by Kata Čuić
When Bobbi Sue said the gang was all here, she meant her gang. All the popular kids who never gave me the time of day are crowded around a single pool table—drinking, laughing, looking exactly the same as the last time I saw them.
What’s changed is the way they take Jesse into their fold. The men slap his back, happy to see him, offering him a pool cue for the next game. The women crowd around him, obvious lust in their eyes and in their hands fluttering over his hard chest.
Jesse’s come a long way from the scrawny, poorly dressed kid of the past. I’ve got no claims on him, but it pains me to watch him revel in their attraction to his muscular physique that I always knew was hiding beneath his malnourished skin.
He wasn’t kidding about living his best life as being the ultimate revenge. He settles into their ranks like he was always meant to be there. I find an empty seat at a booth against the wall and drain my whiskey, studying their interactions the way I approached case studies for inclusion models in college.
My sight is half-lidded, and my muscles are warm and tingly when Jesse settles into the booth beside me, eyeing the three empty glasses the waitress who’s been kind enough to refill my drinks hasn’t bothered to collect. “Those all yours?”
I nod.
“Ya drunk?”
I nod.
“Ya need me to take ya home?”
I shake my head.
“Ya mad at me?”
I shake my head.
“Nora...”
I’m not nearly drunk enough not to recognize the opening I’ve left him in conversation, so I steer us down a different path. “How are ya doin’ it, Jess? How’re ya fittin’ in with ‘em like ya always been one of ‘em? Ain’t no one noticed me over here in the corner, but every time ya went up to the bar for another round, them women followed ya like ya was the Pied Piper.”
I wince. My dumb mouth ran away with me after all.
He pulls my fourth drink from my hand and downs it in one go, a deep sigh on the edge of his swallow. “Ya know, I always thought they looked down on me, but as I got older, I realized I looked down on ‘em, too. I thought they were beneath me ‘cause they couldn’t read the things I read. I thought they were stupid for not bein’ able to do basic math. Turns out, it was just my pride whisperin’ in my ear to keep my ego from bein’ so bruised. They didn’t think of me nearly as harshly as I thought of ‘em.”
“Bobbi Sue done told ya your chin looked like a butt!” I slap a hand over my loud mouth.
Jesse’s head falls back against the booth as his body rumbles with laughter beside me. His eyes are bright and shining when he grins at me. “She sure does seem to like it now though, don’t she?”
“Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face,” I hiss. “She didn’t want ya back then; she ain’t got no right to act the way she is now.”
“Can I get ya another, ma’am?”
Jesse and I glance up to see the waitress smiling at us. Well, him. She’s smiling at him. At least she asked me if I wanted another drink.
I pull my most recent empty glass out of Jesse’s hand and shake it in front of his face to see if it’ll break her staring. It does not. “I’ll take another, thank ya kindly.”
Jesse gives me the look as he presses his hand on my arm to lower the glass from his face. “She’ll take a Coke.”
“I will not.” I stamp on his foot under the table.
He doesn’t even react, staring at me evenly. “She’ll take a Coke, and I’ll have a water.”
“Right away, handsome.” The waitress winks at him as she sashays away.
I narrow my eyes. “If anyone knows I ain’t real keen on doin’ what I’m told, it’s you.”
“I know it.” He squeezes my arm where he hasn’t let go of yet. My hand that’s still clutching the glass is horrifically resting on his thigh. “I also know ya don’t think right well when you’re drunk.”
“We are not talkin’ about that!” I shake loose of his grasp and drain the last dregs out of the glass just to prove my point.
“No, we most certainly ain’t,” he mutters before raising his voice. “We’re talkin’ about ya bein’ a grown woman who doesn’t wanna show up at home as drunk as ya are now.”
Darn it all. He’s right. I can’t climb into bed with my baby, stinking like whiskey.
Every loose muscle in my body snaps to attention as I turn toward him with wide eyes. I’ve got to pull myself together before I blurt out things I don’t want him to know. “Thank you for minding my manners for me, Mr. Yates. I appreciate it very much.”
