Audacious, page 3
But Ms. Sagal nods.
Excellent insight, she says.
I turn to Sam
Expecting him to share my pride
But he’s frowning
And when Ms. Sagal asks him
He only shrugs.
MIZ
She sometimes brings her daughter
Who sits in her wheelchair
In the back of the art room
Drawing wild swirls
With her spindly
Unpredictable arm.
How old are you?
I say to her after class.
She’s fourteen
Ms. Sagal says.
She doesn’t speak.
Cerebral palsy.
But she’s very smart
She goes to a private school
They’re closed today.
Marika is her name.
She smiles at me
A bit lopsided
But beautiful.
THE SHOWDOWN
She actually started to say it:
As long as you’re living in this house, young la—
But she couldn’t finish.
She laughed
And so did I.
It’s something we do as a family
It’s boring.
It’s important to your father
No it isn’t.
What would your Nana say?
She’s dead.
Don’t you have anyone you want to pray for?
This one stops me.
I could pray for Puffy Blond and Freckle Arms
To stop being so vapid.
I could pray for Kayli
That her asthma would get better
Or her feet would stop growing.
I could pray that someone
Would sit with me at lunch.
I could pray for Samir.
Aren’t we supposed to pray
For the conversion of the infidels?
Or is that how he
Is supposed to pray for me?
REGURGITATION
Mom
threw
up
after
Sunday
brunch
It’s not worth mentioning except
She
snuck
upstairs
to
do
it
And I don’t think she’s really sick.
chapter four
PORTRAITS
HOT CHOCOLATE
It comes over me on the bus
A fug, a mizzle of discontent.
Puffy and Freckle called me fat today.
Not directly
That would be gauche.
They said I looked like an old TV star
Who is famous for being fat.
They said it in front of everyone.
It festers all afternoon
And on the bus it overwhelms me.
Fat.
Useless.
Ugly.
Boring.
Stupid.
Gullible.
Ella short for elephant.
My eyes sting.
At Starbucks, I ring the bell
Stumble off.
Through the glass I can see Samir
The last person I want to see me this way
But my feet seem to feel differently.
They take me to him, smiling behind the counter.
He takes in my expression.
Are you okay?
Hot chocolate, I say.
And bless him,
He seems to understand.
Double chocolate, extra whip?
I ask him how he knows.
Everyone has bad days, he says.
OXYGEN TENT
Kayli starts wheezing at dinner.
Mom walks away from her full plate
And prepares the nebulizer.
Kayli crawls onto the couch
Curls up, looking small.
Play tent with me, she says.
We used to do this with a lacy crocheted blanket
Thrown over our heads.
She would wheeze behind the mask
With me concocting tragedies.
Two Dickensian sisters wasting with consumption
A mother and daughter poisoned by toxic gas
(From where was never clear)
Gasping through their last minutes
Or our favorite imagining
Siamese twins
One hale and healthy, one near death,
An arrow in her breast.
Oh the sorrow, the desolation, the wretchedness.
The crocheted blanket cannot be found.
I improvise a plain white sheet.
The effect is dramatic
Without the lacy holes,
We can’t see the outside world
And no one can see in.
So instead of tragedies
We share secrets.
I cheated on a math test,
She whispers through the mask.
A boy in French offered to sell me pot, I counter.
I think my history teacher is a lesbian, she says.
And then coughs until Mom lifts the sheet
Gazing pucker-browed as the coughs subside
Then lets the sheet waft back into place.
Mom looks thin again, Kayli says
Although this is no secret.
VEILED WOMAN
She yells at him outside Starbucks.
I linger
Out of sight.
I’m not really spying.
I just don’t want him to see me
And be embarrassed
Or something.
She yells in a throaty language.
I wish I could understand
What she’s saying.
I’m not really spying
I just want to know what is going on
And maybe help him
Or something.
She yells in front of everyone
And when she turns and strides away
I see her face.
I’m not really spying
I just want to know who she is
And what she means
To him.
An olive-skinned glaring moon
Surrounded by a carefully fixed black veil
She climbs into the back of a black car.
She’s young and pretty.
I’m not really crying
I just have dust in my eye
Or something.
FORBIDDEN
I saw you watching me, he says.
