Love and Leftovers (16 page)
Read Love and Leftovers Online
Authors: Sarah Tregay
“Then tell me.”
“You know that feeling—
the one that says, ‘I want sex’?
Passion is more than that.
Love, conversation, understanding,
and the physical stuff—
all stirred together.”
“And you have passion cake?” she asks.
“Yeah. That’s what I want.”
Katie says we’re having a sleepover,
come hell or high water.
She already told Olive, Carolina, and Em.
I volunteer my house,
because I don’t want to go anywhere else.
At Albertsons we gather
essential supplies: popcorn, sodas,
pretzels, chips, and peanut M&M’s.
At the Redbox we gather essential movies:
Johnny Depp, Jude Law,
Michael Cera, and Jon Heder
(because we all have a weak spot
for the skinny, homely, Leftover,
Napoleon Dynamites of the world).
Just after ten,
we unroll our sleeping bags,
slip into our pj’s.
“What happened to you?” I ask Katie
as she emerges from the bathroom
in a baby-doll nightie.
“Sharpie fight,” she replies,
showing off the red, black, and green marks
on her arms and chest.
“With Angelo.”
“You lost?” I ask.
“No! He has an entire ninja battle
drawn on his stomach.”
“And you?”
Katie turns, lifts up her nightie,
and peels back her panties.
Olive gasps and covers her eyes.
Carolina explodes into a fit of giggles.
While Emily and I simply gawk.
On her ass, above her tattoo,
is the letter
I
(her tattoo is the kanji for “love”)
and under it,
lettered in awkward capitals,
ANGEL
.
Danny walks into the living room,
in his hot body and pajama bottoms,
and joins Carolina in laughing
at Em and me peering at Katie’s ass.
Olive tugs Katie’s nightgown
back into place.
“Who’s Angel?” Danny asks.
“My übercute boyfriend, Angelo,” Katie explains,
not at all fazed that Danny saw her bottom.
Sure, it was only for a millisecond. But still.
“I’ve got pictures,” she says, eager to share.
Danny joins her on the couch,
admiring the photos on her cell phone.
“Hispanic?” he asks.
“Puerto Rican,” Katie agrees.
“Sorry,” he says.
“But evidence suggests,
that boy is no angel.”
I can tell Emily doesn’t
want to talk about boys
because she is crawling
backward into her shell.
I sit next to her
and ask her opinion
about which movie to watch.
She chooses
Chocolat
,
probably not
because of Johnny Depp.
But, I think, because
she knows how it ends,
and that it
will be okay to cry
when the grandmother dies.
When Katie and I were in seventh grade
we’d relish the moments when we stepped aside
to let Emily Townsend-Smith pass us in the hall
because
she had curves where we were flat
she had highlights where our hair was frizzy
she had confidence where we were clumsy.
When I told Mom
I wanted curves, highlights, and confidence,
she said I should feel sorry for Emily Townsend-Smith
because
girls whose bodies grew up
before their minds could catch up
have a hard time in life.
When Katie and I were in eighth grade
and mobs of sevies
didn’t part like the Red Sea when we walked by,
we watched
Emily Townsend-Smith, the freshman,
flirt with the varsity quarterback, a senior,
in the food court at the mall.
When Katie and I were freshmen,
and Emily Townsend-Smith sat beside us
in ninth-grade math, science, and global studies,
she wore
baggy sweatshirts and corduroys,
sneakers and kneesocks,
her hair in a ponytail, sans highlights.
And she was as pretty as we remembered,
just fragile sad crushed,
hiding
a year behind her peers.
Never able to escape
the loss of her virginity and her baby the year before.
After the sleepover,
Danny was more than some
gadget | appliance | addition
to my house.
I guess I have
Katie to thank for that.
Because she welcomed him
into her world with one
sweet, silly gesture.
I overheard them talking
about how we reminded Danny
of his high school friends—
all of them straight girls.
“Your friends were
Leftovers
?”
Katie asked.
“Leftovers?” Danny echoed.
