Free Uses for Boys by Erica Lorraine Scheidt

camera, beyond me, and
     if I turn the picture upside down, like I do now, it’s like she’s falling out of the
     sky. Just falling, right out of the sky.
    She ignores the pictures and looks around the room, my bedroom that used to be the
     family room. “I’ll miss it here,” she says.
    I look around at what used to be the stepbrother’s room. And I think about the house
     like an architectural drawing, bisected so I can look into every empty room, all at
     once.
    “I won’t,” I say and put the pictures back in the cardboard box.

 
    josh
    Josh borrows a car to move me. It’s the first time he’s been to my house. He wanders
     from room to room with me trailing behind, our boots leave diminishing muddy footprints
     from the damp street outside.
    With the pads of his fingers, he brushes the backs of the furniture, the glass vases,
     the framed pictures and I see, using his eyes, how everything is new and clean. How
     the glass objects, the bowls and balls, are free of dust. He sure didn’t grow up in
     a house like this, he says. Am I sure I want to leave?
    He stops in the upstairs bedroom, my old bedroom, the one from when I was a little
     girl. Nothing has changed. It’s as though I still live there and I’m going to return
     home any minute and start playing with dolls.
    Neat rows of stuffed animals are arranged along the wall. Music boxes queue up, on
     a high shelf, out of a child’s reach. Josh walks over and stands in front of them.
     He’s giant against the child-sized bureau. He fondles each music box in turn, holding
     them in his beautiful hands, turning them upside down to peer into their clockwork
     hearts. He turns a worn key in one and we listen.
    My old bed is covered in a yellow comforter with a violet pattern. I sit down on it
     and Josh sits next to me. He puts his hand under my shirt and under my bra and holds
     my breast in the small of his hand. We sit like this, listening to the music box until
     it winds down.

 
    it’s always romantic in the beginning
    I drop out of school. It’s easy. I get a paper and sign it. I leave it on the kitchen
     table for my mom to sign. The school signs it. School’s over. I pass Nancy Baxter
     on my way out of the front doors and she’s hurrying to class but turns to look at
     me. Bye, Nancy Baxter, I think. And then I think: she doesn’t mean anything to me
     anymore.
    I call Toy. “I did it,” I say. “Don’t you want to do it too?”
    *   *   *
    I get a job in a cafe. I make espressos, cappuccinos, lattes. I make nine dollars
     an hour and tips in a jar. Nobody asks about my parents. Nobody says, why aren’t you
     in school? Nobody says, where’s your mother? Nobody ever says, where’s your father?
     But I rehearse the conversation. “There are no fathers in this story,” I’ll say. I
     think it’s a very good line.
    But I look for him. My useless father. I look for him at the cafe. On the street.
    *   *   *
    I move my boxes into Josh’s apartment. I put my comforter on his bed. I lie spread
     out on top of the bed, fully dressed breathing in and out through my mouth with my
     eyes wide open staring at the ceiling. Now I’m here and I live here and even though
     my boxes of things don’t seem to make much of a difference and the apartment is still
     artless and bare, I’m here. And when I breathe here it’s different. I stretch my arms
     wide open and take it all in.
    “Hug me,” I say.
    “Kiss me,” I say. And Josh tells me about all the things he’s done and I sit across
     from him in one of his two big chairs and I listen. We put on our coats and walk around
     the neighborhood. We walk out to the river, past the empty warehouses and the old
     rubber factory. We walk up the hill to where the rich houses are and steal a stone
     statue of a cherub out of someone’s garden. We put it next to our bed. I love you,
     I tell Josh. I’ve always loved you, he tells me.
    I call Toy and tell her how romantic it is. “I