Montage | Issue #9

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M0N TAG E MON

ARTS

Is a periodical of creative writing and visual art, edited and designed by undergraduate students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Since 1992, our goal has been to publish the finest, freshest and most innovative creative work that our campus has to offer. We strive to recognize talented undergrads and to foster literary and visual creativity and experimentation. You are now holding in your hand our Spring 2014 edition. This is a realization of our goal.

Rebecca Kaplan Alyssa Erickson Drew Amundson Katrina Halfaker Xiaomeng Li John Milas Joseph Krause Jessica Sung Alexander Wong David Huettner

Editor-in-Chief Editor-in-Chief Editor Editor Editor Editor Editor Editor Associate Editor Editor Associate Editor Art & Design Editor

Table of Contents We Are All Children in War Duncan Zhang

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Untitled Noelle Africh

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Your Daughter Wants to Know if the Sea Sings Back Natalie Declerck

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The Fortunate Alyssa Durst

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Untitled Noelle Africh

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The Comettes’ Last Show Gwen Schulte

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Green and Red Bowls Samantha Bonadies

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Blue Vase Samantha Bonadies

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Dear Mrs. Anderson, Love Katie Ann Sarah Elizabeth Farish

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Green Teapot Samantha Bonadies

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Daddy Christy Parker

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Halfway Home Noelle Africh

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Female Domesticated Newborn Noelle Africh

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Out on the Beach Jade Tyson

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Cover art by Samantha Bonadies.

Inside art by Jade Tyson

MONTAGE

We Are All Children in War Duncan Zhang I. Shaking, in the shoveled trench With sand in the eyes.

Heat bruises your body, and The jungle cries out Across the empty land.

Steady now, hold onto Your M1 Carbine.

Brothers in arms, pass the Smoke grenades around.

Peleliu is whispering, Stare out beyond your Myopic vision.

You fire once.

Then once more.

Repeat.

Into their bodies; The cartwheels, The hemic vapor Acidic.

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II. In the park outside Past the cul-de-sac, The feel of sunbaked wood In your batting hand.

The baseball flies, The stitched seams red.

Into the nose, the bone cracks.

Cry out, and hold Your bloody face.

We are all children in war.

Down the street, Patches on your face.

Brothers in arms shoulder you, Tell you mom and dad won’t know.

III. Through the small town streets, You march for The children’s remedy.

A little ring, and a chime, The bell on the corner candy store, Calling you in for sweets.

Blood-red taffy, traumatized caramel; My goodness, the man says, And hands you a roll of M&Ms. 6

IV. Level your eyes, and Watch for the scopes.

Bring the gun up; Running along the diamonds, How many bases can you steal?

Brothers next to you, tagged out.

They fall down: Their stubby knees, Their playtime shrieks.

Rush over in your shock; Cradle their heads And tell them “Hush.�

No more sweets, Their sugared faces, Melted and red.

Call out.

Call out for them.

Within the hostile island, Through the rat-tat-tat of gunfire, Beyond the frame of Home base and Baby Ruth, Laughing, under the bright sun.

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Your Daughter Wants to Know if the Sea Sings Back Natalie Declerck Two taps to the front Like a squid in its cage of teeth Rolls off the top left gum bone Knocks softly at the gate Still a goddamn zoo in here, he says, but He smiles.

I say, I let Lil lace them backward, Look!: And sure as eggs her little legs came clapping up the pavement— Because the sky was moving modal behind the brown roof triangles, And the passing cars peaked fast right at that low grumbled rhythm, And I told him so, I said, she wasn’t going to wait around for rain For nothing.

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Squid die to lick the ocean floor Three tongues in one, under God all squirm Nothing opens to let the wind move in So no one ever says lonely

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The Fortunate Alyssa Durst Tonight J is sitting across from me, folding paper napkins into indistinguishable shapes.

“This one is a lava monster,” he says.

He holds it up for me to see. It looks like a crumpled napkin with ketchup stains.

“I can kind of see that,” I say. I watch as he forces his fingers into the stomach of the monster.

J used to be the head of a construction crew. He used to be good with his hands, used to bring money home with those hands. Could bring me to moans with a slight brush of each finger.

Now I watch him fumble with the napkin, the wet pink of his tongue resting on his bottom lip.

Before the accident, we were trying to conceive. Making love had become a fervent display. A fever of desire pulsed in all the right places. Home from work, dinner, and sex before bed. Sex in shared showers. Never waste an erection, we joked, stepping up the frenetic regime.

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Sex before work, sometimes quickies on a lunch break. We were like teenagers.

Eight years of marriage and the latent sparks of passion ignited.

I never got pregnant, and the procreation frenzy fizzled.

I watch the corners of his mouth pool with saliva as he stares down at his hands.

The pool overflows and drips down the stubble of his cheek, reaching his neck before he notices.

“Now it's a rock,” he mumbles as he uses the back of his hand to wipe away the spit. He looks up at me for a response.

“It definitely looks like a rock,” I say.

I try not to look at his wet hand. *** J is standing over me as I open my eyes. He is naked, hovering.

“What time is it?” I ask. He's quiet, his eyes fixed to the wall behind my head.

His belly heaves in and out with each breath, like rising bread dough gathering just above his flaccid penis. He reaches his hand out and touches my face. His hands are clammy and smell stale.

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He glares down at me. I think he's sleepwalking. This is something else that's surfaced since the accident. The night after I brought him home from the hospital, I found him standing naked in my closet. He had pissed all over my shoes. His legs were wet, his feet sopping in the puddles.

“Let's get you in the bath,” I had said.

I held my tongue; held my disgust. He's my husband, I told myself. You love this man.

It's only one thirty in the morning.

“It's not time to get up yet. See? Still dark.” I point to the window, stare back at the clock. I rest my hand on top of his; try to move it from my face.

J had never been thin, but he had always been solid. Athletic. He had never worked out, but he worked hard. Along with a swollen brain came a tumid belly.

J stares past me. He looks at the wall, his mouth hanging open. He smells like sweat and ketchup.

“Let's get you back to bed,” I say. I take his hand in mine and he sits down on the bed. He is still staring at the wall.

“J,” I whisper, leaning into him.

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My lips move to his ear. “What are you thinking in there?” I squeeze his hand.

I brush my hand against his bristled cheek.

It's moist.

“Let's get you back to sleep.” I pat his back. Try to coax him to lie down.

Ann, the nurse, is coming tomorrow.

She comes twice a week to check-in, an attempt to rehabilitate my husband. I look forward to these days. I leave the nurse alone with him. I go get coffee, take walks, breathe.

J still won't lie down. He gapes at the wall behind my head with eyes wide open.

His breathing sounds heavy, as if his body were asleep.

We’ve been living on workers' comp since the accident happened in the company’s truck. It wasn't his fault. They said the other car pulled out in front of him.

He’s lucky to be alive, they said, as his brain bulged through the cracks in his skull like a balloon that just kept inflating.

I stayed by his side and held his hand. I said that I would give anything if he would just wake up.

