Ф May 31, 1993 [Age: 4]
It’s my birthday today! I’m 4. Daddy called me his miracle baby and gave me this book but it’s empty. He said I should write in it every day. I love my daddy so I’m going to do that. OK, bye!
Ф June 12, 1993
Mommy yelled at me again today. I didn’t want to practice ballet anymore and she told me that if I ever wanted to be in pageants and win and not make a fool of myself I would have to get good at ballet but my toes hurt so she yelled at me. Daddy’s away on business again so I just cried in my room so mommy couldn’t tell me big girls don’t cry.
Ф October 9, 1995 [Age: 6]
Daddy brought me back nice earrings and he says they’re from Italy! I asked him if I could get my ears pierced because Cynthia and Natalie both have pierced ears but he laughed and said I should wait a few years but that’s ok because I have these nice earrings to look forward to. They’re pink!
Ф January 23, 1997 [Age: 7]
Mommy took me for frozen yogurt after violin practice today. She said it’s ok for ladies to have frozen yogurt every so often but that I shouldn’t eat too much if I wanted to grow up to be pretty like her. She told me about a county pageant she won where one of the girls who lost ate three ice cream cones afterward and now is living in a trailer park in New Jersey. Then I told a joke I heard at school about mice who couldn’t count and she laughed really hard.
I almost asked her today. I wish daddy hadn’t made me get her permission too.
Ф March 5, 1997
I asked her and she said ok as long as I used my own money and didn’t stop violin!!! I’m so excited, I’m going to call Nance and Nat!
Ф March 6, 1997
I worked it out and since I saved up my Christmas money I only need another month of allowance until I can afford a clarinet from the store and some reeds and a starter book! Mrs. Winthrop is going to be soooo mad because I know I won’t be able to PAY ATTENTION at violin practice today!
Ф August 5, 2000 [Age: 11]
Daddy was home again today so we went to the TGI Fridays again. I wish daddy didn’t have to travel so much. I like our “Fridays on Sundays” breakfasts. He told me about Buenos Aires and about how there was a big parade when he was there, all colorful and bright. I saw the pictures before when he showed them to mommy and me when he came home but I liked hearing about how he was doing important business during the parade and he snuck out in the middle because there was a samba line that went all down the block. He says there were saxophonists playing in the street and they reminded him of me. I don’t think I’m very good yet and mommy is still making me take violin, but daddy says I could’ve been there playing with a hat in front of me like that man we saw when we went to New York City and gotten a lot of quarters.
I asked daddy what he and mommy were yelling about last night but he said I shouldn’t worry about that. I know they were arguing about me because I hid in the hall closet outside their door but I didn’t tell daddy that. I hope he doesn’t read my journal.
Ф February 26, 2002 [Age: 12]
Ewww, eww, eww, gross! Mommy talked to me about N-ing and it’s soooo grosss. I don’t want to wear diapers for the rest of my life! But she said everyone does, or women do at least. But that wasn’t the worst, I just didn’t want mommy to talk to me about this and I don’t think she wanted to talk to me about it either (she kept playing with her rings even though she always yells at me when I don’t SIT STILL). My friend Basil from violin lessons said that he got the “birds and bees” talk in a class his gym teacher taught and I MUCH rather would’ve heard from Mrs. Smyth. I told mommy that I don’t ever want to have kids but that just made her mad.
Ф May 8, 2002
I don’t know why mommy is always mad at me. Daddy says she’s just high-strung but she’s happy sometimes and when her friends are over she only laughs. She doesn’t like that I don’t want to do pageants, but she said it’s probably just as well since the girls haven’t gotten less pretty since she competed and she doesn’t want me to be sad when I lose. She’s happy when she comes to my violin concerts.
Ф September 17, 2003 [Age: 14]
I think Basil likes me! I asked Brenda to ask Jeremy to ask Basil and Brenda said that Jeremy said that Basil said he does like me! I’m so lucky because he’s so hot and smart, and he's better at violin that me. I hope he asks me on a date soon. All my other friends have gone on dates already and it's making me impatient. Natalie says I should try sticking out my chest more but that just made me giggle.
Ф September 27, 2003
We went to see “Freaky Friday.” Daddy came along to chaperon but he sat a few rows back and bought us popcorn. Basil insisted on buying the sodas (daddy had just the BIGGEST grin on his face when Basil asked). Basil and I held hands the whole time and I kissed him on the cheek at one point.
It’s too bad magic fortune cookies don’t exist. I could give one to mom and then have one myself, but it’s sorta like the opposite of the movie because she keeps giving me makeup and telling me I need to “dress to impress” while I just want to wear my Daffy Duck sweatshirt, though I wore a dress on my DATE with BASIL.
