She helped me up and dragged me off to our room. She left me to get a cool washrag from the bathroom, then bathed my face. She gently pried my shoe out of my hands and played at Prince Charming, unlacing it and shoving it back on my foot. Clarice, taking care of me once again, remained serene and smooth while I sweated and snuffled, excreting vile fluids from every pore and orifice.
I let her minister to me, but half of me wanted to crawl under the bed, and the other half wanted to bite her. I was like the man who almost burns up in a fire. Months later, he’s still jumping at the sight of matches, and everyone else is bored with it. They want to be able to have a smoke in peace, but oh, can’t light up here. Mr. Trauma won’t like it.
“I don’t know how I’m going to go to school on Monday,” I said. “Clarice, he’s going to be there.”
She busied herself tightening and retying my laces. “You’re not going to think about that, we decided.” Her voice was steady, matter-of-fact. “That didn’t happen. And he’s a senior. You get through this one year, and then he’ll be gone.”
“He’ll see me. He’ll look at us, and he knows everything about me,” I said.
She looked up from my shoe, and her eyes narrowed. “He doesn’t know . . . he doesn’t know”—she dropped her voice to an outraged whisper—“shit! Not about you or me.” I was so shocked to hear that word come out of her pretty pink mouth that I stopped puling and actually listened to her.
“This was your decision, Arlene,” she said, her voice cool and level. “You are the one who said it never happened, and I said okay because I didn’t know what else there was to do. And that’s good, it was a good idea, but now you have to make it be true. You can’t say it never happened and then creep around everywhere looking like, well, looking like it sure as heck did. Are you saying now it did happen and I have to try and unerase my whole brain or whatever and lie around the house with you and help you be all smelly and traumatized?”
“No,” I whispered. “It never happened. We weren’t even there when it didn’t happen. We agreed.”
“Then get off your butt. Now. Get in the shower. You smell like mold. Put on some clean clothes. Ones with, like, a color. And then let’s grab a ride to the mall and spend every penny my mama gave us for school clothes.”
“On what?” I said.
“School clothes, dummy,” she said. “Pretty things, not my daddy’s old work shirts dyed black and stacked three deep. If I didn’t know better, I might think you were enjoying all this drama. It stops now. We are going to eat pretzels with cheese and see all our friends, and you are going to smile and act like a human. If you can’t do it, if you walk around the mall like a ghost, then everything changes. Because I won’t go to school tomorrow and pretend everything is fine unless everything really is fine.” Her voice was rising in volume and pitch. “So you make it fine. Now. Or admit it isn’t. But you can’t make me keep making it fine for both of us while you wallow around and suffer. You have to help me. You have to help me make it fine. I have to be this perfect shiny girl, happy-happy every minute, and I can’t do it by myself, Arlene.”
She was shaking. For the first time I saw the crack in her smooth facade, and I realized I’d misjudged her terribly. She was doing this because we had agreed that it had never happened, and the cool and constant sunshine she exuded was nothing more than an act of will.
“I’ll get in the shower,” I agreed. “I’ll make it fine.”
And I did. I did exactly what she said. By the time Aunt Flo and Mama came in with a basket of tomatoes, I was dressed in a long peach-colored flowered skirt with a matching crop top and sandals. I had clean hair, brushed and everything. I had on lip gloss and mascara. Clarice was dressed, too, and we were sitting at the kitchen table.
“Hey, y’all,” I said. “Can we maybe get a ride to the mall?” Mama didn’t look up from setting the tomatoes in a row on the kitchen windowsill, but Aunt Florence stared at me with a faint and wary hope dawning in her eyes.
I curled my lips upward and showed her my teeth. Florence ripped off her sun hat and hurled it onto the kitchen counter, stumbling over Mama in her haste to get to her keys.
At the mall, safely out of her mother’s earshot, Clarice said, “You don’t know what I’ve had to do to keep Mama off you all summer. I have told my nice mama so many lies! I said you were mooning over a boy, the boy liked another girl, the other girl was being mean to you about it whenever you left the house . . . I’m surprised my tongue hasn’t caught fire and burned itself right out of my head.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t help you more,” I said.
