Page 4 of It’s Me They Follow

“Well, of course, I started reading it right there in the bathroom stall and ended up missing half of geometry, reading more at lunch, reading it the whole way down Broad Street home. My ma thought I was sick when I skipped meat loaf. Her meat loaf is another story. Anyway, I stayed up with a flashlight under my covers until the sun came up. The next day in chemistry class, when the bell rang and everyone was leaving, it was just Charlie Jr. and me left in the room. I stepped up to him, yawned, and shoved that book back into his hands. I stared at him like a drill sergeant, right in the eyes, until he looked down at his shoes. Then, when he was about to walk out the door, I called his name. I said, ‘Charlie Jr.’ He turned around, and I smacked him right on the lips with a kiss... even snuck him some tongue. ‘Thank you,’ I told him. He was right about Sister Sonia. How could a teenage boy be so in touch? Charlie and I were thirty-six-years married until he passed away a few years ago.” Rose paused.

“He gave me all the books by Sister Sonia—every time one came out. There’s a new one coming soon, an anthology.

Maybe you go get it from your local shopkeeper over there.

” Rose nodded at The Shopkeeper. The Shopkeeper gave Rose praying hands.

It was their shared respect for Sister Sonia that made them friends.

Then Rose placed her yellow notebook on the table and curtsied.

She let out a fake sigh of relief when the class snapped, clapped, and whistled in praise.

“Go ahead, Big Charlie,” someone said, cheering.

The Shopkeeper couldn’t clap—the piece was just okay, she’d heard better from Rose.

The piece wasn’t clap-worthy—so she nodded and continued chewing on the tip of The Good Doctor’s pen.

“Well, all right, Charlie Jr.,” The Good Doctor said. Rose sat down and sprayed herself with what must have been her husband’s cologne. “That’s the same one I wear,” The Good Doctor said, smiling. “Rose, your story gives us a great teachable moment. The question is: Why do humans kiss?”

“ ’Cause it’s fun?” the six-foot-six stoned kid with the cliché tie-dyed bandana said. He barely ever said more than a few words. He mostly wrote and spoke in haikus.

“Yes, kissing can be quite fun. Run your lips along the skin on the inside of your arm lightly.” The room of writers tried it.

“This is an anxiety reducer. Now apply pressure. Notice that the skin on your lips is extremely sensitive. The average person will spend about twenty thousand minutes of their lives kissing because, like you said, it’s fun.

And it’s good for us. We burn two to three calories every kiss.

It makes our hearts beat faster, and it even cleans the cholesterol out of our veins.

The earliest reference to kissing is from a Sanskrit text dating back to 1500 BC.

Not to say that was the first kiss—just the earliest someone wrote about it.

We should all be kissing as much as possible and writing about it too.

” The Good Doctor spit facts that no one would ever remember.

“Did you know that the dopamine released during a kiss can stimulate the same area of the brain activated by cocaine? Perhaps people are addicted to drugs because they aren’t kissing. ”

“What about weed?” asked the stoned kid. “ ’Cause I’m not sniffing anything in Philly.”

“Anyone else care to share?” The Good Doctor rolled her eyes and ignored the stoned kid.

She always ignored him. She pointed her walking stick around the room.

“Anyone else? Nobody? Nobody?” She must not like his writing , The Shopkeeper thought.

She did not love it, but every once in a while he surprised her with something short and profound.

It was always like this. Rose volunteered first, and then for the rest of the session, everyone froze and had to be called on to read. “Ray? You look like you were touched by that prompt. Anything?” said The Good Doctor.

The Shopkeeper enjoyed it when Ray read. He was the most honest writer in the room.

“I didn’t want to read today, Prof,” Ray said.

“I can see that, Ray. But sometimes the best time to share is when you least want to. Stand up and try us. You are among writers, the most humane humans on the planet.”

“Okay,” Ray agreed with reluctance.

The Good Doctor set the stage like she did for every single writer every single time. “In this class, there are no apologies, excuses, or prefaces. When it’s time to read...” She pointed her stick at her students.

“Just read,” they said in unison.

“I think of this like stand-up. So here’s my first joke: My mother had me in prison,” Ray started. “I made it out. She did not.” He cracked himself up.

What a hook. The Shopkeeper finger snapped in her head. Rose closed her eyes. The Good Doctor took a seat. No one laughed.

