honeysuckle

Honeysuckle laughed loud from the showers in Residence and sang at the top of her lungs. “If I could pick my friends, I would,” I’d think in my bed late at night. She let me come to the library with her. She studied all the time. She studied in the science library instead of the arts one as if that would make it more serious. She hated her name. Didn’t hate it really but was annoyed by it. Meanwhile, I’d be telling my mom, Honeysuckle and I did this, and Honeysuckle said this, and my mom would think I had an imaginary friend.

Honeysuckle had an exercise bottle for water, and I had to keep getting up to use the water fountain.

I was trying to get into a creative writing class and wrote poems like “mother and son” pretending I had to raise a kid by myself and was handling it fine. The poem was such fantasy and skipping on the lawn. It rhymed.

I’d tell Honeysuckle as much about me as I could, while she packed her schoolbag. She gave me a sponge to stick up my vagina. I don’t think I even took it out of the box. It just sat in with my underwear drawer like an air freshener.

Burrita had a mouth louder than Honeysuckle. Burrita would open her mouth and there would be this black hole. Burrita would say to Honeysuckle, “Let’s make everyone think we’re a couple,” and they would stroll down the sidewalk holding hands. They’d plunk their salads down in the dining hall and everyone else relied on glasses of pop.

Shrieking came from Honeysuckle’s room. Burrita was laughing knocking her head on the wall. Soon everyone knew. “I haven’t even had SEX,” Honeysuckle screamed, “and I got CRABS!” Burrita and Honeysuckle walked off with all Honeysuckle’s clothes bundled in sheets, Burrita telling everyone to stand back. Someone dropped a popcorn maker into my hands.

By next semester Honeysuckle and Burrita moved out. They made coffee in the morning and stirfrys at night. “I had a dream I peed oil,” Burrita said.

I walked by the dep where I had seen Honeysuckle buy a yogurt cup and ask for a spoon. Once she had bought three oranges.

I was sitting in Honeysuckle’s room and she had to wash a plate that was in the sink. They didn’t have a living room. Burrita’s room was closed off by a purple scarf.

Burrita had made a huge lasagna and offered Honeysuckle some without looking at me. I felt like a little cactus plant on the window ledge and then I was outside.

By the end of they year, Honeysuckle announced she was living alone. I asked her who I should live with and she said Burrita.

º º º

Burrita gave me the purple scarf to drape over my window. I didn’t look outside the whole year.

My friend brought over a pineapple. “I tried to pick something you’d find original,” he said. It looked like some kind of doll. I carried it over to the counter by its hair and made him cut it.

“I’ll just carve out the time and come see you,” Burrita was saying to Honeysuckle on the phone.

Burrita got a lot of calls from this guy named Westley. “You’re calling me from an airplane. Are you insane?” she told him. “Is the fact that you live over a bar supposed to impress me?” He wanted to take her to Paris once and she wouldn’t go. “Who do you think you are?” she hollered back into the phone.

She started to pace the floor with her combat boots at the crack of sunlight.

Westley had built his bed three feet from the ceiling that he covered in glow-in-the-dark stars. “Can I lie in your bed?” I asked him. He nodded and went to look for Burrita.

We heard he had fallen from his bed one night. His parents had to be called in from New York and looked over their son like he was a shattered coffee table.

º º º

Honeysuckle’s new boyfriend held up this box I had decorated for her birthday and twirled it around. Honeysuckle had gone out to walk the dog. He said, “So, Burrita told me you’re still a virgin.”

He got up when Honeysuckle sat back down on the couch. She said, “This is the place where we watch the news channel all night.”

I said, “Life got scary. I went out with my best friend and you went out with an adult! But it’s our time for life to be scary.”

But of course, I didn’t say that, I just made fun of the CDs in their music rack.

I was waitressing and tired and the supermarket was an extra bright place. Honeysuckle’s boyfriend was staring down the people who walked out. He grabbed the French breadstick from out of my shopping bag and said aghast, “It’s just flour and sugar.” I smelled liked restaurant. He was cracking the bread in his hand, “You can roll it up into a ball. For the same price, you can get a freshly baked one from the bakery down the street.”

I stared back. “Listen,” he said, “I’m sorry. Honeysuckle just got me to quit smoking. Carry on.”

I thought I’d make it out the doors but he hollered, “Why don’t you give Honeysuckle a call?”

“You wouldn’t believe how much of an upkeep a dog is,” Honeysuckle said, “and how many tickets I’ve gotten for letting it loose in the park.” We ducked into these apartment grounds with a pool and deckchairs and were a little nervous about getting caught. She told me a story about how her and her high school friends crashed this hotel pool and went skinny dipping.

“How could you let me live with Burrita?” I said. My tone made her call out insanely cute names towards the dog. She put her hand on the dog and gazed into the pool. She looked like she wanted to check into a hotel even just for a night.

She said, “I thought you guys would get along.”

I asked her if she still was friends with Burrita and she said, “Burrita is a high-maintenance friend.”

“She called me a pig,” I said. We both laughed.

“She thought I was a pig too.”

“But she wouldn’t call you a pig,” I said. No one was in the pool. “Burrita talks to me through this chalkboard she put on the wall.”

Honeysuckle said, “I miss though when she is caring and sweet like when she’d make me a whole lasagna.”

We hurried past the guard and were free. She chirped rubbing down the dog, “We’re going to go home now and make me a beautiful cappuccino.”

That day I forgot that I hadn’t drunk any coffee and ended up under a black veil in the Emergency waiting room.

Westley was there with a roommate who had fallen somewhere. Westley still had his casts on.

“Are you still living with Burrita? Have you seen her?" he asked.

“No,” I answered like I was dreaming. His casts were filled with signatures.