insight before I moved to Heaven.
When I reached Nana’s, I ate an apple and searched Mom’s closets for something sophisticated yet not too flashy to wear to school in the morning. My worries about Natalie made me think I needed a less skin-baring style for the next few days so as not to get in too much trouble too soon. I rummaged in Mom’s closet and found a blue beret that might hide some of my tinted hair issues. I wondered if Mr. Green Eyes would love me in it. I pictured us having a heart-to-heart in the loft of some barn, the sun setting on the horizon behind us—country boy meets city girl. I pictured our Teen Romance book jacket and wished I could dive right into the intertwining and skip all the misadventure that preceded it, because even if he was wholeheartedly accepting, as all heroes naturally are, I would have trouble confiding everything about my mixed-up family just to have sex.
I placed Mom’s hat on my head and posed in themirror, slipping my fabulous new accessory to the side in a very French devil-may-care manner. It was like wearing a wink.
Natalie, pale and worn, appeared behind me as I arranged the beret forward over one ear. Because she had ridden the bus, she must have arrived home before me and had been in our room sleeping or doing homework—one of those activities a person does when they have a terrible secret and would rather not thrust themselves into the social world. I firmly believed enough “The Ants Go Marching” could kill when combined with automotive exhaust, and I felt terrible that I hadn’t invited Natalie to walk with me. Maybe she saw riding the bus as penance.
She inspected the beret.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Do you like it?”
She reached and rearranged the beret so that it draped over the other ear.
“It looks better this way,” she said.
I checked the mirror and gave her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe my left ear was sexier. I tried to hug her to say thank you. I would have embraced my lesbian friend Katy, but Natalie slunk out of reach. Even before Grace, Natalie could be a little freezer pop sometimes.I hoped I really was doing her a favor by listening to Mom and pretending nothing had happened to her. Natalie and I hadn’t had a fight in two days, but she had also surrounded herself with Little Blondie, a girl who seemed like a terrible influence, with all her talk about Pastor Jim and Bible readings.
The next morning, I woke up after Natalie and avoided riding the bus a second time by getting Mom to drive me to Carrie Nation. Mom had taken a job at Bonny’s Hair Hut, which seemed strange since we were only staying a short while, but Nana didn’t have much money and neither did we. On my way to my first class, the Amish girl with the fresh coloring stopped me in the hall. At first I worried she had bad news, had seen more police trucks in the field, but instead she told me she loved my beret, she really really loved it. She was a very eager Amish person. I was grateful to her for reassuring me that I had made a spectacular choice. I stuck a mental Post-it on my forehead to remind me to ask how she came to have such beautiful skin.
Everyone seemed much friendlier than they had the day before. Ms. Duncan, my Earth Science teacher, laid her bony hand over mine when I entered her classroom.
“Hello, dear,” she said. “How are you settling in?”
“Pretty well,” I answered.
She held my hand, seemingly to apologize for any suffering I might have experienced. I wouldn’t have fallen for Kenny’s trick the day before if I had been paying attention, reading signs that he wasn’t the healthiest egg in the basket. Natalie hadn’t tipped me off to how devious he could be, but instead she had implied he and I had things in common, which was pretty terrifying when I looked at him in the corner of the room, hacking at a desk with a pen.
At French High, boys like Kenny were assigned to shop classes, but either Carrie Nation was too small to
When I reached Nana’s, I ate an apple and searched Mom’s closets for something sophisticated yet not too flashy to wear to school in the morning. My worries about Natalie made me think I needed a less skin-baring style for the next few days so as not to get in too much trouble too soon. I rummaged in Mom’s closet and found a blue beret that might hide some of my tinted hair issues. I wondered if Mr. Green Eyes would love me in it. I pictured us having a heart-to-heart in the loft of some barn, the sun setting on the horizon behind us—country boy meets city girl. I pictured our Teen Romance book jacket and wished I could dive right into the intertwining and skip all the misadventure that preceded it, because even if he was wholeheartedly accepting, as all heroes naturally are, I would have trouble confiding everything about my mixed-up family just to have sex.
I placed Mom’s hat on my head and posed in themirror, slipping my fabulous new accessory to the side in a very French devil-may-care manner. It was like wearing a wink.
Natalie, pale and worn, appeared behind me as I arranged the beret forward over one ear. Because she had ridden the bus, she must have arrived home before me and had been in our room sleeping or doing homework—one of those activities a person does when they have a terrible secret and would rather not thrust themselves into the social world. I firmly believed enough “The Ants Go Marching” could kill when combined with automotive exhaust, and I felt terrible that I hadn’t invited Natalie to walk with me. Maybe she saw riding the bus as penance.
She inspected the beret.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Do you like it?”
She reached and rearranged the beret so that it draped over the other ear.
“It looks better this way,” she said.
I checked the mirror and gave her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe my left ear was sexier. I tried to hug her to say thank you. I would have embraced my lesbian friend Katy, but Natalie slunk out of reach. Even before Grace, Natalie could be a little freezer pop sometimes.I hoped I really was doing her a favor by listening to Mom and pretending nothing had happened to her. Natalie and I hadn’t had a fight in two days, but she had also surrounded herself with Little Blondie, a girl who seemed like a terrible influence, with all her talk about Pastor Jim and Bible readings.
The next morning, I woke up after Natalie and avoided riding the bus a second time by getting Mom to drive me to Carrie Nation. Mom had taken a job at Bonny’s Hair Hut, which seemed strange since we were only staying a short while, but Nana didn’t have much money and neither did we. On my way to my first class, the Amish girl with the fresh coloring stopped me in the hall. At first I worried she had bad news, had seen more police trucks in the field, but instead she told me she loved my beret, she really really loved it. She was a very eager Amish person. I was grateful to her for reassuring me that I had made a spectacular choice. I stuck a mental Post-it on my forehead to remind me to ask how she came to have such beautiful skin.
Everyone seemed much friendlier than they had the day before. Ms. Duncan, my Earth Science teacher, laid her bony hand over mine when I entered her classroom.
“Hello, dear,” she said. “How are you settling in?”
“Pretty well,” I answered.
She held my hand, seemingly to apologize for any suffering I might have experienced. I wouldn’t have fallen for Kenny’s trick the day before if I had been paying attention, reading signs that he wasn’t the healthiest egg in the basket. Natalie hadn’t tipped me off to how devious he could be, but instead she had implied he and I had things in common, which was pretty terrifying when I looked at him in the corner of the room, hacking at a desk with a pen.
At French High, boys like Kenny were assigned to shop classes, but either Carrie Nation was too small to
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