“It was an apple. And who cares? You don’t care what people think.”
She smirked, threading her fingers through his.
“Is Badass Cherry Kerrigan actually feeling a little vulnerable?”
“How’s this for vulnerable?” She twisted his arm until he cried out in pain.
“All right, all right! Jesus.”
“Come on, you like it.”
Lucas rubbed his sore knuckles. “So what did your father say?”
“He hasn’t seen it yet, I don’t think.” She sighed.
“Oh?”
She explained the latest chapter in the college saga. The message was clear: Go somewhere, because here isn’t good enough. But what was so bad about Aubrey? She looked up through the branches. Bats were wheeling in the sky, disappearing in front of the water tower, and reappearing again like black sparks. She loved her hometown. It was part of her. Aubrey was a silent family member. She couldn’t just abandon it.
“He’s just worried about you,” said Lucas. He knew there was no changing Cherry Kerrigan’s mind once she’d set it.
“What about you? You worry about me?”
“Never.”
They came to a quiet stretch of Route 9 that ran over the creek. The water disappeared into a drainage pipe. Together they climbed up the embankment and crossed the pavement. A dirt road led into the woods, and there was a sign that read:
UTILITY ACCESS ONLY
NO ADMITTANCE
They sidled over the chain and made their way down the potholed path, Cherry using her toe to dig out rocks embedded in the soft earth, kicking them down the lane. At last they came to a train bridge, towering over the riverbed like a dinosaur in the moonlight. It was just bright enough for working. A cement canvas twenty feet wide and sixty feet high.
While Lucas set up his gear, Cherry stretched out on a flat rock overlooking the creek bed. She could see the stars through the railroad struts above. She listened to the rattle and hiss as her boyfriend began the first outlines of his piece, which would be sixteen feet across and incorporate seven different colors. Lucas hated the word graffiti. His artwork wasn’t bubble lettering or crazy script (he’d call that too nineties, too Fresh Prince). Instead it resembled his favorite subversive street artist, Bonzo. He liked to paint people, often children, clinging to the real cracks in the pavement, hiding behind a real drainage pipe, interacting with the surface he painted on. Cherry felt that Lucas’s people seemed to want to jump off the wall.
“Why’d you choose this spot?” Cherry asked, sitting up. “I mean, it’s real romantic and all, but no one’s gonna see it.”
“Less likely someone will paint over it, then,” Lucas said, shaking the chromium yellow. “Besides, we’ll know it’s here. We’ll be old and ugly, and this will still be here and still look fine.”
Like Cherry, Lucas had no plans for college. He’d work as a janitor at the high school like his dad. Her man was an artist, and he didn’t need a college degree or a generous grant from the White People Foundation to make art. This was one reason Cherry loved him. He didn’t need to go somewhere to be amazing.
He stepped back and admired his work. He’d embellished a crack in the cement, widened it, lengthened its offshoots into tree branches, and added leaves and blossoms. Below he’d painted a small girl in a dress, her hand pressed to the tree, as if feeling its bark.
Cherry snuck up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. He twirled her around and pressed her against the strut. Cherry giggled. She wasn’t a giggler, a blusher, a girl — Lucas brought it out of her.
“So . . . what do you want to do?” he asked.
“Right now?”
“After school.”
Cherry shrugged, fiddling with the buttons on his shirt. “I dunno. Get a job? Maybe an apartment downtown?”
“All by yourself?”
“Why, you got a better plan?”
Lucas licked his lips.
“What? What is it?”
She could hear the roar of the creek where it got deeper up ahead. She could hear the roar of the highway. There was a roar in her ears, too.
“Let’s get married.”
“I beg your what?”
The moonlight glinted off Lucas’s teeth. Pressed against him, she could feel his heart racing under his spattered painting shirt. “Why not. You love me, right?”
“Yeah . . .”
“And I’m pretty into you —”
She shoved his shoulder. “Jerk.”
“So, let’s get married. I don’t want anyone else.”
