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“So you’re a real team player?”
“I like to think I am,” I say.
He flusters again, then asks me a few questions about college and the Olympics / I give him stock answers as if Coach Turner took over my audio. I know what he’s trying to do—he’s trying to make me into the girl who can fly or the kid who does raucous math / he’s trying to make me agree / alien headlines. I ask if I can be released for class / they remove the microphone and wires from inside the Trojan track suit / I am free.
FOREVER FRIENDS
I’ve changed back into my regular sweats. Coach Aimee said I could keep the Nikes, so I did / of course I did.
Daddy didn’t pack me lunch today on account of him having sex all night. He’d make me call it lovemaking if he was here. Whatever. I don’t have lunch.
By the time I make it through the lunch line, I’ve been talked at a hundred times. I have no idea what anyone said to me. It was all some sort of static. I land at the table and flop myself into my chair.
There’s a weird quiet, so I fill the gap. “My parents were having sex in the hallway this morning,” I say.
Carrie says, “I’m glad someone’s getting laid.”
They laugh and then the table goes quiet again as I look at the disgusting lunch I just bought. Two prepackaged bowls of room-temperature flavored yogurt that tastes like bathroom cleaner. I look back up and they’re all looking at me, smiling.
I think I’ve done something wrong until Len says, “I’m so fucking proud of you.”
He gets up and makes a motion for a hug. It’s the best hug I ever got. When I turn around, Eric is standing and he wants one, too. And Ellie. And then Carrie, who already hugged me yesterday in the locker room, but does it anyway.
“You look—different,” Ellie says.
“You look scared,” Carrie says.
“I am scared,” I say. Pure Plutchik Green.
“Of what?” Ellie asks.
“What does forever mean now?” I ask.
They look at me.
“Remember friends forever? Like—last week? What if it turns out your forever friend is a freak and people think she might be an alien?”
“Alien?” Eric says.
“Yeah, you’re totally an alien,” Carrie says.
“You’re not a freak,” Ellie says.
“The reporter pretty much asked if I was an alien, not kidding,” I say.
“I kinda want to kick someone’s ass right now,” Len says.
“I feel like everyone’s looking at me.”
“They are,” Carrie says. “Isn’t that why you threw so far? So everyone would look?”
I’m stunned.
I never thought Carrie would be this untrustworthy. She Googled echoism when I told her / knows my buttons.
I glance at Eric, whose eyes are now swimming in his phone. Ellie is silent, but watching.
Len says, “That’s rude.” He laughs because he’s trying to give Carrie a Carrie-shaped hole, but she’s not using it.
“Anyway,” I say. “Thanks for the hugs.”
I freeze time / the cafeteria / get up / walk out. I only start time again after I’ve cried for fifteen pretend-minutes in the bathroom.
PRACTICE / NOT PRACTICE
Carrie is finally apologetic on our walk from chemistry to the locker room.
Finally apologetic = factory-made low-fat artificially-flavored lunch yogurt
“I think I’m pissed because you’re really this good,” she says. “I mean—look at you.”
THE SWITCH II
What is the switch?
I mean—look at you.
WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT THE SWITCH
It wasn’t in the house
when we moved here
not precision-machine work
unlevel / poorly mounted.
Now that I think of it—
Looks just like the box
Daddy used during
yesterday’s emergency.
Now that I think of it—
Time is on strike
because it was tired
of how much of it
we’ve wasted
on bitchy bullshit.
WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT THE SWITCH II
I am not the most coordinated
not the most graceful
not a fan of cardio.
I mean—look at me.
I am not the smartest / no
detective. I can see
something wrong /
not name it.
There are no forever friends /
something is wrong.
Carrie keeps walking to the locker room but I slip left into the main office and ask if I can speak with the athletic director.
“He’s long gone, hun,” the secretary says.
I’m quitting track team / right now / tone it down / look at me.
Castle / Moat
PLUTCHIK’S FAMILY DINNER MENU
Mama is delirious with therapy in the driveway. She’s spinning and her psychic skirt is the wheel that drives her machine. It whirs.
When I arrive home early and unsweaty, she doesn’t notice or ask why. It’s Daddy, from the roof where he’s replacing a shingle, who says, “Why are you not at your meetup practice?”
“I just . . . couldn’t today,” I say. I hold back tears / am sadder than ever / look at me.
“Tomorrow we will see mayor and get picture taken!” he says. “It is good, Truda! So good!” He’s not trying to cheer me up / is legitimately this excited to meet the mayor.
I say to Mama, “I wish I could just avoid people for, like, two weeks solid.”
“Healthy boundaries are everything,” she says / I’m not a client.
I wish I could talk to her / she’s too busy spinning. I wish I could trust her / she’s too busy spinning. I try my me-shaped hole, just in case, and it works.
