Jane tried to get me to buy a gauzy, tight shirt that barely came down to my waist.
“God, you should,” Jane said, when I objected to showing off my navel to the whole world, “You’ve a great body.”
I compromised and bought a short T-shirt with a cool design to wear over a longer camisole. To make up for not wanting to go out half-naked, I bought a pair of tatty sneakers, not quite as torn up as Jane’s, but she was definitely the inspiration. They looked cool, and I could walk in them.
I wasn’t the only one going through a makeover. Corinne turned up at our track practice toward the end of April. She sat in the stands like an exotic bird, her eyes rimmed with purple, green, and dark brown eye shadow, outlined in black.
After practice, she drifted down toward the team as we hung around and talked about our performances, compared shoes, and speculated about the next meet. Bold and fragile in her goth dress with just a hint of cleavage showing above the ruffle, she outshone all of us girls in our work-out cropped tops and skin-tight shorts. The boys stood taller, talked a little louder when she was around. She drifted along to the café with us and slipped into a seat next to me. She didn’t say much, just watched everything through the narrow slit of her long hair.
Over the next few weeks she became part of our crowd, as if she had been there from the start.
She changed. Little things at first, like she showed up in jeans instead of dresses and leggings. Then she lost the deep purple lipstick and instead wore a clear rose pastel that made her seem closer to her true age and her lips softer. The day she showed up wearing jeans, a soft blue sweater and her hair tied back with thin blue ribbon I hardly recognized her. I don’t know what surprised me most; the clothes or that she was hand in hand with Jack, the school’s best hurdler.
Jane wasn’t impressed with Corinne’s transformation. She chucked her books into the locker, and then slammed her back against it as she watched Corrine and Jack walk down the corridor together after class.
“God,” Jane said. “What is she thinking? A hurdler? A jock?”
“He’s okay. He’s nice.”
Her eyes summed me up from head to foot, pausing over my sneakers, the ones that looked like hers.
“And what’s with those clothes? That’s what all girls do. They go gaga over some guy and get weird.”
“Yeah,” I said, “that’s how it works. We grow up and want boys. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?”
She stared at me, her eyes hard.
“Oh, you. I guess you’re gaga over that idiot Tommy Mack. You’d take off with him in a flash if you weren’t such a baby.”
“He’s not an idiot.”
“Oh God, now she thinks Tommy Mack is not an idiot.”
“He’s okay.”
“He’s a drip!”
Our eyes held for a few seconds.
“Why don’t you like him? He seems okay to me.”
“That’s because you don’t know him. You see him swanning around like he’s some guru, but you don’t know him.”
She looked away from me; her shoulders were up around her ears again.
“He’s been nice to me.”
“Did you enjoy the orange? Was it special?”
“Are you jealous?” It was out of my mouth before I could stop it.
Jane snorted.
“If you had any sense, you’d have nothing to do with him. Trust me. The only reason you think he’s cool is because you have no sense. You just don’t have a clue.”
Then she walked away. Fast.
I went to my locker and took out my old sandals I’d stowed there. I put them on and tossed my tatty sneakers into the trash.
Chapter Ten
Jane and I ignored each other the whole week after our fight. Left to myself, I took up my study of Tommy Mack again.
I was no nearer to figuring him out. He did nothing different than usual except one thing: once I saw him talking to Jane way over by the playing field. If I could have listened in, I would have, but they were too far away and pretty soon Jane stalked off. Tommy watched her go for a beat, and then resumed his circuit of the yard. Though I liked the way he wandered around and chatted here and there, there was no way I could do that. First of all, I didn’t know enough people to chat with. Secondly, I had no idea what I might chat about.
After school the following Monday, I ran into Jane in the hallway. We looked at each other for a minute, and then she threw her arm across my shoulders.
“How’s it going, new girl?”
And that was how we made up.
The truth was I liked Jane. No matter that she was moody and cranky sometimes. Now that Corinne hung out more with Jack I had no one to talk to except Jane, and Jane was good to talk to. Keep her off the topic of Tommy Mack and she was friendly and fun most of the time.
Jane walked me to the bus stop the day we made up. As the bus came down the street, she threw her arm around my shoulders. Her shirt rode up over a deep bruise by her ribs.
I knew bruises like that. When we’d lived in Edithville, Marcy Evans had hit me hard on the arm after she’d cornered me, trapped between the wall and fence in the schoolyard.
“That’s for your dad, the axe man,” she’d said.
Then she’d kicked me in the shin and I’d had a big bruise that was black and then purple and then an odd yellow, like the sky before a big storm.
“What happened there? Looks sore.”
Jane pulled her shirt down, but then lifted the end of it to look at the edge of the bruise.
“Oh, I fell turning cartwheels. Never was any good at that jock shit. Wanna go to a movie on Saturday?”
I barely had time to say yes to the movie before the bus arrived. I jumped on, and worried about Jane all the way home.
