Sketches

It's morning. I wake from a dream: jay at the window, black eye trained. It takes—off.Under my blanket I am so warm and peaceful, a good girl. I am such a sweet girl, and warm too. I'm very good and kind and soft.The door splits, hinges yip: my mother, hollering my name. I feign dead, sleep dead like a girl. She shakes these ragdoll shoulders. Sleep, sleep, sleep. Her eye is somewhere, don't wake for it.At table, I dip my spoon into my milky bowl, wipe my milky chin, sprinkle berries with sugar. My brother has a gray eye, face turned. He snaps—I chew too loud.On the bus, I march down aisle rearward. I take my seat, pick at a hole in the vinyl. My name, mid-volume. Yes? My name, volume. What? Giggles, whispers. I press my cheek to the window. A chill scurries my neck.In school, I cross bustling hallways. Boys broaden by the minute. A man draws chalk across a board, turns, speaks, chalks. His eyes gliding and smooth, landing on faces, leaving them. Except mine. They swat me.I open my locker door by the bit, ready to catch what tumbles—a message private and undercover, personal, forbidden even. A map in colored pencil, folded four times—my newest yet. Line drawings connected by more lines and arrows too. I am so happy and bad, eager, prepared, and bad.I tuck it into my pocket, cross bustling. Boys broaden.In class, I look forward like I'm meant to. But study the map in my mind's eye, my mind's finger running over it.At dismissal, a splat of seeds streaks the door pane—I push through, am pushed. Pass cars in the pick up lane—red, blue, black, blue, black, blue, red—and turn into an alley. Row houses grow chin up from the sidewalk. The buckles of my suspender skirt rattle with each step.The map leads me along main street, with its lampposts and its live bodies, mannequins too. Past barbershop, deli, diner before bringing me to a hardware store: trowel colored silver.I enter, the cashier's eyes follow my good face down an aisle. My good face waxen and pink, my bad pulled slant and twisted at the ear. Diverting as my sly, happy hand lifts the trowel; when I leave, her eyes follow my bad face instead.I turn onto a walking path set back from the highway, saddling long strips of grass. I reach a maple and a bench: a tangle of green, stripes of brown.I sit. Watch cars lick past: red, blue, black, blue, black, blue, red. Take my notepad from the pocket of my skirt and flip through faces: mother, brother, jay, girl, mother, brother, girl, rat, boy, teacher, cloud, boy, bus driver. Their eyes different but all aimed straight.I put pencil to blank sheet, set swiftly to outlining the cashier—her long face, cow lashes, apron. In the corner of the page, like every other, I draw the back of my head. Two jays above: jaay-jaay! tool-ool!Twelve strides from the base of the tree: an X in hard black scores. Dig here. My trowel and me, driving at dirt. A shallow hole broadens.Until we find X: a teddy. I rip it open, reach hard hand into ticklish gut: a new map. Lie here, in my old script. It's too late to ask Teddy, have you been here long? I am so mean and loving too. Alone, harmless, and mean. I tuck it into my pocket, lay myself flat in the hole like a girl.I sweep dirt across my ankles, legs, and belly like a blanket. An awful, clammy blanket.I hear faces flip through her mind when a girl dies. Impatient to know which faces those will be, I close my two eyes.I am also impatient to know which face of mine would flip through someone else's. But for that I have to wait. Watch, listen, and wait.