this is an older section-- written somewhere between 2002-2003.
November, 1999
Lubbock, Texas
On the way out Kate's front door, they saw David getting into his car in the next driveway. He said nothing, but winked, and while Kate and Meg drove away, he stayed to let his hunk of metal truck warm up. It was the first cold morning since she had been in Lubbock and it was dry like winter in the desert. It reminded her of a Christmas she and her dad had decided to spend in the Grand Canyon. The chill in the desert-- it seemed more final and more concrete than any other cold she had felt before. Lubbock wasn’t the desert, but this morning, it felt just like the way Christmas morning had felt in the Grand Canyon. And the whole merciless day seemed to span out before her, like the canyon.
Before the assembly began, Meg joined Kate and David in student council. Without his coat, Meg could see that David was wearing the shirt she had gotten him for his birthday. It was just a blue and white jersey, but it was soft and when she bought it, she thought he would like it. He wore it now with a red scarf, for patriotism.
As the president of the school, he started the meeting of the council by pounding his little gavel against the desk, which served as his podium.
--Let this meeting come to order, he said. I have some announcements. First, because of the assembly today, we will need everyone to stay after school and help take down the decorations in the auditorium. Also, I hope you are all ready to sing the medley with the choir. We all have chairs to sit on stage with the orchestra and the choir. Are there any other announcements? Does anyone else have anything?
Nobody raised any hands, but finally Kate waved her slender hand in David’s face.
--Well, I think you have another announcement, David. Don’t you think you should introduce your guest? Where are your manners?
--Oh. Yes. Uh, that’s right. For those of you who haven’t met our friend from camp, Meg…this is Meg. She came to visit Lubbock because she knows that Texas is the coolest place in the Universe.
In that lackluster moment, Meg had her first feelings of dislike for him. The first time she ever looked up at him and saw a selfish panderer. The first time she ever felt her association with him made her dirtier, grimier instead of cleaner and better—the way she was accustomed to feeling about him.
It was the first time she noticed his need for the spotlight was greater than his noble ability to make her feel special. And it was the first time he ever dismissed her as a pawn in his world—at least the first time that wasn’t a joke.
Meg’s skin crawled in the large, cold student council room, and the first chance she could get, she left for the bathroom, but never came back.
She sat in the toilet stall for a while, feeling too weighed down and confused to move. Being alone, she felt like she could decompress for the first time since her arrival. She let the rigidity melt out her spine, the stiff act of no-concern she had maintained since she saw Libbi leaning against David’s car.
Letting the big slow in-takes of air stretch her lungs out, she felt like a rubber band about to be snapped, and wished she could stay alone like that until it was time to get back on the plane and go home.
But mid-breath, a group of girls busted through the bathroom door, and Meg almost choked on her own indulgent air.
Were they harmless strangers or the enemies? Meg wondered. She pounded her chest to avoid an attention-grabbing cough until she knew the answer.
--Well, she seems sneaky to me, said one girl.
Meg could hear the sounds of a stall crashing into the door, the lock clasping. She looked for any revealing shoe details. Both were wearing white tennis shoes and the gold and black socks that matched the football players WESTERNERS uniforms. Meg could hear the squeak of the shoes on the green flooring, the swish of the pom-poms gliding onto the counters. Then, another refrain of doors, locks, and finally, the talking resumed louder over the sound of both girls peeing.
--I guess. From the way Libbi says David talks about her though, it sounds more like she is just a sad, pathetic girl. A girl David was just too nice to at Jesus camp. I can ONLY imagine what kind of weird things this girl is thinking…
--For sure, said the other cheerleader. She must be pretty delusional. She’s not even that cute.
--And she’s smug, too!
Meg had heard enough. She ran out of the bathroom and down the hall, before the girls could finish and possibly see her. After rounding the corner back near the student council room, she flung herself down onto “the Community Bench: Lubbock High Class of 1997” and waited to die.
Finally, they streamed out of the classroom and David snatched her up by the elbow.
--Get lost, little lady? You missed my rousing speech about raising money to save Joyland from closing down.
--Your civic heart knows no bounds, Tex.
--I know… this genius is a curse. But seriously, Kate and I have to be in the auditorium early, so I am going to drop you off where Libbi is going to meet you so you two can sit together.
Oh, but all Meg wanted was to stay locked in that arm. The soft part of his inner arm floating against the soft part of hers…. Why did Libbi have to get involved in this?
But soon enough, Meg had passed from one arm pretzel to the next, as Libbi had the gaggy audacity to lead Meg by the arm into the line for the assembly.
With her other arm, Libbi pointed to her big pouty lips.
--Do you like this lipgloss? It’s new.
Do you kiss your swimmer with that cheating whore-y gloss on? Meg thought, but answered Libbi with an exaggerated nod. It was just lipgloss. It looked like any other.
