by Paisley Ray
I watched the second hand on the kitchen clock tick. It was two past one.
“Did you kiss him back?”
NOTE TO SELF
Must get back to school where I can forget about wanting a wanted man.
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SNEAK PREVIEW
THE RACHAEL O’BRIEN CHRONICLES
SOPHOMORE: SHELLED AND SHUCKED
A Novel by PAISLEY RAY
“He who hesitates is a damn fool.”
~Mae West
AUGUST 1987
CHAPTER 1
Ain’t He the Bee’s Knees
“She’s about to be SHELLED and SHUCKED,” a southern voice I didn’t recognize uttered with amusement. I heard giggles but dismissed the distraction. The background chatter of my roommates at the edge of the Grogan Hall parking lot at North Carolina College was barely audible. The distant conversation blended into the symphony of rhythmic insect chirping that serenaded Clay Sorenson and me as we explored each other’s lips.
The late afternoon shadows grew as the sun shifted to the west, but didn’t provide relief from the unrelenting Carolina heat. The air hung tacky and stiff, luring the call of male cicadas. Droves of them hummed a mating song that rolled in and out of my ears, like a rising tide pushing ashore. Standing on my tiptoes, my eyes drank in Clay’s über-fine manliness. My short-sleeved IZOD draped into a clingy fit, hugging my spine and chest. The moisture beads that adhered my right hand to his neck, and my left to the small of his back, emitted primal heat, sweetened by the musky scent he’d showered in. Clay’s intoxicating blend rocked my core, blinding my cognitive perceptions, and fogging my vision. If this was a precursor to sophomore year, I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to become a junior.
Disturbingly, I still held my V-card, but those days were numbered. He was so “The One,” and if the interior of my 1967 Ford Galaxie wasn’t heaving with college stuff, I would’ve become a woman on the pea-green plastic back seat, without caring who straggled by.
At nineteen years of age, my inner-woman was ready for a wash and wax. It had taken ages for us to hook up, but I wasn’t going to dwell. Clay Sorenson, whom I had drooled over for an entire year, liked me now. At the end of last year, we’d parted on a low note. It wasn’t my fault that a smokin’-hot FBI agent, Storm Cauldwell, interrupted our anatomy session in Clay’s dorm room. There had been paperwork that needed to be signed regarding my statement about how Billy Ray, a demented redneck-art-forger, had tried to strangle me. Then there was the stolen Clementine Hunter painting I’d found in Bridget Bodsworth’s dorm closet. I’d provided evidence linking them, along with two accomplices, to an art forgery scam.
Despite the restraining order on Billy Ray, I didn’t feel warm and fuzzy about being back in the state where I could’ve been killed. The charges were unresolved, and uneasiness pressed at my nerves. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that Billy Ray scared me, and I wouldn’t feel safe until he was put away.
When I’d left Clay’s room that last day on campus, the mood between us had soured. We never had the chance to realign before I went home to Canton, Ohio, for the summer.
Clay had called me once in July, and the conversation was strained. Last night, before I went to bed, I put on my big girl pants and called him. Before I drove to college, I needed to know where things stood between us. Considering how he now sandwiched my chest against his, and the pressure he used to apply my Daisy Dukes into the hot metal of the driver door, I think it was safe to assume that we were able to pick up where we’d left off.
He’d sucked all the moisture off my lips, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t kidding anyone who passed by. We were more than kissing. He and I dined on full-on-grope with a side order of making out. Clay stopped nibbling on my ear lobe long enough to whisper, “I’ve missed you. A lot,” and I mewed.
Time wasn’t something that concerned Francine Battle, and she spoke without rushing her syllables. In a soulful voice that deepened at the end of each word, she said, “Joan Jetteson, free of charge, I’m goin’ to enlighten you. That there is a classic, text-book case example of uncorked infatuation. Built up most of last year. But that bonne homme never got his planet aligned with Rachael’s.”
“Bonne homme?” the stranger’s voice repeated.
“That’s swamp talk,” Katie Lee said.
Francine hissed, and though she wasn’t in my sight line, I imagined she’d anchored her hands on her hips, and I swear I heard her stomp a fuzzy slippered foot.
“Stay with me,” she sassed. “White boys. They can be slow. Nice to look at, but romantically speakin’—a high percentage are daft.”
“Come on, Francine,” I heard Katie Lee say. “What do you know about white boys?”
“I’ll have you know that I’m not a one-flavor kind of girl. Chocolate may be my first choice, but I’m not opposed to other candy.”
Girl Code isn’t textbook knowledge. No one sits you down, teaches you the guidelines, and gives you a test. It’s innate, genetically wired into females as young girls. I knew damn well that Katie Lee and Francine were hanging out on the perimeter of the parking lot. Since I was occupied, I figured “The Code” would kick in. When a girlfriend hooks up with a guy she has obsessed over for more than six months, do not UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES interrupt.
Theoretically, they should’ve moseyed along and waited for me in the dorm, where I’d debrief them later. That didn’t happen. Apparently my roommates are able to re-circuit the wiring that would jolt any normal, Girl Code-abiding female. Despite being obviously busy, I was aware that I had yet to greet them after a summer apart. I wasn’t going to break the rules. I knew that when dating, a girl should find the time to still hang out with her girlfriends.