They put him in a wheelchair and sent him home. I quit my job at the library. My 14

coworkers wished me luck and kept their heads down as I left. People sent get well soon cards and blooming bouquets. Time is passing, he'll be better soon, I thought. But the flowers wilted, the cards dissipated, and J just sat- in the bath, in the bed, at the kitchen table.

“We have a big day tomorrow. Ann is coming and we need sleep,” I say to him with effortful patience. I enunciate each syllable.

He squeezes my hand and lies back with his head on my pillow.

“You can have my side of the bed tonight,” I say, scooting over. I pull the sheets over him, tucking the cotton tightly under each of his sides. I kiss him on the forehead, and brush his hair back with my palm.

“I love you,” I say, staring at him in the dark. His eyes close and I stare up at the ceiling. His side of the bed is sunken slightly and damp, and smells nothing like it did before. It feels too lumpy and warm, like I’m suffocating under the weight of the sheets. In the wake of sleeplessness I think about us before the accident, and remember what it was like to find comfort in the mundane of routine. I try to 15

remember what it was like to know joy in the simple drudgeries that comprise a life, like cleaning, cooking, and mortgage payments. None of these things seemed arduous with J by my side. There was a great contentment within the expected. J would come home from work by six, we would share dinner, and make love. We would watch movies and garden in the backyard together, take road trips and talk long into the night about everything and nothing. But as J snores and slobbers beside me, I can’t help but to think that luck isn’t just waking up. It is a sensation found within normalcy. *** “He's showing signs of improvement,” Ann tells me. “His cognitive functions indicate that his cerebral hemorrhages may be repairing themselves.” I look over at J who is staring at the living room wall.

“What improvement,” I say.

The nurse pushes a stack of papers across the table so that they sit neatly in front of me. They're littered with images.

Blue suns in a purple sky. A vomit of 16

color without purpose.

“Improvement?” I say. I push the papers back across the table.

“While it may seem like he has the mental capacity of a child, he is still internally intact. In time, I am confident that he will heal.” Ann reaches her hand out to cover mine. She squeezes it and smiles.

“He's lucky to have you,” she says.

J comes into the kitchen, a dark circle spreading from the crotch of his khakis.

“Lucky,” I repeat, as the nurse takes J to the bathroom to wash up. *** I wake up to J's hand on my breast.

He is cupping it, violently squeezing it between his fingers. I look over at him, and he is staring at me. He smiles, saliva caked at the corners of his mouth.

“What's going on?” I say. I try to move his hand away from my breast, but he tightens his grip.

“Feel this,” he says. His voice sounds giddy, confused. He grabs my hand and places it on his penis. It's hard, moist at the tip.

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I feel dirty.

“It feels good,” he says, trying to move my hand up and down.

“I think you need to go back to sleep,” I say. I jerk my hand back and sit up in the bed. I pull the covers up to my chin and stare down at J, his erection swelling in his hand. I feel guilty for watching.

I want to smack his hand and tell him it's something you do in private. I want to go into the other room and close the door, drown out the plashing noise, his juvenile grunts and moans. He doesn't know I exist. His eyes are closed, but I keep watching.

At thirteen I walked in on my fifteenyear-old cousin with his pants down to his ankles in our bathroom. His hand was yanking on his crotch. I left the door wide open and ran to my room. I hid in my closet and felt warm between my legs.

We never talked about it, but I always thought about it. I can still see the look on his face. his mouth agape and panting, his eyes staring up into mine. His arm kept violently shaking but his gaze remained fixed; the O of his lips curling into a smirk. It’s as if he were beckoning 18

me to watch.

J doesn't have that look, doesn't care that I'm here. That same warmness surfaces between my legs and in my cheeks.

His legs are sprawled open. His stomach is soggy, his penis now limp. He is still panting. I leave him there on those sweaty sheets, close the bedroom door and go to the bathroom. I slip naked under the stream of the bathtub faucet. I let the water flow between my thighs and close my eyes.

I try not to think about my cousin, or J. *** J is always masturbating. I try to get him to stop, but he doesn't. I try not to watch, but I do. He puts his hand in his pants at the dinner table, releasing guttural sighs between chicken nugget bites.

He can draw stick people in crayon.

He can wipe himself and urinate in the toilet, put his dishes in the sink and keep the saliva in his mouth. He can make himself orgasm.

He needs me less and less. He sees 19

me less and less. He knows where the food is at in the cabinets. He knows how to run the bath water and how to dress himself. He knows that conditioner works as a lube even out of the bath.

Ann says it’s normal.

“He's rediscovering his body,” she says.

J is looking at my women's health magazine while we sit on the couch. He leafs through to a bronzed woman in a bikini. Her black hair is slicked back, wet.

Her abs are flexed, her toned thighs spread into a squat on the beach. Get this body, the caption says. J unzips his pants, his gaze glued to the page.

“What are you doing?” I ask. He doesn't hear me. This is the first time I've seen him look at another woman and get an erection.

I push the magazine off his lap. It lands closed on the floor. J's hand stops moving. He looks over at me, his teeth tight on his bottom lip. There's that look.

He opens his mouth but no words come out.

“You don't need a magazine,” I say. I take off my shirt. I want him to see me.

“Need me,” I say.

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I pull his hand onto my breast. I hold him within my closed fingers.

He pulls me close, stares in my eyes, at my naked chest. I kiss him on the lips, lick the drool from his chin. I do the moving for him.

“I love you,” I say as he spills in my palm. He mimics my kiss. We just sit here, breath between lips.

“You,” he says.

He stares into my eyes. I want to hold him here forever, to keep his eyes from going blank.

“Want some chicken nuggets,” I ask.

“A bath?” I take him by the hand and guide him to the kitchen.

“Sit here,” I say.

He just nods his head and stretches his lips into a curious grin, staring straight into my eyes. For a moment I think I recognize him behind the leer that's already going blank.

“Maybe ketchup down there?” He says and looks down at his naked lap. He disappears with the shift of a glance, a gesture.

“Maybe,” I say, and put the nuggets in the oven.

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The Comettes’ Last Show Gwen Schulte Dawn is sitting ankles-crossed on a white patent-leather loveseat near this amber-panel upside-down tree sculpture and she knows she’s supposed to be having a good time, if the glass of champagne glittering in her hand tells her anything. She’s at Mock Suttrey’s annual New Year’s Eve party in a crowd of thickcheeked record bigwigs and vaguely recognizable small-time bandstand groups and she knows she’s supposed to be having a good time, if the plumes of smoke and laughter fingering the tall ceiling tell her anything. It’s the neat finish to 1963, the red satin bow tying the year in its box, and she knows she’s supposed to be having a good time, if the big sheaf of butcher paper hanging stark white over the fireplace tells her anything.

Billboard HOT 100, it says, in big even block letters. Under that, it says: 3. ‘So Much For Goodbye,’ The Comettes.

CONGRATS GIRLS. Dawn would bet a hundred bucks that Mock had his assistant Bruce on his 23

knees with a red felt-tipped marker to draw up that sign. “Brucie,” he’d say, interrupting the guy in the middle of some other job like he always did when he had an idea. “Brucie, have I got a helluva job for you.” Standing at the front door in a bottle-green dinner jacket taking coats was probably lauded as a helluva job too.

