1.13

"Stooge. Stooge. Stooge. It does sound funnier the more you say it."
"When I'm right, I'm right."
"Oh. Youth. Youth. Youth. Youth. Not as good as stooge."
"You win some, you lose some."

I read Marco's autobiography and tried, for a moment, to reconcile wheat I had learned to what I knew. Marco Polo was a famous explorer who went to China or at least made up really convincing stories about going to China. There are no other famous Marcos except soccer players, and the only soccer player I care about is Ros. So, basically, Marco is also dead and famous. Or an athlete, but I prefer dead and famous. It sounds better, like the smell of potpourri instead of socks and exercise. Speaking of, potpourri is a hilarious word.
"Potpourri."
"Excuse me, what?"
"Potpourri. It's another word to add to your list of words that sound funny when you say them out loud."
"I'll keep it in mind."
Well. That wasn't too bad. Now I just had to think of something clever to say, on Friday, in a café that probably never been witness to a clever thought before, while operating on fewer than five hours of sleep. Hm. Clever.
"Marco, I . . ."
"Where's yours?"
"My what?" I asked, though I knew the answer already. He wanted my autobiography. This was supposed to be a trade, not a steal. But I had written all night and I had nothing. Nothing to give him. Nothing to sum up my life. Nothing to let him get to know me. I knew his past, his secrets, his hurt, his victories, and I had thirteen pages of draft and zero pages of autobiography. So I deferred and dithered.
"What do you mean, 'My what?' You know."
He called my bluff at least twice as quickly as I expected him to. I got panicky and my voice went shaky.
"Well, you know how we were supposed to write autobiographies and how I'm not good at that? Well, if you didn't know before, I'm terrible at it. Just god-awful. I wrote and wrote and wrote last night and I have a million pages of garbage. I started over again twelve times, and I never once got past third grade, when I skinned my knee and got an infection and didn't tell mom for weeks, because I didn't want her to worry, but of course when I went to the hospital, she freaked out anyway, and I really hurt my mom and I cried last night and called mom at two in the morning and she didn't get it, but she listened and told me she loved me and went to sleep. I don't know. I can't write my life, because I've lived it and it has too much to think about. If I were writing somebody else's life, I wouldn't cry about a skinned knee and call their mother at two in the morning. I swear I wouldn't. But I did for me. So you don't have an autobiography from me and I'm so so so sorry."

