Uses for Boys (16 page)

I picture my mom walking by with her new boyfriend and him saying, “Her? That’s your
daughter?”

And then I picture Sam’s mom walking by and seeing me. “Anna,” she’d say. “Is that
you?”

I push the boy back with one hand and his drink spills and he swears again. I push
myself up so I’m sitting and I have to blink because it’s so bright even in the shade.
I take a big swallow and then another. It makes me feel less dizzy somehow, but more
so too. I pull my knees up and together. I brush the dirt off my shoulders and look
out at the crashing water.

Sam’s mom would say, “Come on Anna, let’s talk.”

I’m having a long conversation with Sam’s mom in my head and I feel the cringing burn
of being caught with Sam. I’m apologizing and I can almost feel her touching my arm.
“I’m sorry,” I say, my eyes getting wet, and I picture myself stopping and turning
to face her because I want so much for her to understand how I feel. I know this story.
I know what comes next.

“You don’t have to do this,” I picture her saying and I don’t know if she’s talking
about the boy. Or all of this. The fountain winks at me in the strong sunlight.

The boy refills my cup and I drink. School’s let out and the park fills with kids.
One little boy runs right up to edge of the fountain and wobbles there, about to pitch
forward into the deepest end. But he falls backward instead and pulls off his shoes
and socks as if the fountain can’t possibly wait another second. The children’s voices
mix with the tinny sound of the water and the adults gather in the shade. At first
they don’t notice me and the boy drinking out of paper cups, but when they do, they
take their kids and move to the far side of the park.

It’s so hot. I drink from my cup. I no longer want Sam’s mom to walk past. My T-shirt
is damp and heavy and I’m wet where my skin folds, on my belly and under my breasts.
The boy’s focused on drinking and my vision has narrowed so that when I look at him
I can’t see anything else and when I look back at the fountain it’s ringed by darkness.

I know what I need to do. I need to get in that fountain. I have an idea of how I’ll
look, sitting by the edge, trailing my fingers in the water with bits of light on
my face. I pull off my sneakers and grab the side of the tree to pull myself up. I
tug on the boy and try and pull him up too, but he shrugs me off. It takes three tries
and I’m up. I look over the fountain and take aim. I concentrate on getting over to
the spot where the little boy had been.

I make it. I fall heavily, scrape my calf and sit on the edge dangling my legs in
the water. It’s cold and clear and I can see coins in the bottom. And I think that’s
where the sound comes from, because the fountain sounds like coins poured down a stone
chute. I’m getting wet and I’m covered in goose bumps and I have everything. Everything.
All I need in this moment is this boy. Any boy.

I push away thoughts like ghosts. Scooping up water in my hand and pouring it over
my bare legs. I had no father, I say. I had no mother. And then you came along and
everything changed.

I turn and point at the boy, but he isn’t there. I lean back against the warm concrete
and stare up at the sky. Then I see he’s standing over me, a shadow against the sun.
I don’t remember his name.

“Get up,” he says and I squint at him. He struggles to pull me up. I forget and start
remembering everything to tell Toy later. Then I remember. I lean against the boy.

“Let’s go to your place,” he says. But it’s impossible to stand. I’m holding the boy
and he’s holding me. We hold onto anything we can. We walk a few feet and then lean
against a lamppost, a mailbox, a bench. It’s so hot. I’ve forgotten my shoes and the
cement burns my feet. The sidewalk fills with people on their way home from work.
They tower above us, walking fast. I lean over and throw up next to a fire hydrant.
The boy holds a fistful of my shirt. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and
stand up. I lead the boy through the park blocks and past the Safeway to the front
door of my building.

The boy is holding onto my shirt with both fists and leaning against me and I reach
out one hand and lean us both against the heavy brick wall. I imagine Sam waiting
for me on my front steps. I look at myself with his eyes. The boy’s hand is on my
breast and there’s vomit on the front of my T-shirt. I’m barefoot.

The boy pulls the bottle of rum out of the brown paper sack and drinks. He hands it
to me and I drink too. I take him up the stairs, two flights to my apartment. I unlock
the door and head straight back to the kitchen. I’ll make some coffee, I think. I
met a boy and took him home, I rehearse to tell Toy. I wash two coffee cups, the yellow
and the blue. I pour coffee into the filter and fill the machine with water. I walk
back into the front room.

