The Best and Hardest Thing
Page 3
in which Molly is wildly successful
In the Lunchroom: Instant Replay
I’m counting up the actual words
he actually said to me today:
Me: So, you’re new here, aren’t you?
He: Yup.
Me: My name’s Molly.
You’re Grady, right?
I’m a sophomore. That’s why
we don’t have any classes together.
He: (nods and smiles a little—no teeth)
Me: So, do you like it here?
He: (shrugs)
Me: Yeah, I know exactly what you mean—it’s not the most exciting place on earth. When I think that there are kids living in New York or Las Vegas or L.A. and all they have to do is walk out the door at the end of the day and they’re in the middle of everything! And what have we got? Cather’s Market and the Beechwood Bowling Alley. I mean, they’re practically the definition of boring.
He: Maybe you need to make your own excitement.
Me: Oh, really? How?
He: (smiles mysteriously)
Me: C’mon, tell me . . .
He: (lifts his eyebrows in a knowing way, still smiling mysteriously) (And oh my gosh, his eyelashes are to die for! Then some other senior guy goes by and tilts his head toward the door.)
He: Gotta go (and leaves).
Total: Twelve (counting that first “Hey!”)—
a perfect dozen,
an utterly completely perfect
way to make a start.
Subject: Angel Kisses
I did it, Barb!
Sat next to him at lunch today!
He smelled like soap and corn chips;
has eyes the color of summer leaves
and the longest lashes a boy should
legally be allowed to have because—
remember when, as little kids,
we learned to give angel kisses,
fluttering our lashes on each other’s cheeks?—
all I could think about today,
sitting so close to Grady
and his practically illegal eyelashes,
was getting angel kisses from him
on my cheeks and neck and everywhere,
and oh my gosh,
it made it hard to even breathe. . . .
Gram / Molly
Lecture/response for voice/thought:
Molly, Oh, no,
we need to talk. she’s using her I-wish-I-didn’t-have-to-say-this voice.
Now,
I wish I didn’t have to say this, but
I promised your mother
Not this again!
(in unison)
I’d do the best I could
by you,
and God knows that
I’ve tried.
I’d do the best I could
by you,
and God knows that
I’ve tried.
But Molly, I have to tell you
No, really, you don’t!
I don’t like what I see.
(Memo to self: don’t roll your eyes!)
You’ve changed so much . . .
Thank you!
your clothes,
So hot!
your hair—
My hair??
well, your hair is fine,
just different’s all, but
different like so much of you is different—
Better, Gram.
makeup like you never wore before,
I’m not a baby anymore.
skirts up to here, and tops down to there. . . .
Face it, Gram—I’m practically an adult.
Is there some boy you’re trying to impress?
Not some boy—the boy.
I may be old, Molly,
You said it, not me. . . .
but I know this much:
Uh-oh, crazy old-person advice coming up. . . .
he won’t buy the cow
if he can get the milk for free.
What!?
All I’m saying is
Oh, good, she’s almost through.
I want you to be careful
I will.
and not get hurt.
I won’t.
You know how much I love you, right?
I do, Gram. Love you back!
I Let His Words Caress Me
His words run round and round my brain:
Maybe you need to make your own excitement.
(his eyes so green)
Maybe . . .
(his hair so shiny black)
. . . you need . . .
(his fingers, long and thin)
. . . to make . . .
(his lips, his cheeks, his neck)
. . . your own . . .
(his hands, his arms, his chest)
. . . excitement . . .
(his legs and oh!)
. . . excitement . . .
Yes!
. . . excitement . . .
Yes!
My own.
. . . excitement . . .
Yes,
I do!
The Next Day: English Class
Where are Romeo and Juliet when you need them?
Today I’m longing for a love—
intense, electric, hot—
between one aching lover and another,
and where have Juliet and her boy gone?
Packed away in cardboard boxes
in the bottom of the classroom closet
until next year.
What lousy timing.
Even Annabel Lee would do,
Poe’s perfect wife;
a bit too dead for comfort, sure,
but still a love story that could
be a launchpad to imagined bliss.
