Violet & Claire Read online

  I am so afraid of the changes pain can cause.

  Later on, Violet and I went hiking and we found this creek filled with the water that comes down from the mountain. It’s amazing to see snow-capped peaks when it’s so warm below. I begged Violet until she finally took off her jeans and got in with me. The water rushed over us, cold and glinty, foamy and churning. Our lips were almost as blue as the sky, but it felt good with the warm sun on our shoulders. We lay on the rocks to dry and I wished that I could tell Violet about my feelings for Peter so that she would understand.

  It is a need on a cellular level, something I couldn’t give up for anything. Something I’d been born with, maybe, the way you need food or sleep or your parents when you are a baby. Or maybe something that came to me later, when my dad left and my mom’s heart followed him.

  But I couldn’t tell Violet about Peter, so instead I said, “I wish we never had to go back. I wish we could stay out here forever.” I didn’t add, “Maybe Peter would come, too,” but I thought it.

  Of course we had to go back. I had to go back to my sad mother and her dusty house stuffed with decapitated photographs, and school where they thought I was a freak. Luckily Violet and Peter would be there, too. If they weren’t in my life I couldn’t have handled going back at all.

  What do I really mean by that? What would I do if I really couldn’t handle something? Violet told me how she used to cut herself with razor blades, never deep enough to die, but just to see what she was like inside. I’ve never been brave enough to hurt myself, although I’ve thought about it before.

  I think if I ever really wanted to hurt myself I would put myself in a situation where someone else would do it to me. Like the time the boys chased me through the woods, pretending I was a deer.

  I hate school so much. Violet was out again today so I ate lunch alone. That guy Steve came up to me with his friends and said, “Hey, where’s your famous girlfriend? Is she too famous to come to school now?”

  One of the boys said, “You’ll make her cry, Steve. Maybe her friend dumped her for some hot Hollywood babe.”

  I got up and walked away and then I felt something hard crack against my temple and then it shattered wet and slimy. It was an egg. I kept thinking, this little dead baby chicken embryo is dripping in my hair and down my arms.

  I went into the girls’ room and threw up. I kept thinking of the time in the sixth grade when Bitty Risher and Alison Kettler concocted a slop out of all the cafeteria leftovers and made me eat some. I could still see it and smell it when I got sick.

  When I was quiet I heard some girls imitating my retching noises and laughing outside the stall. I knew that if Violet were there everyone would have left me alone.

  Sometimes compared to school my mom seems okay. She asked me if I’ve been writing. Once in a while she gets lucid like that and seems to understand. I said a little. I didn’t want to tell her about Brookman’s class, because of the money. Even though I’m taking it for free, helping him out on the computer and stuff. But I didn’t want any questions from her. Anyway, she did say, “Oh my, Claire. You must always keep writing. It’s all you have, isn’t it?” Her hair was stringy and in her eyes, and her skin was blotchy and pale and her arms were mottled, droopy with flesh.

  “It’s all you have, isn’t it?”

  Maybe she’s right. Somehow, I’m not comforted.

  This afternoon I heard a knock on the door, and when I opened it I saw Violet’s car driving away. And on the porch were all these presents! I couldn’t believe it. There were beautiful gauzy faerie dresses and a whole flock of Sky Dancers, those plastic dolls with wings that really fly. I guess Violet had gotten her check and it was so cool of her to do that, but I didn’t know why she drove away.

  When I called to thank her she said she was going to this big party. I asked her if I could go. She seemed hesitant, but then she said okay.

  The whole thing was a mistake. There were all these fancy cars and valets and the house was a big white villa with vines growing all over the walls and a huge green lawn and palm trees lit up very surreal. Inside the rooms were painted chartreuse, coral or ultraviolet, and all these very tall very tan people were milling around and drinking. The glass of ice water I’d been clutching had penetrated my whole body, and I started to shiver. Violet got swept away by some “Suits,” as she calls them. They all had severe haircuts and smelled like stinky cologne made from some poor animal’s sex glands. I wanted to grab her away from them; I didn’t like the way they were acting with her—turned on and condescending at the same time. She seemed more strung out than ever.

  “Are your parents in the biz?” asked Suit #1.

  “I read she was completely self taught,” mused Suit #2.

  “Would you teach me, Violet?” gawked #3.

  They started laughing, and it wasn’t with her, let me tell you.

  These two supermodels came over to sneer and tweeze at the buffet. I kept staring at them because you rarely see creatures like that except in magazines, and they were so sleekly gorgeous as to be almost alienish. I was feeling the way I do in this dream where there are stains from my period on my white dress. In fact I almost wanted to ask Violet if there was a stain on me. I just wanted to leave so badly. Then this tan man with silver hair came over to Violet and she got this weird look on her face. I’d never seen Violet look like that so I wasn’t even sure what emotion it was.

