Was that beginning to be us, Leo? I’d rather never see you again than have that happen. We were once so fresh, a dazzling snowfield. Let’s promise to each other that if we ever meet again we will never plow and push our new-fallen snow. We will not become slush. We will stay like this field and melt away together only in the sun’s good time.
I backed off carefully, stepping out of the one footprint, and walked away.
March 3
I saw the first flower of the year today. A crocus, peeking out from under a bush, like, Hello! I’m here! A little purple dollop of cheer and hope. I cried. Last year at this time I was the crocus, popping out, blooming with love and happiness for you, for us.
To make matters worse, I was with Dootsie.
“Why are you crying?” she said.
I tried to smile. “Happy tears. First flower.”
She studied me, all serious. She shook her head. “Bullpoopy.”
In spite of myself, I almost burst out laughing. “Where did you get that from?”
“My father. He says it when I lie to him. I lie a lot.”
“I’m not lying.”
“Bullpoopy.”
“Okay, I’m lying.”
She studied me some more. Her eyes were watering. “It’s your boyfriend, isn’t it? He made you cry.”
“No.”
“Bullpoopy.” She stomped on the ground. She was angry. “He dumped you.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t speak.
“Yes he did! He dumped you!” And her little face collapsed and she burrowed into me and clung to me.
When I got home I took another pebble out. Three now.
March 6
ARIZONA PEOPLE I MISS MOST
1. You
2. Archie
To you Archie is the old “bone hunter” who retired from teaching and came to Mica. He talks with his beloved cactus, Señor Saguaro, and he invites you and other kids to his back porch, where he smokes his pipe and leads your meetings of the Loyal Order of the Stone Bone. He’s all that to me too—I still wear my fossil necklace—and he’s much more. You know, my mother didn’t recruit him to help her with my homeschooling. He volunteered. He’s the one who came up with the original shadow curriculum. Nothing I learned from him helped me when the State of Arizona came testing. He gave me more questions than answers. He made me feel at home—not in his house or even in my own, but in the wide world. He is like a third parent to me.
3. Dori Dilson
Some of the kids at Mica High turned against me. Some turned away from me. Dori was the only one who did neither.
March 10
Every day brings a new memory of something we did a year ago. A parade of unhappy anniversaries.
March 11
I had a dream last night that I was meditating in Archie’s backyard, under the outstretched arm of Señor Saguaro. Suddenly an elf owl flew out of the Señor’s mouth, and he spoke to me: “Bullpoopy.”
“Wait till I tell Archie what you said,” I said.
“Bullpoopy on him too,” the Señor said.
And then he spat at me. Something hit my cheek. It stung wickedly. I shrieked. I pulled it out. It was a cactus needle.
“That wasn’t nice,” I said.
“Ptoo!” He spat another needle. Pain in my neck. I pulled it out. And then they came and came: “Ptoo! Ptoo! Ptoo! Ptoo!” Prickly pain all over me, and every time I pulled one out, two more would hit, and they weren’t cactus needles anymore, they were tiny darts, tiny darts with red feathers sticking all over me, and the faster I pulled them out, the faster they came, and I couldn’t reach the ones in the middle of my back….
I woke up sweating, tingling. I put on my sweatpants, coat. No shoes. I tiptoed downstairs, out of the house. I rode my bike to Enchanted Hill. I walked to the center. The ground was cold and clumpy against the soles of my bare feet. I liked the feel of it. The hard, real now-ness of it.
I felt alone on the planet, drifting through the cosmos. With both hands I reached out to the night. There was no answer. Or maybe I just couldn’t hear it.
March 12
Dear Stargirl,
Hey, you’re a big girl now. Stop being such a baby. You think you’re the only one who’s ever lost a boyfriend? Boyfriends are a dime a dozen. You want to talk loss, look at all the loss around you. How about the man in the red and yellow plaid scarf? He lost Grace. BELOVED WIFE. I’ll bet they were married over 50 years. You barely had 50 days with Leo. And you have the gall to be sad in the same world as that man.
