Because “germs are not our friends!” Alexi proclaimed.
Leading us from the bathroom
Back into the kitchen
Where her barn boots left dusty prints edged with alfalfa on the linoleum
First their mom
Then their dad
In from work
In from chores
Shaking their heads and laughing at the three of us
Alexi sitting on the counter
Separating the green M&M’s
Because they were special
The best
And had to be eaten before the rest went in the cookie dough
Asia and I sifting and mixing and measuring
With the precision of preschoolers
Enlisting Blue and Cow as our official taste testers
Alexi rolled a lump of dough
Into a ball
Flattened it with her palm before
Giving it two eyes
a nose
an M&M mouth
Cooking it until the edges started to brown
“For you,” she said.
When it came out of the oven
Which meant I couldn’t say no
Not with Asia watching me
So I took one bite
Then two
Leaner
Lighter
Faster
Knowing I shouldn’t
But Asia’s shoulders relaxed
With each bite I took
Which made it worth it
Let me believe
That if I can do this
Then maybe anything
Even forgiveness
Is possible
What I Didn’t See
That good feeling from last night is still hanging around my shoulders
It followed me out the door from Asia’s house
All through today
Fills me with confidence as I pick the plate of cookies wrapped in foil
Off the seat of Asia’s truck
Where I’d left them until I saw it pull in
Cody’s rusted-out, dented-in orange truck and horse trailer
Parked on the other side of the arena
Knowing that on Saturdays the team ropers practice right after the barrel racers
Sure that Cody and Micah are pushing the steers in from the pasture
And into the pens
Where they’ll funnel through one at a time
Dashing and skipping away from the cowboy’s loops flying through the air
Sure that Cody was there watching just a few minutes earlier
When Fancy and I set the pace
Raised the bar
With our time
Best so far this season
Certainly earning her the coffee-can scoop of molasses sweet grain she’s munching
Standing in the grass next to the trailer
Where I leave her
Setting off to find Cody
Looking to the pasture I see Asia on Scuba with Micah running alongside
Chasing behind the steers
Their hollering and slapping
Mixing with the rumbling of the hooves
Muted by the dust
Small beneath the sky stretching empty and blue
I see the red of the ball cap
With the frayed bill kneaded round
Bobbing on the other side of the green metal panels
Knowing before I see him
That he’ll be fidgeting around at the gate
Ready to clang it shut behind the train
of black
white
red
rangy brindled hides
Knowing before I see him
That his white cotton roping gloves will be dangling out of his back pocket
That his breath will smell like the cinnamon gum he cracks when he rides
And that inside his boots, he’ll be wearing his lucky socks
red
same as the color of his hat
Same as the color I see
When I turn the corner and see
Her
In his hat
Working the gate
With him leaning
On the panels beside
Her
Leaving me seeing only the red
Filling up my mouth
Drowning
Dropping that good feeling that was hanging around my shoulders
Into the dirt
With the cookies
And the trust
Teddy Bear Buddy
Carpet squares and finger painting
Picture books and graham crackers
All I’d have to give up would be my lunch period
Fifty-eight minutes of wondering where to set
My tray
My words
Myself
Next to
Across from
The space I’ve created
Behind walls of assumption
Bricks mortared with suspicion
Unfounded
Between Cody and me
Under the guise of altruism, I flee
Across the parking lot into the building where the classrooms
Are decorated with dancing numbers
Where words are formed with letters shaped like animals
And being in high school makes me an adult
In the eyes of the students
Who haven’t grown into the honor roll yet
Their progress charted with gold stars
By teachers wearing clogs and yarn sweaters with matching turtlenecks
Mrs. George
Smelling like lavender in her sturdy shoes and cardigan
Secretary and nurse all in one
Hugs me over the counter in the principal’s office
Asking how it is
with me
my dad
that lovely girl Asia—always tighter than two peas in a pod, we were
Pinning to my shirt a tag shaped like a teddy bear
With the words “Reading Buddy”
Printed across the bear’s tummy in bubbly letters
“So sweet of you to give up your lunch hour,” she says.
