Speak of Me As I Am

by Sonia Belasco

  I watch as people stream in and out, grabbing coffee and a donut or, if they’re feeling fancy, a croissant, stuffing copies of the Washington Post under their arms as they head toward the Metro and another day of paper pushing and number crunching.

  At Hamilton I find Prague and his buddies engaged in a fast-moving pickup game. They’re all shirtless and sweating, bodies contorting around each other as they reach and strain and push and shove. I snap a couple shots on Carlos’s camera. Prague executes an impressive three-pointer and does a little victory dance, rolling his shoulders. I raise my hand in a wave.

  “Damon Lewis!” Prague exclaims, jogging over and slapping me on the back. “Where you been, man?”

  “Around,” I say. “You know.”

  “No, I don’t know,” Prague says. “Hey, J, you wanna let Damon play guard for a bit? I know you tired, man, you look like you about to fall over.”

  A tall, skinny guy wearing a bandanna and a permanent scowl crosses his arms. “Bullshit, I’m fine.”

  “I don’t want to play—” I start to say.

  “Aw, c’mon, man, everybody wants to play,” Prague says.

  “Seriously,” I say. “Prague, I’m cool just hanging out.”

  Prague’s eyes travel over me like he’s cataloging me. He takes in the camera bag slung over my shoulder. “You messin’ around with that camera, I see.”

  I shrug.

  “You like to watch, huh?” Prague says, a bit of a sneer turning up one corner of his mouth.

  I don’t know why he’s got to make it sound so dirty. I want to punch him in his smug face.

  Prague’s a good-looking guy, has his mother’s dark, almond-shaped eyes and father’s espresso skin, and he knows it, likes to carry himself like he’s hot shit. I remember when we were kids and would spend Christmases together. Prague would always steal stuff from my stocking, then make fun of me if I started crying.

  Prague holds my gaze for a long, uncomfortable moment, then looks away.

  I only stay for about half an hour before I get bored with their never-ending stream of bullshit banter and insults. I stand and raise my hand to wave at Prague.

  “You going, man?” Prague says, breathless from exertion.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  I got no reason to stay.

  I walk back the way I came, crossing Wisconsin, inhaling the combo of concrete and traffic and grease. Sunny, hot air caresses my face and hands, but I can feel fall coming like an old man feels rain in his bad knee—inevitable, painful, new and yet the same thing all over again.

  Gary’s looks busy, teeming with people. I push my way inside. Retired men with silver-speckled hair sit in corner booths or at the counter, stirring coffee and muttering to each other, complaining about the cracks in the vinyl seats or the lack of good biscuits. The walls are covered with framed old photos: Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando and Greta Garbo and Marilyn Monroe, plus vintage advertisements for Marlboro cigarettes and Hershey’s bars and brands of detergent they don’t make anymore.

  There are even a few photos of naked ladies, the kind of old-school porn they used to put on the backs of playing cards made for sailors and soldiers. I resist the urge to sit and stare at those pictures, hypnotized by the women’s breasts. I’m amazed that people can eat around pictures like that, these strangers so naked and vulnerable up there on the wall baring it all like it’s nothing.

  A large pregnant woman introduces herself as “Dahlia, honey,” and tells me someone will be right with me. I sprawl out on the padded diner seat, take out my copy of Othello and read through act 1 again. I’ve read the play four times in the last week. Every time I do, it seems more complicated and strange. I should understand Othello better now—husband, soldier, leader, murderer!—but I don’t.

  Why are you so stupid, man? Why do you believe everybody’s lies?

  “Hello, welcome to Gary’s,” a voice jerks me out of my reverie.

  I look up and see a girl about my age fumbling in her apron for a notepad. Her hair is red-streaked and falls in her face.

  “Hi,” I say. “How are—”

  I stop breathing.

  She can’t be the same girl. That’s crazy. People say this is a small city, but that’s just ridiculous.

  She looks up then, pad in hand, and our eyes meet.