Betty Lou. She’s lost the confidence to leave her house. Look at you. Have you ever stopped to appreciate the simple ability to open your front door and step outside?
And Alvina the floor sweeper—she hates herself, and it seems she’s got plenty of company. All she’s losing is her childhood, her future, a worldful of people who will never be her friends. How would you like to trade places with her?
Oh yes, let’s not forget the footshuffling guy at the stone piles. Moss-green pom-pom. What did he say to you? “Are you looking for me?” It seems like he hasn’t lost much, has he? Only…HIMSELF!
Now look at you, sniveling like a baby over some immature kid in Arizona who didn’t know what a prize he had, who tried to remake you into somebody else, who turned his back on you and left you to the wolves, who hijacked your heart and didn’t even ask you to the Ocotillo Ball. What don’t you understand about the message? Hel-loooo? Anybody home in there? You have your whole life ahead of you, and all you’re doing is looking back. Grow up, girl. There are some things they don’t teach you in homeschool.
Your Birth Certificate Self,
Susan Caraway
March 13
She’s right, of course. Every word is true.
It’s just not the whole truth. She doesn’t mention how you looked at me in the lunchroom that first day. Or how you blushed when your best friend, Kevin, said, “Why him?” and I tweaked your earlobe and replied, “Because he’s cute.” Or how nice you were to my rat even though you were terrified. Or how proud you were of me when I won the speech contest in Phoenix. Or how—I don’t know, how do you explain it?—how we just fit together.
OK, so you’re not perfect. Who is?
Sure, Susan makes sense. But my heart doesn’t care about sense. My heart never says: Why? Only: Who?
March 14
Today, for the second time, I rode into the cemetery. It was getting dark. The man Charlie wasn’t there. I coasted along the winding pathways. Moonlight and tombstones. A vision came to me. I was in the graveyard of my own past. Under each tombstone lay a memory, a dead day. Here Lies the Day in the Enchanted Desert. Here Lies the Day We Followed the Lady at the Mall and Made Up Her Life. Here Lies the Day We First Touched Little Fingers, Stargirl and Leo’s Secret Signal of Love.
Each night I lie down in a graveyard of memories. Moonlight spins a shroud about me.
March 15
My happy wagon is down to two pebbles.
March 16
I hate you!
March 17
I miss you!
March 18
I hate you!
March 19
I love you!
March 20
I hate you!
March 21
LEO!
March 22
Now see what you did. You made me miss the start of spring. It happened yesterday, but I was so busy moping over you that I didn’t even notice. I’d probably still be in the dark if I hadn’t gotten a letter from Archie today. He asked me if I saw the sunrise on March 21. Archie and I used to go into the desert and watch the sunrise on four special dates: the VernalEquinox (March 21), the Summer Solstice (June 21), the Autumnal Equinox (September 22), and the Winter Solstice (December 21). We poured green tea into plastic cups and toasted each new season.
Yesterday the sun was directly over the equator. Day passed night. Winter became spring. With every turn of the earth now, day is leaving night a few more minu
tes behind. The universe is going about its business. Why am I surprised?
March 23
All my father said last night was, “Go to bed early.” I didn’t ask why, but I knew. Sure enough, he woke me at 2 this morning, and 30 minutes later we were having grilled sticky buns and coffee at Ridgeview Diner. I knew what he was doing. He’s noticed my mood. He was trying to perk me up. He believes that the answer to anyone’s problem is to go on a milk run.
Confused?
Yes, my father is a milkman now. After fifteen years as an engineering supervisor at MicaTronics, he was burned out. Still, he wasn’t going to quit. But my mother made him after she asked him what he would rather do and he grinned and said, “I always wanted to be a milkman.”
So we loaded the truck at the warehouse and headed for the Friday route. As the truck turned a corner at a Wawa store, the headlights suddenly caught a face. It was a face in a Dumpster, wide-eyed with surprise. And then we were gone.
“See that?” said my father.