Cherry opened her mouth, hoping the right words would just fall out. She felt dizzy. She’d only had one other boyfriend (Big Mistake). She’d known Lucas since preschool, when his family moved into the trailer behind hers. One morning she found him carving his name into her tree and said if he didn’t stop, she’d beat him senseless. He offered to carve her name, too, which she’d accepted as a compromise. They were bound together thereafter, first as friends and for the last two years as a couple.
The bridge began to hum.
“Jesus, Cherry. Say something!”
Cherry’s breath quickened. Tiny freight trains coursed in her veins, rushed through the hub of her heart. Her bones vibrated with the approach, the engine, the wheels, the noise, the track humming all the way from now into the endless future, and she had to hop on or let it blast by because life would not slow down for her. And really there was no question because there was only one place she wanted to go, an inner place, a place with Lucas.
She breathed yes into his mouth just as the 8:21 to Boston blasted, exploded overhead, quaking the bridge and rattling the paint cans in their duffel bag, vibrating the happy couple pressed against the strut. Once it had passed and Cherry and Lucas pulled back from their kiss, the train was gone, but she was still rocketing on, moving forward, breathless with velocity.
Once, on a dare, Cherry had chugged an entire twenty-ounce Red Bull. The effect of all that caffeine, aside from making her jaw clench, was a kind of relaxed hysteria, like a tiny, insane Cherry was doing jumping jacks inside her skull. She felt something similar now, saying good night to Lucas at his door. Like life was set, certain, and simultaneously so fucking exciting, she might piss her pants (another side effect of the Red Bull).
But the dreamy-giddy thing lasted only as far as the chain-link fence, and then something began to grate at the edges. She’d have to tell the fam. She didn’t want to tell them. The news was perfect so long as it was just hers. Stew would laugh it off, make a joke like he always did. Pop . . . Pop would be trouble. He’d see it as the nail in Cherry’s college coffin, an idea that was already sealed and buried.
She crossed the backyard, auditioning her tone out loud.
“Lucas asked me to marry him. . . . Pop, I’m marrying Lucas.” No, that was taking the offensive, which made her feel like a sneaker-stomping little girl. Climbing the rear steps, she tried again, imagining her father in his armchair, staring up at her in glum disbelief. “Poppa, there’s something I need to tell you. . . .” Too dramatic. Keep it light. “Okay, you wanna hear something nuts . . . ?”
No.
Fuck it. If Pop didn’t like it, tough. She wasn’t going to make a production.
She opened the door.
“Hi. I’m engaged.”
The trailer was empty. She checked the bedrooms; the garage was dark and vacant. No note. It was 9:30. At this hour Pop was usually watching TV, halfway through a six-pack of Silver Bullets. She checked her phone, also lifeless. She was on her way to charge it when she heard a car pull in, an engine die, a door slam. Now she pictured Pop lumbering up the walk, fist stuffed in his jean pocket, searching for his keys.
Cherry opened the front door.
“Hi. I’m ennnn . . .” The last word teetered over the edge like Wile E. Coyote. Cherry steadied herself against the door frame to keep from tumbling off the stoop. The mental image of her father snapped back like a rubber band, l
eaving Cherry brain-numb, completely stalled.
There was a movie star on her doorstep.
Ardelia Deen looked much recovered. She was dressed in a swimming green cocktail dress, her flawless features touched with makeup.
“Cherry, right?” She offered a manicured hand. Cherry shook it.
“Yeah.”
“Sorry, you must think I’m absolutely bonkers just dropping in like this. My manager got the address from your manager, ha-ha.” She swallowed.
Cherry’s brain was still stumbling. Pop, the engagement, Lucas . . .
“I’m sorry, what’s happening?”
“I wanted to say thank you. I’m sorry I didn’t this afternoon. I was so distracted, and Spanner — that’s my manager, the friend I was with — she insisted we rush off before the press showed up. And then there was a checkup at hospital, and with one thing and another . . .” She took a breath. “Anyway, I am sorry it’s so late, but I had to see you in person. Thank you, Cherry.”
“Oh! Yeah, sure.” Cherry tried to clear her head, shaking it. “You’re welcome. I just did . . . It was nothing.”
“Not to me!”
