Story of a Girl

Girl meets Boy.

Girl doesn't notice much of Boy at first. He's wrapped in silence, invisible. She is wrapped in armor, impenetrable.

But then Boy says something small, something unimportant, something unintentional, and Girl's heart sings.

Girl is scared by the flutter in her heart when Boy looks her way. Girl has been broken before. Her torn heart is newly stitched.

Girl fears Boy will break her anew, but she can't seem to stop herself. Piece by piece, Girl's armor falls away.

She's frightened by the feel of wind and sun on her skin. It's been eons since she stood exposed. But Boy makes her feel herself.

The last piece of armor clatters to the ground. Girl opens her arms wide and invites Boy inside.

Boy shakes his head and says, "I'm sorry."

Girl's arms drop to her side. She's seen this happen before.

A stitch tears in Girl's heart. Something cold seeps inside, like mercury running through her veins. She becomes the cold.

Piece by piece, she straps the armor back on. It feels heavier this time. She can barely breathe beneath its weight.

And when the armor is back on, Girl picks up her sword and strikes at Boy even though she knows it isn't Boy's fault.

Boy didn't try to make Girl's heart sing. Boy didn't ask Girl to invite him in. Girl did it knowingly.

But Girl strikes anyway because Girl is so tired of stitching herself back together.

Girl hates that she has done this, hates her own weak heart. She wants to take it back, but the time for apologies has passed.

Boy is gone.

Girl stands alone.

It's the same story every time. Girl meets Boy.

The Girl, the Anarchist Bookstore and the Typewriter

It gleamed on the table. Polished gunmetal gray like new. Like it isn't at least four decades old. Keys as bright white as the day they were made. Wizard Truetype. It speaks to me in its strange click-clack language, whispering of stories that will seep up into my fingers and out onto clean sheets of paper.

I hover over it for a minute, testing the keys, considering the expense. There is another in the corner, a Royal. It's cheaper. I look at the Royal, pick it up, weigh it, stroke its keys, but the Wizard's magic is strong.

It's only a $10 difference, I told myself. I just won't eat lunch out for a day.

I wander back to the Wizard. The clerk watches me from his perch at the front counter as I test its keys. There's no electricity in this machine, and yet it seems to crackle as I touch it. It's magnetic, the new relationship between this typewriter and I. I carry it to the counter. I think if it could, it would emit a contented sigh. We belong together, this Wizard and I.

I pay, wincing a little once I hear the total with tax. But again it whispers to me of the stories we'll tell together. I'm worth it, the Wizard says.

I note that the bookstore sells replacement ribbons. The clerk tells me the typewriters come from a customer who finds and repairs them as he zips the Wizard into its two-toned vinyl case.

I carry it to my car and drive back to work, stopping for a sandwich along the way. I feel light despite the overcast gloom of the day.

Conversation with the Cat

"Do you love me?" I ask the cat.

He only stares, enigmatic. He does not answer. Never answers.

He lies on the floor, black tail thumping against polished wood. His expression is one of disdain, as if to say, Silly human with your questions.

I do not believe he loves me. He loves only the metallic whir of the can opener.

Girl vs. Wal-Mart

So I'm walking through Wal-Mart this afternoon, sweating because the heat is turned up way too goddamned high and even though I've removed my coat and scarf, I'm sweating. There are too many people and none of them – not a single goddamned one – are paying attention to where they're going.

My mission at the Wal-Mart is two-fold: I need supplies to get through the rest of my long weekend, and I've promised to buy some Hannah Montana crap for a little girl whose family can't afford Christmas, and this vast wasteland of plastic junk is the only place that sells anything Hannah Montana.

So I'm walking through the Wal-Mart, pushing my cart with the one wonky wheel, because there's always one wonky wheel, and this voice comes on the loudspeaker, ringing out with false cheer, “We'd like to thank our shoppers for braving the ice and the snow to shop at Wal-Mart today!”

And I think, I didn't drive here on a solid sheet of ice for the greater glory of Wal-Mart, you fake bitch. The only reason I, or anyone else, set foot in this big box of suck today is because we had no other choice. In my case, I was out of toilet paper and this is the cheapest goddamned place in town. But don't make the mistake of thinking I shop here because I like it. You all know you've got America by the short and curlies, you greedy conglomerate bastards. Don't expect us to be fucking cheerful about that.

