concerned,
a little sexy.
Not ignoring me.
The opposite of that.
“Yeah. I’m here.”
“So, you gonna tell me what happened
back at the parking lot?
Were you running away?”
“Shouldn’t I run”—
I try to make my voice sound teasing—
“from a bad boy like you?”
Now it’s my turn to listen to silence.
Moment follows moment, filled only with the sound
of blood swishing in my pressed-to-phone ear.
“I’m not bad,” Dave says at last. “There’s no such thing.”
“There are only boys
and girls
and good and bad situations.”
My heart reaches out to his words.
Is Steven bad?
Dangerous, certainly.
But will I ever know for certain
what his motives, morals are?
Does he?
Did my parents commit some evil to deserve this?
Did I?
As if I believed in such supernatural things,
as if I hadn’t trodden this ground a thousand times
in counseling sessions, been reassured
by nodding, liberal PhDs
with normal children.
How can they know?
They are not any smarter than my parents, than me.
I shake my mind from this dangerous path.
“Bad situations,” I begin my reply. “Like what to do
after you kiss a not-bad-boy in the dark by the pits.”
“I should’ve called before now, but—” Dave pauses.
I imagine him flicking his lighter,
spinning a beer cap between his finger and thumb.
“Hell, Daisy, even though we haven’t really hung out
in years, we’ve known each other
since before we could tie our own shoes.
It just felt . . .
I kind of don’t know what happened Saturday night.”
“Me either.”
“So now what?” he asks.
His question means that he doesn’t want nothing.
If he’d wanted nothing, he could have just pretended
not to see me speed away from school.
His question has begun an improvisation between us,
a call-and-response.
It’s my turn to pick up the melody, take responsibility
for our direction.
I imagine my trumpet in my hands, long for a sound,
a sentence, beautiful and clear.
Inhale.
What I think I want
is a dozen more nights of chilly lakeside kisses
without reflection or remorse.
What I say is,
“Meet up in the library tomorrow after school?”
“You. Me. The egg chair.” Dave’s voice sounds glad.
“I’ll bring the music.”
80
“Dinnertime, Daisy!”
Mom’s voice rises up, loud enough for me to hear
but in one of her practiced, modulated,
keep-the-peace tones.
As usual, I start down the stairs without calling back.
Don’t want to start a dialogue that might sound like
yelling,
might turn the night sour for Steven,
for us all.
“Sheila will be here soon,”
Mom says as she passes me a plate of leftovers,
her eyes bright as if she is offering candy.
Steven is already working on his slightly cooled
grilled cheese sandwich.
“Dad can meet us at the movie theater.
Thought maybe we’d catch the new Bond
and then go for ice cream.”
Sheila is what is known as a “respite caregiver,”
a glorified, qualified, brave babysitter who, for a price,
lets family members escape their eternal roles as
therapists, doctors, nurses,
to the disabled yet powerful rulers of their lives.
When you’ve been on the autism hamster wheel
long enough,
and if you have the cash,
you’ve paid for one sometime along the way.
Once Dad said the worst socioeconomic bracket
to be autistic in
was the middle class.
Yeah, we have granite countertops and a two-car garage.
We could theoretically take spring break trips to
warm places, Disney World.
I own a very nice, way-above-student-grade Bach trumpet.
But there is no budget, no program, no viable plan
to help us navigate through Steven’s world.
Just pamphlets,
“advice” to “make him part of our community”
and “foster understanding,”
admonishments about taking care of ourselves
along with our “special-needs family member”;
community groups laden with others like us,
trying not to complain—to cry;
education plans hard-won from cost-conscious,
understaffed public schools
who have had no more luck teaching Steven
to button and tie than my mother.
81
“Cool” is my one-word answer,
deep with the worry that Steven will hurt Sheila,
resonant with doubt that Dad will actually show up,
scoffing at the implication that a movie and ice cream
are part of any solution.
Mom raises one finely tweezed eyebrow, says nothing.
