end up smacked into hers.
What happened who was driving where is mom
my foot won’t—
—The lady’s cell phone is pressed against her skull
these cars full of staring, angry eyes—
Your fault this is YOUR FAULT!
Don’t say anything; don’t cry it is
not that bad.
Her brake light is—
and my headlight will never—
I wasn’t even going that fast [did my foot slip
off the pedal? it won’t stop shaking] she
wants my mom’s name here now are
the police.
—The police!—
And Freya is crying—but she isn’t the one in trouble.
Where is that
insurance card my
driver’s license is here—
All those staring eyes,
what happened it was only one second I don’t know
oh god look at my car—!
I’m not dead but my mom will kill me
I’m not dead but my mom will kill me
I’m not dead but my mom will kill me
I’m not dead but
Camille
the puppy palace
immediately there’s the smell of animals in closed spaces, and urine, and desperation—even though this shelter is small and so friendly—and you take your initial big sniff to get yourself used to it even out there in the reception lobby, while your ears ring with the bouncing echo barks of play and need coming from down the tile hall. the coordinator who greets you is a once-thin woman turned soft: one of those short-haired, not-lesbian-but-not-with-a-man-either women who has reached the point in life where she understands she likes animals better than people. her name tag says lily. she reminds you of your elementary school librarian, the one in phoenix who gave you love that dog and changed your life forever, even though you can’t remember her name. you shake her hand. you hope she finds you satisfactory. there are forms for you to fill out, copied badly on blue paper. you wonder if she thought you might be older on the phone, since she asks if you’re from emory. she seems eager enough to have you though, despite the permanent frown between her eyebrows. she takes you back, shows you the open play yard and the big-as-they-can-manage kennel cages. the dogs are all a-bark at the sight of you: some of them eager, others questioning. you coo and shush them as you walk. you assure them that even if you don’t stay, even if you don’t take them home, while you’re with them you will be sweet. you will make them (you will make yourself) forget—for two hours every thursday—just exactly where they are.
thrift shopping with ellen
you think she is joking at first when, after asking you to go shopping after school with her, she drives you to the biggest thrift warehouse you have ever seen. sure she’s all bohemie chic, but you didn’t think she truly slummed. after all this girl is so smooth and soft and clean she looks like she was carved from taffy. her house is a four-story antebellum southern sprawl and she drives a brand-new mini cooper. she will go to yale on legacy. consequently you’d been looking forward to getting up to phipps in order to further costume up and fit in around here. pre-worn, over-washed, manhandled garments from a wet newspaper–smelling, fluorescent-lit bargain barn? that’s luli’s scene, not yours. still ellen is like a piranha at a cow’s carcass, piling your cart with old secretary blouses and men’s seersucker pants. four trips to the dressing room (at least there is one) later and she has dropped $167 on three garbage bags full. you are holding one sad, lone purple nylon cami and insist, next time, you drive.
things to miss about san francisco #12
the pain and stretch in your calves, going uphill. chinatown on a saturday morning, early. zooming across town in luli’s mom’s gold convertible. marketing with dad—bundles of fresh produce and a whole fish. big bowls of coffee. golden gate park (still). coit tower late at night—supposed to be home soon for curfew. popcorn tossing with sonali. being happy as a family and thinking we might actually stay this time and that dad would just go back to teaching instead of this corporate pop-up tent movearound work-hard-then-go-work-hard-somewhere-else life. ghirardelli mermaid fountain that time with fritz. luli’s pigtails so straight and soft and black. science lab with mr. porter. slumber party at sonali’s with luli and feeling something like belonging.
things to miss about san francisco (revisited)
funny to look back just now and see how much of “things to miss about san francisco” #1 is so all about people and teachers and rooms full of bubbling faces and projects, everyone laughing and laughing and doing their creative things, when what you really miss now—in this new space with so much space—is the space you had there: the free-roam of the park, the wide sidewalks of downtown, the high-ceilinged storefronts and open-happy faces on the street—even the crazy homeless with their piled-up carts. that’s what you remember now, anyway, in contrast to what you are also missing about the city that came after it: the closed-in concrete and cold-weather hunching of chicago; the anonymity of a busy street corner; the isolation of a thronged museum. there (in sf) you were open and free and wild and then there (in chicago) you were closed-in and quiet and held close, but quiet in a way that meant thoughtful, that meant growth. now here you are both quiet and closed-in, but the walls have expanded and there is so much room. too much room. room for only you and your thoughts and the paths they trace, leading—always leading—back to the one room (his room) where you felt more free and more intimately closed in than you have ever, ever been.