I'm checking out and the cashier keeps trying to make conversation. Another false dose of cheer. “So, are you all ready for Christmas?” And in that moment – for an instant – I understand why people go on shooting sprees because if I had a gun, that bitch would be toast. But I restrain myself and mutter with as much false cheer as I can muster, “Pretty much!” Which is true, because when you're single and planning to spend Christmas alone, what's to prepare for? Yes, I'm all ready with the frozen pizza and several bottles of cheap wine so I can drown myself until New Year. Thanks. But I don't tell her that. I wish I had.

I creep along the icy road at 20 mph and some asshole whizzes by me – passing on the right – because apparently he wants to die. Sorry I'm too slow for you. Fucking jerk. But I'm almost home, where I can set a big pot of vegetable soup to simmering and sip a hot mug of diet hot chocolate, because heaven forbid I actually enjoy anything in this life. But it will be good to get home, to crank up the heat and shut out the world and settle into my comfy thrift store chair with a book or perhaps my laptop and make notes for my novel. I'm off work for the next two days and I don't plan to so much as poke my head outside except to pick up the newspaper.

As I skid into the parking lot, inches from sanctuary, I'm struck by the realization. I forgot to buy cat food.

Scar Tissue

I sit at the end of the bar, waiting for my turn to sing. A bottle of Guinness sweats on the wood surface in front of me. It's mostly for show, ordered out of some sense of duty to the dark-haired girl behind the bar who always remembers my name.

A guy sits next to me. Clean cut. Blond. Nice looking. A little short. He orders a drink. I don't pay attention to what. He says something about the weather. I don't realize he's talking to me until he gestures toward the song book sitting next to my beer and asks if I'm singing. I nod. What song? "Son of a Preacher Man."

He's from out of town. He travels a lot, has sung karaoke in nearly every state. He likes country. Why is he talking to me? I should be social. I smile. I ask questions -- too many questions. I'm interviewing him about his job and cringing inside as some voice in my brain tells me he doesn't want to talk about this and why don't I ask him something else, but I can't think of anything else because work is all I know and I don't like country music.

The DJ calls my name. It's my turn to sing. The voice that explodes from my throat doesn't belong to me. It belongs to someone attractive, talented, confident. Not to me. I'm only borrowing it for three minutes. As this borrowed voice rises to the song's climax, the DJ flashes the lights. Some futile attempt to make me feel like a rock star.

The song ends and I walk back to my bar stool perch. The guy is still there. He smiles and nods. I try to think of something friendly to say, but my mind is blank. I don't look at him. We sit in silence while one of the regulars screeches an excruciatingly off-pitch version of "Turn the Page." The guy finishes his drink. Nice to meet you. And he leaves. I don't know what he wanted anyway. I lift the Guinness to my lips and take a slow sip. It's bitter.

The rotation is heavy tonight. It'll be awhile before it's my turn again. "99 Red Balloons." I flip through the song book, studying it like there could still be some surprise in its pages, some long-forgotten favorite my borrowed voice could polish and make shine.

Another regular who just may fancy herself Patsy Cline reincarnated begins her standard rendition of "Crazy." She's a good singer.

I feel conspicuous sitting at the end of the bar alone. I hop down from the bar stool and slink past her to the women's bathroom, just for a change of scenery. Inside is another regular. She's young. 23 or 24. I'm a million years old. We've chatted a few times about vampire movies and TV shows. She hugged me once just because I knew what "Spuffy" meant.

She's standing at the chalkboard hanging next to the sink. She's sketching a heart and drawing jagged lines through it. Then more lines. Short, strong parallel lines through the jagged ones.

Broken heart?

Stitched up heart, she says. It was broken, but now it's stitched. It'll heal, but it'll be weaker where it was broken and it'll be afraid of being broken again.

She drops the chalk on the ledge and walks out.

And I wonder -- how many times can a heart be stitched before there's nothing left but scar tissue?

Break in the Action

A girl walks into a hockey game.

No, this isn't the opening line of a joke. There's no priest, no rabbi, and no bartender, although she often feels there should be a punchline to her stories.

She walks with hesitation. She's new to the town, new to the arena, new to this whole life she finds herself living. She doesn't know where her seat is, and she's late.

She finds the entrance to the section marked on her ticket, the ticket she got for free from her boss. She has two, but the one person she asked to go, the one friend she has in this new town, someone new like herself, said he was too busy. She's trying not to take it personally.

She walks up the cement ramp, emerging from a dark tunnel into a blaze of light and noise. She stands at the entrance and looks around. A man leans against the doorway.

