in to work her shift at Denny’s, our town’s only restaurant that serves after 8:30. She works there and at the Riverside on Sundays.
And all those people know me too. That’s Little Belle Philbrick , they’ll say, whose dad died in the first Gulf War when she was a baby. She dates that cute Dylan boy. What a good couple they are. They’ll get married after college. You just can tell.
In my town, everyone repeats your past and predicts your future every single time they see you, even though the people they tell it to already know. I wonder what they’ll say about me now, what they’ll say about Dylan.
I turn away from my window and tiptoe through the house without flicking on any lights. It doesn’t take much to lose my way, even though I’ve lived here all my life. Everything is different in the dark. I bump into the coffee table. My shin bruises. My hip launches into the corner of the kitchen counter. The pain is sweet, like water after a long bike ride uphill.
Night sounds skim against me. My mother’s snore-breaths bound down the hall. Cars on faraway roads rev their engines. Mice rustle in the walls. Cats’ paws pad along crackling leaves.
I lean against the counter.
“I’m lonely,” I say to the sounds, the house, to nothing.
In the dark, dark kitchen my body slumps onto the counter, leaning, but my soul, it floats up by the ceiling, watching it all, wondering about this lonely girl with her feet planted on the wood floor, this girl who is me.
My mother snores in her bedroom. The clock tells me it’s too late to call.
In the morning, after the gloom of a typical overcast day wakes up my mom, I leave the kitchen, where I’ve moved from the floor to the top of the counter.
“Good morning, sweetie. You’re up early,” she says in her sleep-heavy voice. She makes her way to the coffeemaker, eyes barely open and not really registering anything. She is not a morning person.
“Yep,” I say.
I go in my room, ignore Gabriel, and turn on the stereo. It’s Barbra Streisand, this super-crooner lady that Dylan loves. She’s got this CD of show tunes that came out way back in the 1980s some time. Dylan and I sing to it together. He’s a great singer, with one of those musical-classical choir voices. He’s an all-state, all–New England baritone. I’m an alto and I’m more folk. When I sing you expect to hear a guitar with me.
But I don’t turn on my music. I turn on his. This is ironic, of course, because he’s just dumped me, and here I am in my room listening to his music. I can’t help it. I turn it up louder and remember.
Sometimes Dylan would sing to me. Sometimes he would sing even if I didn’t ask him to, like when I was nervous or we thought I might have a seizure. I’d rest my head on his stomach and his breathing would change, it would become deeper and longer. The breaths flowed out music words that would soar around the room or outside and then flit gracefully into my ears. Even when he sang in chorus, I could always pick out his voice. It was the voice that cascaded into my head, down through my throat, and settled into the depths of me.
I put up the volume real loud because my mom’s gone out to the grocery store.
Barbra’s got this voice that goes loud and soft and spirals all over the place. I pluck up Muffin, scratch her kitty head, and stare out the window while Barbra sings.
Muffin puts her paw on the cold pane of glass. I close my eyes and hear Dylan’s voice mixing with Barbra’s.
We’d always come to my house after school and sing this with my stereo. We’d belt out old show tunes, the stuff Dylan really liked. We’d get overdramatic and laugh so hard we couldn’t sing anymore. We’d flop on my bed and start kissing. That was our routine.
Dylan can sing everything—folk songs, opera, show tunes, rock. Although, he’s not too good at rock. No offense to him. It’s too brash for our music breathing. It’s not Dylan.
Although, how can I know that?
And all those people know me too. That’s Little Belle Philbrick , they’ll say, whose dad died in the first Gulf War when she was a baby. She dates that cute Dylan boy. What a good couple they are. They’ll get married after college. You just can tell.
In my town, everyone repeats your past and predicts your future every single time they see you, even though the people they tell it to already know. I wonder what they’ll say about me now, what they’ll say about Dylan.
I turn away from my window and tiptoe through the house without flicking on any lights. It doesn’t take much to lose my way, even though I’ve lived here all my life. Everything is different in the dark. I bump into the coffee table. My shin bruises. My hip launches into the corner of the kitchen counter. The pain is sweet, like water after a long bike ride uphill.
Night sounds skim against me. My mother’s snore-breaths bound down the hall. Cars on faraway roads rev their engines. Mice rustle in the walls. Cats’ paws pad along crackling leaves.
I lean against the counter.
“I’m lonely,” I say to the sounds, the house, to nothing.
In the dark, dark kitchen my body slumps onto the counter, leaning, but my soul, it floats up by the ceiling, watching it all, wondering about this lonely girl with her feet planted on the wood floor, this girl who is me.
My mother snores in her bedroom. The clock tells me it’s too late to call.
In the morning, after the gloom of a typical overcast day wakes up my mom, I leave the kitchen, where I’ve moved from the floor to the top of the counter.
“Good morning, sweetie. You’re up early,” she says in her sleep-heavy voice. She makes her way to the coffeemaker, eyes barely open and not really registering anything. She is not a morning person.
“Yep,” I say.
I go in my room, ignore Gabriel, and turn on the stereo. It’s Barbra Streisand, this super-crooner lady that Dylan loves. She’s got this CD of show tunes that came out way back in the 1980s some time. Dylan and I sing to it together. He’s a great singer, with one of those musical-classical choir voices. He’s an all-state, all–New England baritone. I’m an alto and I’m more folk. When I sing you expect to hear a guitar with me.
But I don’t turn on my music. I turn on his. This is ironic, of course, because he’s just dumped me, and here I am in my room listening to his music. I can’t help it. I turn it up louder and remember.
Sometimes Dylan would sing to me. Sometimes he would sing even if I didn’t ask him to, like when I was nervous or we thought I might have a seizure. I’d rest my head on his stomach and his breathing would change, it would become deeper and longer. The breaths flowed out music words that would soar around the room or outside and then flit gracefully into my ears. Even when he sang in chorus, I could always pick out his voice. It was the voice that cascaded into my head, down through my throat, and settled into the depths of me.
I put up the volume real loud because my mom’s gone out to the grocery store.
Barbra’s got this voice that goes loud and soft and spirals all over the place. I pluck up Muffin, scratch her kitty head, and stare out the window while Barbra sings.
Muffin puts her paw on the cold pane of glass. I close my eyes and hear Dylan’s voice mixing with Barbra’s.
We’d always come to my house after school and sing this with my stereo. We’d belt out old show tunes, the stuff Dylan really liked. We’d get overdramatic and laugh so hard we couldn’t sing anymore. We’d flop on my bed and start kissing. That was our routine.
Dylan can sing everything—folk songs, opera, show tunes, rock. Although, he’s not too good at rock. No offense to him. It’s too brash for our music breathing. It’s not Dylan.
Although, how can I know that?
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