  “I know you,” she says, her eyes widening. “You’re that guy—”

  “I’m not stalking you, I swear,” I blurt out.

  Dumbass. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  “Good to know,” she says. “So what the hell are you doing, then?”

  “I’m just getting some coffee,” I say. “I didn’t know you worked here, I—”

  “Breathe, dude,” she says, mouth quirking at one corner. “I’m not going to call the cops or anything. I believe you.”

  “Well, good,” I say. “I’m glad.”

  She looks at me like she’s trying to figure me out. She glances around, as if she’s trying to see if anyone’s watching, then slides into the booth across from me.

  “You want to talk to me about what happened in the park?” she asks. “You kind of freaked me out, you know.”

  I exhale and look down at my hands.

  “I moved here not that long ago,” I say. “I’ve been wandering around a lot. I ended up in the park and I saw you—”

  I don’t tell her about the tree, about that spot. About how no matter where I walk, I always end up back there again.

  “And you decided to save me from myself?” the girl says. She sounds amused. At least she doesn’t seem mad.

  “You seemed really upset,” I say, and finally meet her eyes again.

  You looked like he did when—

  “I was really upset,” the girl says, and her eyes flicker dark. “That’s kind of why I was there. Alone. Crying.”

  “I’m sorry if I—”

  “No, hey, look,” the girl says, her face softening. “I’m being hard on you. What you did was sweet. It was. I was just caught off guard. You know—alone, in the middle of the park, nobody around—”

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” I say. “I really didn’t.”

  “We haven’t even been formally introduced,” she says, and holds out her hand. “I’m Melanie.”

  “I’m Damon,” I say, and take her hand and squeeze it.

  “Nice to officially meet you, Damon,” Melanie says. “Where’d you come from? I mean, what school—”

  “Gate Prep,” I say. “Over in Potomac?”

  “No shit,” she says, lifting an eyebrow. “You still go there, or . . .”

  “No, starting at Hamilton soon,” I say.

  “That’s where I go,” she says. “Hamilton’s going to be . . . different from Gate.”

  “I hope so,” I say. “Gate was—I mean. It’s—”

  “It’s Gate Prep,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “It’s okay, I understand.”

  You don’t understand, I think. But it’s nice of you to try.

  “The awesome thing about D.C. public schools,” she says, “is we only rank, like, forty-ninth in the nation!”

  “There’s always Alabama,” I say, and she smiles.

  “Ah, Alabama,” she says. “Always there to save us from ourselves.”

  I find myself smiling too. We lock eyes for a moment, and the air feels different: charged.

  Then she blinks and looks away.

  “Shit, I actually work here. Even if my dad owns the place, I’ve still got to hustle,” she says, patting the pad of paper in her pocket. She slips out of the booth. “Can I get you anything?”

  “Coffee would be great,” I say. “Just black.”

  “Be right back,” she says.

  “Thanks,” I say, and then she turns and is gone.

  While she’s away, I riffle
through my bag, locating the folder containing my most recent prints. I lift it out and open it on the table. There she is: sitting on the ground in front of that tree, eyes lifted to the sky, red hair falling in her face, eyeliner streaks on her cheeks like scars.

  I realize I still have no idea why she was crying. Now it’s another one of those questions there will never be the right moment to ask.

  I hear the clatter of dishware as Melanie approaches, and hastily slide the photograph under the pile so it’s on the bottom.

  “Who’s that?” Melanie asks as she places the cup of coffee on the table in front of me.

  I glance down, and my chest tightens. Carlos is staring back at me, head tilted back, smiling wide and giddy. We were watching a soccer game on ESPN when I snapped it. I borrowed Carlos’s camera to do it, and Carlos was so caught up in the game, he didn’t even notice.

  “Oh,” I say. I feel breathless. “A friend of mine. Carlos.”

  “Cute,” Melanie says, and smiles. “That’s a good photo. You take it?”

  I nod.

  Carlos is smiling wide, showing his slightly crooked front teeth, and he looks completely relaxed. Like he’s so happy in that moment, there’s nowhere else he’d rather be.

