The Blue Girl Read Online Free PDF Page B

no longer makes me laugh.
    One day toward the end of summer, when the children were fighting, Greg and Caroline—Greg the Boy, who helped keep me here, and sensible Caroline, who reminds me of why I stay—I left the house and drove out to the lake to throw stones. They skimmed the water the way my brothers had taught me when we were summer people, embarrassed by our parents’ English. When the ripples floated toward me, I went into the lake in my jeans and sandals and stood until the first big ripple broke through my body. Right after, the blue girl came from nowhere, and I thought, Now I have to stay .
    In bed at night when I can see traces of the townie boy in my man-husband, I sing, Tell me your secrets, I’ll tell you nolies . He smiles and says, You used to sing to me all the time. Do you remember? I smooth back the graying longish hair with my fingers, an old habit, and say, No, I don’t remember. What did I sing?
    Of course I remember, but there is such a thing as telling too much, Mama used to say. Some things you should keep inside. And so I do.
    Greg the Boy swears in the house. When I named him Gregorio and nicknamed him Greg, Mama took him in her arms and said, This boy will always be a boy, Magda, this Gregorio, this Greg the Boy .
    He has always been impetuous, this boy of mine, reluctant to take direction, even at three-and-a-half. Try to teach him to ride a tricycle, this boy knew better. But this swearing is new, fucking this and fucking that , and all of this grabbing he does. I don’t remember my brothers having mouths like his or moving their hands the way this boy does, but I think Mama was right about him. Greg the Boy .
    He comes into the house and throws his sneakers on the floor and says, That fucking blue girl, man, she is so fucking blue, how the fuck does someone get so fucking blue?
    This is the son who kept me here, who grew inside me and became this swearing, freckled, lanky boy who can’tkeep his hands to himself. Such a boy this boy is, with fuck on his mouth. He wants a rise out of me, but I won’t give it to him. Mama taught me too well how to play along.
    I say, Listen, boy, this is no way to talk in my fucking house, and there are other girls you should be worried about. Leave the blue girl alone .
    I can play his game.
    He laughs and says, Ma, you are such a fucking gas .
    He walks about the kitchen with his hands moving around in his pockets, his head slung low like it’s too heavy to carry, like he hopes his head will snap off. I know the feeling. I am making the pies, baking the cookies for the tops and the bottoms, mixing in the chocolate, because we’re meeting tonight, and I need to assemble all the parts of the pies. I had never heard of moon pies before this, before Irene said we should visit the girl and bake moon pies for her. She called this morning and said, We need to go tonight, Magda, it’s Tuesday, don’t forget , and I said, Don’t worry, we’ll go, there is no way I can forget what day it is .
    Greg with his sloping shoulders and freckled hands thinks he can get away with standing in my kitchen while I make the pies, but I say, Get out of my kitchen, boy, you are failing biology .
    He says, How the fuck do you know?
    I say, I have my fucking ways .
    I get out the bowl and mix the vanilla and the egg whites and the marshmallow cream into the filling. He’s failed biology, this boy who kept me here, this boy who cannot understand cells when it was the splitting of cells that made me stay in this sorry town.
    Zygote , I say, shooing him with my spoon.
    He says, What’s that? And I say, You should know, my boy, you of all people should know, before you have one of your own . He lumbers out with his hands at his sides, his arms like puppets with the hands broken.
    After the filling is ready, I start melting the chocolate. This is the best part, the stirring of the chocolate as the bubbles rise up and then pop. I