He slumps against the booth and scrubs his hands over his face. “Might be this was a bad idea after all,” he mutters between his fingers. “I was bein’ greedy, but this here is too fast.”
“You go on back to your friends,” I tell him, squaring my shoulders. “If you’ll be so kind as to give me an hour to sober up, I’d appreciate a ride home. Please and thank you.”
He sighs. “Nora…”
“We’re not talking about that,” I insist, crunching on ice from a glass to speed up the process of diluting all the alcohol in my system. “If you’d like to stay longer, I’ll find another way home, Mr. Yates.”
“I’ll take ya home,” he says softly before threading his fingers through mine. “For now, we’re gonna talk.”
I stare at him, my chest heaving with a barely contained sob. “Don’t do this to me, Jesse. Not again. I’m drunk, and I—”
“I ain’t gonna take advantage,” he swears before gesturing toward the pool tables. “I promised ya I’d always teach ya everythin’ I learned, so that’s what I’m gonna do. If ya need me to slow down or explain somethin’, then just squeeze my hand. All right?”
I nod, trying to appear as calm, cool, and collected as I don’t feel with too much of our skin in direct contact.
“Let’s start with Bobbi Sue.” He gazes at her where she’s perched along the edge of the pool table, looking every bit like the women in the magazines I once tried to emulate. “Billy Jo cheated on her the whole time they were together, but she still married him and bore him three kids. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why she’d do that. Whenever I’d come home to check up on Mama, I tried to pay more attention than to just what she shows everyone on the surface. I figured out her golden girl image is a double-edged sword. She’s so used to being the center of attention, it’s like an addiction. She craves it even when it’s not good for her. She never learned how to think for herself, more than happy to do what everyone in town expects of her.”
Three glasses are placed on the table in front of us—a Coke, water, and golden amber liquid, no ice.
Jesse glances up at the waitress. “We didn’t want no more whiskey.”
She’s not as flirty as she was before, tipping her head toward the pool tables. “Bobbi Sue insisted.”
The waitress departs, leaving behind the distinct scent of disappointment.
Jesse takes the whiskey in his free hand and raises his glass toward his sponsor.
She winks and beckons him over with a single finger, looking every bit the part of a practiced seductress.
He sighs, swallows a single sip of the gift, then sets it back down on the table. “Everyone in town expects her to land a new husband and provide another father for her children. She don’t want me any more than she ever did, but I’m as easy of a target as I ever was.”
My mother’s words perch on my shoulders. “She’s still young and beautiful. She’d make a fine wife.”
Jesse squeezes my hand sharply. “She don’t want me.”
I take a long swallow of my Coke. “What about Ruby Mae then? She certainly seems to want you.”
“Ruby Mae wants love and affection, all right. ‘Cause she ain’t never had it at home. Her parents are hard and cold. I suspect that’s why she was always so eager to do Bobbi Sue’s biddin’. She wanted to fit in so bad, she didn’t care how she went about it. But that ain’t who she really is. She don’t have a
mean bone in her body. She’s got a soft, tender soul.”
“You always said you couldn’t understand why I talked about those girls so much if I didn’t like them.” I leave the implication hanging in the air between us.
Either he doesn’t hear my unasked question, or he chooses to ignore it. “Ya gave ‘em more of a fair shot than I ever did. Ya didn’t ignore ‘em completely; ya never looked down on ‘em, and even if ya didn’t understand ‘em, ya always tried to.” He squeezes my hand again, his gaze heating the side of my face though my eyes remain fixed to the table in front of me. “I reckon I learned more from ya than I ever taught ya, so I tried to see ‘em through your eyes these past years without ya here to guide me. They ain’t bad people. We’re all guilty of makin’ choices that don’t necessarily define who we are on the inside.”
“We’re not talking about it,” I grit out.
His deep exhale brushes against my shoulder. “No. We’re talkin’ about what I learned from these fine folk when I put my pride on the back burner and opened my ears to really listen.”
