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I wonder if Grant Sullivan is mentioned in the newspaper. I can imagine the line:
A flame-haired rogue, with crooked teeth and a moronic yet disarming smile, was banished to the local emergency room with the oil-laden Ms. Getz.

A rogue? Banished? Where is
this
coming from? I must have Shakespeare on the brain. “Courage, man. The hurt cannot be much.” Romeo says that to Mercutio, who has been wounded by Tybalt. Unfortunately, Mercutio ends up dying. Well, okay for Romeo. Let him think what he wants—we all know what’s going to happen to him and Juliet. Shakespeare’s tragic story is about the “star-cross’d” pair who love each other but are not allowed to be together because of their feuding families. So they kill themselves.

The guys in my English class really hate
Romeo and Juliet.
Especially Sullivan, it seems, who is always making faces. That mug of his is permanently covered with several thousand freckles, so when he twists it up in literary agony, it looks like he’s igniting. Maybe he is.

Some of the females laugh when we read the play out loud, which is what we did today, which is why I’m remembering it. I suppose it’s a nervous laughter, and it doesn’t surprise me, since some of them’ve got the attention spans of puppets anyway. I notice a few others swaying around in their seats. They adore the play so much it’s like opera—completely overdone. These particular girls I call the Romantics. There are three of that species. They all wear those tinted contact lenses so that the color of their eyes is constantly, and unnaturally, changing.

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Sullivan is big on imitating the Romantics, which is not much of a feat, though he seems to think so. It’s only his own ignited mug that’s amused when he starts swaying. I can’t get that old picture from
Life
magazine out of my mind, the one that shows the results of a 150-mile-per-hour wind galing against a man’s face, so that his cheeks are blown out and pinned back to his ears in an inhuman way. Oh, that clown Sullivan. He’s always making faces, no matter what’s going on. How I could ever have kissed that face, I don’t know. Well, it was only once. I guess I had a weak moment last year. It was at someone’s party, and it was dark. It was easy to ignore the rest of Sullivan, with the lights off in that basement, and only a few candles burning. I liked his lips okay, but fantasies, maybe, are better left that way.

I don’t get nervous, sway, or contort myself in English. I read.
Romeo and Juliet
is full of poetry, which I really like. Except when I’m feeling weak. The love stuff spins behind my eyes like “star-cross’d” secrets. Because I too am full of longing. Well. I’m supposed to read tonight. After I feed my dog the cold hamburger that I’m chopping up right now. After I make sure not to read the newspaper.

The Wadness stands, burps as loudly as he can, and walks away from the table.

“Animal! Did she say anything else about Dad?” I ask Baby Teeth, who is slowly applying a perfect coat of ketchup to her second hamburger bun. I watch her from my seat. She wipes the knife on her napkin when the ketchup oozes over the edge.

“That we would know tomorrow, is what Mom said.”

“Oh.” (“The hurt cannot be much.”)

“So, V? Are you mad at Mom or is she mad at you?”

“Both.” I get up. “It’s okay. Don’t ask.” Romeo ends up killing Tybalt for killing Mercutio.

“You can tell me later. And, V?”

“What’s that?”(“Stand not amaz’d,” another line.)

“Are you scared about Daddy?”

I sit down. “No. There’s nothing to be scared of.” Of course she doesn’t believe that. She’s not stupid. “The mono test came back negative, right?”

“Right. So?” The perfect bun is now complete. When Baby Teeth places it carefully on her burger with her left hand, her right hand seems to automatically drop her knife to the floor. There’s too much anxiety in that crowded mind.

I bend to pick up the knife. I notice my face still hurts from my stupid blacktop trip. “So I bet those tests will be negative too. Law of averages. That makes sense, don’t you think?”

She’s chewing a huge bite, but that doesn’t stop her from saying, “I geff fo.”

“You guess so. What does Dad always say? Swallow before you speak.” I imitate his deep, serious voice. “Remember that now, you little nutshell. If I was somebody else and I didn’t know you better, I’d think maybe you needed speech therapy after that one.”

