by Anne Key
“You know Paul Hale.” His people raise pigs. So do the Martins and the Lees and the McMillans, and those are just people I know. Not only that, but Kaylee went with Paul during freshman and sophomore year. They broke up during the Favorites dance because Paul spent the entire dance hiding in the bathroom smoking weed. He was so stoned that Kaylee had to catch a ride home with me, which meant she had to catch a ride home with Ben. That would have been okay, except that Ben was working in a drag show in Dallas. And we had to leave early so he could drive to work. And he was dressed in violet sequins.
Not to mention the Mexican lipliner.
“Paul Hale is a butthead.” Kaylee turns a bright red. Oh, there’s a story there.
The Sprite bubbles ease the nausea, burning all the way down. “You seeing him again?”
I thought we’d decided not to see anyone this year. Just to be fancy-free and all.
“What? Come on, let’s do your hair. Amy, help me out. Pillows.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“Nah. Perch up here on your knees and don’t fall. Amy, do we have a trash bag?”
This is a terrible idea.
Stupid.
Ridiculous.
I can’t stop laughing.
I crawl up onto the pillows on the chair, and immediately start to slide.
“Amy! Catch her! Hold her on there.” Kaylee starts the water running as Amy grabs me.
“Should I hold her arm?”
“No!” Kaylee and I get the word out together, just perfectly. No way do I want anyone touching it. Ever. Like ever again.
“Fine. Jeesh. Y’all suck.”
“Just hold her, Ames, would you?”
Amy drapes herself over my legs and Kaylee leans me back and I’m going to die. No question.
Boom.
“Trust me, Charley.” Kaylee touches my cheek, and I start tingling. Crazy.
“I do.”
I’d let her do anything to me. With me. I mean. Oh God.
She starts the water and grabs the sprayer from the sink.
“Please don’t get my arm wet. Momma will kill me.”
“I swear. I’ll be super careful. I’m like totally into this.” Yeah, Kaylee wants to be a hair designer when she graduates. Not a hairdresser or a beautician or nothing, but a hair designer. There’s no way her folks are going to let it happen. We had a hard enough time convincing them to let her apply to UT and not Rice. That’s where they met, and anyway, I don’t know that anyone has a degree in hair.
She’s good at it, though, and it feels good, the warm water, and the shampoo…. How the hell does it smell so much better like this than in the shower?
“I love the way your hair feels, all bouncy and shit under my palm. So different from mine.”
She starts rubbing the soap in, fingers digging in and massaging.
“It’s good enough to make me want to cry.”
“Well, don’t. You’ll get your damn bandages wet and blame me.” She leans over me, waggling her eyebrows, playing with me. She gets close enough that my eyes cross and we both start giggling.
“Turd.” I know better than to think thoughts about Kaylee’s mouth, because Amy’s there and no matter what the TV says, everyone knows girl crushes are just like practice, right? Secret practice for when we find boys we want to go with.
“Yeah, yeah.” The rubbing goes on and on, and she rinses and washes again, the suds heavier now, popping on my scalp.
I stop worrying so much about falling down, about losing it, and just feel it, but it doesn’t take long enough. I can’t believe how soon she’s grabbing a towel, drying me off and, believe it or not, she’s managed to keep me from being soaked to the bone.
“Okay, let’s get her upright and on the sofa.”
Amy nods, slowly standing up. “Okay, where should I go?”
“Just grab my good hand.” I should be able to mostly sit up.
“I’ve got the chair and your bad shoulder.”
Man, that sounds like Mom. “My bad hip is bothering me,” she’ll say.
We manage to get me up, and then I’m cool, but it feels great to get on the sofa and just sit.
“Now, I need to do your hair. Amy, brush and hair dryer.”
I’m going to end up looking like a poodle.
A fuzzy Cajun poodle.
I know better than to bitch, though. Kaylee’s in a fab mood, and I love it, don’t want to do a thing to screw with it. Her hands are in my hair, fingers combing through it, moving with slow, steady strokes.
It makes me feel a little drunk.
