Love and Leftovers (3 page)

making her toast,

washing her clothes,

buying her groceries,

and bringing her Kleenex.

Saturday at the Laundromat

My mother sleeps late

almost every day

because being asleep

is better than

being depressed.

On Saturday she forgets

that the fridge is empty,

our clothes are dirty,

and the towels smell

from too many dips in the bay.

So I pilfer change

from the cup holder of Dad’s car

(which Mom drove here to make him mad)

and walk three miles into town

with a pillowcase of laundry

over one shoulder.

Filling a washer

with my clothes, the towels,

and a few of Mom’s underthings,

I line up eight quarters

and slide them in all at once.

I sit outside the Laundromat

and watch the college students

walk by in UNH T-shirts,

miniskirts made from jeans,

and form-fitting sweats

with
wildcats
printed on the ass.

They seem dislocated—

as if they hope

that a large cappuccino,

ten pounds of art history books,

Jane Eyre
, and Toni Morrison’s
Song of Solomon

will help them find their way.

And looking at them,

I understand how they feel.

Lost.

Every Time Dad Calls and Mom Answers

she tells him that she doesn’t want to talk

but she doesn’t hang up.

She asks him:   How?   Why?   When?

As I listen in on the other phone,

he tries to explain

that he felt alone

in their marriage—

that they hadn’t been

close in a long time.

Mom informs him

that he is a husband

and a father

and that maybe he should

think about the people in his life

a little more.

He says

he wants to

see his daughter

and maybe she could think

about driving his Mustang back to Boise

sometime soon.

My mother goes ballistic

shouting swearing crying

until the mechanical voice

informs us,

“If you’d like to make a call,

please hang up and dial again.”

I Want to Ask Dad Questions Too

Why   is he gay now and not before?

Why   is this bartender guy so special?

Why   did he start down one road,

only to take the left fork

at the last minute?

Why   did he break up our family?

But when we’re talking on the phone,

my brain churns and my mouth opens,

but no questions come out,

as if my words are swept away by the tide.

“Are you there, Marcie?” Dad asks.

I let a few waves tug at the dock,

before I say, “I’m here.”

Even though I’m not.

I’m not home. I’m not with him.

I’m not even sure I understand.

“I love you, Sugar Cookie,” Dad says.

My eyes sting with almost tears,

and I want to ask him to say it again,

because I’m not so sure anymore.

“I love you too,” I say

before we say good-bye.

The First Day of School

My mother is awake,

making me pancakes

on the one burner

that still works.

I sit by the fire

in the potbellied stove,

fluffing my short brown hair

so it will dry faster.

“I can drive you to school,” she says.

But because she has adopted

that I-don’t-care-what-men-think approach

and is wearing two T-shirts

but no bra,

I say, “No thanks.”

I walk down our lane

and wait for the school bus

in solitude.

But the bus driver

doesn’t stop for me.

I contemplate running after it.

Then decide

that would be more embarrassing

than my mother.

The Second Day of School

I apologize to the principal

for my mother’s

airheaded moments,

like not registering me for school.

I tell him we drove to

the free clinic in Manchester

after the school secretary explained

that I needed a physical.

And that my mother

had forgotten

my immunization records

(back in Idaho)

and they had to be faxed.

And that is why

my first day of school

is everyone else’s

second.

Talk about Accents

People from Idaho

don’t really have accents.

We could all be news anchors

because we sound so vanilla.

People from New England

are another story.

My mother grew up here

with her sister, Greta.

She used to leave the
r
’s

off the ends of words that needed them (like
New Hampshire
)

and add them to words that don’t (like
idea
).

Yep, Mom used to say “I got an idear!

Let’s go to New Hampshah.”

Now, she just gets in the car and starts driving.

Mom got tired of people

not understanding what she said.

So she learned to talk

like a news anchor from Idaho.

The Teachers Hate

that I have messed up

their seating charts,

their textbook counts,

and the neat, alphabetized

list of names

in their grade books.

Each time I hope

that they will mangle

my old-fashioned name

so badly that no one

will know

what it really is.

“Martha Iris?”

a voice asks

in the hall

while I am trying

to find my history class.

I turn to say hi to

the first person my age

to acknowledge my existence.

A goth girl

with maroon lipstick

and once-black hair

that has faded to shades

of purple, gray, and blue

looms over me.

“Uh, hi—”

“Sam.”

“Hi, Sam. I’m Marcie.”

