by Julie Murphy
It makes me want to comfort him. To give him the same calm he gives me.
I step forward lightly and put his phone down on the bench with the light still shining upward and gently trace the line of his shoulder with the tips of my fingers. Because just like out in Agnes’s backyard and in Adam’s movie room, the world is dark and it’s hard to remember that we exist outside of this moment.
He goes still.
“Ramona.” There’s no question in his voice.
He turns to me and my fingers rake across his shoulder blade around to the broad expanse of his chest.
When I was in fifth grade, Rebekah Paulson sat in front of me. She had waist-length jet-black hair that moved like a beaded curtain concealing her face. I would have to sit on my hands just to stop myself from my running my fingers through her hair.
And that’s how I feel now, here with Freddie. I’ve never wanted to touch a boy in the way I want to touch him. It makes me feel uncomfortable, but I’m starting to think that maybe the gist of life is learning how to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.
“Ramona.” He says my name again, but this time it sounds like a plea. “I want to kiss you.”
I bite down hard on my lip. “I want that, too.”
If our first kiss was a polite introduction, this one is a shouting match.
With his head tilted upward and one hand cupped behind my neck, he uses his free hand to pull me flush against him. Our feet twist together until I’m pressed against the lockers with a handle digging into my back, but I don’t care.
My hands run across his upper body and over the top of his scalp, begging my fingerprints to leave their mark and to memorize every bit of him.
Kissing him is different, yes. But it’s not. Kissing Freddie doesn’t feel different because he’s a boy, it feels different because he’s Freddie. Kissing him varies in the same way that kissing Grace was different from kissing CarrieAnn or any other girl.
Freddie presses his hips tighter against mine, and then I feel the real difference. I gasp.
“I’m sorry,” he blurts. He pulls himself back and almost falls over the bench behind him, but I catch him by his arm.
“I wanted you to kiss me,” I say without hesitation. “I wanted it on Thanksgiving, too.”
He inhales and exhales deeply as if to get his own body back under control.
“We better get going,” I tell him, because if we don’t, I feel like my clothes might not stay on much longer. Adrenaline pumps through my body, and I either have to move or touch him.
Freddie nods quickly, his eyes still wide. He takes my bag from where it sits on the bench and holds a hand out for me. Barefoot, I follow him as he uses his cell phone to guide us back out to the hallway.
The corridor is lit only with faint natural light, making it easier on our eyes as we emerge from the dark locker room.
We hold hands for a moment longer until we reach the end of the empty, partially lit hallway.
In the car, Agnes is shaking her head. “Bet you got a little scare in there, huh?”
I settle into the front seat. “So dark I couldn’t see my own hand in front of me.”
She glances up at her rearview mirror. “Well, Freddie, what’d you think of your first venture into a women’s locker room?”
“Enlightening,” he says. “Very enlightening.”
TWENTY-THREE
Over the next few days, nothing and everything changes. We’re still Freddie and Ramona, but we’re versions of ourselves who share secret kisses and under-the-table hand holding. When we eat lunch with Ruth or Adam and see Hattie and Saul after school, I marvel at the fact that they don’t see the difference between us. That feeling I get when I’m riding my bike down the steep hill of Freddie’s street is the only way I know how to explain it. The world around me is a blur except for him.
I feel like every moment not spent alone is a race to find some bit of privacy. It’s not that we’re hiding anything, but it seems so odd to announce something to our friends that we can’t even name ourselves.
There is this unexpected guilt every time I kiss Freddie. Like I’m doing him some kind of disservice by not being straight or that I’m somehow betraying Saul and Ruth by kissing a member of the opposite sex. But it’s fleeting, because holding his hand and touching his lips feel like home.
On Thursday afternoon, before last period, I find a note in my locker. I unfold it with care and find MASH written across the top of the page in long, skinny penmanship I immediately recognize. I have to bite my lips to hide my smile as I slide the note into my binder and sit in the back row of last period.
