and we’re electric sliding
and chicken dancing
and moonwalking
and bunny hopping
and after a few minutes,
I get this weird feeling—
this feeling like this girl and I
have known each other
all our lives.
And I Know This Might Sound Strange
Or at the very least,
sort of pitiful,
but I honestly can’t remember
the last time I had this much fun.
I guess I’d gotten so used
to having no friends,
to only spending time
with me, myself, and Pixel,
that I didn’t really realize,
until just now,
how ridiculously starved I’ve been
for human companionship.
Then the Rain Stops Falling
Just as suddenly as it began.
And a second later, the dark clouds part
like velvet curtains being pulled open—
revealing
one of those California sunsets
perfect enough to be on a postcard.
We stop singing and dancing
and just stand here gaping
at the way it’s painting the Pacific.
“Oh well,” she says. “I guess bath time’s over.”
“Time to change into some dry clothes,” I say.
“I don’t have any dry clothes,” she says.
“Oh yes you do,” I say,
as I grab her hand and begin tugging her
toward the bench.
I Can Hardly Wait
To see how she likes all
the things I’ve brought her.
But when I unzip the duffel bag
and offer it to her for inspection,
she doesn’t smile or thank me
or anything.
She just peers into it suspiciously,
then begins rummaging through it,
examining the snaps
on the raincoat,
sticking her hands inside the boots
like she’s searching for something,
reading all the labels
on the T-shirts and jeans.
Then she looks off into the distance,
like she’s listening to something.
She furrows her brows.
Her shoulders seem to sag.
She pushes the bag toward me
and says, “No thanks. I better not.”
I Can’t Believe My Ears
“You don’t want any of it?” I say.
“Not even the raincoat?
Or the granola bars?”
I scrounge around
in the bottom of the bag
and dig a couple of them out for her.
The girl licks her lips.
Her stomach growls so loud
it’d actually be funny if it weren’t so sad.
“Please,” I say. “Take them.”
Her eyes dart to the bars I’m offering her,
and back up to my face.
Then she looks off into space again.
And a second later she heaves a deep sigh.
“No thanks,” she says again. “I better not.”
And with that, she turns away from me,
slogs over to her sopping-wet sleeping bag,
wriggles down into it,
and disappears.
I Don’t Get It
What the heck
is wrong with that girl?
Why won’t she take
any of this stuff from me?
I cram the granola bars into my pockets
and have just begun to trudge away
when I hear a stifled sob
coming from the sleeping bag.
I stop in my tracks.
Did I imagine it . . . ?
But then
I hear another sob.
And suddenly
I feel like crying too.
I pull the raincoat out of the bag
and tuck the granola bars into its pockets.
Then I fold it into a neat bundle,
tiptoe over to the sleeping bag,
and silently lay my gifts down
next to it
before I turn
and head back home.
Mom Is Exactly Where I Left Her
Sitting in a haze of pot smoke,
watching the Home Shopping Network.
She glances over at me with bloodshot eyes
and asks, “You want me to buy you one of those?”
She gestures
toward the TV screen,
where a middle-aged woman is modeling
something called a Genie Bra.
“Nope,” I say.
“Totally sure,” I say.
“And don’t call me Mooly.”
Just then,
Dad barges through the door
in that permanently pissed-off
way of his.
“You’re home early for once,” Mom says.
“I’ve got to prepare for a trial tomorrow,”
he says through clenched teeth.
“It’s quieter here.”
Mom scowls at him.
“I should have known
you weren’t planning on spending
the evening with your family.”
Dad folds his arms over his chest.
“Maybe I’d be able to spend more time
with my family if you’d stop spending
my money faster than I can earn it.”
“Gotta do something to keep busy,” she hisses.
“Busy my ass,” he growls. “You’re just using
shopping as a way to avoid getting a life.”
“I’m using shopping as a way to buy things,” she snarls.
Then, as usual,
the shouting match starts,
and I hurry upstairs
to hide in my room.
It Wasn’t Always Like This
Mom wasn’t a raging pothead.
