I.

Your mother comes into your bedroom while it is still dark and shakes you awake.

Get up now.

You have an erection under the blanket.

You do not move.

She says, Go to Feller’s Orchard.

Steal enough for two pies this time.

Don’t take too many from any one tree.

Don’t pick up the shit ones off the ground.

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II.

You pick the apples.

You kick the apples that are on the ground.

There is a light on in one of the rooms upstairs in the farmhouse.

Mr. Feller.

A second light comes on.

Marie’s room.

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III.

On the bus to school.

You are thirteen.

You have been thirteen for almost a year.

Each day your mother finds new ways to make you feel ashamed.

She has put two apples in your lunch bag.

The apples still have leaves attached to their stems.

Even the apples at Feller’s Farmstand don’t have leaves on the stems.

Marie Feller gets on the bus.

Her face has approximately one thousand freckles.

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IV.

Shoplifting list: eggs butter, sugar, brown sugar.

Two pies.

You have to go to two stores.

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V.

Your mother is the most beautiful woman in Ampersand.

She’s too good for any of the men in town, but she will go off with any stranger
passing through.

She has six leather jackets, each one given to her by a different man.

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VI.

Standing outside the CVS with Digger and Moper

Your backpack is filled with ingredients.

The girls from the CVS cosmetics counter walks by on her way to Blockbuster.

Moper calls her vapor trail.

She smells of sugary perfume.

You wonder if she’s prettier than Marie.

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VII.

Marie Feller has a wen on her back, just above her bra strap, center left.

The first time you make out with her, Marie brings your hand to the wen with both of her hands, as if you couldn’t have found it on your own.

It looks and behaves like a nipple.

You don’t know how to touch the wen.

You press your index finger on it, then pinch it lightly between your thumb and middle finger.

Marie kisses you harder.

You realize that Marie must touch this wen herself in this way.