  “That is an amazing picture,” she says. “He seems like he’d be a really cool guy.”

  My hand twitches against the tabletop.

  “Was,” I say, and my voice is almost swallowed up by the buzz of the restaurant. “He was a really cool guy.”

  I reach out as if to take the photo back, but then retract my hand.

  “Keep it,” I say.

  “What?” she says, her eyes going wide.

  “Keep it,” I repeat. I’m a metronome.

  “Wait—” she starts to say.

  “Keep it, I’m cool,” I say, but on every level I’m lying, I’m lying, I’m lying.

  I slide the photo across the table and Melanie takes it, scraping its surface with her black-polished nails. Her face changes as she stares at the photo, pupils narrowing, mouth relaxing into a smile.

  Seeing her smile like that makes me want to snap another photo of her, to freeze that moment in time before it’s gone.

  He seems like he’d be a really cool guy.

  Was. He was a really cool guy.

  Was.

  Was.

  Was.

  What would Carlos have thought about Melanie? He might’ve made some rude comments about Melanie’s fire-engine dye job and piercings and ripped-up clothes, but he probably would’ve thought she was sassy and funny too.

  She’s geeky just like you, man. Go for it.

  Go for it.

  Melanie

  I watched you fade, your skin turning the color of dirty dishwater. Your hair fell out and you wore wigs, different wigs every day, sometimes, dirty blond like your real hair, or dark brown and curly, or even blue or purple on the days you were feeling better, more like yourself, more like Dana Ellis: the artist and the work of art.

  I knew you were going to laugh on the rainbow hair days, that we’d joke around and pretend to be rock stars, members of an all-girl punk band with stage names like Sally Vicious and Precious Pain. What would our band have looked like, an Ellis mother-daughter combo?

  What would we have sounded like?

  But there is no rock band, no rainbow hair, no screaming crowds.

  There is just me, here, now—me and my red-streaked hair, somehow never as bright as yours, no matter what color it was.

  Me and these trees, and you are gone.

  CHAPTER TWO

  So what I’m thinking,” Tristan says, swinging his legs over the side of the Metro escalator, “is that this year I can go as Marilyn for Halloween, and you can go as Joe DiMaggio.”

  I blink. Everything is blurry, and I can’t see anything.

  “Helloooo,” Tristan says, waving his hand in front of my face. “You’re not even listening to me, Ellis.”

  He elbows me in the ribs, and we nearly go toppling backward over the wall. When I manage to right myself, I give him a sharp look.

  “We could have fallen, idiot.”

  “But we didn’t!”

  He pushes black hair out of his eyes and pouts.

  “Can I—”

  “No,” I say.

  “Anything at all,” he says. “Align your chakras. Cleanse your aura. Retail therapy.”

  I smile, but it’s only barely a twitch of my lips.

  “I saw that,” he says. “You were almost amused.”

  “Shut up,” I murmur.

  “Retail therapy works,” he says. “I saw it on Oprah once.”

  “Mmm,” I say. “And everything Oprah says is true.”

  Tristan presses one hand to his chest, feigning offense. “She is only the best part of my life, okay, so please do not deride her.”

  “You and middle-aged housewives everywhere,” I say. “She’s not even on TV anymore, Tristan.”

  “That doesn’t even slightly diminish her influence. If anyone can teach me how to live, it’s Oprah,” Tristan says. “Plus she has her own network now, silly.”

  I stay silent.

  His sharp blue eyes flick across my face, and he reaches for my hand. “We should go somewhere.”

  Tristan is the type of friend who will sit and stay by my side and be quiet and not bother me, but he must know this isn’t healthy—the lingering, the being still.

  The first phone call I made the day my mother died was to Tristan. He picked up on the first ring.

  Oh my God, Tristan said. Thank you for calling. I am like two seconds away from killing my father.

  Tristan— I whispered.

