Page 3 of All of You

I take a moment to think it over. Mom’s good at selling places. Most of the time her version of the place and the reality of them are slightly off. A ‘darling’ little main drag probably means nothing has been updated in years. It might mean it was once a vibrant small town center that has suffered weather and wear and vacancies over the years. But, I choose to maintain hope that it’s at least sixty percent as great as she says. “And I read that the high school is small but has a swim team and a pool on campus!”

This piques my attention. I live for swimming. I love the water. There is something about being in water—any water; ocean, lake, pool, stream—whatever. It calms my soul. I try to join the swim team wherever I am—it’s kinda my one constant besides never having a constant—outside of my mother’s physical presence. I slap a mosquito on my thigh and then flick it off. A little splotch of red is left on my skin.

“I don’t know why you do that. You don’t have to kill them, just shoo them away.” She frowns.

“Because I don’t like bug bites. You wouldn’t understand, they never seem to bite you.”

“You keep them away from me with your sweet blood,” she says.

“You always say that, but I always seem to suffer for that sweet blood,” I laugh.

She pops up to her feet and darts into the van again returning with two bananas, one outstretched to me. I takeit from her because I’m still hungry, but what I really want is half a pizza and a milkshake, or maybe bacon, Gouda cheese fries. A big plate of them. If I try hard enough, I can almost taste them.

She puts on some music, and I stuff a banana in my mouth.

In the night, which seems to be holding its breath, I hear critters and birds, their sounds like bracelets shifting or tiny bells in the distance, the beginnings of the night life because they feel the sun slinking away. I turn around to face the air coming through the small van window by my pillow, it is so balmy as I breathe it in, so perfect, that I take it as a sign that it’s okay to exist just as I am, which is a rare feeling for me to have.

“I want to be like a forest,” Mom whispers as I’m trying to fall asleep.

“Mom,” I groan.

She reaches out and squeezes my foot. “What? I do.”

Okay, I’ll bite.“Why?” I ask, voice gravelly from disuse.

“Because it’s perfect.” She states. “There is nothingnotallowed to grow inside a forest. Anything that wants to be is allowed and has a job—serves a purpose if you will.”

“Okay.” I draw the word out.

She jabs my foot. “I’m not done. And everything is accepted because there is no concept of who deserves to be in a place or have more or less. There are only lives to be lived. Wildness that envelopes everything within it and has deep roots in the soil.”

I say nothing.My mother is so odd.

This feels like the time she told me that ‘everything isalways transforming and remaking itself and so are you’ when I was pissed off about leaving yet another school where I had just made friends. She squeezes my sock-clad foot one more time for good measure and rolls to her side, facing away from me. I let my eyelids or as my mom calls them, eye curtains, swing shut until there is nothing but black to see.

Two

Delia

Our van, which isn’t some fancy new camper van that seems to be all the rage these days, shimmies and bounces down the cracked streets as we approach the main drag. No, our van is a 2003 EuroVan with almost two hundredthousandmiles on it. We share the bed, which is lumpy and when it’s really humid out, kind of smells. There’s a tiny kitchenette and a fold-out table top. That’s it besides the two front seats. It is not glamorous at all.

The town itself isn’t so bad. It’s more or less as mom described it. Old buildings, but mostly well maintained. A few eye sores stand out, but for the most part, the shop owners seem to keep the main street looking tidy. There are only three stop lights on the whole road. The sidewalksaren’t crowded but aren’t vacant either. I stare at people as we drive through. Harried looking mothers with small children or babies, making their way in and out of shops, arms loaded with shopping bags. Some summer dirt-smeared kids running up and down the sidewalks. A couple men leaning against brick buildings, cigarettes dangling from their lips.

Forehead pressed to the passenger seat window, my favorite find appears, an older woman, wild silver hair, screaming at a kid who’s probably no older than twelve. The kid appears terrified of the silver witch with the tan skin, but honestly, I bet she’s secretly really cool. A boy, maybe my age, tall and lean with a short mop of curly brown hair exits an adjacent shop and strides right to the smaller boy. His biceps stretch the fabric of his tee shirt tightly. He’s tan and athletic looking. He pushes his hair from his eyes, flashes an irresistibly devastating smirk, the warmth in it makes my belly flip. He says something to the silver haired woman, who immediately backs off her tirade. We roll to a stop at the traffic light.

The older boy turns toward the street. Our eyes lock. His hazel eyes bore into mine. He cocks his head and grins. A grin with two perfect dimples. My cheeks flush as I immediately yank my forehead from the glass and scooch back in my seat out of view as a blush creeps up my neck.

Mom laughs as she glances at me, hunched down and out of sight. “See something you like?”

“What? No. Ew. Don’t be gross,” I say.

“There’s no shame in looking at attractive young men.”

“Mom!” I shriek. But she’s not listening to me. She’s staringout the window, presumably at the boy, and waves.

Shewavesat him.

I’m mentally begging the light to turn green. Which thankfully, it does.

---