Baby Teeth’s dimples are pink with delight. “And don’t forget he says, ‘Don’t chew with your mouth open!’ ” And don’t talk with your mouth full. Dad’s famous dinner lines. So what if I swallowed the truth. Maybe there’s
somebody
around here I can protect. I really am such a good liar. And now, I will take my runaway eyes back to the den.

. . . And bring in cloudy night immediately.

Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,

That runaway eyes may wink, and Romeo

Leap to these arms untalk’d of and unseen.

Don’t talk with your mouth full. Sounds like Juliet’s mouth is stuffed with clouds—love clouds. Well, I think I’d rather go back to the chapter in
The Varieties of Religious Experience. . . .

Unsuspectedly from the bottom of every fountain of pleasure, as the old poet said, something bitter rises up: a touch of nausea, a falling dead of the delight, a whiff of melancholy, things that sound a knell, for fugitive as they may be, they bring a feeling of coming from a deeper region and often have an appalling convincingness. The buzz of life ceases at their touch as a piano-string stops sounding when the damper falls upon it.

“Do I hear music?” I say to the air. “Is there a piano-string nearby? Not tonight.” Because what I read was: “From the bottom something bitter rises up: a falling of the sound as they bring a feeling from a deeper region as a piano falls upon it.” I shut the book.

I feed my dog, my Romeo, my own piano-string, who miraculously eats. Leap to these arms.

Who Can’t Fly Yet

Are you awake yet? There’s a whispering in the morning air. Everything’s okay. Time to get up. There are sleeping dog breaths beside my bed. It’s okay. Are you awake yet? I open my eyes.

There’s the half moon of the white door, the faded bedroom ceiling. “Nothing loose today.” Baby Teeth is awake. She means her bicuspids or incisors or any of her other teeth, which should’ve started falling out at least two years ago.

But at this moment I don’t really care.

“Did I wake you up?”

I close my eyes.

“Mom’s awake and already downstairs. If you look in her room, she didn’t sleep in her bed. It’s weird that Dad’s gone; he always comes in and kisses me goodbye.”

I groan, which reminds me. My hand dangles over the bed, and the worn green blanket on the floor shifts with stirring dog legs. Without looking I try to reach the favorite spot on his belly where the hair grows the longest. Lucky begins to stretch.

“Time to get up, you know. You’re gonna be late. Are you walking or taking the bus today?”

Usually he stretches until his black toes scratch the air and he looks like a flying-upside-down creature. But he can’t stretch that way now, not with the cast on. He tried yesterday. The memory slithers coldly across my nerves. Lucky remembers he can’t today, right? Please? But the canine earful as he tries to stretch splits the air until it echoes.

“What’s going on?” my mother hollers from downstairs as the Plymouth begins to roar outside. Lucky quiets to a whimper, which sends Baby Teeth hurtling across my bed to be near him.

And I am awake. A new day has finally come. I have to go to the bathroom.

It’s a good place to be alone. Remember to lock the door. I stumble across the lumpy blue carpet into the shower. There’s still hot water; I could weep. Wadstain often depletes the house’s entire supply.

Teach the dog to walk. Catch the bus. Find the possessed Eileen. Research this James character. James who?
The Varieties of Religious Experience
is almost one hundred years old—knowing that makes me wonder how many people have read it in all that time. Millions? Ignore Sullivan’s face in English. It was definitely his mouth I used to be interested in, not the rest of him. I wanted us to be like matches, ignite on contact. His lips, in spite of
him,
are full, lush, and soft. Damn him, anyway—why’d he have to be such an idiot? Stay awake in math. Go to the hospital. This is my day’s itinerary. Where do I begin? No, not in a good mood.

After my shower, I rub the steam from the mirror with the heel of my hand. I see my eyes, dark as ditches in the glass, and wonder who I am, naked and wet. These are my lonely lips.

I dab the cotton swabs above my soft earlobes, brush my lovely teeth, comb my supple hair, and do a lazy stretch. Towel-dry and slather lotion everywhere. I am soft, I am hard. Subtle gray eyeliner, a dab of blush. Perfume the secret spots. My breasts fill my hands, just for a moment. I turn in the mirror, get a full glimpse. I want to sway with someone on a warm, dark night and feel hands heated with desire everywhere. Then I wrap myself in my robe, wanting to hide, even though I’m alone. My face burns, longing or shame? I keep changing my mind. It’s this love/hate relationship I have. With myself.