Directs me down the hall
Papered with pictures
Watercolor over crayon
Scenes of spring with rainbows
And clouds shaped like cotton balls
Into room two
Where Miss Dixon
Who’d parted my hair and combed it smooth
Weaving it into braids she’d tied with plaid ribbons
While the rest of the class was streaming through the door
Swinging lunch boxes and book bags
Knowing that the hands chapped dry by the sun and the wind
That could wrestle a steer
And hug his little girl into a smile
Got tied up and confused with a brush and barrettes
Sat on the rug
Beneath the dancing numbers
Singing about spring and rainbows and clouds shaped like cotton balls
To eighteen kindergartners
Smaller than I could have ever been
Introducing me like a celebrity to my audience on the floor
Beckoning to a little girl sitting apart from the circle
The only one whose name I don’t know
The only one not smiling
The only one interested in her shoes
Miss Dixon hands me a stack of books and expectations
For this little girl
So interested in her shoes
Who follows me to a corner
Where we sit on bean bags the color of lima beans
And read about dinosaurs on skateboards and penguins on skis
That aren’t nearly as interesting as her shoes
Somewhere between the dinosaurs and the penguins
I notice that her braids
Streaked with sun
Are tied with plaid ribbons
Suddenly I want that dinosaur to make her smile
More than anything
For those penguins to make her look up from her shoes
And her socks
One yellow and one pink
The colors of spring
But they don’t
So I leave the books and expectations on Miss Dixon’s desk
With a promise
Not sure if she heard
Or cared
So interested in her shoes
My teddy bear buddy
That I’d be back
That Kind of Friend
We’ve never fought
Not ever
Even now we’re aren’t really fighting
Mostly because I won’t
I’m not the kind of friend
Who gets mad and yells
Over things that don’t mean anything
Or everything
Sitting on the couch with our legs tucked under us tight
The cushion in the middle
Where our feet would usually tangle
Occupied by Asia’s white patched cat
With extra toes who drools when she sleeps
Who usually never gets to lie on the furniture
Until now
Holding the space between me and Asia
Alexi and her cousin Anna Jay
Lie on the floor
Side by side
In their construction paper headbands with rabbit ears
Colored pink and white
Dressed for their sleepover
In matching yellow pajamas with ducks
Somersaulting across the pants
Slumber party twins
Filling in the charts in their 4-H notebooks with felt-tip pens
Following the growth
Pound by pound
Of their rabbits
Growing up strong for the fair
Leaving the living room silent and stiff
When they skip off
To a night of
Sleeping bag stories
Flashlight wars
Night-light giggles
Asia’s dad pads into the living room in his wool socks and sweats
Hands us mugs of hot cocoa with cookie lids
Gingerbread chocolate chunk
Absorbing the steam and the heat from the cocoa
Leaving the middles gooey
If he notices the cat
Sprawled on the cushion
Absorbing the space
Made by me
Not being mad
At Asia
Not understanding why
The red is still filling up my eyes and mouth
Making it impossible for me to swallow and bow back
Into the four
That’s now only three
He doesn’t say anything except
“Good night.”
As he picks up one of the coffee table magazines
Filled with articles on raising cattle
Plumped slow on hay and grass
Special-ordered by grocery stores called co-ops
Where customers carry their purchases home in fabric bags
With pictures of the world and evergreen trees on the front
Willing to pay more for meat grown
Organic
Clean
Leaving me and Asia staring over our mugs at each another
Since I’m not the kind of friend who gets mad and yells
Over things that don’t mean
Anything
Or everything
I fill up the space talking about my teddy bear buddy
And how much the dinosaurs on skateboards mean to her
Not mentioning how she stares at her shoes
Or the plaid ribbons in her hair parted smooth and straight
“It’s been almost a week,” Asia interrupts.