He goes on to share everything else he’s learned about our former classmates in the past five years while I was away in the big city. Some of it is surprising. Most of his discoveries, not so much. I don’t squeeze his hand once, but he never lets mine go.
I finish off my second Coke. “I guess that’s everyone then.”
“Not quite.”
I follow his gaze toward the entrance to the back room where another tall, broad body has just joined the party. The man waves at the friendly faces gathered around the pool table then makes a beeline toward our booth when his eyes land on us, huddled here in the corner.
Jesse grabs the back of my head and hauls me in to place a gentle kiss on my forehead that singes my skin. He leaves the seat beside me empty. “Take your time catchin’ up with another old friend. I’ll take ya home whenever you’re ready.”
The men exchange a quick hug and a whispered conversation before Jesse rejoins the group around the pool table.
The seat beside me is occupied once again. His smile is warm and inviting. “Lenore Wheeler. I heard ya was back in town, but I had to see it with my own eyes.”
“Kenny Lawson.” I sweep my gaze down his teal blue scrubs. The years have been very good to him, too. “Ain’t you a sight for sore eyes.”
He throws his head back, laughing in earnest. “Your eyes look a might sore, all right.” He glances at all the empty glasses littering the table. “I don’t reckon that’s because they’re landin’ on me though.”
Kenny stares in the same direction my gaze automatically returns to. Across the room, Jesse kisses Bobbi Sue on the cheek before she sashays toward the exit. “He said anythin’ about your daughter yet?”
I don’t even pretend I’m shocked that Kenny knows. Everyone in town knows. “Not a word.”
“Ya want me to kill him?”
Eleven Years Ago
“Jesse?” I push my way into the treehouse. He hasn’t been here much lately, but the candlelight flickering from the window gives him away.
I guess he finally got tired of sitting in the dark all night while trying to avoid me.
The sound of his sigh floats to my ears before I’ve even turned to see him in his usual spot in the corner. “What are ya doin’ up here, girl?”
“Well, I saw the light and knew ya was up here. Figured ya might be hungry, so I brought ya some supper.” I climb up the rest of the way and push the plate of leftovers toward him.
His eyes move steadily side to side as he reads, never looking up at me, never responding.
“I know you’re mad at me. Ya been avoidin’ me for weeks. Ya don’t even come to the bus stop no more.”
“I ain’t mad at ya,” he mumbles. “You’re the one done run off and said ya was mad at me.”
“I didn’t mean it like that! I’m sorry!”
He finally meets my gaze, but his forest green eyes are distant as the leaves at the highest treetops. “I told ya it was a bad idea.”
“Ya ain’t been around none the last three weeks. Ya don’t wanna be friends no more?”
“Ya know where I live.”
“Ya ain’t never there, Jesse! I know that better’n anyone. ‘Sides, I can’t just go lookin’ for ya through the whole woods. Ya could be anywhere!”
“We go to the same school. If ya needed to talk to me, ya could’ve done it there.”
“Ya don’t want me to talk to ya none at school!”
He gives me the look. “Did ya try lookin’ for me? At school or after?”
“Well, n-no…” My face heats. My belly flip-flops, and a trickle of sweat runs down the middle of my back from remembering the last time I talked to him.
“It’s not a cold night.” He puts his nose back in his book. “Ain’t no reason for ya to be out here. Just go home.”
I watch him for a time that feels like forever. I was taller than him all last year, but sometime over the summer when I wasn’t paying no attention, he shot past me. He looks so much bigger in this treehouse than he did the first night I found him up here. His long legs are bent at the knees, his book propped on them. His bare feet are dirty, and he taps one to a beat like there’s music only he can hear in the air. Might be he’s keeping time with the crickets.
His hair’s gotten longer. Nearly black shocks of it keep falling over one eye, and he brushes it out of the way, only to do it again a minute later. He’s dirty from head to toe like he’s been running through the woods all day. I noticed earlier in the summer he’s getting to be powerful smelly. I don’t say nothing for fear of hurting his feelings. I know his ma probably don’t care whether he has a bath every day like my mama does for me. We swim in one of the deep pools of the creek nearly every day, but it don’t do no good. He still stinks.