“You’re helping me now. That counts for a lot.”
We linked arms and went to spend Aunt Florence’s money. I found out the more I played at being fine, the easier it was. I could sit up in the driver’s seat of my brain and watch myself pretend to be Arlene. Well, not really Arlene, more like Clarice Junior. I sparkled and said, “Well, hey!” to all her friends.
We bought the clothes she picked and tried on trampy things her mother wouldn’t let us bring in the house, much less wear, and we giggled like real girls. By the time we were ready to call Uncle Bruster to come get us, I was able to smile like a well-trained monkey and answer questions about my summer on complete autopilot. I was shocked by how easy it was. The surprising thing was that Clarice had figured out how to do it before I had. Historically, I had always been the better liar.
We were walking back to the food court to hit the pay phones when we saw him. Jim Beverly was sitting with some of the other football players, all of them scarfing down tacos and acting rowdy. They were just being boys, I suppose, but the whole scene felt sinister and larger than life. Their gestures seemed slow and exaggerated, their voices strident but indistinct. I had the impression of loud talk, raucous laughter, but no idea what was being said. I slowed, but Clarice clamped an iron hand on my arm and kept me marching.
We had to pass by them to get to the phones. We could have circled out, but I suppose Clarice thought that was too obvious. So we headed past them. Clarice’s jaw was set, her chin lifted. To a stranger, it would seem as if she were totally unaware of them, but her eyes were glossy and bright. They looked plastic. They were dead things in her pretty, proud face. I was a skeleton beside her. It was as if I had no skin to soften the stark grin of my skull, no tendons or muscles to keep my bones from clashing and jangling together, chipping and splintering as I walked.
We came abreast of the rowdy group when one of them, it was Bud, lifted his hand and said, “Hey there, Clarice.” Several of the other boys lifted their hands, too, Jim Beverly among them. “Clariiiiiiiice,” one of them hooted.
We both nodded and smiled, jerky as puppets, and continued the death march. The food court darkened. If there were any other girls present, I couldn’t see them. Among the chairs and tables, the eyes of boys shone like hot lamps, all of them fastening on Clarice, who walked by plastic and proud, unknowing. And then they were behind us. I sensed those eyes following my cousin, inching out into the air on stalks to stay close to her. I felt, more than thought, a sudden promise. I knew how to make up for it, this whole summer. I knew how to make up for everything. I would protect Clarice. I would be her secret knight.
We entered the hallway where the bank of pay phones stood. And I was fine. I was back in the driver’s seat, watching Arlene and Clarice dig in their purses for change, and the worst was over. I had seen Jim Beverly, and I had neither spontaneously combusted nor used his plastic Taco Bell spork to pop out one of his eyes and dig deep into his brain.
Only a single school year separated me from the moment I would smash his head in with a bottle, so it was more like a reprieve than a cure. But at the time it felt like a small flavor of miracle.
Bud had left the football boys to follow Clarice. He came into the hallway before either of us had dug up phone change. “You calling for a ride?” Bud said.
“Yes, we’re done here,” Clarice replied, smiling at him. Jim Be
verly and most of his crowd were from Fruiton, but Bud was one of us. A Possett kid. We’d known him since grade school. Clarice indicated the host of bags at our feet. “We are flat broke and happy as clams.”
“I’d take you, but I only still have my learner’s for four more months. My dad is coming by at five or so to get me. We could take you on home and save your folks the drive.”
I was smiling my big fake-ass smile, already shaking my head, but Bud was looking at Clarice. And Clarice was nodding. “That’d be sweet, Bud. Just let me call my folks and tell them.” She went back to digging in her purse, but Bud whipped out a handful of change and extended it to her on the palm of his hand. Clarice picked out enough for the phone and simpered, I swear to God, she simpered at him.
“Clarice, it’s not even four-fifteen yet,” I said, nudging her foot with mine, but she ignored me and made the call.
“Hey, Arlene,” said Bud, as if he had only at that moment noticed me.
Clarice hung up the phone and said, “All set,” smiling up at Bud. Way up at Bud. He’d been junior varsity as a freshman and looked like he’d shot up another four inches over the summer. He spent his summers in Mississippi with his grandparents and then went to a sports camp, so we hadn’t seen him at church.