Angry about my teddy bear buddy
About me
Leaving her to sit across the lunch table from Cody
To laugh too hard
Talk too much
To make up for the fact that there are three instead of four
“You don’t have to do that, you know. Because I don’t care about you not eating,” she says.
I didn’t even realize
I’d been poking the cookie
Piece by piece
Into my mug
With my thumb
Because the not being mad
Or worried
About anything
Everything
Is filling my heart
Leaking into my stomach
Leaving it too full
For the chocolate and the gingerbread
Falling into the mug
Floating
Breaking apart
Sinking
Just Confused
My legs are stuck to the seat of the truck
Not really
But they might as well be
Asia’s already out of the cab with the truck box popped open
Fishing around for her backpack until her arm gets distracted
When she sees Cody and Micah pull into the parking lot
And waves
There’s an empty spot next to us
I know that’s where he’s heading
Cody, pulling his rusted-out, dented-in orange truck
Through the grid of rigs
Strung through with people
Cody’s truck rolls closer
My legs are still stuck
Because this really isn’t a big deal
Asia said he isn’t mad
Just confused
I keep repeating that to myself
Isn’t mad—Isn’t mad
As he pulls in
It doesn’t matter that I don’t get out of the truck
Because Cody comes over and opens my door
My legs slide around
My feet find the pavement
He should be angry about how jealous I’ve become
But Asia is right
Cody’s eyes are confused
Which makes me feel even worse
About how I’ve been
Acting
Somehow
It doesn’t seem
right
to let my hand
slide
across the
Space
I’ve created
When I know he wants to pull me close
I wish I knew how many words it will take
To wipe away the hurt
My paranoia created
All this silence makes it hard to breathe
So I throw words
Into the still
I’m sorry I got so jealous.
Cody’s face relaxes
He unfreezes his eyes from the straight-ahead place he’s been staring
So I keep going
I know you’d never—
“Then why—”
I don’t know. I’m sorry though. Really sorry.
We k
eep walking
Balancing along the edges of the hole I created
“I don’t know what your problem is lately,” Cody says.
His voice sounds distant
Which is where I’ll be if I can’t make this right
I don’t know either, I say.
“You’ve gotten so—” Cody stops walking and stares at the sky.
Crazy, I finish.
Because maybe this is what crazy feels like
Having another version of yourself living under your skin
Another person who pops out at all the wrong times
Says all the wrong things
“Crazy?” Cody’s mouth starts to smile at the joke I didn’t know I made
Maybe.
“Yeah, you’re crazy all right. Crazy wonderful.”
Cody reaches out and pulls my hand out of my pocket
We stop walking and face each other
“Just trust me, okay?”
And I do
Trust him
As much as I trust anyone
Dislocated
It isn’t until we walk into the building
That I see Micah
Specifically
His arm
Cradled
In a sling
He and Asia
Are sorting through textbooks
Stacked tall in her locker
Her words rising over
The cacophony of the pre-A-block rush
“I can’t believe you didn’t call me!” Asia is saying.
“It happened pretty late,” Micah replies.
Sheepish
As he hands her a physics text
“Or because he didn’t want to tell her what really happened,” Cody laughs
as we stop at his locker
half a wall down from Asia’s
What did?
Cody spins the combination
pops the door open with his elbow
grabs a binder from the top shelf
“Kyler wrestled him out of her tree house,” he says
punctuates the statement with the slam of his locker door
“Missed the rope ladder and landed on his shoulder when he hit the ground.”
It’s not funny
When someone gets hurt
So I try not to smile
Mission impossible
Picturing Micah’s little sister
Forever in John Deere boots and pigtails
Standing, arms crossed at the entrance to her tree house
The fortress Micah couldn’t break
“Yep. That little girl kicked your ass, didn’t she?”
Cody makes like he’s going to pop Micah on the shoulder
As we catch up to him and Asia
Still sorting through books
“At least it’s not broken,” Micah says.