What's Up With That Part II

I blame the pounding in my head on the hazy glow of the fluorescent lights, on bad tuna fish, on anything other than Julio and his new girlfriend.

“I’m eating my lunch,” Julio says.  “Why don’t you join us?” 

If it were possible for plasma to shoot out of my eyes and incinerate the two of them, this is the moment it would happen.

Julio shrugs.  “Sit down, Adrianna.”  He pats the spot on the other side of him.  “This space is all yours.”

I look back at Bev and Gitt.  They want feathers.  And I turn back to Julio and Kimmie.

“Where’s your other boyfriend?” I ask.

At first Kimmie doesn’t understand that I am talking to her.  But I keep staring at her and she gets it and then she stammers, “Who?”

“Tell Julio about the Mustang that gives you rides home sometimes.”  And I wink at Julio and saunter back to Bev and Gitt.  Did I dare look back?  Oh yeah.

There are feathers everywhere.  They float through my mind, colorful, long feathers of the fight I started between Julio and his other girl.  And I play them over and over.

What boyfriend?  I don’t know what she’s talking about.  Who is he?  Who is she?  The feathers dance in the air, and Gitt and Bev laugh and tap each other silly. 

I get caught up in their celebration too and how it seems almost choreographed.  And all of the best moments from lunch today too, from Gitt and Bev’s high-fiving and their contagious goofy grins from other sisters hanging around sisters at the table, sisters I do not even know.  It all makes me believe in an outcome. 

My eyes turn towards Julio.  I imagine he will beat a path straight back through the mess to me.  But this isn’t what Julio does.  He follows the girl with the dirty sneakers.  And my seconds ago smile slides off my lips.  I see a ton of feathers all over the cafeteria floor, but they aren’t all Kimmie's hot pink.  Some of them are two tones.  And I almost feel bald.

When I get home, I stitch myself up by flipping through Vogue, one of a dozen that had been collecting dust in Gitt’s closet.  I peel back the fruity scent from a perfume sample and rub it between my boobs.  There’s a woman in the ad with fantasy long, glossy black hair, the kind that a rock star's girlfriend might have.  But the most interesting thing about her isn’t her flashy red highlights that look as if she just had them done at Panic, Gitt’s favorite salon; this woman has that something you can’t buy.  She knows there’s nothing she can’t do in the world.  I sit the same way she does but instead of the cool swing in some mythical looking forest, I’m on top of faded cartoon sheets. 

The handsome devil in the ad with her has this six-string.  He kneels before me, he’s got a gleam in his eyes.  "I'll make you queen over Kimmie in just one song," he says.

I look out of my window and think about Julio saying the same words and try to feel the way that would sound.  It isn't hard.  The sun has started going down but the patch of artificial turf out front still looks hot.