“I like Martha Iris better,

it sounds so eighteenth century.”

“Uh, thanks?”

I Know I Shouldn’t Put People in Boxes

or classify them into cafeteria table categories,

but I can’t help myself.

I can tell

Sam isn’t the type to sit with the jockettes.

Maybe with the drama freaks or the stoners.

Or maybe she is like me

and my friends back home

who don’t fit in anywhere.

Leftovers.

Maybe Leftovers can spy Leftovers

one hundred yards away.

And that is why she said hello to me.

But the problem is

I don’t want to be just any old Leftover.

If I can’t sit with my friends,

I don’t want to be a Leftover.

I want to fit in.

So, even though I spy

Sam’s multicolored locks

on the other side of the cafeteria,

I find a different table and ask, “Is this seat taken?”

hoping for the best.

Everyone is friendly,

but I can’t follow a single conversation.

It’s like they are continuing

their discussion from yesterday.

The girls talk about modeling class

and dressage horses imported from Ireland.

The boys reenact a soccer game

play by play, in excruciating detail

like sportscasters caught in an infinite loop.

Things I Left Behind in Boise, Poem 1:

MY BEST FRIEND

Katie is adopted.

And her parents are really cool about it.

They always told her that it’s okay

to be different—

from your parents,

from your peers—

and Katie took this to heart.

She has a collection of wild-colored socks.

She’ll wear one striped one,

and one argyle,

and look at you cross-eyed

if you say something.

She plays the bass guitar—

sometimes so loud the floor joists hum—

but mostly because it’s not a chick instrument,

and therefore totally different.

She’s taking Japanese for her foreign language

instead of Spanish like the rest of us

because she loves reading manga,

drawing pictures of the characters,

and writing and illustrating her own graphic novels.

Katie has blond hair, wide blue-gray eyes,

and the kind of figure guys notice,

which is all too ordinary for her tastes.

So she dyes colored streaks in her hair,

sometimes blue, sometimes pink.

And her very cool parents

even let her get a tattoo.

So one of Katie’s butt cheeks

has the Japanese word for love

gracing its curve.

Things I Left Behind in Boise, Poem 2:

MY BOYFRIEND

Linus is not adopted.

But sometimes he wishes he was

(by a different family).

He has three older brothers

two are in college (majoring in drinking and girls)

and the oldest, Roland, is a manager at McDonald’s

(who leaves his daughter at his parents’ house
  for Linus to babysit).

Linus walks in his brothers’ shadows,

but he isn’t loud and obnoxious,

nor a jock on the football team,

nor scraping by with Cs.

Unlike his brothers,

Linus is quiet, and genuinely sweet,

prefers music to team sports,

has a 4.0, and doesn’t have to shave.

This makes him the perfect boyfriend because he

holds my hand in the halls

and whispers little secrets in my ear,

writes me songs and sings them softly

while we rock Roland’s baby to sleep,

helps me with my math homework

and rewards right answers

with smooth-cheeked kisses.

Oh, and youngest siblings are the best because they

are never on their parents’ radar
and can do whatever they want,

are missing that switch
that turns them into bossy, older-brother jerks,

wear hand-me-down clothes
that are all soft and huggable.

Things I Left Behind in Boise, Poem 3:

MY FATHER

My father has always been

a little too good-looking

cleft chin | floppy bangs | clean-shaven

blue eyes | white smile | a touch of a tan

a little too well-dressed

cotton shirt | gabardine slacks | silk tie

wool sweater | cashmere scarf | leather jacket

a little too neat

knives | forks | spoons

paper | plastic | aluminum

a little too gay?

good-looking | well-dressed | perfect.

Things I Left Behind in Boise, Poem 4:

THE LEFTOVERS

My friends and I don’t fit

into any high-school sitcom caste system.

And we really don’t care.

We have each other,

even if the others think we’re:

too smart to be jocks,

Angelo is a geeky numbers guy

who is also on the swim team.

He’s both sincere and funny,

and a blast to be around.

too pretty to be losers,

Emily is a beauty.

She had a baby freshman year

and gave him up for adoption.

I used to want to be Emily.

Now I’m glad I’m not.

too nice to be popular,

Olive is a Girl Scout.

She goes camping with Brownies for the fun of it.

She’s happy and bubbly, and will be the best

camp counselor ever.

too self-conscious to be cheerleaders,

Carolina is compulsive about what she eats.