Radical

by E. M. Kokie

  I look at the buildings, wishing for Dad. Or that Riggs would just go away.

  “Well, I should get back to work, but I wanted to check in with you.” He gets up from the step, brushes off his pants. “It’s important that these sessions run smoothly while we’re getting organized. You have good ideas, Bex,” he says. “And from what I hear, strong skills. But it’s going to take some time for everyone to gel and buy in, so that we can all benefit from each other’s strengths and evaluate our weaknesses.”

  Weaknesses like my big mouth?

  Weaknesses like fighting?

  Or weaknesses like they really only want Dad’s free labor and then we’ll be out?

  I break from the last bit of tree cover and sprint full-out for the back door. Once my feet hit the cement, I check my watch, gulping air, while I do the math. Thirty-two minutes from the kitchen door to the station, without going on any roads and without being seen. At least I don’t think I was seen, and I cut across several private stretches of land, so I’d have heard a holler if I had been.

  Next week I’ll try for thirty minutes. By the end of the summer, I want to be under twenty. And still not seen. That’s the real goal. If something happened, something bad, being able to get clear of people would be the first crucial step. It doesn’t much seem like anyone else thinks about the first hours, when getting away from town, from roads, unseen, would be the biggest obstacle. The one thing that makes out here better than home is how much easier it would be to get away clean. Here we could conceivably get to open woods on foot if we had to.

  I clean up and change in the cramped, grimy bathroom in back, shoving my sweaty workout clothes into a plastic bag and then putting them in my pack.

  I start the coffee, flip on the computer, check the messages, and then it’s time to get to work for real.

  The morning is quiet. It’s storming again, and that keeps away most of the regulars who come by just to talk. Mike finishes the two repairs early and then goes off to pick something up, and probably take a long lunch.

  Uncle Skip’s been hovering. He clearly wants to say something, but you can’t rush Uncle Skip. He gets there when he gets there. He watches me sort through some invoices and then get the clipboard to restock the snacks and note what needs to be ordered. All the while, he stands there by the counter, having some kind of conversation with himself, or maybe me, in his head. It’s almost annoying, but I know better than to ask.

  When I’ve finished restocking and I’m making the list to reorder, he clears his throat.

  “I don’t mind you using the workshop,” he says. I put down the clipboard and turn so I’m facing him. It sounds like a serious conversation. “And I look the other way at the amount of shooting you’re doing,” he says. “Lord knows your father and I did the same. But I can’t look the other way about other stuff.”

  “What?”

  “You promised no more blowing stuff up.”

  “I’m not. I haven’t.” I don’t know what he’s talking about.

  “You put everything away,” he says. I keep myself from confirming or denying by not moving at all. “But you didn’t throw it away.” We stare, neither of us giving anything up. “I’d prefer it if you got rid of whatever is still around.”

  So he suspects I’ve got somewhere to hide stuff but doesn’t know for sure. “Fine.”

  “It’ll feel like lying to your mother if I see anything like that again and don’t say something. Understand?”

  Is this about the Bobcat, somehow? “Yeah, sure.” What did he see? “It was just one time.”

  “Keep it that way.”

  Is it Clearview that has him all worked up? Because he hasn’t brought the pipe bomb up in months.

  “Feel like helping Mike with a brake job this afternoon?” he asks.

  “Sure.”

  “There’s something wonky with the diesel pump. They’re sending a guy down to look at it, so I can watch the front while I deal with him.”

  “Cool.” I think this is his way of making things okay after the mini-lecture.

  “It’s Jarvis’s car, so it’ll be a good one for you to work on. But he’ll probably supervise,” Uncle Skip warns. Yeah, supervise and talk our ears off.

  I finish restocking and then Google around my sites.