After checking to make sure no one is paying attention, I close my eyes and draw a spiral with my pencil at the bottom of the page, counting each line so I know which options to circle.
I raise my hand for a bathroom pass so that I can drop my completed game of MASH in Freddie’s locker. After school, I duck out as quickly as I can. Not because I don’t want to see him, but because for once, it’s nice to be the one being chased.
TWENTY-FOUR
On Friday morning, Freddie and I have locked ourselves in the single-stall restroom at school reserved for handicapped students. No one really uses this bathroom much, though, except to hook up. I used to roll my eyes at couples stumbling out, but oh, how the tables have turned.
I’m sitting on the lip of the sink with my legs spread and Freddie kissing petals down my neck. “I’ve got our matching outfits under control, by the way,” he says, referring to our game of MASH.
“Do you?” My voice is uneven, clearly affected by his lips on my throat. But then I laugh at a memory so old I wonder if I made it up. “Do you remember that year on the Fourth of July when Agnes made us dress up like presidents for the parade?”
He pulls back for a minute, bracing his hands on my thighs. “Oh my God, yes. I was Roosevelt. You were Truman—”
“And Hattie was Lincoln, and she cried because her beard was itchy.”
He smiles. “Those suits were so hot. It was July. What was she thinking?”
It’s so hard for me to comprehend sometimes that we’re still the same people we were then. There’s just a lot more kissing, and Freddie’s not scared of the ocean anymore. “Hey, should I plan to be out all night on Saturday? I can get Hattie to cover for me. Not that my dad really cares if I’m out late.”
“That’s up to you,” he says coyly.
“Well, actually, that’s more than likely up to Agnes.”
He kisses my nose quickly like a pecking bird. “Curfews are made to be tested, right?”
On Saturday morning after my paper route, I work the breakfast and lunch shift at Boucher’s, so by the time I get home, it’s already two o’clock in the afternoon.
In my bedroom, waiting for me is Hattie, of course. She’s sprawled out on my bed, reading a paperback romance in a pair of cheer shorts and a sports bra. Her growing belly looks like a melting sun on the horizon of my bed. “Tyler’s at work,” she announces, as if I am at all concerned by the cretin’s whereabouts.
For a moment, I start to wonder how much time she spends in my room when I’m not here, but before I can get worked up, I remember that I’ve got to shower and change.
I don’t have time to bother with washing my hair, so I twist it in a knot and hop in the shower. The head on our shower is so low that I’ve actually got to go out of my way to get my hair wet if I want to. I scrub and rinse the smell of dirty dishes and sweat from my skin. As I’m getting out, the door swings wide open and then slams shut.
It was quick, but not so quick that I didn’t recognize Tyler in the doorway.
“You don’t knock?” I scream as I wrap the towel around my chest. Anger boils under my skin.
“It was unlocked,” he says from the other side of the door. No sorry. No excuse me. But of course he doesn’t say those things.
I swing the door open. “Well, you wouldn’t know it was unlocked if you hadn’t tried the handle, and
besides, the lock doesn’t even work.”
“Damn,” he says. “I didn’t see anything. It’s almost like looking at a guy anyway.”
“How are you so ignorant?” All I can register is red-hot anger. I can’t believe the stupid dribbling out of his mouth, and just being in the same place as him makes me feel completely unreasonable. It’s one of those moments where I wonder how I can truly love Hattie if she honestly thinks this is a good decision.
He’s silent.
“What? Because I’m a lesbian? A dyke?”
“What’s going on out there?” calls Hattie.
“Your little sister’s overreacting.”
Hattie sticks her head out my bedroom door, the yellowing paperback dangling from her fingers. “Are you being an asshole to my sister?” She looks to me. “Is he?”
I glance between the two of them. “It’s fine. Just a misunderstanding.”
She gives him a pointed look and shuts my door behind her.
