Uses for Boys (13 page)

Sometimes it’s like nobody sees me. Like these women order without ever meeting my
eyes. “A latte,” they say and tap their nails on the glass, studying the backs of
their hands.

All day long, these women order their drinks without ever seeing me. And then one
does. She looks me straight in the eye and then up and down.

“Anna?” she says. She’s a friend of my mom’s. “How’s your mom?” she asks. “Still married
to—?” She digs around in her purse. She doesn’t ask why I’m working here. “I’ll have
a cappuccino,” she says. “I’m in a hurry.”

a boy

That night I walk to Josh’s apartment. I don’t want him anymore, but I’m standing
beneath his window and his lights are off and I wonder if he’s there. I wonder if
he’s alone. I walk to the bar and look in through the yellow windows. I don’t go home.
I’m following my own footfall and the city is empty.

Burnside, Couch, Davis, I cross through the empty streets. I go to Little Birds cafe
and meet a boy. I’m impatient. Restless. Like I’m wearing my nerves on the outside.
After a while we go to his apartment to drink. We have sex. He gets a rubber and I
put it on him. I’m naked but he won’t take off his shirt.

“Take off your shirt,” I tell him. I feel very experienced. I’m on top of him, rocking
my hips back and forth and I yank at the shirt. I ignore his hands pulling it down.

“Stop,” he says and I ignore him. His chest is covered with dozens of angry pimples,
a mountain range of inflamed whiteheads. He won’t look at me and I drop the shirt.
We roll over, so he’s on top of me, and I stare over his shoulder at the empty wall
until he comes.

the empty apartment

I walk back to my apartment. It’s late and I walk in the middle of the street where
there are no shadows. In the dim rooms, I can make out Sam’s jacket on the back of
my small wooden chair. I don’t think about the boy from the cafe. I decide it didn’t
happen.

I take off my clothes and lay under my comforter, but I’m unable to sleep.

beginning to get the hang of it

Then it’s Monday and Sam’s standing in my apartment. I know how bare it must seem.
How hurried. Like a girl half-dressed. He walks through the kitchen and stops in the
tiny bathroom. I stand next to him and we look up at the water stains on the tall
ceilings. Back in my room he looks at the small TV, my mattress on the floor, my piles
of clothes and the small wooden chair. He looks out the window at the brick wall and
when he turns he sees the black dress hanging on the wall. He relaxes.

“Is that the dress?” he says and walks over. He feels the hem between his thumb and
forefinger, then he sees the picture of the two girls. The one in the green skirt
stares straight at him.

“Do you know her?” he asks, not understanding. And then seeing the other pictures,
he steps back and takes them in.

“Oh,” he says and he holds out his hand for mine. We look at the pictures together.

“This is my favorite,” I say, motioning to a girl with hair in her eyes. Sam points
to another, a boy and girl on a couch, kissing.

I look. The girl’s hair obscures their faces, but I can see the angle of the boy’s
jaw. The way he encircles her in his arms. I can tell there’s something formal about
this moment. Something important. Sam sees it too because he turns and faces me and
without letting go of my hand, he tips his head and kisses me. I tip my head and kiss
him. It’s our second kiss, but our first real kiss and I see that there’s something
here, something important.

I tell myself the story of the kiss. How we meet. How he kisses me. How he tips his
head. We kiss and I tell myself the story of the kiss. How he holds my hand. It’s
a long kiss. We stand so close to the wall that I can put my hand out and touch it.
I lean into him. I’m at home in the still apartment. We close our eyes against the
dusty light. There’s a burnt smell. A low hum comes from the refrigerator and, at
intervals, street sounds penetrate. Faint sirens, then nothing. It’s a good long kiss.

After some time I forget to narrate the kiss. I can hear a bus sighing at the stop
near my window and the cars stopping and starting with the traffic light. I can hear
the familiar hum of the refrigerator. I put one hand out and touch the wall. I remember
to not think about the boy from Little Birds cafe. I remember that in this story it
didn’t happen.

Sam pulls away. He’s talking about dinner. I’m invited to his house again, he says.
His mom likes me. His sister too.

“Yeah. My mom”—he steps closer so I can feel his breath on my cheek—“was shocked.”
I turn my mouth close to his.

