Love and Leftovers

Part One

DURHAM, NEW HAMPSHIRE

My Family’s Summerhouse

My mother

doesn’t understand

that this is a summerhouse

(meant to be lived in

only during the summer).

It is almost Labor Day.

Next week,

I’ll start my sophomore year

at Oyster River High School

in Durham, New Hampshire,

because she doesn’t have the courage

to go home

to Boise, Idaho.

The Breakup

On the first Saturday in June,

Mom and I stopped at Albertsons

to buy milk and bananas.

We bumped into Dad,

who was on his way out—

a Coke in his hand.

But Mom forgot about the

milk and bananas when

Dad introduced us

to a friend of his named Danny,

a bartender at the straight-friendly

establishment across from the opera.

Mom’s eyes narrowed

and her face hardened into granite.

Then she shot the two of them

a look hot enough

to melt flesh.

Long Shot

Mom grabbed my wrist,

pulled me across the parking lot,

and told me to get in the car.

She sank into the driver’s seat

and I watched the granite crumble

into ragged breaths and searing tears.

What is it? I whispered.

I can’t believe it, my mother said,

more to the windshield than to me.

Seventeen goddamned years!

(That was how long Dad and Mom had been married.)

She never did answer my question.

She did, however, start in on a blue streak

that lasted until she pulled into the driveway.

So I pieced together the information.

Dad’d been going out for drinks a lot lately.

Danny worked at a straight-friendly bar,

which was probably a nice way to say gay bar.

Dad said he and Danny were friends.

And that pissed Mom off.

Now Mom was swearing about

how long she had been married to Dad,

as if today was the last day

she’d consider herself his wife.

Is Dad gay? I wondered out loud, hoping

my problem-solving skills weren’t very good

and that I’d missed the mark by a thousand miles.

But Mom nodded yes.

An Explanation

My mother

took two weeks off

back in June.

I asked her

(in July)

what we were doing.

I think she meant to say, Vacationing

but she said, Running away.

Which might have been okay,

even though I thought that

if I ever ran away,

I’d do it with

a certain emo-sensitive rocker boy

and not my mother.

Lonely

The worst part of

this overextended summer vacation

is leaving

behind

a perfectly good boyfriend

with the deepest

espresso-brown eyes

a girl

could ever

get lost

in.

Since the Breakup

my mother

has transported herself

to another world.

On her planet

showers,

waking up before sunset,

matching her clothes,

and leaving the house

are optional.

Meanwhile

typing furiously,

crying constantly,

and pitting coffee against sleeping pills

for a battle over her body

are commonplace.

Sometimes

I think she needs

those antidepressants

we see in TV commercials.

But every time an ad comes on

she changes the channel.

So she needs me

making her toast,

washing her clothes,

buying her groceries,

and bringing her Kleenex.

Saturday at the Laundromat

My mother sleeps late

almost every day

because being asleep

is better than

being depressed.

On Saturday she forgets

that the fridge is empty,

our clothes are dirty,

and the towels smell

from too many dips in the bay.

So I pilfer change

from the cup holder of Dad’s car

(which Mom drove here to make him mad)

and walk three miles into town

with a pillowcase of laundry

over one shoulder.

Filling a washer

with my clothes, the towels,

and a few of Mom’s underthings,

I line up eight quarters

and slide them in all at once.

I sit outside the Laundromat

and watch the college students

walk by in UNH T-shirts,

miniskirts made from jeans,

and form-fitting sweats

with wildcats printed on the ass.

They seem dislocated—

as if they hope

that a large cappuccino,

ten pounds of art history books,

Jane Eyre, and Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon

will help them find their way.

And looking at them,

I understand how they feel.

Lost.

Every Time Dad Calls and Mom Answers

she tells him that she doesn’t want to talk

but she doesn’t hang up.

She asks him:   How?   Why?   When?

As I listen in on the other phone,

he tries to explain

that he felt alone

in their marriage—

that they hadn’t been

close in a long time.

