would give me something to write about. And since I was never going to see him, anyhow, it didn’t matter at all. Elena kept whining, “Come on, Arley, honey-girl. Tell me all about the Beer Hall Putsch. Like I have to know stuff like this in my life. I swear to God if Miz Hunter says one more time, ‘You got to be fluent in your culture . . .’ What culture? I live in Texas! Did you see she’s sticking her keys in the bun on her head now, along with all those pens? Next it’ll be Tampax. . . .”
I wanted to slap her one. All of a sudden, I was feeling as restless and full as I did on Saturday nights in summer when the Nevadas brothers drove their big metallic-red hogs past the house and the music from their stupid big boom boxes, lashed onto the backseats, came up at me in my attic room, broken in pieces by the wind, and though I felt nothing at all for Ricky Nevadas, I would be like in “The Raven”—“back into my chamber turning, all my soul within me burning . . .” Why not have a guy you write to a zillion miles away? It would give you something to show off to people in the hall before school. People who thought you were just dumb or naive because you didn’t come from the big-house suburbs like Alamo Heights or Regents Landing.
“What do you think is the most interesting thing about me, Elena?”
“Your mother. Definitely.”
“I’m serious.”
“Well.” She curled up on the bench, opposite me, and stuck her finger in her history book to mark World War II. “I guess it’s that you are beautiful.”
“Shoot, I’m not. You’re beautiful.”
“No. I’m hot.” Elena’s laughter rumbled up her throat like water bursts out of a faucet left off too long. “You are beautiful. Like, your hair. You could tell him about how you wash your face with table salt to keep from getting zits or that you never cut your hair in your life.”
That was true. I only trimmed the ends and burned them with a match to stop the split ends. And I’d just learned to make my own shampoo from dishwashing liquid and honey and lemon. But so what? Guys don’t care about your hair. I told Elena so.
“I didn’t think you was thinking of him as a guy, Arley. Like a boyfriend. I just think it’s interesting. You look like Pocahontas in the movie. Tell him that.”
“I’m not thinking about him as a boyfriend. I just don’t want to sound like a stupid little girl. And, like, how do you begin this? Do I say ‘Mister LeGrande’? Or ‘Dear Friend’?”
“How about ‘Hi, Hitler’?” Elena suggested. And then we cracked up laughing.
It wasn’t until eleven o’clock when I really sat down to write the letter. The wind was blowing in the window, and it kept floating the curtain against my face like a spiderweb. I looked down, and there was Ricky Nevadas out in his backyard, in nothing but his jeans, washing his bike in the light from the streetlamp and singing the same song he always sang, “Bye Bye, Love.” He saw me in the window and whipped the towel around his head a couple of times. You could see the light shine off the drops of water or sweat on the hair under his arms. I pulled the curtain and sat on my bed.
And I wrote Dillon about my hair that hadn’t been cut in twelve years, about how Cully, the cook at Taco Haven, had to get the big-size hair net—the kind he used for his dreadlocks—for me to wear in the kitchen.
I wrote about the music I like, zydeco and the Indigo Girls, about Cam, and how he thinks he’s Kenny Wayne Shepherd or better, and I even told him that my mama had never been married—because you might as well be honest.
Except, then I wasn’t. Because I wrote about the paramedical cosmetics, too, and being in college with Connie. It got kind of fun. I was philosophizing: “Anything that makes you different can be a cause of rejection, don’t you think?” That got boring, so then I told him I ran track, because I knew it would make him think I had a good body. And
I wanted to slap her one. All of a sudden, I was feeling as restless and full as I did on Saturday nights in summer when the Nevadas brothers drove their big metallic-red hogs past the house and the music from their stupid big boom boxes, lashed onto the backseats, came up at me in my attic room, broken in pieces by the wind, and though I felt nothing at all for Ricky Nevadas, I would be like in “The Raven”—“back into my chamber turning, all my soul within me burning . . .” Why not have a guy you write to a zillion miles away? It would give you something to show off to people in the hall before school. People who thought you were just dumb or naive because you didn’t come from the big-house suburbs like Alamo Heights or Regents Landing.
“What do you think is the most interesting thing about me, Elena?”
“Your mother. Definitely.”
“I’m serious.”
“Well.” She curled up on the bench, opposite me, and stuck her finger in her history book to mark World War II. “I guess it’s that you are beautiful.”
“Shoot, I’m not. You’re beautiful.”
“No. I’m hot.” Elena’s laughter rumbled up her throat like water bursts out of a faucet left off too long. “You are beautiful. Like, your hair. You could tell him about how you wash your face with table salt to keep from getting zits or that you never cut your hair in your life.”
That was true. I only trimmed the ends and burned them with a match to stop the split ends. And I’d just learned to make my own shampoo from dishwashing liquid and honey and lemon. But so what? Guys don’t care about your hair. I told Elena so.
“I didn’t think you was thinking of him as a guy, Arley. Like a boyfriend. I just think it’s interesting. You look like Pocahontas in the movie. Tell him that.”
“I’m not thinking about him as a boyfriend. I just don’t want to sound like a stupid little girl. And, like, how do you begin this? Do I say ‘Mister LeGrande’? Or ‘Dear Friend’?”
“How about ‘Hi, Hitler’?” Elena suggested. And then we cracked up laughing.
It wasn’t until eleven o’clock when I really sat down to write the letter. The wind was blowing in the window, and it kept floating the curtain against my face like a spiderweb. I looked down, and there was Ricky Nevadas out in his backyard, in nothing but his jeans, washing his bike in the light from the streetlamp and singing the same song he always sang, “Bye Bye, Love.” He saw me in the window and whipped the towel around his head a couple of times. You could see the light shine off the drops of water or sweat on the hair under his arms. I pulled the curtain and sat on my bed.
And I wrote Dillon about my hair that hadn’t been cut in twelve years, about how Cully, the cook at Taco Haven, had to get the big-size hair net—the kind he used for his dreadlocks—for me to wear in the kitchen.
I wrote about the music I like, zydeco and the Indigo Girls, about Cam, and how he thinks he’s Kenny Wayne Shepherd or better, and I even told him that my mama had never been married—because you might as well be honest.
Except, then I wasn’t. Because I wrote about the paramedical cosmetics, too, and being in college with Connie. It got kind of fun. I was philosophizing: “Anything that makes you different can be a cause of rejection, don’t you think?” That got boring, so then I told him I ran track, because I knew it would make him think I had a good body. And
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