“Come on and I’ll buy you girls a Coke while we wait.”
I nudged Clarice’s foot harder. It was one thing to walk past Jim Beverly, but if she thought we should sit beside him at a table and drink a Coke so she could flirt with Bud Freeman, she was insane. And anyway, Bud Freeman? What was Clarice doing flirting with Bud Freeman? Bud had always been extremely sweet, the sort of boy you’d trust with your sister, but maybe not the brightest bean in the patch.
Plus, this was a boy who, at the age of six, had eaten a worm. We saw him eat it. He ate that worm whole. And no one had dared him to or made him, he had just taken it in his head to do it. And now Clarice was giving him a kissing look, like she wanted to kiss him on his worm-eating mouth. I nudged at her foot again, practically a kick this time, panicking because she actually seemed to be considering it. Clarice glanced at me.
“I’m not thirsty,” she said. Bud nodded, visibly deflating, and she quickly added, “Arlene and I wanted to walk down to Baskin-Robbins and get a cone, but we didn’t want to carry these bags all that way. Maybe you could help us?”
Oh, she was smart. Baskin-Robbins wasn’t in the food court. It was at the other end of the mall. She’d combined an escape route for us with a request for a man to tote her things, a clear sign of romantic interest. Also, she was going to get him to buy her a sweet food you licked—a love food, Clarice’s borderline-slutty friend Janey would call it.
Bud gathered up all the packages, flexing his mighty thews, while Clarice googled at his forearms in a parody of female appreciation. He seemed to eat it up, though. We headed back across the food court, Bud leading the way. Clarice sailed ahead of me to walk with Bud, and I followed, churning in her wake.
Jim Beverly was still there with his crew of football boys and toadies. I kept my eyes on Clarice, and it was easier this time. Maybe, I thought optimistically, it would be easier every time until I didn’t even notice him. Until he didn’t even exist. But then my eyes, of their own volition, snaked sideways to peek at him. He was watching Clarice walk. His gaze was proprietary and lingered on her ass. I looked away.
At Baskin-Robbins, Bud bought three cones, and we sat down on some benches near a stand of ferns in the middle of the mall hallway to eat them. Bud and Clarice were in full flirting mode now. I passed the time people-watching. I watched boys, mostly. Boys roving in packs, boys alone, boys being dragged along by mothers on a mission. Not one of the boys noticed me watching. Because when they came into our orbit, each and every one of them was much too busy staring or sneaking glances at Clarice. Even the men, I noticed, men with wives and children, paused to drink in the sight of Clarice tossing her shiny hair and laughing at something not funny that Bud had said.
I looked at her, too. I tried to see what they saw. I knew she was pretty. She had always been exceptionally pretty. But I tried to look at her like a man might look at her. I tried to think like Jim Beverly. I saw then how soft she was. She still had a toddler’s Cupid’s-bow mouth, exquisite, but not her own. It was the mouth of every pretty baby. She looked so pliable. I saw how easily she might be pushed into shapes.
There was no edge to her, no hard place, no angle. Nothing stopped the eye, just soft curves that led you gently down to look at the next curve, which led you on to the next. Her baby cheeks took you to her neck, then to her soft shoulders, to her high breasts, to the dip of her tiny waist, to the flare of her hips, her rounded bottom leading into her endless golden-brown legs. Her skin had a bloom to it. It looked silky and vulnerable, easily bruised.
I looked away. A boy in the endless stream of boys was standing by the Baskin-Robbins, watching Clarice. There was always a boy watching Clarice. It seemed there always had been, I had simply never been so aware of them before. This boy I knew. He was another Possett boy, and in our sophomore class, although only because he’d had to repeat eighth grade. He wasn’t stupid or lazy. He’d had cancer. He’d gone into remission and been a miracle. I remember when he entered our class, he was bald as an egg. He was also a skinny little guy with troubled skin and eyes that were sunk too far back in his head. Clarice was out of his league, and he knew it. He was taking her in furtively, in gulping glances.
I got up, dropping the remains of my cone in the trash, and walked over to him.
“Hey, Walter,” I said.