Things got back to normal. Jane and I hung out, did homework, gossiped, and texted each other whenever we weren’t together. I didn’t mention the bruises again. I just wanted things to settle down between us. Besides, maybe she did fall doing cartwheels, though I had my doubts. After a few weeks Corinne joined us more often at lunch. We were the Three Musketeers again.
Chapter Eleven
Mom and Dad came to watch me in the meet with Downes Secondary. It was the first time in a couple of years that Dad had watched a race. He showed up looking like a geek in his blue suit and polished leather shoes, his hair parted in a totally straight line right down his head. He looked worried. The worried look wasn’t for me. He always looked like that, except on holidays, when he looked all smooth and smiley and kind of vulnerable in tees and shorts.
Corinne and Jane came to watch as well. I won all the races I was in except one, where I was second, which was great because it was my first big meet in Astoria. Afterwards Corinne came up, gave a huge whoop, and high-fived me. She was happy for me, and happy that Jack had blown away his competition. Jane gave me a huge grin, and then a thump on the shoulder.
“Well done, you,” she said.
Most of the team was going out together to celebrate. I was keen to go too, but whenever Mom came to a meet we went out to eat after, win or lose. It was our tradition. This time we went to The Red Carriage, a new place for us. It had red lamps by all the booths that reminded me of vampire movies, and red and white check tabletops.
Way at the back of the restaurant, I saw Jane’s brother Bart, the one I’d met on the fire escape at her house. He was with a big man, bulky with a thin face like Jane’s, and red hair that showed his scalp on top. It was long enough to be drawn into a bit of ponytail at the nape of his neck. Their father, I guessed. I snagged a seat where I could watch them. The two didn’t say a word to each other, just ate steaks, chewing like nothing else mattered. Jane’s brother never looked up once.
My dad was going on about how well I had run. I guess I paid no attention and stared at Bart and his dad, because my mother looked around and asked if I knew who they were.
“Not really. He’s Jane’s brother. I met him once. For a minute.”
Next to his father, Bart looked almost skinny. His hair was dark and curled over his forehead, and cut off just below his ears as if someone had put a bowl on his head and gone round it with garden shears. He ran a napkin over his scrap of moustache every once in a while.
We were about to leave when Tommy Mack came in with a woman who looked so much like him I would have thought she was his mother, but I knew from Corinne that his mother died of cancer a while back and he lived with his aunt. He said hello to me and walked right on by Bart and his dad without a glance. They took a seat at the far end of the restaurant. He was wearing a pale blue shirt and a gray jacket, and his hair was brushed straight back and tucked behind his ears. Here amongst all the grown-ups, he didn’t look so big either.
As I sat cross-legged on the grass by myself reading a book, Tommy came by with another orange. He held it out, balanced on the palm of his hand. His fingers were fine and delicate, and the little stem mark of the orange stared at me like an eye. I reached out and took it.
“Do you want to share?”
Tommy hesitated a moment, swayed slightly as if ready for takeoff. “Sure,” he said and dropped to his knees beside me on the grass before flipping over to sit a few feet away. I peeled the orange, broke it open, and handed him half. We munched in silence.
It was one of those late April days, the kind where the sun was warm, and the trees were breaking out in a green that makes you want to cry. The schoolyard was swarming with people, the air heavy with spring hormones and expectations.
“Next week is the meet,” Tommy said, wiping his hands on the grass.
“Yeah, I’m training hard. I want to win.” Admitting this to Tommy was easy.
“You will. I’ve watched you. You get faster all the time.” He looked away over the yard for a moment. “I’d like to belong to a team.”
“Why don’t you train more then?”
“Oh, I’m not real good at anything. I just do a bit of everything okay.”
That didn’t seem so bad. You could fit in lots of places with doing a bit of everything okay.
“I can do only one thing, run fast. I’d like to do a bit of everything,” I said, and tried not to sound self-pitying. Mom always said self-pity was an unattractive trait. Besides, tormentors sniffed it out the way dogs could smell fear.
The bell rang for class change. We gathered up our orange peels and books, and went back to class.
Chapter Twelve
After the Downes Secondary meet, Corinne abandoned us for Jack most lunchtimes.
“Typical,” Jane said. “We won’t see her for a while, I guess.”
She didn’t sound too put out about it, though. It was hard to get used to Corinne without her goth makeup and flouncy dresses. For all that, she wasn’t really like a regular girl. At least not the ones that giggled and swung their hair around and looked at the boy they were with like he was God’s gift to the world.
I missed her. Something about the three of us girls together worked.
With Corinne busy, Jane and I did a lot of stuff on our own. Like, we went to movies, some weird ones full of vampires—and not the sexy kind—or artsy ones that barely made sense to me. If I didn’t try to understand them, they were cool. I was happy to sit in the dark and let them wash over me.
“It’s your jock genes,” Jane said thumping me lightly on the shoulder when I told her that. “Interferes with thought.”
We laughed. From then on she told me about the director and what he was trying to do, or the story, or what it all meant before we saw one. I still didn’t understand them. But like I said, that was okay. At the movies we shared our popcorn, and held hands. Later when she’d ask what I thought and I’d say, “Nothing to think about. It’s just a movie,” she’d grin and roll her eyes.
