After the Kiss (12 page)

counter girl conversation

she asks you how your day's been and you have to pause, take a second, because her face has something in it, looking at your face—like it's a real face wondering how your day
really
was, and not just an extra-friendly coffee girl chatting up the customers. she seems honest and hard-working and her skin is clear and her round hazel eyes are glossy and sharp, and you know you know her from here, but you're not sure you'd recognize her if you saw her on the street. her face knows your face but you do not really know hers. you have never seen it relaxed above real clothes, for example, only in this white t-shirt khakis-or-jeans look she has for the coffeehouse. you might not know her without her apron. she is still watching you with that intent look. apparently you have been talking for a couple of minutes without your knowledge, telling her about the puppies, telling her about reading french, saying nothing about the hideous baseball game you just left, about the sting of rejection that is probably still burning on your cheeks. it strikes you though—something about her—that maybe one day you could. she takes your money, hands you your coffee, your cake. and you find yourself sneaking glances at her now and then. there is something in her face today—looking so seriously at yours—that you don't know but want to.

Flirting with Disaster

It's like

dangling a steak in front of a Doberman:

she might lick your face,

she might

bite off your hand.

But what are friends for, if not a little

danger and sympathy?

So I finally tell Freya

about the redhead at the coffeehouse.

Maybe I want compassion

—maybe I just want

to see some blood.

The Plan

Freya says it's simple—

a classic kind of plan:

your friends close,

your enemies closer,

close enough to twist

the horrible knife plunged once in your back

immediately back

into her heart.

Iago's Daughter

The only way

to repay a traitor

—Freya says—

is to betray her.

It is

a good way too to get back at Alec,

a way to

show how tough

—how over him—

I am.

And though I am not sure

two untruths undo each other,

though this

befriend-her-then-bushwhack-her plan is

a plot more plausible

in one of Freya's magazines,

I want someone to hurt

and it might as well

be the girl who hurt me.

The Elephant at the Dinner Table

It's been

a couple weeks since my future

got snapped off like an icicle tip

and tossed in the street.

Mom is a lined forehead across from me,

a knobbed hand

against a pointed chin.

The ghosts of
Will you still do FSU now?
and

If not, where else do you think?
drift around us,

forlorn and silenced—unattended and

ignored.

My mouth is a hard line set against her,

but my response hides under the dinner table,

crawls deeper into my lap;

it is small and shivering, and I cannot

look at it—this fearful answer inside me:

I don't know.

If We Practiced

Looking around first period with new

—red-rimmed—eyes I see

how alone I still am.

Jenna—for example—I know only

because of roll call, how her

eyebrows press together briefly

before she half-whispers,
here
.

Like me she is mainly

head-down, back-hunched.

The only two girls in a class of

acne-scarred hopefuls, it is better if we don't

call too much attention to ourselves.

After lecture when we are

loosed outside onto the concrete and

allowed to disappear

through the illicit cords of our iPods

and the callous-building on our strings

she is

always farthest away on the steps

her body tall and long—a praying mantis girl,

whisper-singing to herself

so quiet, only she can hear.

Neko Case sticker on her notebook—

I imagine myself asking her about it,

maybe

ending up at the concert together

maybe taking down notes

—copying chords,

rehearsing after school, getting so good we

ask Mrs. Fram if we can use the recording stuff.

Jenna would show me how to work a slide.

We would play at Eddie's Attic.

I have time to rehearse now.

We could be really good.

If I could only get her

to look at me.

Puppetmaster

Next time I see the redhead

the fury hides

behind my tongue

twisting my mouth somehow

into a grin.

I'm a puppet of my own pretending,

a ventriloquist of deceit.

Cute jacket
comes from someone else's voice

—my voice—

my eyebrows in an attempt

at being sincere.

She shrugs one slim shoulder,

and I feel Freya's hands in mine,

wanting to wring her neck.

I never know what to wear in this weather,

the redhead says.

At least in Chicago it's always cold.

The marionette strings strain

as I hold myself back

from asking

if that's how she stays warm:

curling herself

up in the arms of other girls' boys.

At least you've always got coffee
comes out instead

—my own brightness blinding

my narrowed wooden eyes.

This tightrope between us,

a taut beginning, at least.

Later,

jerked-on joints propel me

to sneak her cup, wink,

and fill it for free.

When she lifts her face in thank-you

I almost have to use my two fingers

to prop the corners of my mouth

in a mirroring smile,

and not dump the coffee

right there

in her lap.

Balance

She bites her nails when she writes.

Her skin is

unfair,

not to mention the rest of her.

But I have this on her—her childish habit.

It is hard not to ask

what she is so nervous about

—what unholy thing she's done—

that drives her to chew her hangnails,

what dark part of her insides wants

to make herself

—at least a little—

ugly on the outside, too.

Night Shift

Eleven on Thursday and we have

the stereo booming

to some fabulous old rap.

The coffeehouse is finally closed,

and I have forgotten all about the redhead,

just doing our closing chores:

Nadia wiping the wine counter down,

Denver clearing the dishwasher,

me bopping with the mop

across the floor

pretending that I

know this song.

Seeing me

Nadia stops:

comes around the counter

popping her hips.

She screams the lyrics for me,

grabs my mop arm and

we start to swing.

