Polly

by Amy Bryant

  He lay back on top of me. I could feel his warm breath on my neck. He didn’t seem to have an erection. It was hot underneath him, and a puddle of sweat was forming in the center of my bra. I wriggled down so we could kiss some more.

  The next day we were walking from my locker to first period when Mike pulled another drawing out of his backpack. This drawing was abstract. He had used green, brown, and orange markers, and each shape he had drawn blended into the next. The edges of the paper were saturated with color. I was impressed.

  “You’re really good,” I said.

  After class I hung it up in my locker. I borrowed some tape from Bethany, who inexplicably kept masking tape hanging from one of her locker’s coat hooks. She peered around the edge of her locker door at the drawing. I could tell she wanted to ask about the picture but didn’t.

  In the weeks that followed I fell into a pattern of going over to Mike’s after school to get stoned and make out. He didn’t try to have sex with me. Instead, I gave him blow jobs. It was the easiest way to put off sex, especially after what had happened with Jason. The best part was I didn’t have to take off my clothes. I was hoping Mike couldn’t tell what kind of body I had. There wasn’t anything I could do about my face, but I liked to think that my body was my secret. I had a dark, oval birthmark on my lower back, about an inch long. Mike didn’t know about it. My T-shirts and sweaters were baggy, and my posture was slightly stooped. I liked to think people couldn’t tell whether I had boobs. I longed to wear my combat boots with short skirts, but my legs were still too skinny. Instead I wore my boots under my jeans like a guy.

  Carrie and Lyle dropped us off each afternoon, and William picked me up on his way home from work. I would have preferred for Mom to pick me up—having William do it was embarrassing—but she worked in the opposite direction and Mike’s house was on William’s way. Mom and William didn’t make much of a fuss over “my new friend,” as Mom referred to him. William didn’t even see Mike when he came to get me; he’d just honk his horn at 5:15 and I’d run out, half an hour before Mike’s mom was due home. On the ride home William listened to NPR and bitched about Reagan.

  “Trickle-down economics! Give me a break! Anti-missile weapons in outer space! Jesus H. Christ!”

  I didn’t respond. He wasn’t talking to me.

  I waited for Mom and William to grill me about Mike, but they left me alone. At the dinner table, they talked about work. Mom was frustrated. She was nothing but a glorified secretary at her property management job. She was one of the most knowledgeable people in her office, but the sanctimonious men above her didn’t care. William was supposed to be spending his time designing software, but the idiots he worked with bombarded him with stupid, unrelated computer questions all day. He got more done at home in two hours than he did all day in the office.

  When they got finished complaining about their jobs they’d pause to watch Dan Rather, who droned from a miniature TV on the counter. Then they’d start in on politics, venting about Iran-Contra and Ollie North. I hated him, too, for his military haircut and his self-important, bully’s face.

  “He looks like an older version of the meanest jocks at my school,” I said, which made them both laugh.

  After dinner I’d go up to my room to do homework and think about Mike. I’d lent him my Bad Brains T-shirt, and he’d given me a bracelet he made out of fishhooks. I had to take the bracelet off to shower because it got caught in my hair when I washed it, but otherwise I wore it all the time. I even slept in it. And Mike was there at my locker every morning, waiting to walk to first period together. We were obviously a couple for anyone who cared to notice. I pretended that everyone did.

  On the days that I didn’t go over to Mike’s I went over to Lyle’s basement to watch their band practice. They had decided on the name Massive Hemorrhage. Lyle’s basement was full of boxes with labels like UPSTAIRS LAMPS, SKI STUFF, and GRANDMA’S THINGS, and Carrie and Theresa and I had to squeeze between them to get to a couple of scratchy, worn-out couches. I loved Lyle’s basement. Like my house, his was built on a hill, so the basement had a sliding glass door that led to the backyard. Other than that it was nothing like my own basement, with its rust-colored rug and big TV and spotless furniture. My mother was not one to waste space on storage. She gave so much stuff to Goodwill that they called whenever their truck was going to be in the neighborhood. The night before a pickup she’d roam through the house with a trash bag, looking for things to get rid of.

