It’s not exactly the Four Seasons.
Aw, well, hey
we should all hang out.
I’ll call Erica.
No, don’t. I haven’t talked to her since I left.
What? Why not?
Look, not all of us worship her like you do.
Sorry, Jamie.
Let’s just say that Erica and I are sort of fighting.
Oh. Well, I hope you work it out.
Maybe we will—if she hopes so too.
Greenwood is relatively small
and predominantly Catholic.
It’s no surprise that the only
place to worship in town
caters to the majority.
I doubt that Erica is part of the masses.
I just can’t imagine her
praising a higher power.
So why did she ask me to meet her
in Greenwood Catholic Church?
My flip-flops echo
as I walk down the red runway
on the marble floor,
past rows of bare pews
and stained-glass windows.
Erica sits in the middle of the church,
arms crossed and legs resting on
the back of the next pew.
I take a seat beside her.
I say nothing.
She can fill me in
if she decides to.
“My parents are Catholic.”
She looks straight ahead.
“So is Beatrice.
They say that they feel close to God in church,
that they feel His love and protection.”
She throws her head back
and, in almost a childish way,
grunts, “It’s not working for me.”
It begins again
at ten p.m.
Exhilaration.
Want.
Happiness.
They move swiftly between
her lips and mine
as our kisses get faster and
rougher with passion.
I can
barely breathe,
let alone digest
that I’m with her,
that we’re closer
than we’ve ever been before.
That Chris
isn’t the one holding her.
I am.
“You look happy,”
Mom says curtly
when I slip through the front door.
She looks at the kitchen clock.
10:34.
“It’s a little late to be coming home,
especially when I had no idea
where you were.”
“I didn’t think you’d be home.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Is she kidding?
She must think her office
is her home
and 13 Lear Lane
is the job she goes to.
I’m just a worker,
an employee,
a project.
“You’re never home
until at least twelve.”
I try to remain calm.
“I work to provide for this family.”
Her toes dig into the carpet.
Her composure is on edge,
which makes me want
to give it one final push.
“What do you provide?”
I choose my words with care.
“Money! The necessities…”
She runs her fingers through her hair.
I wonder.
Is being a parent
a necessity for her?
Every night
I walk through the neighborhood
until I reach
Wonderland’s gate.
Erica is always there first.
She writes in her
notebook
until I arrive.
Once she sees me,
she shoves it away
behind a slide or seesaw or tree.
She has a countdown
she always says to me.
“Only ten,
only nine,
only eight more days
before I’m done.”
After that,
no words are spoken.
She leans against rusty playground bars,
writing in her notebook.
“Two more pages, two more days,” she says,
while I lie down on the soft grass,
forming pictures out of clouds.
“Why are you doing all this writing?” I ask.
She clicks her pen a few times
and then replies slowly,
“Because…because I need to.
I love writing fiction,
but to be honest
I’m regretting the poetry.”
“Why?”
I don’t expect an answer,
but I can’t help asking.
I’m so curious
about her.
To my surprise,
she takes a breath and says,
“Nobody asked us
if we wanted to be born into this world.
Nobody asked us
who our parents should be,
what kind of government we’d like for our country—
you know, how we want the world to function.
We are born with no options.”
She pauses.
I flip on my stomach to face her.
She has that distant look again,
like she’s lost in a thought
she’s been carrying around for
far too long.
“It’s like the world was a
blank canvas,
and as time went on
people painted a foundation,
then kept adding layer upon layer.
Sooner or later,
there were no spots of white left.
The paint has dried.
We can’t change the past.
It’s on the canvas. Permanently.”
A rush of cool wind
shakes the trees
and leaves goose bumps on my skin.
Erica stares down at her notebook.
“I love writing fiction because
I create the world and everyone in it.
I can send them to hell or seventh heaven.
But poetry…poetry is too real.
In fiction,
I am God.”
I watch Erica play God,
carving out the lives of her characters.
I wonder what drama she’s throwing their way.
Is she starting wars and sinking ships?
Reuniting loves to a state of bliss?
Thinking about it makes me want
to read her stories,
but I’m even more curious
about her verses.
What is too real for Erica?
She stares at stars.
Leaning on my shoulder,
pointing out constellations.
“The bright one over there is actually Venus.
I used to think it was just another—
what’s up with you?”
I look at her and smile.
“I’m just really, really happy.”
She scrunches her eyebrows
like she’s not sure what to do
with this information.
Then she snickers.
“Maybe you could teach me
how to feel that sometime.”
I reach for the front door,
planning on disappearing
to the park with my sketchbook,
when I spot Mom watching her
Sunday fix of reality TV:
one of those Bravo shows.
Two women
fight to the death
over a he said, she said.
“Ugh, how can you watch this?”
Mom turns away from the screen,
obviously surprised to see me.
; “It’s entertaining,” she says,
“and a great distraction from work, you know?”
I stare at my sketchbook.
“I guess so.”
I walk to Wonderland
with sketchbook and pencils in hand.
The sight of the closed gate
makes my pencils fall from
shaking fingers.
I do the unthinkable:
I push the gate open.
Erica is here,
stabbing her notebook
with a pen,
grunting and crying and
writing.