Dad wasn’t a workaholic.
We used to be
a regular family.
We played Monopoly.
We told each other knock-knock jokes.
We snuggled up under blankets
and watched old movies together.
Then
everything changed—
after the awful thing that happened
last winter.
But I’m not ready
to talk about that yet.
I may never
be ready.
I Guess By Now It’s Pretty Clear
That my home
isn’t exactly one of those
“home sweet” homes.
And even now,
even though I’m upstairs
in my bedroom
with the door closed
and my headphones on
and the music turned way up,
I can still hear my parents
yelling in the background
like a couple of off-key backup singers,
blaming each other
for making me
run out of the room.
I log on to Facebook
and stare dully at the picture
Rosa’s just posted:
a cheek-to-cheek selfie
of Jasmine and her,
grinning and crossing their eyes,
the ocean
shining behind them,
like a patch of perfect happiness.
I Would Have Tried to Stay Awake
If I’d known
I was gonna have
yet another variation
of my recurring coffin dream:
the one that always takes place
in the chapel at our synagogue.
This time,
I’m standing next to the coffin,
and I can h
ear someone
screaming inside of it,
pounding on the heavy wooden lid,
trying desperately to escape . . .
And then I realize
that it’s my own voice I’m hearing—
me who’s trapped
in that coffin!
And I can hear myself wheezing now,
wheezing and gasping for air
and I reach down to try to lift the lid
and set myself free . . .
But it’s been nailed shut!
And Then—It’s Morning
And I’m lying here in bed,
in a puddle of clammy sweat,
the angry echoes of my parents’ fight
still throbbing in my skull,
making this Friday
feel more like doomsday . . .
But then Pixel tugs on the bottom of my curtain
and yanks it open with his teeth,
revealing one of those shiny blue
after-the-rain mornings
when you look out your window
and you can see an entire mountain range
that wasn’t even visible
the day before.
Now that all the smog’s
been washed away
everything looks so clean,
so new, so hopeful,
that for the first time
I don’t feel slammed
by that overwhelming feeling of . . .
of overwhelmedness.
Pixel Grins at Me
His scruffy goatee
making him look sort of like
Colonel Sanders.
Then he trots over,
like a cheerful little white mop,
and licks my nose.
This is his way
of telling me that he loves me.
And also, that he has to pee.
I give him a quick scratch behind his left ear.
“I guess we better take a walk,” I say,
“before you have an accident.”
I climb out of bed,
stub my toe on the tent,
trip over the duffel bag,
and end up
sprawled on the floor
with my face in Pixel’s water bowl.
As I wipe the water off
with the sleeve of my pajamas,
he makes this funny choking sound.
I could swear
he’s trying to stifle
a giggle.
It’s Quiet in the House
Bizarrely quiet.
Mom and Dad must still be asleep.
As I head out the front door with Pixel,
I glance at the mantel over the fireplace.
No menorah.
No candles waiting to be lit.
No presents, no dreidels,
no little mesh bags of gold chocolate coins.
My parents have obviously forgotten
that tonight’s the first night of Hanukkah.
Oh well.
It doesn’t matter.
There’s only one thing
I want for Hanukkah anyway.
But no one
can give that to me.
And I’m Contemplating
This Monumentally Sad Fact
As Pixel tugs me from tree to tree,
past all the neighbors’ yards
festooned with fake icicles
dangling from rooftops,
cardboard snowmen
hanging ten on surfboards,
and plastic blow-up sleighs
heaped high with plastic gifts . . .
When an idea
suddenly pops into my head.
An idea so brilliant
it feels more like an epiphany:
Maybe no one can give me
what I want for the holidays.
But I can give
that gift to someone else!
I don’t know how
I’m gonna do it.
But I’m gonna find the family
of that girl who’s been sleeping on the bluff
and I’m gonna
get her home to them.
I’m gonna get her home to them
by Christmas Eve.
Which Means
I’ve only got ten days
to make that happen.
And judging from yesterday,
it’s not gonna be easy.