Ф February 3, 2004
Mrs. Basil Brown. Mrs. Lexi Brown. Mrs. Margaret Brown. Mrs. Alexis Brown. Mrs. Margaret Alexis Basil Arnold Brown. Mrs. Basil Brown.
Ф June 6, 2004 [Age: 15]
I found out today that mom and dad had three miscarriages before they had me, and they had almost gotten divorced right before mom found out she was pregnant with me. I asked dad at Fridays on Sundays breakfast why he calls me his “miracle baby” for the hundredth time and before he could give me his usual response mom snapped at me and then said I shouldn’t have a strawberry shake because they’re fattening and I didn’t need the extra calories. Thanks, mom. Dad changed the subject but it was still awkward. It probably wasn’t a great idea to invite her along but we wanted to include her. Maybe next week she’ll start to get it?
Basil was a sweetheart to talk about it. I don’t know why he puts up with me; with that adorable mop of hair and his beautiful brown eyes and his halting laugh he could date any girl at school, but here he was listening to me on the verge of tears. I don’t know why my friends keep trying to set me up with Darrel; Darrel’s gorgeous and never looked at me twice, and anyway I have Basil and I like Basil. Maybe we should Do It. Most of my friends at school have Done It and they say it’s not that bad the first time. I think I Love him, and he might Love me too. I’ll try to find out.
Ф July 2, 2004
I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but Basil and I finally did the Deed! He’s been so patient about it and he just said he Loves me last week and he’s leaving tomorrow for two weeks to visit his grandparent’s in Miami and it just sorta happened. I found out his older brother had given him a condom a few months ago. It hurt, but it was kinda ok. I do Love him. I loved holding him afterward. He had to leave, but he stayed for a few more minutes and almost missed his ride home. I feel like shivering but I can’t stop grinning either. I avoided mom in case she might notice. Can you imagine what she’d say? She’d yell, probably louder than when I accidentally let Tobias out and we had to walk around the neighborhood shaking kitty treats until we found him. I think I’m going to go lie down now. I’m tired and a little sore. I love Basil. I’m going to try to get more condoms so he doesn’t have to.
Ф December 24, 2004
Oh, I fell and bruised my butt SO HARD on the ice today! I slipped and just collapsed all in a heap with Darla, Anne, Nadine, and Emma laughing like hyenas from the side. Ok, I was laughing pretty hard too. It was pretty hilarious, even though I’m still sitting on an ice pack.
Ф June 3, 2005 [Age: 16]
Dad just died.
Ф June 4, 2005
I should’ve written more yesterday. I should’ve said what happened, what I was feeling, about how hard mom was crying. It’s what dad woul
Ф June 6, 2005
We had the funeral today. I didn’t think I was going to be able to cry but about half an hour into the service I noticed my blouse was wet and I had been crying for almost the whole time, tears sheeting down my face only to drip off my chin. Pastor Martin gave a lovely sermon, and all of dad’s friends were there, even a few cousins (everyone else from his side of the family is already dead). Mom was shock still the whole day and we couldn’t get more than a few words out of her. Mike gave the eulogy and I had to run out to the vestibule midway through to catch myself from breaking apart and drowning out Mike’s beautiful words. He and dad had been best friends for a long time and he had a lot of stories to tell.
After everyone left the wake, I was cleaning up the dishes when I heard mom crying upstairs. I found her curled up in a pile of his suits sobbing, broken down, so I sat down with her and we cried and hugged for at least an hour, but I don’t really know how long.
I… I want to stop writing, but I can’t. It reminds me of him, but everything reminds me of him. I feel like he can’t be gone, but then I feel like I don’t know how he was ever here. I feel like I’m losing him already and I don’t ever want to stop writing because he’s in the writing, and he’ll always be there. It's all so hollow. I don’t know what mom’s going to do to remember him.
She told me things when we were sobbing, things I don’t want to know but she didn’t know what she was saying. Dad cheated on her with some woman at a bar, just before I was born. They were having a “trial separation” so it wasn’t technically “cheating” but she hadn’t thought he was going to actually sleep with anyone. She said he came home one rainy morning having just gotten back from the hotel room where he had done it and told her everything, told her it was the biggest mistake of his life and he wanted her back, that they could make it work, maybe adopt if that’s what she wanted. She took him back, and they managed to have me even though the doctors had thought for sure I was dead when I first came out.
I don’t want to dump any of this on Basil. He doesn’t deserve that. But writing it here doesn’t seem enough, somehow. I don’t know what to do.
