by James Howe
as if her nails are drying
and bats her doe-y eyes like
she’s on the verge of crying.
(Give me a break.)
With her text message life
and her gossip girl demeanor
and the way there is nothing
she allows to come between her
and anything she wants.
With her taunts and her sneers
and all the little cruelties
she sprinkles through the day.
Where is she hiding Miss Mary
Mack, Mack, Mack, all dressed in
black, black, black, the hand-
smacking, Double-Dutching,
one-foot-hopping, bubble-popping girl
who saved her mother’s back
by never stepping on a crack?
What ever happened
to the girl she used to be?
The girl who was friendly
to other girls, like me.
Now That She’s Back
She was just a girl I played with sometimes.
I never even said goodbye. I never thought about her
in all the years she lived somewhere else. Now
that she’s moved back, she never lets me forget.
Because I’m with DuShawn
Because I have a boyfriend,
because the boyfriend is DuShawn,
because DuShawn is popular,
I thought things would be different.
I thought everyone would say,
“Look at Addie. She’s with DuShawn.”
Instead, everyone says,
“Look at DuShawn.
What is he doing with her?”
The Mysterious Order
of the Lunchtime Table
Zachary sits quietly, sipping through a straw.
Kelsey averts her eyes from Bobby’s, while
under the table their feet meet like old friends.
Joe and I do most of the talking. Skeezie and
DuShawn make most of the jokes. Hotheaded
Tonni gets angry for nothing as Royal nods
and says through a mouthful of Yoplait, “Uh-
huh, girl, tell it, uh-huh.” Some days Amy
and Evie squeeze in, taking up space for one,
giggling softly at secrets they have earlier
whispered in each other’s ears.
Becca isn’t here, of course—too above it all
to care. And Tonni and Royal? They’re here
only because DuShawn is here. And DuShawn?
He is here only because of me.
So it goes each day from 11:52 to 12:12.
The mysterious order of our lunchtime table,
when for a brief moment the Popular deign to
sit with the Un. O let us give thanks. Twenty
minutes of pretending that We Are All One.
An Unfortunate Conversation
“That girl has bazoobies bigger than my head,”
Royal says as Skeezie spits milk all over his tray
and half of the table. “And you got one big
head,” says Tonni, whose full name is
“Tondayala Cherise DuPré! What are you
sayin’, girl?” “I’m saying you got a big head
is all. Doesn’t she got a big head, DuShawn?”
DuShawn flashes me a help-me-out-here look,
but I know when to keep my mouth
shut.
“It is true,” Joe chimes in, “that Becca’s bosoms
are bodacious.” “Excellent use of alliteration,”
I say because I can’t help myself, and now
everyone is staring at me and I feel my chest
growing flatter, which is a near mathematical
impossibility. Earlier I’d told Joe what Becca
had said to me about my needing a bra.
As if reading my mind, Joe says (not reading
the part of my mind that is screaming,
SHUT UP, JOE!), “Androgyny is cool, Addie.
Seriously, girls who look like boys are hot.”
“You’re gay,” I say. “To you, anything
that looks like a boy is hot.” Milk
is drying in dribbles on Skeezie’s chin. His grin
grows so wide I can see every bit of food stuck
between his teeth and I find myself picturing
the teeth I can’t see and imagining what is hidden
in the recesses there. I want to say to Skeezie,
“Close your lips,” if only to divert attention away from me,
but it is too late. “Don’t worry, Addie,” says Tonni,
her eyes as friendly as the first frost, “you’re just a little
behind the curve.” “So to speak,” says Skeezie,
which gets some laughter. Now I say it: “Skeezie,
close your lips.” And this gets even more.
I cannot bring myself to look at DuShawn. I try hard
not to think the thought I have thought a million times
since we started going out, but I can feel it rising up
as the laughter is dying down: What is he doing with me
when he could be with a girl like Becca or Tonni?
Tonni says, “Addie is blessed with brains over boobs,”
and I resist the temptation
to praise the alliteration
and instead pray for release
from this purgatory of
the middle school years
when so many things
that never mattered before
and will never matter again
matter.
