Exposed (7 page)

“Is that what she said?” His voice cracks.
“What else did she say?”

I say nothing.

He stands up fast, his chair falling to the floor.
“Lizzie! Holy shit! I would never do that!”

My father appears in the doorway.
“Your mom’s not feeling well! Quiet down!”

Mike turns to him.
“Dad, Kate told Liz a bunch of lies about that night.”

“Lizzie?” Dad moves toward me.
“What did she say?”

“Nothing! She said nothing!”

I push past him and run to my room
trying to remember something—
trying to remember if Kate said no.

Thinking When Drinking

Maybe he thought
if she didn’t say no
that meant she was saying
yes.

I know she didn’t want it
but maybe he thought she did.

Back to School

In the corner of the main lobby
before Tuesday’s first bell,
Amanda, Dee Dee,
and other girls drawn to drama
crowd around Kate, hugging her,
whispering in her ear.

Her body is tight and I know
the last thing she wants is a pity party.

I want to rush over,
take her hand, pull her away.
But I didn’t make the guest list.

News Is Spreading

Determined to prove I can handle this
I walk to class chin up,
even though Kate won’t talk to me,
even though I look like the bad guy—
same high-set cheekbones,
same cleft in our chins.

I’ll Never Be Able to Make Up for This

I’ll join Habitat for Humanity.
I’ll bring food to the hungry.
I’ll teach the illiterate to read.
I’ll walk for miles, barefoot,
to raise money for sick children.
I’ll volunteer every weekend
at the Seaside Home for the Elderly.
I’ll even donate every drop of my blood.

But will the hospital
take blood
from me?

Wednesday’s Child

Dee Dee finds me
in the art room,
chin down,
avoiding the cafeteria.
“Are you okay?” she asks.

I am so grateful for concern
that it takes all my effort not to cry.
All I can manage is a shrug.

She tells me everything will work out and
I know that’s the biggest of fattest lies,
but I grab on to it anyway.
“I hope you’re right,” I say.

She squeezes my arm and leaves.
She doesn’t ask me to join her
in the cafeteria.
She doesn’t offer to eat her lunch
here with me.
She doesn’t tell me that she’s on her way
to have lunch with Kate,
even though
I know she is.

Passing Notes

Amanda passes me a note in homeroom
and I open it,
happy that she’s trying to make a connection.

Kate dropped out of dancing
and her mom’s taking her
to a therapist next week
.
Just thought you’d want to know
.

I’m glad Kate’s going to therapy
but the fact that she quit dancing altogether
makes me want to cry.

And the fact that Amanda sits there
all smug with her insider info
makes me want to shove
this note down her throat.

But I take the paper
and those feelings,
fold them up tight,
and tuck them away.

Holding It Together

“I’m fine, thanks,” I say
every time Mrs. Pratt asks how I’m doing,
a smile pasted on my face
with Please-God-Save-Me Glue.

Gossip

I’m at the library after school
cramming for a physics test.

I look up and see
Jen Millson and Sari Cobb,
two girls I hardly know,
in the stacks near my table.

They’re talking about Mike.

They say he had a knife
and that he told Kate
he would slice her up
if she tried to scream.

I walk over to them,
but before I can say
“He did
not
have a knife!”
they grab their books and check out.

My Muse

When I get to Mrs. Pratt’s room today
there’s a quote
written in bright blue marker
on the assignment board beside her desk.

Everyone has a point of view
.
Some people call it style
,
but what we’re really talking about
is the guts of a photograph
.
When you trust your point of view
,
that’s when you start taking pictures
.

“Who said this?” Mrs. Pratt asks us,
tapping the marker against the board.

Before most kids finish reading the quote
I say, “Annie Leibovitz,”
my favorite photographer.

“Very good, Liz.”

She tells the others
what I already know about Annie—
how she’s most famous
for her portraits of celebrities,
how she takes risks with her art.

“Now it’s your turn to take risks,” Mrs. Pratt says.
“I want you each to create a self-portrait
that says something about you—
that shows the world your point of view.”

Self-Portrait

At the end of class
I tell Mrs. Pratt I can’t do this.
She says, “Yes, you can.”

“I’ll just throw a bag over my head
and take the shot.
Is that what you want?”

She matches my hard glare
with warm eyes.

When I read the syllabus
back in September
I couldn’t wait to get to this assignment.

Now it’s here and I don’t want
to turn the lens toward me.

And He’s Off

It’s Thursday,
and when I come home
Mike’s not here.

Uncle Nate told Mom and Dad
there was no need
to put everything on hold until the trial.

So Mike’s gone back to Millbrook—
to his dorm,
his friends,
his life.

Friday

On my way to gym
I see kids
moving over
to the left side of the hall,
the right side
blocked
by three orange pylons
and Mr. Frick,
the janitor,
with his long, wide broom.
“Careful of the glass, kids,”
I hear him say.

I get closer
to where he stands
and nearly trip
over the gray rock
that shattered the display case
containing the homage
to my brother’s feet.

Biological Germs

All week long the kids at school—
even the Nuisance
and Zero P—
look at me
and don’t look at me
and stay as far away
from me
as possible.

Good-bye, Photogirl.

Hello,
Sister of a Rapist.

Changes

I come home to find my mother
in Mike’s room
on the edge of his bed,
her hand smoothing over
the worn denim comforter.

I want to keep going but she looks so …
“Mom?”

She lifts her head and says,
“Hi, honey.”
Her voice soothing, soft, sad.

“Mom, are you okay?”