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The flat light of April is changing. As it reaches the classroom windows, it no longer glares against the glass, but streams roundly through, sweeping in arcs of richer light, carrying with it the warmth of May.

“The foundation of any romantic attachment is passion.” I look away from the windows to the face of Mr. Sanders, my English teacher, as he tells us this. He’s sitting on top of his desk. His face, which looks like it was just poured from a blender, all puffy and soft, gets in the way of those words. How is someone supposed to convey anything with a pancake-batter face like that? I glance around the room. Nobody moves. Not even the Romantics.

Why are they so still? Oh, I see. It’s his choice of words: romantic attachment. Is love a vacuum? A collision repair shop? Is anybody else thinking what I’m thinking? Or maybe another kind of attachment is on their minds, so heavy on the brain, they’re cemented to that word, the beguiling one with three letters, the
s-e-x
one, and neither their minds nor their bodies can forget it. So nobody moves.

If love is a vacuum, does it suck? Oh, stop now! I can’t see what people are thinking; I can barely hear what the uncooked face of Sanders is saying. It’s impossible for me to concentrate today. Big surprise. But, like maybe a bird that falls from the nest and can’t fly yet from the ground to the sky, I’m stopped on that word:
passion.
And it stays with me all day.

So Pale

“
Where’s
Baby Teeth?”

My mother is alone in the car, parked in the school parking lot. Waiting, the thought shudders within, for me.

“Over at that Quinn girl’s house. Get in.” Both her hands still hold the steering wheel, though the car engine is off. There are shadows beneath her eyes.

I’m standing in the air of the open passenger door, one foot on the curb. I don’t want to get in. “Why?” I say.

“The tests all came back negative.” Something is dragging beneath her words. “Will you get in the car.”

“Which tests?” I glance around the parking lot—any green VWs? I want to see my dad, so I get in. The air is slack.

“The doctor said he’s badly anemic and needs a blood transfusion.” The keys clink as her hand switches the car’s ignition. “I don’t want your sister to see him because he looks really terrible today. I was there all morning, cleaning him up.”

Cleaning him up?

We roll soundlessly out of the parking lot. My mother’s driving slowly, which is not unusual. I’ve always thought that she was simply cautious, but I see that she’s afraid. It’s her hands. They’re so pale. Maybe she thinks somebody will run her over.

“Well, what does it mean?” I say and watch her hands gripping the steering wheel. Have they always been so pale? I wonder what she’s so afraid of. Baby Teeth said my mother didn’t sleep in her bed last night. Did she sleep at all?

I glance away, out the window. All I see are vacant green lawns. The day is bright, but as I look at the sunny sky, it hurts my eyes, as if it doesn’t belong where it is. How can the sky be out of place? How can he be so suddenly sick? I see my father in one of his slick business suits, striding across the lawn with his locked briefcase. He’s big. He’s powerful. He’s not sick. How sick is he? “So why is he getting a blood transfusion? Is there something wrong with his blood?”

“Because it’s supposed to help. Dr. Sweeney’s going to do some other tests, and they’ve already taken more blood. He’s so exhausted he can’t even eat. Supposedly, his blood is not acting right.” I look at my mother as her lips press sharply closed.

“So the transfusion will give him energy?” The air rolls across my hands as if filled with tiny needles. I look down, see my hands unmoving in my lap, feel they might belong to someone else.

“If it doesn’t, they’ll put him on intravenous tomorrow; otherwise, he’ll get dehydrated.”

Dehydrated? Not “acting” right? My hands sting. It’s me getting afraid. I don’t want to look, don’t want to know how pale my hands are. “So when somebody gets a transfusion, they feel better immediately? What about complications? What about AIDS?”

“Oh, Virginia, I don’t know. It should work; it’s supposed to.” A tremor follows her words, so they sound like she doesn’t believe this. “And I’m serious, he can’t move, so don’t be surprised.”