by Gae Polisner
“And these?” I extend my flip-flopped toes toward a patch of fuchsia flowers with jagged edges.
“No idea.” He laughs.
“Well, it’s beautiful.”
“You like?” he says, turning back to me.
I nod. “I do, Max. It’s breathtaking. How did you know this was here?”
“Happened upon it,” he answers, which makes no sense since we’re off in the middle of nowhere. “I figured it was a good place. I wanted to thank you. And ask you something.”
My heart ramps up. Something about the way he asks. Maybe he wants me to sleep with him now. And maybe I want to. Maybe I will.
“Take your helmet off,” he says. He lifts his off and straps them both over the handle.
I run my hands through my hair, damp with sweat, from fear or heat I’m not sure. Loosed beads trickle down my neck and into my shirt. I gather my hair into a fisted ponytail, but I have no elastic, so I let it fall back. I shift my jaw, sore from the stress of clenching my teeth the whole ride here.
I wait for us to get off the bike, but Max doesn’t, so I stay sitting, rest my cheek against the warmth of his leather jacket.
“Nice, right?” he asks. “Peaceful. Quiet. I can feel your heart beating.”
I close my eyes. “You can?”
“Yeah, I like it.”
I smile. What if I really do love Max Gordon?
“So, can I ask you something? A favor?”
My heart starts up again. “Sure.”
“Can I touch you? Just like this. Not looking, or anything. Just sitting here, like this.” He moves his hand back, behind him, and rubs my bare leg.
“Yes,” I say, even though I’m not exactly certain what he means. I just know that I want him to.
“You sure?”
I nod once more against his leather jacket as his fingers move inward, tracing their way between my thighs. Down to where the seat of the bike meets my skin. Slipping inside the loose, willing hem of my shorts.
“Just one,” he says, letting his thumb find its way in under the fabric, onto the outside of my underpants.
My heart ramps up so hard, he must feel it, and my breath comes in short bursts; the sound of everything all but disappears.
I want this. I want Max to touch me; I want to feel the way I made him feel.
His thumb circles—softly, gently for a while—then slips in under the wet cotton edge of my underpants.
“You feel so nice,” he whispers.
I take shallow breaths, feeling him there, my body quivering and electric, as if he’s plugged me into a socket. I try to relax into it, to him, my cheek against warm leather, his thumb on me, pressing softly, nothing between us, skin to skin. Moving in small, perfect circles.
And then I go light-headed, and I swear my heart flutters and stops, and my arms rise up and I fly away.
EARLY JUNE
TENTH GRADE
The next day Max invites me to prom.
We’re sitting on the wall after school, and Max Gordon asks me, Jean Louise Markham, to go to prom.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I ask, my eyes practically bugging out of my head. “You hate school. You hate convention. You hate prom.”
He laughs. “All true. So, will you?”
“Will I what?”
He laughs again, shakes his head, rakes his fingers through his hair, and kicks a small piece of cement out from between the low, large stones of the wall with his boot heel. It lands with a melodic little thunk.
Max Gordon is uneasy. Uncomfortable. I turn and squint at him.
“You heard me, Jailbait. I asked if you want to go to prom.”
“Seriously, though? I didn’t think you were serious.”
“Well, I am. Dead serious. No promposal, though, that shit is stupid. Consider yesterday in the field my promposal.” I punch his arm. “What? Wasn’t it good?”
My cheeks redden. “It was,” I say, embarrassed that just the thought of it sends a rush between my legs. “But why do you want to go?”
He jumps down off the wall, and kicks the landed cement lump across the sidewalk into the parking lot.
“Why not?”
I jump down, too. I need to see his face. I’m pretty sure he’s putting me on.
“Um, because you’re Max Gordon, and only a few short weeks ago you called prom something super obscure and poetic like ‘conformist bullshit geared at the pathetic, lemming-like masses’?”
He grins and says, “Yeah, I can be a dick, so I probably said that.”