Marco just laughed. "Well, the whole point was for you to get to know me, so I don't see anything wrong with it. Just . . . start at the beginning, and tell me things that don't make you cry. I'll listen."
"No."
"Yes."
"Seriously, no. I'm too embarrassed."
He just folded his hands and leaned back in the booth.
"Why are you doing this to me?"
"I'm working on having patience. It's one of my biggest faults. So I'll wait you out, until you tell me a part of your story, or die. Whichever, really, is acceptable to me." He smiled and settled into his chair like he had said his say and was proud of it.
"Ugh."
"Hmm."
"Fine, but just this, ok?" He just smiled. Infuriating. I should get to escape and not tell him my story. "Ok. Once upon a time in the year I was born, a girl was born and it was me. You told me about how you got your name, so I got mine from my aunt. She's pretty cool, "
"You say aunt, instead of aunt. You pronounce it funny."
"Don't interrupt." He laughed. "My aunt has hair the color of cinnamon. I don't know if that's important. Anyway, I was born, and my mother decided that one was enough and she would never again. She hasn't. My dad wanted more kids, or at least he must have, because the after of when mom said she didn't want any kids was when dad started cheating on her, hardcore. Mom's a patient woman. She didn't talk to him anymore, but she forgave the receptionist and the waitress and the saleswoman from Macy's. However, when the police caught dad soliciting a prostitute, mom said enough. When he was endangering me with his philandering, he had gone too far. She kicked him out and divorced him. I have no idea, to this day, why she put up with him as long as she did." I stopped, and shuffled his autobiography around in front of me. "I guess none of that was really about me. I am the worst storyteller."
Marco laughed again. I guess I was doing something right. He looked so right, even in the fake leather seat of the coffee shop. The orange seat and the old light through the window and the dust in the air and the odd stillness made everything look like an old photograph left on a windowsill for forty years in the sun.
He looked me straight in the eye. "Catherine, what are you doing here?"
"Well, I failed at telling my autobiography, so I don't know."
"I mean with me. What are you doing here with me?"
I paused. I was completely unsure of how to answer him. Make a fool of myself and tell him that I was just admiring how much like a weathered photo he looked, or tell him that when I first found out who he was, I thought I would never see him again, or tell him that I was completely unsure of myself and had no idea what I was doing? The last sounded good enough. I said it.
"I have no idea what I'm doing."
"Don't play games."
He called my bluff.
Self, what do I do now?
Well, me. I suppose I could just lie and leave. That's always worked for me in the past.
I know, I'm me. I don't have to tell me.
I don't want to lie.
"Marco . . ."
"Catherine."
"What should I be doing?"
"Well. I think you should be giving me your phone number so I can text you things I assume will impress you and make you like me."
"Well, I suppose there's always that."
"You should accept a date on Saturday, and then go, and have a good time. I think you should get to know me, and let me get to know you. I think . . . well. I think a lot of things."
I leaned forward and gave him a dry look. "You're telling me to hook up with you? You're not very subtle, are you?"
He leaned forward and said "Catherine, I'll write it on a big sign and hang it on the clock tower. I'm not in the business of being subtle. Go out with me."
It was about then that I realized we looked like people in a movie who have been apart for years but still love each other and come back to the hometown where they fell in love and finally kiss after so much time and then cue the music and roll the credits. There was no music, so he got up and went to the counter to order another coffee.
I mean, he was super cute. Cute is such a weird word for a boy. He wore jeans that made his legs look longer and shirts that made his shoulders look broad. Somewhere in me, I hoped his legs were long and his shoulders were broad, but I quashed that immediately. His smile was always genuine, and it always looked like if it didn't get out of him, he would just burst like a happy Marco balloon. His fingers were delicate and poised, and he never moved them unnecessarily. He spoke like he knew what he was doing, and he obviously liked me. That last point was a shocker. I don't think I ever said that before about anyone, except Darryl in second grade, and that doesn't count. Anything that happens before age ten is like crimes committed before age 18; it just doesn't matter. Dangit. He was just right, and he didn't even look like he would cut my skin off and eat it in his underground lair.
Why couldn't I say yes? What was holding me back? Why did he get his coffee black and why did that seem so right and why did he sit down opposite me, of all the girls in the coffee shop who would probably jump at a chance to date him? Why did I think I was going to say yes anyway?
"Marco?"
He didn't say anything, he just looked at me like he knew what I was going to say.
"One date. One. And if you don't kidnap me or feed me to your pet tiger, we'll see."
And there it was again: his smile, trying to explode him into a million tiny bits of light. Well, we'll see, Mr. Marco, if I fall for your charms. I like limes, and hanging out with Rosalyn, and the Internet, and cleaning, and sleep, and Marco. If it stays that way, I think we'll both be luckier for it.

12.6b

[Catherine (this will be how I introduce these from now on)]
Chronologically:
When I was born, my parents had planned on a girl. This was not uncommon for them, as they had wished for a girl as each of my four brothers was born. Thus (though I was a disappointment), it came as no surprise that they would have to ready a boy's name for me. After ten minutes of arguing, my father won out. I'm quite glad of this, because my mother wanted to name me Andre, and that name does not suit me.
If I had been a girl, I would have been Rose and called Rosalita. I know this because "Rosalita" was painted above my bed for the first ten years of my life.

12.3b

Rosalyn and I didn't often go to parks, but when we did, it was an event.

In our senior year of high school, we went to a local park near Ros's house and set up our tents and camped there until a policeman came to kick us out. When the poor man saw that we weren't hardened hobos, and were instead impressionable young girls, he basically shut down. We offered him a can of our cherry pie filling, heated on our fire. P.S. if you ever want a delicacy, hang out in a tent for a three-day weekend and then take the top off a can of cherry pie filling and stuff the butt of that thing in the coals of a dying fire. I mean, minutes later, the can is too hot to touch with bare hands and the cherries inside are the best thing any human has ever tasted and you can take my word for that.
After Ros's last final, she got back to the room, threw her books at the bed, and said "I'm in the mood for a park. You?"

