After the Kiss (14 page)

randomly juggling tomatoes,

or his smiling through the arc of them

saying there is

a party at Nadia's after work and

do I want to go?

Runaway Imagination

Bussing tables, barely concentrating,

I fizz with fantasy—

a kind that's been faded for a while.

Those slidesmile eyes,

that knowing wink,

the heat

in his I-think-nineteen-year-old hand when he

presses a palm to my shoulder,

letting me know he's coming through

with another tray of muffins.

If I went back there again now,

glossy-lipped, would Denver press me into the cooler,

strong, taut, slender cycling boy sliding me onto the

giant steel sink,

squeezing me against the butcher block,

moving those bike-mechanic hands against my—

where?

A plate clatters to the floor,

doesn't smash but

is enough

to snap me back to here and now.

Clean up the mess, go wash hands,

splash cold water on my face—flushing foolish

in the bathroom mirror.

Retie the apron,

re-enter reality:

me and him so pretend

I can't even make it up.

Nadia's Apartment

When we get there it's crowded

but I don't care

much about the people.

There is the smell of garlic-incense-flowersoap-old sheets

and something dusty I can't define,

but it might be freedom.

There are

stacks of CDs on an old leather trunk,

a laptop plugged into the stereo, and headphones

bigger than my feet.

I can't imagine the furniture ever matching

anywhere else, and on the wall there is

an astonishing painting

of a nude in repose:

huge peachy breasts pushed forward but

eyes blue blanks of disinterest.

On the opposite wall her partner

—bare-chested Jim Morrison—

dances among some small postcards of birds

I think someone drew.

Past this den of cool (books and bookshelves and

crates of more books)

is the tiny kitchen where open shelves are crammed

with Chinese blue-and-white bowls,

chipped mugs,

heavy white restaurant plates,

and thick Mexican glasses lumpy with bubbles

and blue rims.

Bottles of beer

and ice

fill the whole sink

and my mother would faint

if she saw that dirty stove.

On the windowsill

a Britney Spears doll gets carried off

by a plastic Godzilla,

and two speckled quail's eggs rest in a porcelain bowl,

beside a faded postcard

from somewhere in France.

The refrigerator is covered

with silly magnets and crazy snapshots

and I am dizzy with wanting

to see my face where hers is in each picture,

smiling with arms around

these pierced-nose, spike-haired friends.

Someone hands me

a giant Mason jar—bits of mint float on top.

The taste is thick with sweet, and something sharp.

Later in the bathroom

with its tiny vintage tiles and

cracking pink pedestal sink I

keep myself from peering in her medicine cabinet,

looking through her toiletries,

and instead stand staring in the mirror

even my very reflection

wishing to be Nadia too.

A Real Party

At a real party there are

bottles of red wine and white,

corkscrews and real corks

instead of wine coolers

and twist-off caps.

No one break-dances

in the middle of the kitchen—

no one break-dances

anywhere.

They all bob their heads

and move a little

but are much more interested

in intelligent talk.

At a real party people bring

their own six-packs

to put in a cooler

or in the sink.

They don't charge money

at the front door

to pay for the keg

crammed in the back room.

At a real party no one sneers

if they've never seen you.

They are friendly

and ask your opinion—they shift around chairs

to make more room.

At a real party no one is smoking

those stupid Swisher Sweets

or coughing on cloves,

just pretending to inhale.

Instead they have Zippos

and fancy metal cases;

they tip their heads back,

don't exhale in your face.

At a real party your friend

introduces you to her boyfriend,

so happy she knows you

and glad to show you off.

At a real party you can talk freely;

you don't have to try

to be something you're not.

People listen, and they include you.

You can also make eyes

at the boy who asked you

and maybe he will smile back

instead of pretending not to see.

Finally when it is so late

and you have to get home—

you will climb into bed, smiling,

your mind dancing with the pictures

—so many, so swirling—

of your first

real party.

crashing

it all makes sense and now you just want to disappear. those bruises on your arm, the sadness in his face, the strangeness of the whole three weeks all equal one big black hole you hate facing and practically can't. back-pat yourself all you want about how careful you are, about how in and out of minefields you can dart, pride yourself on how clean you can keep things, how you never stain your own pristine white blouse, but look in the mirror and realize this is nothing but a big bloody mess. not only have you betrayed that lovely boy in chicago—he'd despise you if he knew what you were doing to forget him—but to make it worse you are now someone else's cheat. by trying not to step in the quicksand you've fallen off a cliff, onto a pile of daggers coated in burning acid. so now you are the biggest fool. and worse, a hateful fool. you knew so much but you knew nothing. now everything crashes around you and for the first time you look at yourself and know that you deserve it. you deserve to feel this smashed.

hooky

facing all those faces you are faking being friends with just can't happen today. lucky for you you truly
were
ill with your own disgust for yourself all day yesterday so are plenty pale and wan when mom comes in to wake you. she's got tennis with liz and then some volunteer meeting so you are left alone to drift around the house and float from pantry to couch—covered in blankets—lame tv, a hundred thousand channels of distraction and none of them loud or obnoxious enough to fully drown it out—to drown out anything—because superimposed over the screen you see a replay of the last three weeks, all tinted now in a vomitous green color, everything grimed and sticky with deceit, that bonfire flickering in your mind like the flames of breakup hell you've thrown him and this poor girl (whoever she is) into, the flames where you belong too. they were obviously going to break up anyway if he was after you like that, but you didn't ask to be a part of it, and wouldn't have if you had the smallest hint. you didn't ask to even
talk
to him, let alone be the means for his escape, and now the idea is so unpleasant you have to climb upstairs into the tub, turn on the water as hot as you can stand to sluice off the slime coating that is forever on you now. you are not sad in the slightest about
him
; he can write himself a hundred hokey haiku a day and still in his core he will be just another jock dickhead. that doesn't matter. he's
done and gone and you shed no tears for him. it's not him you can't believe, it's you. you can't believe you did this and you can't believe you
let
this happen. how could you let this happen how could you not see it in him how could you not know how could you be so stupid how could you?

