Be Straight with Me Page 2

  beneath the exhilaration

  of a new shade.

  YOUR FRIENDS LIKE TO ASK

  “How do you solve a problem like Max Willard?”

  What is it about

  your love for German and Maria von Trapp?

  Your affinity for the bizarre phonics

  of a language that compels you to shout things like

  “Das ist Quatsch!” and “schwieriges Leben” at random?

  Your knowledge of dance-club culture in Berlin?

  Your fixation on a country

  still healing from its tragic history

  of identity-suppression

  and shame?

  I’ll never tell you that sometimes,

  when Jo and I sit with you and your friends

  in the dining hall, or pregame with you

  on the sixth floor of Milliken,

  I confess to myself

  that you fascinate me

  with your shaggy, unkempt hair,

  your grungy fashion sense,

  and your posse of hot straight guy friends with whom you

  shotgun beers and

  smoke pot and

  play Xbox.

  (You have so many straight guy friends,

  I think you must like to torture yourself.)

  AND I DON’T LIKE TO ADMIT IT, BUT

  you’re funny,

  and I admire your

  shameless ability to speak your mind,

  and I marvel and laugh at your nonsense

  when you say things like:

  “So who breastfeeds who around here?”

  “Pinch my nips and call me a poodle!”

  “Daddy’s got a new pair of jeans!”

  Or when you break an awkward silence with

  “So what’s everyone being for Halloween?”

  . . . in the middle of April.

  I’m having trouble determining whether

  you fascinate me because I’m scared of you

  or I’m scared of you because you fascinate me.

  But also

  I think I’m coming to realize

  this is all just your way

  of commanding order over the chaos,

  keeping people at arm’s length, and

  holding your wildest cards

  close to your chest.

  Because how can anyone ever judge you

  if they have no idea what you’re saying?

  REFLECTIONS: FOURTH GRADE

  At soccer practice

  Nicole and Kelsey and Lynn

  talk about boys and kissing.

  Will a boy ever want to kiss me?

  Do I ever want to kiss a boy?

  HALLOWEEN

  You’ve known Joanna and me long enough now

  to be well aware

  that we are not the kind of girlfriends

  who make out with each other.

  Joanna and I are Harry and Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber.

  I’m Harry in a big furry dog costume.

  Joanna is Lloyd, dressed like a limo driver.

  You’re wearing a short red wig

  over your dirty blond hair

  and a deep shade of red lipstick that

  makes your Cheshire grin pop

  amidst your dark stubble.

  You deepen your voice,

  mocking the tone of a drunk jock.

  “You ladies look pretty sexy in those costumes.

  Dare you to make out.”

  I shiver off the burn of another shot of Jack Daniel’s.

  Joanna and I look to one another and roll our eyes.

  We both know you could care less

  about watching two girls make out.

  “Why not?” you say.

  “Is it because Dalton’s a bad kisser?”

  You smirk at me. I give you the finger.

  “I’m probably a better kisser than you, Willard.”

  You stifle a laugh,

  and I want to smack you.

  “I just don’t see you as the good kisser type,” you say.

  “I’m sure you’re decent in your own way, though.”

  Now I’m really about to slap you, but Joanna intervenes.

  “If you’re both so good at it,

  then I dare you two to make out!”

  I expect you to mirror my disgust,

  but a different expression comes over your face.

  An expression of challenge.

  I see that

  this is not just your average make-out dare;

  this is a duel of skill,

  a showdown of sex appeal.

  Here I can show you once and for all

  I’m not just some oblivious bimbo.

  I match your competitive glare

  and utter one contemptuous, bored word of consent.

  “Fine.”

  The next thing I know, we’re horizontal

  against my pillows, arms around each other,

  accepting Joanna’s deflected dare in full force.

  Then, just as quickly as it seemed to happen,

  it’s over.

  I sit up, fix the hood of my dog suit,

  casually wipe your lipstick off my mouth.

  You stand with a disinterested look on your face,

  then go to the mirror on my desk.

  “Did that mess up my lipstick?” you mumble to yourself.

  Joanna lets out a burst of laughter.

  “What was that?!” she shrieks.

  We glance at one another, shrugging.

  “Not bad,” you say.

  “I guess,” I reply.

  “Do you guys need me to leave?”

  Joanna asks, still laughing at us

  as we clink shot glasses

  and throw our heads back in a gulp.