We gathered our supplies and went to the mall because the park was too cold. In the mall, there was an atrium with trees in it, where the soft winter light filtered through the sad green of the tree leaves a world away above our heads. We sat down with our armloads of bags underneath the largest tree in the place. My mother always said to not be afraid to spend money on the things I find important, so Ros and I had spent more than a hundred dollars on craft materials (Popsicle sticks, glue, sparkles, paper, colored pencils, crayons, foam shapes, pipe cleaners, and beads. We devastated the craft aisle of a major department store.
We started building posters (mine had a cat on it who wore top hats for a living).

Ten minutes later, our ploy worked. A teensy girl walked by, holding her mother's hand, and made noises so high and so happy I swear my ears died. She struggled out of her mother's grasp and turbowalked straight to us. She landed somewhere in the bead bags and started sorting through the bags to find the fancy sparkle bag. The mother looked mortified. "Susan! Susan, come back here. These nice ladies don't want their crafts disturbed."
That was my cue. "Actucally, we don't mind. My name's Cath, and this is Ros."
"Hi." This, from Ros, who was fastidiously assembling a portrait of her favorite rockstar, replete with besequined suit.
"We brought our crafts to the mall because it's boring to be alone with a glue stick." I had been practicing this line all morning. I thought it was rather clever.
The mother looked defeated. "Susan, what do you say to these ladies?"
"My name's Susan. I'm this old." Four fat fingers flew up. I'm pretty sure she doubled her age on accident.
"The other, Susan."
"Thank you."
The mother sighed like she was tired from living through all the years of all of time. "Say please."
"Ok." At this point, I was ready to laugh right out loud. I didn't. Susan turned her big, round eyes on me and said "Pleeeeeeese?"
"Of course, Susan. Here, take this pipe cleaner for your beads."

Susan opened the floodgates. Soon, we had a dozen kids rolling through our Popsicle sticks and sparkle glue. A set of twins was collaborating on a picture of their house. A boy had made a dinosaur of pipe cleaners. A baby had turned a huge pile of paper into a mess of squiggles that his older sister was folding into swans.

Two security officers came to make sure nobody walked over the kids. Parents filled the benches of the atrium, happy for the test from running between stores. We stopped crafting and just watched.

It was a good parking, I thought.

Of course, malls being what they are, and my luck being what it is, Marco saw us. He walked in and sat down next to me and didn't say much of anything for a solid hour. Ros and I looked and said nothing at each other forty seven times. I didn't actually count. Marco made a cathedral from popsicle sticks and glue. When he stood up, he had a piece of construction paper stuck to his butt. I didn't laugh.

"Thanks," he said. "Weird thing you're doing. I like it. See ya on Friday."

Of course, I tried to be silent, but Rosalyn poked me in the ribs.
"Cath? What's this?"
"Oh, Ros, I think it's nothing but it might not be nothing, so I didn't want to tell you about it in case it was nothing, so Marco and I met up after my final on Tuesday and he asked me on a date, and--"
"What about the skin? Did you do what I said?"
"I did! I said I can't date boys I don't know but he said we should get to know each other so we're sharing autobiographies on Friday." I clapped my mouth shut and frowned.
Ros laughed at me. "Really? Is that it? I said only use the skin defense when a boy was asking you for sex!"
"I panicked!"
Ros shook with laughter. "So, are you gonna do it? Are you gonna write an autobiography?"
I shut up and put the finishing touches on my cat poster family.

Marco's cathedral went above my computer when I got home.

11.26

I didn't quite pass out, of course. That would be silly. I didn't allow myself that luxury.
Ok, self.
Self.
Ok. Breathe, me. I can see me not breathing. Self, I have to make me breathe.
Gasp.
Good job, me. Again.
Hey, self. Am I going to get my skin eaten by Marco Who Speaks In Class? Is that my fate, me? Answer myself.