“That I live alone?” I say.

“Yeah. But really,” he says, “she wants to know what you eat.” We both look toward
the kitchen. I realize the burnt smell is the coffeepot left on.

He follows me in and I turn the coffeemaker off. I wave at the boxes on the counter.
“Macaroni and cheese,” I say. “Three for a dollar.”

*   *   *

On Fridays the kids cook the whole meal. I help them broil salmon, steam broccoli
and make rice. You don’t stir rice, I learn, and you have to time the broccoli or
it gets mushy. Mark rubs the fish with spices. Em cleans the berries for dessert.
I’ve never seen kids cook before, except Toy because her mom’s drunk, but she only
ever makes scrambled eggs and toast. Em checks her brother’s work and when they tease
her, I want to close my eyes and pretend it’s me.

I break a glass. Mark and Sam just laugh. Em makes a big show out of telling me it
doesn’t matter. I’m given the water pitcher and sent to the table. It’s their way
of telling me I can still be trusted. Alone in the dining room I listen to their muffled
voices through the swinging door. There are cut branches in a vase on the table. A
woven runner. One of the bulbs is out in the chandelier. I straighten each fork, each
knife, on the folded napkins.

Later I’m staring at Sam and his dad, comparing their cheekbones.

“Do you go to school?” Sam’s mom tries to make the question sound nonchalant, like
she hadn’t been waiting to ask. She wears the same oversized gingham shirt, rolled
at the cuffs, and there’s no jewelry on her hands.

Sam and Em turn to me when their mom asks the question and Sam says, “Mom.” Like he’s
already asked her not to start.

No, I want to say, I don’t go to school. I’m the girl who works in a cafe. The girl
behind the counter. I’m the black dress and worn sneakers. I’m tips in a tip jar.
I’m a five-pointed star. I’m the four walls of my apartment. The girl in the abortion
clinic. I’m the one wandering through the city looking for something.

Yes, I dropped out of school.

And then suddenly I am so angry. I want my own big brother, my own little sister,
my own mom in rolled-up shirtsleeves. I want my own father. He’d be a ferocious listener.
A lean-forward-on-his-elbows-and-never-interrupt father. I want to be Sam. I want
his life. I would do everything right. I would go to school. I would be a virgin.
I would learn to make mashed potatoes with cream and butter. I would set the table
every night.

I meet Sam’s mom’s even gaze. I’m glad she asked, but I don’t know what to say.

“No,” I say and then I compliment her on something, which always works with my mom.

“That’s a beautiful vase,” I say, but she just looks at me. Her eyes hold mine. She
knows exactly what I’m doing.

After dinner, Mark and Em and Sam teach me to play poker. They bet Matchbox cars and
Em and Sam cheat. We’re in the family room together listening to Mark’s music. After
dessert we clear the table and wash the dishes. I’m beginning to get the hang of it.

sam’s girlfriend

Sam’s a virgin. We wait. We have dinner at his house, we go to the river. We lean
over the railing and watch the water and he rests his hand on the back of my neck.
I borrow his jean jacket, then give it back, then borrow it again. I grow impatient.

“Slow down,” he says.

“But Sam,” I say.

“But Anna,” he says.

“But,” I say. “But, but, but,” but then he holds me in a way that makes me laugh.
He’s very serious. He never jokes about sex.

He takes my hand and says things like, “I like this moment, right here.” And then
he kisses me, “and this one.” And then he kisses me again, “and this one.” My hands
reach up under the front of his shirt. Down the back of his pants, under his belt.
I love the way he smells and the way he looks at me and the way he smooths the hair
away from my face. He knows I’m not a virgin.

“I know, Anna,” he says and there’s a way he seems older than me. Like he knows what
he wants. He comes by the cafe after school and sits at a table where he says he can
watch me, but when I look up he’s doing his homework, his face crinkling in concentration.

Sometimes we go to his house and our only touch is a look. It’s the way, I think,
he looks at me. And I lose myself in the sounds of his family, the music on the stereo,
his sister calling for his dad, his dad taking off his apron and sighing. Sam tells
me about his classes. We make plans to meet his friends. I am learning something,
I think, but I don’t know what it is.

