Sometimes when I consider stuff like that, I wonder if I’m thinking about my best friend. Or myself.
Either Way
I know I’ve got to call Monica,
who I haven’t talked to since
yesterday. I need to hear the rasp of her voice—rich and warm
and fringed with accent.
But when she picks up, she’s
anything but her usual soft—
spoken self. Oh, hey, where have you been? Did you hear about Hillary? She fell off her horse and cracked her head on a rock or something.
“Wait. What? Slow down,
hermana. How do you know
what happened to Hillary?”
Seriously? It’s on the news.
They said if some local kids hadn’t found her, she probably would have “succumbed to the elements.” That means died.
“Holy shit. I didn’t realize
she was hurt that bad. Good
thing Gabe knew some basic
first aid from his lifeguard days.”
She pauses long enough for my words to sink in. Gabe?
Zelda’s nephew? What does he have to do with this? Hey . . .
You mean you and Gabe were the ones who found Hillary?
“Yeah. He was bringing me
home from Zelda’s ’cause Dad
wanted to stay for an after-dinner boink. This horse came trotting
up the street so we stopped her
and went looking for her rider.
I didn’t know it was Hillary
until Gabe spotted her in the dirt.”
I tell what’s left of the story,
right up through meeting Max
and him offering me a job,
which I can’t accept because
I’m a loser without wheels.
“I can’t believe it made the news, though. Must’ve been a slow day.”
Girl, Hillary’s dad is running for senator or governor or one of those politics things. I’m not sure.
But anything that happens to a Grantham’s gonna make the news.
Who Knew?
Guess I should pay more attention
to politics, or at least current events, especially if I’m going to end up
smack in the middle of one.
They said on the news they were trying to figure out who the Good Samaritans are. Didn’t you tell them your names?
What’s wrong? Don’t want to be famous?
“Famous? What are you talking about?
All we wanted to do was help Hillary and get Niagara home safely. I didn’t purposely not tell them. I just never thought it mattered. And, in fact, I
did tell Hillary it was me, but maybe—”
They said she was just out of surgery, and the details were still sketchy.
“Our identities can’t be a secret. I’m sure the ambulance guys took Gabe’s name
when they asked him what happened,
not that it wasn’t pretty obvious.”
Well, I think you ought to tell them it was you. You could be famous for real, and I could be the hero’s girlfriend. Yeah, I like that idea.
Guilt bulldozes into me. Monica’s
excitement made me totally forget
the postscript of my day’s activities, and her certainty about the “we” of us unsettles me. Still, there’s familiarity wrapped up in there, and that I like.
“My dad always says if it comes down
to a choice between wealth and fame
to choose money. Fame, he says, relies on the whims of others, and people
love you one minute, despise you
the next. That always made sense to me.”
Te amo hoy y te amaré ma?ana.
She loves me today and she’ll love
me tomorrow. She just leveled me.
“Y te amo también.” And I love her, too.
Maya
I’m getting married.
That should have an exclamation mark, shouldn’t it?
I guess a small part of me is excited to leave my current existence behind in favor of something brand-new. But the closer I get to the appointed time, the more I think I might’ve made an awful mistake.
Okay, I’m not big on school, but it’s familiar, and despite the daily boredom there’s a certain comfort in routine and recognizable faces. The only person I’ll know at Fort Hood is Jason, and while I’m not a member of the popular crowd here, I’m not exactly a hermit, either. I miss Tati already, and I haven’t left Austin yet.
Oh, and the baby stuff is overwhelming. I went to Planned Parenthood and found out that, one, I’m definitely pregnant (duh) and, two, I despise gynecological exams. Does anyone like them? You’d have to be kind of depraved.
As instructed, I took off my clothes, and slipped into this paper robe thing, trying to figure out how to tie it. But it didn’t matter anyway, because within ten seconds every inch of me was exposed so a strange man in a lab coat could feel up my boobs, looking for lumps or whatever.
Then the nurse said, “Put your feet in the stirrups, honey. Now scooch your rear end forward.” I scooched. “Farther, please.” Right up into the cute young doctor’s face. Oh my God. So embarrassing! There were fingers and instruments and who knows what else?
Probably nothing too weird, with the nurse standing there watching it all.