Red Room Where the Writers Are

Issue/Publication: Not Published.

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          Sometimes I'm still awake even when I'm supposed to be sleeping and I hear things.  My room is closest to the livingroom and when my sister comes home late I can hear her saying goodbye to her boyfriend, Jimmy.  I always hear them laughing.  Sometimes if I pick my head up off my pillow and listen really hard I can hear kissing smacks and I wonder if she's kissing his cheeks or his mouth.  What would it feel like to kiss a boy's mouth?  Sometimes when I put my head back down on the pillow I suck my bottom lip into my mouth and taste it with my tongue.  I wonder if that's what a boy's mouth would taste like or if boys taste different from girls?  I don't know.  My sister always says I'm too little to have a boyfriend but I don't think so.  My friend Christina has a boyfriend and he's in fourth grade!  My sister says I shouldn't rush but there's this boy William that I like.  He's in my class and he's my best friend.  Even better than Christina.  I like being with William more than I like being with anybody.  He likes doing the same things as me so when everybody else is playing kickball at recess he comes with me to the tree behind the softball diamond and we sit and write stories.  I love writing stories.  It's my favorite thing and it's William's favorite thing too.  Sometime's we'll spend all of recess just sitting next to each other and writing stories not even saying anything at all.  Christina thinks that's weird.  She always says "How come you're always hanging around somebody who doesn't even talk to you?"  But he does talk to me.  He talks to me a lot.  I think William talks to me more than he talks to anybody.  He talks to me about lots of different things too.  One time he told me about the time his older brother accidentally shoved a stick in his eye!  He had to go to the hospital and now he can't really see right out of that eye anymore.  Like he can see me when I'm standing in front of him but not when I'm on his side.  What's weird is that he didn't even look scared or sad or anything when he told me that story.  I would've been really sad if I couldn't see right, or really mad if MY older brother did that to me.  But William wasn't sad or mad or anything.  I like that.  He's always really calm and he never yells and he's always peaceful like a day at the beach.  All the other boys yell and scream but he doesn't.  He sits and writes stories with me and he listens when I read mine out loud.  Even in class when I read something I wrote and everybody else looks bored William never looks bored.  He always listens to me.  I like watching him listen.  He presses his mouth closed when he's listening and he squints his eyes a little.  That's usually when I think about what a boy's mouth would taste like.  He presses his lips together and I wonder if he tastes the same thing I do when I do that.  I could never kiss him though.  I would be embarrassed.  He would probably run away and not write stories with me anymore and that would make me sad because writing stories with William and not talking makes me happier than talking to anybody else.  Is that dumb?  It doesn't feel dumb but then why does Christina think it's weird?  She talks too much that's why and it's always about herself.  Sometimes I like to be quiet and William lets me be quiet until I'm ready to say something and he doesn't say anything until he really has something to say.  I like William because of that.  Because he's quiet and peaceful.  Because of the way he squints his eyes when he listens almost like he's trying to see what he's listening to at the same time.  Because I like watching him when he's writing. 

            I think I like William the way my sister likes Jimmy.

            Sometimes the things I hear when I'm lying in bed are not good.  Like Mommy and Daddy fighting.  That happened a lot.  One time they started fighting really loud while I was watching The Honeymooners on TV.  I like that show.  It's funny even though it's old.  Alice and Ralph fight a lot too but when they fight you know it's supposed to be funny and Ralph never means it when he says he's gonna send her to the moon.  They always kiss at the end.  Sometimes I watch that and think about William and about me in an apron in a little kitchen.  Then William comes home in a bus driver uniform.  I don't think he'd be a bus driver though.  I think he's gonna be a writer when he grows up and his name will be on the covers of books like mine will and maybe even our books will be on the same shelf!  But writers don't wear uniforms I guess and I like imagining William in a hat so I imagine him in a hat like Ralph's and I make him dinner like Alice does and mend his socks.  When we fight it will be funny and he'll tell me that baby I'm the greatest and dip me to kiss me.

            Maybe.

            But when Mommy and Daddy fight it's not funny.  One time I was watching The Honeymooners with Mommy when the reruns were on late.  She let me stay up because it was Friday night and I didn't have school the next day.  When a commercial came on I told her about William.  About the way I thought about him in a uniform like Ralph's. 

