by Madeline DeLuca

Francine and Mac are on opposite sides of the street. Francine is wearing an orange scarf and she sneezes into her elbow and I see my nose on her face. Mac is listening to the music tinkling from his car radio, his head nodding slightly and he squints up at the sun shining through his windshield. I have his mouth.

I am a blend of Francine and Mac, a perfect swirl of their DNA. We will be a content family and Mac will play house with me and Francine will comb my hair and tell me about her day at work, and they will be proud of me when I get into college. And Francine and Mac will be grandparents to my three children, and they will grow up to be a science teacher, a musician and a news reporter respectively and I will love all of them equally. And Francine and Mac will love me unconditionally, even when I slam my bedroom door closed and show them my middle finger.

But Francine and Mac haven’t met yet.

Mac’s forehead is sweating a little bit, just like when I will walk across the stage at my high school graduation. He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand and that’s when he glances across the street at the bank where Francine is waiting in line at the ATM. Mac thinks to himself, “I should really stop there before I go,” so he gets out of the car, looks both ways and jogs across the street.

Francine tucks her hair behind her ears and watches the back of the man in front of her in line. His back is broad and there is a piece of blue lint on it and there is a gust of wind and it ruffles Francine’s hair again and she turns her face into the wind and sees Mac crossing the street. He is handsome. She straightens her back a little and glances at him up and down before turning back to the line at the ATM. She wonders if she wore the jeans that make her ass look fantastic that day.

I can’t wait until I come downstairs and Francine is making lasagna and she asks me how my day at school was. And I can’t wait until Mac comes home from work and pats my back and says, “Take out the garbage, please,” and I complain but I do it anyway. Francine and Mac are going to fight about money every weekend and when I get married I will fight with my soulmate about money and my children will overhear and they will fight about money when they grow up and their children will learn from our mistakes and vow to never fight about money as long as they live.

Mac pulls on the bank’s doors but they are locked. Francine opens her mouth. Her heart is pounding and she is about to call to him that the bank doesn’t open until 11, but the man in front of her beats her to the punch. Mac furrows his eyebrows and glances at the man and says “Shit,” and he moves his eyes to Francine and he says “Shit,” again because she is beautiful to him and I will be beautiful to him too because I have her nose and her laugh.

Every time he will look at me, he will be reminded of how much he loves her. And my daughter will have Francine’s nose and my daughter’s wife will kiss it every day and my daughter’s son will run his finger along the slope of it and say “I love you, Mommy.”

When I am sick, I will bundle up in three different blankets and I will cough loudly and I will listen to sad music. When I fall in love, I will look at a spider on the wall and I will find it to be the most beautiful creature I will ever see and I will sing in the shower. When I cry, my nose will turn red and I will hide my face in my hands. When I see my children go to their first days of school, I will kiss their palms and close their fists so they can open their hands when they miss me.

And I will feel the sun on my cheeks and I will love somebody and they will not love me back. And I will learn how to drive and I’ll drive myself to a different state to see my favorite band and that band will play a song that fills my heart with so much love that I will want to burst. I will write poems and crinkle them up because they are poorly written and I will go to college and get an education worth thousands of dollars that I won’t have. I will find what I was made to do and I will do it.

Francine and Mac stare at each other for about three seconds before Mac’s phone rings, a siren slicing through the chilly air. He answers it and it’s his girlfriend, Elizabeth. He’s late. Francine is beautiful and she has brown eyes that sparkle but she is not Elizabeth. Elizabeth plays the piano and can sew and smells like her tropical shampoo.

I can’t wait to get a new dishwasher installed in my house and to hang my children’s report cards on the fridge. I will buy magnets that look like food at the grocery store and I will pass them on to my son because he will always get a good laugh when he sees them.

Mac shrugs at the bank door and pivots on his heel and looks both ways before crossing the street again. He talks at his phone that he will be there very soon and to please calm down. Francine notices that the man in front of her is done with the ATM, and so she steps up to the machine. Francine types in her PIN number and grabs her money. She sneezes into her elbow and my nose crinkles. She glances across the street and sees Mac get into his Chevy Silverado. He really is handsome.

I can’t wait to brush my hair and feel the knots get caught in the bristles and tug the brush harder until my hair is smooth again. And I will grow my hair out and toss it over my shoulder and I will cut it very short and I will pour colors on it and I will ink my skin and I will become somebody.

I can’t wait to play in 100-degree heat and come inside to a blast of cool air, lifting my arms up and spinning, basking in the glory of air conditioning on a hot summer day. I will grab a water bottle from the fridge and I’ll sing songs from a musical as I press the chilled plastic to my forehead.

Mac starts his car and shakes his head. He really needed to stop by the bank. He glances back across the street and Francine is watching him. She has an orange scarf and she is holding a cup of coffee. She is the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.

I can’t wait to name my first puppy Dot, and feel her lick me, and see her powerful little tail wag and wag and wag when I come home from school every day. I will love that dog more than anybody I will ever love, and that dog will give me more love than anyone I will ever meet in my life.

Francine watches Mac drive off and sighs. He was the most handsome man Francine had ever seen. If only she had spoken up before the man with the blue lint. If only Mac’s phone had been set to vibrate instead of ring. She sighs, and walks down the sidewalk to the subway station. Oh well. I almost was, but now I’m not. I follow Francine and Mac and I’m in her hair and I sew myself into his jacket and I smell the autumn air through her nose and I cry when he cries and I feel when she stubs her toe. And I love them even though I almost was but I wasn’t.

And I sit on the couch beside Mac when Elizabeth throws a coffee mug at the wall and the glass shatters and she screams that she doesn’t love him anymore and he yells at her that he wishes he had set his phone to vibrate that day three years ago. She cries even though she doesn’t understand what he is talking about. I nod my head and look at Mac and Elizabeth’s son, and he has my mouth but when I see his eyes, I don’t know who I see.

And I am on the plane with Francine when she moves to Europe because she can, and I am by her side when she transfers her money into Euros and rents a flat and meets Greg. I listen to her laugh and I imagine how my laugh would sound and when he touches her cheek I wonder how it would feel, so I try to touch mine but I can’t. I almost was but I’m not.

I wish I had a color that felt like home when I looked at it. I wish I looked at all of the freckles splattered on my body and learned to love them even when the freckles were on a spot of me that was too soft. I wish I felt a shock in the wintertime when I rubbed two blankets together. I wish there was dirt under my fingernails and a bug on my wall and a slow driver in front of me and a piece of broccoli and a misplaced set of keys and a bad joke and a warm hug and a cold breeze and goose bumps. I wish that someone would say my name or give me a name or look at me like, “You are who I was made for.”

I wish I was.