We’re in front of a food cart in the middle of the market. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh my god—so good!” Ebony buys a plateful of vegetarian samosas.
We sit side by side on a bench. She holds the paper plate between us. “Careful,” she says, biting off two corners of a samosa. She blows gently into one hole, forcing steam out the second. “Hot!” she says, bugging her eyes out.
“These are good,” I agree. I love samosas, but Maya’s are amazing. Potatoes, onions, peas, cilantro, a bit of curry, something peppery…“Oh, yum!”
Ebony carefully nibbles her way into the hot filling. “So, you going to tell me about this David boy?”
“Not so much to tell, really.”
“How did you meet?”
I blush. “It’s kind of a lame story.”
“No such thing as a lame story when it comes to looove.”
“You haven’t heard it yet…”
“So tell me.”
“Everybody at my school knew David. He’s a really good soccer player and he’s also smart and funny—and, you know, self-confident.”
Ebony grins. “Sounds like Mr. Perfect.”
“Almost.”
“Have another one before I eat them all. So he went to your school and you and every other girl thought he was amazing. How did you—?”
“We were at this dance. A group of us girls—we were all dancing together. Then about four of the soccer players joined us—and somehow David and I started dancing.”
Ebony waits for me to go on.
“This is going to sound so bad—”
“I doubt it. We’ve all been there.”
“It was hot, so after three dances we went outside to cool off. He said he liked the way I moved—”
“Oooh…”
“And he asked me if I needed a drink—”
“I bet you did—”
“Well, yeah. So we went back to his car and I gulped this beer down way too fast and then…”
Ebony giggles. “Okay, I get it.”
“I don’t. Not really. I always thought I was the kind of girl who wanted to have a conversation first—Shut up! It’s not that funny!”
“Sorry. So you guys did it in the parking lot?”
My head feels like it’s going to fall off. What am I doing telling her all this? “Well, more or less.”
“And?”
“What, and?”
“You must have liked more-or-lessing with him—you kept seeing him, right?”
“Yeah. We were together two years.”
“That’s a lot of more-or-lessing!”
She’s right. We spent a lot of time more-or-lessing.
“Did you like it?”
Oh god. Why did I let her start down this path? Yes, I liked it. A lot. It was the best part of our relationship. It wasn’t like he was into poetry, and I don’t think I ever watched a whole soccer game. How sad is that?
Ebony ignores my failure to answer and keeps right on going.
“Because there’s nothing wrong with enjoying yourself. Why should guys have all the fun?” She chomps down on another samosa. “Oh. My. God. These are so good. We should try to make them sometime.”
“Really? Do you really think that?” I ask.
“What—that we should make samosas? Or that girls can like sex as much as boys? I’m not going to speak for everyone, but sure—I mean, as long as you’re careful and everybody plays nice and you both want to…”
I can’t believe we’re having this conversation sitting on a Camden park bench. Mom would be horrified.
“Not everybody agrees,” I say.
“Who cares? You’re not trying to make other people happy. That’s the fast road to hell, if you ask me.”
“Split the last one?”
We tear the last samosa down the middle and sit side by side, chewing.
“It’s not fair what some people say about girls like us,” Ebony says, wiping her fingers on her jeans.
I know exactly what she means. “There’s a difference between lusty and wicked—”
“Stop! You should write that down!”
“I’ve wanted to do a poem about this forever,” I confess.
“Say it again.”
“There’s a difference between lusty and wicked…”
“How about this—Who says that lusty implies some kind of wicked? Is it better when you start with a question?”
“What do you think?”
“Maybe. Then you could go on with something like, are lusty women lewd or—”
“Lascivious,” I suggest.
“Lascivious?”
“Too hot for your own good.”
“Hang on. Let’s write this down.”
I pull my notebook from my bag and open it on my lap.
We work together for almost an hour, throwing ideas back and forth. Ebony takes the page and writes; I take it back and write. When we’re done we have a long poem in two voices about— well, all kinds of things.
“We could perform this at Nationals,” Ebony says. “If we both make the team. God, I really hope we both do.”
“Me too.”