Denver comes jumping

up and down from the kitchen

and we make a circle

one-two-three-and-the-mop

a goofy ring-around-the-rosy all the way down

to the sudsy floor,

both of them shouting dirty lyrics and laughing

until the song is over

until it's time to get back up.

I finish my mopping, head to the bathrooms

with my rubber gloves.

Nadia's cleaning

the cake cooler now.

Denver will go disinfect

the rest of the kitchen

while Nadia counts the money,

and we lock up.

We'll go to our own houses,

back to our own lives.

But on the sidewalk, saying good-bye, our faces are

beaming

—none of us sure

what happened in there, but

all of us obviously

insanely glad.

Surprise Flare

Just as I slide

in between the cold sheets, nestle

my clean, wet head onto a pile of down,

a quick thought flashes

across the back of my eyelids, an image so bright

and sudden

I almost gasp.

It is me kissing

a mouth that's not Alec's.

Another hand skimming my collarbone,

someone else's legs—Denver's—

wrapping around mine.

It is a comet of a thought:

fast and fleeting,

bright but brief,

and leaving a burning hot trail behind.

TGIF

Sliding into clean jeans,

a fresh turtleneck,

and having the clarity

—without coffee—

for a little mascara,

I look at the mirror and realize

it is Friday again.

Somehow

I not only know

what day it is, but also

I have reached

the end of another week without him,

with the wherewithal

for clean clothes

and a hairbrush.

Two weeks ago I could barely crawl

through the clouds of despair

clawing at my body,

making it hard to breathe—

no sleep

little food

nothing but pain.

Impossible

to stop crying

—impossible

to even take a shower.

But today my eyes are clear and

I care about my socks.

I've been

eating breakfast

for the last two days,

and my stomach growls now,

waiting for me to catch up.

It's a small triumph,

and there's farther to go,

but as I glance in the mirror

one more time

I see myself,

give myself

a tiny smile.

Two Girls at Loose Ends

It's Friday night,
Mom says,

home from her hospital shift,

seeing me

on the couch,

glaring at an issue of
Poets & Writers
I'm not enjoying.

What're you doing tonight?
she merrily wants to know.

When I shrug

—nothing—

suddenly the world tilts:

we are

calling Fellini's,

in the car to the video store,

come home with

her favorites—
You've Got Mail
,

a feta-onion-spinach pie,

a carton of Milk Duds, and

another movie with Cate Blanchett.

We are

quilt-pillows-pajamas-pizza pile

on the sofa together with our knees touching.

She is

a woman of delight I haven't seen in a while. I am

a relaxing version of myself

I haven't seen either.

empty

quick, without thinking about it too much, list all the things that are empty: coffee cups in the sink; a pair of dirty jeans on the floor; lockers on the last day of school; baby bottles sucked dry and tossed out of high chairs; playgrounds on rainy days; movie theaters at 8 a.m.; photo frames with broken glass; libraries after a fire; hands with no one to hold them; a dead woman's jewelry box; your mind when the sun is just right and the music is good and you've just sucked the last bite of cake from your fork; a car parked in an alleyway next to a jazz club, where everyone inside is smoky with sweat; taxis with off-duty lights; a long road in the middle of the texas desert; the sky of stars in space; the beach in winter; a stranger's eyes on the bus; both your inbox and your mailbox, of any message you might want to receive, save this—two lines from the catcher, cryptic and confusing, and yet maybe a comfort—
seeing you is too much. what about saturday?

the coffeecounter girl

—the one who's your age, the one you like seeing here because you know, like you, she doesn't quite fit in—has an anger in her throat, but her laugh comes out like a ribbon from her sometimes—the way she guffaws at the barista and can barely contain her crush behind her hand whenever that scruffy, impish college boy with the bandana for hair comes out of the kitchen, how she asks you every time how your day was, her smile a kind of bright that makes you want to squint. but when you are watching her and no one else is, she is placid and calm as a landscape painting, enjoys the sliding of warm yeasty things from racks to trays and from trays onto plates or into bags. her favorite is the heft of a muffin in her hand just before she squeezes it. she seeks the peaceful yawn of doughnuts, smiles at the hissful blissful steam of new coffee brewing. there is a buzz around her: the real baristas aswirl in their espresso steam, the children fingering the organic chocolates on display, the post-grads hunched in line, waiting for her itching for their coffee and their laptops, the cash register drawer with its merry bell. in all this her eyebrows are smooth and pleased even if her mouth is always turned down around the thing she still somehow can't bring herself to say.

yeah, that

what
about
saturday? you decide to sit on it, and don't write him back.

the amateurs

they took you in so fast you almost forgot for a while you weren't one of them, but now watching your friends get all weepy over plans for their last spring break you find yourself squarely outside them all again. willow's family has a house and everyone goes; apparently, they've gone every year—have gone since middle school—and now the volume rises as they start talking on top of each other, telling tales of old times, doing the
remember when
thing you'd already like to forget. this is their last year, this time will be the last time and even though it is still weeks away, it is apparently time to go shopping for new swimsuits and this is what's got them all wet.
you come with us
they plead to you, putting their hands on your knees and insisting how nice it will make things, your first time being their last, how you're already one of them, how it wouldn't be the same if you weren't there. you shake your head and smile sadly and say something about family, something about vacation your dad never gets to take. you will not go with them—will not really go anywhere—but at least you will not have to watch them flounder and fumble, wet-eyed and weak, first-timers at detachment. at saying good-bye.