“My mother’s name is Maribel Casentas Rodriguez Jones.

You have to say her whole name. Even I have to call her by her full name.

She added the ‘Jones’ part herself.” Ray pointed at the group.

They laughed on cue like a live studio audience.

“She had me when she was only twelve years old.” But with that line, his voice shook.

“Her father was my father.” He laugh-cry quivered.

Now this is what I’m talking about , The Shopkeeper thought. This is writing! Make us feel something, Ray! Make me feel it. A knot formed in her throat.

Ray continued, “I’m sure, if I were a girl, my grandfather would have gotten me pregnant too. But I was a boy. His boy. His only boy, he called me.” Ray cry-laughed.

Rose handed Ray and The Shopkeeper yellow tissues from her yellow purse because both of them needed one.

“My father, my grandfather—his name was Ray. And Ray was my first kiss.” He smiled a customer-service smile and pointed at the group to laugh on cue. “And I still miss him.”

The room fell silent and still and stayed that way for an uncomfortably long time.

The Good Doctor stood up. “Would anyone like a hug?” she finally asked.

“Yeah, I would... but from The Shopkeeper,” Ray joked. And went to sit on the floor in the corner knowing she would never hug him. He wasn’t thirty-year-old Ray anymore. He was five-year-old Ray, straightening his socks and spit shining his shoes.

The Shopkeeper gave Ray her smile in return, but her tears were flowing. “I would hug you, but then I’d have to kill you,” she shot back at him from across the room. The group erupted in uncomfortable laughter to break the uncomfortable tension. Ray and The Shopkeeper both laughed too.

Rose went and sat on the floor next to Ray and held his hand like The Shopkeeper wished she could.

“Ray’s story is also a teachable moment,” The Good Doctor said. She had two bright blue balloons blown up, sitting next to a large tank of water.

“When we have something happen to us that is so traumatic, so hard to bear, most people stuff it down. We try to bury it.” The Good Doctor took the first blue balloon and demonstrated trying to stuff the balloon under the surface of the water.

“The problem with that is, we constantly have to fight to keep that trauma event suppressed—we must constantly fight to keep the balloon underwater. Ray, come up and see what I mean.” Ray came to the front and fought with the balloon, trying to keep it under the water, but the balloon kept fighting to pop back out of the top of the tank.

“See? Even a big, strong guy like Ray can have a hard time keeping his balloon underwater. Thanks, Ray,” The Good Doctor said, taking the balloon back from him.

“The problem is that when anything comes along that triggers a memory, that balloon not only comes to the surface, but it pops.” The Good Doctor dramatically popped the balloon at the surface of the water with a pin and startled the class, water splashing everywhere.

“Then everyone around you gets all wet. And the cycle repeats.” The Good Doctor picked up the second blue balloon and placed it in the water.

“This class is designed to help slowly bring trauma to the surface in a controlled manner.” She clipped the knot on the neck of the balloon with scissors and let the air seep out slowly.

“When you write in this environment, your trauma can be released, not suppressed, just like this. You literally release yourself from the story of your trauma slowly with your peers.” She let the balloon deflate.

“And you realize we are all just the same. Full of hot air. Any questions?”

There were no questions. They were wet and understood why.

“Last person to share,” The Good Doctor called out. “One more, something short. Then we can take a break.” The Shopkeeper and The Good Doctor caught eyes. “Your piece must have been really short.”

“Yup.”

“Sharing is caring.”

The Shopkeeper stood up. “I know, I know. ‘There are no apologies, excuses, or prefaces. When it’s time to read, just read.’ My piece is only three words long, so all of you can thank me later.” She held up a paper and showed it to the class. NEVER BEEN KISSED , it read.

A few people snickered. Someone said, “Yeah, right.”

“That’s my whole story.” The Shopkeeper stuffed the paper into her tote.

“But do you want to change that?” The Good Doctor snapped back. She was like the mother that The Shopkeeper never had.

The Shopkeeper thought about it for a second.

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced , her grandmother used to say. Those sayings went in one ear and out the other.

“I don’t think I can change that on my own.” And with that, The Shopkeeper threw the pen into her bag and headed toward the door, holding up two fingers in a peace sign. “Break time.”

“You’re right,” The Good Doctor agreed and bit down on her lip.

They all needed a break.