you're too young & eager to love

I was trying to write an Emere-Brando-childhood piece. It was supposed to be adult them, with Maine and Juniper, interrupted with flashback scenes. ... It didn't work out. I kept getting side-tracked with Emere's relationship with Juniper instead.

Anyway, here's the attempts. I would have kept going with it, letting it evolve into an entirely different piece, but I was having too much trouble piecing the sections all together. I couldn't figure out what direction I wanted to go with.





There are presents. Soft cashmere sweaters with pearl buttons, delicate silver jewelry, gold necklaces as thin as a gossamer spider web strands. Six ounces of the smoothest hash, straight from the Manhattan underground. An eight-hundred dollar bottle of French wine. Emere hands them over in boxes that were gift wrapped by strangers. She kisses Juniper’s cheek and offers to help with the baking. Maine barrels past them, cracking a comment about special brownies while unloading armfuls of art supplies and toy machine guns.

It is either Thanksgiving or Easter. Emere does not know, just like she does not know whether the kids running in and out of the back porch are fosters or adoptees or neighborhood refugees. She sidesteps them mechanically, barely acknowledging their existence. She can see Brando outside, kneeling with a Rottweiler that pounds its tail rhythmically against the grass. He is dark and tall and mostly hidden.



“My childhood was like the hotel California.”

Brando raises an eyebrow. It is the only expression that he shares with his sister. Maine pours herself another glass of wine. She’s seated across from Brando at the worn table, and she’s more concerned about sneaking her naked toes up the other’s leg than listening to Emere’s cynicism.

Juniper laughs. A twinkling, wind-charm sound. She’s standing in the kitchen, and she looks far more accustomed to chopping apples than Emere does. “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave?”

“Precisely.” Emere sends her a wink, leaning her weight against the familiar counter top. Nothing here has changed. Juniper is as timeless as the kitchen, as the bustling, breathing house, and neither seems to belong to the space of the outside world. Emere would have felt like an intruder but the majority of her youth was spent inside these safe haven walls. She passes easily, unperturbed. Juniper touches her occasionally – soft, affectionate gestures placed upon the back of her right shoulder, the inside of her wrist when she leans to open a cabinet.



In the back, Brando stands with his hands inside the pockets of his jeans. Dinner is over; Maine helps Juniper with the clean up – the two of them are singing along to Queen on the radio. Emere, surprisingly undone in denim and an off-white shirt, is petting the Rottweiler. She half buries her face into its thick neck, feeling the strength of the beast in its muscles, its stocky frame. “How is Arianna?” A question without turning.

“She’s your mother too. Call her yourself.”

“I’d rather save myself the pain.” Scratching the dog behind its left ear a final time, Emere stands, brushes the dirt off her knees. She is barefooted and, in the dark, without her stilettos and vodka, she looks surprisingly young. She looks eighteen again, about to leave for college – Brando can remember that time perfectly. She hasn’t changed much or maybe he just can’t tell. The two of them are jaded together. Bristling thorns and cracked. It’s hard to tell when another piece starts falling away.

“She used to tell me to be a manticore.” Emere crosses the yard, lights a cigarette and stands beside her brother. He is taller than her by more than few inches. In a perfect imitation of their mother, she slathers on a thick Italian accent. “To be unyielding.”

Brando scoffs but the sound is more like an exhausted sigh.



They share a joint. It is rolled beautifully. Maine passes it to Emere without burning her fingers. Stretched across the photographer’s high school bed, Emere’s legs are tangled with Maine’s. They laugh, harmless, intimate in their familiarity.

“Did the bed get smaller? Or did we get bigger?”
“You did. You’re fat as a fucking whale.”

Snickering, Emere jabs Maine in her ribs, rolls her eyes. The wine from earlier mixes delicately with the hash. She breathes in thick lungfuls, exhales like a dragon so that Maine can laugh with her. They are older now, but this room is a flashback to their younger existences, when they were less wealthy and more willing.

Certain things refuse to change. Emere still gets high enough to disregard the joint and bury her fingers into blonde hair, disheveling it carefully. Maine still kisses in the exact way, biting at her bottom lip, smelling like gala apples.