  Then you crank the volume

  on a Benny Benassi remix

  and start dancing,

  and the moment has passed.

  REFLECTIONS: SECOND GRADE

  Do I have a pretty face?

  Is my hair long enough?

  What do the pretty girls do?

  Watch them closely . . .

  JOANNA GETS A BOYFRIEND

  Jo’s new boyfriend has lots of money

  and a fancy car and his own room.

  Now there’s an empty bed

  across from mine

  almost every night.

  One evening in November,

  as Jo’s gathering her overnight bag,

  you ask whether you can sleep in her bed—

  you’d rather not make the long walk

  back to the German House.

  Jo suggests that it’s really up to me.

  I shrug over my homework,

  wondering whether this means

  you and I are actually friends.

  Am I annoyed you assume I won’t mind?

  Or flattered

  you’re willing to spend

  time alone with me?

  The next morning, you tell me

  I was talking in my sleep,

  saying “Wow!” over and over.

  Curious what was so impressive,

  you tried to talk back until

  you realized I was just dreaming.

  You imitate my sleep-talking,

  and we’re both hysterically laughing,

  and then I have this weird feeling like

  I don’t want to leave for class.

  Each night after this,

  we lie on opposite sides of the room,

  you in Jo’s bed, me in mine,

  gigg
ling back and forth through the dark

  until we fall asleep.

  We grow close, like siblings

  in twin beds.

  One morning, as I’m putting on makeup before class,

  you roll over and ask, in a voice hoarse from sleep:

  “Why do you have to wear that stuff all the time?”

  “I don’t have to . . . I just like to . . .” I respond.

  “Look at me.”

  “What?”

  “Just look at me for a second. Let me see,” you insist.

  When I look at you,

  you roll onto your back,

  close your eyes,

  and pull the covers up.

  “I think you look better without makeup,”

  you say beneath the covers.

  “And I’m not just saying that so you’ll

  turn the light off and let me sleep.”

  No one—especially no male—could actually think

  I look better without my dark eye makeup.

  It’s like something my mom would say . . .

  OKAY

  On Sunday night after Thanksgiving break,

  we’re back on campus.

  You point to the oversized get-well card hanging

  over my bed. It’s not new, but you haven’t asked

  me about it until now. So I tell you

  about the time I wished

  I was dead,

  months before, in the summer,

  during the bloody post-op complications

  of a tonsillectomy gone terribly wrong.

  I’ve never voiced this before.

  Not since the night I said it out loud,

  hunched over in the backseat

  on the way to Hartford Hospital.

  It was my third post-op bleed in less than a week.

  As my father sped

  through every red light in our path

  and the crimson of blood-soaked tissues

  grew deeper and darker inside the bucket on my lap,

  I croaked out the words, to no one in particular,

  “I want to die.”

  I kept my head down so the blood

  wouldn’t seep down the back of my throat

  and drown me in it.

  The blood congealed into chunks in my teeth

  as the ER doctors cauterized the open wounds.

  The scene was so gruesome that

  my dad and sister had to leave the room;

  they thought they might vomit.

  I didn’t want to drown in my own blood.

  But I did want to die.

  You listen quietly

  as I open up to you.

  Then, you don’t ask me whether I’m okay;

  you remind me that I am.

  And you climb out of Joanna’s bed

  and lean down

  to hug my horizontal body.

  It’s not one of those robotic

  going-through-the-motions

  types of hugs. It’s real.

  So real that I almost cry.

  Then you’re letting go

  and crossing back through

  the darkness to Joanna’s bed.

  And I really do feel okay.

  REFLECTIONS: THIRD GRADE

  At recess, a girl in my class

  asks me about my sneakers

  and tells me that

  “They only have Sambas in the boys’ section.”

  So, can I still wear my favorite shoes . . .

  . . . even though they’re meant for boys?

  GIRL TALK

  We’re partying at the Bunker—

  the old concrete building on the edge of campus,

  once a dining hall, now notorious

  for its epic dance parties—

  when I first spot George Dale.

  He’s wearing these white leather bejeweled

  cowboy boots (in an ironic way, I presume),

  and I just have to ask him about them.

  He’s cute and funny, and, oh,

  he lives in the same building as me . . .

  We have a series of drunk sleepovers

  interspersed with a few unplanned,

  slightly awkward meals in the dining hall.

