I Am Here Now Read online

  A language she knows I don’t understand.

  TOO YOUNG

  Davy and I never talk much.

  Even now, no words.

  Anyway, I don’t want to scare him.

  I’m wondering,

  maybe I should call my gran.

  Joe and Judith have never thrown things

  at each other before.

  But Judith would kill me,

  I mean kill me dead

  for letting her mother know the truth.

  I’m only fourteen and three quarters.

  Way too young

  and too annoyed to die.

  BUZZ. BUZZ.

  Finally, my parents are speaking

  in normal tones, mumble, mumble.

  I call this lull “the bargaining phase.”

  They bought a book that tells them

  they must learn to de-escalate.

  Once I snuck a peek at it.

  I guess it works, at least once in a while.

  The house is quiet now,

  and Davy’s eyes flutter closed.

  He has a talent for shutting down.

  He’s a human turtle.

  Dozing, he’s drooling a little foamy river

  down his flannel shirt.

  I guess I glaze over, too,

  because when my bleary eyes

  open again,

  the national anthem is playing on TV,

  and there’s a photo montage of the flag

  and the station ID.

  That means broadcasting is ending for the night.

  This is followed by

  black-and-white mind-numbing test patterns

  that probably aren’t that different

  than what’s going on in my brain.

  Buzz. Buzz.

  I feel like I reside on a battlefield.

  Like the German painter George Grosz,

  who survived WWI

  And the artists Käthe Kollwitz, Oskar Kokoschka.

  From their canvases and drawings,

  I’ve learned something about

  what they lived through.

  I wish they could see my life.

  Not nearly as difficult as theirs.

  But maybe they could give me some tips.

  STICK AROUND

  Footsteps. My dad, buttoning up

  his expensive cashmere overcoat,

  bursts out of their bedroom

  and rushes by us.

  “Maisie, Davy,

  I won’t see you for a few days.

  Leaving for a business trip.”

  He’s like a firefly lately,

  here, gone, here, gone,

  and, like a firefly,

  he lights up the place in tiny, short spurts.

  “Hey, kids, don’t look so forlorn!”

  He winks.

  “I’ll be back. Don’t worry!”

  That wink is almost the worst part.

  It’s saying everything is okay.

  But everything is not okay.

  I jump up, mutely tug

  his soft, creamy sleeve,

  because the words “don’t go!”

  are glued in my throat

  as if I swallowed a jar

  of sticky peanut butter.

  I want to say, “Dad, tomorrow’s

  the first day of high school!

  Don’t make me slink in there

  all sad and distracted.

  Stick around.

  Ask me some questions, like

  ‘Maisie, honey, do you have

  all your textbooks?

  Will any kids from last year

  be in your class?

  Are you worried about being in the AP?

  Do you have art courses?

  I sure hope so!’

  You could say something encouraging,

  like ‘Maisie, you’re the best.

  You have nothing to worry about.

  The other kids would be lucky

  to have you as a friend.’”

  But no, the front door slams.

  “Bye, Dad … love you too … coward!”

  Coward because you’re leaving

  Davy and me with someone

  you can’t handle!

  It’s a good thing parents don’t get report cards.

  LAST YEAR

  “I wonder how long he’ll be MIA this time?”

  I whisper to Davy. “Where does he go?

  Last year he went to France.

  Never even told us!”

  “Paris!” he says, waking up. “I hope the bastard

  never comes back.”

  “Are you kidding, Davy? She’s the real problem.”

  “Not my problem, Maisie,”

  he whispers, nodding off again.

  I lead him to his sparrow-blue room

  and manage to foist him

  on top of his stupid truck-patterned bedspread,

  wrestle off his smelly sneakers.

  Asleep, he’s almost purring like a kitten.

  Asleep, I don’t resent him at all.

  BASKET CASE

  Outside, the police have quit shouting

  into their walkie-talkies.

  The squad car,

  with Mr. O’Neill inside,

  finally screeches away.

  Another one pulls up,

  but after a brief conference,

  it leaves also.

  I watch until I’m pretty sure

  the big show is over.

  No signal from Richie,

  so I climb into bed, fix the covers

  how I like them, close my eyes.

  I really want to fall asleep.

  Last spring I was glum after Leslie,

  my best friend, moved away midsemester.

  Glum is not the word:

  I was a basket case.

  My grades plunged.

  My drawings got weird,

  as in ugly and tormented,

  difficult to look at—even for me.

  Drawings never lie.

  WHO TO BE?

