Read Uses for Boys for Free Online Page A

hair is braided in two dark
     braids. The room smells of urine and lemon cleaner. There’s a high window where flies
     enter and exit and for a long time the line hardly moves at all.
    Back in the parking lot the sun glances off of the gas pumps and the E in EATZ. Cars flare and spark and I have to squint to make out my mom, leaning back against
     the headrest in the front seat of our car. The window flashes to obscure her then,
     as I get closer, frames her. She opens the door as I approach.
    “Oh Anna,” she says. “I hate this drive.” She wears a lot of makeup, my mom, and sometimes
     it’s all I can see when I look at her. There are little cracks in the surface under
     her eyes and a greasy line of shadow in the fold of her eyelid.
    There was this boy, I want to say. I want to tell her about Todd and I want her to
     fold me up in her arms. I want her to know. But I don’t tell her. I don’t know which
     story to tell.
    She looks at me. I’m standing right in front of her, in the open car door, with my
     eyes telling her what happened. I’m looking directly at her and my eyes are telling
     her everything. How he pulled down the blanket and pulled down the sheet. What happened
     after. How I waited there until morning, my knees pressed against the wall, listening.
     Wondering if he was going to come back. She looks right at me with all of her attention.
     Her eyes open wide and then narrow again. The blush and the mascara and the powder
     all soften together.
    “How is the bathroom,” she says. “Is it clean?”

 
    toy
    When we get back to the suburbs, I cut the arms off my twill shirts and wear them
     over the T-shirt that the stepbrother left behind. I cut my own bangs. I spend a long
     time looking at myself in the mirror in the downstairs bathroom. It’s windowless and
     dark and the fluorescent lights make heavy shadows under my eyes. If Joey were still
     here he’d put his face next to mine, his cheek against my cheek and meet my eyes in
     the reflection. I listen for the garage door, but my mom doesn’t come home. She leaves
     for two days with a note on the table. Then she comes back. Then she leaves for a
     week.
    I go to Goodwill. It’s the size of a hospital, brightly lit and nearly empty. I’m
     wearing the stepbrother’s jeans rolled up and Converse. A tight plaid shirt from when
     I was little. I’m looking for something. The perfect clothes. A uniform for the girl
     I want to be. I run my hands over the racks and then move to the far corner of the
     store. I’m methodical. Kids’ clothes first, looking for shrunken blazers and thin
     faded T-shirts. Then to women’s. Leotards, vintage bathing suits, high-waisted shorts.
     I try things on in the aisles. I look in the mirror and imagine. Am I this girl? Am
     I this one? I look through the scarves. Buckets of silky ones and chiffon ones. I’m
     looking for the tourist ones, the monuments of Washington, D.C. or the Leaning Tower
     of Pisa.
    I find a T-shirt from the Mystery Spot. I find a scarf from the rock of Gibraltar.
     I’m hesitating over a pair of clogs when I see them. Perfect and perfectly small brown
     wingtips. Men’s, but they look small enough to fit.
    I put the clogs down and step forward. There’s a girl my age hunched over like she’s
     too tall or the light is too bright, wearing a long black dress from the seventies
     with a T-shirt underneath and she’s walking right over to the shoes. She picks one
     up and looks down at it in her hands.
    I don’t think she sees me. There’s music playing over the loudspeaker and an employee
     nearby straightening sweaters. I’m standing in front of the clogs and holding my T-shirt
     and scarf in one hand.
    And then she says, “They’re too small for me,” like she knows I’m there. Like she
     sees me. I take a step closer but I don’t say anything. She stares at the shoe in
     her hand.
    I look at her and I look at the shoe. I look down at the floor and then I look