Ф June 8, 2005
Mom called in to school and told them I was sick this morning. I think they know she was lying, but they let her get away with it anyway. We spent the morning watching game shows like we do when I’m actually home sick, and then we went to a little diner for lunch. It was my turn to barely talk so mom did her best to keep talking about other things, but I could tell she was having a hard time of it. I feel broken sometimes.
Ф June 14, 2005
Well, Journal, you’re probably wondering where I went. You probably thought I had given up on you, or something equally ridiculous. Well, I didn’t. I wrote on napkins, but they got soaked through with yesterday’s rain and they’re gone. That’s part of why I came back, but there were also some mementos I needed, and my savings.
I’ll sum up what happened, though: I came home early from a listless violin practice to find my mother and Basil having loud, loud sex in my bed. I still hear them when I stop for a moment, every fast and slow note. I wasn’t sure what I was hearing at first, but it became more and more obvious as I walked towards my bedroom with infinite slowness and when I pushed the door open, swinging like a vast pendulum, that’s all she wrote! I bolted for the door, heard mom shout something like, “I’m sorry,” and “first time,” but I didn’t stay to hear the excuses, couldn’t stay to hear the excuses.
I’ve been sleeping on the street. I had a little money on me but not much and it ran out. I don’t know how I’m still standing, what with how little food I’ve had. I feel like I haven’t stopped shaking since dad died. I could’ve gone to Sasha’s house or maybe tried to make it to Mike’s house in Providence but then mom would’ve found me and I’m not ready to face her yet. I don’t know if I’ll ever be.
I’m going to try hitchhiking to New York City, so I needed my saxophone. I hear some people can make a decent living off street performing in a big city if you don’t mind having a tiny apartment and no eating in restaurants, and that’s fine with me. I’m going to leave as soon as I work up the nerve.
Ф July 4, 2005
I didn’t want to do it but I had been standing at that crossroads for five hours, the sun was getting really high, I didn’t have any more food or water, and I was worried I was going to get heatstroke. Please don’t hate me. I think I do. I didn’t let him touch me or anything and he didn’t ask, but I… had to lift up my shirt... and I heard what he did. I couldn’t stop crying the whole way down, but they were silent tears, expressionless tears. He saw them and didn’t ask again. I think he liked how I looked crying. What is this? Why didn’t I just wait for the next car to stop?
Ф July 22, 2005
I’m making enough to eat and the homeless shelter has been great about, well, everything. I think I may have been overly optimistic about making enough to afford even a tiny apartment, though. It’s just, I’m so damn nervous out there I can barely play, and then I have to stop so often to rally myself. I know I can do better. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’m going to stick it out, just keep playing until I can afford a nice dinner and a motel room for a night. One night of having some food that’s mine and a room that’s mine, just mine, that’s all I need. That’s all I’ll ever need.
Ф July 23, 2005
I’ve been out here for hours and I’m starting to do ok, but I’m going to need to pick up the pace. I’d love to play in Times Square again but there are already a few musicians and they yelled at me when I was there last week. OK, lunch break’s over.
Ф July 24, 2005
There’s this one parable, it was Pastor Martin’s favorite. I don’t remember it word for word, but the gist is that a farmer sows grain in the field and then at night his neighbor sows weeds to ruin the crop. A few weeks or months or something later, the servants notice that there are weeds everywhere so they call their master over and ask him if they should pull out the weeks. The master looks at them and says to leave the weeds because if they try to pull them up they’re going to rip out the grain as well.
That was how I feel about yesterday. I’m pretty sure I was almost… but if that hadn’t almost happened, I wouldn’t have met Mr. Henry Cyprus and I can feel that meeting him was something very, very good.
I kept playing after I wrote yesterday. I really, really wanted a motel room that night, it was very important that I get one, I knew, because another night on the streets might’ve meant the death of something that would take a very long time to come back to life. I kept playing past seven, then eight and nine and ten, long past when the music sounded like anything worth a damn, and I got some pity change but I probably would’ve been better off with a sad sign about how my parents were dead.
By 11, I was exhausted, barely standing up, barely able to keep blowing, but I was long past caring. A few guys stopped to watch and listen for awhile and I perked up a bit, tried to play a bit harder for them. I couldn’t tell anything about them except that they were bigger than me. They were muttering to themselves at first, but then I started to overhear lewd snatches, threatening tones, boasts about what each would do with me if given the chance. I stopped playing, too shocked to play another note. They said something like, “C’mon baby, keep usin’ that tongue, or do you want to use it for something else?” I glanced around and we were alone on the street, the nearest person I could see much too far away to make out what was happening. They moved closer, boxed me in, nudged me backwards into an alley. I was too frightened to say anything, so I just clung to my saxophone, willing it to protect me. One of the guys unbuttoned his shirt, asked if I liked what I saw. I tripped over a bottle and fell to the ground. I think I started sobbing quietly right around then, but all I really remember was that they were blocking out the streetlight.
