“You haven’t felt well for a long time,” Tricia said. “We’re still your friends you know.”
“Is it Red?” Lisa asked. “I overheard Beatrice tell someone that he had gone to Raleigh one weekend to see Buffy. Did you know that?”
“Yes,” I said. “But it’s not true. That’s not it.” But that was true, that was it. Why, all of a sudden were they there to ask all those questions anyway?
“I’m just going to go home,” I said. “I hate to miss class but I think I’ve got the flu.”
“You had the flu two weeks ago,” Cindy said and then was sorry that she had said that. I could tell from the way that the three of them kept looking back and forth that they had been talking about me. “Well, what I mean is that you must have a bad case. I think you should go home.”
“Don’t tell anyone,” I said while washing my face, “but there have been some problems at home. I can’t go into it because my parents would kill me. Please, just don’t say anything.” They just stood and stared first at me and then at each other and I left. That was a lie, too, but so what? It seemed to me that everything was a lie and the only comfort on that day had been the drizzling rain that glowed on every grease slicked puddle in the high school parking lot, and all the way home all I could think about was James Agee’s little Rufus in A Death in the Family when he is so proud of the hideous cap that he wears and his aunt feels sorry for him because she knows that he looks ridiculous and that people are going to make fun of him. Still, she doesn’t have the heart to tell him. I began thinking that maybe Red was my hideous cap and that Tricia, Lisa and Cindy just didn’t have the heart to tell me. I thought, too, that there might be another part of me in that book, a part that wished that out of the blue I would hear that Red had been in a serious accident and I could cry and do the proper amount of grieving and then begin all over as though I had never known him, never fallen in love with him, never been exposed. Or maybe it was none of that, maybe it was just a thought, the book and the drizzly day, to take my mind off of the lie that I had told my friends, the lies that Red had told me, the lie that I would tell my mother again when she suggested that I spend more time with my friends, that they were excluding me, that Red was my only friend, all that I had. I would tell her all of that and I would cry just as I had done before and she would hug me and say that things would work out and I would wish in that moment that she would say that I must stay there forever, that I must not see Red or anyone else ever again, that I could go back and start all over.
I was looking forward to the Blue Springs High Christmas dance. It was going to be special because all of the senior superlatives would be called onstage during the night. My mother had even let me get a new dress for the occasion. It was emerald green with a lowcut neckline and a little slit up the side. I should have known when I stood at the checkout and watched my mother write that check that I never should have gotten it, that Red wouldn’t even see it, though somehow, I had thought that I could convince him to attend a high school function so that everyone could see us together and stop wondering, “What’s going on with Jo?”
“Jo, you know how I feel about these things.” He is in my living room talking loudly as usual and I don’t want my parents to hear him. “You go on and have a good time.”
“But I won’t have a good time. I’d do it for you, Red.” I can feel myself getting ready to cry, the pulse in my temples. “I go to parties with you that I really don’t want to go to.”
“I don’t make you,” he says which is true; he has never made me go; sometimes I think he’d rather that I not go. “I’m sure one of your little boyfriends that are always calling on the phone would love to take you, Miss Most Popular.” He laughs and hugs me as though it’s no big deal.
“They’re friends, that’s all.” I want to pull away but I don’t want him to see my eyes start to water. “They have girlfriends. Besides, wouldn’t it bother you for me to go with someone else?”
He laughs again and rocks me back and forth like a limp rag. “Not one of them. Hell, why should I worry, unless, of course, you’re planning on hopping in the sack.”
I can’t believe that he has said that. I can’t think of what I need to say back so I watch a drop of water splash on his collar and spread out into the green material with a tiny smudge of mascara in the center like a nucleus.
Red pushes me away and lifts my chin. “Jo, you’re acting like a baby again. You know I can’t stand it when you act this crazy way.” He smooths his long fingers under my eyes. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do to make up for it.”
“What?” I sit holding my breath, hoping that he has just been kidding and will say that he will go.
“A bunch of people are going skiing next week and want us to come along.”
“What people?”
“Scott and his girlfriend, Wanda, and three other guys that you really haven’t met.” I am relieved that he did not say Mark and Beatrice, but Scott and Wanda are just about as bad. They are the pair who are always in a catatonic state. I am scared of them.
“I don’t know, I’ll have to check.” I was so happy just a few hours ago, knowing that I had two weeks of vacation to be at home, to be with just Red and make things just fine like they were in the summer.
“Well, if you ask your parents like that, you know that they won’t let you go.” He rubs his hand up and down my back. “We need to get away, Jo. Just think, all that time for us to make up for lost time. You won’t have to worry about getting home on time or your mother finding out where you are. I hate myself lately for what I’ve done to you. I don’t know what I’d ever do if I lost you. Don’t you know that?”