I check the towel to make sure it’s tight around my chest before I point my finger right in his face and say low enough that Hattie can’t hear, “Don’t forget whose house this really is, you piece of shit.”
Back in my bedroom, Hattie is sitting on my bed with her book.
“Where are you off to?” she asks.
“Hanging out with Freddie.” I turn my back to her and put my bra and underwear on, before opening my tiny closet. Most of my clothes reside on the floor or in the never-ending cycle that is my laundry basket, but the good stuff—and there’s not much of it—stays hanging because I don’t get around to wearing it much.
I pull out a yellow-and-black-striped trapeze dress and a peach shirtdress with little white cats all over it. I know Freddie’s taking care of our outfits (whatever that means), but I still want to look different when he first sees me.
“Whoa there,” says Hattie. “Are you getting dressed up?” She stands up and leaves her book facedown on the bedspread.
“If by dressed up you mean I’m wearing a dress that doesn’t have pizza grease stains on it, then yes.”
“You wanna tell me what’s going on?”
“I’m hanging out with Freddie.”
She glances to me and then to the two dresses in my hands.
“We’re going out and I don’t know where, so I don’t want to look stupid.”
“It’s not like it’s a date or something,” she says.
And when I don’t respond, she takes the dresses from my hand and hangs them on the doorknob before forcing me to sit on the bed.
“When you say you two are going out . . .”
I take a deep breath.
“Ramona Blue, you know this house is too small for secrets.”
And that’s the truth, isn’t it? Maybe that’s why I haven’t told anyone about what’s happened between us, because for once I’d like to have a secret to myself. But Hattie is my sister, and hiding from her is as easy as fitting a car through a keyhole.
“Freddie’s taking me on a date. I think.”
Her face looks like I’ve smacked her with a frying pan. “What does that even mean?” she finally asks.
“For me?” It hits me like a brain freeze. Part of me thinks I’ve been avoiding this question all week and part of me thinks the only reason I feel the need to answer it is because someone asked. But regardless, I don’t know the answer.
“Listen,” she says, “I get that your options here are limited, but you don’t want to mess stuff up with Freddie just because you’re bored.”
“I’m not bored,” I tell her. “You don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“Well, I’m here if you want to talk.” She tucks her paperback under her arm. “Wear the cat dress.”
After she leaves, I slip the cat dress over my head and glance in the mirror. She’s right.
TWENTY-FIVE
After styling my hair into two braids that crisscross over my head like a messy headband and putting on my boots, I wait for Freddie out front.
I watch as Bart’s truck, his beloved 1948 Chevy pickup, rocks over the potholes toward my trailer. I wonder how much talking Agnes had to do in order for Freddie to borrow it.
He hops out of the driver’s side and pauses for a moment as his eyes drink me in. “Well, you look lovely, but as promised . . .” He holds out a black tuxedo T-shirt for me that perfectly matches the one he’s wearing with his dark-wash jeans shredded on one knee and high-top sneakers.
His cheeks flush, making his orangey freckles stand out even more than usual.
“You look pretty,” he says. “You are pretty, I mean.”
I slip the T-shirt over my head, mussing up my already messy hair. “Thanks.” But my voice is too low for him to hear.
He opens the passenger door for me before jogging around the front of the truck to his side.
He flips through radio stations restlessly as we drive out of town.
“Where are we going?”
“Not far. I don’t think.”
“But it’s a secret?”
“New Orleans,” he says. He never was good with secrets. “I love it at Christmastime, especially.”
My rib cage tickles with excitement. “NOLA is my favorite.” And I’m a little relieved we’re venturing out and away from Eulogy. I’m still not sure how we exist in public.
“I know,” he says. “Me too.” His shoulders bounce. There’s electricity in the air. I can feel it. “Favorite city. Favorite person.”
I grin as he turns the music up. We take the scenic way there, making our drive about an hour and a half long, and soon after we cross the state line, we’re driving down narrow strips of land with rows of newly constructed houses on stilts sitting at the edge of Lake Pontchartrain.
