From The Vantage Point of Ten, It All Might Be Possible by Elana Lavine
I know.
Their stories are full of other people. My dad my mom my gramma my sister. My dog. Every friend is their best one. Charly has the dirtiest feet, the loudest voice. Collapsing a juice box with one endless suck, eyes popping. She seems not ten, but infinite. Why don’t you have a boyfriend, she asks. I already kissed three boys. You’re in high school and you don’t even have a boyfriend?
Her incredulity matches my own.
Couldn’t you get a better summer job?
How I’d tried.
Do you go to parties? She mimes a glass in each sticky hand. Down the hatch, beeyatch.
No parties, no hatches, my phone silent. Each summer evening I lie chastely in my bed, tired but untired, wishing that I could rewind myself and instead, be Charly. Strutting fuzzy brown legs, instead of scraping mine raw with safety razors. In photos I would bare my yellowy teeth, curls raised with static, and believe myself irresistible, not forgotten. Wedged in the middle of small, yelling heads, I try to pretend that I have authority over these omnipotent girls. As though I’ve learned something with my extra years, not wasted them.
Charly could do this better, too. Dance up to the megaphone, bellowing nonsense like the drunk oracle of day camp. Boys would line up for kisses, blessed by her chapped lips. No doubt, no fear.
Was I ever ten?
Elana Lavine is a writer, physician and assistant professor living in Toronto, Canada. Her writing is found or forthcoming in Bright Flash Literary Review, Oatleaf, and Talk Vomit. She is querying a novel about the dark academia of medical school.
