Read Online Fancy White Trash by Marjetta Geerling - Free Book Online

carry that bloody, slimy memory to the grave. They really should wipe a baby off before they show it to anyone. I totally respect Kait’s desire to be alone in the delivery room.
    I squeeze myself into the empty chair between Cody and Jackson. Leaning my head on Cody’s shoulder, I breathe deeply and slowly. He shifts and readjusts us until he gets an arm around my shoulders.
    â€œBetter?”
    â€œI hate this.”
    â€œWe’re here with you,” Cody says. “We’re not going anywhere. ”
    I keep breathing, try to think about Kait’s essay. Will her adviser believe she wrote it before the labor hit?
    Jackson stretches his legs out in front of him and toes off his Nikes. “Might as well get comfortable. We could be here for hours.”
    It feels late. Jackson drove us here at approximately the speed of light, but I haven’t seen the time since they whisked Kait to a back room just after eight thirty. No one else is in the room with us. It’s like we’re in a bubble, out of time and place. Only Cody’s arm around me feels real, the sound of Jackson’s raspy breath beside me. I feel Cody’s fingers comb through my hair, which usually relaxes me but isn’t working tonight.
    Sitting, waiting, is driving me nuts. Cody, too. In the first five minutes, he straightened all the chairs, rearranged the fake plants according to height, and adjusted the blinds on the one window so they were level. Now he’s stuck with nothing to do but pick imaginary—I hope!—flecks of dandruff out of my hair. I want to do something, anything. The first line of Kait’s essay rolls through my head again. I sit up.
    â€œDo you have a pen?” I ask. “Or any paper?”
    â€œNope.” Cody’s chin bumps my forehead when he talks.
    Jackson fishes a pen out of his front pocket. “No paper, though. Sorry.”
    â€œThis is great.” It’s a felt-tip, much better for writing on skin than a ballpoint. I click it open and start. It’s good that I’m wearing a tank top. The first line goes on my upper arm.
    We are all born in pain.
    â€œNot too bad.” Jackson is done reading. My left arm and both legs are covered in sentences.
    â€œIt’s a little rough,” I say.
    Jackson rubs the two-day-old shave on my legs. “No kidding.”
    I slap his hand away. “Hands off the masterpiece.”
    â€œThat reminds me,” he says. “You still writing poetry? Like the ones you showed me? They were really good.”
    Breath hitching, I stare at my ink-covered knee. He’s not supposed to remember that , the me that was such a sap I actually wrote poems about us. And everything else, too. Friends and enemies, the environment, politics, my favorite shows. The truth is, I still do write poems. Usually late at night, in the journal I keep under my bed next to Mr. Manly. But I don’t say yes to Jackson’s question.
    â€œYou ever gonna return that book?” I ask. Not only had I shown him my poems, I’d lent him my favorite book, The Essential Rumi , a translation of writings from the thirteenth-century poet Jalal al-Din Rumi that I never cease to find completely amazing.
    â€œMaybe I’m rereading it.” He flicks hair out of his eyes. His eyes shift away.
    Like I’m supposed to believe that. “If you lost it, just say so.”
    â€œI love Rumi,” he protests.
    I’m not impressed he remembers the name. It was in big black letters on the cover. I am about to tell him I want a new hardcover, that he won’t get away with some used bookstore paperback replacement, when the door from the hallway opens.
    I pop out of my seat, hoping for news. But it’s Mom, thin body wrapped in a tight black dress that shows off her long legs. Her hair is curled and flows down her back in layered waves.
    â€œKait’s still in labor,” she announces as if we don’t know why we’re