Having fun at this ego-stroking joke of a party feels the same for Dawn, even though Bruce has got an armful of wools and she’s got that glass of champagne sweating, undrunk, between the pad of her thumb and the tip of her middle finger.

They’re both on the job tonight, there to smile, there to scrape and be pleasant for the guests. Still, she’s not dumb enough to want to trade spots with Bruce. She’s not dumb enough to think anybody’s got a better gig than she has tonight, or that anybody – almost anybody – looks better.

And she had been proud and bubbling with the truth of it when she’d arrived half an hour ago, standing taller and blonder and prettier between Judy and Barbara like always. The three girls pulled up in the limousine Mock had sent for them to the big, breathing house in the Hills, and when they came through the door (your 24

coat, miz Barbra? your coat, miz Dawn? your coat, miz Judy?) and Dawn set her eyes on the lights and her ears on the clinkingglass sounds of the party, it felt like magic.

She let the other two flush pink at her shoulders and beam around the bright haze of the buzzing foyer, let them think it’s all for us, it’s all for us, because it wasn’t any harm to her. If each girl wanted to think under her hairspray helmet skull that she was Cinderella tonight, instead of Dawn’s squat fairy godmother and Dawn’s sometimes-charming prince, then– Wait, no. No, naw, nay, nix, negative, no way Hosay. Her thoughts aren’t supposed to happen like that. Judy’s not supposed to be the prince.

The mental slip-up has got sweat beads warming Dawn’s forehead like a hot breath. It’s all she can do to get her mind off of it – off of her? no, off of them, just to be safe – since she started grousing here on the slippery white loveseat. She distracts herself by watching the schmoozefest and finding other folks to roll her eyes at. The main attraction of the past five minutes is Dwight Leddy of Dwight Leddy and The Steadies (or The Sweaties, according to Barbara), putting 25

the moves on the girls’ stylist, Greta, over by the fireplace. He has his forearm against the wall just over her head, thumbing his big hook nose while he yammers on. Dawn knows that Greta only smiles wide like that, open-mouthed with the right corner of her bottom lip tucked behind her teeth, when she’s listening to someone speak English just a little too quickly for her to keep up, but Dwight doesn’t know that, and that gives Dawn a thorny little prick of amusement. There’s no way he could know that Bill, the big guy with the flattop who gave Greta the flashy diamond on her finger, is just over there at the long Last-Supper-style drinks table, but then again Dwight probably didn’t even notice the rock. How could he, the way he’s gulping at the dip of her neckline.

It’s one humdinger of a distraction, and isn’t that a gas? Two thirds of the reason this shindig is happening, besides Dawn herself (why not be humble and just forget the new year entirely), and the other Comettes take up zero thirds of her swirling thoughts. At least, that’s how she wants it. She wants to focus on hating other folks. And if she can’t do that, she 26

wants to focus on hating the joint body BarbnJudy. And if she can’t do that, she wants to focus on hating Judy. And when she can’t do even that, when she’s stripped down to what’s wriggling and gasping for air there when she can’t force herself to hate Judy… Oh boy, that’s when Dawn is in trouble. Fast girls from Chicago might get in trouble, might even flirt with trouble as though whole psych ward wings don’t exist out there for girls like that, but good, blonde girls who grow up on streets named after trees don’t get in trouble, and Dawn has been dodging trouble for four months now.

She didn’t know trouble before she met Judy.

Dawn will admit that there’s something, some unspeakable something that she’s trying to outrun, but only if it’s just inside the private parlor of her brain. That alone is tough enough (she thinks of the yellow slogan she’d seen on a billboard on La Brea yesterday – Tuff E Nuff, Your Movers for Reely Ruff ‘N’ Heavy Stuff). But she indulges it, because right now she’s soft, thanks in part to the swig of whisky she’d had in Mock’s upstairs washroom with Judy and Barbara.

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“To us!” Barbara had crowed, palm cupping the lip of the shiny white sink like it was all that was keeping her from floating into the next galaxy, where there were no record deals and no songs to sing.

Dawn accepted the flask; she’d never seen one up close before. “Us,” she echoed, before latching her lips to the mouth the way she’d seen Barbara do it.

Immediately, she had to closed-mouth cough to keep from blowing the whisky back out through her nostrils. Too much.

Too, too much.

“Easy does it, kiddo.” The dimple in Judy’s left cheek winked while she watched. Dawn pawed a trickle of the stuff off her chin hastily and passed the flask, that familiar migraine feeling of hating Judy creeping in dully. Watching Judy’s throat bobbing from each delicate swallow, Dawn felt her cheekbones burning. Leave it to Judy to make her feel like a kid. Not like they were all three of them equal partners, oh no siree Jack. Dawn was just an eighteen-year-old bobby-soxed teenager from a Santa Barbara cul-de-sac, and what did her pretty little head know about whisky compared to world-wise Judy Muzzio from the Near West Side of 28

Chicago. Just two years older than Dawn and she had it all figured out, hadn’t she?

“You look funny.” Judy frowned, pushing off the wall where she’d been leaning. “Are you alright?”

“Don’t ralph,” Barbara said to the huge wall mirror, where she was bent over picking at her gums. “Mock will murder you.”

Dawn ignored Barbara, ignored especially the disturbing pink little cleft tongue peeking out the corner of her mouth (“Your folks mean it when they tell you not to lick the edges of tin cans, trust me”). “I’m not going to ralph,” she said to Judy. “And I don’t look funny.”

Judy step-swayed just a little closer, and god, it struck Dawn all over again – Judy had just about the prettiest frown she ever saw in her life. She doesn’t even know why (she’s been trying to figure it out for months) since Judy shouldn’t even be pretty with that too-long nose in the middle of her face.

And those lazy-looking heavy eyelids.

Not to mention the fact that the deep pink color of the knee-length shift dress Greta had put her in wasn’t doing Judy any favors, not with her olive skin and dark, dark hair 29

But the color flattered her lips, Dawn had to admit.

Boy, did it ever.

“Well, maybe just a little funny,” Judy said, quirking the corner of her mouth with one squinty eye. She was always looking like that when she smiled at Dawn, with the one side of her face slightly squinched up. She looked like she would look leaning in over some jigsaw puzzle – one of those thousand-piece doozies that had you cobble together a big picture of some mossy castle in Scotland – with her little hand hovering over a heap of pieces, about to pluck just the right one for the corner. Dawn could place the word for that look. It was something of a smirk.

It egged her on – though in what direction, Dawn couldn’t say for the life of her.

“You know, now that you mention it, I do feel a little queasy.” And with that, Dawn staggered across the seafoam green tile and fake-retched at Judy’s dress.

“Murderer!” Judy shrieked. Dawn gagged some more, revving up the theatrics with each of Judy’s steps back.

“I’m sorry! Oh god! I’m so sorry!”

Dawn crowded and dry heaved all over a 30

cackling Judy, who squirmed back into the wall with a bump.

