After the Kiss (11 page)

Called Out

As the rest of my chemistry class

pulls desks together

for group problems,

Mrs. Baetz stops at my desk and

asks me into

her office

at the back of the room.

I have only been in here once before,

last year

when I assured her I understood

how far ahead I was

and she could help the others

without any guilt.

Now she is guilty-faced again and

leaning forward on her knees.

She wants to know

am I okay?

What I like about Mrs. Baetz is

how she leaves me

to do my thing,

so this intimacy is weird.

I am not sure

where to look.

I tell her I am fine.

On her desk

a stack of yesterday's tests, waiting.

Mine on top

—a sad, red C.

The numb feeling replaces

any shock or shame.

It could be anyone's test there;

what does she want?

Just personal stuff,
I finally give her,

and the chair squeaks

as she uncrosses her legs.

I can feel her

deciding about me.

I hope personal stuff now,
she finally says,

won't ruin your good future, Becca.

My head jerks up,

staring her full-on.

Now
was
my future

and it is already

very much ruined.

Bootstraps

When the phone rings after dinner I am

dry-eyed and empty on my bed,

staring at the ceiling

trying to pretend it's not Friday.

I am so startled I answer

without looking;

brother's
Heya kid

is a strange surprise.

You know he's a bastard
is the first thing he says,

and it is so embarrassing

(Mom told him)

and so sweet

(he's calling me)

that I laugh.

I start to ask him

why do boys do this?

What is the appeal

of someone shiny and new?

But instead he surprises

when he goes on:

I can also guarantee

he's pretty eaten up.

This gets my

attention,

and he explains how

—invisibly—

Alec's just as smashed-up as I am.

Because love wrecks us too, kiddo—

we just wear it different.

Sometimes

a lot worse,

because it's on the inside.

The thought of

Alec sad

makes me sad

but it also feels better,

and Ian telling me anything

about his hidden secret heart

is enough to make

a lot of other things go away.

We change the subject to roommates and classes

and then he says,
bootstrap time
before he hangs up.

It was our mantra together

when mom and dad got divorced

when we forged signatures,

learned laundry,

put ourselves to bed.

So since he actually called

—and will be here

for his spring break

in another

couple weeks—

I decide,

for my brother,

to grab my bootstraps.

It is time to begin

the hard haul up.

Sighting No. 2

Saturday and this time I am ready.

Although—

what they call her hair

is
a cascade.

No one really looks

like a shampoo commercial

except her.

Too bad that front tooth is chipped—her one flaw—I

wonder if she caught it on a button fly

or zip?

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Redhead (with apologies to Wallace Stevens)

i.

among twenty needy customers

the only moving thing i saw

was the eye of the redhead.

ii.

i was of three minds,

like a triangle

in which there are two couples.

iii.

the redhead whirled in the afternoon rush—

it was only a small part of her deceptive pantomime.

iv.

a girl and a boy

are one.

a girl and a boy and a redhead

are none.

v.

i do not know which to prefer,

the beauty of sheer rage

or the beauty of quiet repression—

the fake smiling

or the grimace behind her back just after.

vi.

condensation filled the long windows

with cloudy warm haze.

the shadow of the redhead

crossed it, to and fro.

the mood

traced in my shadowed face

an unmistakable hatred.

vii.

oh deceitful men of tucker,

why do you imagine golden redhead birds?

do you not see how the brown-haired sparrow

would still sing so sweetly

at your own feet?

viii.

i know noble friends

and knew a lucid, inescapable love—

but i know too,

that the redhead has become involved

in all i know.

ix.

when the redhead moved out of sight

she was always there at the edge

of one of many circles.

x.

at the sight of the redhead

leaving in green evening light

even the un-wronged

should cry out sharply.

xi.

she rode over decatur

in a glass coach.

once, hatred pierced her,

in that she mistook

the shadow of her next customer

for the redhead.

xii.

the traffic is moving

the redhead must be scheming.

xiii.

it was evening all afternoon.

it should have been snowing

and it was never going to snow.

the redhead sat, unknowing,

in the leather chair.

different environs

the coffeehouse is crowded today, not like last time when you had nearly the whole place to yourself and there was that thrumming cello music going on. but the crowd is a good thing, because it gives you something to watch: moms with strollers—ladies grabbing tiny hands filled with crumbs. one small boy in green corduroy overalls waves a squeezy boat over his head, squeaking, his mother reaching for it—her friend trying not to laugh. but it isn't just them here—the minions of motherhood—there are slumped guys with laptops and spike-hair and indie t-shirts and i-didn't-shave-today shaved faces. high school girls in their skinny jeans and high boots are here too, plus dough-faced women in outfits that want them to still be thin. everyone is talking, all talking—though the place is spacious enough so you can't really hear much of anyone—or else they're tapping at their keyboards like you, but the music is again good which helps you ignore everything, and the leather chairs all broad and deep, so even if there's someone sitting right next to you, you can half hide. if luli were here you'd be sharing a doughnut. she would agree with you that the tall guy with the tiny dreads and the buddy holly glasses behind the counter—his name tag says stan—is completely hot, and she would maybe notice like you the young girl back there, the one your age, the one who doesn't seem to know what she's doing, whose hand was shaking when she handed you your cake.