“Let’s do it one more time,” she suggests. “Then I have to go.”
I have no idea who hears our poem, and I don’t care. We read through it together as if we’ve been practicing for years. Sometimes she reads alone, sometimes I do. Then, somehow, we both know when we need to deliver a line together.
Who says that lusty implies
some kind of wicked?
that women are lewd
or lascivious
when, in fact, exuberant
is not lawless
extravagant
not the same as careless.
Immoral, or frolicsome?
Unchaste, or playful?
We choose playful and yet
we see how they look at us when
when my hand slides under his
shirt
rests gently against the warm
skin of his back.
when I slip my hand in his
in the lobby of the Grand Plaza
Hotel.
Your lover is a boy
mine is a man
gentle and sophisticated.
He knows his wines
cars
cruise lines
and corporate logos.
My boy knows my body.
Whatever electric pulses
hormones
or destiny
were at work on the dance floor
at the high school gym
left us sweating in the backseat
of his car.
Three years ago
it seemed that fate
had delivered my boy
into my lap
his curly hair tickling my chin
as he nuzzled his way
into cleavage
and I sighed my way into
oblivion.
My gentleman friend
understands the language of
chocolates
roses shipped by the dozen.
My boy understands the
language of soccer
shoots to score
leaves his cleats
on the floor by the bed
and whoops when he should
whisper.
There’s no way to speak of this
without moaning
the pleasure of memory
the way the windows fogged
the way the springs heaved us
back and forth
the way he had to move the
umbrella
before someone got hurt.
Lace and small buttons
soccer cleats and hockey jerseys
snaps and scarves
jeans so tight you can’t help
but squeeze
Always a drink before
Always a drink after
The hostess greets him by name
Good evening, Mr. Charmante…
wine list
specials.
I am special
his lovely girl
elegant in pearls
and pumps
and a simple black dress
he will peel off
as I loosen his tie.
It was all so easy, remember?
Of course you remember
the line in the sand
the very minute when
it stopped being easy
the evening I
picked up the cell phone
and heard his wife’s voice
the day we didn’t answer our
phones
and kept on playing.
You remember when we started being
something else:
an obligation
born not of pleasure
but of shared guilt
knowing that the world
divides
into two kinds of people
those who know
those who have wives
and those who don’t
those who have killed
and those who haven’t
those who tell the truth
and those who make love with
lies
those who know what it is to be left
and those who believe
that leaving is easy.
Chapter Twelve
Later, when I’m back at home, I wonder if it does any good to spew this stuff all over our audience. Who cares about that first time in David’s car? And what about Ebony’s married gentleman friend? How does it help anyone to know any of this?
These questions scribble their way into my journal. I’m left with the thought that I will never know who is listening. Maybe some girl who is churning inside with guilt because she enjoys her boyfriend’s tongue just a little too much might realize she’s not alone. Maybe some girl who’s thinking things will be better after she takes those pills will hesitate long enough to get some help.
“Ta-ra! Ta-ra! Ta-ra!”
Ebony and Maddy start the chant.
Others in the packed coffee shop join in.
The scalding water
can’t mask this other pain
can’t stop the bus
rolling into the shower stall.
Number 7
Courtland-Downtown
the driver’s face
a moon in the window.
one two three
Maybe she counted
then gave herself a shove.
Maybe she fell
her poor balance, the crowds…
An old man swears he heard her cry
out
a teenager claims silence.
Whatever she said or didn’t say
whatever she thought or didn’t think
whatever hesitation, good sense
regret
second thoughts
drowned out
by the squeal of bus brakes.
watch out!
stop!
bus driver leaping out of his seat
tie flying behind him
someone holding one of Hannah’s
crutches
though it is obvious crutches won’t
be much use
to the crumpled, bleeding body so
still on the road
Cell phones snap open
Nine-one-one emergency. Do you
need police, fire or ambulance?
The crowd pushing in
What happened?
A girl just got hit by a bus
Did she fall?
Will she be okay?
Of course not—
the angle of the neck
the shattered skull.
Everything. Everything about this
girl is broken.