“You know, I hear it’s bad for your health to go hassling poor little girls at night,” a voice suddenly said from the mouth of the alley. I looked up and standing there was a man, middle-aged, very big, not all of it fat, not all of it muscle. What happened next is burned into my mind. I’ll remember every detail for however long I live, and maybe beyond.
“Get lost, old man,” one of the boys said. They looked much smaller then, not scared, still defiant and sure of themselves, but slightly less imposing than they had been a moment before. “This isn’t your business.”
“Kids today,” the man scoffed. “You should be inside, reading comic books. At least then you’d know this sort of thing never ends well for anyone on your end of the conversation.”
“What, you think you’re some kind of superhero? You gonna throw a fatarang at us?” one of the kids said, laughing.
“Nope,” the man said. “Don’t need to. I figure I can just call the cops, let them deal with you. Easier on my back, it gets tense when I don’t stretch first.”
The boys shifted their stances suddenly feral, readying to pounce.
“There’s no way you could get your phone out and dial before we stop you, and even if you did, we’d be long gone before the cops could ever get here,” one of them said, a bit of fear finally showing behind his bravado.
A siren chose that moment to make itself known, mere blocks away by the sound of it.
“Which is why I called the cops on a pay phone before coming over here,” the man said, a grim grin sitting in the corner of his mouth.
The boys made to run... but they had to pass him first. He whipped out a handgun and started beating them with the barrel. One boy spun in place and fell into a trash can, one fell to the ground like a sack of bricks, one hit his head against the wall and slumped unconscious. Satisfied, he kicked a boy who was still awake in the face then wiped the gun down and put it in one of their hands.
The sirens were near now, and their sudden blaring jumped me to my feet. I couldn’t be there when they got there. They would take me back to my mother, and even after this I wasn’t ready, now more than ever I wasn’t ready. I hurried to get up.
“Can’t be here,” I said with rabbit eyes. “Can’t, can’t, can’t...”
“Slow down, there,” the man said. “You don’t have to talk to the cops if you don’t want to. They’ll pick these boys up soon enough and find some reason to book them. I’m pretty sure that gun’s stolen so they’ll probably do some time. Here, my apartment’s just around the corner and I have a spare bed you can sleep in at least for the night, if you want.”
The sirens were closer and closer, so I curtly nodded yes, picked up my saxophone case, and followed him, stepping into the front door of a small pawn shop just as the police rounded the corner.
The man lowered the grate and locked the door behind us, then led me through the shop and it’s wondrous variety of old junk and treasures to the back door. A flight of stairs brought us to an apartment door which the man opened and ushered me through. The apartment was more spacious than the shop below might’ve implied, a bit messy but not excessively so, and decidedly a bachelor’s apartment. Lights turned on and I noticed more details, the man’s salt-and-pepper hair, his large eyes, his chiseled face traced with padding. He carefully locked the door, and for a moment I felt the terror creep back in. There would be Expectations. Timidly, my hands put my saxophone down and I stood in the middle of the room, shaking like a paper bag with a light breeze running over it.
“Sorry about that,” the man said, turning around. “The city’s really not that bad, usually, but sometimes you get some bad eggs looking to make a stink. Whoa, are you ok?”
“I…” I said, almost whispered, shaking. I moved to lift up my sweater and shirt, slowly, mechanically, my eyes tethered to the floor as if my steel wire or hardened spider silk. “Please be... quick…”
“No!” the man said, rushing forward. I flinched as he grabbed my arms hastily, moved them back down to my sides. “That--that’s-- just, no. Nothing like that. I just... I don’t know what sort of hell you’ve been through, kid, but you never have to do anything like that here.” He held my arms tightly and then let go, giving me a warm, understanding hug after a moment’s pause, the kind of hug dad used to give after mom had yelled at me for not being pretty enough or dancing long enough, and I collapsed into tears until I fell asleep.
The next morning, I woke up in a bed that was just a little too short for me at my age, and altogether too pink. The whole room was brilliantly, offensively pink, as a matter of fact, with glittery posters of unicorns and faeries all over the walls. I plucked a stuffed cat from my back and leaned forward. There was a very old-looking clock on the bedside table that said it was 10 in the morning, so I got up. I felt… not happy. Happy’s the wrong word, still alien. But something like that. Hopeful? Maybe. I had felt empty inside, dried up, for so long, and I still do, kinda, but there’s something different about it now. That coldness, whatever it was, is abating by degrees.