The intensity of her tone startled them both; Ardelia’s voice was for amiable after-party interviews and gracious your welcomes while signing photographs, not life-and-death talk. She smiled and flipped her hand to lighten the tension. Cherry squinted. She didn’t seem like that afternoon’s Burrito Barn customer or the towering goddess Cherry knew from the big screen. Ardelia Deen in person was something new, something huge and vague, reduced in size. And sharpened.
She had no clue what to say.
“So . . .”
“I love your”— Ardelia waved absently —“caravan.”
“What? Oh, the trailer. Yeah it’s . . . I like your dress. It’s really”— she groped for something intelligent —“green.”
“Chartreuse, actually.”
She nodded vigorously. “Oh, yeah. Chartreuse. I love their stuff.”
“Actually chartreuse is the color,” Ardelia said, blushing. “The designer is . . . It’s Faviana, but . . . Wow.” The starlet took a breath. “I just sound incredibly pretentious, don’t I?”
“No! No, no. It’s me. I’m retarded.”
“Don’t use that word.” Ardelia cleared her throat. “I mean. Well.”
“Well.” Cherry made a gee-golly gesture. “I guess this wins for most awkward conversation ever.”
Ardelia Deen chuckled. Cherry had actually made a movie star laugh. “Yes, I guess it does,” Ardelia said.
Cherry looked around for something, anything to talk about — and that was when she saw Ardelia’s wheels.
“Oh. My. Lord.” She rushed to the gleaming silver sports car. “You drive an Alfa Romeo?”
“Is that what it is? I had my manager pick it out for me. I just told her I wanted a car like the one from La Dolce Vita. Sort of a present to myself, but to be honest, I barely ever drive it.”
Cherry peered inside. “This is a Series 2 Spider. This shit is vintage. You can tell it’s from the seventies, after they chopped off the tail and put in the padded dash.” She stepped back to take it in all at once. “I need a cold shower after seeing this.”
Ardelia seemed impressed. “You certainly know your cars.”
“Pop owns a garage. I was conceived and born in the back of a Fiat.”
Ardelia laughed again. “Honestly, I’m a useless driver. I learned on British models, and this whole other-side-of-the-road thing? Impossible.”
“This is really . . .” Cherry pressed her palms to the hood. It was hot and cool at the same time. “This is a thing of beauty.”
She hadn’t noticed Ardelia watching her, admiring her admiration, or maybe just thinking she was nuts. The movie star smiled.
“Do you want to go for a spin?”
“Really? I mean, could we?”
“Would you like that? I don’t particularly like driving, but if you want to . . .”
Cherry was already behind the wheel. Ardelia climbed into the passenger seat. Cherry sank low, running her hands over the console.
“I’m going to have to make love to your car now.”
“Well, buy it dinner first.”
The girls laughed. The keys were in the ignition.
“Listen to that! She purrs.”
“Now,” said Ardelia, “I’ve noticed it’s a little touchy, so go easy at —”
Ardelia’s sentence was cut short as both girls were thrown back into their seats. Sugar Village blurred, reeled, and was gone before Ardelia could fumble with her seat belt.
“Whooo!!!” Cherry howled.
“Well, I didn’t know it could do that.”
“Not it. She. A car like this is definitely a she.” She pulled onto Hope Ave. and reduced speed. “That was fun.”
“It was, wasn’t it?” Ardelia bit her lip. “How fast do you think it — she — can go?”
Cherry shrugged. “Specs claim 158 miles per hour.”
“What’s that in kilometers?”
“I have no idea.”
“Hmm.” Ardelia thought, eyeing her driving companion. “What do you say we find a highway and see what she can really do?”
“I dunno. You think? If we get pulled over . . .”
“Speeding tickets are on me!”
Cherry squeezed the leather steering wheel, rubbing her fingers into the grooves. “All right, Ms. Movie Star. You’re on.”
Route 290 zigged and zagged, winding itself under the wheels like measuring tape zipping back into its casing. In a few minutes, they’d reached the edge of Aubrey. Cherry took the last exit before Worcester and plotted a return course on Route 9, a smaller street-level highway that traced the outskirts of town. In no time they’d reached the Webster border, having circumnavigated Aubrey entirely. It gave her a chilly shock. The world felt so small at this speed.