virtual sleepover
say good night to mom and dad—curled up together watching tivo’d episodes of some dancing show. you will leave them to their being-restored romance; you’ve got your own date to catch. plunge on the bed and there is luli on the phone—right on time. her actual voice takes a moment to get used to: replacing gchats, status updates, and scattery e-mails—those loose connections you’ve been able to keep as you’ve transplanted yourself even farther away from her. luli the exception who proves the rule, luli who wants to know everything—just like when you got to chicago: describe the wallpaper—who are your new friends —how many blocks this time to school. she’s seen the 360-degree photos you uploaded of the house (it’s so martha!); and it pleases you she can kind of feel at home. three hours behind your own time zone, she could still go out tonight. it’s friday. she has other friends. instead here she is curled up on the phone with you, her questions so constant you can hardly keep up. on opposite ends of the country, you both paint your toenails while you try your hardest to mimic autumn’s drawl, and she grills you about teachers and the closest grocery store. when she asks about the nameless boy in chicago, before you know it you have lied: i don’t know. it is hard though to hide from luli who laughs. luli who lifts, shining her light on your life so you see it in new ways: not a town to dread but one to discover. it is three hours before you hang up with her. three hours before you really notice she’s not here.
countinghouse
you are so nervous and excited that your hands and upper lip start to sweat. hidden in plain sight on the bottom of your bookshelves, it’s always so sweet to lift out. puff-painted photobox friend—some rhinestones have chipped off but all those cheery 5th-grade farewell signatures are still intact: michelle or daniel or nice knowing ya! on the outside it is your mostly forgotten past but inside is your own real future, the one you will make for yourself in europe, the one no one will tell you how to live, where you will go absolutely only where you want to for a year, and not where everyone expects you to. your hands sweating more just thinking about it—those stacks of twenties, the crisp fifties that have barely seen the light of day. so hard to make yourself wait a month sometimes—how often, exactly, since leaving chicago, have you been plied with more forgive-us allowance? three? five? it could be a really big haul today. what did you do the obligatory spending on? new school clothes and treating new friends to treats so they stay new friends
. . . that cool embossed collage with mom at youngblood . . . ohmygod just count it already! so you lift the lid and it’s like you can already see it: your private jet plane. your magic carpet. your independence and your prison break. only seventy-something-odd days until you can move around—fly around—jet-boat-train around—leave. leave on your terms, your own way, not even with a map, or a post-grad college routine, and carrying only what your backpack will fit. it is almost here and your hands won’t stop trembling. you sing to them, your squirreled savings, stroking them with a pleasure that tingles up your fingers. you should be cloaked in purple velvet and ermine, a heavy crown on your head. yes, the king was in his countinghouse counting all his money. but no blackbirds will come and pluck anything from you. you will make sure of that.
Becca
Sweet Relief
The chaos of the accident still
shakes my bones,
and blurs my vision.
My pulse
is a small child
running
from a too-dark room.
My mouth says
I am okay to everyone
around the frayed iron bands of fear
still constricting my throat.
A haven of
shower,
pajamas,
macaroni and cheese.
I can forget, almost
—if I don’t look out the window
at the carport—
if I walk quiet circles
around my disappointed mother.
My phone blinks—civilization
finds me again.
(Likely my brother,
telling me nice work.)
But instead of wincing, I get to smile, am reminded
there is more in my heart
than guilt
and fear.
The envelope blinks:
the saints were watching,
keeping you safe. I light them
one thousand candles.
I kiss my phone, hope
somehow it reaches his lips.
Mom Hands Down Her Verdict
The punishment
for my car-wreck-crime
is an iron door sliding down.
I offer up my neck.
It could be chains
or drowning
or starvation—
the worst being
solitary confinement.
The judge speaks.
I let out my breath,
trapped between
a Scylla and Charybdis of disappointment.
No head on a pike,
no burning at the stake,
but instead—
Debtor’s prison.
Forced labor.
For every inch to be repaired
somehow a mile of minimum wage
must be paid.
Sympathy From the Devil
A whine still hangs
from the tip of my voice.
Brother on the phone, dispassionate—
his unfair judgment is
a recent stranger in the room.
A grunt of dismissal—six small words:
Ask dad for the money, then.
And the memories swim up—the shirts left hanging
in the closet,
the charcoal grill abandoned in the yard,
two boxes
of books
no used bookstore would take,
and a guitar case full of promises
not even a saint could keep.
I can’t sigh loud enough
to blow away what he has said.
The pause I take I hope is enough distance.
Bootstrap time, I feel myself saying eventually—
wishing I had
even enough money of my own right now
for some actual boots.
Bitter
When I say
I have to get a job, Alec says
That could be cool, and though
I agree in ways I have to point out
But how will I see you—
and it is hard to swallow
—it is hard to smile—
around the unexpected bitter taste in my mouth
when he sighs sweetly back,
Why do you have to freak out so much?
Carpool with Freya
Four-hundred and eighty-two
Diet Coke cans
crushed around my feet.
Ninety-six
crumpled bags
of Chic-Fil-A
in the back.
The speedometer racing
twelve mph
above where it should be.
Eighty-seven megawatts
of Kelly Clarkson
at seven AM.
Thank God
this is only
until my car’s out of the shop.