11.24

Black black black he takes his coffee black. I don't know why, but this strikes me as the manliest thing anybody has ever done.

11.10b

On the day of the final, professor musicpants mixed the class and put on a calm classical cd and passed out a stack of tests and then probably danced a little happy jig in his little happy heart because he just enjoyed causing so much pain and horror in his students.

11.10

In the last few days of Listening To Music, I knew I would never see Marco and never get to rely on him to Speak In Class again (or at least, I wouldn't be able to rely on him to secure the class a participation grade anymore). So I studied his ways and wiles. This was my only motivation. Don't believe the hype. I didn't like him, I just wanted to know how he could talk about so many things in class. And now, I have denied that I liked him too vehemently and you will assume I liked him anyway. Go ahead. Do what you like. I know the truth.

11.8b

I like the taste of citrus. Limes, especially, are very good because they taste so good and clean and exotic and new and fresh and not at all like what you'd expect from a pitted green football shape that grows on a tree. They're almost perfect. Lemons are good too, because you can turn them into all sorts of things. Lemonade and lemon meringue and zest and lemon wedges for contests to see who can strip the enamel from their teeth the fastest. And grapefruit (so excellent as breakfast food or basically anytime food) because there's so much citrus in a grapefruit I don't have to work so hard to eat it. And oranges make me happy (especially navels, I mean who can turn down a fruit with a belly button) because they're sweet and tangy all at once and oranges are just so excellent as juice. And the segments? Segmented fruit? Whoever invented that should be taken to a dream castle where their every wish comes true. It is the best idea ever in the whole world, and it is so perfect that I can always tell when I am exactly halfway done with a fruit. Apples can't do that. Yeah, that's right. I compared apples to oranges, and oranges won.

11.7b

Interesting fact about me: I can't bring myself to hate celebrities. Try as I might, I just cannot. I think it is a virtue to hate people freely and without restraint, because it shows some measure of mental cohesion and fortitude to make the choice to actually concentrate all the desires and fears of the mind into a single package of pure, unadulterated hatred.
I was never blessed with this gift. Instead, I was given the ability to see someone else's side in every argument ever. I can see the point that Brittany is just a tortured soul, Mr. Crocker. Or is it Ms? I can't tell anymore. The point is hardly whether or not Chris Crocker has chosen xer gender or whether xe will just fade into oblivion when all the people who have seen xer videos are dead. The point is that I feel both sides of every argument, and it hardly helps me sleep at night.

11.7

I realized at about November that I would have to learn to coexist with EnriqueRosalyn if I was going to continue without blowing up much longer. So I
"Hey, Rosalyn?"
"What's up?"
"I don't know--you wanna hang out on Sunday with a bunch of people? I know about this art exhibit the art department is doing and I thought--"
"You what now? You want to hang out with people? Catherine, are you ill?"
"No, I'm fine! I just don't want to go alone!"
Ros withered me a bit with her glare.
"And! I think it would be a great opportunity for me to get to know Enrique if he's going to hang around for much longer."
Rosalyn didn't swallow my lie, but she took the truth like the proverbial fish: hooklinesinker.
"Oh! That's great! I'll ask him if he's free on Sunday, and then where is this place? I bet we can get there by foot, right?"
She ran around the room trying to figure out where she was for a minute and then turned abruptly and grabbed me in a hug.
"Thanks, Cath, for trying. I know dealing with me is weird for you sometimes."
She had sad in her voice, so I just held onto her. There wasn't anything else to do.

11.6

The funny part of rooming with Rosalyn is that she has fits of clean. Most of the time, her side of the room is trashed (she is spread mostly everywhere [and not just clothing, sometimes it's actual garbage. She ate the remains of three pizzas one day (she must have gotten them from a friend) and left the boxes on the ground] and I try to contain it to one side [not mine]). Every once in a while, though, the piles mysteriously disappear like a magical cleaning genie visited the room and granted Ros one wish: a floor to walk on. The fits of clean mysteriously coincided with the sporadic dates with Enrique. They weren't every week, so I couldn't guarantee any kind of regularity, but once in a while he would call and the room would be clean when I got back after lunch and I would know to text before I came back to the room. If I got a reply, it was an all-clear. No reply meant no entry.
I started carrying a heavy coat on days when the room was clean. I stuffed big knit mittens down in the pockets and when I felt the urge strike me, I wandered outside into the night.