He started guiltily, caught. “Hey, Arlene.” He shuffled his feet a bit.
“Walter, you’re sixteen, aren’t you?”
“Yah,” he said.
“Cool. You got a car?”
“Yah,” he said. “Well, not my own. Not yet. But my dad let me drive his today.” Even then, caught, with me breathing up into his face, his greedy eyes kept straying to Clarice. He couldn’t seem to stop himself.
So I stopped him. I said something guaranteed to stop him. I said something like “Why don’t you show me your car. If it’s got a big backseat, maybe we could do it.”
He stared at me, shook his head. I could see he was trying to process what “it” I could possibly mean. He flushed a dark, earnest red. Then he said, “Arlene, you shouldn’t say stuff like that. You shouldn’t kid around like that. I mean, we’re Baptists.”
I said, “I wasn’t kidding around.” I pressed the back of my hand casually over the fly of his jeans. Something flexed against my touch. I felt it move like a fisted hand, uncurling. I took my hand away, but I could still feel the ghost of movement prickling across my skin.
Walter forgot we were Baptists. He grabbed my hand and started leading me at a canter past Baskin-Robbins, towards the mall’s side exit. As we zoomed past the benches, I yelled, “Clarice, Walter’s going to show me his car real quick. We’ll be right back.”
“Meet us at the front,” she called back. “Bud’s daddy’ll be here in twenty minutes.”
We hurried out to the parking lot, and Walter led me to his car. We were practically sprinting. The side lot was full, so Walter started up the car and we drove around to the back of the mall where there was no public parking. We stopped behind a Dumpster. Then we sat there for fifteen long, silent seconds. Walter stared at me. He looked both hopeful and terrified. My own face felt blank. I was in the driver’s seat, watching Arlene get ready to fuck Walter Fiercy.
“Walter? Are you a virgin?” I asked.
He shook his head. We both knew he was lying.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“I’m sure,” he said, lying. “Are you?” he added hopefully.
“No,” I said, and he flushed again. I could see in his face that he believed me, and that he knew I did not believe him. I could read his mind, but I was a closed book to him.
I said, “Come on, then. Since we both know what we’re doing and all.” He flinched at that
, weaker than me. I stared him down, as if daring him to do something, do anything but sit in his daddy’s car with his hands in his lap, looking at me with drowning eyes. He didn’t know what to do, and I let him flounder there until my ownership of him, of this moment, was a living thing between us.
Then I climbed over into the backseat, and he followed.
“You got something?” I asked. He looked puzzled, and I said, “You know, something. Like, something.”
Understanding dawned, and he fumbled in his wallet for the rubber he had probably carried there since he was twelve. I helped him get it on, and we did it. It didn’t take long, and it didn’t hurt much. I was bone-dry, tight with disinterest, but the condom was lubricated. What held my attention was his utter seriousness, his total concentration. His eyes were closed, and he seemed to be suffering through some internal drama that was utterly divorced from me, and yet I was causing it, and I resolved it for him.
The next morning I woke up and my bed was full of blood. I stared at it, uncomprehending, and then panicked. He had broken me, and I would never be able to have babies. Probably I would hemorrhage and die of bad sex, and worse, the doctors would tell my aunt Florence what had killed me. But then I realized it was only my unreliable period showing up a week early. I felt very forgiving towards Walter then, and through Walter I felt forgiving towards all boys. I didn’t even like Walter, but I was extremely grateful to find out so immediately that his ancient rubber had done its job.
As soon as Walter finished, I pushed him off me and checked my watch. I had about four minutes to get back to meet Clarice. We hurriedly straightened our clothes, and then he drove me to the front entrance where Bud and Clarice were standing. All our bags were piled at Bud’s feet. I hopped out of the car.
“That’s your car?” Clarice said to Walter, looking questioningly at Mr. Fiercy’s huge boat of a sedan.
“My dad’s,” Walter said to her. But his gaze had changed. It slid over her and off as if she were made out of Teflon. He’d just screwed the closest thing she had to a sister, and she was a closed door. He would have to dream of different pretty girls now. I realized he was looking at me. I looked back, raised my eyebrows at him. “What?”
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