“I’m being killed!” Judy’s hands flew up to Dawn’s elbows as she threw her head back, and her throat shone pink.

“Barb, save me!”

“I don’t know you,” came Barbara’s voice over by the sink; Barbara’s voice was an important part of Dawn’s job, and Dawn knew it well enough to hear it coming from a downcurled mouth. “I’ve never met either of you before in my life.”

Dawn stilled, and she realized what she was doing. She realized what this looked like. That she had Judy pinned against the wall, had their bodies warm and vibrating just inches away from each other. Judy, for her part, held Dawn’s eyes with a heavy-breath grin as she answered, “Barbara, I hate to say it, but there’s a record that’s been out playing on the radio for a few months now that would prove otherwise.”

Dawn looked away and shrugged off the hands at her elbows. “Get your man hands off of me.”

Barbara – the cow – gasped loud enough to suck all the air out of the washroom, but Judy leaned back and just 31

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rolled her eyes. “You know, dear, this little attitude is starting to get pretty old.”

Patronizing tended to be Judy’s default response whenever Dawn lashed out; Dawn could tell that Judy knew it drove her the craziest.

Boy, did it ever.

Dawn couldn’t find a cutting reply, so instead she glued her eyes to the seafoammatte towel rack and managed to execute a perfect storm-out, slamming the door on the sound of a spluttering Barbara (“Are you going to let her get away with that?”).

So here she has been ever since, dumped into a sour spoiled-milk mood because she’d gone and fooled around with Judy like that. In full view of Barbara, no less, who of course knew it looked wrong – all that grabbing and giggling and just making a complete spectacle of herself.

Dawn’s guts lurch horribly at the recollection of it.

She finds herself squeezing the useless champagne flute so tightly that she feels it could shatter in her hand. In the split second before she relaxes her grip, she has this vision that strikes her, this vision of the flute bursting with a sound like the flash those big news 33

reporter camera bulbs make, glass shards piercing her palm, slicing the pearly skin to ribbons, and while she sits there like a dumb blob with blood pouring from her hand, Joe Pimon rushes up, disc jockey Joe Pimon who handed her the glass as she stalked downstairs from the washroom, and he rushes up and asks, “But where’s your sis, your sis Judy? Don’t you girls look so pretty together?”

Dawn hates her, she really does.

But of course the glass doesn’t so much as crack. Dawn chances a sip and decides it’s the nicest tasting out of the four drinks she’s tried in her life (the others being wine from church, back years ago when she was little; beer from a party with boys, back over the summer when she was nobody; and whisky from the washroom, back a few minutes ago when she was small.

At least drinking what’s in her hand makes Dawn look like less of a square here off on the fringe of the party, makes her look just a little more…occupied. But that wouldn’t be enough for Mock, and Dawn knows it; her agent will want her attached to Barbara and Judy, for appearance’s sake (a helluva job). Dawn’s probably only got a 34

minute or two left sitting here that she can get away with anyway, before he finds her and she– “Guess this makes me the Blue Moon, huh?”

She’s surprised she doesn’t flinch and dump her drink in the lap right next to hers, but really, Dawn was more or less expecting this. She can’t remember how her Busha taught her how to say speak of the devil in Polish before she died, but Dawn knows the phrase was coined just for this moment.

“I know you’re a big fan of the cryptic one-liners but you’re going to have to elaborate.”

Mock, on the loveseat where he’d slid in unnoticed, gives her a wink before beginning to croon in his familiar wobbly tenor: “Bluuuue moon, you saw me standing aloooone, without a dream in my heaaaart, without a love of my oooown…”

Back when Dawn first became Mock’s client, she was embarrassed when he sang in public, conversationally, like this. Four months later, it barely fazes her, and it really doesn’t hurt that he’s got a good voice.

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It’s what got him into the business in the first place, after all.

Charles “Mockingbird ‘Mock’” Suttrey, the only person Dawn ever met that goes by the nickname of a nickname, had made sure to tell her right off the bat back in August that a failed rock-and-roll singer was acting as the group’s agent.

“Listen, girls,” he’d said, “I’m what you’d call a flash in the pan. I never hit the big time, and I sure as Christ don’t know how to get there, so don’t blame me if this little gig you’ve put together here flops.” Mock said all this with that big car salesman grin of his, his too-far-apart eyes merrily humorless. Dawn remembers shrinking back with Barbara and Judy in unison, less sure what to make of him than of the two fidgety girls she’d been asked to sing with.

But the gig didn’t flop, and in September the first single climbed the charts so fast it made Dawn dizzy. “This is the future,” Mock kept saying over brunches that summer. “Just five years ago white folks couldn’t make a buck singing rock tunes unless they were Elvis or Buddy, and now look at you. You girls don’t know how good you have it.”

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Mock always laughs when he gripes about how Charles Suttrey and The Mockingbirds never took off because rock and roll in the fifties didn’t care for musicians who weren’t black, but when Dawn sees how hard he claps Bruce on the back, she has a feeling there’s nothing really funny about it.

“Come on,” he says now. “Give me the pearly whites, blondie.”

It’s tiresome to say the least, but Dawn grits her molars in a smile reflex – she knows it’s the one thing she’s good at, if the slant of the Dawn/Judy/Barbara ratio in The Comettes’ photographs and promotions tells her anything.

“That’s the ticket.” Mock takes the flute from Dawn’s hand and empties it into his mouth.

“Now where’s the girls, there’s some people I’ve got to introduce you all to.”

Dawn sighs. “I don’t know. Barbara hates me right now.” Right now, huh.

More like ever since the day Dawn joined the group. She looks down at her fingers, twisting together in her lap like a tangle of jacks. “Judy does too.”

Mock caws, “Barbara! Is that what you’re here moping about? Oh, she’s 37

gonna hate you no matter what you do.

Judy, though – you know she could never hate you. You’re like the mean little kitty cat her daddy could never afford to buy her.”

Dawn swats away the pinchy fingers straying towards her cheek. “Did she tell you that?”

“Oh, in so many words,” Mock says.

He’s got Dawn torn between fuming and smiling. It’s not exactly the nicest thing to hear, but there’s a certain charm to it…if it’s true.

“Now, get em flashing again and come with me.” Mock gets to his feet and takes Dawn’s hands to bring her to her own. “You’re gonna have to come win over these V.I.M.s by yourself. Shouldn’t be too hard with Barbara off somewhere making nice with a tray of cocktail weenies.”

She follows Mock across the living room. It’s not like she has any other option. “What’s a V.I.M.?”

“Very Important Moneybags, you know.

Managers at Vee-Jay – you see em over there by the Wesselmann print picking their noses. We were just having a nice chat about your contract.”

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Dawn tunes him out while she tries to remember who’s signed with VeeJay. She should have this memorized (is it the Belmonts?). The singers on smaller labels like Pinnacle spend their down time keeping track of bigger stars’ careers (Lou Christie?), the same way Dawn’s older brothers used to pore over the stats of every big player on the baseball cards they pinched from the grocer’s (it couldn’t be Bobby Vee). But now it comes to her, it’s… it’s The Four Seasons. She remembers a conversation she’d had with Barbara and Judy last week at the studio, buzzing like high-schoolers about what they would wear and who they would meet at the New Year’s Eve party.

