“replay” button in my mind activates, and Aubrey’s entire life as it would have been with a father passes before my eyes, a father who would storm out at this very second, snatch his daughter from the clutches of this marauding male, make her “put some clothes on” and go to the bank with her mother. Right this minute. That father does not materialize and Tyler hauls Aubrey into the truck.
At graduation in May, I’d overheard a mom observing Tyler’s and Aubrey’s mutual gorgeousness whisper to her friend, “God, imagine the children they’d have.” I remember that comment and, for a fraction of a second, the regret machine stops and time freezes in the present, right now, as it actually is.
Both Tyler’s and Aubrey’s faces are framed by circles of white shoe polish drawn on the front windshield with their names and “Sexy Seniors!” written above the circles. Sitting in that truck, with shoe-polish halos encircling their heads, they look like Mary and Joseph. A jolt of panic squeezes my heart as I allow the fear I’ve been denying to surface: that the only thing missing from their Holy Family tableau is the Baby Jesus himself, standing between the haloed couple. Just an ignorant little redneck baby who would utterly destroy my daughter’s life and condemn her to live in this miserable suburban wasteland forever.
God, if I’d only been able to nip this romance in the bud. If I’d even only known when it started.
SEPTEMBER 14, 2009
I am completely and unequivocally into football territory. Paige Winslow and Madison Chaffee, sitting on the aluminum bleachers five feet away, don’t notice me.
In world history last year, we studied the rise and fall of the Soviet Union. Mr. Figge explained what de-Stalinization was, how leaders like Stalin would be expunged from the country’s history so completely that their faces were literally erased from photos. That’s what Paige and Madison have done to me: They’ve de-Stalinized me. I still remember when we all played together at the pool, diving under for plastic rings, riding together on field trips to Pioneer Farm, but they don’t. Friendship with me turned out to be the kind of embarrassing accident that happened when you were little, before everyone found their place in the social hierarchy.
They assume that I hate them. That I am deeply jealous and want to be them, but that since I never will be, I’ve channeled my envy into scorn and hatred. It is a valid assumption and generally true. But wrong in my case. I don’t want to be them any more than I want to be one of Twyla’s burnout buds. I don’t think my life is tragic and that it would be golden if I was popular. I just think they are exactly who they were raised to be since their parents named them Paige and Madison and it is irrelevant if I hate them or want to be them.
I smile and shrug. Paige and Madison have no idea what I am shrugging about any more than I would understand them if they shrugged at me. It would just be a chance to huddle with my friends and get that delicious feeling that comes from whispering about someone who is not like you with someone who is like you. I understand. I truly do. I would like whispering with someone who is like me. But no one is.
I think it is because my sizzle doesn’t match anyone else’s. I want something to happen so bad that it sizzles inside of me. It never stops, but it also never fits any of the choices presented. Maybe because there is only one you are ever allowed to talk about: college.
“Which schools are you thinking about?” everyone asks, like they are taking each other’s temperatures, seeing whose sizzle matches theirs. But, even when I try, I can’t make myself care about colleges. About next year. Not when there is so much to pay attention to right now.
At the end of practice, the players all get in a circle, bump fists, yell, “Pirate Power!” and run to the locker room. Paige stands up on the bleachers and calls out,
At graduation in May, I’d overheard a mom observing Tyler’s and Aubrey’s mutual gorgeousness whisper to her friend, “God, imagine the children they’d have.” I remember that comment and, for a fraction of a second, the regret machine stops and time freezes in the present, right now, as it actually is.
Both Tyler’s and Aubrey’s faces are framed by circles of white shoe polish drawn on the front windshield with their names and “Sexy Seniors!” written above the circles. Sitting in that truck, with shoe-polish halos encircling their heads, they look like Mary and Joseph. A jolt of panic squeezes my heart as I allow the fear I’ve been denying to surface: that the only thing missing from their Holy Family tableau is the Baby Jesus himself, standing between the haloed couple. Just an ignorant little redneck baby who would utterly destroy my daughter’s life and condemn her to live in this miserable suburban wasteland forever.
God, if I’d only been able to nip this romance in the bud. If I’d even only known when it started.
SEPTEMBER 14, 2009
I am completely and unequivocally into football territory. Paige Winslow and Madison Chaffee, sitting on the aluminum bleachers five feet away, don’t notice me.
In world history last year, we studied the rise and fall of the Soviet Union. Mr. Figge explained what de-Stalinization was, how leaders like Stalin would be expunged from the country’s history so completely that their faces were literally erased from photos. That’s what Paige and Madison have done to me: They’ve de-Stalinized me. I still remember when we all played together at the pool, diving under for plastic rings, riding together on field trips to Pioneer Farm, but they don’t. Friendship with me turned out to be the kind of embarrassing accident that happened when you were little, before everyone found their place in the social hierarchy.
They assume that I hate them. That I am deeply jealous and want to be them, but that since I never will be, I’ve channeled my envy into scorn and hatred. It is a valid assumption and generally true. But wrong in my case. I don’t want to be them any more than I want to be one of Twyla’s burnout buds. I don’t think my life is tragic and that it would be golden if I was popular. I just think they are exactly who they were raised to be since their parents named them Paige and Madison and it is irrelevant if I hate them or want to be them.
I smile and shrug. Paige and Madison have no idea what I am shrugging about any more than I would understand them if they shrugged at me. It would just be a chance to huddle with my friends and get that delicious feeling that comes from whispering about someone who is not like you with someone who is like you. I understand. I truly do. I would like whispering with someone who is like me. But no one is.
I think it is because my sizzle doesn’t match anyone else’s. I want something to happen so bad that it sizzles inside of me. It never stops, but it also never fits any of the choices presented. Maybe because there is only one you are ever allowed to talk about: college.
“Which schools are you thinking about?” everyone asks, like they are taking each other’s temperatures, seeing whose sizzle matches theirs. But, even when I try, I can’t make myself care about colleges. About next year. Not when there is so much to pay attention to right now.
At the end of practice, the players all get in a circle, bump fists, yell, “Pirate Power!” and run to the locker room. Paige stands up on the bleachers and calls out,
Similar Books
