After. Part 9

"Karma?"

Karma pulls back from Devon, her voice sweet again. "Yes, Ms. Coughran?"

Ms. Coughran is leaning against the stool now, her arms crossed. "You have something you want to share with everyone in the room?"

"Sure. I'm just explaining to . . . to . . . "-Karma snaps her fingers-". . . um . . ."

"Devon," Ms. Coughran says.

"Oh, yeah!" Karma says. "Sorry! I was just explaining to Devil-"

"Devon, Karma."

Laughter erupts around the room, some of the girls repeat it: Devil. DevilDevilDevil.

"Oops, gosh. So sorry, Ms. Coughran," Karma says. "I was just telling her why it is we count out the pencils."

"I'm sure you were," Ms. Coughran says. "But next time, let me do the explaining. All right?"

The noise in the room drops to quiet and still.

"Absolutely, Ms. Coughran. As my friend Anonymous always says, 'The less you say, the more you don't have to apologize.' It's good advice to put into practice."

Ms. Coughran holds Karma's gaze a long moment before turning back to the cla.s.s. "Now, ladies," she says, "direct your eyeb.a.l.l.s to the board." She tells the girls how they're to use the list of words in a poem, explaining that poems don't always have to rhyme. "We call it a poem, but it's really like a story, a story that ties together into one theme. Try to use as many of the words up here as you can, okay? If you can't do anything else with them, at least use each word in a sentence. And you can use any form of the word, in any order."

Devon looks up at the board.

Shadow

Imagine

Stars

Twist

Twilight

Courage

Sail

Clutter

Release

Diamonds

One girl raises her hand; she doesn't know what twilight means. Another wants to know if it's sail as in boat, or sale as like at a store when stuff's cheap.

Are these girls really that dumb? To not know the meaning of simple words? Devon sighs in exasperation.

Devon hears the sound of pencils rubbing across paper in the otherwise silent room. She has a piece of paper in front of her and a pencil, the eraser worn down flat. She sees Karma working beside her, her own pencil moving over her paper, her arm shielding her work from prying eyes.

Devon doesn't need an eraser because she can't write, not this a.s.signment. She won't even pick up the pencil, hold it in her fingers. She doesn't like poetry, not anymore. Poetry makes her feel and remember too much, and she doesn't want to remember. Or feel. Not about poetry. Not about that night, that first night, with him.

Devon sits there in her seat and stares at the blank paper.

The moonlight is overhead, spilling onto the walkway and illuminating the poetry etched in concrete under their feet. The water ebbs and flows softly against the sh.o.r.e like a whisper, its frothy white foam a delicate lace.

"Really cool idea," he says, "whoever thought of doing this."

Devon looks at him. "Um, sorry. What?"

"The poetry." He points to the sidewalk.

"Oh. That. Yeah . . ."

They are quiet and shy, now that they've left the noise and distractions of the restaurant. It had been easy to talk then, to tell him about playing soccer and the music she liked, the concerts she'd been to, the movies she'd seen. Easy then to laugh at his jokes and nod and smile at all the appropriate times while he told her about Denver, where he lived with his mom, and the summers he'd spent in Tacoma visiting his dad, and playing baseball.

But now, in the quiet dark, with him walking beside her along Point Defiance, where the land gently juts into the Sound, she has nothing to say. It's one of those uncomfortable moments when two people are walking together, but not touching. When they aren't saying much, but the silence is not companionable. When they're trying to read the other's signals, trying to figure out what the other is thinking, feeling. The tension is there, the fluttering is there, the wanting to initiate something is there, but the fear of making the wrong move holds them back and to themselves.

Then he does the perfect thing; he begins reading the sidewalk poetry aloud.

They stare down at the words.

"Well." He grabs Devon's fingertips with his and laughs. "Isn't that an upper?"

But Devon doesn't say anything, not immediately. That last line about the slippery grip on life. That is so like her mom-always reaching for something, but that something is always slipping out from between her fingers. No matter how tightly she holds on, she'll always, always, lose it.

But that's not Devon. She has a grip. She knows what she wants and where she's going. Devon shakes her head. She doesn't want her mom's intrusion here.

Devon smiles up at him. "Yeah, losing your grip-not a good thing. A definite downer."

"How true. So much better to hold on." He suddenly grabs her hand then, fully encloses it with his. "Right? Nice and tight."

They laugh together, a little awkwardly, and move on. She steps slightly closer to him, lets her shoulder brush his arm as they walk hand in hand. Lets her hip b.u.mp his. Once. Then twice. Will he notice? And what will he think of her if he does? Does it matter? The night air breezing over them from the water is cool; she can feel the warmth of his body beside her through his clothes.

