Free Dive by Stacey Donovan Page A

straightens up, there’s something on her head. Is that a hat? Did I miss something? Connor has placed an ugly black hat on her head.
     
    I cross the hall again. Change can bloom, but it can also wilt. What’s with the hat? Just seeing it makes me feel like something is really wrong, like, what’s Eileen trying to cover up? Maybe it’s me, unfathomably paranoid, but maybe I don’t want to make peace with Eileen at this moment after all.
    We’ve been avoiding each other for days now, ever since Sagamore. I’m not blaming her, no, not completely. But put a lid on it, I think to myself, that feeling of being willing to apologize to Eileen even though the fault wasn’t mine. Just to end the stupid fight. Because where is my friend? I need her. We’ve had a million stupid fights. But I suddenly remember how nasty she was at Sagamore. Who does she think she is beneath that dumb hat? Some mysterious movie star? No, not now. I don’t want to interrupt Eileen’s performance. The bad taste in my mouth is worse. So I turn. And then I see her.
     
    With this impossibly long hair, so long it falls past her hips. Like a black horse’s tail, it sways across her black jeans as she walks through the hall, passing me. I wonder if she sees me as she walks by. She doesn’t seem to, but she passes me so closely it’s as if she moves through me, so close I can smell the leather from her jacket. What kind of boots is she wearing that make no sound? I have no choice but to breathe her black motorcycle jacket in as she glides by, surrounded by the darkness of her clothes, this oh-so-cool and silent-footed girl, who I have never seen before.
     
    I wonder where she came from. I wonder if she’s real. Because as this stranger walks by, the bad taste in my mouth disappears. My mouthful of unanswered questions vanishes. There’s never been anything like this woozy, wonderful breath. Let the wind in.
    | | |
     
    I notice a book sticking out of her back pocket. She walks by so close I can’t help but read the title on the ripped paperback cover: Rimbaud. As I wonder who that is, it doesn’t even cross my mind to question why the world so suddenly seems to be neither frayed nor sensitive, in place.

Not the Piano-Strings Again
     
In the tree’s clear branches
Fades the sound of a hunting horn,
But lively songs still skim
Among the bushes and sky.
Let the blood laugh in our veins.
See the vines tangling themselves.
The sky has an angel’s face.
     
    Let our blood laugh in our veins. Not bad. That’s Rimbaud. How do I know? When in doubt, go to the library. Arthur Rimbaud, born in 1854, was French. He was, primarily, a poet who also wrote “prose poems” that he called stories. Already he seems unusual, and I like that. I also like what he named his stuff: “Illuminations,” “A Season in Hell,” “The Drunken Boat.”
     
    I made the mistake of asking my brother about Rimbaud when I spotted Wadstain lurking at the cafeteria door during my lunch period. “Rambo?” he said. “Ain’t you seen that clown in the pictures who shoots everybody on sight?” I laughed then and I’m trying not to now as I sit at the kitchen table, remembering. The truth is, I like my brother, even though he is a stoned and mindless creature.
     
    It’s late afternoon. I’m trying to get my homework done, including some doomed algebra problems, but my mind, once again, is wandering. That stupid Eileen hat makes an appearance. I fled the scene outside science, not so sure that I’m interested in knowing the face beneath the black fedora. Nobody wears hats, and even though I like unusual stuff, I don’t like it on top of Eileen’s head. I mean, really.
     
    Lucky is at my heels. He hobbled under the table himself, like some arthritic old beast, which he is not. Even though he looks like he might tip over when he shuffles around, he can walk. So Slow Motion is his middle name. Lucky’s getting better.
     
    My dad’s getting worse. The blood