I know. I do. This whole thing is silly, but….
Shit.
I close my eyes and go with it, jumping as she reaches down, tweaks one of my nipples. “Bitch?”
“What? You’ve got NHO. I was helping.”
“Helping? In what universe is that helping?” My cheeks are on fire, and my nipple isn’t going down. God, putting on a bra just isn’t happening right now. It’s not like I have boobs, for fuck’s sake, just great big nipples and that’s it. Peasant nipples, my gran calls them.
“You know you love it.” Kaylee grins like a monkey. “Makes you tingly and hot.”
My mouth flies open as she pokes me again. “Kaylee!”
“What? They’re sticking out, all gross.”
“I hate you, stupid bitch. At least I have nipples. You have… pink bottle caps!”
“Yeah, but I have boobs. You got flat cookie deals.”
“When you get old, like thirty, they’ll hang to your knees and mine will be perky.” So there. I’m going to totally get implants. One day. After softball and the Olympics.
“My knees?” Her eyes go wide. “Whore.”
“Slut.” This is fun.
“Freak.”
I roll my eyes. “Well, duh.”
“Am I going to be as dumb as y’all when I’m a teenager?” Amy is watching us, holding the hair dryer like a gun.
“You’re going to be way dumber because you’re blonde.” I tease because I can.
“Hey!” Kaylee whaps me hard.
“What? It’s like a fact. They wouldn’t have dumb-blonde jokes otherwise. Have you ever heard a dumb-brunette joke?”
“No. I’ve heard dumb-jock jokes, though.”
That doesn’t worry me. Nobody says that sort of stuff about softball players. Football players, sure, but not us. The worst we get is that we’re all dykes, and I shave my legs, so obviously that’s not me.
“Come on, Amy. Let’s play beauty shop. I’ll let you do Charley’s makeup. We’ll start with a day look and then change it to a nighttime one, okay? My makeup kit is in the bedroom.”
“Makeup?” I whine, and I don’t know what to think. I hate how it feels—hate it—but it’s fun to play, to think about being out at a club or something.
Most of our nights are here or at Kaylee’s, still. Sometimes we stay at the other girls’ houses, but we’re not party girls. I have to watch Amy and stuff.
“I won’t let her do your mascara or eyeliner. I’ll do that. That way nobody puts an eye out.”
“Or the eyelash curler.”
Kaylee’s eyes go wide. “OMG, do you remember when Bambi let Kyra use one on her?”
“Uh-huh.” We love this story. “She blinked and it tore all her eyelashes out and her eyes swelled up like frogs.”
“Can you imagine? There wouldn’t even be anything to rest your falsies on. Oh, did I show you mine? We have to wear them on the field.”
“Yeah? Lemme see. How do they work?”
“Glue. It takes forever to get them on.”
“Like glue-glue?” No way.
“No, these have strips.”
Amy brings the purple Winnie-the-Pooh makeup bag I got Kaylee for Christmas in sixth grade, and she pulls out these pink plastic things with spider-looking deals stuck on them.
“Whoa. Those are cool.” Cool and sorta scary, a little bit.
“Yeah, I know, ri
ght? See, they have like a glue-strip deal on them and you float them right over your eyelashes.” She pulls one off and, she’s right, they’re just like… little hairs. “You want to see? Amy, you have a hand mirror?”
“Mom’s got a light-up one. We could use it.”
“Be careful when you unplug it!”
We’re not supposed to be in her room.
“I will. I’ll be super careful.”
“Just get it, would you? Jesus, y’all.” Kaylee’s eyes roll. “You’re so fucking uptight, Charley. I swear to God. If I stuck a piece of coal up your butt, you’d poop diamonds. I’ll just pop one on, and you can see how weird it is.”
She puts it on after Amy brings the mirror, the edges sticking up all weird on one side.
“Uh….”
“Yeah, I can’t figure it out, how to make the corner work. If you start in the corner, it feels real pokey, and then my eyes start watering and everything falls off.”
Still, they make her eye look huge, a little creepy, like doll’s eyes. I bet they feel weird as hell. “They’re cool.”
