Although I could likely have spelled and pronounced infelicitous,
could have used it in an essay or book report, I did not know, when reading
the names of the new student council members over the school’s
loudspeaker how to pronounce the last name of the boy
who had beaten me in my homeroom for the seat on the council.
Deutsch. And reading that long list of names, when I came to his,
I did not hesitate to pronounce it the way it looked on the page.
That’s when Cathy, reading beside me, burst into giggles, and I did, too,
and we had to turn off the PA system until we were sober enough
to read the menu for the day.
It was war. I never intended it that way.
Mispronouncing Gary’s name was a terrible,
sincere mistake. And it was war.
For the next two years, Gary called me names he knew I hated.
Rosie. Rosefairy. I’d like to think I didn’t mention
his last name.
He would come up behind me in Gifted and Talented,
and squeeze my skinny waist from behind. And always I would jump.
And curse him. And he’d laugh.
And then one day, just before summer, I said, “Gary, if you do that again,
I will throw you out that window.”
Gary did it again.
I did not mean to throw Gary out the window.
But the glass cracked and Gary cried and the whole room
stopped and stared. From somewhere outside of my body,
I stared, too, at the scrawny, mousy, over-achieving slip of a girl
who stood by the window, paralyzed in disbelief.
I think Mr. Foley laughed before he sent me to the vice-principal.
I think I cried. For days.
I paid for the window with my babysitting money.
Gary never squeezed my waist again.
I learned who I did not want to be.
It is funny now, when I tell my son. We giggle into his pillows,
and try not to wake his sister in the bed next to us.
I had forgotten Gary and his last name and the window until tonight
when I whispered to him in the dark before sleep,
“Sweetheart, It is going to be okay.
Everyone makes big mistakes sometimes. And we learn.”
“Even you, Mom?” he said, and I said, “Oh yes, there was one
particularly infelicitous day …”
This, entry, is unique from all your others, thinks I. A surprise to see your tiny, peaceful self looming large. Brought back a rush of my own angry selves. Not yet paid for all my shatterednesses…..
You are so right! Very different! I sense that it is not complete more to do here, either cut it radically or flesh it out thanks for sharing your resonance. Xo r
From: “comment-reply@wordpress.com” Reply-To: Date: Thursday, January 8, 2015 at 7:05 AM To: Rosemerry Trommer Subject: [A Hundred Falling Veils] Comment: “On an Anxious Evening, I Remember Seventh Grade”
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I, thinks it..perfection
Nice little narrative of the child. I like its shape, rather than paragraphs. It leads me down the page. But the poor boy’s last name, ah, that was funny, at least how you pronounced it in the story without actually pronouncing it. :>)
Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! I did not see it coming, this circling back, the pay-off of felicitous.
That scrawny, mousy, over-acheiving slip of a young woman. I clearly see her. See the stop-motioned classroom. Hear Mr Foley laughing under his freshly-caught breath, before sending you to the Office.
I love how this story comes to rescue your son. And I’m reminded of another poem, when you daughter asks whether you even cry, and you wonder how she’s not see that so many times.
sssssssiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiggghhhhhhhhhhhhh…
Hey, that¹s a nice connection with the crying poem
The whole thing is funny now, but it was so awful back then! Though Gary did friend my on FB a year or two ago 🙂
From: “comment-reply@wordpress.com” Reply-To: Date: Monday, January 12, 2015 at 10:28 AM To: Rosemerry Trommer Subject: [A Hundred Falling Veils] Comment: “On an Anxious Evening, I Remember Seventh Grade”
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