“Erica?”
I can’t believe it.
Erica cries?
Erica shows emotion?
Erica’s vulnerable?
Erica stares at me
as if she can’t believe I’m here,
witnessing
her humanity.
As if her empire is
crashing down.
A queen dethroned.
A fallen angel.
“Get out!”
she screams,
throwing her notebook
to the ground.
“Goddammit get out, get out!”
I don’t know what
to do or say.
I stand rigid, fearful
of her fragility.
Erica’s supposed to be
a force of strength.
She looks scared, shattered,
no longer the heroine
of my own fiction.
I don’t know
what to do
except to turn
and walk away.
LIST OF DRAWING EXERCISES
30) Draw your future.
My future?
At ten o’clock tonight?
Wonderland and
intimate moments
with no mention of
foster care, the deceased,
or deadbeats?
Can tears and cursing
return to sweet and silent moments?
Will Erica still be in the park?
Will she leave
the gate open?
Will ten o’clock
ever happen again?
I open the hatbox,
the only place
my dad still lives on
in this house.
Dad’s gone.
Asher’s gone.
Mom’s pretty much gone.
I don’t want
to lose Erica
as well.
She texts me.
Remember, Wonderland tonight.
My body loosens,
my heart now
satisfied.
Again
Mom’s long work hours
make night excursions easy.
I swing my bag
over my shoulder and
walk to Wildflower Park.
The gate is open.
Erica’s gate.
Her control of when I come,
if I stay,
how long until I go.
I sigh, relieved at the invitation.
Her hands cross in front of her chest;
no tears or notebook in sight,
just a cigarette dangling from her lips.
“I’m done,” she says.
“Fifty pages.
Fifty days.
I’m finally done.”
I wrap my arms
around her waist,
congratulating her
and wondering if
I’ll get to flip through
the pages.
When I pull back,
she’s smiling.
Her grin’s like a touch
of reassurance.
She doesn’t seem broken
anymore.
“Come on.”
She grabs my arm.
“I want to go somewhere
different tonight.”
We’ve buried ourselves
behind layers of trees
so thick that
I can only see
the outline of
Wildflower Park.
“A little farther,” she says
as she leads me through the forest.
It’s warm tonight,
like summer’s supposed to be,
but it’s dark in the forest,
with only moonlight
to guide us.
“Stop,” Erica says.
There’s a white coverlet spread out
atop roots and dirt and leaves.
She stomps on her cigarette,
then rests on the blanket,
sinking into the pure white.
“Lie down next to me.”
I do,
still wondering what it means,
still wondering
what pawn she’ll play.
Wondering
if we’ll ever reach
the endgame.
“It was my fault,” she says
in barely a whisper.
I look at her.
Her eyes are focused on the sky.
I can’t stop myself from asking,
“What do you mean?”
“It was mine,”
she says slowly,
as if her words stuck in her throat
like she’s never
confessed something before.
She stops.
Coughs.
Closes her eyes.
That’s when her words
catch fire.
“The weed. It was mine.
I got it from Chris.”
What am I supposed to say?
I’m sorry?
It’s okay?
Asher will forgive you someday?
She sits up,
leans over, and
kisses my lips.
I let her.
She pulls in closer.
I let her.
We roll over
and she lifts up
my shirt.
I let her.
She’s got me
in a cosmic trance.
Stars, moon,
black sky
swallowing us
in the night.
Good-bye,
sunshine.
I am
a nightingale
soaking up
the pleasure of
celestial sex.
But
I stare at the stars,
wishing they were
clouds.
Light is
safe;
light is
comfortable.
The sun and I
know each other,
but the moon now feels
like a stranger.
Erica feels
like a stranger
Silence
follows after.
Shell-shocked
silence.
The kind that makes
your skin transparent.
The type of
hush
that says too much.
The dead air
that makes you want
to crawl back out
the rabbit hole.
Then she says,
“I’m happiness-impaired.”
A clamor in
the quiet sound.
I ask her what she means.
I’m surprised
I can use my voice.
The rest of my body
is paralyzed.
“I can’t—I can’t be happy.
I just won’t allow myself
for some reason.”
Crying?
Confessions?
Now feelings?
She’s breaking all her rules.
She talks now, too much.
Telling me everything.
Her words cascade,
rushing, spraying
cold water drowning me.
I want to be
ignoran
t again
like at the beginning of the summer,
when Erica and I,
we were still
just an idea.
A fantasy that I never thought
would become reality.
Before her feelings and thoughts
became my burden.
“Jamie,” she says,
her voice like air.
“It’s time for you to leave.”
After
she gave me her
secrets,
after
I gave her my
body,
she tells me
to leave.
She’s done
with me.
“Jamie, please.”
She starts to cry.
No sobs, no screams,
just streams of water
trickling from her eyes
in eerie silence.
I want her
to feel better.
I’ll do anything
to make her better.
I start to sit up,
grab my stuff,
leave as she directed me
until…
Oh.
Oh.
Oh.
That’s what I’ve done all along.
Giving in.
Giving her
my heart,
my hopes,
my want,
my happiness,
my body,
to manipulate.
Remember Me Page 4