The Most Dangerous Place on Earth(4)

She unfolded the note.

Dear Cally Calista Broderick,

You might not think I watch you but I do.

Every day in class, and at recess, and when you come to Ms. Flax’s room when I’m there because of my acommodations. In PE I see you when you run the mile around the marsh and you cut through the long part and go into that clump of trees with that asshole Ryan H. (I’m sorry Calista but he really is an Asshole.)

You might not think that anyone in this School sees you but I do. I mean sees you really. Did you know that you have the World’s most beautiful skin. It smells like rasberries. And you have the smallest softest blondeish hairs on your arms. I know this because I touched you one time, in algebra remember? You were reaching for a fresh pencil and I reached across at the exact same second and Boom!! I touched your bare skin. You might of thought that was an accident Calista, but what if it wasn’t?

Sometimes when I’m watching you I think about

I think that you are Perfect. People say Elisabeth Avarine is prettier than you just because she has a better nose but you shouldn’t beleive them, I don’t. First of all your hair is longer and wavier than Elisabeth’s. And second, when you look at you, you can tell that you aren’t Brain Dead. I mean I can tell that you think about things, like I do.

Calista, sometimes when I’m watching you I think about this day back in sixth grade. We were all standing on the flats during PE and looking up at the ridge of Mount Tamalpais, The Sleeping Lady. You know the Legend: The Mountain Witch sent her daughter Tamalpa to cast an evil spell on a Miwok warrior who went up the Mountain alone. But Tamalpa stole his gold headdress and all his power. The warrior didn’t care because he was already in love with her. Tamalpa fell in love with him too. She couldn’t help it. But she knew that she would only destroy him, so she poisoned herself with Deadly black blossoms. Then three girls came and covered her with a purple blanket, and the Mountain changed itself into her shape. Like a wizard. Or a ghost.

You know how the Mountain is always Beautiful, but it’s hard to remember its Beautiful because it’s always there? It’s like a poster that you hang up in your room because you like it so much, but after a while you don’t see it anymore. And when someone asks you what does it look like, you have to think. So that day in sixth grade we were trying to see it. The Mountain was deep green like jewelry. The sky behind it was bright blue. We were squinting to see The Sleeping Lady’s nose, boobs, waist and legs. You said, “Why do we call her Sleeping when everybody knows she’s Dead?” Everybody laughed but I liked it when you said that. Because no one else in Mill Valley would even think of it.

Calista, the Truth is sometimes I don’t know if I can stand to stay here in this Town. Miss Flax says I am smart and special and can be anything I want. But the thing teachers never explain when they say that is, How do you find out what you want? When the Lawyer people become Lawyers, is it because that is what they always wanted to be? When they were in Kindergarten playing with their Legos, did they daydream about Lawyering? If they did, then I am even weirder than people say. I must be like an Alien or something. Because I never thought about being a Lawyer, or a Doctor, or a Top Executive. I mostly think about how the Universe is these forever blues and blacks and blinking stars, how it looks like the inside of a big open umbrella but in actuality goes on forever and swallows everything, my house and my street and Mill Valley and California and America and the Earth and the Sun and all the Planets and the Galaxies—I think how the universe is this huge forever-big and at the same time small enough to fold up in my brain like an Origami box, where I can imagine it all. I think, how is it that these opposite things could both be True? I guess this is what Miss Flax is getting at when she tells me that I’m Special. I guess I know she doesn’t want to be mean to a kid and that is why she chooses to say Special, which is really just a nicer way of saying Alien. I wonder if you think about things like this too. There’s no way to explain it but I feel like you do.

Calista I want to talk to you. Every day I think about talking to you, but you’re always with Abigail Cress walking to her house after school, or else you’re stuck in the middle of that whole big group of other girls who are Nothing compared to you.

Calista I Love You do you think you could love me back? I could help you with your algebra homework sometime. If you wanted.

Tristan Bloch



The blue words blurred on the page. Cally’s breaths came shallow and fast. She was dizzy, and wondered if she should stick her head in a paper bag. (She had seen this on TV.) Tristan Bloch had called her Calista, which was her real name, private, and only for her mother to use. He knew about her and Ryan. He knew that she went to Abigail’s every day after school. Had he followed them? Had he peeked in the window while she and Abigail and Emma Fleed lay head-to-foot and pumiced each other’s calluses or stuffed their faces until they puked or debated who Ryan was going to choose as his girlfriend, Cally or that bitch Elisabeth Avarine?

Cally did not know what to think about the note from Tristan Bloch; she did not know what to do. If her life weren’t what it was, she might have asked her mother.

—

She took the note to Abigail. While privacy was a fantasy at Cally’s house, at Abigail’s they had nothing but. Abigail’s vast bedroom had turquoise wallpaper and a queen-sized bed and a mini-fridge stocked with Cokes and her older brother’s beer that they’d steal and share outside, in the dank space beneath the deck. The beer was bitter, but she loved its buzzing at the base of her skull and the backs of her knees, and she loved scooting close to her friends in the dark and conspiring. She was grateful for Abigail, for her giant, echoing house and parents who were always at work. (“They’re on New York time,” Abigail explained, which made no sense, but Cally was happy to be in a house like Abigail’s, so she kept her mouth shut.) If the Cresses did come home, they’d say hello and click off to their master suite across the house, not caring what the girls were up to as long as they were quiet.