  But I knew what I was feeling. What I was feeling was fear. It was like some kind of little hand moving around in my throat. I went over there and told her I wanted to leave.

  The man asked who I was, and I told him because Violet didn’t seem to want to. I wondered if she was ashamed of me. I had intentionally worn the dress she gave me so she wouldn’t be.

  “Pleased to meet you, Miss Claire, I like your dress,” said the man, so I guess the dress wasn’t the problem, but Violet still didn’t introduce me.

  “Violet got it for me,” I said. “She’s the best friend in the world.” I wanted to make her feel better.

  Before the man could say anything else, she grabbed my hand and pulled me away from him. Her fingernails dug into me. The way she held me she didn’t seem ashamed, more sort of protective.

  I asked her what was up but she wouldn’t answer.

  I was so glad to finally be out of there. It felt like I hadn’t taken a breath for about an hour because of the little hand blocking my throat.

  changeling

  they wanted her back. to put in their puddings.

  sup from her throat.

  catch in the web

  of their fingers.

  she tried to speak softly

  so they wouldn’t find her.

  tried to stay

  the size of her bones.

  this made their thirst grow

  like a castle of salt.

  their hunger devouring

  like a castle of teeth.

  and she couldn’t help it. her words spilled

  onto the page at night

  like organs peonies

  dead ponies.

  calling them.

  they wanted her.

  once mother was too thin too.

  pale always cold.

  shredding insect wings beneath the covers.

  dissecting flowers ’til they screamed.

  now she is large and warm

  dripping blood each month.

  is it better to grow

  full and bleed?

  stay here in the world

  of grief lungs anger livers intestine fear?

  come with us, they whisper.

  mother knows

  that poetry is dangerous

  essential.

  she hands her a pen

  gets bigger each day

  at night removes her heart

  to guard the door.

  I wrote this poem about growing up and me and my mom and faerie, about how poetry is the one thing that both draws the faeries to you and keeps
you safe from them. And in a way they are death, because they are escape from the real world into a kind of oblivion. But there is another death, and that is the death of being alive and becoming a woman and getting old, and the faeries are a way to escape that, too. I probably would never have written the poem if it wasn’t for Peter Brookman, and I think it is the best one I’ve written. So now I love him even more for being my muse and my guide. And he liked it so much that not only did he ask me to read it out loud in class, but he also told me that he wanted to talk about it with me after class and would I like to go on a picnic with him. I feel like I’m going to explode, flying out of the withered cocoon of my old self.

  I haven’t seen Violet for a week. She isn’t at school or in Peter’s class, and she doesn’t answer my calls. I have this present I want to give her. It isn’t much, not like all the cool stuff she gave me, but it is a Tinker Bell night-light that glows in the dark, and I thought it might comfort her and help her sleep better. The last time I saw her she looked like she wasn’t sleeping too well, from the purple shadows under her eyes. I should go over and see what is up, but to tell you the truth I’ve been so obsessed with Peter Brookman that I guess I’ve kind of neglected her. I’m going to go over there, though.

  I prepared for our picnic the entire week. I painted my nails five different pastel shades—one for each finger—and gave myself a facial and deep-conditioned my hair and washed and ironed the Violet dress. So I was reading my poem and right in the middle of it, right when I could feel Peter Brookman looking at me in a different way, when he was looking at me like that, Violet walked into the room. And when I saw her I realized how worried I’d been and I felt so badly that I hadn’t gone to see her. She was all pale and she looked like she’d lost weight. I got up and went over to her and told her how worried I was and how I’d been trying to reach her, and why hadn’t she returned my calls?

  Peter told me to finish my poem, but I asked if I could do it next week and walked out of the room with Violet. I didn’t even care if it would piss Peter off, because I could tell Violet really needed to talk.

  In the hallway she broke down and started crying as soon as I asked her what was wrong. I didn’t know what to say, so I said something lame about how it was just stupid Hollywood and she was too good for it and not to let it affect her so much. Then I gave her the Tinker Bell that I’d been carrying around and she seemed to really like her. She clutched her the way a little girl would, and that was so not like Violet. It reminded me of me for a second. But then Peter came out and he was looking kind and worried, not mad at all, and I said, “Violet?” and she said, “It’s nothing. I’ll be all right. I just wanted to see you.”

  Then I remembered the date, which believe it or not, I’d forgotten about for a few minutes, and I felt really bad and I asked Violet if she would come with us on this picnic. But when I said that, it really freaked her out and she took off. I called after her, but I didn’t go running. There was this pull I was feeling from Peter like he was the refrigerator and I was one of those stupid magnets—a little weak girl with wings that were completely useless in helping her fly away.