“Also, you said you hoped those pathetic masses might, to quote you, ‘hurry up and wither and die.’ Or was that some line from a sonnet?”
Max throws his head back and laughs fully now. “You’re a trip, Jailbait, you know that?” I shift my eyes up to his. “Come here,” he says, pulling me in and hugging me. He kisses my hair, breathes me in. “You should know better than to listen to me. On anything. I just say stuff to sound subversive. Besides, I don’t know, with graduation coming, maybe I’m feeling a bit nostalgic.”
“Seriously? You?”
“Yeah. Why not me?”
“I don’t know, Max. Why not?” I give him a suspicious look.
“Or, okay, let’s suppose that a few of us got together and talked about things, and decided our prom-going can, and should, be a contrary political statement. Like a message to all those jocks and other assholes that they don’t own the freaking school. That prom isn’t theirs, graduation isn’t theirs, and they don’t own them any more than Christians own reindeers and fir trees just because they’ve commandeered them for their totally merchandized holiday.”
“Ohh-kay,” I say, having no idea what he’s talking about anymore, but it doesn’t matter because he picks me up, and places me on the wall again.
“So you’ll come?” He wedges himself between my legs and looks up at me with big puppy-dog eyes. “Plus, I want to show you off,” he adds. “Show everyone how beautiful you are.”
I roll my eyes, but he gives me this look, and suddenly I realize he’s not joking. Maybe I underestimate how much Max likes me.
But prom? With him and his friends I’m nothing like, who barely tolerate me?
“Yes or no, Jailbait?” he says.
“Yes. Of course, Max. Yes,” I say, even though it doesn’t give me a whole lot of time to find a dress and shoes and I’ve never even mentioned to Mom or Dad or Nana how old Max is.
“You’re the best,” he says. He buries his head in my chest and turns it side to side, before slipping down toward the vee of my legs on the hot wall. As if he’s going to try to do something here, in broad daylight.
“Max, stop.”
“What?”
“Max.”
“Nobody’s here but us, Jailbait.”
“I’m serious.”
He stops, stands up, gives me a wounded look. “Okay, fine. But if you think my hand is good, wait till you feel my tongue.” I roll my eyes and jump down, but his words and meaning are already sending a thrill racing through me.
We walk to his dirt bike, and he hands me my helmet. “We want you to be safe,” he says.
“Shut up, Max.”
He laughs. “Oh, okay. And not only that,” he says, climbing on. “But, you should know, I can’t wait to fuck you. I want to fuck you so bad.” He pats the seat behind him and I get on. “Come on, genius,” he says, twisting around to smile at me. “I’ll take you home so you can study, and be good.”
MID-JUNE
TENTH GRADE
June unfolds. Two more butterflies die. Amazingly, the Jezebel whose wing I repaired remains.
Mom continues to slog off to Dr. Marsdan, and Nana continues to act like everything is normal and okay.
Nothing stops the Kerouac letters from flowing.
At least Dad hasn’t called to delay again, which means he’s still slated home by the end of August, or maybe early September.
Fine by me. I’m happy he’ll be there al
l summer. He’s my excuse to head across country with Max.
Dad, my abandoner and my alibi.
Finally, something to thank him for.
“Hey, Dad, it’s JL. Guess what?” I’ve been practicing aloud when I’m alone, working on keeping my voice steady, my tone nonchalant. I’ve been working on a script: As soon as school ends, I’ll fly out, I’ll tell him. Spend the whole summer there with you. Then I’ll have Mom or Nana drop me at the airport here. And Max will meet me there an hour later on Blue Morpho.
Sure, there are still kinks in the developing plan. Time discrepancies. The fact that Dad will want to buy the tickets and it’ll take days, not hours, to get there with Max. Either I lie to Dad about flights, or I lie to Mom about flights, and convince them to let me order the tickets myself. I’ll have to do some maneuvering and hope they don’t talk with each other, trusting me, instead, with the details.