I push the food around my plate,
from the corner of my eye watch Steven bite, chew,
swallow.
Mom is quick to the door when the bell rings.
Sheila, fattish, slugs out of her gray wool coat,
tucks her scarf into one sleeve.
“Now, where’s my friend Steven?” she asks.
Mom smiles, leads the way.
“Remember, Steven, tonight we’re going to have fun
with our friend Sheila.
She’s going to play Blokus with you.
Here, Sheila, I have Steven’s game ready.”
“I remember Steven.”
Sheila continues Mom’s simple, steady cadence.
For the uninitiated, this is a technique called
“social stories”—a strategy used with autistic kids
to help model what a routine
or change in routine will be like.
There are even “social stories” books on how
to ride a bus or go to the store.
“I like Blokus, too, Steven. Let’s play Blokus together.”
Sheila lowers her wide ass onto the kitchen chair
beside Steven.
I feel an inexplicable wave of hatred shimmer through me,
wanting to scream “farce, farce” into this tragic display,
then remembering how much I wished
someone would give me lines
to say to Dave,
wondering if “social stories” could be written
to guide geekoid trumpet girls, too.
“And then”—lifting her tone brightly,
Mom catches Sheila’s eye,
points to two plates by the sink—
“you can have cookies.”
Sounds like we’re
fattening him, doesn’t it?
Like we ply him with cookies to buy his acquiescence?
Those cookies are laden with wheat germ and flaxseed oil,
all kinds of things to help Steven’s unruly gut.
He is chubby from all his meds,
but it’s not like anyone can force him to exercise
like we used to when he was smaller.
Dad kept trying to take him on weekend runs
even after he started turning off the route,
coursing toward the middle of streets
without regard for the rules and dangers of traffic.
The runs finally ended with Steven’s first pimple,
the first extra shower he had to take
because he stank of sweat.
“And Daisy and Dad and I will be home in no time,”
Mom finishes sweetly.
“See you later, Steven and Sheila.”
I follow Mom to the front hall.
Her eyes sparkle as she hands me my jacket.
“I can’t remember the last time
I saw a first-run movie in a theater.”
Neither one of us follows through to the evil endpoint
of this thought:
that when Steven moves away we can do this anytime.
“I thought, maybe, you had gone to see James Bond,
that maybe that’s where you were last night.”
Her voice is tentative,
as if she didn’t have a right to ask where I was
or to be angry at me.
But I want her to be angry
and toast my waffles
and say things that Shirley says to Justine—
“you’re only seventeen”—and not just tell me
I’m late and then shut her mouth, or rush off to yoga
and not ask if I “approve” of huge decisions.
I want her to tell me something is better—or worse—
not merely “best for the family”;
to tell me how she feels about things.
Somehow, somewhere along the way,
all the autism experts’ plans
outlining how to model social interaction,
appropriate behavior, life skills for Steven, flip-flopped,
and instead
my brother has taught the rest of us
to never show what we feel.
Maybe not to feel at all.
But right now I do feel angry.
Right now I want
to dive into Mom’s arms and tell her I’ve been kissed—really kissed—
and that I’ve tasted beer and felt my heart skip
and am worried because I don’t know
if Justine’s boyfriend is right for her,
and I don’t know if Dave is mine . . .
But “I hear it’s a good one,” is how I answer my mother.
Dad meets us at the movie theater entrance,
wallet already open,
and buys us three movie tickets.
As Mom says to Dad,
“Daisy tells me this should be good,”
Dave’s words echo back to me:
There are no bad or good people,
only girls and boys
and good and bad situations.
82
“I don’t know if there’s time for ice cream,”
Dad says as we walk back to the car.
“And Daisy was out late last night.”
“Ted.” Mom tucks her hand in the bend of his elbow.
“We agreed to trust.”
“I kind of do feel like ice cream,” I say.
I want to be as contrary as my kohl-ringed eyes,
which they refuse to comment on.