  My cell rings. Mom. I watch it ring. She’s been nagging at Dad about Clearview, about when he’ll start being paid. He’s stopped looking for any other work. Two beats after my cell stops ringing, while I’m still waiting for the voice-mail alert, the station phone rings. Somehow I know it’ll be Mom. I could let that go to voice mail, too, but it might be a customer. It’s probably better to just get it over with. But then it stops. I feel only a slight twinge of guilt. I’ll check the voice mail right away, in case it’s a customer.

  “Bex,” Uncle Skip yells through the service-bay door, “it’s your mother.”

  Crap.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hi,” she says with too much happy in her voice. “I was just having lunch and thought I’d call and check on you. How are you?”

  “Fine.”

  “Your father said you’ve been having a good time at the club?”

  “Yeah.” I’ve been out there twice while she’s been staying in the city. I thought maybe she planned to never ask.

  “He said the girls seem nice. Are they?”

  “They’re fine.”

  “What do they wear for practice?”

  “It’s not practice, Mom.”

  “For the meetings, or trainings, whatever they’re called. What do the girls wear? I could pick you up a few things. If you’re going to be going out there more than once a week, you need more things.”

  “I don’t need anything.”

  She launches into a “talk” about “this Clearview,” and how much it means to Dad to make a good impression, and how I had better be on my best behavior. Like it’s a tea party, not training. And how I need to look presentable.

  “I look fine. Seriously, they don’t wear anything fancy.”

  “Still, you could use some new things.”

  “I don’t want anything.” At least nothing Mom’s going to buy me. I could use new hiking boots. I’d love a new range vest.

  I hear her exhale into the phone. Probably trying not to yell or something if other people are around.

  “Are you reading?”

  “Yes.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, I’m reading. I’m three-quarters through The Color Purple.” Well, I’ve started it, anyway.

  “Good,” she says, surprised. “Do you like it?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I’ve never read that one. Maybe I should.”

  “Maybe.” Yeah, no, this book would freak her out. I’m actually kind of shocked Aunt Lorraine let Hannah read it, or that Hannah gave it to me.

  She talks about work and Hannah and Aunt Lorraine, and I say “yeah” several times like I’m listening.

  There’s silence.

  “Well, I should . . .” I say, trying to remember what she was saying.

  “Bex,” she says, introducing whatever she really called about. “It’s been a while since you tried to break into a new group of girls. Just . . . if they’re being standoffish, or distant . . . Just give them some time. It might be hard for them, with . . .”

  Hard for them. Because I’m such a freak.

  “Don’t worry, Mom. I’m making extra sure everyone knows I’m a girl.”

  She lets out a long breath. I want to hang up, but I know it would just piss her off more.

  “You don’t have to throw up these walls to shove everyone away.” Another long silence, something whispered to someone else.

  “Mom, I have to —”

  “I don’t . . . What is going on with you?” I swallow the hurt but don’t trust myself to speak. “Just . . . promise me you’ll try. Just try to be who I know you are, down deep, under all the hostility and, and . . . Be nice. Wear something nice, th
ose nice shorts I got you. And a shirt that actually fits. Try to make friends. Okay?”

  Nice.

  “Bex?”

  “Fine.”

  “I’ll be home this weekend. We can talk some more.”

  Yippee. “Bye, Mom.”

  Be nice. And make it easy for them. Because it’s still all about how I’m the problem.

  After lunch, Uncle Skip and I trade spots, and I put on a work shirt in the back to keep the worst of any grease and muck off my clothes.

  Jarvis does talk at us the whole time, but it’s easy to ignore after a while and concentrate on Mike. Mike’s sometimes even better to work with than Uncle Skip, because Mike just tells me what to do, instead of adding in all kinds of other stuff that might happen on some other car sometime.

  We’re done, and I’m ringing Jarvis up for the work, when a familiar patchwork station wagon pulls up to pump two. The girl with the dark hair gets out and goes to the pump and chooses the option for cash. I’m supposed to make her prepay — anyone but a true regular has to — but I flip the switch and use the intercom to say, “Go ahead. You can pay after.” I watch her, hoping Jarvis will take the hint and leave.

