Secrets of Southern Girls

by Haley Harrigan

  “I guess.”

  “You’ve never felt that?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” she says, using her feet to push her swing backward. “Maybe it was like that with Evan and me. It’s hard to remember now.”

  “Evan? Beck’s dad?”

  “Yes. My ex-husband.” She flinches when she says it—the words still taste so sour.

  “And you’ve been divorced…”

  “Five years,” she says, looking away. “He…left, before she was born.”

  She clenches her fists around the plastic-covered chains of the swing set, afraid that she has given away more than she wanted to. That now she will have to tell him the whole story. And she doesn’t want to.

  “It was my fault, though,” she whispers. “Everything was my fault.”

  • • •

  Two full, aching weeks after that first kiss, Evan and Julie were paired together to perform a scene for their acting class. The scene they’d been assigned was from a play workbook. It was an argument between lovers, and they laughed as they practiced their roles at the beginning of class.

  Evan had the first line. When he started, the whole class watching, she was genuinely startled at the harsh cruelty of his voice. Because he was that good. She forced her tone to sound mean and ragged, and she fell easily into her role. But she felt it, the growing competition between them. Until then, they’d complimented each other on their respective monologues, discussed the merits of certain movements, certain vocal inflections. They’d never been compared, side by side.

  With the intensity of the scene, their voices rose until they were shouting, and though it could have been a real fight, it was only the two of them putting everything into it. The desks were a foot or so away from where they stood, or marched, or pointed, but it took only a few short moments of the mock heated debate for everyone else to disappear. For the room to disappear. Evan’s blue eyes were hot, the color of lit coals before the flames appear. Julie had the last line.

  “I hate you!” she screamed, and her hand flew out to hit him, a fake slap that ended the scene. Evan caught her by the wrist, luckily, because the moment had become so intimate, so real, that she may have truly hit him. It happened so quickly—Evan grabbing her wrist, pulling her into him, their mouths crashing together.

  “Yeah!” yelled a boy a few rows back. The rest of the class started to cheer. No one else had read the script (except the teacher, who looked quite alarmed), so no one knew that the kiss wasn’t part of the act. Pure improv, Evan said later, a knowing smile on his face.

  Julie gathered her books and was out of the room before the class finished clapping. She could feel Evan behind her. And then they were laughing and kissing in the hallway, her back against the wall and Evan’s hand on her cheek. “You are amazing,” he said, and she laughed.

  He lived in a studio apartment, a tiny room with brick walls. They dropped their school things as they barrelled through the door, arms wrapped around each other. His bed was a mattress with no frame and white sheets, all knotted together, unmade. He wore a long-sleeved white T-shirt beneath a short-sleeved blue one. They twisted together as she pulled them over his head. His jeans were brown-belted, the metal clasp pressed against her stomach as they held each other in the middle of the room.

  His sheets were soft and his skin hot like an iron that could press away her flaws and leave her smooth and bright white and perfect.

  • • •

  “So, you have felt it,” August says, as they walk, slowly, clumsily, on the oval-shaped asphalt that sits unnaturally on the plot of land behind Nell’s. This place used to be covered with untamed grasses as high as their knees. Weeds are already breaking through, taking back the land.

  “I don’t know,” Julie says. “I don’t know what it was. It all feels like madness now.”

  “Love?”

  “I thought so. Then.”

  “So, what happened?”

  “Reba happened. Life happened.”

  “But Reba was before,” he says, clutching the half-empty liquor bottle in its brown paper.

  “It never goes away. Things like that, they never do.”

  “I guess I get that.”

  She changes the subject. “You must have hated living here.”

  “Come on,” August says. “How could I like it? When we started looking for houses, it was suggested, pretty directly, that there was a certain side of town for us. You read about that kind of shit, and I mean, I’d been discriminated against before…but it was all subtle stuff, you know? And then we move here, and what’s the first thing they tell us? Know the boundaries. Didn’t anyone think that was wrong?”

  “Some people did,” Julie said, sighing. “But for most of us, it’s just how things were. People like Mr. McLeod and Aunt Molly and Mr. Nickel kept pushing the kind of behavior that they grew up with…and we bought into it, some of us, without questioning. Maybe it’s better here now, who knows?” After all, Maggie Harris hadn’t batted an eye at seeing August in the hotel lobby, even if he was the only black man in Southern Saddle.

  Julie hopes, at least, that things are different.

  41

  REBA’S DIARY, 1997

  I’d been counting down the days until my birthday. Seventeen seemed magical and elusive; ever since Jules turned seventeen at the beginning of summer, I could hardly wait to do the same. Not to mention that everyone else in my grade had already turned seventeen. Some of my classmates were on the verge of eighteen. It was a happy miracle that I’d made it into this class at all, that I wasn’t a junior right now, instead of a senior.