“Individuals who don’t fit
into any one category.”
“We were like that,” he said.
“We called ourselves floaters—
drifting from sports
to theater to cheerleading
to what have you.”
“You were a
cheerleader
?”
“Nope,” Danny said.
“But I took one to prom.”
After school Katie and I
take over my kitchen table,
spreading out
notebooks, sketchbooks,
manga, and markers.
We play her iPod
over Dad’s speakers
and let J-pop mingle
with Bowling for Soup
and the Violent Femmes.
We write and draw
then trade notebooks
and let words mingle
with line, shape,
and color.
I feel bad
about not calling Katie
when Linus and I broke up.
Sure, she was right,
I
was
a crap girlfriend.
And I felt awful enough
without her being there
to rub it in.
But the weird thing was
that I had gotten used to
not telling Katie everything.
I didn’t tell her about
making out with J.D.
in the summerhouse
and my very own
not-so-misplaced back rub.
I didn’t call her when
we pulled into the driveway
after seven months
of summer vacation.
I guess I was used
to keeping my secrets
to myself.
I tie on my sneakers,
step into the brisk weather,
and attempt to regain my sanity
or lose it completely.
Most of the time,
Danny comes running after me
because he thinks that the Greenbelt,
Julia Davis Park, and the Boise State campus
are crawling with crazy people.
Thank God
he gets that I’m not always
in the mood to talk.
Unless it’s to complain about
how my teachers are annoying,
my homework assignments impossible,
and my grades dismal.
Dad took me
to the DMV,
made a big show
of picking up
a driver’s manual.
He made me
flash cards
about stopping,
and yielding,
and turning left.
Danny bought me
a remote control car
and has me parallel parking
between
cereal boxes.
Teaching me
to drive
has become
a friendly competition
between them.
And I’m
soaking up
the attention.
“What?” Danny asks me. “No run?”
I look down at my pajamas.
I’d been thinking about pancakes
smothered in maple syrup,
coffee with a swirl of cream—
not running.
I look out the kitchen window.
And think about the crisp morning,
wrapped in a blanket of new snow;
our footprints would be the only ones—
not a soul in sight.
“I’ll run,” I tell Danny. “One minute.”
I pull on sweats and sneakers.
And we step out into the cold,
already immersed in conversation,
about how breakfast will taste better
once we’ve earned it.
“And Dad?” I ask. “Sleeping in?”
“We shouldn’t wake him,” Danny says.
“I like these runs being just the two of us—
you and me getting to know one another.”
“So you don’t mind me complaining?”
“Not one bit.”
Dad sits me down
on the couch
for a heart-to-heart
about my grades.
He wasn’t surprised
that I had pretty much failed
my classes here in Boise
because I had
spent 99 percent of the semester
in New Hampshire.
But he doesn’t want to see Ds
ever
again.
So I Make a Study Date with Katie
But she doesn’t show up.
Doesn’t answer her phone.
So I stomp over to her house.
“Katie’s at Linus’s practicing,” her mom says.
My best friend forgot about me?
And she’s hanging out with my ex-boyfriend!
I tromp to his place and lean on the bell.
Linus’s oldest brother answers, baby on his hip.
“Katie here?” I ask him.
“Huh?”
“Katie Raskolnikov? The girl in the band?”
“Who are you, anyway?”
“It’s me, Roland. Marcie.”
“Dammmn,” he drawls in slow disbelief
as he tilts his head and studies me.
“Can I come in?”
“No wonder Linus is totally bummed . . .
little Marcie’s a hottie.”
I half ignore him and clomp up the stairs.
The familiar notes of “Blister in the Sun”
greet me when I step into the bonus room.
Ian, Linus, and Katie don’t look up
from their instruments and Linus starts to sing,
“When I’m out walking I strut my stuff . . .
let me go on—” Linus stops midsentence.
“Big hands I—” Katie cuts the riff.
“Hi, Marcie,” Linus says.
“Oh my God!” Katie says.
“I’m so sorry. I forgot about you.”