  12:13 A.M. School starts at 9 A.M.

  I have to figure out who to be.

  Someone different than last year.

  Smarter, cooler, and, despite my braces,

  mysterious.

  Good luck with that, Maisie!

  You can’t be mysterious

  with all that hardware,

  all those rubber bands in your mouth;

  you might as well have

  railroad tracks in there.

  Choo choo.

  Where’s my train heading?

  Nowhere.

  I examine the outfits I’ve pulled out,

  lying on my bed in silent competition.

  I’m not in the mood for high school.

  I’m not in the mood for anything.

  ORIGINS OF LIFE

  Now a sliver of moonlight hits

  the paisley patterns

  on the wallpaper in my room.

  Amoeba-like shapes with colorful flourishes

  remind me of biology, where we learn

  about the origins of life.

  When it all began.

  A primitive period before time

  that was microscopic and lively,

  evolving over billions of years

  into the world as we know it,

  before there were humans

  who yell and scream

  over imaginary crimes.

  This perception that I’m only one tiny,

  unimportant nano-event

  in human history comforts me.

  I tell myself

  we’re all the same, basically.

  Connected, even when it doesn’t feel that way.

  The wallpaper’s the last thing

  I see at night.

  Mornings, I stare at it again

  as my mother reads the charges

  accumulated against me

  while I was asleep.

  (I’m always guilty of so
mething.)

  This family has taught me

  to live high on adrenaline,

  the way people do in a conflict zone.

  That’s how life is

  inside a totalitarian system.

  BANG. BANG. BANG.

  In his bedroom, Davy, awake again,

  knocks his head against his wall.

  I have to admit, he’s too distraught

  for someone who still doesn’t have

  one single hair growing out

  of his baby face.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  He’s a human metronome.

  Once he said, “I do it to escape the chaos

  of this place.”

  “Why don’t you just play some Gershwin?”

  I asked.

  He didn’t bother to answer.

  Judith made him pick out his carpet.

  I remember how insistent she was

  that he choose it for himself.

  As if that could make him feel

  that he belongs in a family of people

  who have olive skin, greenish eyes

  in common but mainly are falling apart.

  Not falling, no. Ripping.

  I wonder,

  can you exchange one sort of hurt

  for another?

  THUMP, THUMP, THUMP

  Mother marches into his room,

  says: “Stop this!

  It can’t be good for you, David!

  I worry about you.”

  She never speaks in a soft, concerned voice,

  Why are you doing this, honey?

  What’s the matter?

  Davy has an entire repertoire

  for this habit.

  He quits just long enough

  for her to leave.

  Then bang. Bang. Bang again.

  It stops. I can’t make out anything else.

  Did she go back in?

  Is she hugging him?

  Straightening out his blankets?

  Her few moments of maternal instinct

  for the entire week are spent now.

  And as soon as she leaves again,

  thump, thump, thump:

  a perfect rhythm.

  It’s distracting.

  I can forget about it for a little while,

  but then I can’t doze off,

  thump, thump.

  He’s not a boy,

  he’s a machine.

  I tap the wall between us.

  “Davy, stop it!”

  He misses a thump.

  Then another.

  “Thank you! Go to sleep!”

  But he begins again.

  “That’s bad for you, Davy!”

  I hear those words as if I didn’t say them.

  It is bad for him, really bad.

  SAYING “SISTER”

  I get up, trot to his door, knock softly.

  “Davy, please listen to your sister.”

  Saying “sister” somehow makes me

  well up with tears.

  And then I’m begging:

  “Hey, Davy, open the door!”

  It does open, slowly.

  I notice his glassy eyes,

  as if he’s in a trance.

  He goes back to bed.

  He lets me take his warm, toasty hand.

  It hits me:

  Davy’s hurting and fragile.

  I wait while his eyes drift close.

  I hear his soft breathing.

  I can’t believe

  I never thought about this.

  My brother is another me.

  GARGOYLE

  In my room again

  I grab some socks for my cold toes,

  crawl farther under the covers.

  Sleep begins to brush my eyes.

  But Judith barges through my door,

  toppling the chair I’d leaned against it,

  and flips on the overhead light.

  She might as well be snorting fire.

  “Where are my glasses, Maisie?”

  I get up, stumble around, stub my toe,

  don’t see her glasses,

  because they’re never

  in my room.

  Meanwhile, on my small desk,

  she spots my latest sketchbook.

  She knows I’m always drawing,

  knows my eyes are greedy

  to see and to learn.

