Authors: Carolee Dean
Nouns and verbs constructed in straight lines
made the world a saner, safer place.
You laughed at me but I didn’t complain.
You stepped in close and I could feel your heart.
I wrapped you in my arms and pressed my lips.
You opened up your mouth and let me in.
It seemed we stayed out there for hours and days.
I wove a bracelet of forget-me-nots.
Tied it on your wrist.
We kissed again.
It was the first time that I ever made
out. You said good-bye and walked away.
I should have called, but I was too afraid.
Whatever happens, Ally, please know this—
you’ll always be my first love. My first kiss.
Just get your pencil moving,
Ms. Lane always says,
so I take out my pencil and write
the only thing that comes to my mind.
My first word was “cheese.”
My earliest memory is of my mother
taking my picture at the park.
“Smile and say cheese,” she told me,
as I sat in the swing,
wondering why it wasn’t moving.
“Smile and say cheese,” she told me, as I sat
in front of a sandcastle she had built, because
she didn’t want me to get my new sundress dirty.
I was a late bloomer.
I hadn’t said mama or dada or baba,
googoo or nana or gaga.
But she didn’t take me to a doctor.
Instead she took me to a talent scout
who was looking for a baby for an
organic carrot commercial.
“Smile and say cheese,” my mother said,
as the man adjusted the camera lens.
Then the bright lights flashed in my eyes,
something went
click
in my brain,
and I spoke my first word . . .
“Cheese.”
Mom took me
to try out
for
A Christmas Carol
in third grade.
That’s where
I met Bri and Elijah.
I got a part
in every school play
after that.
I never really felt alive
unless I was up onstage.
It’s like that old saying,
“If a tree falls in the forest,
and no one hears it,
does it make a sound?”
If I’m here
but nobody sees me,
am I really alive?
In fifth grade I got the part of
Snow White in the spring play,
but Dad convinced me
to let Bri have it because I’d already
played Sleeping Beauty in the fall.
“You don’t always have to be the star,” he said.
When my mother found out, she hit the roof.
“Never, never give up what is rightfully yours,”
she told me. “Don’t be afraid to shine.
Your true friends will be your biggest fans.
And remember this above all else . . .
Only one can be the fairest.”
Something inside of me
broke loose then.
I wasn’t afraid anymore
of being better than everyone else,
and I became unstoppable.
It was as if until that moment
I’d been trying to keep the
sun from rising.
Dad never understood.
He warned me, saying,
“Shooting stars sometimes crash and burn.”
Leave it to Dad to try to hold me down,
like he tried to do with my mother,
until she got away.
from Mom.
She used to spend
nearly every night
at the community theater
rehearsing or performing
or taking acting classes.
My parents fought about
it all the time. Dad said
she should be home
taking care of her family.
Mom said we should move
to California or New York,
where she could get real acting jobs,
and that a man who sold
pharmaceutical supplies for a living
could do that anywhere.
For years she begged and pleaded,
and then one day,
right after I turned twelve,
she just gave up
and left.
I begged her to take me with her,
but my father wouldn’t let her.
She said she’d get a lawyer
and fight for custody,
but she didn’t have much money.
The acting jobs
were few and far between,
like her letters.
Until one day they just
stopped
coming.
I know my father is hiding them,
though he won’t admit it.
And for that I hate him.
in the corner
of the hallway,
but every time
I try to look,
it disappears.
There’s something
cold in the corner
of the hallway,
but every time
I go to check it out,
it moves away.
There’s something talking to me
from the corner of the hallway.
I can’t see what it is,
but I lean in close to listen.
I used to hear voices
in the halls,
whispering things like
slut, liar, whore
I hear voices
on the H Hall, too,
even though there’s
nobody here but me.
They’re telling me this
is the only place where
Nobody can touch me.
Nobody can hurt me.
Nobody can reach me.
“You can stay here forever,” they whisper.
Some kids say that, about ten years ago,
a senior tripping out on ecstasy
hung himself from the rafters on the H Hall.
There used to be rafters, but
some kids say that after the incident,
the school board put up ceiling tiles
so you couldn’t see where he did it.
That’s also when they closed the hall
off with a big steel door and started
using the classrooms for storage.
Some kids say that at night
they see a dim light moving
back and forth across the hall
when the building is supposed to be empty.
Some kids say that in the middle
of the hallway the air is ice-cold,
and if you happen to be alone,
you can hear voices whispering to you,
telling you to do terrible things.
They seem to come from inside
your head, and one kid put his skull
through the glass trying to get the voices to stop.