“I hope Frankie Valli’s there,” Barbara had said with a sigh. “Isn’t he just the absolute most.”

Dawn didn’t think so at all, but there was no way she was going to say so.

Instead she lifted her chin. The words fell out like a mouthful of sand, the way they always seemed to. “Don’t waste your time drawing designs on him – he’s a lead.

Leads go with leads, and Theodore chipmunks go with Theodore chipmunks.

You’d go with Nick Massi, the other one.”

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It didn’t even make sense. The Comettes didn’t have a vocal lead, since all three of them were actually good. Barbara lit a cigarette and scowled at Dawn anyway.

“As usual, nobody asked you, Miss Priss.”

Judy sat with her nose in a crossword, but she watched Dawn over the top of the gray pages. She always seemed to be watching like that, stealth-watching only Dawn, and Dawn hated how she itched of it. Judy’s big brown eyes blinked over the crossword. “So who would I go with?”

It was a harder question than it should have been. The most logical answer Dawn could have said to her was Bob Gaudio or Tommy DeVito, but she thinks they’re both too ugly – Bob with his tiny pinprick eyes and Tom with his long seashell nostrils. Although she secretly ached to rip her flesh open down the middle and yell the best answer, Dawn couldn’t say it – really shouldn’t have thought it or felt it in the first place – so she went with the second best choice and simply said, “No one.”

Judy lowered the book just a fraction and snorted. She said nothing – just shook 40

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her head and tapped her teeth with the eraser end of her pencil. Dawn was relieved that Judy seemed amused, but the way she read a dot of fondness in Judy’s eyes just before she turned back to her crossword had Dawn thinking that Judy could see right through her and understand everything.

“Marv, Leo, this young lady is our very own Dawn Pierce. I’d introduce her with a list of accolades, but I know that you know that it all precedes itself.”

Dawn’s first thought is, What accolades? Singing one song over and over again in trio with two other relative nobodies?

Then she realizes she’s standing in front of a pair of Vee-Jay execs in black suits and they’re eyeing her with wide smiles. For a split second she goes even clammier than she’d got while daydreaming, but after all Dawn is good at this, and she pastes on a smile.

“Oh Mock, now I hope you haven’t been selling them Dusty Springfield by mistake.”

The three men laugh, to Dawn’s relief, and Mock squeezes her arm tight enough to cut off her circulation as she 42

shakes their hands.

“Marv Olpp.”

“Leonard Bosetti.”

“It’s such a pleasure.”

“So Dawn,” says Marv – or maybe it’s Leonard, whichever one has the white Chiclet teeth, “I’m so glad to finally get to meet you. You look absolutely beautiful tonight–” “– just stunning –” “– the pictures just don’t do you justice.”

“Now now, fellas, we don’t want Miss Pierce’s head to balloon too much. All that helium would have America thinking The Comettes had their lead singer replaced by one of those cartoon mice.”

The way he glances down at her with a taut smile tells Dawn that he couldn’t care less how inflated her ego got, as long as this went well.

“Who knows,” she says, “It could be an improvement.”

“Oh, don’t talk like that,” says Leonard – or maybe Marv, whichever one has the dandruff-speckled shoulders.

“From what Mock tells us, we should be grateful enough that you were part of the group to begin with. The Comettes 43

needed a third and you were in the right place at the right time thanks to a father at Pinnacle, isn’t that right?”

“An uncle, Hal Pieczynski,” Mock corrects, and for a second Dawn wonders if anyone ever told Uncle Hal he couldn’t keep his name because it sounded “too damn Red”. Mock goes on, “Those two eye-talian cousins Giordano scouted in Chicago had their raw talent, sure, but vocals alone – and just two of em – can’t get you anywhere. The act would have fizzled entirely without a pretty young face who could hold a tune and fill a third spot.”

“Hold a tune!” says Leonard (Leonard, right?) with a whoop, his cheeks gleaming. He reminds Dawn of Barbara, and she doesn’t like him. “Looking for a girl to hold a tune and you tripped over this find! Mockingbird you lucky sunovabitch, I could just kiss you.”

The flesh on her collarbones floods with heat when Dawn hears this man toss around the idea of two men kissing – and so casually, too. She shifts her weight back and forth from the ball of one foot to the other, the way she does when she has to visit the washroom.

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Mock doesn’t notice. None of them do. The one called Marv pulls from a glass and peers into it, saying, “So Miss Pierce, we might as well get down to business and be straight with you.”

“We want you,” Flakes cuts in. “Plain and simple.”

“Vee-Jay is dying to sign you.

Dawn stares at them. “Me?” She’s struck by a strange black-and-white TV vision of herself on some stage – probably Ed Sullivan’s – and she’s completely alone.

No Barbara an inch away from stepping on her toes, no Judy squinch-smirking at her in the riff just before they start to sing, no anyone. It’s just Dawn and the gray bubbling crowd sprawled out in front of her, going nuts – they love her. She hates it.

“Well, The Comettes,” Barbarabigwig says. Oh. Of course. “Although we wouldn’t have minded doing without the little fat one and the, ah, the other girl.”

Flakes chuckles. “Leo wanted you for a solo act. But the three man dynamic works right now, and besides, those girls have full songwriting credit. Their contract’s solid.”

“Uh huh, sure. Here I was I thinking 45

we were sticking with the three because of Mock’s special self-interest,” Leonard says. He licks an incisor and glances sidelong at Mock.

Dawn’s ears prick at that. “What selfinterest?” She immediately hates how much she sounds like a kid sister, tagging along with a big brother and his friends.

Mock laughs into his glass, Dawn’s glass, the empty champagne flute, and is that a crack on the rim there right near his lip? He says, “Oh, nothing.”

Dawn can’t help but notice how a hint of color tinges his ears.

“Oh, nothing!” Leonard repeats. “Oh, nothing! Nothing, my aunt Delia’s big toe.

Marv, you should have heard this fella three martinis in at the Burgundy Room last week, on and on and on about this little rendezvous he had written in his date book for some ah, for some singing lessons, and–” “Business, Leo.” Mock clears his throat.

“We were talking business, remember?” By now the color has seeped into the flesh of his jawline, a blush that Dawn has never seen on him in all the time that she’s known him. She didn’t even know he could blush. But he is, sure enough – or at least 46

he was for just half a minute, before steering the conversation back to Dawn Pierce and The Comettes at Vee-Jay Records. Dawn isn’t listening to the future of her career. Two words run a race track around her brain, and the starting gun goes off each time they pass behind her eyes.

Singing lessons.

She’s not stupid, but she must have been before not to suspect it. No wonder Judy was always looking at her with that puzzle-piecing look, always thinking, How dumb can this girl really be not to know I’m cozying up to the boss. How dumb, indeed.

And no wonder she’s always been so calm, so quick to forgive all of Dawn’s snaps and the barbs, because what do they matter?

How powerless and silly must they seem coming from know-nothing Dawn?