I’ve got to snap into action right now
and start working on gaining her trust!
I’ll stop off to buy her a cinnamon bun
and then head straight over to the bluff . . .
Pixel’s been attacking
his reflection in a puddle.
But now he stops and looks up at me,
his eyes blazing like two tiny torches.
He cocks his head at me, blinks,
and then starts straining on his leash,
pulling me in the direction
of Café Zella,
where they serve the best
cinnamon buns on the planet.
“What are you,” I say,
“some kind of mind reader?”
He glances back over his shoulder at me
like, “Why, yes, thank you. I am.”
Fifteen Minutes Later
As we approach the bluff,
my heart begins to race
like we’ve jogged the whole way here.
But when
we get a little closer,
it grinds to a sudden halt—
because that’s when I see
that the girl, and all traces of her,
have vanished.
Except for the raincoat I left behind.
It’s still sitting there, all by itself,
folded into that neat little bundle.
It looks so wretched.
So rejected.
So utterly alone . . .
I hop over the fence
and stoop down
to pick it up.
I check the pockets,
hoping they’ll be empty.
But the granola bars are still there.
So Much for My Winter Break Plans
I plunk down
on the nearest bench,
feeling as useless as a car
with an empty tank.
Pixel hops up next to me
and wags his bushy tail like,
“I’ll never leave you.”
I bury my face in his infinite softness.
Then I look up
and stare out at the ocean,
wondering where the girl has gone.
And why.
Am I such a loser that she’d rather
go to the trouble of packing up all her stuff
and moving somewhere else
than risk ever having to see me again?
I mean,
why did she have to disappear like that?
Why do people keep doing that to me?
Why do they keep on leaving
without even saying good-bye?
Pixel Cocks His Head at Me
Like, “It isn’t always
about you, you know.
People have places to go.”
“I wish I could believe you,” I say.
He snuffles his nose into my palm,
then rests his paw on my arm.
Which is his way of saying,
“This pity party has lasted long enough.
Let’s go sniff some stuff!”
“You’re right,” I say,
ruffling the silky fur on his head.
“No point in sitting around here all day.”
So I pick up the raincoat,
peel myself off the bench,
and let Pixel lead me away.
I Offer the Coat and the Cinnamon Bun
To the first homeless woman I see.
She plucks them out of my hands,
flashes me a toothless grin,
and croaks, “Bless your soul, missy.”
Pixel looks at me like,
“See? Not everyone’s an ingrate.”
Then he guides me across Ocean Avenue,
and into the farmers’ market.
As we meander
past stalls packed with radishes
and raspberry jam
and festive poinsettias,
I tell myself
to stop looking for the girl.
I tell myself it’s pointless.
I tell myself to just cut it out.
But I can’t
seem to keep my eyes
from scanning every face
in the crowd.
I Think I See Her
Trudging
down the alley
behind the AMC theater . . .
I think I see her
heading into the bathroom
next to the food court in the mall . . .
I think I see her
strolling down the ramp
that leads onto the pier . . .
But each time,
when I dash to catch up with her,
I see that it’s not her . . . It’s not her . . .
It’s never her.
NO DOGS ALLOWED
The sign is clearly posted
at the entrance to Pacific Park on the pier,
where all the games and rides are.
Pixel lifts his chin at me as if to say, “We aren’t
gonna let a little thing like that stop us, are we?”
I pull his service dog vest out of my backpack.
Whenever I need to bring him
somewhere that dogs aren’t allowed,
that vest sure comes in handy.
Don’t get the wrong impression.
It’s not a scam.
Pixel really is a service dog—
one of those emotional support dogs
who’s been trained to help anxious people
feel less anxious.
It’s just that . . .
That I sort of . . .
I sort of inherited him.
But my doctor
thought it would be a good idea
for me to keep him.
The Pier’s Hideously Crowded
Pixel and I
weave through the throngs
of families on vacation—
watching them whacking moles
and munching on funnel cakes,
and cracking each other up with inside jokes,
crowding in close together
to snap big beaming