He’s getting hairy, too. Like he’s turning into some kind of bobcat instead of a boy. Might be he’s gonna start sprouting whiskers like my daddy soon. His chin and cheeks are still smooth and tan, but his legs and arms have a fine black down on them. His chest, too. Under his arms looks like a couple of wooly worms. Sometimes I imagine they are, and that they must tickle him. When I laugh about it, and he asks me what I’m giggling about, I don’t tell him.
He’s still scrawny as ever. If he were getting enough to eat, I’ll bet he’d start looking more like the other boys in our grade with muscles. When we’re running through the forest, climbing trees, or fishing, I can see them muscles moving under his skin. When he’s still, he looks just like always.
He’s acting different, too. Jesse’s always been quiet and kind of mean, but he’s downright moody now. I catch him staring off into space sometimes, and when I ask him what he’s thinking about, he gets all funny with me. He never does tell me.
I thought long and hard about that kiss three weeks ago. It’s sad he thinks that’s how girls wanna be kissed. It’s even sadder he learned it from all the menfolk who spend the night with his ma. If his daddy was still around, maybe he’d know how to treat a girl better because he’d have seen how much his daddy loved his ma.
Yep, I’ve spent nearly every night in my hot bedroom remembering that kiss. Sometimes I get so sweaty and antsy, I think about coming up here to sleep in the cooler night air, but I’m too afraid to sleep out here without Jesse. Not that I’ll ever tell him that.
“Go on now, girl. Git.” Jesse must know I’m staring at him. His words are mean, but his voice ain’t. He’s sad again. He’s sad a lot lately, too.
He should know by now I ain’t real keen on doing what I’m told.
I crawl over to sit beside him on the pile of blankets. Even though it’s still a warm night, I pull the quilt I made him over my lap and lean against his shoulder to see what he’s reading tonight. It’s a wonder he can see the small black words at all with only the candle. I can barely make them out.
“Jesse, I been thinkin’.”
He closes the book, holding his finger in the place he left off bef
ore looking over at me. “Well, it’s official.”
“What is?”
“I’m scared.” The corner of his mouth pulls up in that tiny smile he sometimes gives me. “Last time you did any thinkin’, we didn’t talk for three whole weeks.”
“Haha, very funny.” I cross my arms over my chest. I’m feeling a might shaky just now.
After a few minutes of us not talking and Jesse staring at me, he bumps into me with his shoulder. “All right. ‘Fess up. Whatcha been thinkin’ about now?”
I chew my lip for a minute. I feel like I’m gonna be sick. “Do ya think any girls in our class is pretty?”
He raises his eyebrows, but the rest of his face don’t change. “I ain’t answerin’ that question.”
“So, ya do?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“So, ya do.”
He rolls his eyes and opens his book back up.
“What if one of them girls ya think is pretty wants to kiss ya, and ya don’t know how?”
He don’t answer.
“I know it ain’t your fault ya don’t know how to kiss right.” I take a deep breath. “So…I wanna show ya.”
Jesse starts coughing so fierce, I have to pound on his back to get him to stop.
“Ya all right?”
“No, I ain’t all right!” He looks at me again with big eyes. “Ya done gone and lost your mind! We ain’t kissin’ no more, and that’s that!”
“I just wanna help ya!”
“Girl, you’re as crazy as the day I first met ya.”
I study the quilt on my lap rather than look at his face anymore. My fingers twist and pull at the threads until a panel starts loosening, and then I twist and pull some more.
Jesse’s dirty hand covers mine. “Stop. You’ll ruin it.”
“What do ya care?” I mumble. My face and back feel so hot I might faint. “Ya never want me to help ya anyhow. Not with this here pretty blanket, not with makin’ sure ya don’t freeze to death in the winter, not with bringin’ ya food, not with findin’ a pretty girlfriend. Nothin’. Ya ain’t never wanted my help from the very first day of school. I don’t know why I even try anymore.”