Her nails dig into the heels of her palms. It’s the next time “singing lessons” sprint past her optic nerves that she sees it, unbidden and vivid and nauseating, and the force of her middle and ring fingers against her hands practically turns her into Christ. She paints on a smile, pretty as ever, before she knows what she’s doing.

“I’m sorry, gentlemen, but you’ll have to excuse me for just a few minutes.”

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Mock blinks. “Where are you –” But Dawn is gone and he doesn’t bother following anyway. Not that she’d notice if he pawed all over her dress, her “Asti Spumante” colored satin shift, and tried to wrangle her back over by Marv, Leonard, and the big Wesselmann print.

She’d bite his hand to the bone if he tried to put it on her. Dawn has got blood screaming in her ears and she feels slippery as an eel. For the first time all night, she needs to find Judy.

Judy’s nowhere to be found on the main floor of the party, and neither is Barbara. They must be upstairs somewhere, sharing the flask and having a good laugh over all of this, so Dawn walks straight through The Sweaties and up the long staircase. The hallway is dark and quiet. Dawn spies a bar of light at the foot of a door at the end of the hall; her pulse still throbbing, she gives the door one loud rap and wrenches it open. “ – obviously her fault, she must have done something on purpose to sabotage you with this perver–” She’s met with the sight of Judy perched on an unmade bed, hunched over with her fingertips cupping her temple, and 48

Barbara standing in front of Judy, at once whirling around.

“What do you wa–” “I need to talk to you,” Dawn says to Judy.

“Dawn, go away,” Judy says. She stares at the ugly clot-red shag rug.

“Well? You heard–“ “Now,” Dawn snarls. “I need to talk to you now.”

“Are you deaf? She told you to go–” “Judy,” Dawn says.

Judy sighs into her wrist. “Barb, give us a few minutes.” A beat passes where Barbara doesn’t move, and Judy rolls her head back from her hand to give Barbara a pointed look.

Barbara looks like she wants to squawk some more, but thankfully she shuts her mouth. She shoots Judy a warning look, then stomps out and pulls the door shut behind her.

The silence after Barbara leaves the room is like the first few moments after stepping into an elevator, only heavier.

Judy tosses her head back and looks at Dawn with a tight brow. “Well? What do you want?” It’s almost more maddening how completely unruffled she is, watching 49

Dawn with calm eyes as if Dawn were just a child about to throw a tantrum.

Dawn is struck abruptly by the memory of a Friday night in July – she’d flown into a fine temper because the taxi that was supposed to take the three of them to meet Mock at a doo wop show downtown was late, and when they finally arrived, they had to find seats in the back.

Sitting in the stuffy dark basement on a metal folding chair, Dawn continued to fume; palpable heat practically radiated from her forehead in little orange waves.

Judy leaned close, staring straight at the stage, and whispered in Dawn’s ear: “There was a little girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead.

And when she was good she was very good indeed, and when she was bad she was horrid.”

After that Judy took Dawn’s hand and held on to it all during For All We Know and They Tell Me It’s Summer. Dawn sat there taut as a wire, recalling the book of Longfellow poetry she’d lost at the studio a few days before and realizing where it must have gone. At the thought of it now, Dawn itches to slap her.

“I want to know what you think 50

you’re doing running around like a tramp with our agent.”

Judy recoils as though Dawn had just revealed a live snake in her clutch. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You and Mock. I’m not dumb like you think I am.”

“Where is this coming from?” Judy frowns harder than Dawn has ever seen, and Dawn’s skin crawls from the way it’s still such a pretty frown. “For god’s sake, Dawn, there’s nothing going on.”

“Oh, sure, nothing.” Suddenly Dawn is that Vee-Jay suit with the Chiclet teeth, and she hates herself. “Nothing. Then what about all your little secret meetings? The ‘singing lessons’?” She bends her fingers into imitation quote marks around the awful words, and she hates herself all the more for it. “You thought I wouldn’t find out, didn’t you?”

Judy stares. “This is about the lessons?”

“Is that what you’re calling it?”

“I’m calling it what it is.” Judy leaps from the bed so quickly that Dawn stumbles back a step. “You think I want to stand around receiving lectures from that pig on how to sing the song I wrote in my 51

grandmother’s basement? Let him leer at me so I can keep my job singing it?” Judy licks her lips as her voice scratches her throat with climbing volume. “You know I would have been dropped from the act like yesterday’s garbage if I hadn’t agreed, right?” She jabs a finger in Dawn’s face, and oh god Dawn has never seen her like this, and she’s afraid. “Both me and Barb, after all we sacrificed to get here. Nobody wants us here, but you – oh, you’re the one everyone wants, and you don’t even care about any of it.”

“I want you here, you bitch.”

“Right,” Judy laughs coldly. “Of course you do, you want your punching bag. Who else would you find stupid enough to not fight back.” Dawn needs her to stop talking now, and she lurches forward with a throbbing tornado siren of a pulse, but Judy keeps going. “And Barb, of course she doesn’t get it. You know she hates you, she doesn’t get why I put up with it – but she doesn’t understand how scared you are, and I must be the world’s biggest fool to think it’ll ever change, to think you’ll just grow up someday and see how I want you to– how I– how I want to just–” 52

Their teeth clack painfully when their mouths mash together. Dawn’s brain is a scribble – how? The plan was to hit Judy, to slap her across the cheek or knock her in the eye, and Dawn had even hauled back her hand to do so. But that hand took the nape of Judy’s neck and she just… kissed her instead. And oh gee, oh golly gee whiz, oh cripes and jeezly crow, Dawn is kissing her. And Judy is breathing hot and hard in Dawn’s mouth and kissing her back, and it’s nothing like the time Dawn kissed Calvin Eberstark because now there’s so much spit, and her groin feels like it’s grown and filled up the entire inside of her body, and Judy’s a girl like Dawn’s a girl, and this is Mock’s bedroom, probably, but everything can still be okay because Judy’s kissing Dawn, and– The click of the door is a gunshot in Dawn’s ear. She hears it swing open, and her eyes fly open, and for a second she marvels at how much bigger Judy’s nose looks mashed up against her own. And she wonders if she’s shaking hard enough for whoever has just walked in to hear their teeth rattling together the way they’re jackhammering in her own skull, and then she actually does it, this time without 53

planning to, and she pulls back and slaps Judy across the cheek.

It’s not loud, a crack, like she expected. The noise is raw meat falling into a frying pan, plap, and somehow it’s even worse.

Mock stands there with the doorknob in his hand behind him, just stands there on those pointy crocodile skin toes, and he stares at Judy with an Elvis lip curl.

Dawn prays that he’s going to start singing something. He’ll start off with The ChordA-Roys, probably, belting out “Girls were made for booooys, don’t you knoooohhh-woahh,” and they’ll all three of them have a good laugh at that because God, girls, you sure put me in a tough spot trying to find a tune for when the other fella is actually a…is a…

The only thing that keeps Dawn from throwing up is not knowing the word for it, but when she makes the mistake of looking back to Judy’s half-flaming face, she’s right there on the verge. Judy stands in front of Dawn all blotch-mouthed and bright-eyed, and Dawn’s hands are two dead fish. Judy looks beautiful and alive.