The Interview
Usually my neighbor Emmett is in
football-watching-with-the-guys or
supper clubbing date-with-wife wear while
I am bouncing Baby Hendrix on my hip and
listening to his wife remind me where
the flashlight is, what the
emergency numbers are.
Today though he is all coffeehouse-owner business:
khaki pants
white shirt
olive green fleece, brown rubber clogs.
His face tries to pretend
I don’t know
where the good snacks are in his pantry or
what magazines are in the rack
by his toilet.
He even shakes my hand.
First a tour:
Counter #1 (coffee, espresso, and pastries)
Counter #2 (wine and beer)
Coffee bean wall (grinding and dispensing)
Patio #1 (glassed in, with a real fireplace)
Patio #2 (open air, for the smokers)
Bathrooms
Storage
Office
Kitchen
Outside trash
Back inside to sit together on the couch
by the window.
It is
too much like Dorothy and the Scarecrow
in their movie:
I’ve seen you before but somehow never seen you.
Am I to pretend
I haven’t been here,
haven’t
hung out at that table right there with Freya,
that I don’t know
the vegan pumpkin muffin is the best?
Do I call him
—today—
Mr. Siegel?
The questions rush out of his mouth:
Can I handle cash?
Can I multitask?
Have I ever stolen from an employer?
Do I have an interest in coffee?
I am honest: yes, yes, no.
And does it count if I have an interest
in learning whether or not
I am interested in coffee?
I have cleaned his child’s vomit
out of my hair!
His handshake is a meat sandwich.
He shows me Paige and Stan,
whose coffeecool eyes think
I am in kindergarten,
and whose wan smiles suck out
all my excitement
hearing my new boss explain to them
I will start tomorrow.
First Day at Work
Even though I am
taller than the two college girls I meet, their slim
pixie faces believe
I am eight kinds of small.
Driad nymphs, their deft white hands
fly with money and espresso moving through them
like silk.
They are
tattoo-waisted and ankled
with thrift store sweaters and beaten-in shoes.
I am
in their way most of the time
in my blistery loafers and my
J Crew trying-too-hard turtleneck.
For two hours I watch
and listen,
am shown things I beg myself not to forget,
watch people and take mental notes
I can’t wait to share with Alec.
My head hurts;
my ankles hurt;
my eyebrows hurt.
Is it mercy or a bad omen—
eventually me, on a stool, rolling silverware until
shift’s end.
Comedown Letdown
The cold air is making
the stars twist in a velvet sky, dancing
themselves to sleep.
It is the loveliest thing
—the first of fresh air—
I’ve seen all day.
Home, almost midnight,
my call goes to him—wanting
to say everything,
to hear one last good night.
Nothing seems real
unless I share it with him, but
three rings and his bleary, baseball-worn voice
is not sure who I am.
When I say I did it—
my first day of work.
He only asks
did I get him
any free
croissants?
Camille
so many puppies
you haven’t even been in the shelter for two minutes on your first real day and already the puppies are all dying to go home with you. they wriggle and jump and squeal and beg—their thin little legs stretching up, noses sniffling, wide eyes roving all over your face, sending out their messages of longing lovemelovemeloveme! while the other older dogs only look to see what the puppies are looking at. it’s the semi-new ones—the ones who still remember what it’s like to have a home—who give you the saddest deepest most knowing looks, the ones you truly ache for. these tenants are only curious about your new smell and what you might give them but largely they are not impressed. they have seen the likes of you before. they may be intrigued by the looks of you, but they know that you—like everyone else—will leave them in the end.
spaz attack
you’d think the president was coming to campus this morning, the way everyone’s sweating. even ten yards from the building you can feel the nervous energy pulsing—some kind of frenetic force field that it takes sheer vulcan mind power to punch through. they’re hardly interviewing anyone—did you hear chelsea got called?—they’ve got a multiple-choice exam with them harder than the GRE—the one with the tie speaks six languages at least: all snippets and half-thoughts you catch on your way to meet ellen, who herself seems to have turned an even whiter shade of pale. recruiters, apparently. from harvard, princeton, and brown. here interviewing “top candidates” who applied last semester. dorie’s getting out of her music theory and interpretation class for them in two hours, and she’s going to need to take something if she doesn’t calm down. ellen fans her with a folder and helps her run through her prepared answers, but it’s hard to stand there and not want to knock dorie over. when you say so to ellen under your breath, she looks at you like she just sniffed sour milk, and then at lunch when even flip is flipped out about essays, because early-decision folks are all chosen by now—she’s going to get a scholarship—they think he could test out of lang—suddenly your cavalier attitude feels a little dragged behind a horse. your freedom feels fabricated. your detachment déclassé. though the hysteria’s a bit annoying—though the drama’s half crucible in its crescendo—if you cared about college yourself then at least you’d be in their conversation, you’d have more than two acceptances for show, an unanswered “safety” application to berkeley, and a shoe box full of dollar bills.
After the Kiss Page 3