  He took me to the fountain at the base of Griffith Park. We were surrounded by the soft green mist of trees and the water was lilting in the streetlamp light. I could smell the jasmine and Peter’s hair. His shampoo was like mint and green apples. We were eating pasta salad with lime and cilantro and drinking sparkling lemonade. I was intoxicated by everything, with the crescent of moon hanging above us like a charm—and the spray on my face that felt like a spray of moonlight as much as water.

  “Since I was a kid I’ve always felt like this alien or something,” Peter said. “Like I was from another planet. It sounds really pretentious, but poetry was the only way I felt I could kind of begin to communicate.”

  I told him I felt exactly like that. I told him I feel like such a freak most of the time.

  And he actually said, “But you’re so pretty and talented.”

  I felt really embarrassed and I said, “Maybe you just think that because we came from the same planet or something.”

  And he said, “On my planet you are a beauty queen.”

  I had to sort of change the subject, but not too much, so I asked him what it was like there, on his planet.

  “You can remember if you try.” He was looking deep into my eyes, like the planet was inside of me.

  So I told him about how you can talk to the animals and they can talk back and no one eats meat and everyone plays a musical instrument and in the morning you all tell each other your dreams. And he added about how everyone speaks in poetry and wears clothing made of rainbow-colored light and there isn’t any sickness or poverty or hate.

  Then I really had to get away from him or I was afraid I’d start declaring my love or something so I hiked up my dress and waded into the fountain. He called for me to come back and said I’d get cold but I wouldn’t come, so then he did something I didn’t think he’d do—he took off his heavy brown Oxfords and his socks and rolled up his trousers and he got this determined look on his face and he started to wade over to me. So I splashed him and he splashed back. Then he grabbed my arms and held me and I could feel his pulse and everything was twinkling from the drops of water and the lights. It was like La Dolce Vita, Peter’s favorite movie. (I’d rented it the day he told us that in class). We were Anita and Marcello, although, actually, Violet was the only one who really looked like someone from that movie—Anouk Aimée. But in my mind I was the movie goddess of his dreams. He picked me up in his arms and carried me out of the fountain, and we didn’t speak the whole way back to his apartment.

  It was tiny and messy with books everywhere, coffee cups, a few posters, including Gustav Klimt’s kissing lovers, which is my favorite painting. I used to have a card of it over my bed in the trailer. When I broke our silence and told him how I loved it, he said that I looked like her—the girl dreaming in the man’s arms like some kind of broken fabulous lily. I turned around from the poster and looked at him. He has broad shoulders and a strong neck like the man in the painting. He handed me a towel and I wrapped it around my head and leaned toward him. He rubbed my hair gently. Then he stopped and let the towel drop around my shoulders and looked into my eyes and kissed me.

  He kept kissing me. Until my lips softened into his the way it felt when I used to kiss flowers when I was little, but so much better—this density and then this give and this feeling of falling, and he lifted me in his arms and carried me to the futon.

  Then he started to kiss my neck and down, his hands moving inside my dress and I felt like I was going to be sick. His eyes were different, predatory and blank like a hunter’s.

  I can’t explain why I couldn’t. But all I knew then was I had to be away from him, lying in a field somewhere with lupine in my mouth, butterfly wings pressing against my eyelids.

  Faerie—hoarse how they whisper, light how they trip down. Untouched untouched untouched. The only way I could stay with them, stay safe.

  Because what if I let him inside me and I thought the emptiness was gone and then he left? What kind of terrible emptiness would tear open then?

  The next night he called and said, “It’s okay, sweetie.”

  I apologized, too, and I said I guessed he didn’t want to see me again. He said, no, he still did, I was his faerie princess and he just wanted to bask in my presence. He really did use the word bask. I was so happy because I do still feel so much for him. I just can’t let him touch me that way yet. He must care about me, too, to still want to see me.

  It’s been only once a week, but the rest of the time I keep busy preparing. I try to write poems that will move him. I blow soap bubbles and make gauzy dresses and shop for shoes at thrift stores and dance around my room and paint my toenails with glitter polish and read books he has recommended and rent videos he likes. That is why I haven’t called Violet. I am tripping out in my own little Peter Brookman universe. She hasn’t called me either.


  I was sitting on campus today and someone came up and put their hands over my eyes and at first I jumped thinking of eggs and names and guns, but then I smelled Violet’s dusky lovely perfume. I said her name, and she apologized for freaking me out like that. We just looked at each other for a little while. She seemed a lot older and was wearing these very expensive-looking silver leather jeans and these silver engineer boots with steel toes. I didn’t know what to say to her except how I’d been worried and where’d she been? All of a sudden I felt really shitty that I hadn’t called, even if she hasn’t called me either. She told me she dropped out of school. Then she asked what I was doing tonight and I told her I was seeing Peter and she should come with us.