She was the dreamy one. That’s what everyone said – what they still say. She wears soft floaty dresses and her hair down and her hands touching her face and her arms like she needs reminding she is real. And Emmy says she can taste the colour yellow and it tastes of cinnamon and maple syrup and wallpaper. I didn’t think colours had a taste. After she said that I licked the skins of bananas or the tips of yellow felt pens or pictures of sunsets and they all tasted different and not like cinnamon or syrup or wallpaper.
Sometimes I want to be Emmy – actually be her instead of me. The way boys look at her and I can see the longing and the lust in their eyes. Emmy doesn’t notice or if she does she thinks boys are just silly. Sometimes I just want to have her to myself, kissing her cheeks and her lips and tasting the pink rose-petal tip of her tongue.
‘What does pink taste of?’ I said.
Emmy looked thoughtful when I asked, just for a moment, like she was thinking, and her tongue nipped between the press of her lips, wet and soft and pink.
‘Like raspberries and old newspaper.’
I could understand the raspberries, but the newspaper was just stupid. Didn’t stop me kissing the paper though, just to see, kissing and licking till my lips were smudged grey with ink.
That was back when we were young and Emmy was the first of us to fill a bra and she showed us how. There was me and Margaret and we were up in Emmy’s bedroom and she undressed so we could see. She had trouble unfastening the clasp and fastening it again so Margaret helped. It was the most beautiful thing, seeing Emmy’s new tits and how they fitted into the white cups of her new bra. Margaret made the shape of cups with her hands and she briefly held Emmy’s tits in her palms and I could see the pink nipples through Margaret’s fingers – and I thought of raspberries and licking newspaper. I almost couldn’t breathe.
We’re older now and Emmy talks of boys and beer and cigarettes – it’s all she talks of. And I can smell them on her breath, all of them. She says how Kevin kisses like a wet fish and how Marky presses her tits like he’s the baker, Old Tom, kneading bread dough before its second rise. Emmy says boys are just boys and they don’t know nothing ‘bout what a girl really wants.
I stroke my fingers through her hair, feeling the heat of her skin underneath, and I don’t have anything to say and that’s ok because Emmy keeps on with what boys should really know.
But then today Emmy just stopped talking. We sat for hours up in her room, and music playing, the same song over and over. And Emmy lay back on the bed, her eyes closed like she was sleeping and her breath coming slow and heavy. I wanted her to say stuff about the colour red tasting of lemons or carpet; I wanted her to tell what she did with Finlay at the back of the church last Saturday and how Finlay snorts like a horse blowing air and his fingers fiddling under her dress like a blind man looking for keys in deep pockets; and I wanted her to be dreamy and not dreamy.
‘I kissed a girl once,’ I say and it is something said for effect and none of it true.
Emmy doesn’t stir.
Margaret wants to know who and she wants to know when and what it was like.
I shrug. I say it was nothing really and it was nobody they knew.
Then Emmy says, half in sleep, that she kissed Miriam Kite, really kissed her, and she said there was a kiss that was something. A real kiss, she said.
I am green then, all eaten up with jealousy and I don’t know how that kiss could have happened when it was something I wanted more than I wanted anything before. And that green that I am tastes of wasps and pinches and nettle stings, but I can’t tell Emmy that.
August 20, 2014: She was the dreamy one.
Patricia Ann McNair 
She was the dreamy one. That’s what everyone said – what they still say. She wears soft floaty dresses and her hair down and her hands touching her face and her arms like she needs reminding she is real. And Emmy says she can taste the colour yellow and it tastes of cinnamon and maple syrup and wallpaper. I didn’t think colours had a taste. After she said that I licked the skins of bananas or the tips of yellow felt pens or pictures of sunsets and they all tasted different and not like cinnamon or syrup or wallpaper.
Sometimes I want to be Emmy – actually be her instead of me. The way boys look at her and I can see the longing and the lust in their eyes. Emmy doesn’t notice or if she does she thinks boys are just silly. Sometimes I just want to have her to myself, kissing her cheeks and her lips and tasting the pink rose-petal tip of her tongue.
‘What does pink taste of?’ I said.
Emmy looked thoughtful when I asked, just for a moment, like she was thinking, and her tongue nipped between the press of her lips, wet and soft and pink.
‘Like raspberries and old newspaper.’
I could understand the raspberries, but the newspaper was just stupid. Didn’t stop me kissing the paper though, just to see, kissing and licking till my lips were smudged grey with ink.
That was back when we were young and Emmy was the first of us to fill a bra and she showed us how. There was me and Margaret and we were up in Emmy’s bedroom and she undressed so we could see. She had trouble unfastening the clasp and fastening it again so Margaret helped. It was the most beautiful thing, seeing Emmy’s new tits and how they fitted into the white cups of her new bra. Margaret made the shape of cups with her hands and she briefly held Emmy’s tits in her palms and I could see the pink nipples through Margaret’s fingers – and I thought of raspberries and licking newspaper. I almost couldn’t breathe.
We’re older now and Emmy talks of boys and beer and cigarettes – it’s all she talks of. And I can smell them on her breath, all of them. She says how Kevin kisses like a wet fish and how Marky presses her tits like he’s the baker, Old Tom, kneading bread dough before its second rise. Emmy says boys are just boys and they don’t know nothing ‘bout what a girl really wants.
I stroke my fingers through her hair, feeling the heat of her skin underneath, and I don’t have anything to say and that’s ok because Emmy keeps on with what boys should really know.
But then today Emmy just stopped talking. We sat for hours up in her room, and music playing, the same song over and over. And Emmy lay back on the bed, her eyes closed like she was sleeping and her breath coming slow and heavy. I wanted her to say stuff about the colour red tasting of lemons or carpet; I wanted her to tell what she did with Finlay at the back of the church last Saturday and how Finlay snorts like a horse blowing air and his fingers fiddling under her dress like a blind man looking for keys in deep pockets; and I wanted her to be dreamy and not dreamy.
‘I kissed a girl once,’ I say and it is something said for effect and none of it true.
Emmy doesn’t stir.
Margaret wants to know who and she wants to know when and what it was like.
I shrug. I say it was nothing really and it was nobody they knew.
Then Emmy says, half in sleep, that she kissed Miriam Kite, really kissed her, and she said there was a kiss that was something. A real kiss, she said.
I am green then, all eaten up with jealousy and I don’t know how that kiss could have happened when it was something I wanted more than I wanted anything before. And that green that I am tastes of wasps and pinches and nettle stings, but I can’t tell Emmy that.