I opened the door and it creaked a little. I heard crackling sounds and followed them until I found a smallish kitchen adjacent to the front room. The man was standing there wearing a comically undersized apron with a worn image of Garfield eating some lasagna on it.
“Ah, look who’s up!” the man said smiling warmly. “We have bacon and sausage, orange juice, and cereal. How do you like your eggs?”
“S-sunny-side up,” I said, taking a seat, hardly believing what was happening. It was all so surreal.
“Sunny-side up it is then,” he said, turning back to the griddle. “My name’s Henry, by the way. Henry Cyprus.”
“Lexi. Just Lexi.”
“OK, ‘Just Lexi’,” Henry grinned, “Would you like some pepper on your eggs? I’m sorry to say I don’t have much else in the way of accoutrement.”
“Pepper is fine,” I said. “Thank you… for everything…”
“Well thank you for not up and nicking all my stuff in the middle of the night!” Henry said. “And sorry if I gave you the wrong impression last night. I realized after I put you to bed that locking the doors might’ve looked... bad, but that’s just second nature to me, I do it without even thinking.”
We got to talking, then, mostly smalltalk. He told me about his seashell collection, I told him about my favorite TV shows. We were dancing around real questions, but I think we were both content to wait on them and Henry seemed in no hurry to push. We ate breakfast. It was delicious.
After a lull, I asked him about the room I had been in.
“Oh, um, yes,” he said, a little embarrassed. “That was my daughter’s, Isobel’s. She and my wife, Roberta, they died in a car accident some years ago. Isobel’d be about your age now, if she’d lived.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. Neither of us said anything else for awhile after that, both struggling for composure.
Ф October 16, 2005
I’ve decided I’m keeping the decorations up. No matter what Henry says, I know he’d miss them if I didn’t. The new bed is fantastic, though. I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to be able to stretch out. Sometimes I think I’m the unluckiest person in the world, but then there are days like today and I can’t believe the beautiful people in my life. Henry and Ted and Flo, and then my new friends from school. I can’t imagine I’ve done anything to deserve all this.
Ф January 1, 2006
You wouldn’t think it to hear him talk about it, but Henry is quite the heartbreaker! Honestly there were more single women at the New Years Eve party last night who were trying to chat him up than you could shake a sparkler at, and you should’ve heard them when I mentioned how he had taken me in and let me stay in his spare room! They asked me to try to nudge him in their direction, and I just might do that, once I figure out if one of them that would be perfect for him.
Ф January 3, 2006
Dad’s been dead for six months today. Other meaningless things happened today but there doesn’t seem much point in talking about them. This is just due diligence. I haven’t cried today but I sure haven’t smiled. How can he be dead?
Ф April 16, 2006
It’s official: there is no one in all of New York who’s right for Henry, and I know because I have searched. Not that it matters, given how opposed he is to the very idea that he could date someone. He still misses Rebbeca, I think, not that he’d say it out loud. He gave every excuse imaginable until he finally fell back on me, saying he couldn’t even think about dating someone until I was at least through high school. Well, we’ll see, Mr. Cyprus, we will see. I’m not giving up on this.
Ф July 24, 2006 [Age: 17]
Henry and I went to the gun range again today and fired off a few rounds. He says I’m getting pretty decent, which is good considering I’m going to take the test for an owner’s permit as soon as they’ll let me. I can’t imagine ever having to shoot someone, but I can vividly imagine pointing a big fuck-off gun at a would-be mugger while he asks permission to leave.
Ф December 28, 2006
School’s starting again soon, my last semester of high school, can you believe it? Though this does of course mean I need to start stepping things up. Between homework and band practice, I’m going to miss Beth’s trips for “inspiration” most evenings and then nothing is ever going to happen between those two. Gosh, do I have to do everything around here? The woman owns her own art studio, you’d think she’d have a little more self-awareness and backbone!
Ф February 20, 2007
It’s dad’s birthday today. I almost called up mom from a payphone just to hear her voice, but I really shouldn’t do that anymore. It’s a cruel thing to do, and I don’t mean it that way. I just miss dad.
Ф March 5, 2007
Success! I canNOT believe after trying everything else leaving them false messages from each other worked. Of course they figured out the jig almost immediately, but it got them talking. I’m so happy they stopped being dumb! Beth’n’Henry. It has a nice ring to it, I think.
Ф June 17, 2007 [Age: 18]
The house doesn’t look any different, the same black picket fence, the same off-black siding. I saw mom leave for work this morning and I almost went over, but I just... couldn’t. Maybe after college. Just a few more months away now! Oberlin, here I come.
