly torqued her ankle at practice and can’t stand, and Meghan has yet to show, and Nigel keeps yelling at me about improvising with ingredients, and Dad disappeared twenty minutes ago without putting the steaks on the grill.
“You’re slicing those too thinly,” Nigel scolds.
“Dude, they’re carrots.”
“And you’re slicing them too thinly.”
“You know what, feel free.” I hand him the knife. “Slice away.”
“How much longer for the casserole?” Kelly asks.
I check the timer. “Twenty minutes.”
“This is insane. We should put the steaks on. I’ve seen people grill things. How hard can it be? Put the steaks on the grill, stand around holding the spatula.”
“Where’s Meghan?” I say again.
A moment later the kitchen door opens, and Jeremy brings in two sacks with French bread, and sparkling apple cider, and the ice-cream pie he picked up from Carvels.
He kisses me, and lays his purchases on the kitchen table. “Cooking injury?” he asks Kelly.
“Becky Shrader slide tackled me at practice.” Kelly grins. “I landed on her with my elbow. Hard.”
“Well done.” He folds the paper sacks, adds them to Mom’s stockpile, and belts his arms around me. “What do you need me to do?”
“Can you grill?” Kelly asks.
He takes the marinated steaks and ventures back outdoors, only to return empty-handed a minute later. “Your dad’s back.”
“You bought orange and yellow peppers,” Nigel tells Jeremy.
“I did.”
“I love orange and yellow peppers.”
“I know.”
“Mom only ever buys green.”
“I picked up some Greek olives and feta cheese too. Spice up the salad a little.”
“You should buy all our food,” Nigel says.
I set the table; Kelly fills the glasses; Meghan finally arrives with a box of decadent chocolates and a beautifully wrapped gift.
“I have the best excuse ever,” Meghan says. We wait. “I’m going to West Point!”
“Shut up!” We yell. Even Kelly hops up to stagger across the room and hug Meghan.
“I got the letter this afternoon.” She takes it from her pocket and shows us. “I’ve read it five thousand times in the last half hou
r.”
“Congratulations,” I say, thinking of the package I received this morning. My atheist is stateside again. He arrived home with two weeks’ leave before he has to report to Kaneohe Bay Marine Corps Base in Hawaii. From the desert to the tropics … at least my tan won’t suffer. He sent me a mixed tape of Heartbreak Songs for Teenagers, and a photograph of himself in civilian clothes. I totally knew he’d be a fox.
So the war was anticlimactic. Isn’t that a good thing? Who the hell wants a climactic war? Despite oil fires, and scud missiles; precision-guided bombs, and months of anxiety about chemical and biological weapons, my atheist has come home with both eyes, and all his limbs, and the same irreverent sense of humor. That’s the best news ever—right up there with Meghan attending West Point, and Mom turning 45.
“Cole,” Kelly says, peeking inside the oven, “this casserole is perfect. Get it out of here, quick.”
Even as Dad brings the platter of steaks into the dining room, Mom and Nate walk in the front door. Mom actually tears up when she sees the table.
“What have you done?” she asks.
A fairly decent job actually—no matter what Nigel says. Mom even compliments the casserole. We keep making toasts. Somehow I feel drunk and sparkling.
After dinner, while the coffee brews, Meghan and I load the dishwasher. Who knew I’d envy Kelly her swollen ankle?
“What are we going to do to celebrate West Point?” I ask Meghan.
“Skip our vocabulary list for a week?”
“A whole week? You reckless deviant.”
Once the coffee has finished brewing, we rejoin the table with the box of chocolates.
“More?” Mom asks. “Are you trying to kill me on my birthday?”
“You’ll need the sugar just to open all these presents,” Nate says.
Woodworking tools, a sweater knitted by Meghan’s mother, a couple of tapes, a Doggy Life t-shirt, and a final slender package in a tie box: pearls and a folded sheet of paper.