In the shower
the heat
the steam
the water
the endless hot tears
swirl through and around and into
me
into the street scene so real
that sometimes I wonder
Should I stay unclean?
Snap the taps back off
wrap the towel around me
sink to the floor
a locked door between me and
all those funeral preparations
relatives hunched over the dining
room table
struggling to write the obituary
waiting for me to join them
to help honor the life that was my
sister’s.
She checked out
made it easy on herself.
But what about us?
What about me?
The way forward, through the
bathroom door
littered with saying the wrong thing
smiling when the last thing I want
to do is smile.
The way back, through time, a
minefield of
what-ifs
if-onlys
I-should-haves.
Or I can stay here
in the quiet of this small room
until someone panics
breaks down the door.
The applause carries me back to our table.
“Good job,” Maddy says. “You’ll get through to round two for sure.”
Ebony nods. “Shh. Karl’s up.”
Karl explodes with a poem about two Germanys before the Berlin Wall was taken down.
Shoot. Shoot. Shoot to kill.
We protect our citizens
keep them safe behind the wall.
Ebony is next. Her whole body lifts into the poem. Her mother black, her father white, she lives in a simmering space between. The words tumble and roll around her. She rises up onto her toes, her hips moving this way and that. She is fierce in the challenges she throws at us.
People shout and bang mugs on tables even before the last words fade away. She drops her face into her hands and backs away from the mic. When she slides back into the empty seat beside me, she cannot suppress a smile.
“Good,” I say. “You made it.”
She crosses her fingers and holds them high.
Six of us move on to the second round of the night. Everyone is sharp and hungry.
Blake, tonight’s emcee, says, “Please welcome Tara Manson.”
This is what’s in the mail:
Two men and a strong ladder
to fix your gutter
hungry students to paint your house.
Phone bill. VISA statement.
Who cares? stuff
arrives every day.
Then, a fat envelope
soft with crinkles as if
it had been well-handled
or stuffed in a backpack
or hidden under a mattress
or all of the above.
It isn’t my name
that hits me like a punch to the gut.
It’s the loopy handwriting
a heart over the letter i
each time it appears.
Wild thoughts crash into each other
a hailstorm
of jumbled questions.
Where is Hannah writing from?
If the girl in front of the bus wasn’t
Hannah
then who?
On my bed
legs crossed
hands quivering
I tear open the envelope and
tug out the contents
start with the letter
written—in haste?
With plenty of time to consider?
Dear Tara
By the time you read this
I will be gone.
Don’t be sad it’s better like this.
It doesn’t matter if I am
around anymore
you and Mom and Dad
deserve to be happy
it’s bad that you are always
worrying about me.
She goes on to explain
no friends no life no hope no future nothing but some kind of dark hole where she has no interest in staying. She doesn’t expect me to understand.
I am a drain on you and
everyone.
I know you are trying to help
but that isn’t your job.
You will be happy at university
and this way you don’t need to
worry.
If I do this now
you won’t have to miss
any school for the funeral.
As if missing school for the funeral
might have been a hardship
as if going to a funeral
is something you want to do
instead of other things
as if there’s no contest
as if this is a logical choice
Stupid stupid stupid ass.
I love you forever and always
your sister
Hannah
I turn it over and over and over
looking for more—over and over—
trying to find Hannah
over and over—
Written on the back
of a fast-food restaurant tray liner
the note dodges grease spots.
The page swims before my eyes
wobbly, uncertain
real and final.
Tucked into the envelope
a napkin
scarred with chicken-scratch lists
Dad
Cash (not much, sorry
look in my purse, bank
account closed)
School books and papers
(or just burn them)
I hear the or whatever she has
not added.
Mom
Books
Riding ribbons, trophies
etcetera
Tara
Riding stuff (I think it’s all
down in the basement)
Earrings (except for horse-
shoes—those to Jackie)
Books (share with Mom)
Clothes (or give away to
charity)
The pen had skipped and blotted
over her last will and testament
scribbled in a booth?
on a hard plastic seat?
at the bus stop?
Earrings. Books. Clothes.
Did she expect us to appreciate
this thoughtful gesture?