  This morning (or yesterday morning, since I’m writing this so late), I was pleasantly surprised to see Jules waiting for me outside with a chocolate cupcake smeared with frosting and covered in sprinkles, with candles in the shape of the number 17 smashed into the top. It’s a tradition, a thing that we do every year. Since we were kids, we’ve been baking birthday cupcakes for each other. Before Ted left and Molly turned so bitter, she’d even get in the kitchen and help Jules make cupcakes for me when it was my birthday. These days, though, Jules makes them alone. The treat was delicious, and the gesture, though familiar, was even sweeter. Jules is still my best friend and I can’t hold a grudge against her, even if I know enough now to keep my secrets close.

  Also, I hardly see Jules anymore, so even if I had decided to hold a grudge, there is a possibility that she wouldn’t have noticed. Not even Southern Saddle is enough to tempt her away from play practice these days, and I’ve been busy myself, working afternoons at Nell’s.

  Jules and I walked to school, through the fields, and I gingerly nibbled the cupcake, trying my best not to cover my entire face in frosting. Jules (always the performer) sang “Happy Birthday” to me in front of everyone in English class, and for once, I turned a shade of red that had more to do with happiness than embarrassment.

  All of this attention from Jules made me feel guilty that I couldn’t tell her what I had planned, but I wasn’t changing my mind. Jules wouldn’t know, wouldn’t even guess, even though she sits in the desk right beside me and it was all right in front of her face, if only she was looking closer.

  August didn’t speak to me, has never dared to speak to me in class once he realized that it just isn’t done. I’ve never thought of it before, but apparently, things aren’t like this everywhere.

  I had tried not to think of him. Really, I had. I even tried to rekindle some small feeling for Brandon Lomax, who is also in our English class. But those feelings seem very far away, a little-girl crush. And this, this feeling for August—this feels like much more.

  I sat up straight, one hand in the pocket of my pink cardigan, where a folded piece of paper was lodged. I’d written it at midnight, when I decided to follow my heart this once and see where it leads.

  It was so sneaky, so sly, that I couldn’t b
elieve I was really going to do it. But I did. The bell rang; class was over. I invited Jules over for my birthday dinner, and we walked to the door for our next classes. Just as Jules started to walk away, just as she turned her head, I accidentally (on purpose) walked right into the boy from class.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled, one hand on his arm.

  “It’s okay,” August said, smiling. “You all right?”

  “I’m…” I opened his palm with my fingers, dropped the note into his hand. And then walked quickly, quietly away, feeling equal parts thrilled and terrified.

  • • •

  There was a simple birthday celebration, with a dinner and a puffy white cake with frosting light as air, courtesy of my mama. My daddy was still sulky. If possible, he seems to be growing more and more upset as the days pass. Even on my birthday, he couldn’t help but raise his voice, yelling about his boss questioning him in front of coworkers. He’d started drinking beer with dinner instead of Mama’s sweet tea, and he got louder with every beer. Jules left after the cake, and after presenting me with a gift—a silver necklace with a dangling half-heart charm with the word best written across it in neat cursive. Jules kept the other half, the side that said friends. I’d admired it at Claire’s over the summer, one of those times when we went to the mall before Southern Saddle.

  Maybe it’s cheesy, but I truly love it, and it made me think that maybe eventually, at some point, I’ll be able to confide in her again. I put the necklace on right then, and I haven’t taken it off since. My parents gave me a new dress, something girlish that my mama must have chosen, white eyelet, more fitting for a girl of twelve than seventeen. I left it lying on the bed—it kind of matched the bedspread—when I crawled out the window.

  My stupid gypsy skirt made it difficult to slip out the window, and I cursed as I scrambled out, promising myself that I would wear something more suited to this next time. If there was a next time. I realize I’m not an easy girl to get to know. Maybe he wouldn’t want to keep seeing me. I had run off the last time we were together, after all.

  It’s funny how sometimes the darkness settles around you, and you forget to be afraid of it. I welcomed it this time, a cloak to keep me concealed from the eyes of those who would…what? What would they do when they caught me? And who are they? My parents? My friends? Someone else entirely? I didn’t know, and on my birthday, I didn’t want to care.

  He was waiting for me when I got there, and he was holding something in his hand.

  “You,” I said. It has become my quirky little greeting for him.

  “Happy birthday,” August said, presenting me with a book. I held it close to my face so I could see it better. It was a journal, small and lavender with a deep-purple ribbon holding it closed. The inside was empty, pristine. “For your poems,” he said, but I have enough notebooks for poetry, and I already had this desire to tell the story, to put on paper all of the things I wish I could tell Jules, but can’t.

  “How did you know it’s my birthday?”

  He smiled. “Your friend, singing today.”

  “Thank you.”

  I touched him, his hand, felt the smooth texture of it, and listened to the sounds of the river. And then I was closer, my mouth too close to his and lingering for an instant before I kissed him.

  I started writing the moment I got home, wanting to capture every moment—from the first flash of August’s camera up to now—of this crazy whatever-it-is, and now the sun is coming up and soon it will be time to get ready for school. But the words are here, and that’s the important thing.

  What will become of all of this?

  42

  Julie and August stand near the riverbank, the trees gone now, all cut down—for aesthetic pleasure, Julie guesses. For someone’s aesthetic pleasure, at least.