“Tell me about yourself !” Ardelia said too suddenly. She sounded nervous, but that made no sense. Movie stars didn’t get nervous around normal people. Not that Cherry knew many movie stars. Or normal people, for that matter.
“Not much to tell. One time I gave Ardelia Deen the Heimlich maneuver.”
“Oh, I’m sure there’s more than that.”
“Well . . .” A smile crept onto Cherry’s lips. Was it weird to tell a stranger before her family? The news was so big, so crazy in itself, it made a strange kind of sense that the first person she told was Ardelia Deen. In an Alfa Romeo.
“I got engaged. Today. Just now.”
“What? That’s wonderful news!”
Ardelia’s glee was disarming. Cherry took her eyes from the road to glance at her. “You actually seem excited.”
“I am!” She flashed her perfect teeth, bouncing in her seat. “What’s his name? Who is he? How did he ask? Tell me everything.”
“His name is Lucas. We’ve been dating for a few years, but I’ve known him since we were little kids. He lives in the trailer behind mine.”
“He’s literally the boy next door.” The starlet sank low in her seat. “That is so romantic. I wish I had someone like that.”
“He’s perfect,” said Cherry. “He’s . . . he’s a street artist.”
“Like Bonzo.”
Cherry nearly took her eyes off the road again. “You know about Bonzo?”
“Darling, he’s a cultural icon, not to mention a Brit. I mean now, he’s a little . . .”
“Played out,” finished Cherry.
“Exactly.”
“No one around here knows who Bonzo is. They think he’s a TV clown from the sixties.”
Ardelia laughed. “We must celebrate. Why don’t I take you to dinner? Do you know Ascot in Boston? They do the most fabulous amuse-bouches. . . .”
Cherry’s good cheer evaporated. She imagined strolling into a fancy restaurant looking like an idiot in her sponge-gray track shirt. International Internet humiliation was bad enough for one day, thank you. Plus, who could afford a resta
urant that served French-sounding food? And Boston? That was light-years away.
“I’ve got a better idea,” said Cherry.
The Spider huzzed into a 7-Eleven parking lot, stopping just short of the concrete benches and cigarette canisters guarding the entrance.
“What’s this?”
“You want food? This is food!” said Cherry. “This is what me and my friends do for late-night eats.”
“Oh! Fabulous. Never been in one.” Ardelia hopped out of the car, striding toward the chaotic glow of the convenience store, dress swirling like an anemone. She managed to make 7-Eleven look like a red-carpet event.
The store was empty save for Jim the Clerk, who in the movie version, Cherry thought, would have been reading a magazine with Ardelia’s picture on the cover. Jim barely noticed them.
“What’s on?” Ardelia said, rubbing her hands. “I’m famished.”
Cherry steered her toward the candy rack. “This is my favorite.” She handed Ardelia a length of rubbery something in a foil sheath.
“What is it?”
She expected Ardelia to recoil in horror. Instead, the starlet unwrapped the candy right there and took a bite.
“Oh, my God,” she said, mouth full. “This is divine!”
That was unexpected.
“Really?”
Ardelia considered the rack. “Are they all this good? What’s this?” She took a box of brightly colored straws.
“You’ve never seen Pixy Stix?” Cherry said, now genuinely shocked. “Pixy Stix are, like, an institution. Didn’t you have a childhood?”
“Clearly I’ve been deprived.”
Cherry laughed. “You need to be educated.” She slapped the Pixy Stix and the remains of Ardelia’s Laffy Taffy on the counter, fishing in her shorts for spare change.
“What about this?” Ardelia said, holding a small plastic package.
“Bubble Tape? It’s bubble gum. It’s awesome.” Cherry counted the meager handful of quarters. “I think we can only get two things, though.”
Ardelia waved. “Nonsense, it’s on me.”
Cherry ruffled. She leveled a Pixy Stix at Ardelia. “I don’t let people buy me things, comprende?”
Ardelia snatched the Pixy Stix away.
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