And, angry as I am, some part of me also wants
the smile on Mom’s lips,
the interlacing of my parents’ arms
to last as long as possible.
“Okay, takeout,” Dad says,
glancing only once at his watch.
I am rewarded by Mom’s girlish giggle
as vanilla drips over the edge of her cone
onto the sleeve of her faux fur coat.
Dad grins as he dabs at it with a paper napkin.
I sit in the rear of the car on the way home,
watching the backs of my parents’ heads
tilt slightly toward each other in the front seats.
Tell myself to trust,
maybe forgive them
just a little.
83
It is not until I see Cal
in jazz band on Tuesday morning
that I realize I’ve booked myself an awkward afternoon:
a three o’clock Dave-and-Cal-and-me library triangle
that certainly won’t fit into the oval egg chair.
I slide the mouthpiece onto my trumpet,
wishing I’d realized this soon enough to call Justine
and get some advice on unraveling the mess I’ve made.
But no, I am on my own,
trapped between Cal’s quick grin
and the back of Dave’s messy-perfect head
leaning against the band room window.
84
Time always goes too fast in jazz band.
Today is no exception.
We wrap with a swing medley of Christmas tunes
I usually enjoy,
though I pretty well trash my feature in “I’ll Be Home
for Christmas,”
rushing through like a squawking beginner.
I am trembling from my lips to my toes.
Cal is careful packing up his instrument,
so it’s easy to shove my trumpet case on the shelf,
escape the band room before he has the chance to talk
to me.
Dave is smiling, eyes closed, earbuds in,
listening to a tune, softly mouthing the words
as though this hall were empty
of the throngs of hair-swinging,
style-judging, ball-tossing,
book-worming high schoolers.
Hey, la-la. It’s gonna be okay today.
Hey, hi-hi. It’s gonna be all right tonight.
I recognize the refrain.
It’s a song by one of those folksy rock groups
whose name is some random combination
of nonprimary color and funky notion:
Black Rainbow,
Gray Fantasy,
Shining Obsolescence.
Not unlike the Irish ballads
Dad used to sing for my lullabies:
The lyrics are a mixture of anger and reassurance,
hurt and heart,
and if they have no conclusion,
they just fade the tune away.
I envy rock musicians’ escape into refrains,
into mantras of easy words
to validate their drumbeats and oft-simple melodies.
Sometimes, it seems to me that lyrics turn pure sound
to lies—
the words forced to fit music that says so much more
when left
unexplained.
I tap Dave’s shoulder.
He doesn’t startle as he opens his eyes,
takes in my made-up face,
my somber sweater and jeans.
“Hey there, Daisy-brains. You’re looking dark today.”
“I can’t meet you in the library this afternoon.
I mean, I’ll be there,
but I’m supposed to do some tutoring and . . .”
My tumble-rush of an excuse
for something that’s really perfectly innocent
comes with the heat of a rising blush
that turns my shivers to sweat.
“It’s okay,” he says, grabbing my damp hand.
“How about we pick up again Saturday night,
back at the lake?”
I nod.
It’s that easy.
“Catch ya at lunchtime, too, maybe.”
Dave pushes away from the wall,
slides his hand behind my neck,
brushes his mouth against mine just as Cal comes out
of the band room.
I see the Irish edges of his upturned lips go straight.
He turns the opposite way from Dave and me.
Never that easy.
85
In A-PUSH, Justine passes me a folded magazine page.
A model poses in torn black tights and a plaid pinafore.
“Goth and Prepster meet in the middle?”
is scrawled in Sharpie across the top.
I turn from Mr. Angelli’s unemotional recounting
of the horrendously bloody Battle of Antietam
to give her a giant smile.
Justine—my best friend—child of divorce,
expert in compromise,
all-around hilarious girl.
If she likes Ned, I’ve got to give him a chance.
I know she’s already doing the same for me and Dave
even without my asking,
even without my knowing
what “me and Dave” really means.
“Dave asked me out for Saturday night,” I whisper.
A squeak emerges from Justine,