            "Will-yam from jor class?" she asked.  She talked a little different than me cause she was born in Puerto Rico and speaks English with a Spanish accent.  Sometimes that made me feel weird at school.  She would talk to my teachers or my friends and I could see them look at her funny like they didn't understand or they thought she sounded strange and I would jump in and repeat what she said.  I know it was bad of me to be embarrassed...

            Anyway I told her about William.  "Yeah, William in my class..." I said.  Then Mommy started tickling me and doing that I-Told-You-So humming noise she always did when she was telling me she told me so and trying to be funny.  I laughed though because she DID seem to know and she COULD tell me so.  She always made jokes about William being my boyfriend whenever William came over.  Never when he was there though.  Only after cause she knew that would be embarrassing.

            After she was done tickling me we talked about William for a while and I liked it.  Mommy let me put my head on her shoulder and just let me talk.  She even asked me lots of questions to keep me talking as if she liked listening to me talk about him.  That was fine with me because talking about William is one of my favorite things even though I never really tell anybody that.  Talking about William makes me happy.  I was in the middle of it when Daddy came in.  He usually lets me talk too but for some reason whenever I'd be talking to Mommy he'd want me to stop.  Almost like he didn't want me to talk to her about anything important the way I talk to him.

            "What's this about a William?" he asked just me almost like he wanted to pretend Mommy wasn't there.  "You've never told me anything about a William."

            "The little boy who's always over here..." Mommy said.  "The little wah-po..."  She was speaking in Spanish.  They always speak Spanish to each other but I can't write Spanish really.

            "Don't talk like that" Daddy said and got a little mad for no reason.  "So vulgar.  She doesn't need to be talking about things like that."

            "All I said was..."

            That's how that one started.  They fought about what they should be teaching me.  Then they fought about who did more in their marriage.  Then they started fighting about other stuff that I don't really know about because my Spanish isn't that good.  It got louder.  It was a kind of loud that feels like knives in your belly.  They forgot I was there so I went to my room cause I didn't want them to see me crying.

            I curled up under the covers with my schoolbag and a flashlight.  I took out a story William gave me to read and tried to read it under the covers without getting the looseleaf wet. Not only are his stories good but he has really neat handwriting.  Neater than mine even and he's a boy.  Sometimes I won't read what he wrote first I'll just look at his handwriting and how it's small and straight.  It's calm like him.  I looked and looked at his handwriting and it made me not cry so much.  I was about to start reading the story but then I heard a loud bang like a piece of heavy furniture falling down.  My heart jumped into my throat cause it was quiet after that and I couldn't tell what happened.  Then she started again.  Crying but not like regular crying.  Sometimes my Daddy would make my Mommy cry in a way that sounded like her body was going to break.  She'd cry these long cries and it was like she was letting every bad thing that ever happened out of her mouth.  It scared me when she cried like that because it could go on and on for a long time.  That time my sister came into my room.  She came under the covers with me.  She took William's story and the flashlight out of my hands but before I could tell her to stop she was holding me close to her like a teddy bear and she was crying too.  I looked at William's story on the bed where it was by her feet and all I wanted to do was read it.  I wanted to look at William's handwriting some more.  But I guess my sister doesn't have a best friend like William who would give her a story.  I always see her laughing with Jimmy but never crying with Jimmy and I don't know if she would.  I'm lucky because I know that when I'm sad reading a story from William will make me feel better and I know that if I'm ever crying in front of him he would never laugh at me.  He would listen and squint his eyes.  My sister doesn't cry around Jimmy and our brother would never let her hold him like a teddy bear.  I guess my sister's not lucky like I am.  All she has is me.

            Mommy had diabetes from the day I was born.  I gave it to her I think.  That was one of the things William and I first talked about cause once he brought cookies to school that weren't regular cookies.  They were sugar-free cookies and I knew them because they were the same kind my mom would get.  They weren't bad.  Not like Chips Ahoy but still.  I think William was embarrassed that I knew they weren't real cookies but then I told him that Mommy had diabetes and he said his daddy had diabetes too so we talked about that. 