  One morning, you come into the room

  to get Miss Cleo, and I’m under the covers

  with George, and you make a stupid face

  and ask, “Are you guys naked?”

  By winter, George starts

  to distance himself from me.

  And even though you tell me not to,

  I confront him drunkenly

  at an off-campus party.

  I get an explanation that makes

  zero sense. I want to scream

  and find you

  and leave this stupid party.

  But you might have already left,

  and you’re not texting me back.

  The following afternoon,

  I come into my room

  and you’re already there,

  sitting on the flowery rug.

  (Is it weird that there’s

  something I really love about

  how comfortable you are

  hanging out in my room

  alone, as if it’s yours?)

  I heave a sigh about that stupid freshman, George Dale.

  “He thinks I smoke too much pot!

  He thinks I’m too big of a stoner!”

  You’re laughing,

  and now I’m trying not to laugh

  as you point out that George Dale smokes

  just as much as I do.

  “He said it’s different ’cause I’m a girl.

  He said it’s weird that I’m a girl

  who smokes more than he does.”

  You snort, and you’re right.

  I don’t even like him that much,

  and, yes, he is kind of hot, but

  he’s also kind of a freak . . .

  which is why it pisses me off so much!

  In the beginning, he was like,

  “Oh, Emily, you’re so cool;

  you’re so different from other girls,”

  and then, “Oh, you’re not

  a normal-enough girl.”

  You tell me to get over it.

  I know you’re right, but whatever.

  “Did you really think he was hot, though?” I ask.

  You shrug. “I would say he was cute, but . . .

  he’s also not really my type.”

  I think back to the story you told Joanna and me

  about going on a college visit in high school

  and hooking up with the captain of the lacrosse team

  in a locker room.

  But George Dale is shorter than you.

  You’re into the big, tall, strong lax bros.

  Not the George Dale lax bros.

  And now I’m rolling my eyes.

  And I’m laughing.

  And I couldn’t care less about

  stupid

  freshman

  George Dale.

  BOY TALK

  It’s December, the semester is almost over,

  and I’m studying your face,

  wondering whether you feel sad.

  I’ve yet to see you legitimately sad,

  so I don’t really know what to look for.

  We’re sitting across from each other

  in the private study lounge

  down the hall from my room.

  Your expression remains fairly neutral as you

  vent to me about Chris—

&nb
sp; who was so big and muscular,

  the hottest guy you will ever be with.

  You sigh. And I ask whether you’ve been

  watching the rest of the new Real World.

  You tell me Chris got in a fight

  with some random guy

  at a club on the last episode,

  as casually as you tell me that

  he practically cheated on you

  in front of your face.

  For a moment, I imagine you sitting alone

  in your room back in the German House,

  smoking pot and watching clips

  of your ex-boyfriend partying,

  and I feel a deep pang

  of sadness for you.

  I’ve heard a few details

  of your coming-out story,

  but I’ve never talked

  directly about it with you.

  You tell me how you grew up

  in a very Catholic household

  outside of Boston. You wrote

  in a prayer journal every day

  in elementary school, and you

  went to an all-boys Catholic high school.

  You dated girls.

  At the end of your senior year,

  you gave a speech at a graduation event

  and came out to all of the people who

  watched you grow up as someone else,

  much to the chagrin

  of your high school girlfriends

  and your very Catholic parents.

  When you’re finished telling me all this,

  you turn to look out the window, and

  my eyes fall back to the open books

  and loose papers on the table between us.

  I stare at the same page of

  Tess of the d’Urbervilles

  for the next ten minutes,

  imagining what you went through

  and hoping with all my heart

  that one day you’ll end up

  with someone who will make you happy—

  someone you deserve.

  FINALS WEEK

  Everyone’s still cramming for finals,

  but you and I have the rest of the week to waste.

  We take some Molly in my room, just the two of us,

  then dance on top of tables at a swim team party.

  Soon we’re rolling especially hard,

  and we seek refuge in the stairwell.

  The thunderous bassline of an A-Trak remix

  of “Heads Will Roll” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs

  bumps over shouts and laughter.

  Empty beer cans are littered everywhere.

  A sticky layer of spilled drinks covers the linoleum.

  But you and I could care less,

  sitting on the stairs together,

  unable to stop laughing.