The boy is standing in the center of the room, turning around and looking at the pictures
of girls taped to my wall.

“Is this what you want,” he says. “You want to look like some slut?”

slut

I’m a slut before I ever touch a penis. Before I ever have sex. The space between
Desmond Dreyfus with his damp palm over my breast while Carl Drier and Michael Cox
watch to my mouth around Joey Sugimoto’s penis is very short. The girl I am now, at
sixteen, was always present. She haunted the twelve-year-old me.

in the doorway

I look at the boy. At his unwashed hair and the way his eyes narrow, but won’t focus.
I take him by the wrist and with one hand on his shoulder, I angle him out the door.

“Hey,” he says and we’re standing in the doorway with him mostly outside and me mostly
inside. I push the bottle of rum into his palm. “What?” he says, confused. “You want
to be alone?” But I don’t answer.

I shut the door behind him.

after the boy

And then I’m alone again in the empty apartment.

I stand at the door listening to the blood rush in my head. Picturing the boy weaving
down the hall and down the stairs. I make my way to the bathroom and retch until I
can’t anymore. Until there’s nothing left.

I hug my arms tight around me and rest my head against the tub. Next to the mirror
is a picture of two girls, hands clasped, surrounded by a busy market. They aren’t
looking at each other but connected, their hands held tight.

I think about Toy. I dismantle every story she told me. Every glance, every touch,
every word. Every boy. An hour passes and the drumming in my head slows. I repeat
Toy’s stories to myself and now all I see are ragged seams. All the parts that didn’t
make sense. She’s never had a Sam walk her to her door and kiss her good night. Or
take off his jacket and cover her shoulders with it. She’s never been touched by a
boy who knows what love looks like. I picture Sam’s parents, his mom resting her hand
in the center of his dad’s back and the way his dad leans back against her. How would
Toy know what that looks like?

Her stories are just guesses.

I fall asleep here, against the tub, but maybe just for a minute, because it’s still
light out. And then I get up, shaking out my legs, and drink the coffee I’d made earlier.
The cream curdles in my cup.

in the kitchen

Toy’s pile of pictures are still in a stack on the table, the bruised girl on top.
I listen to the familiar noises of my apartment and I almost feel good again. The
olive oil I bought is in a little drizzler that Sam’s mom gave me, sitting on an antique
plate with orange flowers and gold trim. My apron hangs next to the refrigerator from
a little hook that I screwed in myself. There’s a bowl of oranges on the counter.
I look at the picture, black-and-white, of the family tumbling out of a summer home.
I look at it like I always do, eyes resting on the girl who’s my age, but this time
I see something different. She’s leaning back and looking up and she’s relaxed. Confident.
She knows where she belongs. Her family knows her, they know things about her—the
things that make her crazy, the ways to tease her, how quickly her skin turns red
in the sun. I think about dinner at Sam’s house. Sam’s sister, Em, setting the table
and teasing me, like I belonged there. Sam’s dad giving me the chicken leg, because
he knows it’s my favorite. I open my eyes wide against the late-afternoon light and
circle my hands against the warm coffee cup.

family

The difference is I can see them all here. My family. My mom and Toy. And I can see
Sam and his family. All packed into my little apartment, sharing chairs and sitting
on the floor. Making do with the plates and silverware and cups that I have. Eating
together. The difference is I don’t want to go anywhere. Not Seattle. Not back to
the suburbs or back to high school. Or back. I want to go forward and I don’t have
to go anywhere to do it. My family is here. I don’t have to do it alone.

tell me again

In the tell-me-again times, my mom let me sleep in her bed. Her bed is a raft on the
ocean. It’s a cloud, a forest, a spaceship, a cocoon we share. I stretch out big as
I can, a five-pointed star, and she bundles me back up in her arms. When I wake I’m
tangled in her hair.

“Tell me again,” I say and she tells me again how she wanted me more than anything.

“More than anything in the world,” she says, “I wanted a little girl.”

“Tell me again,” I say.