the girl you don't know

you're lying on the couch in your bathrobe flipping through
elle
and picture after picture of girl after girl gets you wondering about his girl—the
other
girl—and what she's like. being who he is on the baseball team you figure she must be hot, but knowing what you know about his poetic side you know she also has to be smart. and sensitive. and interesting. and so maybe she isn't that good-looking at all, at least not in
maxim
terms. maybe she's pretty in a different way, like a waterhouse painting or a modigliani. maybe she's bookish with glasses and blah hair and a bit of an overbite. maybe the rest of the team made fun of him and so that's why he went after you. to prove something to them. to prove something to
her
. or maybe, if he was proving something, she
is
good-looking (you are picturing a tiny small girl—a girl like a fawn—with barbie blond hair and huge sweet blue eyes) and too many other people thought so too. maybe you were a revenge hookup. maybe she'd already done something to him. or he thought she might and so wanted to show her two could play at that game. but a girl like that wouldn't have a
friend
like that, would she? (that skinny freckled girl with the big sloppy mouth and the ihateyou eyes.) or maybe the friend was the issue—he hated her, she hated him—but being mr. sensitive-haiku-boy he didn't know how to tell her and you were the way out. maybe she wasn't poetic at all, and
that
was the problem. she had to be something. there had to be something wrong with her. because otherwise why would he have come after anybody, especially someone as horrible as
you
?

affirmation of what you already knew

slow stroll still in your bathrobe for at least a glimpse of the sun today. down to the mailbox in bare feet even though it's gotten cold again. the freeze at least is feeling something, though mom will be home soon and you should clean things up, get some real clothes on, try to make everyone feel like everything's getting better. flip through the junk mail—insurance offers, dad's travel magazines—and head back to the house trying not to feel disappointed, trying not—definitely not—to feel maybe tears crawling up the back of your eyeballs. what did you expect when you
still
haven't written anything back, have barely been an online presence since you got here? what did you expect when you're the girl standing by the burning bridge with a match in your hand? you didn't want—don't want—anything or anyone and now that's completely what you've got. so cut it out because you are
not sad
thinking maybe he gave up and maybe it's over and maybe you'll never see him again (because you already knew you wouldn't, didn't you? you knew that you already did). all you really wanted when you headed down the drive just now was an easy ego-stroke, something to make you feel like someone out there in the universe might think you're okay, even though you know better. you didn't want him, you just wanted what he can do for you. you didn't want him. you didn't.

unwanted memories #4, 5, and 6

you can't stop them they just come in a constant stream: that time you cut your last class and got to the institute early so you could actually walk around together before his shift started at the coat check and he took you downstairs and you said you'd already
seen
the miniatures, and you were joking and he laughed and led you by the hand down the stairs and around some corners and it wasn't the miniatures he wanted to show you at all but this other whole room full of crazy drawings–there was a dali in there, you remember that—all avant-garde and funky and he sighed happily and said
this is my favorite room
and you said
of course it is
and he kissed you right there without even worrying about the guard. some other time he kissed you too—was it a week later? four? in millennium park when it was freezing cold and dark so dark early but he wanted to meet you after work so you went there and stood under the bean together and in the reflection of that round gleaming impossible liquid bead of metal you kissed him, one eye on your bent reflection, reflecting over and over. another kiss—where were you going?—on the el; you only remember he had his messenger bag on the floor between his feet and was so tall and leaning over you, your boots bumping his bag as you stretched yourself up to his face to kiss him could not ever stop kissing him or get enough of kissing.

sorry attempt

it's a stupid set of stationery—some frilly set your mom gave you back when you were writing letters—but it is the only thing you have. you have paced the house six times and now mom and dad are giving you raised eyebrows, you know you look a little crazy. so back up to your bedroom—is anyone studying anymore, at this point in the game?—and take out the first sheet.
dear—
, you write, and then stare at it, stupid, unable to even write his name. you could just e-mail him you could call him right now instead of this, but you know he has abandoned his side of the bridge; you waited too long it is too late, so at least a letter you can burn when you're finished. you write that you don't blame him, that you'd've left sooner. did leave sooner. and then your words begin to pour and the main thing you're saying is
i'm sorry i'm sorry
over and over sometimes in capital letters. sorry you didn't meet him that second time he asked—when you left him to wait by the lions while you rode out to wrigley instead, knowing he was waiting and being so afraid, you had to flee. sorry for being too eager to kiss him and then sorry for not kissing him at the picasso sculpture that day because of your cold. sorry you don't deserve him. sorry for the last month. sorry for not writing back—sorry for not saying immediately
you are so awesome
, and
yes
. sorry for not having better outfits sorry for skittishness. sorry, sorry, so sorry
for having to leave, and for every stupid substitute someone else since. by the end you are crying in earnest and you know you will never see him—you can barely see the paper—and mom knocks on the door to say good night. she sees your face she sees the crumpled paper and she sits beside you and strokes your hair. why you are collapsing into her shoulder you are not really sure but she is good smells and comfort and she only says one thing:
oh honey i'm sorry.