Some kids say that if the tardy bell rings,
the steel door locks, and you can’t get off the
hallway until the next class period, but by
that time you will have lost your mind,
and no matter where they take you from there,
you’ll always think you’re on the hallway.
Some kids say that all the stories are a bunch of crap
that the teachers made up because they want to keep
kids off the H Hall. It’s the shortest route between
the copy room on the second floor and the teachers’
lounge on the first floor.
Some kids say I’m a slut because I slept with Davis
when he was still going with Darla. They don’t know
what she’s like. They don’t know how long he tried to
break it off with her so he could be with me.
I’m glad I can’t hear
what some kids are saying.
bell the courtyard clears out and
when it gets quiet
a black raven lands on the
railing outside my window.
Funny how I am
already thinking of the
hallway as my own.
The bird flaps his wings and caws.
The pigeons above cower.
I don’t remember
if ravens are predators.
Should have been paying
more attention in science
class but too late for that now.
I’m getting a big,
fat F. My father will freak.
But it was hard to
keep my mind on school work when
my phone was flashing hate texts.
Teens have their own set
of acronyms. BFF.
But not anymore.
LOL. Who’s laughing now?
WTF is more
like it. I check the
screen before I remember
that I’m in a no
service zone. That’s good. My cell
used to be my lifeline, but
now it feels like a
BSOD. A Blue Screen
of Death. When your whole
life has been wiped off the hard
drive and no one knows you’re gone.
I miss you, Davis.
I miss
the way
you would trace
your fingers across
my face and tell me
I was beautiful.
I miss
the way you looked
at me when we were together,
like I was the only person in the world.
I miss
how when I was with you,
you made me feel smart
and funny and important.
I miss
the girl I became
every time you entered the room.
I miss
the text messages
you would send me when I knew
you were with her, saying
how you couldn’t wait until Friday night.
I miss
the feeling of white heat filling my body
when I read what you wanted to do
to me the next time we were alone.
I even miss
almost getting caught and hurrying
to delete your messages before
my dad could read them.
But most of all I miss
how sometimes, when I least expected
it, you would send me a message that said
“I miss you, Ally.”
That’s when I started noticing
Brianna’s older brother.
Up until then he’d just been
the annoying creep who
kicked us out of the game room
every time his friends came over.
The fall of our sixth-grade year,
Bri’s house became a jock hangout.
Davis was the only freshman
to make the varsity football team.
At fifteen, he was the first-string quarterback
for the Raven Valley Raptors.
There was an endless parade
of girls through the halls, licking
their lips and competing
with each other for a look.
One night
Brianna took her brother’s
cell phone while he was
passed out in the den.
We had a big laugh
as we looked through
the thirty pictures of
girls who’d sent photos
of themselves
in bras and thongs and less.
I laughed along,
but secretly I wondered
what it would take
for Davis to notice me.
Davis barely knew that I existed
till I got to RVHS, his domain.
He’s a senior. He’ll be leaving soon
for college. Desperation made me bold.
Brianna was organizing shoes.
I told her I was going for a swim.
A hot September night, I slipped into
a two-piece barely covering the breasts
that popped up unexpectedly in June.
I think that’s what he must have noticed first.
Does that make him a pervert or does it
make me a perv because I was praying
that he would notice something? He was walking
through the backyard when he saw the Twins.
Mary-Kate and Ashley they were called
by all the boys. I didn’t have a clue
that after only two short weeks of school,
my body parts had nicknames. He sat down
on the lounge chair next to mine and looked
at both the Twins, then recognized my face.
Blushed crimson red, looked in my eyes, and said,
“Ally Cassell, when did you grow up?”
I should have been offended that it took
him all those years to say seven words to me.
But I was too busy relishing the sound
of my name on his lips and in his mouth.
but I think Davis noticed me
partly because of Darla.
She invited all the freshman Ravenettes
over to her
house for makeovers.
“We have an image to maintain,”
she and her friends told us
as they showed us how to wax
and pluck and blend.
My mother left before she had a chance
to teach me about things like that and
Brianna didn’t care about hair and makeup.
“You’ll be eating lunch with the team
from now on at the jock tables,”
Darla informed us.
She also told us she had three objectives for the year—
Get the lead in
My Fair Lady
Make captain of the dance team
And hang on to Davis Connor
long enough for him to take her to prom.
Everyone told her number three
would be the biggest challenge.
Davis never dated a girl
longer than two weeks.
But Darla said she was different.
She knew exactly
what a guy like Davis needed.
Every Friday
I would spend
the night with Brianna,
but as soon as she was asleep
I’d slip into Davis’s arms.
She thought the day
she caught me with him
was the only time,
but she was wrong.