“Yeah. The girls say it’ll make my eyes look like… blah. I’m thinking about getting violet contacts too. Or bright green.”
“Green would be pretty.”
“Amy, shut up. There’s nothing wrong with Kaylee’s normal eyes.” Maybe there is shit wrong with those bitches in the cheer squad. Kaylee’s just fine, and if she’s not, then I’m going to suck forever.
“Yeah, but the contacts will make them pretty from the field. Special.”
I don’t know what to say. I like us like we are, but I know that’s not cool. I know it’s supposed to be that there’s makeup and fake eyes and fake boobies and shit, and if you don’t want them, then you’re religious or queer or stuck-up, and the stuck-up girls all wear makeup, so….
God.
“Cool.” It’s a cop-out, but what am I supposed to say?
Kaylee puts the falsies back, then pulls out all the eye shadow and mascara, lipsticks and powders, dumping them all out on the table in a pile. Man, she gets a lot of shit in that little bag. “Let’s play, y’all. We can worry about contacts later. I still have to con Daddy into paying for it anyway.”
“They expensive?”
“Yeah. Sort of.” She shrugs. “So, Amy, first, concealer, because oh my God, the eye bags.”
Kaylee hands it over to Amy, digging her hands into my hair. “Close your eyes, girlfriend.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I do, though, because this is my best friend and that’s what we do.
I didn’t make the rules.
Chapter 4
OKAY, SUMMER without softball sucks.
There isn’t a thing about it that doesn’t suck.
No games. No practices. No no-hitters. Just that stupid trailer and the stupid brace and the stupid physical therapy.
My therapist’s name is Erin, and I have to go for three months. Mom’s going to lose her mind when the bills start coming in, but so far, she’s letting me go.
Making me go.
Whichever.
Whatever.
Still, I’m here.
“Pay attention, Charley.”
“I am!” Sort of. Erin has me lifting these nonweight weights, superlight things that feel lighter than the air, over and over.
If I didn’t hate Erin and her stupid exercises, I’d think she was pretty. She’s dark like me, sporty, hair super short.
“What are you going to do this afternoon? Anything fun?”
“Going to watch cheerleading practice and pick up our schedules and then pizza, I hope.”
“Is that fun?”
“I…. My best friend’s on the squad. Kaylee.”
“Ah. Well, that’s cool. Just you two having pizza? Slow down. Not so fast.”
“I don’t know.” I hope so. I don’t love the Ashleys, and most of the girls are just bitches. We never hang with Shaundra or Jeri. Kennedy is working at Pizza Hut, though, so that could be cool. She always gives us free breadsticks.
“What’s your favorite kind of pie?”
“Like cherry?” What a weird question. “Chocolate, I guess.”
“I meant pizza pie.”
I shoot her a look. She’s so weird. “Pizza pie? Where are you from? Not here.”
“No, I came from Chicago.”
Chicago? Dude. “Why? Why the hell did you come here?”
“My partner came to go to school in Commerce.”
“Yeah?”
Partner.
Like partner-partner.
Like girlfriend.
“Yep. Let’s start with the balls. Toss from the elbow.”
“Sure.” Partner. Dude. I toss one, trying not to move my shoulder at all. “What’s her name?”
“Kathy. She’s studying education. She wants to be a kindergarten teacher.”
Oh man. A teacher. Ew.
“What do you want to do in college?”
“Play softball.” Do what you’re doing. “Maybe occupational therapy.”
“You’d be good at that. Athletic girls can be.” Erin plays softball in the Longview and Balch Springs leagues. She plays first, and she’s heard of me. How cool is that?
It was cooler before I had to throw these balls every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
“I’m going to UT with Kaylee. She wants to learn about hair and stuff.”
“Hair and stuff? At UT?”
“Yeah, I know. I don’t know. Maybe she’ll just go for a semester or two and then she’ll go to hairdo school and we’ll get an apartment off-campus. Does it work that way, do you think?”
“Sure, I don’t see why not. You usually have to stay on campus while you’re freshmen, but that’s all.”