According to my dad, all of this was wiped out by Katrina, too. Anytime he talks about Katrina in regard to Louisiana, there’s a bitterness in his voice. When the world thinks of Hurricane Katrina, they imagine the overflowing Superdome and the Ninth Ward and the flooded historic streets of the lower Quarter. No one thinks of our Mississippi and the incredible damage that forever changed the coast. No one talks about the industries and livelihoods that were lost.
I often wonder what my life would look like if I had lived in a world where Katrina didn’t happen. In that universe, my parents are still together and we’re not rich, but we’re not scraping by like we have for as long as I can remember. And all the deserted concrete slabs that line the coast are occupied with buildings that have stood against the same hurricanes my dad witnessed as a boy. It’s a different world, but not one I’ll ever have the privilege of existing in.
In our little trailer park, not even a mile from the coast, we’re sitting ducks. Folks in Eulogy don’t use years to measure time. They use storms, and I guess I’m just waiting for the next big one.
I get a little fidgety as we cross a huge steel bridge into New Orleans that can be raised up and down for larger boats to pass through. I remember, as a kid, being so mesmerized by the idea that an entire structure could adjust for one boat—one single boat that happened to be too tall. As I got older and the inches kept adding up and the growing pains became almost unbearable, I remember wishing that the doorways of our trailer could raise up and down just for me.
I’m impressed with Freddie’s ability to maneuver the traffic, but I’m in the habit of staying quiet, because when we were kids my dad would get anxious with all the added cars and pedestrians. We pull into a skinny parking lot that runs the length of the Moonwalk, which edges up against the Mississippi River. The walk is lined with tourists and men with towels thrown over their shoulders and shoe polish in their hands as they try to talk anyone who will make eye contact with them into a shoe shine.
“Are you hungry?” Freddie asks.
“Starving.”
“Good.”
We walk out of the parking lot and down the steps to Decatur Street. Sprawled out in front of us is Jackson Square, a beautiful green space in
the middle of the French Quarter. Behind us, overlooking the Mississippi River, is a ginormous Christmas tree with huge gold and red ornaments and an equally huge star on top. Oversize red bows hang from every lamppost in sight. The Quarter has this smell—and I don’t particularly hate it, even though I should. It’s a combination of once-exquisite day-old food, puke, and the sticky-sweet scent of frozen daiquiris.
Freddie points to St. Louis Cathedral. “I used to think it was the castle from Disney World.”
And I see it, too. There aren’t as many turrets, but it’s bright and white, like a beacon.
That’s when he chooses to take my hand, when I’m distracted and not ready, but so ready. Our hands clasped together makes my breath catch, which seems silly since we’ve been pressing our bodies together in whatever quiet corners we could find for the last week. But this is outside, in the middle of the day, and it somehow feels even more intimate than a kiss.
We’re not a secret. I tell myself this over and over again. I know what it’s like to be a secret, and this is not it. But there’s a freedom—almost the same kind I felt so briefly with Grace at Viv’s party—that comes with being strangers in a big city.
As I let Freddie lead the way to wherever he’s decided to take me, I am only the Ramona who exists in this moment. I’m on a date. With a person who happens to be a boy. And we’re holding hands. I am Ramona and he is Freddie and that’s it.
We walk a few blocks toward Canal Street, and every time someone points and laughs at us, I have to remind myself that we’re wearing matching tuxedo T-shirts. Freddie stops at the corner of Chartres and Toulouse behind a line of people.
“They, uh, don’t take reservations,” he says.
The sign hanging above our heads is white with a pink fleur-de-lis and simply reads The Grill.
“This was my favorite place growing up,” Freddie tells me.
“I’ve never even heard of it,” I say with bemusement. I think that’s one of the many wonders of this city: you can come here your whole life and always find something new to discover. “But I’m excited to see what’s so special about it.”