It takes a whole minute to shuffle past the pizza place. It feels like an hour. My stomach growls. I want to ask him why he left the drawing unfinished. I imagine that I ask him and I decide his answer is Because I wanted to. Because I can do what I want. Because who cares if I finish it? Because none of your business, girl, go back home to your parents. Of course, I don’t ask and he doesn’t say any of these things. He just shuffles and occasionally stops to adjust his tinfoil headpiece or his box of art supplies.
When I see the people in the pizza place sitting at tables and eating, I picture Alleged Earl and me in there one day. Middle-class girl takes homeless man to pizza place = not at all original. I decide he’ll say no if I ask him. I can see the viral video on The Social already. She wanted to buy him a slice for lunch, but what he said will make you cry.
I decide he must know I’m following him, but he doesn’t seem bothered by it so I keep with him all the way to 17th Street where he starts to walk south. Past South Street, 17th isn’t safe. Once I see that’s where he’s going, I split off at Lombard Street and walk toward home. In my head I say good-bye and I decide he says Good-bye, Sarah. I decide he says See you tomorrow. It feels like the fish in Mexico. Fast friends. Someone to talk to. Except really it’s not.
I think about ten-year-old Sarah and how she said that last thing she said about my parents on the stoop. They never stopped.
I try to remember them fighting. They bicker over little things sometimes, like who should have called the principal, but I don’t remember fighting. I barely ever see them in the same place at the same time. I’m sixteen and have some sort of parents-fighting amnesia. Bruce said it in Mexico—You can always come stay with me, no matter where I am. Now ten-year-old Sarah said they fought all the time.
They can’t be lying.
Maybe I’m just pretending like I did with the fish in Mexico or with Alleged Earl today. Maybe I pretend my parents say “I love you” to each other when they pass each other between work shifts. Maybe I pretend that my family is normal when I know it’s not normal to have a runaway brother. Maybe my whole life I’ve been living inside of an imaginary painting. I can’t figure out how I feel about this. But I know I feel uncomfortable. All the time.
Standing in Random Places
I observe Mom and Dad during the two hours they have together. I observe them while standing in random places—the thing I do. I stand behind the door to the kitchen while they talk about dinner.
“I’m making fettuccine Alfredo,” Mom says.
“As long as there’s garlic bread,” Dad says.
“You make the garlic bread,” she says.
“Okay,” he answers.
Then silence until Mom plugs her phone into her headphones and plays heavy metal and I hear the thumping bass-drum triples of Lars Ulrich a room away. And if you think night ER-trauma nurses who listen to Metallica are original, you’re wrong. A lot of her coworkers are metalheads, too. She says metal makes them feel more at home when they’re away from the chaos of car accidents, crude drunks, and strokes.
Dad hates metal. He makes the garlic bread. I hear the oven door open. I hear the oven door close. I hear him set the timer. He says, “That’ll be ready in twenty minutes.”
She says nothing because she can’t hear him through her headphones. If she does hear him, she probably just nods. I can’t see them. I can only hear them.
I move to the upstairs hallway and listen to Dad talking on the phone in his room. He has a room. Mom has a room. I never thought of this as unusual.
I can’t hear much. I hear him say “I’m sorry” twice. I hear him say “Good-bye.” I don’t move when I hear his doorknob turn. I don’t care if he sees me. I congratulate myself for being original compared to most eavesdroppers.
“Oh. I didn’t see you there,” he says.
“Me neither,” I say.
I want to ask him who he was saying sorry to, but I don’t.
? ? ?
Fifteen minutes later, I’m cracking black pepper onto a steaming plate of Alfredo and crunching a piece of garlic bread. I wait for dinner conversation between them, but there is none. Between bites, they only talk to me.
“Where’d you go today?” Dad asks.
“Just walked around town,” I say.
“You should have told me where you were going,” he says.
“I had my phone. You could have called,” I said.
Dad nods and shrugs.
Mom puts her hand under the table for a second and I think she’s wiping it on her napkin, but her napkin is on the table next to her plate.
“I saw the museum ticket on your dresser,” Mom says. “So you’re skipping school to look at art?”
“You were in my room?”
“Delivering laundry. Can’t afford drones. Yet,” she says.
“What are you going to do about school?” Dad asks.
“I’m going to get expelled,” I say.
“Great life plan,” Dad says.
I shrug and nod.
Mom looks at me a little too long and then takes a deep breath. Before she can say anything, I say, “I think I’ll just drop out this week if that’s okay with you.”
“It’s not okay with me,” Dad says.
Mom chews on her garlic bread.
“You can’t go to college if you don’t have a diploma,” Dad says.
Mom says, “Picasso didn’t have a diploma.”
Dad shrugs. Mom puts her hand under the table. I just eat my food because no matter what they say, I’m not going to school.
? ? ?
I stand in the study while they do dishes.
Mom says, “Did you unload the dishwasher?”