  “These pathetic scratches

  make you think you have enough talent

  to become an artist?”

  She laughs.

  I answer, “Grandmother knits.

  You, Mother, sew.

  Creativity runs in the family.”

  She flips it to my newest pages, snorts.

  “Creativity? That’s what you call this?

  What’s it supposed to be?”

  “A sock,” I mumble.

  “A sock? A sock?”

  She tears up my sketch into small

  newsprint flakes that float over my carpet.

  “There’s your creativity!”

  Now I only feel rage at her.

  This feeling is uncomplicated.

  Uncomfortable, but uncomplicated.

  It’s like poison.

  What did I ever do to her?

  THE QUEEN OF SOMETHING

  “These fights between

  me and your dad are your fault!

  You know that, right?”

  I should keep my big mouth shut;

  nothing good will come out of it.

  But it opens:

  “I do know that, Mother.

  Everything’s always my fault.

  Including that Davy bangs his head

  every night.

  He’d rather do that

  than think about our family.

  And that’s because of me?”

  She snorts, leaves to go,

  probably to her sewing machine,

  even at this late hour.

  There’s always some stupid evening gown

  she’s designing like she’s the queen

  of something in her mind.

  WHACKED

  Heart racing, I gather up my sketch fragments,

  dump them, then return to bed,

  thinking how, like most babies,

  I must have been born ready,

  yearning for life.

  Until I was whacked

  on my newborn behind.

  I must have obliged

  with a terrifying shriek,

  because at that moment,

  things fell apart between us.

  I’m trouble for my mother;

  my mother’s trouble for me.

  REPAIR

  Head on my pillow,

  I remember Richie’s white envelope

  from before.

  “Before” seems like lifetimes ago.

  I’m too tired to read it.

  I remember the first note he gave me

  in the fifth grade.

  That one was something about

  some book he liked.

  I should have known!

  It was about James Joyce,

  naturally!

  I think, no matter what,

  it’s easier to be a boy.

  All Richie has to do for school

  is comb his reddish-blond hair.

  He has a white complexion, slim body,

  and a look on his face that says

  do not touch!

  It keeps people guessing.

  I toss around, unable to give in to sleep

  though I crave it.

  I argue, plead with my brain:

  Stop chattering!

  Pure exhaustion eventually takes over.

  I descend into the catacombs of unconsciousness.

  SMILE A LITTLE

  Later, at 7 A.M.,

  the sun blasts through my window,

  the most jubilant of friends.

  Despite last night,

  the miracle happens again: r />
  I can somehow face the day.

  I get close to the mirror.

  My ears are too large,

  my breasts are teeny.

  My hair just looks depressed,

  and where does my nose

  think it’s going?

  I check for food stuck in my braces,

  always a potential embarrassment.

  The only positive development:

  My eyelashes are getting thicker.

  And my skirt seems kind of short.

  Does that mean maybe

  my legs are getting longer?

  Judith peeks in, catches me looking.

  “Don’t fall in love with yourself.

  I was better looking

  when I was fourteen and a half.”

  “I know you were beautiful, Mom.”

  This sentence always pacifies her.

  It happens to be true.

  My mother was stunning.

  But I wish I could ask her,

  “Mom, how could I be in love with myself

  when no one else is in love with me?’

  GIRLS NAMED TIFFANY

  I’m wearing my plaid navy-and-ochre

  shirtwaist dress.

  My brown eyes pop from the color contrast.

  I refuse to wear bright shades,

  like pink or periwinkle.

  “Periwinkle” even sounds idiotic.

  It’s good for girls named Tiffany

  with moms who say “I love you”

  every other minute.

  I have a lot of opinions

  when it comes to colors.

  Leslie was the one with the great complexion,

  blond, blue-eyed,

  she just couldn’t wear purple.

  Which I discovered!

  Whenever I’m worried,

  I close my eyes

  and mix paints in my head.

  COME ON!

  Davy’s sitting at the kitchen table.

  Mother’s in her silk robe, making breakfast.

  “What do you want to eat?”

  she grumbles.

  Davy’s shirt is rumpled,

  his shoelaces aren’t tied,

  and his hair is sticking straight up.

  I wet it down for him,

  but he wriggles away.

  “Stop fussing over me, Maisie!”

  He tackles his scrambled eggs.

  When she’s in the picture,

  all alliances are officially suspended.

  When Davy and I get to the door

  with our book bags,

  my mother opens it, smiles.

  “You two!”

  She looks at us almost tenderly.

  Longing rises up my spine,