Ф May 5, 2008
I can’t believe in only a few weeks we’ll be road-tripping though Mexico! First to Lisa’s house in Pennsylvania, then to stop by New York to say hi to Henry (plus Mattie and John have never been there), then swooping through Florida and along the Gulf until we get to the border and beyond. I don’t know why, but this feels like the start of a song, that rush before the first notes fly off. I’ve been holding my breath all year for this and it feels like I’m ready to blow. I may get a bit sporadic with my entries, but I refuse to stop. Every day at least a sentence!
Ф November 1, 2008 [Age: 19]
Will thinks I need to write this down, because I’ll never believe him about anything if I don’t believe him about this, and he thinks if I just write it it’ll sink in. He’s big on trust; it’s a thing with him. It’s not that I don’t believe him, I do, I just... I don’t know. He’s wrong, or blind, or insane; maybe all three. I already give it to him whenever he wants, so I don’t think he’s saying it to try to get into my pants. Why am I fighting this?
OK, I’m just stalling now. No more stalling. Doing. Just write it. Can I do that? I mean, I guess I’m not, like, a total train wreck all the time. Makeup helps. Will doesn’t like me with makeup, but that just leads to more eviden
You’re stalling again! This is so weird. Why do I even have to do this? It doesn’t make any sense. Blah! Here goes: I am beautiful.
Ф December 6, 2008
This time we’re hitting up Niagra Falls, because it’s relatively close. I’m going to try street performing to help save a little money even though it’s going to be witch-tit cold there. Mostly I want to impress Will.
Ф January 25, 2009
Well that one lasted longer than usual. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. More details forthcoming; I don’t want to put down too much sarcasm here and it’s all I can think to do right now, other than cry. Mattie and John are over keeping me company, though. That’s nice of them.
Ф March 16, 2009
I am beautiful.
It just came to me today. Will may have been wrong about a lot of the things he promised, but he wasn’t wrong about that, at least. I was walking through the cafeteria and missing him, thinking what I could’ve done differently, about how I might get him back, the usual depressing garbage, when I noticed some senior watching me. It wasn’t a leer exactly, but it was close. Walking back to my room, I noticed other guys staring at me, even some girls, nothing too blatant but the stares were there. Thinking about it, I think they were always there, and never moreso than when I was with Will... and happy, or something like it.
Is it possible I’ve been beautiful my whole life? I don’t mean on the inside, I don’t know about that. Attractive. Hot. Sexy? Maybe. Funny. I thought they’d be feel ill-fitting, but those words don’t scare me as much anymore. How did I miss this? I threw out my makeup; Will’s right, it doesn’t suit me. I’m keeping my sweatshirts, but maybe I don’t need to wear them all the time. I didn’t wear one today, carelessness. It wasn’t even that cold out. Did I use them to hide?
Ф November 3, 2009 [Age: 20]
Today in class Mr. Peterson had us talk about why we like music. He said we were probably asked as freshmen at some point but it’s a good question to keep asking as you learn more. “Knowledge of a subject can destroy your passion for it,” he said, or something like that, “so it’s important to remind yourself why you love it to begin with.”
So: I like the sax because everything drops away when I’m playing. When I’m playing, I move beyond the light and sound of the world, beyond the heat or cold, the wet or dry, and it’s just me and the notes, eventually just the notes, dancing to/by/for themselves. When I’m playing, I feel the thrumming that connects all things, the beat that crosses all boundaries. There’s pain, but it’s everyone’s pain. There’s joy, but everyone shares in it. There’s love, and it’s requited by everyone. I like to close my eyes when I play and melt beyond myself. When I was younger, I think I liked that because I could be someone else for awhile, someone untouchable and powerful and so, so beautiful. Now I love it for another reason. I’m the most myself when I let the notes flow with others listening and all our minds wind together in that passionate stillness, that chaotic frenzy of love and hope. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold, all that jazz, sure, but music forges bonds without centers, constructions beyond mere things. There is something elemental about this symbiotic field, this network of bobbing ears and tapping toes. It is a force of people, a direct creation of the best parts of us surging to the fore. It is a place where everything is beautiful, and throbs with the hurt of a pleasant exertion or a story well-told.
Ф June 19, 2010 [Age: 21]
Sometime all I ever want to do is drive around the country in a black 1969 Pontiac GTO with a few friends, playing the sax for food and gas money, meeting interesting people along the way. I know it’s just for the summer, but damn was this ever a good idea, finding the little places we’ve missed on previous trips. Maybe someday we could take a trip to Europe, like mom and dad and I used to when I was a kid.
Huh. That’s the first time I’ve thought of mom in months. I don’t even feel like curling into a ball.