Then suddenly it’s a hot day and we’re at my apartment and my dress is off and nobody
is saying “but.” He’s not saying “slow down.” He’s looking at me and we can’t wait.
We can’t help ourselves. He’s everywhere. He takes my nose, my ear, my whole breast
in his mouth. He slides his hand under my arm and between my fingers. He feels the
bones down my chest and cups the skin on my stomach. We’re on my bed. It’s so early
that without any lights, my room is bright and he can see everything. He touches every
part of the front of me and then turns me over and touches every part of the back
of me. He feels in between my toes. We have sex again and again and again. He’s always
ready.

Afterward we take a shower and get dressed. He dries his hair with his fingers. I
follow him home for dinner.

In the blocks between his house and my apartment, everything changes. I want it to
change. I want to be less like me. Less like the girl in that story. I don’t want
to be the girl who’s always looking. The one who has no mother, the one who has no
father.

I want to be like any other girl. I want to be Sam’s girlfriend. A girl who washes
the spinach and removes the stems, who fills the water pitcher and sets the table,
who sits down and waits for everyone else to start eating.

The afternoon air cools me on the way to Sam’s house. It soothes the flush of my face.
My swollen lips.

Sam’s mom paces herself, asking only a few questions and saving some for next time.
What do I do to make money? What do I want to do? And then the next night, Do I want
to go to college? And another: What about my mom? Doesn’t she worry? Doesn’t she think
it’s dangerous to live alone?

I think she worries that Em will think I’m romantic. That it’s romantic to drop out
of school, to live alone. Em loves my dresses and each night I wear a different one
for her: the blue cotton one, a green silk one, a bohemian print. After dinner I look
through Em’s closet and we pick out outfits for her: a gray cardigan with a yellow
T-shirt and blue cotton pants; or a red-and-white-striped long-sleeved T-shirt with
blue jeans, blue sneakers and a yellow raincoat.

“Sam’s lucky,” she says, meaning me.

“Yes,” I say, meaning all of them. Meaning the sounds her family makes from the next
room.

In her bedroom, on one wall, is a group of paintings that Sam’s mom made in college.
Big, brightly colored still life paintings of eggplants and grapes, wooden bowls and
a chipped ceramic pitcher. Em and I look at them. She imagines that the eggplant became
eggplant parmigiana on her parents’ first date.

“They fell in love at college,” she says and she sighs. Em is a romantic girl. She
has pictures of her mom and her dad together when they were young, pinned to her wall.
We look at them. I look at the jar of cherry blossom branches on her bedside table.
Her mom cut them from a tree in the backyard. I find myself closing my eyes and wishing
so hard. Maybe she would cut some for me, I think.

the wrong way down a one-way street

Sam has midterms and it’s been three days since I’ve seen him. I can’t reach Toy.
I wander from one end of town to the other, but I avoid Little Birds cafe. I deposit
my tips in the bank on Fifth Street and walk from one side of town to the other until
it gets dark and then I walk home again. I know how to walk through the city at night,
purposefully, in the middle of the street and against traffic, away from parked cars
where someone could be hiding. Josh taught me that.

“Walk the wrong way down a one-way street,” he told me. Make sure there’s no one around
before you bring out your keys. Always lock the door to your apartment when you go
down to the laundry room. And never, ever buzz anyone in, unless you’re sure who they
are.

“Always wear your purse strapped against your body,” he’d say. “They don’t teach you
that in the suburbs.”

“At least he’s making himself useful,” my mom said.

So I’m alert to danger. I scan the street for moving shadows. I avoid dark doorways
and groups of men standing together. I walk with my shoulders back and my arms swinging.

And I miss Sam. I leave work around four in the afternoon. It’s still bright daylight
and because it’s warmed up and the sky has cleared, I’m already sweating in my thin
sweater. I walk past Urban Middle School, where Sam went to school. Where Em is going
now. School’s letting out and the girls and boys clump together in little groups,
carrying backpacks like afterthoughts.

It looks like my middle school and there’s even the lone kid, books clutched to her
chest, who might have been me. I watch her thread through the clusters of students,
pass through the gate and walk down the way I’m walking. I follow a bit behind. She
walks fast but I have nowhere to go, the evening yawns out in front of me, so I walk
slowly letting the distance between us grow.