“You might want to wait to take your seat,” he says.

She smiles and nods, doesn't understand why he said that. She doesn't know the rules here.

She steps out of the doorway and starts to walk up the steps, looking for her seat. Immediately, several people yell at her. The loudest is an old woman with an impossibly tall beehive hairdo and a voice that's saturated with decades of cigarette smoke.

“Wait for a break in the action!” the old woman yells. Her voice is raspy, harsh. “Wait for a break in the action you dumb ass!”

The girl's face turns hot. She runs up the stairs, above where anyone is sitting so she won't block anyone's view. The old woman continues to yell.

“You're supposed to wait for a break in the action!”

“Stop yelling at me!” the girl screams back.

The old woman shakes her head and turns her attention back to the game. “Come on, Ams!” she yells in her smoke-soaked voice. “Come on!”

When the action stops, the girl finds her seat number. It's right across the aisle from the old woman, and someone else is sitting there.

The girl checks her ticket again. Yes, that's her seat. And someone else is sitting there.

She takes a deep breath and walks back down the steps to her seat. She asks the woman sitting there if she can nudge past her to the open seat next to her.

The woman gets up, “Oh, I'll move. This isn't my seat. I just thought it was open.”

“No, you don't have to move. There's no one else with me,” the girl says.

But the woman moves anyway.

And all of the people sitting around her glare at the girl because the people all know each other and know the woman the girl has just displaced. They glare at the girl like the girl has done something rude in claiming her seat, in not knowing the rules, in simply existing.

The girl sits and tries to make herself small, no easy feat for the girl.

“Come on, Ams!” the old woman yells from the short distance across the aisle. Her voice makes the girl's teeth shiver. “Come on!”

The girl sinks a little lower into her seat. She watches the rink, but doesn't understand what's happening and she's afraid to ask anyone, afraid to earn more yelling and more glares.

She waits ten minutes for a break in the action and she leaves.

She drives home in the dark.

When she walks in the door to her apartment, the cat is mewling at her feet. She picks him up and hugs him to her chest, because she needs to feel the velvet soft fur against her face, because she needs to hear the low rumble of his purr, because the cat is the only one who's ever waiting for her.

The Irresolution of Grief

I can imagine the scene as though I was there.

I can imagine my once-robust grandfather frail and jaundiced, the steady rhythms of a machine the only thing keeping him alive.

I can imagine my grandmother, sitting at his bedside, holding his hand, crying.

I can imagine him asking in a broken voice to be let go, it was time, he had made peace with God.

I can imagine my mother, my aunts, my uncle, clinging to each other, whispering over the decision.

I can imagine the machines being shut down, one by one, their lights fading to darkness, his last shallow breaths, family huddled, waiting for the end.

I can only imagine.

I was half a mile away, yawning my way through a class on communication theory, wanting to get home and watch something on television.

I was sitting on a bus that took me right past the hospital, unaware, unsuspecting.

I was struggling to prepare to teach the next day, trying to learn some model of persuasion my students would only remember until the next test.

I was chit-chatting online, e-mailing friends, behaving as though everything was normal.

I remember the phone call. It was noon. I was supposed to leave for a teaching assistant staff meeting. I hadn't done my statistics homework.

I missed the call. I was in the shower. I remember the message. My mother asking me to call, her voice breaking. I knew what it meant. He'd been sick more than a decade.

I remember picking up the phone, calling home. I remember that word meaning something. The meaning is long gone.

I listened as she told me he was gone. He had asked to be let go. He wanted it to be over. He had been in the hospital for a week this time. He couldn't take any more.

I remember wondering why no one called. A week, and no one called. Half a mile away, and no one called. I can only imagine.

I didn't cry. I got excused from my classes, excused from the statistics homework I hadn't done. I can't remember the rest of that day, or the next. I can't remember anything until the funeral. It was a Thursday.

I drove alone. I was the first to arrive. I walked in alone, into that room alone, through all of those empty chairs toward the casket alone, and I remember thinking that wasn't my grandfather there, it was just a body in clothes he once wore. The knowledge knocked the wind out of me, still knocks the wind out of me. I started crying and couldn't stop.

My mother said she was surprised I cried and my sister didn't. She thought I would have been the one to be strong. I tried to stop. I was ashamed.

I try to understand, my mother, my grandmother, my aunts, my uncle, each of them lost in their own grief. I try to understand why no one called. I can only imagine.