Your Sad Eyes and Unforgettable Mouth by Edeet Ravel

back suits you, and you’ll have fewer tangles.”
    “I use conditioner. Can I ask you something?”
    “Yes, but turn around so I’m not talking to your shoulders. Your braid’s done, though the end is going to come loose without an elastic.”
    I turned towards him and absently scooped up a handful of sand, sifted the pebbles between my fingers. “Do you ever feel mean?”
    “How mean is mean?”
    “Very mean.”
    “That’s exactly the question the Maid of Orleans asked. Exactly what she couldn’t figure out. Was she mean? And if so, how mean? And did being mean to her mother count?”
    “I am mean to my mother,” I confessed, hanging my head. “I call her Mrs. L, I make fun of her, I do things on purpose to shock her, like barking or mooing.”
    “Barking and mooing, huh? That is serious. But, really, I don’t think she notices. As long as you don’t put frogs in her bed, you’re doing fine.”
    “Do you get along with your mother?” I asked.
    “Ah. That’s a hard one, Joan,” he said, and I lost him again. He’d gone back to his impersonations. “It’s difficult to say. I would say that it’s impossible to get along with her, and impossible not toget along with her. She is who she is.” He yawned. “You can turn off your flashlight. Waste of batteries.”
    “Oh. Thanks.”
    “So, who are your friends, Miss Malone?”
    “I don’t have any real friends,” I said. “The problem is I can’t invite anyone over.”
    “Of course you can. No one cares.”
    “You don’t know my mother.”
    “Everyone’s parents are meshuga . Parents are meshuga by definition. Believe me, no one will notice. When’s your birthday, Joan On Her Own?”
    “January. I’m twelve and a half.”
    “Do you think you can wait for me?” he asked.
    “Wait for what?”
    “For me to come and rescue you, and myself.”
    “I’ve been rescued already,” I said. “For the summer, at least.”
    “I’ve never met anyone like you,” he said. “Everything comes from inside with you—you never do or think things just to make an impression, or so someone will think about you in a certain way. You’re on a whole different plane, my love.”
    “Isn’t that bad?” I asked. It seemed to me that it was important to care about how you were seen.
    “No, it’s very good. Very good and very hard.”
    “I wish I knew more. But I hate reading facts, unless they’re about, you know, colour and all that stuff.”
    “Tell me what you like,” he said. He stretched out on his back and drew one arm over his eyes.
    “I like everything about being here. I wish the summer would never end.”
    “You’re going to go places, Maya. Your artist’s soul will take you far.”
    “I’m not an artist,” I said. “I can’t draw at all.”
    “Loving art is the same thing. It’s lonely, though. I hope you’lllet me come along. Will you? Will you let me come with you? Say in four years’ time?”
    In some recess of my mind I understood what Anthony was saying. But when you’re loved by someone—loved that way—and you can’t respond, love slides from you like water sliding from flippers. “I’m not going anywhere in four years,” I said. “Except maybe university.”
    “You’ll get married one day.”
    “No, I’m never going to marry,” I said.
    “And why is that?”
    “I’m just not. I can tell.”
    Very abruptly, Anthony stood up. “I hear the bells tolling,” he said. “They toll for me.” And he walked away in the direction of the dining hall.
    I’d almost forgotten about Sheila’s underwear, which I’d left drying on a rock. The delicate blue lace looked like the reflection of a bird on the rough granite, and I sat down next to it, hugged my knees. The world around me was suffused with silent light, as if newly created and waiting to be claimed.
    A series of unfamiliar sensations came over me. I knew my life was a tightrope act, with my mother’s nightmares perched at either end. Like her, I’d