It never snowed. It was supremely annoying. I wanted it to snow if it was going to be cold, because cold without snow is like brainfreeze without ice cream, like a plot without an ending, like nausea without a theme park. Totally not worth it. Since it never snowed, I had no need of snow boots. It was a big disappointment.
I did wander around the campus and learn it at night, however. That was a bonus. I didn't know before that the big clock on the ad building was illuminated from within. It appeared to be a tremendously old lightbulb, the kind that have a big swirly shape on the top because they were blown, not molded, because they were so tremendously old. I could not see the bulb, of course, but I assumed from the acid paper yellow of the light that it must have been incandescent. Every other bulb on campus was energy efficient halogen white. Impersonal. Cosmetic. Clean. Hateful. But that one bulb, way up high on the edifice of the grand old building--now that was home. It was safe. It was warm. If Ros didn't respond to my desperation texts, I sat and stared at that warmth so far away and imagined what it must be like to live in the clock (with the ticking regularity and the measurable pace of time, nothing out of place, nothing unexpected, ten, then eleven, every night as it had been and as it would be and nothing to displace you out of your home with an impromptu makeout session with a boy who certainly wasn't nobody and a girl who exploded too much for her own good and I just don't know why life can't follow the pattern I gave it when I was smaller and when life was easier to control) in the tower of the ad building.

And then I got the text and everything was alright and I could go home again to Ros and we could fall asleep on my bed for no reason other than it was warmer and it reminded us of high school.
"Ros?"
"Cath."
"Have you seen the clock tower in the ad building?"
"Cath, you know I don't like analog clocks."
"Oh, yeah. Good night."
Good night, me. Good night us. Again and again with the disquieting irregularity of broken faucet.

11.5

Time to face the music.
Not figuratively.

11.4b

[Really, it's not the content that's killing me. I could probably go on forever like this. As a matter of fact, I know I could. I could just write and write and write and never finish. It's the PACE that's killing me. I just don't feel like I'll ever really quite catch up. So I'm writing another thousand something right now, just to put myself within striking distance of being caught up. I NEED 8,000 WORDS! I have 5.5! CRAPPPP]

11.4

For a while, I assumed my life would go on without incident, that everything would be the same, and that I would continue to cling to walls and violently invade the shadows and everything would be alright.
I forgot basketball intramurals.

11.3

After classes, I ran back to the room Ros and I shared (in a co-ed [terrifying] dormitory [lame] on campus [helpful] which, as you will be pleased to know, had suite bathrooms [thank God]). I burst in the door, ready to ask Ros all the questions. I opened with
"Enrique--"
She closed with
"He's a boy. He's not the only one I find cute, anyway. I'm not you, Cath. I'm not you."

11.2

I saw Enrique today. Enrique isn't nobody. Enrique Iglesias sang songs when I was really young and gullible and pop music just because. Enrique is the name of the boy who apparently wears plaid shoes when he's not beating Ros at soccer. He stopped me in the hall of the Marianne Vargas building and asked
"Are you the girl?"

11.1b

In my all-consuming quest to become the best I can be without ever once standing out or being noticed, I came into the same snag as always: Rosalyn. Ros was dynamic fire, twisting and contorting into every space she could find. Since she had so much energy, she went out for intramural sports. I was very very proud of her but at the same time very very afraid of the games. Ros walked, fearless, into huge sporting events like she was a goddess, trailing a retinue and letting her hair fly free in the breeze. I crept in like a mouse, keeping close to the walls and avoiding eye contact with anyone who smelled like a stadium bathroom. She blew in like the strong west wind and I faltered my way through the stands like an inconsistent spring rain. Our metaphors didn't even align. That's how far apart we were when it came to sports.

Yet, Ros dragged me into the stadium to watch her play nearly every time. "We're freshman! Homework is for upperclassmen!" was her admonition. So she raged across the field in reckless abandon and I waddled through the stands looking for an appropriate place to sit.

