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I am
fifteen. I am training you to wait tables, but it’s a slow
afternoon.
“This is where the dressings are kept. The credit card machine
won’t work if you’re on the phone. Sheena always takes the tables up
front. Every other Thursday, we defrost the ice cream.”
You write the specials on the back of an order pad, and I notice that
your “y’s” curl up at the ends. You ask me if I know your
sister, and I say I remember the name.
Your first table doesn’t tip you. I offer to clear the table so I
can slip a five dollar bill under the sugar shaker.
We are tired of serving ice cream. We are finishing a six hour
shift and you are waiting for me to count my tips so we can lock the
door and go home. Twenty, thirty, forty dollars and twenty nine
cents. My apron is heavy with change.
We leave the diner and its echoing bell above the door.
“What do you want to do?” you ask.
You light a cigarette and hand me your lighter. Your smoke curls
like fingers around my face.
I don’t have to knock when I pick you up anymore, I just walk right in.
Your bedroom always smells like berry body spray. You come out of
the shower in a towel, your hair sticks to your shoulders. You
don’t have to turn away when you change; you just reach for your jeans.
“This would look cute on you,” you say, and you hand me a white halter
top.
We don’t even know where we’re going.
I move into an apartment with a friend from work. I pick out
green sheets and a shower curtain with ducks on it.
You move to UConn and call me from your dorm. You like your
roommates and your classes. You talk as I paint my new living
room.
“Are you there?” you ask.
“Yeah.” I answer. Are you?
I wish you’d come home, but I don’t tell you that.
My first apartment alone has a big square porch. You bring me a
candle to put on my patio table.
We sit out there all night. Sometimes we smoke a whole pack of
cigarettes between us. Sometimes we get too loud and the
neighbors complain. Sometimes we go hours without saying anything
at all.
You tell me about a pill you get at school that makes you stay up for
days.
“It’s a lot like coke, but not as bad,” you tell me. I wonder how
you know.
The morning comes, and you gather your things. You tell me you’ll
call when you wake up.
When you leave, I empty the ashtray in the dumpster and set it out
again for tonight.
We are drunk. You grab my hand and tell me I’m your soul
mate. I tell you I love you too. I mean this. You laugh so
loud it’s all I can hear for days.
You teach me how to play poker on my living room floor. You write
a list so I remember the hands. Your “y’s” still curl up at the
ends.
You are at the bar with your roommates. I know this because you told
me. You already sound drunk. You say you haven’t slept in
four days.
“I’m worried about you, Ame.” I tell you.
“Stop being such a mom.” You snap back.
You’re right, but so am I. You must be getting tired of hearing
it.
I wonder what my life would be like without you in it.
I hide my phone under my pillow so I won’t call you back again.
You’re smarter than I give you credit for; you’ll get home all right.
I sleep on your silence.
I am twenty-one. I haven’t talked to you all year. You won’t
return my phone calls. I want to wish you a happy birthday.
I want to tell you I’m in a play. I want to tell you Ben Folds is
coming this summer. I want to tell you that I memorized all the
hands in poker.
Weekends now I go out with a new group of friends. They’re funny, loud,
honest. They aren’t you.
I want to tell you that everything I said was because I was worried.
I want to tell you that I miss you.
So I send you an email.
The next morning you respond. I run my mouse across your
name. I take a drag from my cigarette, but I don’t exhale.
“I don’t know if we will
ever be friends again, probably not because you have said so many
hurtful things to me that I just don’t think I can forget. Don’t you
know you wore me down?”
When I breathe out, all I see is your smoke.
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