我不记得什么时候起，发觉他在看我，塞尔。可我知道他在看。每次。我从他家房前走过时，他一直在看。他和他的朋友在房子前，坐在自行车上抛硬币。他们没吓我。他们吓着我了，可我不会让他们知道。我不像别的女孩那样过街。我走了过去，笔直向前，笔直的视线。我知道他在看。我要向自己证明，我不害怕任何人的眼睛，即便是他的。我要回头用力看，就一眼，当他是块玻璃。于是我那么做了。我看了一眼，可我看得太久，在他骑过我身边的时候，我看是因为我想勇敢些，一直看到他眼睛上灰蒙蒙的猫毛里去。自行车停下来，撞在一辆停着的小汽车上，撞到了，我于是飞快地走开。有人那样看你会让你的血结冰。有人看我。有人看。可是他是那样的人，他那样看。他是个小混混。爸爸说。别和他说话。妈妈说。

后来他女朋友来了。我听到他叫她罗伊丝。她又美又娇小，散发出婴儿皮肤的味道。我见她有时去商店为他买东西。有次在宾尼先生的店里，她站在我身旁。她光着脚，我看到那光脚丫上婴儿一样的脚趾涂成了淡淡的粉红，像小小的粉红贝壳。她的气味也是粉红的，像婴儿。她长着大女孩的手，骨头却像女人的骨头一样细长。她也化了妆。可她不会系鞋带。我会。

有时很晚了，我仍听到他们在笑，听到啤酒罐响和猫叫，还有树儿在窃窃私语：等呀等呀等吧。塞尔让罗伊丝绕着街区骑他的自行车，有时他们一起散步。我望着他们。她牵他的手，他有时停下来帮她系鞋带。妈妈说这样的女孩，这样的女孩是会钻进小巷里去胡来的女孩。不会系鞋带的罗伊丝。他把她带去了哪里？

我身体里的每样东西都屏住了呼吸。每样东西都在等待像圣诞节一样绽放。我想做一个焕然一新的我。我想要晚上坏坏地坐在外面，脖子上挽个男孩，裙子下有风吹过。不是像这样，每晚都对着树说话，欠身窗外，想像我看不到的事情。

有一次一个男孩紧紧抱着我，我发誓，我感到他手臂的握力与重量，可那是在梦里。

塞尔。你是怎么抱她的？抱着，像这样？你什么时候吻了她？像这样？

Sire

I don't remember when I first noticed him looking at me——Sire. But I knew he was looking. Every time. All the time I walked past his house. Him and his friends sitting on their bikes in front of the house, pitching pennies. They didn't scare me. They did, but I wouldn't let them know. I don't cross the street like other girls. Straight ahead, straight eyes. I walked past. I knew he was looking. I had to prove to me I wasn't scared of nobody's eyes, not even his. I had to look back hard, just once, like he was glass. And I did. I did once. But I looked too long when he rode his bike past me. I looked because I wanted to be brave, straight into the dusty cat fur of his eyes and the bike stopped and he bumped into a parked car, bumped, and I walked fast. It made your blood freeze to have somebody look at you like that. Somebody looked at me. Somebody looked. But his kind, his ways. He is a punk, Papa says, and Mama says not to talk to him.

And then his girlfriend came. Lois I heard him call her. She is tiny and pretty and smells like baby's skin. I see her sometimes running to the store for him. And once when she was standing next to me at Mr. Benny's grocery she was barefoot, and I saw her barefoot baby toenails all painted pale pale pink, like little pink seashells, and she smells pink like babies do. She's got big girl hands, and her bones are long like ladies'bones, and she wears makeup too. But she doesn't know how to tie her shoes. I do.

Sometimes I hear them laughing late, beer cans and cats and the trees talking to themselves：wait, wait, wait. Sire lets Lois ride his bike around the block, or they take walks together. I watch them. She holds his hand, and he stops sometimes to tie her shoes. But Mama says those kinds of girls, those girls are the ones that go into alleys. Lois who can't tie her shoes. Where does he take her?

Everything is holding its breath inside me. Everything is waiting to explode like Christmas. I want to be all new and shiny. I want to sit out bad at night, a boy around my neck and the wind under my skirt. Not this way, every evening talking to the trees, leaning out my window, imagining what I can't see.

A boy held me once so hard, I swear, I felt the grip and weight of his arms, but it was a dream.

Sire. How did you hold her? Was it? Like this? And when you kissed her? Like this?