Mom informs him

that he is a husband

and a father

and that maybe he should

think about the people in his life

a little more.

He says

he wants to

see his daughter

and maybe she could think

about driving his Mustang back to Boise

sometime soon.

My mother goes ballistic

shouting swearing crying

until the mechanical voice

informs us,

"If you’d like to make a call,

please hang up and dial again."

I Want to Ask Dad Questions Too

Why   is he gay now and not before?

Why   is this bartender guy so special?

Why   did he start down one road,

only to take the left fork

at the last minute?

Why   did he break up our family?

But when we’re talking on the phone,

my brain churns and my mouth opens,

but no questions come out,

as if my words are swept away by the tide.

Are you there, Marcie? Dad asks.

I let a few waves tug at the dock,

before I say, I’m here.

Even though I’m not.

I’m not home. I’m not with him.

I’m not even sure I understand.

I love you, Sugar Cookie, Dad says.

My eyes sting with almost tears,

and I want to ask him to say it again,

because I’m not so sure anymore.

I love you too, I say

before we say good-bye.

The First Day of School

My mother is awake,

making me pancakes

on the one burner

that still works.

I sit by the fire

in the potbellied stove,

fluffing my short brown hair

so it will dry faster.

I can drive you to school, she says.

But because she has adopted

that I-don’t-care-what-men-think approach

and is wearing two T-shirts

but no bra,

I say, No thanks.

I walk down our lane

and wait for the school bus

in solitude.

But the bus driver

doesn’t stop for me.

I contemplate running after it.

Then decide

that would be more embarrassing

than my mother.

The Second Day of School

I apologize to the principal

for my mother’s

airheaded moments,

like not registering me for school.

I tell him we drove to

the free clinic in Manchester

after the school secretary explained

that I needed a physical.

And that my mother

had forgotten

my immunization records

(back in Idaho)

and they had to be faxed.

And that is why

my first day of school

is everyone else’s

second.

Talk about Accents

People from Idaho

don’t really have accents.

We could all be news anchors

because we sound so vanilla.

People from New England

are another story.

My mother grew up here

with her sister, Greta.

She used to leave the r’s

off the ends of words that needed them (like New Hampshire)

and add them to words that don’t (like idea).

Yep, Mom used to say "I got an idear!

Let’s go to New Hampshah."

Now, she just gets in the car and starts driving.

Mom got tired of people

not understanding what she said.

So she learned to talk

like a news anchor from Idaho.

The Teachers Hate

that I have messed up

their seating charts,

their textbook counts,

and the neat, alphabetized

list of names

in their grade books.

Each time I hope

that they will mangle

my old-fashioned name

so badly that no one

will know

what it really is.

Martha Iris?

a voice asks

in the hall

while I am trying

to find my history class.

I turn to say hi to

the first person my age

to acknowledge my existence.

A goth girl

with maroon lipstick

and once-black hair

that has faded to shades

of purple, gray, and blue

looms over me.

Uh, hi—

Sam.

Hi, Sam. I’m Marcie.

"I like Martha Iris better,

it sounds so eighteenth century."

Uh, thanks?

I Know I Shouldn’t Put People in Boxes

or classify them into cafeteria table categories,

but I can’t help myself.

I can tell

Sam isn’t the type to sit with the jockettes.

Maybe with the drama freaks or the stoners.

Or maybe she is like me

and my friends back home

who don’t fit in anywhere.

Leftovers.

Maybe Leftovers can spy Leftovers

one hundred yards away.

And that is why she said hello to me.

But the problem is

I don’t want to be just any old Leftover.

If I can’t sit with my friends,

I don’t want to be a Leftover.

I want to fit in.

So, even though I spy

Sam’s multicolored locks

on the other side of the cafeteria,

I find a different table and ask, Is this seat taken?

hoping for the best.

Everyone is friendly,

but I can’t follow a single