            Last year though when I was seven my mom got worse than William's dad.  I think cause William's dad takes really good care of himself and exercises all the time and is always eating vegetables.  Mommy's a little fat and likes ice cream a lot.  We'd eat it together all the time and sometimes I'd watch her eating ice cream and think that she looked like me as an older lady.  And I'd feel bad when Daddy would yell at her for eating it with me because ice cream made her really happy.  But I guess it's not so good when you have diabetes.  She started to have to go to the hospital a lot and I would miss her.  Sometimes it would only be for a few days but then it started being for months and months.  No one would tell me why but this one day came when Daddy said she couldn't come home anymore.  She had to be at a nursing home to do this thing called dialysis and I don't even know what that is. 

            I would visit her all the time though.  Daddy would drive me and then leave us there alone for a while.  Whenever I'd go to visit her at the nursing home her first question was always "How's William?" and we'd both smile.  She'd wait for Daddy to leave before she asked me too so we could talk about it by ourselves.  I would tell her all about things that William and I had done or things he said.  William really likes boats and lots of times he'll write adventure stories about people sailing and I would tell them to my mom and she would smile.  One time she said "I know William is a special boy even though I don't really know him that well."   "How come?" I asked.  I was sitting next to her on the bed and she was lying down.  "Because of the way your face lights up when you talk about him.  He would have to be someone special to make you look like that.  I hope you have William for a long long time."

            And that sounded really silly cause of COURSE I'd have William a long long time.  Where would he go?

            I couldn't go to William's birthday party three days ago which made me sad because I haven't missed his birthday since I've known him.  That's two whole birthdays and I'm his best friend so it's a shame I couldn't go.  I got him a really nice present too.  I got him a little model boat.  It's called a schooner I think.  He'd know better than me.  Anyway, I was going to give him the kit for his birthday but then I decided to make it for him!  It was hard but my brother helped me.  My sister's an artist and she let me use her paints and things so I painted it purple and pink.  It took me a whole week and I was so excited!  I brought it to the nursing home to show Mommy and she said it was the prettiest boat she ever saw and that she knew William would love it.  She even said that she wished she could go to William's party and see the look on his face.  I wished she could've too but she died that day.  On William's birthday.

            I was supposed to go home to get the boat after school and then meet up with William and his family at Chuck E. Cheese but my Daddy came into my classroom to get me in the middle of the day and told me that we were going to see Mommy.  As I was getting my jacket William came into the coat closet and asked me what was happening and I told him.  I felt a little mad at William because HIS daddy didn't have to be in a nursing home.  But I know that's not his fault.  I promised him that I would try my best to be done at my mom's in time to go to his party but he told me not to worry.  That's why he's a good friend.

            Mommy died that same day just after I got there.  I didn't even really get to talk to her because she had a tube in her mouth.  She looked different.  Like a doll made out of Play-Doh.  Her face was puffed up and her eyes were closed tight.  She was breathing and it sounded like Darth Vader.  Then Daddy my brother my sister and me watched the doctor stop the machine that was making the tube work and Mommy breathed slower and slower until she wasn't breathing at all.  My sister was holding me like a teddy bear again and my brother just stared at the wall.  Daddy started crying and I never saw him cry before and it made me cry.  Mommy didn't make me cry though.  It didn't even look like her.  I felt like I was watching something fake so why would I cry?  But everyone else crying made me cry.  And then all I could think was that I was supposed to tell her all about William's party.  She really wanted to know about it.

            Daddy said I could bring my notebook to the wake if I wanted cause he knows I like to write.  Everyone is upstairs in the room with Mommy and I'm in the lobby.  It doesn't even look like Mommy so why would I go see?  Anyway I wanted to write all this down cause I feel like it might be important.  William's just sitting next to me quiet like always and I'm glad. 

            I just thought something weird.  I'm never going to get to go to one of William's birthday parties without thinking about Mommy and getting sad.  Or maybe I won't be sad.  Maybe there'll be so much pizza and ice cream that I won't have time to be sad.  I don't know.

            I brought the boat with me.  It's in the limo my family and I rode in.  My first time in a limo and everything!  William and his family are coming to the cemetery with us so I'm thinking about giving it to him after we finish there.  I hope he likes it.  And the best part is that Mommy will get to see the look on his face.  She always said that people get to see everything in the whole world when they die.