I yell down to Mama, “Thank Daddy for fixing this!” but then I look around. Everything is in piles again. My bedroom is completely upside down. Ceiling where the floor should be. Floor where the ceiling should be. All the socket holes look like aliens, with a third eye on their foreheads. Mouths erased. No more “Ooo!”
The blinds on my windows hang under the windows, two of them hanging only by one side. The ceiling-mounted light fixture is flattened and the light bulb inside has shattered. My bed is upturned again, the dresser is lying facedown. Part of box #7’s plywood is curling away from the wall / losing structural integrity with each turn / slow leak brown liquid.
I sit on a pile of clothing / dirty / clean / who would know. I think about the structural integrity of everything. Time has stopped. Minutes no longer jog along reminding people that they’re wasting their lives. None of us is wasting any time. Not even Len, who is probably at home masturbating to twentieth-century hard rock. Not even me, who is skipping track practice.
I’ve seen it everywhere / how the integrity breaks. Nigel—Solution Time passive / aggressive. Richard—still not owning what he did / almost did / thought about doing. My parents—how they fought / the things they used to say.
That’s your fault—not telling him enough about girls.
You could have also told things about girls.
Integrity.
A rifle must be loaded with the right rounds. It must be cleaned and oiled / requires care / upkeep.
A missile launcher must have missiles to launch. Study the trajectory / useless without guidance / the jav shed.
Bombs just explode / this explanation will do.
Fathers just build protective layers / this explanation will do.
Mothers—mothers are the glue that keeps all the pieces in place / the walls of swimming pools / unless they leave / this explanation will do.
* * *
—
The partially collapsed passageway to box #3 / kitchen is limiting when upside down. There are wires hanging everywhere / free from conduit. Extension cords and fat, gray ten-square. If it rained in here now, we could all be like the moles in Daddy’s electrified lawn.
He is mashing potatoes while kneeling. The fridge is upright again but the stove has been disconnected. The electric roaster oven we usually only use for holiday roasts is on the floor next to him, steam billowing from it / no exhaust fan / the windows are dripping with sweat.
There are two five-gallon buckets where the sink should be. The sink is in the backyard now / look out the living room window / along with two toilets, the water heater, a bathtub, and the chest freezer where Daddy stored his blanched vegetables.
The kitchen table has been moved to the living room ceiling / floor with two eight-by-four sheets of thick plywood so it doesn’t fall through the ceiling plasterboard. It is, for the first time ever, set for only four people / this is a miracle / a shame / I don’t know what it is / probably depends on who you ask.
“Why did the house turn?” I ask. No one answers.
“Can I do anything to help?” I say.
Daddy says, “Your mother has made her meatloaf!”
My mother’s meatloaf is like eating damp ground socks / clean socks so it’s not awful / socks with oregano and too many bread crumbs.
“Where’s your brother?” Mama asks.
I go to the southwest conduit and yell his name, but when I turn around, I see that the whole time, he’s been sitting in the hallway, looking at the switch, which is now upside down on the wall / not like you could tell with all the boxes.
“Oh, hey,” I say.
“The house is losing structural integrity,” he says.
I nod. “The house is losing structural integrity.”
* * *
—
Mama has made a meatloaf shaped like a castle. The whole castle, fort walls and all. In the moat, there is gravy.
She places the platter in the middle of the table / has used fresh parsley as hedgerows and bushes. Some of the parsley is limp where it surrendered to the gravy.
“This is our castle,” she says. “And tonight we start putting it right.”
“We start with moat,” Daddy says.
He plops mashed potatoes on all of our plates from a pot that’s still hot from the barbeque grill / licked with charred black. For each of us, he makes a hole in the middle with his wooden spoon.
While he does this, Mama carves up the inner castle and slaps slices of wet meatloaf onto our plates / ladles gravy onto the meat / into our potato pools.
We pass around a bowl of candied carrots.
Daddy passes around a pepper grinder / nothing on his face seems to notice that this meal lacks integrity, just like everything else around us. When I look at Mama, she looks like integrity / late glue is still glue / even if her meatloaf is soggy / at least she’s trying.
THE PLAN
Mama / castle queen is upright. “Richard, your father tells me that you still talk to her. He hasn’t turned off your phone yet, but I will.”
“I never see her or talk to her!” he says.
Mama eyes him / his cards / his aura. “Jesus, Richard, we’re talking about your sister.”
“Oh,” he says.
Mama says, “Now that I’m back, she’s not allowed within a hundred yards of this house or me or Truda. If she even walks down the sidewalk across the street, call 911.”
“No police,” Daddy says.
“Too late,” Mama said. “Nineteen years of trying to help that girl and all I got for it was a protection order and a bad hip.”
“Did you say you and me?” I ask.
She says, “Yes.”
“Oh.”
WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT BEING A FREAK ACCIDENT
Mama never lied about it
weren’t expecting you, to be honest
An unforeseen dinner guest
Daddy made extra rolls and gravy
smiled a lot / no longer had time
to learn the guitar.
I was this surprising.
Those stories you hear on gossip shows
about the lady who didn’t know
she was pregnant.
but you’re here for a reason
The vasectomy failed.
Mama never lied about it
you saved me from that other one
Accidental superhero age five.
Sister killing that bird with the screwdriver
Richard told me to run.
Ran so fast home to tell Mama
who couldn’t save the bird.
thanks to you, she won’t do it again
with extra tapioca pudding.
She did it again
again
again
not to birds / not to birds.
She became a mythical insect
so small it can crawl
into your brain and
on / off
on / off.
Richard says, “Now that you’re back? Does this mean you’re back?”
“I’m back,” she says / I believe it / she says it with the confidence of a bear.
“When did the house turn again?” I ask.
“Why is it happening?” Richard asks.
“When and why is it happening?” I ask.
“Are we going to get a new TV?” Richard asks.
“We will sleep in the northwest area,” Daddy says. “To stay safe.”
Mama stays quiet / looks amused by Daddy’s orders.
“My room is fine,” Richard says.
“Mine, too,” I say. “I can—”
“We will sleep in the northwest area,” Daddy repeats, and then ladles more gravy out of Mama’s moat.
BALLROOM DANCING
After dinner, Richard and I go to his room to get his stuff, like Daddy told us.
“One minute we’re talking about getting protective orders, the next minute it’s castles and gravy and Daddy telling us where to sleep,” he says.
“He has trouble talking about things,” I say.
“That’s how come we’re in this mess.”
“Mama will change things,” I say. “Trust her.”
We give each other the look we’ve always given each other. Trust no one. There are bombs everywhere. We really can’t tell who planted them—it’s not like they sign the bombs.
“Karen said we should try family therapy,” Richard says. “But I know he won’t.”
“Mama could push him. Remember the time they did ballroom dance classes?”
Sometimes, I catch Daddy dancing with himself in the kitchen. I see him spin and dip an invisible partner. I see it in Richard now / like when he was sneaking to the car in the middle of the night / something is wrong.
* * *
—
When you get to the AFT3RMATH, you can be yourself / maybe for the first time / maybe a reminder. For me, a first. Probably for Richard, too. For Mama and Daddy, they will have to remember. There will be an EV3NT. Mine was a world record / theirs can be whatever they want it to be. Maybe Daddy will rip down the boxes. Maybe Mama will allow herself to be one hundred percent psychic. I don’t know what Richard will do / Richard is weak for reasons other than a bird / sister. His EV3NT won’t happen until he stops keeping secrets.
MY PHONE IS A BOMB
As I navigate my way back to box #7, I hear my ringtone. My ringtone is an obnoxious techno dance song with elevated bass / I’m too far away to rush.
My phone is in my backpack, and it chimes with a voicemail.
The voicemail is from a major television network / three letters everyone knows. I haven’t watched any of the interviews the local news stations aired and don’t plan to. I don’t want to be on TV. I can’t imagine how a major network got my number / I’m sixteen / I skip the voicemail / press the call back button.
MY PHONE IS A BOMB II
The woman who answers is tall. I can tell from how she talks / six feet easy. I explain that I’m returning a call from this number and she asks my name and when I tell her, she says, “Oh! Hi! Hold on. Let me get Ashley.”
The hold music is me rehearsing my lines. Hi, Ashley. I don’t want to be on TV. Bye / Hey, Ashley. Yeah, about the TV thing, I can’t do it / I appreciate your offer, Ashley, but I’m shy and you can always interview the coaches.
“Ashley Thompson. Is this Truda?”
“Yes, I—”
“Dude! I’m so excited to talk to you!” she says. “I have a big opportunity. I think you’ll be excited.”
Hey, dude, Ashley, um. “Opportunity how?” I ask.
She must be wearing headphones because I can hear her clap like my teachers used to before pitching us an assignment that none of us wanted to do. “So. 60 Minutes. Two researchers over there have been finding other kids like you. I shouldn’t call you a kid. Sorry. Gray area. Anyway, they sat down with some of them and talked about their—uh—new abilities. We wanted to know if you’d be open to a fast interview.”
“60 Minutes?” I used to watch 60 Minutes every Sunday with my parents—since I can remember. I even watch old episodes online for fun when I’m bored / I find relief in the opening where a stopwatch ticks as if time is really still real. They have yet to change that opening / maybe it soothes them, too.
“We would do the interview tomorrow at the latest to air on Sunday,” she says.
“This Sunday?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the title of the story?” I ask.
60 Minutes always has great titles. “Prescription for Trouble” or “Get Me the Geeks!” or “Pot Shop.”
