undeniable truth
this you do know. this you know better than anything else: you have $7,376.42 in a shoe box hidden in your room. you have $7,376.42 saved since ninth grade from every extra trip to the mall you never went on, movie date you ever canceled and walked the streets alone instead, every gas tank you needed to fill every snack bar your friends might want you to treat them to, every allowance, every rare babysitting job you picked up from here or there—it could be more but it is $7,376.42 that you have skimmed and saved and in some ways scavenged even though you have your own savings account, even though your parents have been adding to it since you were born, but that is for real college. this, this is for you and you only: not for their expectations, not for the path that everyone else is going to tread after graduation, not for any of the bridges you’ve built or burned down. it is for you to fly free and go only exactly where you want, when you want, and in sixty-two days (give or take) you will. you are 18 already sure, but you need to finish out this high school sentence and then you know you will take your squirreled money ($7,376.42 now, but there will be more by then, there will be more) and you will buy your one-way plane ticket and your eurail pass and explain to your parents—you have your plan you will spell it out for them and there isn’t a lot they can do—not really—because you are their only child it’s not like they’re going to disown you, and you’ve had a dream and they won’t have to pay for it—see you have $7,376.42 that you have saved. this you know. you have $7,376.42 and a plan and a future, at least for a little while that will be your own. count it again this you know in sixty-two days you will be able to get out of here you will be off the never-ending gerbil wheel you’ve been forced to run for your whole life. count it again it is in your hands it is your future and this you know.
Becca
The Perfect Pair
Right after
Mrs. Fram announces
our next project
will be duets,
the boys are looking
all over the room, already
picking partners, planning pairs. I have
eyes for only one person and
am amazed to see
her pale eyes
—silent Jenna’s—gazing
pleadingly
into mine.
Jenna’s Secret
What you wouldn’t know
looking at her—long lengthy lady
with pale hair
and a paler voice—
is that this girl of slinking silence
—this sylph of a someone no one else knows—
is silly.
Out on the concrete we are in our pairs
everyone discussing
what to play in their duets.
My hands are fumbling, trying
to be as cool as hers,
to not make her sorry
she picked me.
What I don’t know
is she’s already decided our song, and it is
so wicked perfect
I laugh out loud.
Our legs are stretched out
—our guitars are touching—
and she whispers,
Flight of the Conchords,
don’t you think?
Acceptance
A strange envelope
in the midst of
two bills, a Lush catalog,
and three bits of junk mail
for mom.
It says St. Andrews
on the return address
and is addressed
to only me.
I applied there
in November
when Mom insisted on backups,
refusing the only-FSU-with-Alec plan;
it was chosen
more out of spite (and Mr. Burland’s recommendation),
not because I could get in
or thought they’d respond.
Now—official college letterhead—one word:
congratulations.
It is like a party
I’ve suddenly been invited to:
one I completely forgot
was happening at all.
Avoiding
I imagine telling Mom,
and then can’t. I want to
but won’t, yet. The letter
goes in my rainboot
at the back of the closet,
(the one still caked and coated
with a little Lake House mud).
I am not sure how I will tell her
—how will I tell her?—
that instead of a giant Florida football school
(she didn’t want me to go to anyway),
Agnes Scott,
I want a tiny, private North Carolina one
—a school she’s never heard of,
a school that will be good for me,
but will cost
twice as much?
Collaborative Contentment
The magazine submissions are finally collected.
The deadline is passed and
now it is time
to decide.
Sara’s idea
—to divide and conquer—
I have to admit
is brilliant.
Instead of making copies ad nauseam and then
taking the whole monster batch home,
—to half-skim—
we separate stacks,
and spend all afternoon—the eight of us—
quietly reading submissions.
Sometimes there’s a murmur.
Sometimes a snort.
Mostly
we are engrossed,
and (I think) pleased.
There is
the sound of single pages turning: one
then another. Charlie
clears his throat, Caitlyn giggles,
then stops.
I read a story about an ax-murdering stalker,
one about two dogs in a fight.
There is a good essay
about a family road trip
and two more
I can’t finish
after the second paragraphs.
The story titled Kalends I circle in red;
It is the best one
—the brightest one—
and I will insist it gets in.