10.31

Ros and I attended the best high school in the state. We won at everything (spelling bees [does anybody ever know why it's a bee?], basketball tournaments, and social activism [and I recognize it's not a competition. We still won.]). People wore sweaters and scarves and the boys rolled up their sleeves when they worked at computers not because the desks were dirty (they weren't) but because it was what you did with sleeves. Girls' skirts were pleated or layered but just generally cute and nobody thought it was weird to wear skirts, even though jeans are a sure-fire guarantee that Rocky the jock can't see up your skirt when you forget to cross your legs in anatomy class. Basically, as you can see, high school was hell.

10.30

[I have decided to restart Catherine. I was just . . . hoping? Hoping is the right word. I was hoping for something more alive and vibrant and I just can't seem to do it. I guess it's true: change one thing at a time. I was trying to do too much (a female protagonist, a third-person narrative, a happy ending) all at the same time, and it just tanked. So here's try number two. I'm starting over. Thanks for hanging in there for as long as you did. I hope things are better the second time around.]

Catherine is the name of nobody famous. Catherine the Great, Catherine of Aragon, Catherine Zeta-Jones--you get the picture. Old dead ladies that nobody cares about. And whether or not they're all dead (Catherine Zeta-Jones looks half-skeletal anyway, give me a break), people laugh when I say that it's just me and aunt Cathy holding down the fort. And then mom tells me that self-deprecating humor is for losers.
Good job supporting your only daughter. When the judge asks why I ran away, I'll cite verbal abuse.

Since I'm basically destined to be dead and famous, I thought I'd enjoy being alive and unfamous for as long as it lasted. I chose boring, boring coursework, and boring, boring books to read. I did boring things on the weekend and generally avoided excitement. It's difficult to fit in and be invisible in college unless you do. The only flaw in my plan (the only gaping hole) was Rosalyn. Is Rosalyn. Will be Rosalyn. She is in all tenses simultaneously in a feat sure to make God himself contemplative. She is energy and explosion and my best friend. Rosalyn isn't bad, though. She drags me out of our caveroom and into the screeching light of day. She listens to my rants. She shares her rants with me. (I feel like hers are more vibrant than mine, because she has lived ever so much more life than I have. After she complains about guys proposing endless love to her, I start to feel like I've read a harlequin novel titled Rosalyn: The Taming of the Soul with her and some shirtless, muscled Mexican on the cover being attacked by a snake that symbolizes his sexuality which she tames violently with a sword of her own battle-hardened psyche. Basically, Rosalyn is amazing, and her stories are the best.)
Hey, self!
Yeah, self?
Can I ask a stupid question?
Of course, anything for me.
Why am I friends with Rosalyn?
This is an excellent question. Let me explain it to me. We met in high school when she got in trouble and had to go to the school library while I was tutoring there. I taught her Math. She taught me life. It was an environment like those tiny white birds that clean the crap out of alligators' teeth. Symbiosis. Mr. Patterson would be proud that his biology lesson was not a waste. Little did he know that one student would use one thing from his class one time to explain something completely unrelated. Thank you, high school, for teaching me that anything is useful if you break it first. So Rosalyn and I became friends before I knew her, if that makes any sense. We got to know each other in the library where she couldn't be loud, and by the time she invited me to her house to meet her whole family (there are six of them), I had already shared with her my deepest secrets and there was no looking back. We were best friends.
So, self, I guess you could say that the force that brought us together was elemental, unavoidable, and completely perfect.
Thank you, self. You did a most admirable job, if I don't say so myself.
Aren't we clever?

I'm nineteen, which mom says is a horrible age for me (I should be eight again when the world was simple).
I'm in college, which Ros says is a great place to be (all the smart boys go to college).
I'm wrong in all the right places, which I says is a mighty fine way to screw up your life.
I'm Catherine, dead and famous. Pleased to meet you.

[Curtis is writing last lines for me. "And Petey said to Julianne 'Thank you so much.'" "And they all lived happily ever after, except for the three lying dead on the floor." "And they all rode away to find new adventures. . . " I think he wants to go to bed. I like Catherine more already. I have plans.]