Chapter Thirteen
As spring blossomed and bloomed all around us, Jane turned moody. She had taken to wearing long sleeves after I asked her about bruises on her upper arm. She was thinner too and didn’t hang around long after class. Once I asked her if she was okay, and she flicked my cheek and said: “sure, what could possibly be wrong apart from having me as a friend?” She had a big grin on, so I knew she didn’t mean it.
She was quiet as we walked across the park and headed down the street to the thrift stores in search of a coat for her. Not an easygoing, friendly quiet. She was coiled up like a spring. I tried to figure out what was making her edgy, but nothing came to mind. I kept up a run of chatter, my voice high and nervous.
By the time we hit the third store, Jane had worked up a snit. She swished the hangers along the rack of coats in sharp jerks. I jumped each time a hanger screeched.
“Why do you follow Tommy Mack around?” She kept her eyes on the coats. “Why do you?”
“I don’t.”
“Yes, you do. I’ve seen you trotting after him. Twice this week when I wanted to talk to you, there you were trailing after that loser. What do you want with him?”
She glared at me. Something in the set of her shoulders made me sad.
“Nothing. I don’t trot after him.”
I blushed. Her eyes gleamed brighter.
“Oh, don’t tell me you have a crush on him. A crush on Tommy Mack. Do you?”
If possible, I got even redder. I was mortified that she had noticed the interest I had in him. I couldn’t begin to explain what I was interested in, how I wanted his calm and confidence for myself.
“I don’t. Not at all.”
“Right! That’s why you’re running after him.”
“I’m not,” I said. “I’m just checking out the scene. I’m still new here, remember?”
Jane wasn’t convinced. After we left the store I tried to bribe her into good humor with fries and a coke.
We didn’t talk about Tommy after that. I dropped my study of him when Jane was around. I got downright paranoid about it. I figured if I ignored him the problem with Jane would go away. A bit sick, I know, but I wanted so much to keep her as my friend. And it was lot more lonely hiding things from a friend than having no friend at all, so in the end I decided to let go of my interest in Tommy Mack.
Chapter Fourteen
Jane was being snotty with me since our Tommy Mack talk, and even though I stayed well away from him, it didn’t help much. By the end of that week, she’d stopped hanging with me alone altogether. She didn’t choose a seat behind or beside me in class anymore. She slouched at the back of the room, gave off these “don’t come near me” signals. If I caught her eye, she gave me a stare that dared me to say a word, so I didn’t. If she hung with Corinne at break, I avoided them because she never spoke to me.
Sometimes I saw the way she watched Corinne, but they didn’t talk much either, although they still hung out in the yard when Jack wasn’t around. She never watched me. I hated that I wanted her to.
I walked through the little park near Jane’s house. It was the third time I’d done that in a week.
I never rang her doorbell, or called or texted to see if she was around, even though I believed we should talk, sort it all out, so that she would understand. Some daydream that was. How could she when I didn’t get it, except to say that he had a calmness I wanted. I wanted to study him, see how it worked, what exactly he did, so that I could learn to be the same, like the study of successful runners taught me to improve my times. Not something Jane could relate to, and just another jock connection to drive her crazy.
The rain got heavier, and thunder rumbled away in the distance, so I took a short cut across the center of the park. Huddled on the park bench in the wet was Tommy himself and another guy. There was no mistaking Tommy Mack. His build made sure of that. The other guy wore a rain jacket with a hood that hid his face, but I could hear him talk and recognized that half-rough voice. Jane’s brother, Bart. Tommy was facing him, his head dipped toward the words that I couldn’t make out. They didn’t notice me.
I didn’t want to be noticed by them either. How did they come to be sitting ta
lking in the rain, when they didn’t even say hello in the restaurant? As I scurried by, my curiosity nearly killed me.
Chapter Fifteen
Corinne and I were in the downtown café, stuffed into the tiny corner seat where we could see the whole room. She still wore that soft blue top, her hair tied at the nape of her neck. She had almost no makeup on and looked kind of naked with her face all exposed.
Corinne twirled the end of her hair round and round. A thin line of rich brown with red highlight was creeping out into the black dye at her scalp. She twirled the twist of hair faster, and then examined the ends.
“Are you okay?” She’d been moody all week. Not exactly sad, but close.
“Yeah, I guess so. You know, I like being with Jack, but sometimes all that focus on sport gets to me.” She laughed. “I get it now why Jane’s brothers bug her with all that jock stuff. It all becomes so important, you know? Train for this, win that. Keep moving, keep moving.”
“You feeling left out?”
“Maybe. Naw, I just think there’s more to do than one thing. You, you do sports, but it’s not all you do, you know?”
“Mostly it is. Do you miss being a goth?”
“I still see my friends, but not so much. Maybe. Sometimes. I dunno. At least they read books and listen to music and talk about stuff.” She swished the ice in her glass. “They’re okay with my new look. They tease me, but are cool with it.”
“Talking about training and meets isn’t ‘stuff,’ huh?”
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