“Yes, Red,” I say and I think about it; I think about that night at Moon Lake when the lake was so big and dark looking; I think of that rubbery knee, sweaty palm feeling when we sat on the tower that first day, when he told me that he loved me; there was too much time, too many times, to let go. “Okay, I’ll try. I’ll go.” Red leaves and I just sit for a long while trying to remember exactly what had happened, why he wasn’t going to go to the dance with me. But, that will all be different someday, someday next summer when I’m out of high school.
“Jo?” My mother sticks her head through the door. “I thought I heard Red leave. What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Is anything wrong?” She walks in and sits down and I try not to look at her because I know that my eyes look like a raccoon.
“No, not at all,” I say and I can tell that she doesn’t believe me but she doesn’t have the heart to say so.
“Did you tell Red about your new dress?” she asks. “Or about how you’ll be called up on the stage?” I shake my head. “I told your Daddy that I wish we could sneak in and watch.”
“Please don’t.” I grab her arm. “It’s no big deal.”
“I’m just kidding,” she said. “We wouldn’t dare embarrass the Most Popular girl.”
“I didn’t mean that. I just mean it’s no big deal.”
“Did Red say that, that it’s no big deal?” She asks lots of questions lately, peculiar questions.
“No, he thinks it’s great.” I smile and sit up straight, perk up.
“Well he should! I’m glad he does.” She hugs me and there is a second when I want to crawl up on her lap, to ask her why things get so difficult sometimes. I just pat her on the back. “Let’s get your dress hemmed.” She gets up and waits for me at the door and I follow her into my room where she pulls the dress, still in the box, from my closet.
“Here, slip it on and stand on the chest.”
I do and she steps back to look. I am trying to think of a way to ask her about skiing. She will not want me to go, but if I do it just right, like Bobby, she will let me.
“I think we should get you some new shoes.” She pulls out the soft skirt and lets it fall back around my legs. “Then I won’t have to cut off so much. We don’t want to ruin that slit.” She makes a face and laughs. I look as pi
tiful as little Rufus in his big loud cap and she knows it but she doesn’t have the heart to tell me. The phone will ring, “Big Red is dead,” they will say and I will wear a black dress and never leave this house, this woman fixing my dress.
“I saw some downtown that will be perfect, just the right height heel.” She talks on and on the whole time that she is pulling pins from her mouth and flipping around the skirt of the dress. It is almost like she is the one going to the dance, like she is Most Popular, like she is the one who would know exactly what to say, what to do. “What kind of flowers is Red going to get for you?”
I just shrug. “Red wants me to go skiing over the holidays, too.”
She looks up and pulls the last two pins from her lips. “Just the two of you?”
“Oh no, a bunch of people are going and it’s going to be loads of fun.” I step down off the trunk and pull the dress over my head. It feels good not to have to look at her and I want to stay inside of the dress until it is over, until I have an answer. Scott has a sweet mother, the lady in lingerie at Penney’s, though that is no reflection on Scott, but I can tell my mother that; Wanda’s father is a well-known dermatologist in town.
“We’ll see. We’ll ask your Daddy.”
“Please.” Begging seems like the right thing to do.
“Do you know any of the other people?”
“Oh yes,” I say and I tell her about Scott and Wanda. I tell her that I don’t know the other three but that Red wants me to meet some of his friends since he’s always with me and my friends, like at the dance. “He’s so nice to all of my friends, but you know what’s going on. They’re so jealous of him.” The only way that I can say all of that is to concentrate on carefully smoothing the material of the dress back in the box. It must be smoothed just right, straight folds of green running parallel.
“We’ll see,” she says again. “I still don’t understand what’s been going on at school to keep you so upset. You know, Cindy called twice last night while you were at the movies with Red.”
“I don’t know either,” I say. “If they were all dating, it would be a different story.”
“Maybe you should have them all over to spend the night over the holidays.” She is worried, I think. I have never worried her before.
“We’ll see about the other,” she says and sighs. I know that that is a probable yes which it is the next day. It is the hardest yes that I have ever gotten because I have to say that one of Red’s friends has a house in the mountains and that the boy’s parents will be there the whole time. She doesn’t even call to check; I don’t even know if the name that I used is correct. The last name of the driver is Bond but is his name Barry? Larry? Carey? It doesn’t matter because she trusts me. She trusts my good sense and judgment; she tells me that all the time. If I say “motel” one time, I will blow it all, and I don’t, though there is one minute that I almost do, on purpose. I almost blow it all on the night of the dance.
“Look, Jo,” Mama calls from the kitchen. “Red had your flowers delivered.”
It is late in the afternoon and I have already washed and rolled my hair. It is getting longer, now, just the way that Red wants it to get. I get to the front door and Mama has already taken the white box and she hands it to me. “Open it, let’s see.”
I know before I open it, a nosegay with red rosebuds and baby’s breath. I had called in the order myself and gone by earlier that afternoon to pay for it so that there would be no tracer.
“How pretty!” Mama squeals. “Red has good taste and it’s high time that he starts doing special little things for you.”