It will work in my favor that Mom doesn’t have a firm grip on reality anymore.
And, once I’m there, I’ll finesse seeing Max. Or admit to Dad that part of the reason I wanted to visit him was that Max is moving there.
Sure, it’s complicated, and there are too many moving parts. But it’s not like anyone is paying me too much attention over here.
* * *
I close and lock my bedroom door, put on Dad’s robe, and walk to my desk, sliding open the bottom drawer. Unfold the purple wrapper like magic origami.
The remaining bundle is smaller, only forty bills, since Max needed some more for stuff he was working on.
“You don’t have to,” he’d said, but I wanted to.
I peel five more bills from the pile, fold it back inside its paper, and wedge it to the back of the drawer. One week till prom, and I really need to go to the mall.
I need a dress. And to tell Mom.
Add it all to the growing list of things causing me panic. Prom, sandwiched between my US History and chem exams. Two subjects I’ve been slacking on. Two subjects I usually study with Aubrey for. The administration does this on purpose: puts prom in the middle of finals to discourage overnight plans, or too much partying.
To discourage underclassman like me from attending.
They didn’t used to, but then some dumb tenth grader got so drunk a few years ago he had to go to the hospital to have his stomach pumped. I’m sure his date was thrilled.
I haven’t told Max yet how I need to be home right after. I figure he knows, and I’ll feel like a baby having to tell him. But there’s no way I can stay out all night. Even if I didn’t have tests. My average has taken a dive in both those classes. I need A’s or I’m going to suffer a big slide.
I turn on my computer and search “prom dresses that make you look cool,” but even before I get the word “cool” typed in, “skinny” and “thinner” come up, cool not even being a pre-searched option. I sigh, and search by color, instead, but everything seems too frilly and ridiculous, or too slutty, which would make Aubrey and everyone else happy.
I shut the computer, and walk to the habitat. The Jezebel whose wing I fixed lies motionless in the corner.
No matter how hard you try, there’s no saving anything in the end.
My chest squeezes at the thought. And at the one that follows: The rest are going to be dead soon, too.
I pluck her out, and rest her in my palm, touching her where the splint I made so many weeks ago is embedded in her wing, then wrap her gently in a tissue and head out back to bury her in the garden.
* * *
When I come inside, Nana and Mom have arrived home, their hands full of shopping bags. Macy’s. West Elm. L’Occitane. I wish I had known they were going to the mall.
“Jean Louise!” Nana drops her bags on the table, and throws her arms around me. “Your mother and I have gone on a bit of a spree. We got some pretty things for you, too, of course. Now, if I could only figure out which bags.”
She walks back to the table, rummages through some of the bigger bags, producing a small paper bag from a store I like called Trinkets.
“Probably too much bling for you, I’m guessing. That’s what they call it, right? Bling?”
I nod, suddenly overwhelmed with guilt, for stealing, for plotting to leave with my boyfriend, for everything. It would break Nana’s heart. She may not ever know about the money, but she’ll be crushed if she finds out I’ve lied, that I’ve gotten on a motorcycle and headed off to California.
Then again, isn’t she always going on about Kerouac? He was more than twice her age when she kissed him. But that was only a kiss. She didn’t flee cross-country on his motorcycle.
“You only live once, right?” she’s saying. “You’ll see why I couldn’t resist.”
Mom is quiet, busying herself at the sink with a glass of water, and the arrangement of various pills. She counts, tapping her finger, loses count, and starts over again.
“Lottie!” Nana calls to her. “Where’s the other one? The bag from Bloomie’s?”
Mom doesn’t answer. She’s propped against the sink, staring down into it at something. Did a pill go down? It can’t be the dishes. She hasn’t made a home-cooked dinner in weeks.
“Plus, it’s almost summer, and you do have that sweet darling boyfriend…” Nana chatters on, oblivious, not seeming to notice my mother, or how she hasn’t given her an answer. I don’t understand her. Does she think it is normal for Mom to disappear like this in a matter of minutes? Just because she’s also capable of going shopping? Not to mention, she’s called Max darling, which makes me want to laugh. Only clueless Nana would call Max Gordon darling.
