know how to drop a man with an elbow strike to the face.
Okay, I also know that’s not what Dylan means. He’s talking about emotional independence. It’s not like I chose it. I want to say, When someone you love and depend on emotionally dies, get back to me .
New subject needed. Maybe telling him about my encounter with Ravi, a.k.a. R.J. Desai, loss control associate, will get him interested in my life again.
“Do you remember a guy from—”
“Jill, I gotta get back to school.” He puts money on the table and stands. Just enough to pay for his lunch and tip. I get up, too, and immediately realize I’ve left my messenger bag in my locker. Fantastic.
“Can I borrow, like… seven dollars?” Miss Independent, that’s me.
Dylan is fixing his jeans so that they rest exactly right on his hips. “What if I don’t have it? What are you going to do?”
“Do you have it?”
“What if I don’t?”
“ Do you?”
He takes his money from the table and goes up to the register to pay both our checks with his debit card. Five minutes ago, he was one of the family. Now we’re… the way we are. I stand by the door trying to look as if it doesn’t bother me. When he comes back, he says, “You need a ride back to school, too.”
“No I don’t,” I say instantly, and just as instantly regret it. Why can’t I simply say yes to him? What am I proving, except that I still don’t know how to concede that, like anyone else, I don’t want to be spinning off into the universe all alone? That sometimes I’m wrong, that sometimes I screw up, that sometimes I require mercy. From friends. From my mom, my dad. That right now I want Dylan’s most of all. Even with all of these brilliant, self-aware insights, I push open the door of the restaurant and say, “I don’t need anything.”
Mandy
It’s not my fault about the peanut butter. Robin wants me to eat things like peanut butter on apple slices for a snack, instead of cupcakes or hot chocolate. Their peanut butter isn’t even that good; they get it from the health food store, and if you leave it out too long, it gets oily.
Jill’s standing between me and the TV. “Why’d you stick the empty jar back in the fridge? Put it on the counter so we know we’re out. Or write it on the list by the phone.”
I’ve been here only two days. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to know where they keep the grocery list. At Kent’s we didn’t even have a list. If there wasn’t food, he yelled about it and my mother went to the store.
“I think there’s enough, if you scrape the sides, to put on a cracker?” I try to see in the space between her arm and body what’s happening on the talk show that just started.
“No, there isn’t.” She walks over to the couch where I’m stretched out with my feet up, and holds the jar in front of my face with the lid off to show me. The smell makes me hungry again. “Where’s my mom?”
“She had a meeting. She said to tell you she left a note in your room.”
Still holding the peanut butter jar, Jill stomps upstairs. This morning after Jill left for school, Robin sat by me on the couch and said, “About Jill…”
I propped myself up and paid attention.
“You have to understand,” Robin said, “that I sort of dropped this on her out of the blue. So I can’t totally blame her for not knowing how to handle it. I’d hoped she’d come around by now.” She said to give her time, that Jill’s actually a nice, caring person who hides it well. I said, “How much time?”
Robin smiled and then stopped smiling and said that she wished she knew, that she’d been waiting a long time herself for Jill to come back.
On Monday night, I was up in my room and in bed before Jill got home from work, and I didn’t wake up until after she was gone in the morning, but there were magazines for me on the kitchen table. From her. So I had something to read at breakfast while Robin read her paper. That was nice. Then yesterday
Okay, I also know that’s not what Dylan means. He’s talking about emotional independence. It’s not like I chose it. I want to say, When someone you love and depend on emotionally dies, get back to me .
New subject needed. Maybe telling him about my encounter with Ravi, a.k.a. R.J. Desai, loss control associate, will get him interested in my life again.
“Do you remember a guy from—”
“Jill, I gotta get back to school.” He puts money on the table and stands. Just enough to pay for his lunch and tip. I get up, too, and immediately realize I’ve left my messenger bag in my locker. Fantastic.
“Can I borrow, like… seven dollars?” Miss Independent, that’s me.
Dylan is fixing his jeans so that they rest exactly right on his hips. “What if I don’t have it? What are you going to do?”
“Do you have it?”
“What if I don’t?”
“ Do you?”
He takes his money from the table and goes up to the register to pay both our checks with his debit card. Five minutes ago, he was one of the family. Now we’re… the way we are. I stand by the door trying to look as if it doesn’t bother me. When he comes back, he says, “You need a ride back to school, too.”
“No I don’t,” I say instantly, and just as instantly regret it. Why can’t I simply say yes to him? What am I proving, except that I still don’t know how to concede that, like anyone else, I don’t want to be spinning off into the universe all alone? That sometimes I’m wrong, that sometimes I screw up, that sometimes I require mercy. From friends. From my mom, my dad. That right now I want Dylan’s most of all. Even with all of these brilliant, self-aware insights, I push open the door of the restaurant and say, “I don’t need anything.”
Mandy
It’s not my fault about the peanut butter. Robin wants me to eat things like peanut butter on apple slices for a snack, instead of cupcakes or hot chocolate. Their peanut butter isn’t even that good; they get it from the health food store, and if you leave it out too long, it gets oily.
Jill’s standing between me and the TV. “Why’d you stick the empty jar back in the fridge? Put it on the counter so we know we’re out. Or write it on the list by the phone.”
I’ve been here only two days. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to know where they keep the grocery list. At Kent’s we didn’t even have a list. If there wasn’t food, he yelled about it and my mother went to the store.
“I think there’s enough, if you scrape the sides, to put on a cracker?” I try to see in the space between her arm and body what’s happening on the talk show that just started.
“No, there isn’t.” She walks over to the couch where I’m stretched out with my feet up, and holds the jar in front of my face with the lid off to show me. The smell makes me hungry again. “Where’s my mom?”
“She had a meeting. She said to tell you she left a note in your room.”
Still holding the peanut butter jar, Jill stomps upstairs. This morning after Jill left for school, Robin sat by me on the couch and said, “About Jill…”
I propped myself up and paid attention.
“You have to understand,” Robin said, “that I sort of dropped this on her out of the blue. So I can’t totally blame her for not knowing how to handle it. I’d hoped she’d come around by now.” She said to give her time, that Jill’s actually a nice, caring person who hides it well. I said, “How much time?”
Robin smiled and then stopped smiling and said that she wished she knew, that she’d been waiting a long time herself for Jill to come back.
On Monday night, I was up in my room and in bed before Jill got home from work, and I didn’t wake up until after she was gone in the morning, but there were magazines for me on the kitchen table. From her. So I had something to read at breakfast while Robin read her paper. That was nice. Then yesterday
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