  I take Jarvis’s money and hand him his copy of the work order. “See you later, Jarvis. Say hey to Betty.”

  “Will do, will do,” he says, scratching his chin, staring at the receipt. “You going to work your way up to full-time tech?” he asks, like he’s just trying to find any reason not to leave yet. “Stay on here with Skip?”

  The girl walks through the door, pushing her sunglasses up into her hair in the dimmer inside light.

  “Maybe,” I say, but I’m watching her.

  She glances my way, does a double take at my hair — looks surprised but not repulsed — pivots with flair, and heads to the drink case.

  “Could do much worse, you know.” Huh? “It’s good work,” Jarvis says. “Skip’s a good man. Could teach you well.”

  “I know,” I say. “Thanks, Jarvis.”

  She’s studying the drinks, like there’s a wider selection than last time. Touching her hair, or her neck, scanning the small selection of snacks next to the case. Her hair is curlier than last time, shinier, which makes it even darker. Before she moves from chips to candy, she looks up and smiles at me. I don’t stop watching her, and she keeps looking, smiling more, until she gives up and walks over to the counter with just a can of pop.

  “Hi again.” Her voice is nice, deeper than I remembered. There’s just a bit of twang to how she talks, the “hi” stretched out in the middle. She laughs and I snap out of it.

  “Yeah, uh, hi . . .” I ring up her drink.

  She scoops a handful of the plastic rings out of the bin on the counter and picks through them, putting some down on the counter and dumping others back in the bin.

  “Your hair looks cool.”

  “Thanks.” I touch the choppy bit at my neck, suddenly self-conscious at how hacked up it looks. I tried to clean up the choppy parts, but without clippers, there’s not much more I can do.

  “I stopped in Saturday,” she says, scooping out more of the rings.

  “I don’t work Saturdays usually,” I say.

  “Yeah,” she says, “I’ve noticed. I’ve been by during the week, too.”

  “Really? I’ve been here most days.”

  “So, my bad timing, then, huh?” She smiles at me, glancing up but continuing to sort through the rings.

  I can’t figure out what she’s playing at. “Where are you from?” The twang, I can’t place it.

  Her hair flutters around her face when she moves. “I was born here, but we moved to North Carolina when I was little.”

  She dumps the remaining rings in her hand back into the bin and turns all the rings on the counter to face her, their incomplete circles facing me. Then she goes back to the canister, like maybe she needs one more.

  “So . . .” I say.

  “So . . .” she says, “what am I doing up here?” Her dark eyes crinkle when she smiles. “Staying with my grandparents.”

  Maybe it’s their piece-of-shit car. That would explain the local plates and why I hadn’t seen her around before last time.

  She takes a deep breath and lets it out, like she’s in some TV show. “I usually only come up for June, but I had to get out of town early this summer.”

  I nod like I get it, even though I don’t.

  “I broke up with my girlfriend.” She waits for reaction. “She got all our friends in the split.”

  I can’t believe she just said it, like it was no big deal. I glance around to make sure Uncle Skip and Mike are in back.

  She looks at my book by the phone. “Have you met Shug yet?” she asks.

  “What?”

  She leans over so she can tap on the book, putting her breasts on display over the counter and her hair all in my space. “Shug Avery. Has Celie met her yet?”

  I shake my head.

  “God, I love The Color Purple. Love,” she says, like I might not have understood that the first time.

  I pick it up and look at the cover again, just to make sure we’re talking about the same book. “Really?”

  “Oh, it’s brutal, I know. But stick with it, at least until Shug arrives. Trust me,” she says.

  I flip ahead, scanning for Shug.

  “Which one?” She holds out two of the rings: a plastic-gem flower and a red peace symbol. She makes them dance in front of me, all playful, her face as flushed as mine feels. She pushes them closer. “Pick one!”