Ф May 31, 2011 [Age: 22]
I… tomorrow. Tomorrow!
Ф June 1, 2011
This is the way a world ends, not with a bang but a what the fuck was th—
So as you know, I had a gig booked in this little dive bar in New Orleans literally the day after graduation, my birthday. My friends wanted me to stick around so they could throw me a birthday party on my birthday instead of a few days before, but it felt very important for me try my hand at this professional musician thing right away, and it had to be in New Orleans because where else should I play jazz? Anyway, I got down to the bar with just an hour to spare so I sat and had a drink, listening to the performers. They were... magnificent. Perfect resonance, perfect improvisation, just the right amount of chaos. When they started I thought there were going to intimidate me, but instead I just felt inspired.
The stage was like magic. I thought I would be frightened, like a little girl again, but it wasn’t like that at all. I was a bit nervous but the moment my foot touched the stage, everything was right. I have never felt so confident before.
I don’t remember much of the song itself. I had only a keyboardist and a drummer as accompaniment, and I had only met them a few minutes before but as they struck their first notes it was as if we had played together since the beginning of time, played the music that some say made the world. I played, and they played, and we played, and I felt the absolute stillness of the bar. I played my heart out, played through everything that had ever hurt me. Mom went in, and Dad’s death, and Henry’s near-fatal heart attack, and Will and Stella and many others, those weeks I lived on the street and those times I wished to God and whoever else was listening that I wasn’t. I remember all my pain, and I remember sending it out in the song allong with all the love I’ve had, the love I’ve been given, and my eyes rimmed with tears then, happy tears. Again I can’t help but ask, how could I possibly deserve the love and luck I’ve had? Pain comes and goes and it can scar you if you let it, but oh how my memories of dad help wash them away, of Henry’s kindness, of the looks on Mattie and John’s faces when they think no one’s watching. All this, everything I had, poured out in a great flurry, but somehow it worked, I knew it worked. It was beautiful. I am beautiful.
After the show, after the bar owner begged me to book another night, just one more night to give him time to convince me for more, after the crowds had thinned and I snuck out the back door, that’s when I met my birth mother. Apparently I’m the daughter of a literal goddess. Yeah, I still don’t know if I believe it.
I popped out an alleyway and was walking to my rental where a woman, pretty but nondescript, was waiting.
“That was some piece of music in there.”
“Thank you!” I said, smiling. I felt like a million bucks, and just as surreal. This was supposed to have been a disaster. “I’m glad you liked it.”
“Honestly, you’ve impressed me,” the woman said. “Did you know that a full three couples fell in love while you were playing? And that was just as mortal...”
“Um, ok...” I said, a little weirded out. “Thanks?”
“Honestly, I was mostly just here to get laid, but no, I think this is more important.” Then the woman changed. She went from pretty to beautiful to gorgeous to utterly stunning all in the blink of an eye. I had to look away, and I think I tripped. When I finally managed to look up, the most beautiful woman I could ever imagine, no, she was far more beautiful than that, stood before me. She was... indescribable. She was blond with blue eyes and perfect skin, but those are just categories, and she broke them. I felt a sort of warmth coming off her, a pleasant light that told you that somehow she could love even you, you so far below her.
“Come now, is that any way to greet your mother?” she said. I sat there dumbfounded as she explained how she had found my father in a bar one night and liked his eyes so much that she had to have him.
“You have his eyes too, you know,” the woman, Aphrodite, mentioned. “My hair and figure, though.”
She discovered with the help of a seer that my mother (stepmother?) was to give birth to a stillborn daughter as a result of the reconciliation with my father, so she timed my birth to coincide with my poor dead half-sister’s and arranged to have her people sneak me into the hospital to take my sister’s place when the doctors weren’t looking. They did their job well and no one expected a thing, so I lived among mortals, until now.
Weird. So weird.
She handed me the keys to a black 1969 Pontiac GTO and a business card. The car, she said, was the best she could do on such short notice and that more gifts would be coming, but she had kept tabs on me (on all her children) over the years and knew what I would like. The business card said M.I.S.T. on it along with a telephone number and address. “For when you’re ready,” she said. With that, she hugged me deeply, and I felt with the hug that everything she had just said was true, and that even though she couldn’t have raised me then and couldn’t stay with me now, she loved me, and I couldn’t help but love her back. Our hug was long and true.
Ф June 9, 2011
I am ready.
I stepped out of the beautiful car today. The house was like I expected: the same, a little worn down. I opened the fence and passed through for the time in six years. I wasn’t afraid, but maybe a little nervous. Six years, and I still didn’t know what to say to this woman who wasn’t even my mother. But it was time. I rang the doorbell. Cries of “just a minute!” rang out and my throat caught. The first time in six years to hear my mother’s voice in person.