The audtorium was brown and gold and black, like most everything else in the school, but a certain care for luxury was there that was missing from her industrial cinder block high school. The carvings on the ceilings and the chair railings seemed more like a Broadway theater than the place where novice trumpet and flute players would blow out Souza marches for the land of stars and stripes. And all that patriotic Lone Star stuff.
Meg would have liked the auditorium had it not become a point of conversation and pride for Little Miss Libbi. While Libbi chatted on about the architectural history of the high school (did she, Meg, know that Lubbock High was actually a magnet school?) Meg kept her eyes forward, waiting for either Kate or David to appear on the stage and start the whole thing. At least for the pleasure of the silence that would follow and the end of Libbi’s bonding excericises.
But as the lights dimmed, Libbi leaned in a touched Meg’s leg, just a little. Meg turned to look at her and for the first time, she stared the girl down.
--You know, Meg, David just adores you. Adores you. And because he does, so do I. We think you’re precious.
And that’s how Libbi won the stand off. There was a very easy way to put Meg in her place. Her mother had perfected the art. But never had Meg felt so patronized and so small.
In their regal theater, Meg closed her eyes as tight as she could until she saw spots and opened them again, hoping to catch a glimpse of that magnificent bird, that phoenix that would carry her away across the plains of Texas, just like David had promised he would do.
But there were no cranes or phoenixes in Lubbock that November day. Just baton twirlers and high school kids. No one was coming to get her from this. She was as good as Libbi’s prisoner.
Meg was beyond making her own decisions at this point. Her own judgments had gotten her here in the first place. From now on, (at least until she got back home) she would just do as she was told. She picnicked, she ate, she site-saw, she slow danced in Tex's room to blues song, until she had had enough.
--Enough of this dancing and chatting! You have to tell me what’s going on here. Why was Libbi with you at the airport, David?
--You never call me David.
-- Don’t change the subject. Talk to me.
-- Remember when I told you I had so much to tell you? That I wanted you to know how happy I am? Well now that you’re here, I can show you.
-- Oh, David, what on Earth do you want to show me?
-- Do you remember on the mossybench, when you told me about the kind of love you wanted to find? The kind of love that would be your alibi? And all the things you had been looking for all your life?
-- Yes?
-- Well, I just have to thank you. I’ve thought about that conversation so many times, and finally when I got back here, to Lubbock, to my home, I realized that I have that with Libbi. Everything you said you want… I have. And I feel so lucky. And so grateful to you for showing me that.
Ouch. Ouch. Meg could say nothing. She felt as though maybe something had ruptured in her brain or behind her eye or deep within her heart.
-- And Libbi thanks you too…
…Which was too much for Meg Evans. She nodded a kind of involuntary nod that looked more like an aneurism than agreement. Meg had just become someone other than herself. But she nodded to hide that she couldn’t carry the weight of humiliation one more minute, and would soon make a prison break.
--Oh, Libbi thanks me too, does she? I’m really glad to know I have earned the gratitude of Libbi. That just really makes this trip worth it for me, David!
-- Aw, don’t do that. I don’t want to hurt—
--Why? I want to know why. Not why are you with her—I’ll get to that later-- but why didn’t you tell me? Why am I here? Why didn’t you tell me?
He never looked away from her, even as she paced the carpet in his room.
--I was afraid you wouldn’t come.
--You’re damn right I wouldn’t have come!
--See! That’s why I couldn’t tell you!
--Oh this is... How could you want to humiliate me like this?
-- You have no reason to feel foolish. You’ve made me see my life so clearly.
--Meanwhile, I guess I haven’t seen a thing. Maybe I was blinded by THIS! Meg said and thrust her ring in his face.
-- Are you really still wearing that ring, Meg? Were we serious about those?
Meg didn’t answer, but needed to sit down. Aimlessly, she moved for the chair by his desk. Looking at the little collection of things from her: the pictures, the little elephant she had sent him, she also saw the ring she had given him glued to one of the frames. It was a bit crafty for a Texas baseball player. She took of her own ring and set it on the desk.
-- I need some air, Tex. I’ll see you at church.
This wasn’t the first time Meg had ever felt badly about herself. She’d felt like a traitor to her mom. She’d felt like a pawn in Ray and Betty Castro’s house. She’d felt helpless and weak before. She’d even felt crazy. But she had never felt like a fool before.
Any sane person would have let well enough be. Kids fell in love every summer. The world had always been preoccupied by the romance that only the season’s impermanence can cook. How many songs were there about life-changing loves of summer? The saddest songs she ever heard.
And every other sane person in the world would have realized what was never permanent and let go. But Meg had never been able to let go of anything. And for a Buddhist, she had an alarming refusal to accept that most things didn’t last a year, let alone forever.
But then why, Meg wondered the next morning at church, did she feel eternal sitting in a pew next to him. She had gone to Methodist church with her grandparents and cousins her entire childhood, but God never showed up unless David was there too.
Phoenixes, cranes, miracles, and break downs…she knew those were real. She knew the law of the universe was Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, but she’d never heard God whisper it in her ear until David.
What if, when she let him go, she would never hear it again?
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