“I did,” I said. I was still seeing the face, like the afterglow in my eyes when I turn away from the sun.
The Friday route is in the southern part of the county. Developments. Farms. Solitary homes along curvy country roads. No streetlights. No traffic. Only the dark and our own headlights and the rattle of glass bottles in the racks behind us.
The customers leave notes, Scotch-taped to the door or rolled and rubber-banded in the metal milk box on the front step. Some order the same thing every week, some different. Some parents let their kids write the note. Like:
Dear Mr Milkman,
Pleeze leave 1 gal skim
1 qt choc
2 cott cheese
1 doz eggs
My cat Purrfecto loves your milk!!
Love,
Cory
I’ve gone on other Friday milk runs with my father, and there was one address I was especially looking forward to. It came early in the run: 214 White Horse Rd. The Huffelmeyers. The Huffelmeyers are an old couple. They get one quart of buttermilk, one quart of chocolate each week. But my father doesn’t leave their stuff on the front step—he takes it inside. See, the Huffelmeyers remember the old days, when things were safer and they left the front door unlocked all the time and the milkman just came in and put their stuff in the fridge. And that’s the way they keep it. At 214 White Horse Road it’s still 1940. We just walk on in. Dad turns on a small table lamp with a fringed shade so we can see. We stay as quiet as we can. While Dad heads for the kitchen, I like to stop and look at the pictures. There must be a hundred family photographs in the living and dining rooms. I watch them go from black and white snapshots—the young married couple, he in his World War II uniform, she in a floral dress and wide-brimmed hat, standing arm in arm in front of a Ferris wheel—to color pictures of the old couple surrounded by kids and grandkids and, it looks like, great-grandkids.
Leo, some people might say it’s creepy, tiptoeing through someone’s house at four o’clock in the morning—but it’s not. It’s wonderful. It’s a sharing. It’s the Huffelmeyers saying to us, Come into our house. Look at whatever you like. Get to know us. We’re upstairs, sleeping. Feel free to stroll through our dreams and memories. We trust you. And don’t forget to take the empty bottles.
An hour later we left the weekly cottage cheese and orange juice in the kitchen of the Dents, who are even older than the Huffelmeyers. My father headed east then, toward a silver-gray sky. New day coming. So far we had hardly said a word to each other. Now we did, though the conversation was stop-and-go, shorthand, constantly interrupted by the rattle of the milk carrier as my father hustled off to another customer.
Dad: So.
Me: So.
Dad: Blue these days?
Me: More like gray.
Dad: I see you’re down to two pebbles.
Me: You noticed.
Dad: Leo Borlock?
Me: Leo Borlock.
Dad: Still?
Me: Still.
Dad: Worth it?
Me: Not sure. I think so.
Dad (his hand on mine): One thing you can be sure of.
Me: That is?
Dad: Me.
Me (smiling): I know.
Dad: And Mom.
Me: I know.
By the time we headed home, kids were pouring onto the playgrounds of grade schools for morning recess.
March 24
I was pretty OK the rest of yesterday. Puttered around the house. Visited Betty Lou’s with Dootsie. Then, as soon as I was alone—bedtime—it all came back.
I dreamed of Señor Saguaro again. This time he didn’t spit darts. He didn’t speak. I couldn’t even see his mouth. Then I realized it was on the other side of him. I walked around to his back, and the mouth moved to the front. And that’s how it went: wherever I looked, the mouth moved to the other side. Soon I was desperately running in circles around the old cactus, trying to catch up with the mouth, because I knew that only when I caught up to it would it speak to me.
I’m disappearing, Leo. Like Dootsie’s trick, except this is real. Who are you if you lose your favorite person? Can you lose your favorite person without losing yourself? I reach for Stargirl and she’s gone. I’m not me anymore.
I went to the stone piles today. I had a feeling that the shuffling man would come by again, and he did. Still wearing the moss-green knit pullover cap and tassel and navy peacoat, still gravelsliding along. He stopped in front of me. He said, “Are you looking for me?” and shuffled on without waiting for an answer. I called after him, “I’m looking for me! Have you seen me?!” but he just kept on moving, green tassel bobbing….