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
Excellent insight, she says.
I turn to Sam
Expecting him to share my pride
But he’s frowning
And when Ms. Sagal asks him
He only shrugs.
MIZ
She sometimes brings her daughter
Who sits in her wheelchair
In the back of the art room
Drawing wild swirls
With her spindly
Unpredictable arm.
How old are you?
I say to her after class.
She’s fourteen
Ms. Sagal says.
She doesn’t speak.
Cerebral palsy.
But she’s very smart
She goes to a private school
They’re closed today.
Marika is her name.
She smiles at me
A bit lopsided
But beautiful.
THE SHOWDOWN
She actually started to say it:
As long as you’re living in this house, young la—
But she couldn’t finish.
She laughed
And so did I.
It’s something we do as a family
It’s boring.
It’s important to your father
No it isn’t.
What would your Nana say?
She’s dead.
Don’t you have anyone you want to pray for?
This one stops me.
I could pray for Puffy Blond and Freckle Arms
To stop being so vapid.
I could pray for Kayli
That her asthma would get better
Or her feet would stop growing.
I could pray that someone
Would sit with me at lunch.
I could pray for Samir.
Aren’t we supposed to pray
For the conversion of the infidels?
Or is that how he
Is supposed to pray for me?
REGURGITATION
Mom
threw
up
after
Sunday
brunch
It’s not worth mentioning except
She
snuck
upstairs
to
do
it
And I don’t think she’s really sick.
chapter four
PORTRAITS
HOT CHOCOLATE
It comes over me on the bus
A fug, a mizzle of discontent.
Puffy and Freckle called me fat today.
Not directly
That would be gauche.
They said I looked like an old TV star
Who is famous for being fat.
They said it in front of everyone.
It festers all afternoon
And on the bus it overwhelms me.
Fat.
Useless.
Ugly.
Boring.
Stupid.
Gullible.
Ella short for elephant.
My eyes sting.
At Starbucks, I ring the bell
Stumble off.
Through the glass I can see Samir
The last person I want to see me this way
But my feet seem to feel differently.
They take me to him, smiling behind the counter.
He takes in my expression.
Are you okay?
Hot chocolate, I say.
And bless him,
He seems to understand.
Double chocolate, extra whip?
I ask him how he knows.
Everyone has bad days, he says.
OXYGEN TENT
Kayli starts wheezing at dinner.
Mom walks away from her full plate
And prepares the nebulizer.
Kayli crawls onto the couch
Curls up, looking small.
Play tent with me, she says.
We used to do this with a lacy crocheted blanket
Thrown over our heads.
She would wheeze behind the mask
With me concocting tragedies.
Two Dickensian sisters wasting with consumption
A mother and daughter poisoned by toxic gas
(From where was never clear)
Gasping through their last minutes
Or our favorite imagining
Siamese twins
One hale and healthy, one near death,
An arrow in her breast.
Oh the sorrow, the desolation, the wretchedness.
The crocheted blanket cannot be found.
I improvise a plain white sheet.
The effect is dramatic
Without the lacy holes,
We can’t see the outside world
And no one can see in.
So instead of tragedies
We share secrets.
I cheated on a math test,
She whispers through the mask.
A boy in French offered to sell me pot, I counter.
I think my history teacher is a lesbian, she says.
And then coughs until Mom lifts the sheet
Gazing pucker-browed as the coughs subside
Then lets the sheet waft back into place.
Mom looks thin again, Kayli says
Although this is no secret.
VEILED WOMAN
She yells at him outside Starbucks.
I linger
Out of sight.
I’m not really spying.
I just don’t want him to see me
And be embarrassed
Or something.
She yells in a throaty language.
I wish I could understand
What she’s saying.
I’m not really spying
I just want to know what is going on
And maybe help him
Or something.
She yells in front of everyone
And when she turns and strides away
I see her face.
I’m not really spying
I just want to know who she is
And what she means
To him.
An olive-skinned glaring moon
Surrounded by a carefully fixed black veil
She climbs into the back of a black car.
She’s young and pretty.
I’m not really crying
I just have dust in my eye
Or something.
FORBIDDEN
I saw you watching me, he says.
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