“I’m okay, sweetie,” she says,
looking down again to trace
the stitching of the spread with her finger.
“Everything will be okay.”

She stands,
smooths out the spot she rose from,
and asks how school was.

“It was fine, Mom.
Just fine.”

Painted Ponies

When the ferry docks
in Vineyard Haven
I take the island bus
to Oak Bluffs
and head up the street
to the Flying Horses Carousel
to get a shot
through a dirty window
of horses with no riders
brass ring out of reach.

Dead

Like an unprotected photograph,
some friendships fade.
People grow apart, lose touch,
want different things.
Dreams, woven together,
unravel.

But losing Kate
eats away at me
like a dirty old gull
picking at fresh prey.

Some days
I want to scream at that bird,
“I’m not dead, you stupid thing!
Leave me alone!”

Other days I lie there,
making no sound at all.
An offering.

Like Syrup on Sunday

Brian’s on break next to me
in a booth near the kitchen.
We’re sharing a heaping pile
of blueberry pancakes,
listening to his dad grilling
one of the new cooks.
“Is over easy too hard for you, Shandling?
Is your brain as scrambled as this order?”

A baby two booths down
wants no part of her high chair
and lets everyone on Cape Cod know.
A tray of silverware clatters to the floor
and a group of men laugh so hard
one shoots coffee out his nose.

I dip my last bit of breakfast into a
dark brown pool of sweetness
and let the sounds of normal
soak in.

Lather, Rinse

I head down the aisle in CVS and
when I reach out to grab a bottle of Pantene,
Kate’s mom comes around the corner
swerving just quickly enough
to avoid collision.

The shampoo thuds to the floor
and rolls a foot away.
We both watch it go and come to a stop
before our eyes meet.

“Hello, Liz.”
Stiff, formal.

“Hi, Carol.”
Done.

She walks toward the prescription counter
as I hightail it to the exit,
the bottle of shampoo
still in the middle of aisle 9.

What does she think of me, this woman
who taught me how to make cookies from scratch?
Does she hate me? Blame me?
Does any part of her miss me?

Hallway Traffic

Amanda and Dee Dee both make
a high-speed attempt at smiling at me
and keep on going.

I know Kate can’t stand
the sight of me.
I shouldn’t be surprised
that they choose
to follow her lead.

I’m really starting
to hate them all.

But Most of All

I hate myself
because if I’d kept
my big mouth shut
there would have been no fight
no reason for me to go upstairs
and leave her
alone.

Mixed Emotions

I’ve seen these girls around school.
They’re juniors, I think,
and they’re too busy eating french fries
and talking about guys
to notice me in the booth behind them.

I’m waiting for Brian to go on break,
pretending to work on an English essay,
and listening to them as they spin out a list
of the hottest guys they know.

“Mike Grayson’s cute,” one of them says,
and I force myself not to lift my head.

“How can you say that?” the other girl asks.

“My brother used to run track with him
and I talked to him once when he hung out at my house.”
“Really? Wow!”
“Yeah,
really
! There’s no way he did that.”
“You’re probably right.
He doesn’t look like a rapist to me.”

I let out a sigh, then swallow hard.

Relief and disgust
are two emotions
not easily blended.

Undercover

“No one’s really talking about it.”
“
Of course
I’d tell you if they were.”

I’m amazed at how smoothly these words
slide off my tongue,
a sled on a well-groomed hill.

The softening of lines on my mother’s brow as I say them,
the way my father pats, then squeezes her hand,
is worth the shards of ice that slice
just beneath the layers of white.

Some Sailor

As I walk by the bridge
Dad waves and I wonder
how my father,
capable of navigating a trillion-ton boat
in all kinds of weather
and pulling her safely into port,
will steer his family
through this storm.

New Route

I imagine the ferry
making a sharp turn south,
her motors churning out
a wake of raging foam,
me
at the helm
heading for open water.

Sunday, November 16

Three a.m. beams blue
from the periwinkle clock
on the nightstand by my bed.

Four weekends since
our last and final
Saturday Night Slumber

Wide awake.
No slumbering here.

Portfolio Day

I should be glassy-eyed and cotton-headed
after a sleepless night,
but I’m pumped with adrenaline
as I enter the Hynes Convention Center.

This place is nuts.
So many kids, so many portfolios
so many lines, so little time.

I planned ahead,
got the layout of the hall online.

The woman from Parsons
has gray hair pulled back in such a tight bun
that for a moment I imagine
the skin on her forehead might tear off.
Her red eyeglasses hang
from a silver chain around her neck.

She just grinned at the girl in front of me
and said, “You’ve got your work cut out for you, dear.”
I turn to watch the girl walk away
with her portfolio between her legs.

The woman tap, tap, taps her magnifying glass
against the table to get my attention.

“Do you have something to show me?”

The zipper sticks, and she lets out a sigh,
but them a “hmmm”
as she flips through the pages
of my portfolio.

“Not bad. You might want to
make this one a bit bigger,
and your matting could be a little neater,
but not bad at all.”

My zipper sticks again
as I try to close the portfolio
and I hear her tapping.

But when I look up she gives me
a wink and a smile.

Warped Sense of Normal

For a few weeks things fall
into this strange rhythm.

I go to school
eat lunch with Brian
pretend that Kate
isn’t sitting across the room.
I go to work
helping Randall
who at this rate will never
handle in-season crowds.
I go home
tell my parents
about my college applications
my high SATs.

And sometimes
if I try real hard
I can make myself believe
there’s nothing left to say.

But …