“I was all alone,” she says. “And then I had you.”

*   *   *

Now I can hear how much is missing from this story.

my story

I’m sober now and stiff and the apartment smells like burnt coffee. I run a bath and
submerge. A bath is like a chance to do it all over again. My hair fans out from my
face and I float with my eyes closed. This is all of me, I think. And it means something
different now.

She had me, but it didn’t make her any less alone. And the boyfriends and the husbands
and the houses, they don’t make her any less alone either. Maybe the stories she tells
herself are no truer than Toy’s.

Toy and my mom haven’t abandoned me, I think. They need me.

“You’re strong,” Sam’s mom had said. “You can do anything.”

“So strong,” my mom had said.

You don’t have to do this alone, I want to tell Toy. You’re not alone, I want to tell
my mom. I’m lying in the bath and saying the words out loud. And I picture the scar
on Toy’s collarbone and the sound of her voice when she takes the phone away from
her mom. The empty swimming pool behind her house, the rotting rhododendrons. Her
mom’s faded dresses.

I think about the night of the abortion. Toy and my mom together. Taking care of me.
I sit up and hook my legs over the side of the tub. I think about Sam.

Maybe I’m the lucky one, I think.

And I think about me and my mom and Toy and her mom and our missing fathers. It all
swirls around me and I can’t just stay here. I need to do something. I need to say
something. I need to tell Toy. I need to tell my mom. I need them to know that I know.
And I have to hear that Sam’s OK. And his mom. I want his mom to know—

What?

They’re my family. And the stories we tell ourselves are not the only stories. Our
story, I think, could start here.

I get out and wrap myself in a towel. In the mirror, I look like myself. I stretch
and the girl in the mirror stretches too.

I’m going to find them and tell them, I think, and I put on my favorite jeans and
a striped T-shirt and I tuck my hair behind my ears. I pull on my sneakers over bare
feet and grab my keys and run out of the apartment, down the hall, taking two steps
at a time.

our story

When I finally make my way to Sam’s house, it’s dusk and the first stars are poking
through the heavy sky.

I ring the bell, before anything else, and hear footsteps, light ones, and it’s Em
who opens the door. She smiles her sunny, easy smile and hugs me around my waist.

“Anna. Oh!” And then she turns around and yells, “It’s Anna.” She turns back to me
and says in a whisper, “My mom was so worried about you.”

*   *   *

Later, Sam walks me home and we hold hands. We don’t talk. It’s dark, but it’s a kind
of summer dark where the sky is still light. When we turn onto my street, Sam points.

“What’s that?” he says.

There’s a figure sitting, huddled on my steps. We step closer and then I stop. It’s
the boy from the fountain. The boy who called me a slut.

I grip Sam’s hand in mine and step forward, ready to send the boy away again. Ready
to do whatever it takes. I walk faster. The figure sits up for a second and then settles
back down. It’s not a boy at all.

It’s Toy. She hugs her knees and rests her head against her forearms. I pull Sam along
by the hand.

“Come on,” I say. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

acknowledgments

For Marnie and Lucy, I love you. I’m grateful to Sarah Davies, who saw to the heart
of the thing. For my editor, Jennifer Weis, who took a chance on Anna’s story. And
to Mollie Traver and the team at St. Martin’s Press, thank you for everything. Special
thanks to Ally Hack. And love to Ginger and Holly. And to Clara Azulay, Elana K. Arnold,
Matthew Florence, Vanessa Hua, Jen Larkin, Wendy MacNaughton, Heather Malcom, Kathleen
Miller, Sophie Nunberg, Caroline Paul, and Somlynn Rorie. Thanks to Jonathan D. Gray.
And Jonathan Segol. And to 826 Valencia. Love to my dad and Lidia. And to David. For
Pam Houston for believing in language and in stories and in this story. Thanks to
Lucy Corin and Lynn Freed for their generosity. Thanks to Headlands Center for the
Arts, the Community of Writers, NY Summer Writers Institute, SCBWI, and the University
of California, Davis, for the encouragement and support. To Rick Moody, for reminding
me to be patient, and to Francesca Lia Block who, like me, believes in girls.