like my parents don’t care what I think. It’s more like they care who I come from, which figures since that’s kind of what I care about, too. I know I don’t belong to Samantha and Bob anymore. It’s so hilarious how me calling them by their first names makes them all mad. Like “oooh, Cammy’s acting up again” when it’s just their own first names. Everybody else not related to them calls them by their first names so why not me. I didn’t mean for the boys to start doing it so I can’t really do it to their faces anymore. It’s not the boys’ fault I don’t belong. They don’t care what color my hair is or what’s pierced or how much makeup I wear, they treat me normal. Like I’m their sister. I don’t want them to find out about me for a while. They’re too young for it now and whatever, like they’d really care anyway? The only people who notice the difference are Robert—Bob. Dad. Whatever.—And me. Oh, and Missy Delaney.
Here’s a poem I wrote today in class and I think it sucks but whatever. I’ll put it here for posterity, in case I blow my brains out or something. In case I go all Columbine on everyone.
Different
He looked at me with eyes that said “wow I thought you figured it all out by now”
Like I’m so dumb it never occurred to me. Puzzle pieces fitting together at last. Mystery solved only not that day.
That day felt small and dark like a cave I couldn’t climb out of. The solving of the mystery only recognized after emerging from the cave of childhood that ended there in the car on the way to soccer on a day that started like every other one before it.
The answers lying in front of me there, in the middle of growing up. I take this with me like a rock I picked up on the beach and put in my pocket so I can remember the sand even when I’m home from the vacation. Even when I’m under snow. Even when I’m in a dark cave.
That’s my stupid-ass poem.
Samantha
We’re on our way home from a new couple’s house. We met them at an open house at the boys’ school. It was set up so the parents attended mini versions of the classes their kids take and this was lunch hour so we were in the cafeteria standing over a plastic tray of grocery-store crudités with wilting lettuce garnish, dried-out baby carrots and blue-cheese dip that had a film over the top of it. That night Dave and Susan Strong seemed terrific. He looked about as happy to be there as Bob was, but she was upbeat, and because they are new parents she peppered me with questions about school. When the bell rang we shook hands and I said we should get together sometime. The next day I got an e-mail from her with a list of dates they were available and I thought it was wonderful…. I’d been planning on following up, too, because I hate those empty offers. Finally we nailed down a night. I was happy to be able to bring someone new into the mix. I’ve been trying to shake things up and what’s pathetic is that I thought something like having dinner with new people would shake things up. It took an act of Congress to get Bob to go. He never wants to go out, period.
In the car on the way home from dinner Bob turns to me at a red light and says, “Please tell me we don’t have to get together with them again. He wears man-clogs, for God’s sake. Even male nurses don’t wear those anymore. They’re the most dysfunctional couple I’ve ever seen in my life. Did you hear what he said to her about the chicken?”
“I couldn’t believe it. In front of everyone. Did you see her face when he got to the part about how she always screws up dinner?”
“They must’ve been in a fight,” Bob says. In the glow of the brake lights ahead of us, I can see Bob’s tongue sucking food particles out of his teeth. I look away when he nibbles at something he worked loose.
“Yeah, but to have it in front of people they barely know? I wanted to die. So did everyone else. You know that was a red light, right,” I say.
“It was yellow when I went through it. You want to drive?”
“I’m just saying.”
“Did you hear him when he said, ‘Oh God, not this again,’ with that sneer when she said she had a great story about the principal at their last school?” Bob says.
“He’s a jerk,” I say. “I can’t stand either one of them. She’s racist, by the way. I don’t know if you caught that, but she might as well’ve had a white sheet over her head.”
“We’re done with them, right?” Bob asks. He’s at a green light but he’s sitting there as if it’s red.
“You can go, it’s green. Yeah, we’re done with them. Boy oh boy, they bicker bicker bicker. Let’s call them the Bickersons.”
We both laugh and maybe it’s because we both realize it’s been a long time since we laughed together that Bob reaches across for my hand and gives it a squeeze before placing it back at the two-o’clock position on the wheel. Ten and two … he rarely drives with one hand.
I’d thought Dave and Susan Strong would be different. Secretly I’m kind of sick of our group of couple-friends. Except for Lynn and Mike, of course. I feel bad saying this especially because I used to be just like this, but to most, if not all, of the people I know, raising children is the greatest gift in the whole wide world. Leanne. Kerry Kendricks. Sally. If you ask how someone’s doing they’ll answer with something their kid’s just said or done. Nothing about themselves. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of myself and realize I’m just like them. I hate that. Hate. I’m sick of my brain going to mush, of lying in bed wondering what I’ll make for their school lunches the next day. Or whether I need to pick up another case of juice boxes at Costco. I’m sick of car pool. I’m sick of being the devoted mom. I’m tired of shuffling the kids to piano, guitar (Andrew just started weekly lessons), soccer, tutoring. The homework they bring home takes an ungodly amount of time and effort. Now that the time has changed we leave in the dark and we get home in the dark. I’ve tried making good square homemade meals but lately I’ve been throwing in frozen chicken nuggets and heating up canned peas. The kids seem fine with it (Chicken nuggets! Wow! Thanks! only makes me feel guilty for feeding them crap). But there’s not enough time. This is what we all talk about. Everyone I know. This is it. This is what our lives are.
We talk about those women who leave their kids in day care or with nannies while they work full-time. Why have kids? someone will say. And we all nod like it’s so true, it’s so selfish of them.
They’ll regret going back to work when their kids grow up to be delinquents.
Having coffee and pie at a tacky café with sticky plastic tablecloths, someone will mention Dale Harmon who was left alone a lot and ended up accidentally shooting himself with his father’s gun. Someone always mentions Dale Harmon. No one ever let their kids play over at the Harmons’ house because everyone knew Evers, Dale’s father, had guns. So there you go: if his parents hadn’t been working all the time Dale would still be alive. That was the prevailing thought. But I’m not quite sure Dale’s mother, Tally Harmon, was working at the time. I think she might have gone back to work after Dale died. To get out of the house. The Harmons’ house stayed on the market for ten months before they had a buyer from out of town who wasn’t familiar with the family. No one in town wanted to move into a house a child died in. But the thinking was, If Tally had been a good mother she would’ve been there. Once she went back to work no one really saw her anymore. I was convinced that secretly she was relieved to have an excuse to go back to work.
I