Not here.
Not today.
Today we’re doing grammar,
dull, dry, boring grammar,
until I see that any sentence can be diagrammed
and content myself to be
object to his subject,
a very active verb between us
with lots of delicious adverbs
and demonstrative pronouns
in wonderful prepositional phrases.
Since Lunch Is the Only Time I Get to See Grady
This
is what I live for:
lunch.
Lunch: The Second Day
I carry the memory of yesterday—
made perfect by perpetual repetition—
with me to the lunchroom
like a prize:
“This is to certify that
the bearer of this memory is entitled to
full and immediate access
to the object of her affection,
one Grady Dillon,
during the full course of the lunch period,
and is further granted
the right to pursue
a romantic and mutually rewarding relationship
with the aforementioned Mr. Dillon
until a state of Absolute Bliss is achieved.”
So I’m not at all surprised
to find an empty seat next to Grady.
And not surprised when he
half-smiles as I sit down.
I’ve earned this, right?
And in my mind I’ve already done this
at least a thousand times.
It Wasn’t Perfect, But . . .
Electricity shot through me
each time our thighs touched.
And I found out he loves
corn chips,
hates hotdogs,
thinks pickles are gross,
and won’t say where he’s been.
(Around. You know, here and there . . .)
I love a man of mystery.
He’s like a puzzle I get
a little of each day
and have to piece together over time.
The Big Steep
In Honors Poetry
we read and read.
I count 160 volumes—
fat and thin—
along the classroom shelves for us
to borrow.
“Immerse yourselves,”
Ms. Butler says.
“Steep yourselves in different styles.”
I think of this as the
Teabag Method of Teaching
and see myself up to my neck
in boiling water with
poets old and new.
“Keep copies of your favorites
in a binder for yourselves.”
We do.
And then comes the assignment—
to take the lines that speak to us
and make a new poem with them.
“Huh?” we ask, confused.
“Just try it,” she says.
“Fool around with it; have fun.”
We try,
and surprise ourselves.
The new poems carry with them
traces of the old;
like finding a grandparent’s nose or chin
in the face of a child:
the one is not the other
and yet,
is.
Here’s my poem’s ancestry:
Eyes, Langston Hughes;
Cheeks, William Carlos Williams;
Mouth, Emily Dickinson;
Hair, John Gillespie Magee Jr.;
Smile, Edward Lear;
Ears, John Masefield;
Fingers, William Butler Yeats;
Toes, John Ciardi.
Listen: A Pastiche
Well, son, I’ll tell you:
so much depends upon
the thing with feathers that
slipped the surly bonds of earth
and danced by the light of the moon.
When the long trick’s over,
tread softly—
the next step up is sky.
Initial Bliss
For three straight days my lunch spot
was my hot spot,
was my yes! spot,
was the spot right next to Grady,
and everything was great.
And then she beat me to it,
got there first and took right over,
worked her wiles,
made him smile,
shot me daggers with her glance.
And well,
at least he noticed,
did a couldn’t-help-it shrug thing,
mouthed a silent word,
“tomorrow,”
sent me long and luscious looks.
So I sat and cursed the teacher
who delayed me just a moment,
’cause it only takes a moment
to win a guy
or lose.
Weeks Go By
Barb’s e-mails start off long and daily
and gradually dwindle to shorter
and less often.
She’s getting involved in her new school—
debate team,
journalism club,
orchestra—
and volunteering at the hospital
twice a week.
She’s making lots of friends.
How is it that this new school
is such a perfect fit for her
when this one never was?
She writes of people I don’t know,
places I’ve never been,
a school I can’t even imagine.
My life feels small next to hers.
I miss her,
and the spot where she was
is growing cold.
A Weird and Totally Unexpected Gift from Gram
I find them on my dresser after school.
There’s a note:Dear Molly,
Please don’t be insulted.
You may not need these now
(I hope you won’t be needing them for years),
but better safe than sorry.