March 27
I played homeschool hooky. I stayed in my room all day—writing, reading, daydreaming, remembering. My mother didn’t object, didn’t ask why. I wrote three haiku and two lists. Maybe I’ll send you the haiku someday. Here’s the first list:
THINGS I LIKE ABOUT LEO
1. You loved me
2. You liked my nose freckles
3. You were nice to my rat
4. You loved Archie
5. Your shy smile
6. You followed me into the desert
7. You held my hand in front of everybody
8. You chose Me over Them
9. You filled up my happy wagon
And the second list:
THINGS I DON’T LIKE ABOUT LEO
1. You dumped me
2. You liked Susan more than Stargirl
3. You weren’t brave enough to be yourself
4. You chose Them over Me
5. You’re emptying my happy wagon
March 29
Down to one pebble.
March 30
Leo! Save me from an empty wagon!
April 1
I had promised Dootsie I would take her to Bemus Park today. At the first corner we came to, Dootsie said, “I wanna wear them.” She was pointing at my earrings, the little silver lunch trucks that my father had a silversmith make for me in Tucson. I took them off. I went to put them on her ears, but she said, “I wanna do it.”
“Okay,” I said, and handed them to her.
Next thing I knew she tossed them into the nearby sewer, threw up her hands, and cried out, “April fools!”
She was so pleased and proud of herself, I hated to spoil her fun. But you know me, Leo, I’m not exactly the world’s greatest actress. I couldn’t cover up my shock and disappointment. She saw it on my face. Her eyes grew wide, her smile vanished. She tugged on my finger. She peeped, “April fools?” I could only stare at the sewer grate. She howled, “I did it bad!” and started bawling.
I hugged her and calmed her down. How do you explain the trickery of April Fools’ Day to a five-year-old? I tried to tell her how it works. I told her that in the end, the important thing is that the victim feels relieved and happy because things aren’t really so bad after all. The look on her face told me she wasn’t getting it. But I would soon find out she was getting it al
l right—just in her own way.
We continued our walk to Bemus Park. Along the way I bought us each a pack of Skittles. It was the first warm Sunday of spring. The playground was an ant colony of little kids—swinging, climbing, darting this way and that, sawdust flying. Dootsie stationed herself at the bottom of the sliding board. As each slider landed, Dootsie held out a Skittle and said, “April fools!” Pretty soon every kid on the playground was lined up at the sliding board. When Dootsie’s Skittles were gone, she took mine.
When the Skittles ran out, we started for home. We passed people in the park. Dootsie began unloading the rest of herself. To the first person, she gave a Mary Jane from her pocket. “April fools!” To another, she gave a pink quartz stone she had found. To another, a button that said THINK. To another, a paper clip. Each came with an “April fools!” and a giggle. And usually a puzzled smile from the recipient.
When her pockets were empty, she took the red plastic Cracker Jack ring off her finger and gave that away. Then the pink rubber band on her wrist. She panicked when she saw the next person coming and realized she was empty. She reached for my Stone Bone fossil necklace. “No!” I said.
I gave her the change in my pocket. Dootsie gave away my coins one at a time. I was hoping we would run out of people before we reached her house. We didn’t. Dootsie gave away the last nickel and again went for the fossil necklace. I straightened up, keeping the necklace out of her reach. She kept jumping, reaching, squeaking, “Gimme! Gimme!”
I gave it. It was gone in a minute, and she was back at me. “Stargirl! More!”
“Dootsie,” I said, “I’m empty. There’s nothing left.”
I was lying. There was one thing left. It was a tiny brown feather of an elf owl. I had seen it clinging to the bird’s nest hole high in a saguaro near my enchanted place in the desert. I used a yucca stick to dislodge it. Since the day we moved from Arizona I’ve carried the elf owl feather everywhere I go.