  He is the biggest jerk, I swear, Tristan trundled on. Are there times when it’s considered justifiable homicide just because someone is such a d—

  Tristan, I said, louder. My mother died.

  The phone went silent for a moment, and I heard Tristan’s breathing stutter. It scared me that Tristan wasn’t talking. I could count on one hand the number of times Tristan had been at a loss for words.

  I’m such an idiot, he said finally. I am so, so sorry, Melly.

  Everyone always apologizes, like it’s their fault.

  It’s not your fault, I said.

  I’ll come over right now, he said.

  You don’t have to—

  Yes, I do.

  Tristan came over and sat with me for hours, stroking his fingers through my hair as I curled my hands into fists, then opened them, finger by finger, as if I expected to see something different on my palms each time I did it.

  Now he leads me down Connecticut Avenue, man on a mission: past the bead store (Beadazzled!, the storefront proclaims) and a liquor store and Ann Taylor Loft, past Kramerbooks and a closet-sized art gallery. We grab some coffee at Starbucks and go sit in the Circle itself on one of the benches not currently occupied by homeless people or teenagers making out.

  I like Dupont Circle. I like the mixture of law firms and posh boutiques and indie record shops and sex toy stores and ridiculous themed bars and overpriced hipster restaurants. I like perching on the giant gaudy marble fountain in the center of the Circle and watching the boys sidle past in tight jeans and Burberry scarves and eyeliner. On a summer Saturday Dupont is lively and crowded with people shopping and hanging out and eating and sweating.

  I’ve seen all of this so many times.

  “Sometimes I can’t wait to get out of here,” I sigh.

  “You want to come to New York with me?”

  I smile. “Sure.”

  “Sounds like a plan. So how are we going to make the million dollars it takes to live in Manhattan these days?”

  “I was thinking a little drug dealing and whoring,” I say.

  “That’s my girl,” Tristan says, pa
tting me on the shoulder. “Always the one with the ideas.”

  When I go silent, Tristan nudges me with his shoulder as if to say, Stay with me now.

  “So my dad is crazy,” he says. “Like, certifiably insane.”

  “This is news?” I ask.

  “Danny wanted to go fishing, right,” he says, “and I was like, ‘No, I don’t want to go fishing, it’s boring and gross,’ and my dad goes—I’m not joking, Mel—he goes, ‘Man up, Tristan. Stop being such a pansy.’”

  “Nice,” I say. “Sensitive!”

  “I don’t even hate the outdoors. I hate fishing. And yet I spent several days on our so-called vacation fishing with my brothers, which, by the way, is really boring and gross. And I smelled like fish even after I showered, which made me want to eviscerate something that is not a fish, because seriously—”

  “Tristan,” I say.

  He shuts up instantly and takes my hand.

  “Tell me, darling.”

  “Tomorrow school starts,” I say. “Can you make me a promise?”

  “Anything.”

  “Can you promise me,” I whisper, “that this year will be better than this summer was?”

  I blink and for a moment I see Damon, hunched over in the booth at the diner, pretty hands curled around his folder of photos. I see Damon’s smile, wide straight teeth and dimples. It was only there for a second, but it was so beautiful when it was.

  His eyes were so green.

  “Damn right it will be,” Tristan says.

  • • •

  I walk home alone after parting from Tristan at the Tenleytown Metro. Billie Holiday coos through my iPod earphones: ain’t nobody’s business if I do.

  The air is starting to cool off, D.C.’s brutal humidity breaking. I wander out into my backyard, settle onto the bottom porch step and watch the sun sink slowly out of view, painting the sky golden and pink, eating away the blue.

  When I was fourteen we had a party for my mom’s forty-fifth birthday. The party was huge and noisy, overflowing into the yard and onto the porch, people perched on every available surface, drinking and eating and laughing and dancing. My dad closed down the restaurant for the night so everyone could come: Macho and Janine and Dahlia and Andrea and all the cooks on the line, José and Rudy and Isaiah. Some of my mom’s fellow teachers and a few of her former students showed up, and nearly all her friends made appearances too.