the hippie boys and their guitars

and their messy hair and their too-big pants and their little squinty eyes behind maybe a pair of spectacles or maybe just shining underneath heavy eyebrows—these boys and their mildew laundry oily hair patchouli smell, their filterless cigarettes and their open knees, hunched backs. they come in and they get their coffee and sneak eyes at the laptop guys, wondering which one of them might be cool enough to buy them a beer. they nod their heads at each other and stuff butts into ashtrays and move their crooked-teeth mouths together in laughing across the land from here to california to texas and new jersey and back. all around the nation you can hear their donkey laughter, their dirty-fingernail strumming, their weak-voiced courtings and murmurs, their converse sneaker shuffling, all of it blending together in one big stinky sad song of brotherhood.

blindsided

you didn't even have your laptop open—you were so far away from thinking about writing or memories or things you want to forget that it isn't—well, it is—funny. instead you had your head in your french book, your cake plate scraped clean and your coffee cup needing you to get up and buy a refill. you were an innocent bystander—you were not watching or listening as the black cadillac of memory came hurtling toward you, racing for the curb, leaping up to strike you full on and knock you down, leaving you coughing and collapsed in a haze of exhaust, its speakers still cooing that stupid, stupid song—that “girl from ipanema” that takes you back to that one afternoon in his dusky chicago bedroom every single goddamned time.

laney's new dog

when a new person comes in to look at the dogs they all know it, all their eyes going toward the door at the same time their black wet nostrils twitching long before you hear the heavy metal squeak of the hinges, before the jingle of lily's keys. you are never sure if you are supposed to disappear or not, should continue cleaning cages or jump up and make yourself vanish into the back room where there is a pile of metal dog bowls for you to wash. but you like to stay, to listen and to watch crouched down below eye level on the floor, wiping the same already-clean spot of the empty kennel over and over, your body taut and waiting like the medium-sized dogs—the ones who are excited and hopeful but know they need to hold themselves still to be really seen. they have all had their pictures taken, are all smiling their best smiles up on the shelter website and they know to bring them out today as the lady in the pale gray pants leads a little girl in a corduroy jumper by the hand. the girl is afraid of the dogs she is afraid to be here and the mother is exasperated in the first five minutes. this is not how she pictured it, not how she thought it was going to go.
come on laney we need to choose one honey. don't you want a dog at mommy's house too don't you want to help her pick a new friend?
but the girl has her own dog and she does not need a new one.
i want dapples,
she cries,
why can't
I bring him?
and you can see the slight curl in mommy's lip, the way she pushes her bangs back from her forehead and says that dapples is
daddy
's dog and mommy's new house needs her own—you can see just in that motion how it all went down between them, her thinking now that the idea of anything related to daddy crawling up into bed with her would be worse than eating live slugs. you see this in an instant—the dogs see it too—and you want to go over to the girl and put your hand on her shoulder and tell her gently there will be no bringing the family dog into a house now divided, to tell her she is a girl treading bridges now, suspended high over the jagged rocks where there are sharp winds—and that she can take it from you she will want a friendly puppy on either side to greet her. she will want someone who'll be there when she gets across, wagging his tail.

baseball reject

let's go back to the beginning, play it slow and stop at the essential moment—the moment he finally saw you sitting there. first, let's start with you actually looking up his school, squinting at the screen, finding the sports page and hunting down the baseball schedule, figuring maybe he's just been too busy and tired with practice, maybe it'd be cool of you to just show up at his game, casual and easy—you like baseball, you are interested but not too. then let's zoom in on your googlemapping skills, how you typed in the address off the opposing school (“games listed in red boxes are AWAY”) into the search bar and traced the white lines with your finger until you figured out how not-far it really was. let's focus on how you printed out that map, how you even smiled, picturing his face in pleased surprise—how you thought maybe after you could go grab some french fries, hang out a little more. we'll skip over the part about you driving, forcing yourself to stop at buddy's and get a giant coke, making yourself wait while all seventy-two oz. filled s-l-o-w-l-y so you wouldn't get there too soon, so that they'd already be playing when you arrived. we'll skip too over the wretched faces of his teammates (their devious delight), the snickers and the elbow shoves when you showed up. instead we'll play over and over again—that hideous slo-mo conversation: him trotting over after the
second inning, not even smiling, telling you it's not a good idea, he can't concentrate if you stay, then turning his back on you—not even waving—waiting for you to go. fast forward through you walking alone back to your car, slamming your head against the steering wheel, feeling the embarrassed—and embarrassing—pricks of shocked little tears. in fact, let's not even replay that. let's erase it instead.

baseball players are bitches

you never knew they were so much like women. girls, really. chattery, nasty, gossip-loving, rumor-hounding sixth-grade little girls. they might as well have pleated minis on out there, for all their gum-snapping, lip-smacking cattiness. if they'd ever been around him at the lake house you would've at least been warned. but they must've been too busy sticking their faces in each other's faces, their noses in everyone else's business. that he is their ringleader—that he's the one they look to—doesn't place him above them, it just makes him their queen.

and what about that?

the cackling shortstop, slapping the catcher on the butt as the team trotted from the dugout, lifting his smart-ass smile in your direction and congratulating the catcher on the grand-slam double-play?