I’d like to be able to say that as I read, my trembling voice steadies and grows stronger, and finally rings clear and true on the last lines. But no, it’s shaky all the way through. And even though I know the poem by heart, I have to read it, all the way to the last line, after which I finally manage to lift my gaze from the paper and meet Jamie’s eyes.
But she looks down at her desk almost immediately, so I can’t tell what she’s thinking. I think I see the ghost of a smile playing on her lips, but I can’t be sure if it’s real or polite or if I just imagined it. Some of the boys are snickering. Some of the girls are putting hands over their hearts and going, “Ohhh.”
“Well,” says Mrs. Byrd. “That was . . . interesting. Are you finished?”
“Yes.”
“Then please excuse yourself so that I can teach my class.” I put the poem back in the envelope and hand it to someone to pass to Jamie. I’m dying to exchange one last look with her, but she’s watching the progress of the envelope as it makes its way from hand to hand across the classroom.
“Good-bye,” says Mrs. Byrd, nodding toward the door.
“Bye.”
Psychology, my last class, is agonizing. I keep my phone on my desk, hidden under part of a notebook page so I can see if Jamie happens to text me during class. I have it on mute with the vibrate function off, obviously, so this necessitates me constantly flipping the page over to check for texts. So class goes something like this: Mr. Albrecht: Jungian dream theory, blah, blah, blah . . .
Me: (flip) no Mr. Albrecht: blah, animus, blah, blah, anima . . .
Me: (flip) no
Finally, the bell rings. I check my phone (no) and head to my locker, taking a detour past Jamie’s locker.
No Jamie.
Maybe she’ll be waiting at my locker.
No.
Maybe we missed each other, somehow. Maybe if I take a long time here, she’ll show up. But the only people who show up are Elaine and Hanh. “How’d fourth period go?”
“I don’t know.” I tell them the story, and they look appropriately horrified, and then encouragingly exhilarated.
“Oh, that’s so romantic!” Elaine exclaims. “It’s like something that happens in the movies—she’s totally going to take you back. I would.”
“Right? You totally stepped up for her,” says Hanh.
I’m not so sure. I mean, that she’ll take me back. “But what if she was embarrassed, or what if she thinks I was trying to manipulate her? You know, so she’d look bad rejecting me in front of all those people.”
“She did that once already, didn’t she? Anyway, you didn’t plan to read out loud, and you did it anyway. That’s the important thing. You totally killed it!”
“Yeah, I guess I did.” I’m starting to feel better now. Reggie, Thom, and Caleb appear and Hanh retells the story for them.
Caleb grimaces. “You must really like her a lot.”
“I do.”
“Lucky her.” And he smiles.
“The ball’s in her court now,” says Reggie sagely. “All you have to do is wait.”
Right. No problem. Just wait. That’s all I have to do.
On my way home, I finally get a text:
Thank you
But that’s it. What do I text back? You’re welcome? That seems a bit entitled. I love you? When can we talk? Heart? Smiley face? I send her a heart. And a hopeful-looking smiley face.
She sends nothing.
41
IT’S TUESDAY, AND I’M A WRECK. EVERYONE kept texting me last night to check to see if Jamie had texted me yet. Every time I replied “no” my heart sank a little further.
I stalk Jamie between classes, but it doesn’t help. I walk by her table at lunch, but she’s not there. She’s avoiding me, I know it. The bell rings and I leave history, my last class of the day. I’m sure by now that it’s over. Jamie’s grateful to me for trying, she appreciates my effort, here’s a certificate, thanks for participating. I open my locker to trade my history textbook for my trig.
There’s the notebook.
I drop my bags and pick it up. I flip the pages, my heart pounding, past “Loose Woman,” past “In the Morning in Morocco,” past “Missing you.”
A poem. By Emily Dickinson. It begins, “Her breast is fit for pearls.”
With each line, my heart lifts a little. The fog clears. By the time I get to, “Her heart is fit for home— / I—a Sparrow—build there / . . . My perennial nest,” I am flying—above the trees, above the clouds—I’m practically in orbit. My heart is her home.
Someone clears their throat behind me.
Jamie.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey.” I look down at the notebook in my hand, still open to the poem. “This is—do you mean it?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry it took so long—I wanted to get it perfect, you know? I wanted to surprise you. Like you surprised me. Holy shit, I did not think you were going to read that poem in front of everyone.”
“I hope it was okay.”
“It was . . . amazing. You were amazing.”
“I was terrified.”
Jamie laughs. “I could tell.” Then she takes a step forward. “But you did it anyway. You spoke up.”
Oh, right—speaking of speaking up. “I’m sorry I screwed up. I should have trusted you, I should have waited, I should have talked to you again instead of just rushing off with someone else. I should have—”
“Shhh.” Jamie puts a finger on my lips. “Later.”
She leans just the tiniest bit toward me, and my heart jumps.
“So like, I really want to kiss you right now,” she whispers. “But I know it’s not your thing . . . in public—”
I don’t even have to think about it. I step forward and kiss her. Because I want everyone to know the truth about how I feel.
POETRY JOURNAL, HONORS AMERICAN LITERATURE
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18
“Cartographies of Silence”
by Adrienne Rich
From the very first line, I felt like Adrienne Rich was talking about my life in the past few weeks: “A conversation begins / with a lie.” She describes how even if you share a common language, it can split you apart. You can’t take stuff back—stuff you said but didn’t mean, stuff you meant but didn’t say.
I have trouble saying what I mean, especially if it’s personal. Sometimes I say things I don’t mean, just so I don’t have to say the things I do mean. Or sometimes I say exactly what I mean, and it still comes out all wrong. So sometimes I don’t say anything at all.
But I’ve realized that not saying anything at all can be the same as lying, or worse. Other people in my life have done this, too. Like the speaker says, “Silence can be a plan / rigorously executed.” She says more about silence, and I didn’t get most of it at first. She mentions a silent film called The Passion of Joan of Arc and the actress who starred in it, Renée Jeanne Falconetti. (Don’t be impressed, Ms. Owen. I had to Google all of this.) When I saw the images of Falconetti in the film, it helped me understand. Her face is haunting. It expresses pure emotion.
So I think Rich is asking this question: What if we could have silence that was really, truly pure, where it didn’t mean lying or hiding yourself or whatever? What if we could communicate the truth without all the words to screw it up?
Sometimes I wish that we could always do things that way. It would make life a lot easier.