It’s Jamie’s birthday. Sometimes kids bring cupcakes, but she insisted on a real cake. Real, with candles and everything to share out during homeroom. She talked about it all week, a chocolate cake, with pink flowers, and chocolate icing, and her name in blue sprinkles. Real wax candles that she and her friends could lick the icing from. And paper plates with cartoon characters on them, not the flowered ones that the school always has. And she was getting a doll that talks, and comes with jeans, and lots of dresses, and party shoes, and red sneakers, and bows, and has real hair to brush. Real. She really sleeps, and has real clothes. Like a real baby. She and her mom went to the toy store, and were greeted by Geoffery at the door, the mascot. He’s not real, he’s just a guy in a giraffe costume, but he gives out coupons and real balloons. All week. The real party would be at her house. She breathed deep, slicking chalky-smelling tempura across her paper, thinking about her party. How real it would be. At home, she drew a picture of the doll she had picked out special. Her mom answered the phone and crumpled to the floor while she colored in her cake design. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of a cigarette, because Mommy hadn’t smoked in a long time.
"Mommy, shhh." She frowned, and put a finger to her mouth, half listening to the news as her father’s name was read from a list of people who wouldn’t be coming home for her party. But that wasn’t real.
The rest of my time in Arizona wasn't great. I took the bus back to Illinois, and wrote this on the bus.