The door opened and it took a moment for her to register who I was. I look a little different than I did, but so does she. She’s a little shorter than I remembered, or, rather, I’m a little taller, though she was still the taller between us. Her hair had started to go grey (I was surprised she didn’t dye it, but not unpleasantly so, and anyway the streaks of black suit her), and her eyes had a sunken quality to them that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
“L-Lexi?” she asked, her voice cracking, hope, incredulity, joy, and guilt blending together, one for each letter. Maybe love, too.
“Hi mom,” I said to this woman who both is and is not my mother. I wonder if she knew all along, somewhere deep inside. “Can I come in?”
“Of-- of course,” she replied, visibly shaken. She moved to the side and I entered, and I felt my childhood hovering. I walked carefully to the living room and sat down on the couch. It was the same couch, though positioned differently. There were many small changes in configuration, but few new items graced the house, and fewer old ones were missing.
“I... don’t know exactly why I came back,” I said. “I’m starting a new job soon. I’m not sure exactly what I’ll be doing but the people on the phone seemed nice. I guess... I don’t know.”
Mom had wafted back into the room after me but she had yet to sit down. She was like a plastic bag trapped in the wave of a truck, and she didn’t know whether to slow down or speed up.
She was hugging me almost before I registered movement.
“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” she repeated over and over. “I thought you were dead. I’m so sorry.”
I didn’t know what to do so I hugged her back, stiffly at first but soon in earnest. She was sobbing, and my eyes filling up too.
“It’s ok, mom,” I said in a strained tone, “it’s ok.”
And it was ok. Is ok. After a while, we calmed down and exchanged stories. I told her of how I had been homeless, how I was almost raped, how I had been saved and lived and finished school and went to college, how I still played the saxophone. She told me of her dark times when everything made her hate herself more, how the only reason she stayed alive was because she desperately hoped to tell me she was sorry. Her life had stalled for a long time, but she had gone to work as an office assistant and was working towards becoming a paralegal. There had been a few blind dates after dad but nothing serious. I told her she should find someone else, that that’s what dad would’ve wanted. Her face brightened a little then.
We talked for a long time before coming to what happened with Basil, but I didn’t care about it anymore and her memories had long been replaced with guilt. It was a short conversation. I love her for that.
“You know you’re beautiful, don’t you?” Mom asked me. “Please tell me you at least know you’re beautiful. You’re the most beautiful thing that has ever been in my life and you were from the moment I laid eyes on you. I think all those years, I didn’t believe I could have ever made anything so beautiful and I was jealous, but that was wrong, so wrong. I wish I could take it back, all of it.”
I left a few hours later. My M.I.S.T. orientation starts in three days, and I still have packages from my birth mother to open. We hugged again for a long time, and then I left, promising to visit, or at least talk on the phone from time to time. What grown children are supposed to do.
You may not have given birth to me, mom, but I can’t help but think that you made me who I am. I don’t know if I became beautiful in spite of the weeds you planted or because of them, but I do know that I wouldn’t wish them away for anything. I wouldn’t be me without them, and already I am starting to love the woman I am becoming and will be.
So, back to the action: we all went off to get stuff from the Requisitions Office and then popped through the Stargate thing we use to travel. We rented some trucks and drove for most of an hour; the terrain was beautiful. I had been expecting much more snow, but it would seem Alaska comes alive during the summers. I snapped a few pictures with my phone and I'll pin one or two in here when I've gotten them printed.
We busted the door open and rushed in. I played it off like I was just fine, that I was steeled against all this and I think I fooled them (but I managed to force myself through the door, so I guess I fooled myself too. Funny how that works). Pretty quickly, something, some people?, attacked us. The others started shooting and I jumped behind a wall, though the whole thing was over almost before it started anyway. Cindy had taken a hit (she strode in like a madwoman with that axe of hers -- from what I saw, I don't know why the attackers didn't turn tail and run!), so they tended to her wounds. The dead bodies of the mysterious men were brutal to look at, long and gaunt and inhuman, like people who had been stretched and pulled until they looked like monsters.
I played an old funeral dirge meant for wakes I'd heard once back in college. You gotta hand it to the Irish: they sure know how to write a song to be both terribly sad and terribly happy at the same time. As I played it, I felt some sort of... presence? More an emotion than anything else. A wave of sadness and utter hopelessness; it felt like death, some kind of awful end that had come to someone. I fought against it, played harder, and as I heard the others in the room talking to someone, I just hoped and hoped they'd hear it and take heart from the song.
