Temenos - Fall 2017: Hidden in Sight

28 temenos Miriam, and there he’d be in front of Wendy’s, acting like he didn’t see me, as if I wasn’t the reason he was there.

Sometimes he sat in his car all morning, through free period when Miriam and I snuck out to share a cigarette. At lunch, when kids were huddled in groups on the curb and we were just about to walk past, he started the car and drove by without looking. I don’t know where he went.

Maybe to a girlfriend and another daughter somewhere else.

Supposedly Corey was a nice guy. Miriam said he was. Plus he was Gino’s best friend, so after that night it made sense we would hang out, her and Gino in his room and me and Corey downstairs.

Corey was cuter than Gino, I thought, but he was quieter. Guys didn’t yell to him in the hallways, and girls didn’t hang off him. No one called him nicknames or asked what he was doing on Friday nights. I thought we were kindof alike that way. We could have things in common that we didn’t even know.

But he never said anything without me saying something first. And at school he didn’t talk to me, not even when Miriam and Gino were making out against the lockers and it was just me and him hanging back beside them. Still, I liked the way he stuck his hand up my shirt like he wasn’t sure what he’d find there. And some nights, when we were kissing on Gino’s couch, I opened my eyes and he was smiling.

Miriam’s mom took in foster kids, tons of them, so Miriam slept in the attic. The slanted ceiling was covered with pictures from magazines she’d stolen. It was easy, she said. You just sat in the pharmacy’s waiting area, reading one, then after five or ten minutes you walked out, carrying it under your arm like it was yours. She also shoplifted make-up: mascaras for thickening and lengthening and plumping, shimmering eye shadows in dark grays and deep greens, perfect cylinders of lipstick with names like Sweet Diva, Night Out, Strawberry Daiquiri, Wild Child. I liked to think about the people who came up with those names; I could be one of those people.

Miriam pulled the elastic from her hair and shook it out, watching herself in the mirror. She applied Sweet N Tart to her lips. “I think I’m in love with Gino,” she said. She kissed a tissue and pouted, examining her face from all sides. “Are you in love with Corey?”

I wanted to say yes, but if I was, how could I be the same greasy-skinned girl? I studied the mascaras. Did I want my lashes long or thick or full?

“That’s ok,” said Miriam. “I don’t think he loves you either.”

I shrugged. But she didn’t know; maybe he counted minutes ‘til he’d see me or circled the halls so we would pass each other. Just cuz he never told me, didn’t mean it didn’t happen.