Audacious (4 page)

I only nod.

Are you religious?

Catholic, I tell my coffee cup.

He asks me what I'm not allowed to do.

I begin to enumerate the Commandments:

Steal, covet, bear false witness…

He interrupts.

What are Catholics especially not allowed to do?

Mostly sex stuff, I say

Then blush and blush.

He chuckles.

No, you know, playingwithyourself

Hmmm.

No birth control.

Really? None?

No abortion.

Of course.

No execution.

How often does one have the opportunity…?

Catholics don't condone execution

By anyone,

For any reason,

Ever.

Oh. Homosexuality?

Obviously not.

What about food?

No rules really, not anymore.

We eat fish on Friday but it's not compulsory.

Alcohol? Gambling?

Yes, please, we're Irish.

He chuckles again.

He has a nice chuckle.

What about you? I say

What aren't you allowed to do?

Don't get me started,
he says.

I stir my coffee.

Pork, alcohol, carnivorous animals.

What? No tiger burgers?

No. No insects or reptiles.

Yuck.

No dogs.

Who would eat a dog?

No OWNING dogs. They are unclean.

Really? What about cats?

Cats are fine. To own, not to eat.

Phew.

No mind-altering drugs.

That's a pity.

Pretty much all the same sex stuff.

I thought as much.

But contraception is okay in marriage I think.

Oh? That's much more sensible.

No usury
.

What's that?

No idea. Something to do with lending money.

I never have any so it wouldn't matter.

No drawing pictures of people or animals.

What! Why?

It's like trying to create life.

Like playing God?

He shrugs.

Is that why you drew the mandala?

Why did YOU draw one?

I remind him primly that I explained it in class.

He looks like he doesn't believe me.

Anything else? I say.

No gambling.

His eyes fall, black lashes like prison bars

That's why my sister was yelling,
he says.

She found a lottery ticket I bought.

All I hear at first is “sister.”

Eventually I can speak again.

Did you win?

No.

Why did you buy the ticket if it's forbidden?

He looks up through the prison bars.

I need money. I want to buy a dog,
he says

And chuckles.

SNOWFLAKES

Falling so softly,

like thieves in the frozen night.

They steal the city.

FOUR-WHEEL DRIVE: PART ONE

Dad drives us to school

Because somewhere in the mental chaos

Of unemployment

Mom forgot all about snow boots.

The Range Rover plows through drifts

Like desert sand

Like jungle scrub

Like rugged mountain streams

Just like in the ads.

But they never use snow in the ads

It's far too suburban.

Dad gives random academic advice

Kind of a demented morning pep talk

To Kayli:

Just think of fractions like half-price sales.

Mention the Bolsheviks. That makes them crazy.

No, it's kingdom, then phylum, THEN class…

Because Bilbo is an atypical hero who doesn't want…

She escapes into the snow

A Siberian refugee

Into the arms of St. Mary.

While we plow on to the public school

He's more subdued.

Any classes you like?

Art.

Any teachers
?

Ms. Sagal.

Any teachers you don't like?

Librarian's a total despot.

Is there such a thing as a partial despot?

I snort, with what I hope is derision.

The unasked question, which remains unasked—

Any friends, Raphaelle?

—is also left unanswered.

WATERCOLORS

Halfway through art I sneak a glance

Samir is looking back at me.

Without speaking he lifts up his page

And shows me a watercolor coffee cup

Overflowing with whip

And chocolate

I say nothing

I just lift up my page

And show him

A watercolor dog.

RENT-A-GEEK

Puffy and Freckle have an entourage

frnds 4evr

Each member has a role.

The homework helper:

A plain girl in expensive clothes.

The project:

A pretty girl in shabby clothes

I want to throw a hardback copy of
Emma
at her head.

The drug supplier:

A sk8r dude

Pretty sure he's got nothing stronger than pot

Maybe coke.

The narcissistant:

Who helps them feel beautiful

u r so hot. no u r!

She's pretty but not as pretty as them.

The chauffeur:

A chubby, effeminate guy

With an incongruously masculine car

Bought for him no doubt

By a father who is worried his son is gay.

I realize today

A spot might have opened up

4 me.

The rent-a-geek:

Who fixes their pink laptops

When they won't play MP3s.

Or download reality TV.

Their old rent-a-geek got a bespectacled college boyfriend

They met at a comic shop (really!)

And she has no time anymore

For Puffy and Freckle.

They watch me with my MacBook

And helping Ms. Sagal load the PowerPoint

The one about Leonardo Da Vinci.

OMFG!

I can't help laughing actually

If they offer me the “role”

And I take it

About all the fun I could have

Messing with their hard drives.

I wonder whether they will

Or I will.

IT'S FUN TO BE FORBIDDEN

I'm not a Muslim

I have pierced ears

I ate bacon for breakfast

I drew a smiley face on my hand

I pluck my eyebrows

I sing and dance—not always in private

I drank one of Dad's beers last night

My wrists are showing

Even my name is forbidden

(
Some think it blasphemous

To give a child an angel's name

Especially a woman
, Samir says, tightly)

And I'm sitting in a coffee shop

With an unrelated boy.