Dawn wants to kiss again, absurdly, but instead she swallows a sour glob of spit, 54

trains her gaze on the ceiling fan pull string bead that dangles just above Judy’s head, and puts on the mask that she knows is going to save her life.

“How…how dare you,” Dawn says loudly. She glances at Mock, who’s only looking at Judy, and his expression shows pure disgust. Big old shocker. He turns on his heel and leaves the room without saying a word, although Dawn thinks she catches the word “dog” hovering back through the jamb.

Then it’s just the two of them, alone again.

“I…” Judy drops down to the bed and stands up again. “I,” she says, and she frowns so hard at Dawn’s hands that Dawn could almost crack into pieces.

She’d pierce Dawn’s palms, and shards of her would stick inside Dawn, and Dawn would gush from her. Judy looks around the room with glassy eyes, at the single red houndstooth tie draped over the far side of the bed like a tongue, at the crystal flask on the nightstand, and at Dawn. She’s asking a dazed, wide-eyed question, but Dawn has never been good at puzzles. A helluva job. Dawn knows there’s nothing to

55

say, so she doesn’t. Judy criss-cross clutches her arms close, bows her head, and goes, leaving Dawn alone with her heaving chest.

Soon after that Dawn hears an eruption of shouts and applause from the crowd downstairs floating through the door. It must be midnight, and 1963 must have just turned into 1964. Happy New Year, Mock’s party. Auld Lang Syne, friends and neighbors. 1964 is going to be a helluva year – after all, this is the year The Comettes are going to become big stars.

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Dear Mrs. Anderson, Love Katie Ann Sarah Elizabeth Farish September 6, 2012 Dear Mrs. Anderson, I think this is a stupid assignment. In fact, this whole idea sucks. I don’t want to write a journal at the beginning of class every day. I don’t want to write period. I don’t want to answer your questions.

Guess what? This assignment isn’t cool no matter how hard you try. You asked what I would use to defend myself in the zombie apocalypse. As if I haven’t already thought of that. What kind of Walking Dead fan do you think I am?

I don’t like your class, and I won’t write for you.

Sincerely, Katie Ann

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September 14, 2012 Dear Mrs. Anderson, Your plan for the zombie apocalypse was okay. Fine, it was pretty good. I liked the axes and chainsaws. But no, I still won’t share mine. Your loss.

And what do you mean why do my parents let me watch The Walking Dead and I’m not old enough? I’m in fourth grade!

You think I’d be dumb enough to let my parents know? It’s simple, really. My dad has Netflix on his computer and he left it open once and I figured out his password (it was Annelise, after my mom, typical) and so I watch it on my dad’s laptop after he goes to bed. And yes, I make sure to erase the history.

And no, I did not write for you. I told you that I hate your assignment. Last time I checked that’s not the same as actually writing.

Sincerely, Katie Ann

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September 20, 2012 Dear Mrs. Anderson, Fine. I promise I will answer this question but only if you keep your promise to not tell my parents about Netflix and The Walking Dead if I answer it.

Your question was the least bad one you’ve asked yet.

My best friend is Lucy and she is the exact same age as me. That’s how we became friends. We had to organize ourselves according to our age in my kindergarten class and Lucy and I fought over who got to stand first. I won.

Lucy and I’s favorite thing to do is eat popsicles and talk about the books we find on our parents’ bookshelves. I read one that was about a million pages called Anna Karenina. Maybe you’ve heard of it? It was interesting. I didn’t like Anna.

Happy?

Sincerely, 60

Katie Ann September 24, 2012 Dear Mrs. Anderson, Anna Karenina is your favorite book? I have to admit I didn’t hate it. I couldn’t pronounce anyone’s name, but I can’t help it that I don’t speak Russian.

You think I would like The Great Gatsby?

We’ll see. I’ll have to check my dad’s shelf.

His shelf is basically a library. It’s nuts.

So, how long are you going to blackmail me with the Netflix card? I guess I will answer your question and I guess I will use at least five sentences.

If I could go anywhere in the world I would go back to Fairview with my twin brother Jacob before his accident and we would race down the little hill in our backyard together and he would beat me because his legs work and he can talk.

Okay that was only one sentence but that’s all I want to say.

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-Katie Ann

September 27, 2012 Dear Mrs. Anderson, No. -Katie Ann September 30, 2012 Dear Mrs. Anderson, You can’t give me a zero on that assignment!! I didn’t want to talk about Jacob! No one here knows about him. I don’t want people to know. I don’t want them to know that we moved out of our nice big house in Fairview to this small one with one floor for his wheelchair. I don’t want people to know that my mom had to start working again to pay for his bills. I don’t want people to know that I still have nightmares of that horrible, evil, black truck and I still try and run as fast as I can to get Jacob out of the way but I’m never, never fast enough.

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Sincerely, Katie Ann October 2, 2012 Dear Mrs. Anderson, Yeah, happy October to you too. I feel like every woman over thirty says October is her favorite month and loves fall. Or at least you and my mom do. For the record I hope I never grow up to be like that.

(Nothing personal).

I hate fall. Fall is the season of death and sadness and summer is over and I’m stuck in jail I mean school for forever.

Yes, I know I haven’t been answering your questions on the board lately. I have to say that it was nice of you to give me full credit anyways for my last entry even though it didn’t explain what my favorite food was.

Here goes: my favorite food is mashed potatoes. I love mashed potatoes because I can feed them to Jacob at dinner.

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Last year Jacob grabbed the spoon from me and threw the mashed potatoes in my hair and I cried not because I was sad, but because I was so happy that he could move his arm like that. You know it was the first time he had moved his arm in that range of motion? To throw potatoes at me!

Sincerely, Katie Ann October 5, 2012 Dear Mrs. Anderson, Okay, okay. I will admit it. You were right.

The potatoes made a nice story. But DO NOT show my parents that and DO NOT show other parents at parent teacher conferences next week or I will NOT write a nice essay for you again.

What is something that makes me sad?

Well, aside from the fact my dad changed his Netflix password and I can never watch The Walking Dead again (seriously what am 64

I going to do?), I guess it would be two things. The first is that last week I found out that Lucy is moving to Canada, the land of cold weather and policemen on horses. My best friend since forever. She was there for me when Jacob got hit by the car. My mom said maybe a nice little girl will move in and I could be friends with her but there are two problems with that: first, I am not little, and second, I don’t have high hopes for that to happen.

The second thing that makes me sad is that I overheard the doctors after Jack’s accident say that he probably wasn’t going to live very long after age 20 and seeing as we’re ten now that only gives me ten more years with my favorite person in the world. That’s what makes me sad, Mrs. A. Love, Katie Ann October 12, 2012 Dear Mrs. A, What is my dream job? Well, I have two dream jobs. My impossible dream job and 65

my not-so-impossible dream job. My impossible one is a major league baseball player. Ask anyone in Ridgeview Little League, I am the fastest, sharpest, and allaround best shortstop in the league. But my dad said that 1) I have to join softball next year because baseball is for boys and fourth grade is too old to play little league and 2) professional softball is not as cool as the MLB and I have a second dream job.