And I want you to be safe.
Don’t get pregnant, Molly.
It makes everything so hard,
delays your dreams until sometimes
they shrivel up and die.
I love you more than I can say
and always will, I swear.
You’re such a smart girl, Molly.
Whatever else, stay smart.
I feel a blush that’s creeping up my neck,
across my face,
imagining my Gram at the Rite Aid register,
sliding these across the counter.
It makes me want to die, but
I stuff them in my dresser,
except for just the one I put
into my bag and zip it in there:
safe.
And So It Goes
Long mornings of
waiting-for-lunch,
long afternoons of
remembering-what-happened-at-lunch,
long weekends of
figuring-out-what-to-wear-to-lunch, and
lunch!
the center of it all,
with me (next to Grady)
charming, teasing, smiling,
joking, working my way into his heart.
(I hope. I think.)
Unless that other girl
got there first.
That Other Girl
I ask around and find out
she’s a senior and a schemer.
And even though I dodge and duck
my way through halls to get there first,
sometimes I just don’t make it.
And there she is—
in my chair,
with a grin that’s too triumphant,
touching Grady’s arm or shoulder,
whispering
something in his ear.
There is one consolation:
her name is Valerie Turdo.
Makes me think of something steaming
left behind by some old dog.
Turdo.
Turd—oh!
Turd.
The Game
There’s a game we play,
that girl and I
(though she might be surprised).
Our playing field’s the lunchroom,
and Grady is the prize.
Did I sit next to him today?
I start my score at ten.
Or was I late and she there first?
I start at seven then.
Did I make him laugh?
Up eight points more.
Or smile, at least?
Up five.
Or was she the lucky one this time?
I take a two-point dive.
Did he smile big when I sat down?
Add seven to my score.
Or linger some when he was through?
Then add another four.
If she sat next to him today,
did he smile past her at me?
I get a satisfying six;
she gets a minus three.
Did he do anything flirtatious—
smile, salute, wink, nod, or grin?
That’s however many points I make it,
just so, in the end,
I win.
Curious
Barb, from out of nowhere,
writes about a boy she’s met.
A boy! Barb—
who’s never bothered with boys before.
And not just any boy,
but one whom she alone can understand because—
and this is just too strange for words—
he only has one leg!
She saw him in her gym class, shooting baskets.
He was wearing shorts and
one leg “newer than the other.”
“It was love at first sight,” she wrote.
“I went up to him and said,
‘Nice knee. Hydraulic, right?’
and swept him off his foot.”
(Even in love,
she still has her weird sense of humor.)
What If I’m Fooling Mys
elf?
What if I’m just imagining
Grady likes me?
What if he enjoys
when she gets there first?
What if he likes
her hands all over him?
What if he’s attracted
to airheaded bimbos?
What if we don’t
have a special connection?
What if I
lose?
Rules
Ms. Butler says,
“So, what do you all think about
punctuation?”
Silence.
She waits.
And here’s the thing about Ms. Butler—
she’s not afraid of silence,
like so many of us are.
In seconds we are spattering the air
with talk.
What do you mean?
What’s there to think about?
Punctuation!!?
Like periods and commas?
“Periods.
No periods.
Commas, colons, semicolons,
dashes . . .” (and here she pauses).
“Oh!” Sierra blurts, “like Emily Dickinson!”
You can almost see the lightbulbs
going on over people’s heads.
“Yeah, what was up with her
and all those dashes?”
Henry asks.
“Hadn’t they invented commas yet back then?”
“Oh! Oh! Or e. e. cummings—
how he never used capital letters,
not even in his name!”
Dakota is practically falling off
her seat in her excitement
at this insight.
“You always say
poets do the things they do
for a reason,”
Jessica says.
“What was his reason for that?”
“Maybe his shift key
didn’t work.”
(Henry again.)
“But we learned punctuation rules
back in, like, second grade,”
says Kevin.
“Why don’t poets know them?”
“They know the rules all right;
they just choose to break them.”
(This from Kate.)