Tondayala Cherise DuPré
may have a name like a
puffed pastry
but she has eyes that say,
“I’m the hammer
and you’re the nail.”
I Wonder If She’s Jealous
The way she says his name like
it’s their little secret. The way
her hammer eyes watch me like
I’m a mystery she can’t solve.
Me,
this plain-Jane white girl,
walking through the halls hand
in hand with the boy I think
she’d like for herself, black like her,
popular.
Is it possible? Could I be a girl
who makes other girls
jealous?
Well, if
that’s the case,
I might just grow
to like it.
Skin
DuShawn once told me I have skin
the color of the inside of almonds,
then changed it to
peach
ice
cream.
DuShawn has skin the color
of a moonless night.
Holding hands,
folding black on white,
white on black,
we don’t feel the color.
We feel the skin.
The Way It Happened
“So you want to go to the dance with me?”
back in September DuShawn boldly asked.
I was so clueless I had no idea he liked me.
So what if Skeezie had insisted DuShawn’s
poking me all through pre-Columbian America,
spitballing me in the hall, and slipping that
whoopee cushion under me in homeroom
were clear declarations of love. How very
poetic. How very “How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways.”
1. Poke
2. Spit
3. Fart
How very seventh-grade boy, and, really,
how is a girl supposed to know? But then
when he said, “So you want to go to the dance
with me?” and looked at me with guileless eyes,
well, I was surprised but not unpleasantly so.
“I would love to go to the dance with you,”
I told him. And he said, “Okay, then.” And
I said, “Okay.” And that’s the way
it happened.
These Lips
I’m not a girl who kisses
or would ever be kissed
or so I thought. I mean,
look at me. These lips
are made for talking.
But one time DuShawn
said, “Shut up for once,
Addie.” And he leaned
in and before I could say
“What are you doing?”
he did it.
Now I’m a girl who kisses
and secretly wishes
for more. These lips
keep talking but they get
lonelier than before.
Caught in the Act
“It is not like you to be staring out the window,
Addie Carle. It is not like you not to hear.
Come here, Addie, come to the board and solve
this equation.”
I look at her with thinly
veiled contempt. Ms. Wyman, I want
to say as I make my way to the board,
have your lips never been kissed?
The thought of it almost makes me laugh,
almost until I remember that I am more
than a girl who has been kissed and stares
off into space remembering it. I am a girl
with a memory for numbers and a hunger
for words, a girl whose brain once mattered
more than her lips.
I slip past Ms. Wyman,
ashamed to have been caught in the act
of being normal.
I pick up the chalk.
“Love makes fools
of us all,” somebody once said. I set to work
on the numbers on the board, wishing
I could disprove the words in my head.
Ms. Wyman Never Answers My Questions
The other morning in homeroom I asked Ms. Wyman,
“Do you believe in God?” She gave me an odd look,
then looked away as if she hadn’t heard or at best
thought my question absurd, so I asked it again:
“Ms. Wyman, do you believe in—”
“I heard you
the first time, Addie, and your question has no
place in school.” “Exactly my point,” I replied
as she brushed me aside with a sigh and “Please rise
for the pledge.” I waited, then asked, “If my question
has no place in school, then why do we say ‘under
God’ in the pledge?” Her voice had an edge as she
glared and said, “Addie, you do try my patience.”
Unsolvable Equation
“Ms. Wyman hates me,”
I told my mother when I got
home from school that day.
We were lifting bags of
groceries from the trunk
of the Volvo. “It’s because
I question her authority,
even though I don’t really.
I just stick up for myself.
For heaven’s sake, it was only
a question about God.”
My mother pointed to one
of the many bumper stickers
on the back of our car.
“‘LORD, HELP ME BE THE PERSON
MY CAT THINKS I AM’?” I read,
perplexed. “The one above it,”
my mother replied. “‘WELL-BEHAVED
WOMEN SELDOM MAKE HISTORY.’
That is why she hates you,”
she said, grabbing for the jar
of pickles about to topple
from the top of the overstuffed
bag dangling from her left
arm. “I don’t want to make
history. I just want to get
through homeroom and do well
in math,” I answered, even though
I secretly do want to make
history.