My not-so-impossible dream job is a physical therapist. Jacob has a physical therapist named Stacy. She is really nice and pretty. Stacy has helped Jacob regain a lot of strength and physical motion. I am really proud of him. Stacy is also really thin and small but she is so strong! She can lift Jacob! He hates going to the therapist because it hurts him but it makes him better. Isn’t that like most things in life, Mrs. A? Things that hurt and are hard makes us better? Like Lucy leaving and Jacob’s accident. I’ve learned through those things.

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I know you said your dream job is to teach. I think you’re pretty good at it, Mrs. A. Sincerely, Katie Ann October 15, 2012 Dear Mrs. A, I was at the mall last night with my mom and I thought I saw you at the Gap. Mom made me go there to pick out a sweater for Jacob to wear in our Christmas picture which he will HATE (he hates itchy fabric and I have yet to find a sweater that wasn’t more comfortable than my sweatshirts) so I don’t understand why she insists on getting one. Anyways. Why were you behind the counter?

Back to the question.

If I could meet any book character I would meet Anna Karenina. I’d ask her why she left her husband and her son and tell to go back to them because they hurt without her.

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Love, Katie Ann P.S. I asked my mom if you showed her my writing at parent teacher conferences and thank you for not doing it. You’re not so bad.

P.P.S. Thanks for asking about Lucy. She sent me a picture of her new house. It looks cold and I miss her. But I ate lunch with Lillian Edgars today and she seems like she might be a good new friend.

October 18, 2012 Dear Mrs. A, Do not feel bad for crying in class. I would cry too if I was changing my name back to Miss Moore. If you ask me Mr. Anderson is a dumb-dumb for not wanting to be married to you anymore.

I promise I will not tell anyone that I saw you working at Gap. I’m sorry that you have to make extra money that way to pay for a lawyer. It was nice of you to tell me

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I don’t have a lot of money, but I taped some quarters leftover from Jacob and I’s lemonade stand this summer on this page.

Jacob wanted you to have all of his but I only let him give away two. He loves you even though he doesn’t know you because I love you.

Love always, Katie Ann October 21, 2012 Dear Mrs. A, Is it okay if I still call you that? I know you’re Miss Moore now, and I promise I’ll call you that in class, but here you’re Mrs. A. What is one of my regrets? I regret not being nicer to you when school started.

This year has been hard for me, Mrs. A. I love Jacob and seeing him struggle is hard.

Did you know he can’t really talk?

It’s hard because we used to talk all the time and now I can’t talk to him anymore.

But even if it’s hard for me that doesn’t 70

excuse me being mean and I’m sorry.

I hope you’re doing okay. I taped a Laffy Taffy on here for you. Yellow. I know, I know it’s the worst flavor but it’s the only one Jacob would let me give away.

Love, Katie Ann October 25, 2012 Dear Mrs. A, Thanks for letting me call you that. I hope it’s not hard for you.

My favorite movie is When Harry Met Sally.

My mom always fast-forwards some of the scenes but I love it. Harry and Sally are so normal and real. They fight, they are friends, they make up, they fall in love. It’s so wonderful. I want that someday.

Love, Katie Ann October 31, 2012 Dear Mrs. A, 71

I won’t be in class the next few days.

Jacob’s been having seizures so he has to get surgery. I can’t be in school without him because he has to fly to Minnesota and I would be so sad without him.

I can’t answer the question because I’m worried about Jacob and to make matters worse Lucy’s found a new best friend in stupid Canada and I am stuck here with no one.

I hate life sometimes.

Love, Katie Ann November 5, 2012 Dear Mrs. A, Jacob is fine, thanks for asking! He did great and I am so proud of him!

What was my silliest Halloween costume?

I was St. Francis of Assisi when I was in 3rd grade. I love animals and he did too so I dressed up as a Catholic monk.

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Your picture was funny. I can’t believe that you were a cheerleader in high school.

I thought it was a costume.

Love, Katie Ann April 12 Dear Mrs. McKenney, I can’t believe it’s been so long since I was in 4th grade and we’re still talking. I love these letters. They mean the world to me.

I can’t believe I was such a brat to you when I was little. I’m so sorry, again. I know I’ve apologized before.

I am so happy for you and Drew! It was a joy to go to your wedding. I’m glad you got a second shot at love. You seemed very happy. And he’s obviously mad about you.

I’m writing to let you know that Jacob just passed away. Two days ago, actually. He never was able to walk but he could talk and he wrote some beautiful poetry.

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To answer your last question, me and Leo are doing well. Don’t tell anyone, but I found out I’m pregnant! I had the chance to tell Jacob that he was going to be an uncle before he died and his smile just made my heart so happy.

I can’t wait to see you again, Mrs. McKenney and we can talk in person!

Breakfast at Egg Harbor next Tuesday morning, as always?

Love, Katie Ann

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Halfway Home Noelle Africh the cutest person that has ever lived orders a pint of beef Lo Mein on Saturday only to eat it through a giant straw neon colors fill the whiteboard outside the door Warning: shellfish/peanut/lactose allergies favorite food: rocky road this person is sensitive to small sounds Water droplets from the sink put her into a fit of rage this person earnestly thinks Preparation H is a moisturizer for dry skin Janet looks sad up close but happy far away Janet is double jointed in her ears this trait made her seem endearing to the others 75

on her first day

Wednesday she whispered “He went to H…E…double hockey sticks” while reading the obituaries Yesterday Janet ripped two scabs off her arm this time she threw them out her barricaded window into the snow Help me Pieces of my body are on the lawn!

They get to feel the weather I do not today is Friday and Janet’s visitation hours are up the soft sound of rain puts her to sleep Saturday she is scheduled for release

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female, domesticated, newborn Noelle Africh I found lucy under a dodge intrepid one night she was a just a kitten back then I’d pray…oh please no one kidnap her now I say…oh please do . . . i don't know what day it is because i never know what day it is i’m either celibate or extremely promiscuous sometimes strangers call me pussy that makes me feel kind of odd my reproductive organs are gone my nickname is slang for vagina stupid humans don't define me by gender id yet someday i will tell them how i feel it will be my decision you fed me a bag of white cheddar cheezits for lunch i threw up a little on your arm 77

now i am licking my crotch you don’t know when my birthday is i hate that they say i have 9 lives what the fuck does that even mean you photoshopped a picture of me sleeping inside a hotdog bun it got 30 reblogs on Tumblr for some reason you think i need milk to survive actually it gives me diarrhea ‘Fancy Feast’ sort of tastes like salmon mousse laced with pennies 5 toes in the front 4 in the back my urine glows under a black light i’m unique and you are like the sun giving me warmth and vitamin d gently causing permanent damage oh what a ruthlessly beautiful way out my sister's brain is preserved in a jar somewhere at Cornell University

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2014

Rebecca Kaplan Alyssa Erickson Drew Amundson Katrina Halfaker Xiaomeng Li John Milas Joseph Krause Jessica Sung Alexander Wong David Huettner