  “Do you really think we’re going to use this waffle iron again? Who makes waffles in this house?”

  “These hand weights are just cluttering up the laundry room!”

  I lost my old Barbies that way, and my Shawn Cassidy and Olivia Newton John records.

  Massive Hemorrhage’s songs were fast and short. I liked them. Sometimes they would stop for a four-beat in the middle of a song and then start again, even faster than before. Lyle was tall and skinny like Joey Ramone, and he leaned far over the microphone while he shouted the lyrics. Mike was the opposite. He leaned back when he played, shutting his eyes and nodding his head during his brief solos. When they did the stop-start parts Mike would lift his guitar up until it was nearly even with his shoulders and then sling it back down when he started to play again. I would dig my back into the itchy couch and push my feet against the floor, willing him to look over at me.

  They had found a drummer and a bass player at school, sophomores who were both named Chris. They were best friends. Chris L. was the drummer and didn’t talk much. Chris S. talked, but only about music. The Chrises were straight-edge: they didn’t drink or smoke or do drugs. Shortly after joining the band the Chrises started eating lunch with us.

  Carrie and I were smoking in one of the bathroom stalls at school when she asked me if I wanted to go on the pill with her. She said it like she was asking if I wanted to go to the mall.

  I tapped an ash into the toilet. “Um, I don’t think so,” I said. “I mean I don’t really need to or anything.”

  Carrie rolled her eyes. “Polly, I don’t know why you have to act like it’s such a big secret. Mike told Lyle two weeks ago that you guys were doing it. I mean Theresa and I were both wondering why you’re being so closemouthed about it. You guys are going out and everything, it’s not a big deal.”

  “I was going to tell you,” I lied.

  “Whatever. So we should go to the doctor together and get on the pill.”

  The fifth-period bell rang and we threw our cigarettes into the toilet. I put my foot on the handle and flushed.

  “I just don’t know if I want to go on it yet,” I said as we made our way out into the hallway.

  In Mrs. Fern’s tough-stuff physics class, I wondered if Mike told Lyle that we were sleeping together out of the blue, or if he was warding off questions in the same way I was forced to with Carrie. I would have to ask him about it. The next time I was over I would bring it up. Before we got stoned.

  “Tell me about your high school girlfriend,” I said to William that afternoon on the ride home from Mike’s. I was rolling down the window in an effort to get the pot smell out of my clothes.

  He looked over at me. His tie was loose, and there was an ink stain on his shirt. Dark stubble colored his chin. “What is it you want to know?” he said.

  “I don’t know. You know. What was her name?”

  William shrugged. “There were a few, as I recall. No one significant if that’s what you’re asking. That didn’t happen until college. It wasn’t like it is with you and your friends.”

  “What do you mean, like it is with me and my friends?”

  “In my day we didn’t travel in packs on the weekends. We went on proper dates, and things weren’t serious. You might go out with one person on Friday and another on Saturday. There was none of this relationship stuff.”

  “Two dates in one weekend? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  William braked and downshifted. “I’m certainly not. And from what I
can tell, it beats your system.”

  He changed his mind and sped up to get through a yellow light. I felt myself begin to get irritated. I was trying to talk to him about something real. Something important.

  “There’s no system,” I said. “And I don’t always go out in a group. For your information, I spend plenty of time alone with Mike.”

  “Let me ask you something,” William said. “Do you think of yourself as being in a relationship with this guy?”

  I crossed my arms. “Do you mean, Is he my boyfriend? Yes.”

  “And yet he doesn’t care to take you out on any real dates.”

  “What do you mean, real dates?” I said. “You just said that nobody in my generation goes on dates.”

  “Well, the full extent of your relationship seems to take place at his house after school. That’s not what I would call dating.”

  I couldn’t tell if William was in a bad mood or if he was genuinely concerned. “That’s not true. I see him at band practice,” I said.