Two hours later
—we didn’t know it’d gone by—
Mr. Burland tells us
next week we’ll vote.
Rama looks
like a preschooler just up
from his nap
and Sara has a smile
I’ve never seen before.
That was awesome, Charlie says,
all breathy,
speaking for all of us,
and we all nod.
For some reason next we
put our hands in a big pile, raise them up, shout
go team.
It is the happiest I’ve felt
in quite a long time.
Working for the Man
The shipment arrived
at the coffeehouse this morning,
but apparently no one has had time
to unpack all the chocolate.
When I arrive Nadia
is on the floor counting,
Paige is three customers deep,
and Stan has called in sick.
I take the packing slip from Nadia,
and the red pencil, begin
marking off organic lavender, green tea, 85% cacao.
My grateful friend jumps up and stretches,
takes off for the patio
to snatch some sunshine,
a few dirty plates,
Emmett (Mr. Siegel) comes in then
—a rare Big Boss appearance—
the king of coffee strolling
his royal grounds.
Where’s Margot? he asks, seeing me on th
e floor.
When I tell him Nadia’s managing
he heads out
to see.
She comes in too quickly, jerks the slip
from my hand
Get out there and clean, girlie,
she growls from under dark eyebrows—
master’s here and he don’t like
field slaves
doing house slave work.
Clearing My Name
Crazy Friday night
full of cake-and-wine orders,
bags of coffee,
herds of high schoolers,
dozens of doughnuts,
and everyone paying cash.
What is it suddenly
with the twenties infusion?
As though the president has dropped them
from a blimp overhead.
It’s midnight
and only me left
with angry Margot
outside the door.
My hands are red
my eyes are bleary
my knees are aching
and I’m sticky with sweat.
But still I sit here
on a hard stool in the back room
counting the cash drawer,
again and again.
Sixteen dollars under
—the worst count ever—
and unless I find it
she’s writing me up—an official warning—
and on top of that,
charging me twice.
Strange Thought
Waking up so-leisurely-late
on Saturday
with no work
until tomorrow
it occurs to me—a lightning bolt—
Alec has a game somewhere
and I have no idea
whether they’re winning.
A Different Kind of Distraction
Since this week has been
the triumph of new ideas, I try
something even more radical
for a Saturday night; I call
Freya
ask her
to sleep over.
No Lake House party, no
skulking in the Majestic, but
two girls,
a bag of Doritos,
and whatever else
we can muster.
She says yes
right away and
I am then left
to figure out what we’ll do.
At seven she’s here
and we start making lasagna.
When Mom finally gets in (at half past eight),
we are ready
though the kitchen is disastrous
and the salad is lean.
We tear chunks of bread,
pass the water pitcher
and for an hour straight
Freya grills my mom.
I forget
hers has disappeared somewhere. She
never talks about it and since
I’m never at her house it is sometimes
hard to remember.
Just her and her little sister,
her dad, making do.
And tonight
seeing her
aglow at the elbow
of my own mother I
understand her in a different way,
see her with a different face.
My friend with her stories, her crazy plots:
she is
working to fill something
that will never be filled.
She clings to everybody’s stories
—her glossy magazines—
because to her, and everyone she knows,
her own is
too sad.
We clean up the kitchen.
I take her upstairs.
I offer
to paint her toenails
and I am careful with her,
gentle and delicate.
I take my time,
make sure it’s pretty
—just like mine are—
just like Mom does
for me.
Don’t Believe Your Eyes
Sunday afternoon coffeehouse rush is over and it’s
time to clear the patio of its cups and plates,
clean up for the next round
of happy nowhere-to-go patrons
and loitering bored-faced teens.
The clouds have cleared and
a breeze lifts
the pages of someone’s discarded newspaper
half onto the sidewalk.
Chasing, I catch it,
straightening up while down the block I see
a familiar face—
not my love but Nadia’s:
the man I met
last week at her house.
The one with the sideburns
—the one with his tattooed arm
looped twice around her
and his face
in her neck all night.
Except now he is
strolling
into the Marta station,
his arm around another her
—a her that isn’t her, not Nadia,
but someone different—someone else.