Just then the over-
stuffed bag ripped open
and the jar of pickles
crashed to the floor
of the porch, exploding
on contact. The cats went
ballistic. “Lousy plastic,”
my mother growled.
“That’s it! From now on
we’re bringing our own
bags. And they’re going
to be hemp!” The only
thing that surprised me
about this statement was
that it had taken so long.
The bumper sticker above
WELL-BEHAVED WOMEN reads,
LESS PLASTIC IS FANTASTIC.
We have since
switched to hemp so at least
one problem has been solved.
I am still, however, working
on the solution to this
equation:
If Addie = Smart Student,
and Ms. Wyman = Teacher Who
Likes Smart Students,
why does Ms. Wyman
hate Addie?
But Then There’s Ms. Watkins
If I must suffer Ms. Wyman’s ways
all through period seven,
at least Ms. Watkins in period eight
provides a bit of heaven.
She has this halo of frizzy hair
and wears these retro glasses.
(Not that it matters what she wears,
I’m talking about her classes.)
She tells us teaching is her life.
I’ve never seen such passion.
O how I love her fire, her mind,
her awesome sense of fashion.
(Not that I notice what she wears,
it’s hardly worth the mention;
it’s social studies taught with flair
that rivets my attention.)
Ms. Watkins actually likes the fact
that I’m smart and so outspoken.
She doesn’t think it’s all an act
or treat me like I’m broken.
“Well done, Addie!” she says with a smile
when I offer an observation
or a clever rebuttal or fresh insight
on a stale interpretation.
She said it today when I pointed out
how women are often cheated
of their rightful place in history books, how
their names are simply deleted.
Some boys laughed, and some girls, too,
one even called me mental.
But Ms. Watkins told me, “Good for you,”
and the rest was inconsequential.
After class she pulled me aside
to ask how my project was going.
Maybe it was just the light from behind
but I swear her hair was glowing.
“I love your hair,” I blurted out.
I didn’t mean to flatter.
I couldn’t believe I’d said it aloud;
I mean, looks don’t really matter.
Or maybe they do, I’m no longer clear.
I just know I’ve reasons myriad
to think Ms. Watkins the best teacher here
and to be grateful for eighth period.
The Real Reason People Think I’m Weird
It’s not because I’m tall
or skinny as a board.
It’s not my hair as limp
as seaweed washed ashore.
It’s not even that I’m bright,
though that provides a clue,
or that I talk too much,
using words like hitherto.
It’s mostly that I’ve broken
an unspoken rule.
I even dare to say it:
I love school.
NO ONE IS FREE WHEN OTHERS
ARE OPPRESSED
(A Button on My Backpack)
Do you believe it to be true?
I
do.
No one is free when others are oppressed.
So this spring I addressed it by starting a GSA.
Translation:
An alliance for the straight and the gay.
I did it for Joe, who is out, and for Colin,
who is not, and for all those who haven’t got
the same rights as you and I
(if you and I happen to be straight).
But wait.
Here’s what happened after school today:
We were having a meeting,
there were six of us there
(including Joe but not Colin,
who doesn’t dare),
when some boys ran past the room
and banged on the door, shouting:
LEZZIES! FAGGOTS! FREAKS!
Mr. Daly rushed to see who it was
but they were too fast, they were gone.
“What makes them think,” he said,
his voice shaking, his face burning red,
“what makes them think,
whoever they were at the door,
that they are more than anyone else,
that they are not different
in some way, too?”
Mr. Daly is my hero for agreeing to be
the faculty advisor for the GSA. Some say
it’s because he has a son who’s gay, but
I say it’s because it’s who he is.
“To thine own self be true,” his favorite quote,
were the words he wrote on the board
the first day of English class last fall. Mr. D
helps us all see through the words we read
to the people we are.
He is full of quotes. He wrote this one
on the board after those bullies (cowards)
ran past the door:
“You must be the change you wish to see
in the world.” —Mahatma Gandhi
And then one more:
“If we cannot end now our differences, at least
we can make the world safe for diversity.”
It was John F. Kennedy who said that.
It is Mr. Daly who says:
“And now let us get to work.”
Did I mention he’s my hero?