Read Online Say What You Will by Cammie McGovern - Free Book Online
Authors: Cammie McGovern
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going, apparently, the way they had been. A few weeks earlier they’d started a joke about the girls who wore I Heart NY shirts. He wrote her back:
Grandmother’s turkey dry as the suede fringe on my cowboy vest that still hangs in my guest bedroom here. Real studs. Fake suede. Maybe I’ll show you some time. Hey, thanks for writing. M.
With Amy, jokes were easy, he realized. The other stuff, not so much.
He thought about what his mother had said. He wished he could tell Amy somehow. A few minutes later, he texted again:
Got to overhear my mother’s opinion of my job with you. Apparently she approves. We both give thanks that your battery pack needs to be changed.
He got this back:
My battery pack is thankful for you, too.
As they got closer to Christmas, Amy told Matthew that she’d thought about buying him a Christmas present but decided against it.
“That’s fine,” Matthew said. “I’m not a big present person.” He wasn’t a big Christmas person, either (since it always involved a fake, jolly dinner with his father’s new family), but obviously Amy, with her walker decorated in silver-and-gold tinsel, was.
“INSTEAD I’M GOING TO GIVE YOU A POEM.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“A GREAT, GREAT POEM. IT’LL KILL YOU WHEN YOU READ IT.”
“All right. I mean, I hope it doesn’t kill me, but okay.”
The poem was by Yeats. She emailed it to him, then printed out a copy she presented him with the next day at school:
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Inwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
“DID YOU LIKE IT?” she said, first thing in the morning.
“Oh yeah. It was great. Except you’re not poor.” He didn’t know this for sure. He’d never been to Amy’s house, but the clues were all there: the car her mother drove, the cost of her Pathway and the rest of her equipment. Plus the fact that her parents paid him sixty dollars every other week.
“IT’S SYMBOLIC. I’M POOR IN MANY WAYS EXCEPT MONETARILY.”
“Oh.” He nodded and smiled. “Okay.”
He had liked the poem a lot—enough to memorize it, which wasn’t necessarily significant. Sometimes his brain inadvertently memorized songs and poems he hated, but he did like this one. The problem was, he couldn’t think of anything to say about it. “I like that it was you telling me to walk carefully.” Right away, he knew this wasn’t the right thing to say.
She cocked her head, and stared at him. “THAT’S ALL?”
“I’m not good at poetry, Amy. I’m not sure what else to say.”
“DON’T YOU HAVE ANYTHING FOR ME?”
Now he understood his real mistake. She’d set this whole thing up so they could exchange presents without worrying about his having less money than she did. Why didn’t he understand these things sooner?
“I don’t have anything. I’m sorry.” He felt tongue-tied and awkward. It was a week before school let out for Christmas vacation. Should he run out and get her a present now? Wouldn’t that look stupid since he hadn’t thought of it himself?
He put it out of his mind because he felt like he had other, bigger things to worry about. He hadn’t asked her yet about her college plans, but he would soon. He’d already decided to sign up for whatever online college program Amy picked for herself. If they did it together, he’d point out, they could share books and laugh about the crazy people in their discussion groups.
For Matthew, it was both a relief to imagine and a little embarrassing to bring up. He didn’t want her to know that he hadn’t applied to any schools. That he downloaded some applications that made him too nervous to look at. That without this vague idea of doing something with her, he had no plans for next year. None.
Now he
Grandmother’s turkey dry as the suede fringe on my cowboy vest that still hangs in my guest bedroom here. Real studs. Fake suede. Maybe I’ll show you some time. Hey, thanks for writing. M.
With Amy, jokes were easy, he realized. The other stuff, not so much.
He thought about what his mother had said. He wished he could tell Amy somehow. A few minutes later, he texted again:
Got to overhear my mother’s opinion of my job with you. Apparently she approves. We both give thanks that your battery pack needs to be changed.
He got this back:
My battery pack is thankful for you, too.
As they got closer to Christmas, Amy told Matthew that she’d thought about buying him a Christmas present but decided against it.
“That’s fine,” Matthew said. “I’m not a big present person.” He wasn’t a big Christmas person, either (since it always involved a fake, jolly dinner with his father’s new family), but obviously Amy, with her walker decorated in silver-and-gold tinsel, was.
“INSTEAD I’M GOING TO GIVE YOU A POEM.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“A GREAT, GREAT POEM. IT’LL KILL YOU WHEN YOU READ IT.”
“All right. I mean, I hope it doesn’t kill me, but okay.”
The poem was by Yeats. She emailed it to him, then printed out a copy she presented him with the next day at school:
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Inwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
“DID YOU LIKE IT?” she said, first thing in the morning.
“Oh yeah. It was great. Except you’re not poor.” He didn’t know this for sure. He’d never been to Amy’s house, but the clues were all there: the car her mother drove, the cost of her Pathway and the rest of her equipment. Plus the fact that her parents paid him sixty dollars every other week.
“IT’S SYMBOLIC. I’M POOR IN MANY WAYS EXCEPT MONETARILY.”
“Oh.” He nodded and smiled. “Okay.”
He had liked the poem a lot—enough to memorize it, which wasn’t necessarily significant. Sometimes his brain inadvertently memorized songs and poems he hated, but he did like this one. The problem was, he couldn’t think of anything to say about it. “I like that it was you telling me to walk carefully.” Right away, he knew this wasn’t the right thing to say.
She cocked her head, and stared at him. “THAT’S ALL?”
“I’m not good at poetry, Amy. I’m not sure what else to say.”
“DON’T YOU HAVE ANYTHING FOR ME?”
Now he understood his real mistake. She’d set this whole thing up so they could exchange presents without worrying about his having less money than she did. Why didn’t he understand these things sooner?
“I don’t have anything. I’m sorry.” He felt tongue-tied and awkward. It was a week before school let out for Christmas vacation. Should he run out and get her a present now? Wouldn’t that look stupid since he hadn’t thought of it himself?
He put it out of his mind because he felt like he had other, bigger things to worry about. He hadn’t asked her yet about her college plans, but he would soon. He’d already decided to sign up for whatever online college program Amy picked for herself. If they did it together, he’d point out, they could share books and laugh about the crazy people in their discussion groups.
For Matthew, it was both a relief to imagine and a little embarrassing to bring up. He didn’t want her to know that he hadn’t applied to any schools. That he downloaded some applications that made him too nervous to look at. That without this vague idea of doing something with her, he had no plans for next year. None.
Now he
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