The Worst Years of Your Life by Mark Jude Poirier

Author:Mark Jude Poirier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

FROM MY BEDROOM window I could see Jennifer in the backyard, wearing her tutu and leaping all over the place. It was dangerous as hell to sneak in and get Barbie, but I couldn’t keep a grand piano in my closet without telling someone.

“You must really like me,” Barbie said when she finally had the piano unwrapped.

I nodded. She was wearing a ski suit and skis. It was the end of August and eighty degrees out. Immediately, she sat down and played “Chopsticks.”

I looked out at Jennifer. She was running down the length of the deck, jumping onto the railing and then leaping off, posing like one of those red flying horses you see on old Mobil gas signs. I watched her do it once and then the second time, her foot caught on the railing, and she went over the edge the hard way. A minute later she came around the edge of the house, limping, her tutu dented and dirty, pink tights ripped at both knees. I grabbed Barbie from the piano bench and raced her into Jennifer’s room.

“I was just getting warmed up,” she said. “I can play better than that, really.”

I could hear Jennifer crying as she walked up the stairs.

“Jennifer’s coming,” I said. I put her down on the dresser and realized Ken was missing.

“Where’s Ken?” I asked quickly.

“Out with Jennifer,” Barbie said.

I met Jennifer at her door. “Are you okay?” I asked. She cried harder. “I saw you fall.”

“Why didn’t you stop me?” she said.

“From falling?

She nodded and showed me her knees.

“Once you start to fall no one can stop you.” I noticed Ken was tucked into the waistband of her tutu.

“They catch you,” Jennifer said.

I started to tell her it was dangerous to go leaping around with a Ken stuck in your waistband, but you don’t tell someone who’s already crying that they did something bad.

I walked her into the bathroom, and took out the hydrogen peroxide. I was a first aid expert. I was the kind of guy who walked around, waiting for someone to have a heart attack just so I could practice my CPR technique.

“Sit down,” I said.

Jennifer sat down on the toilet without putting the lid down. Ken was stabbing her all over the place and instead of pulling him out, she squirmed around trying to get comfortable like she didn’t know what else to do. I took him out for her. She watched as though I was performing surgery or something.

“He’s mine,” she said.

“Take off your tights,” I said.

“No,” she said.

“They’re ruined,” I said. “Take them off.”

Jennifer took off her ballet slippers and peeled off her tights. She was wearing my old Underoos with superheroes on them, Spiderman and Superman and Batman all poking out from under a dirty dented tutu. I decided not to say anything, but it looked funny as hell to see a flat crotch in boys’ underwear. I had the feeling they didn’t bother making underwear for Ken because they knew it looked too weird on him.

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