  William gave me a smirk as we turned into our development. At the top of the street Jimmy Porter, who was four years old, was standing in his front yard. A blue stuffed bunny lay at his feet. As we passed by Jimmy raised a stiff hand and moved it back and forth like he was riding atop a parade float. I waved back.

  “You don’t even know Mike,” I said.

  “My point exactly!” An excitability had crept into William’s voice that I was all too familiar with. This was the voice he used to talk about my reluctance to study for the SATs, my lack of interest in chores, and the amount of time I spent on the telephone.

  “You’re right, I don’t even know him!” he continued. “And why is that? You should be going places—he should be taking you places! He should be picking you up at the house, coming in so your mother and I can meet him!”

  He pulled into the driveway and jerked the car to a halt. I ran upstairs to my room without my usual thank you. I had only wanted to know if he’d had a girlfriend. Maybe something bad had happened with a girl when William was my age, and he was taking it out on me. Or maybe Mom was his first girlfriend. Maybe everyone else had rejected him.

  I rushed through dinner, which was meat loaf. I hated meat loaf. Mom and William talked about work, as usual. I took my plate to the sink and scraped my leftovers into the garbage disposal when they were only halfway through. I had some homework to do, and then I wanted to call Theresa.

  “In case you’re wondering, you may be excused from the table,” William said.

  I went upstairs and shut my bedroom door. I sat down at my desk and switched on my fluorescent desk light. It came on with a hiss. I opened my notebook. I wasn’t ready to do homework yet. I drew a treble clef and then I started on a guitar. As I shaded it in I heard Mom and William’s voices drifting up from the vent in the kitchen. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I could tell they were having a fight. I pushed my chair back and crept into the hallway in my socks. I sat down at the top of the stairs, where I could hear them better.

  “She doesn’t listen to a word I say,” William said.

  “We’ve had this conversation enough times.”

  I was surprised to hear Mom say that. Someone turned on the water in the sink and then turned it back off again. I heard a dish clatter into the dishwasher.

  “Fran, listen to me! She’s going to wind up pregnant, or dropping out of school, or in jail, or in a drug rehabilitation center, or God knows what!”

  “Would you just stop with this? She’s a good kid. Look at her grades.”

  I heard the water go on again and then more dishes rattling. I was glad Mom was sticking up for me.

  “What do you think she’s doing over at Mike’s house? Studying? She gets into the car reeking of pot!”

  I felt a pit of dread begin to form in my stomach. I wished I’d been nicer on the car ride home.

  “What would you have me do, force her to break it off with that boy? Ground her for the rest of the school year? We’re not talking about anything out of the ordinary here. She’s not stealing cars or shooting heroin, for God’s sake.”

  There was a long pause. I waited. “What do you mean, what would I have you do?” William finally said. “Don’t I have any goddamn input around here?”

  “Judging by the way you’re overreacting, I think it’s best if you don’t have any input, actually.”

  The phone rang. I started to stand up to get it, but then thought better of it. Mom went around the corner to pick it up, and her voice became muffled. I was sitting under a framed 8 x 10 photograph of my ninth-grade school picture. I had a perm and braces, and I was so skinny that you could see the bones jutting out of my face. I had told Mom repeatedly that I wanted her to take it down. She thought it was cute. I told myself that I would invite Mike over to meet them as soon as they took down the picture.

  I heard William’s voice again. “She dresses like a lunatic, she never comes home after school, and she sleeps until after lunch on the weekends! Is this what you consider normal?”

  “She makes her curfew. She’s not breaking any rules.”

  “Fran, she doesn’t have any fucking rules!”

  I heard my mother’s quick footsteps coming toward the stairs. I darted into my room, slamming the door behind me and locking it. I plugged in my headphones and threw the needle onto the turntable. It was the Bad Brains. I lay flat on my bed, letting the music blare into me. I hadn’t heard William use the word fuck before.