That’s just a year.
We can totally handle that.
“Cool. Where did you go to school again?”
“University of Kansas.”
“Was it neat?” I imagine all college is cool when you haven’t gone, and nothing is the same after you’ve done it.
“It was. Some of it sucked, you know? Finals are hard, and I was dirt poor for a lot of it, but basically it was good. I liked learning to live on my own.” She moves the bucket, just about six inches, so I can throw farther.
“Did you know? I mean, that you liked girls?” I probably shouldn’t ask and shit, but it just falls out of my mouth. I can’t imagine telling anyone about the practice stuff that Kaylee and I do, much less trying to tell someone I was a lesbo.
“Yeah. I wasn’t out at home. My dad’s a preacher. He was upset when he found out, but I pretty much knew.”
I wince. Oh, they must hate her so bad.
“Hey, don’t look like that. It took a bit, but he’s my dad and he loves me. He even preaches about it now, about tolerance and not being a dick.” She looks around and pinks up. “I mean….”
“I won’t tell that you cussed. I get it.”
“Thanks. You’re cool. I just…. You know, you start thinking about clients like they’re your friends and you forget about being professional.”
Dude. Erin thinks about me like I’m her friend. She’s got to be twenty-five. How rocking awesome is that? “It’s no big. So your family’s okay?”
“My folks are, yeah. And since I came out, two of my dad’s brothers did too. I guess they aren’t scared to admit that they’re gay. My brothers…. Well, the older one is still all pissed, but my younger brother—Seth—he’s good with it. Does throwing hurt much?”
“Just a little.” It more stings than hurts. Kaylee’s dad says that’s the tendons. It still sucks, no matter what it is.
“Okay. Ten more tosses and we’ll start stretching—your favorite part.” Erin rolls her eyes, and I snort.
“Yeah. Whoop-de-doo.” Tossing, tossing, la la la. God, I want to know more about this whole Erin-and-her-girlfriend thing. “So, your… is it girlfriend?”
“Yeah. Girlfriend for now. When we get out of Texas, I’m going to ask her to mar
ry me. Partner works for me too. Lover. Whatever. You can just call her Kathy.” It’s so weird. Erin talks about it like it’s totally normal, like it’s nothing, but we both know it is something, right? That people think different about her?
“Was she, like, the first one? Did you know she was the right one, right off the bat?”
“Oh, man. Those are two totally different questions. I met her at an ice cream social, believe it or not.”
“For real? Like a party?”
Erin nods and grabs the bucket, head bobbing toward the massage table. “Go on, up there on your back. And yeah, it was a silly little party on campus, like a ‘welcome back to school’ thing. I was a junior, she was a freshman.”
“Oh, juniors never date freshmen here. Never. You’d be like the least cool junior ever.”
She chuckles at me, shakes her head. “College isn’t like high school, Charley. Always remember that. No matter what, college is different.”
People always say that. Always, but they never say what that means. It’s like a secret or something, like no one can explain it, but everyone knows it’s true.
It sort of pisses me off.
“What’s so different about it?”
“Oh God. There’s tons.” She starts moving my arm, real slow, and I can feel the sweat pop out on my skin, the air conditioner making me shiver. “I mean, you can be fifty and be a freshman, for instance. It’s not like high school where everyone’s fourteen when they start and eighteen when they leave.”
I feel a little stupid now, like a dumb kid. God, how am I going to be ready? How are we? Sure, Kaylee’s folks will help—they have money and nobody else to worry about, but my mom? Shit.
My mom doesn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. I’m on my own for college—she doesn’t even pay for my phone or car insurance.
“Hey, it’s okay. Breathe.” Erin slows down even more. “You all right?”
“Uh-huh.” But I’m not. Like all of the sudden, I’m nowhere close to okay and I can’t breathe and I’m scared.
Austin is like three hundred miles away and I’ve only ever been there for games and what if I get to UT and everyone’s better at everything than me and what if Kaylee hates it down there and decides to go somewhere else and I’m stuck because I have a scholarship and I can’t leave and….