Spring and Summer, 2017

Back when Charley went by Charlotte, she took me

to get soup and complain at a diner just outside

the city limits. She bought a papaya from a fruit stand

and told me to give it to a friend that I was fighting with,

and I did, and he laughed at me. I started spending more time

with Charlotte, learning about the Impossible Project

and how they acquired Polaroid so now they’re basically Polaroid

and what intermittent fasting is and how to trick yourself

out of cutting your own bangs at night. She would tell me

about her crush on Anakin Skywalker and then go back on that

and talk about her crush on Noomi Rapace and then ask me

if I’d ever considered going goth or soft girl or something more fun

than glasses-wearing and skinny. She herself condensed

all her eating into a six hour window and designed a diet

consisting largely of hummus and tomato soup and cheat meals

and would ask me for metabolism boosting tips. I told her try

being born tall and she called me a jerk. I asked her

how to stop letting people walk all over me and she said you should

grow a pair. When Charlotte nicknamed herself Charley and went south,

I realized that I should have left with her, a modern day Thelma and Louise

except both the girls have square jaws and they’re on a pilgrimage

to the bridge that Kurt Cobain slept under when his parents

kicked him out. Instead, I fantasized about the things I thought Charley would be doing—

going to the city pool to be baptized

by a Shakira impersonator from Orange County. Shooting

an airsoft gun. Taking a papaya, a big green firm unripe one,

and launching it like a bottle rocket so it spun and turned and splatted

on the top of a parking garage. Piercing her nose. I began a quest

to become Charley. I spun out and skipped town and drove 11 hours to Idaho

so I could light a candle on top of a hill that I first visited

when I was fourteen and eat Trader Joe’s sushi and Google

photos of Noomi Rapace in her goth getup and sit with her,

watch the cars on the expressway and laugh at them. When I got home

I looked up Charley on Instagram and found out she’d enrolled

in a city college, shaved half her head, and gotten a cat named Lucille. I considered

going to the barber shop, but instead I started Googling colleges

on the East Coast and best dog breeds for small spaces and how to grow out your hair.

spring and summer 2017