“Nobody does special little things anymore,” I tell her but seeing that she is so excited for me, I try to work up some enthusiasm because I know what question is bound to come. “Wonder why he didn’t just bring them himself?”
“Didn’t I tell you?” My temples are pounding and I am convinced that she can see my front rollers moving in and out of my head.
“What?”
“Red has to work at the auto center. He tried his best to get out of it but they couldn’t spare him what with holiday traffic and all so I’m going to ride with Cindy and Myron and Red is going to meet me there.” That rolls off very smoothly.
“Here, I’ll put these in the refrigerator for you.” She looks so disappointed when she leaves the room and I don’t know if she’s disappointed for me, in Red, or for herself. I have to press my hands to my head to make the curlers stop jumping.
My Daddy took several pictures of me in my new dress and shoes before I left that night. I was anxious to get there and get it all over with. Cindy asked me where Red was as soon as I got in the car so I had to explain all about him working so that he could earn extra money for our skiing trip and how he was going to meet me later. That was easy enough because later I would just assume to everyone that he must not be able to get away. It got easier and easier the more that I thought about it and by the time that we got to the school and walked into the gym, I just about had myself convinced that it was all true. I could see Red slaving over the hood of some car, while I was standing there, in the gym, red and green lights blinking and flashing, pine trees wrapped in cotton, the huge star suspended and glittering over the stage. I had helped make the star, had spent several afternoons wrapping pine trees, but it had looked nothing in the bright light the way that it looked that night.
“You girls did a great job,” my English teacher said. “I don’t know what we’ll do without you hard workers next year.” Tricia, Lisa and Cindy were all standing close by. Next year sounded so far away, too far away actually and I could not help but think about that for awhile. Who was going to wrap those pine trees next year? Cindy must have already told Tricia and Lisa about Red working because the only thing that they said was that they hoped he got there in time for the presentations. All three of their dates asked me to dance right away, but I preferred to just sit at one of the tables in the corner of the gym where it was dark, and listen to the band, a soul band who sang a lot of Gladys Knight songs. I put the centerpiece in my pocketbook first thing. It wasn’t anything spectacular, two tinfoil bells and some holly leaves, but I wanted something to remember.
It was during “Midnight Train to Georgia” that I saw Pat Reeves on the dance floor. He was with a girl who was a year younger, a girl who I thought was not his type at all. She was the perfect debutante, not cute, but given the right clothes and adult jewelry, and given that certain air of superiority to anything small-town, she could somehow beguile people into thinking that she was cute. They danced round and round and she was tittering, though I couldn’t hear the titter, and waving to everyone that passed, while Pat moved around like a stiff corpse. He was having an awful time.
When the dance ended, she hurried off to a group of girls and they left to go to the bathroom. Pat was standing by himself off to one side of the gym by an open door. Suddenly, I felt like I had to say something to him, to speak and have him speak back. I had to push through several people and it seemed that everyone wanted to talk, to ask, “Where’s Red?”
“Hi Pat,” I said when I finally got there. “I didn’t know you were going to be here.”
“Yeah.” He looked at me once and then looked out the door. It was cold there but felt good since the gym was already so hot and stuffy. He turned back but instead of looking at me, looked behind me, looked all around. “Where’s Red?”
“He had to work.”
“That’s a shame.” Now, he looked at me, his jaws clenched.
“Good band, isn’t it?”
“Yeah it is.” He stuck his hands into his pockets. “I am about to die for a cigarette.”
“You don’t smoke,” I said because he had always given me such a hard time, threatening to tell my cheerleader advisor or worse, my mother.
“That’s what college does.” He stepped outside into the darkness. “Want one?”
“Why not?” I followed him outside and we stood off to one side in the dark. I h
ad never smoked at school before and that made me want one even more. Pat gave me one, a menthol which I hated, and then he cupped his hands around a match to give me a light. We just stood and inhaled, exhaled, and what had been an uncomfortable silence started becoming more comfortable.
“Your date’s cute,” I said, trying to say something nice.
“Yeah but she’s a jerk.” He said that so seriously that for a moment I didn’t say anything and then we both started laughing.
“So why are you here?” I leaned up against the cold brick wall right beside him.
“I was coming home anyway, my Mom’s birthday, so when she called, I just said, ‘why not?’”
“So how is school?”
“Great. It’s nice to be out of Blue Springs, make new friends, come and go as you please.” He thumped his cigarette and it landed in the cold brown grass, a tiny red glow that slowly faded. I could not picture myself coming and going as I pleased. “So, how are things with Red?” It surprised me that Pat would just come right out with that, that he would look directly at me, those large hazel eyes not even blinking. I had to look away.
“Fine, just fine.”
“I never did understand why you just weren’t honest with me when you started dating Red.” He lit another cigarette. “I mean I looked like a real ass in front of all of my friends. I thought there was something between us.”
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