Oh, what is she doing?

They move forward, stopping at each poem as he reads them aloud. After some time, he drapes his arm loosely around her back, his fingers lightly touching her shoulder. They send tingles through her body, gentle electric waves. She feels herself lean into him.

"My turn," she says the next time they stop. "I'll read this one." She nudges him playfully. "You're being a poetry hog." Her voice is higher. A flirty girl voice. The one her mom uses when she's met a new guy she likes.

Devon clears her throat, first scanning the words so she won't stumble over them.

His hand drops down to her waist, and he pulls her closer, his thumb through her belt loop as together they study the poem in a brief silence.

"Defiance," he whispers, his lips soft against her ear. "I get it. As in 'Point Defiance'-where we're at right now. Cool play on words."

A shiver runs through her because to her, they are more than just a "cool play on words." But . . . how could she tell him this? That in this fragment of time, those words are so absolutely true and totally hers? She, standing here with the water and the moonlight and the warmth from his fingers pulsing through her. She, embraced by the sh.o.r.e, treasuring this moment. She, consciously throwing them away-all those little rules she'd carefully constructed to protect herself-just for this moment. She, walking in Defiance. In defiance of herself.

"Are you cold?" he asks. "Because you're trembling."

His hand is no longer around her waist; he is holding each of her hands in his, pulling her toward him.

She shakes her head and looks away, down to the pavement, her heart beating fast. The next poem is there, waiting. Like a fortune, pulled from a fortune cookie in a Chinese takeout, it says: She looks up at him. She is so afraid. But . . . his eyes, so beautiful and wanting her. He is leaning closer now, gently touching her chin, his fingertips tilting her face toward his. Then, he kisses her-sweet and soft and urgent.

She closes her eyes, shutting out the stars and moon and water lapping against the earth.

She lets the moment take over.

She obeys the poem.

And kisses him back.

"Can I be first to read mine?" The thumb sucker with the Rasta knots, Destiny, asks.

Devon shakes her head, tossing the memory away, far and away where it needs to stay. She wraps her arms around herself; the room is suddenly too chilly.

"Those who want to share, can," Ms. Coughran says. "I'm not going to force you. And yes, Destiny, you can go ahead."

But the ghost of the memory lingers in Devon's mind. His eyes. The way he watched her when she moved. His eyes, and the warm and happy way they made her feel inside. They started everything. But that night at Point Defiance, it hadn't been the very end of everything. Not yet.

Destiny stands, lifts the paper to hide her face, and reads in a fast monotone. "My mind/A twist of clutter. As I lie in bed-"

"Whoa!" Ms. Coughran says. "Sorry, but my hearing aid can't keep up with that. Can you please slow down and start again?"

Destiny nods and reads again, slower this time. "My mind/A twist of clutter/As I lie in bed imagining my life/I watch the shadows on the ceiling./Memories sail across my eyes./I need courage to see them./I fight with myself/But then I close my eyes to the twilight/And release myself to sleep."

Silence for a moment, and then the girls in the room actually clap. The sound makes Devon jump.

Devon glances across the table to Destiny, astonished. She actually wrote that? But Destiny is sitting again, looking down to where her paper now lays on the table. Her thumb is back in her mouth.

"Take that as a compliment, Destiny," Ms. Coughran says. "What do we say when we get a compliment?"

"Thank you," Destiny mumbles around her thumb.

"That was very nice," Ms. Coughran says. "I counted eight of the ten words. Am I wrong?" She looks around the room, but n.o.body responds. "I especially liked 'My mind a twist of clutter. ' Isn't that so true? Particularly when you're lying in bed and things are weighing heavily on your mind? I'm sure all of us feel that way at times."

Devon can hear whispers popping here and there, but n.o.body says what they're thinking loud enough for the entire room to hear.

"Anyone else want to take a risk today and read theirs?"

"Me." The girl who counted pencils, the one with the shaved head, stands up.

"Okay, Jenevra," Ms. Coughran says. "Good. Read on."

Devon wonders at these girls. Why would they volunteer to read their poems aloud? It was a bearing of the soul, a letting down of the guard. Something Devon would never, could never, do again.

"I want diamonds, but they don't shine," the girl Jenevra starts. "I want to touch a star, but it's not mine./I want to find some courage, but I got lost./I want to sail in a boat, but it got froze with frost./I-"

Giggles erupt around the room.

Jenevra stops reading, looks up. "Yeah, that line really sucked-I mean stank." She smiles. "But I couldn't think of another word that rhymed with lost."

"Read on," Ms. Coughran says.

"I try to clean my clutter, but I make a bigger mess./I want to-"