“Jean Louise,” she says, “come here and see!”
I open the Bloomingdale’s bag absentmindedly, pulling a soft, wrapped object out and placing it on the table. I unroll it from the paper and a black bikini with purple and orange butterflies spills out.
“They’re exotics, just like ours!” Nana says. “Butterflies for our butterfly. We want you to feel pretty while you’re lounging out around here this summer. Right, Lottie?”
My mother still doesn’t answer.
The dead Jezebel wrapped in tissue.
The pink box of money.
Me, on Max’s bike, his thumb moving in small delirious circles.
“Max asked me to prom,” I blurt, pushing the bathing suit aside and waiting for some sort of reaction. Mom stays bent over the sink like she’s going to puke. Nana says, “Well, isn’t that lovely?”
“It’s next Thursday.”
“Wonderful!”
Wonderful? That’s it?
All that worry for nothing. Do they even realize what this means? That I’m barely sixteen, and dating a boy who is about to graduate? A boy who plans to have sex with me in a hotel room halfway between here and California?
“Do you like it?” Nana asks, nodding down at the bikini.
“Yes. Thank you. It’s beautiful.”
“Go on, open the other one.” She hands me the Trinkets bag. “This is where the blingy part comes in.” She giggles a little. Mom pulls a wineglass down, retrieves a bottle from the fridge, and heads off toward her bedroom.
Nana’s eyes follow her, and she turns back to me with a tight smile. “Well, go on,” she says, pushing the bag toward me.
“Nana, should she be drinking? With all that medication?”
“I’m sure it will be fine,” Nana says.
“But…”
“No worries, my pet. Open your gift. I know your mother. Everything will settle when your father gets home.” I take a deep breath in, and pull out a pale pink folded square. “It’s a T-shirt!” she says, stating the obvious. I shake it out in front of me.
A bird in flight, outlined in rhinestones, graces the front.
And on the back, the words Thursday’s child has far to go.
“It’s from the nursery rhyme, about the days we are born? You’ve heard it, yes? ‘Monday’s child is fair of face, Tuesday’s child is full of grace. Wednesday’s child is full of woe, and T
hursday’s child has far to go.’ And so on. And you, my child, were born on a Thursday.” She strokes my hair. “So true, isn’t it? You have your whole life in front of you, and far to go.”
My mind races, wanting to take it as a sign.
“You don’t like it?” Nana asks. “It’s too blingy, isn’t it? I thought—”
“No! No, Nana.” I try to think of the right words to say. “It’s just what I needed. It’s perfect.”
“Well, we can always return it if you don’t like it. It was in the window and I thought it was calling your name. How I remember that night, so long ago, waiting for you to arrive. And your mother—she was in such a state, worried about everything, as if she was the first woman in the world ever to give birth. Poor thing was exhausted, had gone into labor the evening before. I had to leave our weekly bridge game to meet your parents at the hospital. More than thirteen hours later, four o’clock Thursday morning, you finally decided to arrive! How you kept us all waiting in anticipation!”
I lay the shirt on the table and trace the rhinestoned bird with my finger, then flip it over to read the words again:
Thursday’s child has far to go.
I am going, aren’t I?
Maybe I should give Nana a chance, first. Tell her everything. Let her see that something has to be done about Mom. Something more than she’s doing already. Tell her about the talking to no one, calling Max “Jackie”—about the letters. How can she not be seeing these things?
But how can she help if the doctors aren’t helping?
“I love it,” I say, instead. “Thank you.”
Her face brightens. “Well, that’s wonderful, isn’t it? I’m two for two! And here I am going on and on when I’m sure you have studying to do. So, as long as everything is under control here…”—she looks around at our neat house and makes whatever assumptions she needs to—“I’d best get home.”