  “It was all my fault,” August says, his voice breaking. He grabs Julie’s hand, grips it. His eyes are bloodshot; they’ve been at the park for what feels like hours. The nearly empty liquor bottle dangles from her other hand. “Listen to me, Jules. This was all my fault. If she’d never met me, she’d still be alive, damn it. It was the only time in my life that meant anything.” His voice rises. “But I would take it back, every piece of it, every bit, every kiss, everything, if it would bring her back.” He grabs the brown-bagged bottle from her hand and throws it, hard, into the river. It jingles, melodically, satisfactorily, as it smashes against rocks that Julie can’t see. “Why can’t it bring her back?” August shouts.

  Things have begun to blur, but still, Julie sees it. Behind August, to his left, the new footbridge.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” she says. “It was my fault. Because it was me. I did it.” Her voice cuts through the cool air like scissors through paper.

  “Did what?” August says, his voice filled with confusion, and she can tell that he doesn’t understand—because if he understood, he would hate her. And she deserves it.

  “Reba didn’t commit suicide. I killed her.”

  43

  REBA’S DIARY, 1997

  It goes something like this: We don’t talk much about school, because we don’t have any of the same friends. Class assignments drift into our conversations occasionally, but mostly we swap things. He brings me books, his favorites, worn covers a testament to the pressure of his fingers, particular phrases underlined. He likes classics—Catcher in the Rye, The Sound and the Fury. He’s a reader, like me, which makes me like him even more. Sometimes he brings me a book I’ve read before, but I don’t tell him so. The stories take on different meanings in the context of him, of his scrawled notes in the margins. I bring him poems I’ve written, which I never thought I’d share with anyone, and he manages to say nice things. He brings me photographs, images he has captured of Lawrence Mill and of his former home in Virginia.

  I’m completely smitten. I am filled to bursting with happiness.

  One night I told him about the rickety bridge that connects the riverbanks, and how Jules and I broke it when we were children. August and I were sitting on the gently sloping bank of the river, facing what was left of the bridge. I’d like to have sat on it, swinging my legs back and forth in the air, but it is unsafe in the dark, even if you know where the broken board is. I told him about how Jules had cut her leg, badly, years ago when that plank gave way beneath her, the long gash starting at the base of her shin and crawling up to her knee.

  Molly and my mama warned us a hundred times after that against playing on the bridge. No one ever repaired it. My daddy had promised to, back then, on a weekend maybe, whenever there was time. But there never was time, I guess, and the bridge stayed damaged, arching, lazy and pretty and unstable with the seventh plank loose and dangling. The rail on one side had been broken long before, by someone else who knew the secret of the bridge even before Jules and I did. August said he’d like to photograph it in the daylight, with the sunshine sneaking through the trees.

  “Why pictures?” I asked him. “What makes photography so special to you?” His legs were splayed and I leaned against him, my back pressing into the reassuring weight of his chest.

  “Because things disappear.”

  “That’s optimistic,” I said, teasing him.

  “It’s realistic. With a camera, you can catch things. Stop them in that perfect place, perfect time. Photographs…they keep you from forgetting.” He grinned. I kissed his cheek.

  “Why poetry?” he asked me.

  “Because there is a word for everything.” I believe it too. People say things like There just aren’t words to describe it and Actions speak louder than words, but I don’t think it is true. There are words for everything, and nothing could possibly speak louder.

  44

  “You didn’t kill her, Jules.” August’s voice is raw and hoarse. “Reba killed herself. She jumped off the bridge because she thought I’d abandoned her. She waited for me, and I wasn’t here.
That asshole, her father, was burning down my family’s house.” August laughs bitterly. “He didn’t even know about Reba and me. It was all about him. Because of him, I never made it here that night. I never made it to her.” He closes his eyes, as if the words hurt.

  “You’re wrong.” Julie thinks of the newspaper article about Reba’s death, with Reba’s school picture right there on the front page. “She didn’t jump. I was there that night. I pushed Reba off that bridge. I killed her, really and truly. It was me.” Tears are a sign of weakness, but here they are, trickling stupidly and uncontrollably down her face. “And, God, I am so, so sorry.”

  August is watching her, the expression on his face one of pain and skepticism. “You didn’t kill her, Jules.”

  “I did.”

  Finally, she can see it start to sink in, this awful truth. But still, the anger doesn’t come, only surprise. “But why?” he asks.

  “I don’t…I don’t know.” Her memory of that night is hazy, twisted. Because she can see them, the two figures arguing on the bridge. And one of those figures is her, even though it feels like she is watching from far away.

  “You said you killed her. If that’s true, then tell me why. You loved her. Why would you have done it?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know!” Her sudden shout startles them both. She can see her own shadow spilling out beneath the streetlight, a larger, darker version of herself. She closes her eyes, tries to remember the night Reba died. “I’d been drinking. A…a lot. It was the night of the school play. I saw her sneaking out of her window, and I knew she was coming…here, to the bridge, to meet you. I’d always been envious of Reba, of how perfect she was, and then she wasn’t perfect anymore, but she was in love. She had you. Anyway, I got it into my head that I should follow her, and so I did.”

  “What happened then?” His voice is quiet, so low that she can hardly hear him above the slow slide of the river beneath them.