  “Neither,” I say. She looks at them again and agrees, tossing them into the bin and digging deeper, scooping rings up by the handful, sifting through them and letting them fall through her fingers onto the counter.

  “What part of North Carolina?” I ask, to prolong the conversation.

  “Mom and Dad teach at UNC,” she says, like that answers my question. She holds out a glitter star and I shake my head. “What about you? I come up here every summer. I’d have remembered seeing you before.”

  A flutter in my belly. “It’s my uncle’s station. We’re staying with him for a while.” And I didn’t start until July. A few weeks earlier, and maybe I’d have met her last summer.

  “I’ll be with my grandparents until August. Then Mom and Dad are driving my stuff up here so I can start at the University of Chicago in the fall.”

  So she’s eighteen, or close to.

  “So, what do you do, besides work here?”

  “Not much.”

  “Maybe we could hang out sometime.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Sure, that’d be great.” My face gets hot, but she’s still smiling, and I can feel that smile from the top of my head down to my toes and plenty of places in between.

  She’s making me dizzy.

  “I’m Lucy.” She holds out her hand, and I reach across the counter and shake it.

  “Bex.”

  Her hand is almost the same size as mine, and warm, and just a little clammy.

  “Bex.” I like the way she says it.

  Touching her, even just her hand, is like touching more of her. My knees and stomach go funny, and I fight the urge to squirm against the counter.

  She finally takes her hand back, and she does have to take it back, because my hand is not letting go. My blood is fizzing with wanting to touch more of her. I’ve never really flirted like this before. Out in the open, clear about the flirting.

  She puts a ring down on the counter next to her pop. A black plastic skull with silver outlines of eye sockets and face and teeth. I ring them up, and she hands me the exact amount, her pop cradled against her body as she counts out the coins. I look up from putting the coins in the register, and she’s backing toward the door. The ring is still on the counter. I pick it up and say, “Wait! You forgot —”

  “That’s for you. Until next time, Bex.”

  She puts her sunglasses on and then opens the door with her back.

  I’m left clinging to the counter,
holding the ring in my hand. Only later do I realize I never rang up her gas.

  I hit the trail at a run just past the Box. Dad was pissy on the drive over, even though his having to come get me was Mark’s fault, not mine. Uncle Skip wasn’t happy, either, since he thought I’d only be training on weekends.

  I blow past the pistol range and hook to the left, going off trail to cut the angle at the widest curve in the path. I don’t stop until the trees thin and the rifle range is in sight. They haven’t started yet. Carl and two of the older guys are dragging mats off the ATV and positioning target stands of various heights at the far end of the range in front of the dirt berm. Most everyone else is talking in groups behind the barriers marking the firing points for today.

  As usual, I can feel the looks bouncing around me — not all are unfriendly, not anymore, but every time there are new faces, or faces I’ve only seen at maybe one other training, I have to weather their once-overs, always with a long pause on my head. My hair’s getting long already. I need to get some clippers or try trimming the sides and back with scissors.

  Karen, Trinny, and a few others at least acknowledge me as I drop my range bag and cool down after the all-out sprint. Cammie acts like I’m crashing her party. There’s some laughter, too, as usual, and I can imagine the witticisms being shared by Mark’s mouth-breather friends. Zach spits, not near me, but like he’s proving something.

  “Where were you?” I ask Mark when he wanders closer.

  “What?” he asks, his fake innocence all about showing off for his friends.

  “Dad said —”

  “I told Dad,” he says. “I had stuff to do.” Oh, big man with “stuff.” “He’s not paying for my insurance anymore. So I’m not running his errands.”

  Selfish shit. He smirks.

  “If I were you,” he says, “I’d start thinking about how you’re going to get here when Dad’s working most days again. Maybe you need to finally spend some of that wad you’ve been saving for wheels of your own. Because I am not ferrying you around.”

  Jerk. I make a face and lean closer to him. “When’s the last time you did laundry?” I sniff at him. “Because you stink.”