Uses for Boys Read Free

distance.
    “She’s so alone,” my mom always says when she looks at it.
    I watch the minutes change on the alarm clock.
    At 7:35, I get dressed and eat cereal in front of the TV. I walk to the bus stop and
     stand near the other kids. When I come home after school I unlock the door with the
     key I keep in my backpack. I turn on the TV in the living room and leave it on through
     the after-school specials, through the evening news, through the shows I like to watch
     before I go to bed. I eat pizzas from the freezer and leave my dishes in the sink.
     Once a week the cleaning lady comes and she runs the dishwasher.
    Sometimes I go downstairs and sit in the empty rooms. I can hear the TV from upstairs.
     I wonder where the stepbrothers are now.

 
    boys
    My classroom looks out at the parking lot and there’s nothing to see there.
    “There’s nothing to see out there, Anna,” Ms. Wenderoth says and I turn to look straight
     ahead at the boy in front of me. Mark or Matt. Richard or Tom. Any boy. Some back-of-the-neck
     boy. Some Mark-Joe-Matt-Richard-Tom-Billy-Chris boy. Just a shoving-in-the-hall boy.
     A milk-through-his-nose boy. Just boys. Just there. Like teachers and desks and powdered
     soap in the girls’ bathroom.
    I’m thirteen and now I have a friend, Nancy Baxter. She sits in the front of the classroom.
     She doesn’t care much for boys.
    After school, at her house, Nancy’s older sister offers to braid our hair if we sit
     still in front of the mirror. So we sit like that, Nancy and me, as still as we can,
     side by side in chairs facing the mirror in their pink bathroom, towels folded neatly
     on the rack behind us.
    Nancy’s sister is reflected in the mirror, looking at herself, her hands automatically
     plaiting Nancy’s thin blond hair. I can tell she doesn’t need to concentrate, she
     knows Nancy that well. And they look alike, they have the same distracted, open-mouth
     gaze. Happy. Like it’s so easy to be them. To be sisters. They don’t even question
     it. Or the sound of their mom, moving around in the next room.
    I want to be like Nancy is now, eyes closed, sister tugging at my hair. I close my
     eyes and pretend that I have a sister who can braid my hair without looking. That
     this is my family. My home. I lean my head back and feel hands pulling gently against
     my scalp.
    I drift. Hands deft in my hair. My mom next to me. Our faces together in the mirror.
     I drift, but when I open my eyes again Nancy is looking at my reflection. Sometimes
     Nancy catches me doing this, caught up in wanting something she has and I don’t even
     know why I do it. I just know that Nancy won’t come to my house anymore. She says
     that it’s weird that nobody is ever home. She told her mom and after that her mom
     called my mom and said she didn’t want the girls playing alone anymore and from now
     on I could come to their house.
    Nancy’s sister is talking about boys but they’re nothing like the boys in our school.
     They do things with the girls. Secret things. And Nancy’s sister says she knows what
     to do with them. She knows what they’re good for. I’m watching her talk and braid
     with her fingers and she’s looking at herself like she’s weighing her good features
     against her bad and talking about boys like Nancy and I know what she’s talking about.
    And then Nancy’s mom comes in and says, “Shush, what are you telling these girls?”
     And Nancy runs out giggling and at first I don’t follow, because her sister hasn’t
     braided my hair yet, but then I do.
    *   *   *
    When Nancy’s mom drops me off at my house, I use my key to let myself in. The porch
     light and one in the kitchen. Nancy’s mom doesn’t know that my mom is out because
     my mom and I leave lights on.
    Or maybe she does, because she says, “Are you going to be alright, Anna?” And I say
     that I am.
    But my mom doesn’t come home that night. She calls, because it’s important to call
     if