GOOD WORKS

Mom has been volunteering

At a place called Marion House

A homeless shelter.

I see the worry in her eyes

When the snow swirls in the yard at night

It's so cold
, she says,
I hope they have enough beds.

She bakes

And sneaks Dad's older sweaters into boxes

With socks bought on sale, in bulk

At the Army & Navy store.

She tells me about an old woman

Who calls herself The Phantom

Who has only one eye

Who gets ejected from the rec room

For swearing

It's the Lord's work

She says at dinner, not eating

Just stirring potatoes round and round

Jesus Himself would have loved these women

And made them disciples.

I try not to laugh

As a comic book opens in my mind

Jesus Christ and the One-Eyed Phantom.

The movie version

Will be rated R

For Coarse Language.

FACES

In art we do portraits

In pairs

I sketch Puffy Blond

And make her look fatter than she is

She sketches me

Badly

Froglike

Maybe you really look like a frog,
she counters

Freckle Arms sketches Samir

Like a WANTED poster

Intense stare

Emotionless

Even though he was laughing the whole time

About my drawing of Puffy Blond

Ms. Sagal starts to say

It's okay

Sam

if

But he snatches up the pencil and paper

And someone appears on the page

Not freckled

But beautiful.

Soft and expressive

With a light in the eyes

That I recognize

As me.

CHANGES

We weren't always like this

My family

We were “moderate”

My sister was at fashion school

Then it happened

I know what he means

The planes

The TV

The war

My mother was chased from a drugstore

My father lost customers

He owns a landscaping company

And a fleet of snow plows

I have seen his trucks.

My sister married a conservative man

And took up the veil

And gave up school

And turned her eye on me

She changed my clothes

And my mind changed with them

I have heard the teasing,

The whispers about the long-sleeved shirts

And long pants

Even in gym.

Every cruel word makes me feel closer to her

To my culture

My history

My people

My God.

So now you are conservative too?

His fist rests on the table

Millimeters from mine.

Unclenching

He raises one finger

And closes the circuit between us.

I don't know what I am

Electricity flows

Fingertip to fingertip

I

       know

                   how

                               he

                                           feels.

DETAILS

I try to memorize him

In that moment

His black hair

Close-cropped and wavy

His dark eyes

Like pools of strong coffee

The faint shadow

On his upper lip.

His lips

My God, his lips

The way they press together

Tense and troubled.

His hands

With a little ink stain

On the second finger

On the left

(He's left-handed too!)

His clothes

Long-sleeved shirt, buttoned all the way up

Sensible jeans

That don't hang off his ass

(I HATE that)

I carry him home with me

When we part

Awkwardly

His memory is a work of art

That only I can see.

THE TOOTHBRUSH I FOUND IN
MOM'S PURSE

Toxic

Odorous

Oh my God

Tedium

Has

Become

Regurgitation

Undoing

Shaming

Her

Totally gross, I know

Only that's how we found out last time

One toothbrush

Tucked into the lining of

Her purse in a plastic

Bag. The smell was unmistakable

Right then Dad confronted her

Uprooting her

Secrets and lies

How do I do the same?

chapter five

MARTYRS

THE VIRUS

Freckle got a nasty virus

Not that kind

Although I wouldn't be surprised.

My antivirus expired

I don't know how to fix it

I suck at things like that

All this delivered with a sweet smile

A tilted head

Like she never called me “elephant.”

It won't boot up properly

Everything is super unstable

I can't even Skype

I accept the proffered pink laptop

And set about examining

The inner workings.

I'm SOOO grateful for this

I'd just DIE without “Pinky”

Can you fix her?

I think so, I say cautiously,

Taking care to look her in the eye when I ask for

Her passwords.

She surrenders them innocently

Then she and Puffy, giggling,

Scribble their phone numbers on my homework.

TWO SONNETS FOR STINK-EYE
THE LIBRARIAN

I

I use my spare to point and click and search

To cleanse the pink computer of disease

Poor “Pinky” cannot function so besmirched

She's like a cat that wriggles, rife with fleas.

It's difficult but still I have a plan

To winkle out the bug that caused the crash.

At once I sense some disapproval and

Glance up, as I delete poor Pinky's cache.

The despot stares behind a magazine

Her condemnation of all things plugged in

Apparent in her glare at my machine

Because to her what's not a book is sin.

Above the sick and epileptic screen

I see Samir who smiles and mouths
She's mean.

II

Yet unperturbed I note private details

Of friends and boys and other juicy news

Dear Freckle Arms won't know that her emails

Will reappear on an account I choose.

I'm quite the spy, I snicker to myself

Though I resist the sabotage today.

Stink-Eye still lurks in wait behind a shelf

To pounce on any kind of disarray.

Then she appears behind Samir and screams