  I remembered the time when I was little when William had taken me to a carnival just off Sunset Road. It was shortly after Mom and I moved in with him. We were on the way home from my piano lesson, and William and I were alone in the car. I had been too shy to do anything but point out the carnival as we drove by, but William pulled over into a makeshift parking lot that had been created in a neighboring field.

  “How about a couple of rides before dinner?” he said.

  It was just getting toward dusk, and the carnival was very nearly empty, the workers hanging out in clusters between the rides they were supposed to be running. I was quiet as I walked beside William, trying to match his big strides with my own.

  I slowed in front of the Tilt-A-Whirl. I hadn’t been on the Tilt-A-Whirl before, but it looked promising. The large, hollowed-out, red-painted eggs were suspended on a gentle incline that appealed to me. I was scared of things that went up high, like roller coasters and Ferris wheels. But this looked like something I could have fun on.

  William bought two tickets and we climbed into one of the eggs. Since it was still early we were the only two people on the ride. The worker flipped a switch and carnival-sounding music started up. We jerked forward, and I grabbed on to William’s arm with both hands. The ride was faster and scarier than it looked. The problem with the Tilt-A-Whirl wasn’t heights, it was spinning. Nausea began to take hold of me as we were yanked from side to side. Our egg went into a never-ending fast spin, and I stifled the urge to cry out. I vowed that no matter what, I would not throw up in front of William.

  William yelled things like “Hey, stop!” and “Slow down!” at the operator. But the operator didn’t understand William over the music. Instead of slowing down he hit a new switch and the thing sped up even faster. It was no longer possible for me to move or make a sound. William waved one hand at the man whenever he came into view, and kept the other tight around me. “Don’t worry,” he said, over and over. Finally, the ride came to an end. Our egg hung at the top of an incline, slowly swaying to a stop.

  “She’s only seven years old!” William barked at the operator as we climbed down a set of rusty steps to safety. The operator shrugged at us and turned away to light his cigarette. A few people had shown up at the Tilt-A-Whirl, and they clamored past us onto the ride. I was embarrassed that I had been such a baby in front of William, but I felt closer to him, too, like we had been through something together. At dinner we told Mom about it like we had narrowly escaped something exciting and danger
ous, like a rock slide or a burning building.

  “Lyle and I tried to have anal sex,” Carrie confessed over the phone a few days later.

  I was alone in my bedroom, but I was still blushing. Being Carrie’s friend meant sitting through recounts of things like how long it took Lyle to get his erection back after sex, and how he liked to have her blow him for a minute or two before they did it. Not that I wasn’t interested. But Carrie was graphic, and she was talking about Lyle. It was impossible to think of Lyle, the gangly lead singer of Massive Hemorrhage and the most sarcastic guy at the lunch table, as the star of Carrie’s sex stories.

  “Have you and Mike ever tried it?” she asked me.

  “No,” I said. “I would tell you.”

  “Well, let me tell you, I don’t recommend it,” Carrie said. “I don’t see why people do it. I really don’t.”

  “Well, thanks for the warning.”

  “Just hope Mike doesn’t ask you for it. He probably won’t. Unless maybe if Lyle tells him about it,” Carrie said.

  She moved on to the topic of lubricant. I opened my English lit notebook. I wrote my name in bubble letters in the margin of my notes on Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Heart of Darkness was the first good book we’d read in English all year. I liked it so much I’d already finished it, even though we had another week before it was due. It took place a long time ago, but it was haunting and scary and deep. In class we talked about evil and human nature. Mrs. Mason said that everyone had a dark side. I didn’t have any trouble believing that.

  When I finished writing my name in bubble letters I started on Mike’s name. I connected the Y in Polly to the M in Mike. Carrie and Lyle were at the stage where they were experimenting. Mike and I, for reasons I didn’t understand, had a monotonous routine. Not that I wanted to try anal sex. But I couldn’t remember the last time Mike had even bothered to feel me up. I still hadn’t asked him why Carrie and Lyle were under the impression that we were sleeping together.