They pause and kiss—more than a peck—
disappear.
The newspaper flutters from my hand,
floats, unwanted,
across the street.
Camille
not just a dream, but a plan
the coffeecounter girl is not here today. thursday is her day you know that but you can’t figure out the weekends, don’t know if it’s sunday-friday-saturday, because you have seen her sometimes on each of those days and sometimes not. but today she is not here—instead it is the tight-faced girl with the cornrows, along with one of the wan little wispy girls—and they will not be glad to see you, will not tell you which cakes just came in this morning, will not sneak you a refill, and so you don’t even pretend—you just turn on your heel and go back out the door. only now you are here in decatur—now you are somewhere you can really walk—so you do: first down to the end of the block and left, though all that’s there is the library (good to note) before things take on that highly residential look that you know by now only means pretty lawns and magnolia trees. so you turn back and then cross the street and go up into the square, around the gazebo where someone is practicing tai chi, back over and up along a row of shops and restaurants you hadn’t noticed before, capped off by a starbucks (ugh), but also containing the cutest little bookstore you have ever seen. you go in—three people say hello to you right away—and at first you are not sure this was a good idea because you are surrounded by children’s books and the sight of lily’s purple plastic purse right there facing out on the shelf makes you suddenly feel five again, back when you thought you were invincible. but then a chipper, pretty, short woman wearing over-the-knee socks and boots with her jean skirt (she’s not a lot younger than your own mom) is by your side asking if you need help finding anything and you smile and tell her no thanks but now you feel you have to stay a little longer, at least look around. so you go deeper in the store and you feel like you are in another city altogether, surrounded by buttery yellow and cupcake-rose blue and books and books and all these cheerful things to look at everywhere. to your surprise things open up to your right and there is a little corner full of books for grown-ups. you move—a shark—directly toward it. you hadn’t known this was what you needed to do today but of course because there it is: the green-and-white fodor’s italy guide facing you. next to it is london, paris—you grab all three of them and go over to a celery green couch. you take out your moleskine and a pen, begin taking notes.
doing the math
a weird prickly feeling starts along your forearms and works its way up to your throat as you read. in these full-color, photo-filled glossy travel books there are sights and train maps and places to eat and museums and guided tours and suggested scenic trips, but it’s the numbers that swim up at yo
u, the admission prices and the double and triple dollar signs by the restaurant names and the hotel fees. the price of the rail pass alone almost makes you cough, because it’s quite a bit more than when you first made this plan. you realize you don’t know how much it takes to travel—dad’s company always handles it, always pays for your move—and the kids on the ultimate frisbee team back in sf never focused on that part as they were telling you about backpacking across europe and having a blast. they were patchouli-smelling kids all living together in the same apartment—six of them in there at once—and they had dreadlocks and tevas and t-shirts with holes. they probably hitchhiked, now that you think of it, slept together in parks. but you’d looked into the plane ticket and knew $1000 was a lot but that you could easily save more. since then you didn’t think about it and still haven’t till now, haven’t taken into consideration the drop of the dollar and the rise in gas—only focused always focused on getting out of here as fast as possible and as unconnected from your parents and their coddling and their money and their need to take care of you so long as you’re doing what they want. this was going to be yours—only yours—not anything they could touch, not even anywhere they could reach you if you didn’t want, but now as you drive back home to get to some wireless and to find out for sure your heart is racing and your brain is spinning and all you can think of is that hideous school in houston and that engineer school—purdue—where you applied just to keep mom quiet, to throw her off your scent. you’re accepted to both of course but have put off any answer, pleading about berkeley and making mom and dad wait. you won’t go to any of them—what if you can’t go to europe what if you—but you will go abroad, you have to. you are calculating the money again in your head, wondering where there could be more, where you might get a job, if mom and dad would let you since school’s almost over, how many pairs of shoes you could sell. you will also stop eating, stop going out, stop going to the coffeehouse if you have to, stop spending one cent. you will save enough you will somehow get enough it has to be enough you have to get out of here now now now—and you are really starting to panic for real as you click on one-way tickets from atlanta-to-paris. you think you might throw up on that two thousand number—you think that you might just pass out and die.