I reveled in a long overdue hallelujah moment until a stranger’s voice spoke in close proximity, making me flinch. “Looks like the wick has been lit. Y’all are swappin’ spit like Lowcountry lizards.”
A Ralph Lauren perfume cloud choked the air. Enveloping Clay and me, it threatened to sedate us. My sophomore year roommates closed in, and begrudgingly, he and I pulled apart.
“Well, it’s about time ya got your northern ass on down here. We’ve been here for hours,” Katie Lee said.
Wiping my lips with the back of my hand, my eyes couldn’t help but smile. “Katie Lee Brown,” I said, as I clasped her wrists and fanned her arms to get a look. “Is that a new sundress you’re wearing?”
Katie Lee wiggled out of my hold and twirled. Over the summer she’d lightened her hair with Sun In and lemon juice. As her hair grew longer, dark brown roots pushed the bleached blonde and orange lower down her crown.
“Mama bought it for me as a goin’ away gift. She sent a little something back for you too. It’s up in our room.”
Brushing out a crease below her belt, Katie Lee swept a wisp of hair that had fallen in her face. “Clay Sorenson,” she said, “if you have it in your head that you’re gonna hog Rachael this year, you just think again.”
A gruff “Ahem,” gurgled, and then repeated, louder.
Clay leaned back against the car. “Francine.”
“Give a girl some of that cane sugar you’re wearin’.” Wrapping herself around him, I noticed that she didn’t exactly rush to release him.
Sauntering the few steps toward me, she licked her palm and stroked it backwards from her temple, to just above her ear, smoothing the flyways that had escaped her modest ponytail. With pursed lips, she lazily dragged her glare from my flip-flops, up to my neck, then halted her gaze.
I fidgeted my fingers against the eye of Horus trinket I
wore around my neck, and skirted my tongue across my crooked eyetooth. Truth be told, I admired Francine. Her game face was always poised. On the outside she was capable of tucking anyone’s tail between their legs and sending them scurrying, but inside she was sweet, light, and fluffy, like cotton candy.
“You been down here five minutes, and you’re wearing a hickey on your neck as wide as the Mississippi.”
My cheeks felt warm, and I guessed they flashed crimson. “Francine,” I garbled.
Slumped against my car, the girl I hadn’t met pressed and released a pocket of metal on the hood of my car, making a popping noise, like it was air-filled bubble wrap. A head taller than Katie Lee or me, and two heads taller than Francine, she had stud earrings around most of her left ear. Her purple bangs were blunt, and only covered an inch of forehead. The rest of her hair was black and touched her shoulders. My stare lingered on her hands. The skin around her short nails was reddened and cracked. They looked like they’d been through a cold Ohio winter, and I wondered what she’d done over the summer.
The pea-green Galaxie wasn’t my first choice in a vehicle. To be honest, it hadn’t been on my wish list at all, but it was transportation. The car had three things going for it: it was a gift, and therefore free; all its parts were where they should be—no hanging tailpipes or broken door handles; and when I turned the key, it religiously started without complaint. I didn’t need to start the year with a hole above my engine.
“Easy on that hood,” I said.
Katie Lee tugged the southerner forward. “Rachael, this is Joan.”
Standing in close proximity to Clay, I had trouble focusing. My hormones still sparked, and the name didn’t register in my head bank.
“From South Carolina Lowcountry,” Katie Lee said.
I looked to Francine for a clue. She didn’t bother to shield her combo, eye-head-roll maneuver. “Our assigned roommate in the quad.”
“We’ve been here most all day,” Katie Lee scolded. “Already have everything sorted. It’s completely spacious compared to the room we shared last year.”
Francine stared at Clay, but her words were meant for me. “Since you weren’t here, we made an executive decision and put you on a bottom bunk. As a safety precaution.”
My shoulder throbbed and instinctively I rubbed the walnut-size lump that had taken up permanent residence on my collarbone. The freshman year memory of-free falling off a top bunk was not one of my favorites. The only positive of that day was meeting Clay in the campus infirmary where he was interning.
Stepping toward me, Joan curled the corners of her lips. The right of her mouth tilted slightly higher than the left, giving her a mischievous sneer. Extending her hand toward mine, she gripped my clammy palm and tightened her sandpaper hold on mine. “You’ve got some rust under the hood. You need to scrape and patch it, otherwise it’ll spread like a fungus. Joan Jetteson,” she said, putting a twang on the te in Jetteson. “Midas well call me Jet, everyone does.”
She released my hand, and it flopped to my side. Realizing I was surrounded by southern, I tried not to arc my eyebrows too close together. How come I end up rooming with the quirky ones?
“Do you fly airplanes?” Clay asked.
Sweeping a gaze over him she shrugged. “I’m attracted to anything with nuts and bolts.”
Side stepping toward Clay, I coiled my arm around his, and slinked my hand into his pant pocket. Tangling his fingers around mine, he squeezed away my insecurity. The chances of having another year of demented encounters had to be zilch. Besides, freshman year had opened my eyes and my can of whoop ass. Clay Sorenson and I had chemistry. I planned to christen my sophomore year, and sleep with him before the day ended. I wasn’t going to let this rust expert interfere.
NOTE TO SELF
Clay is even hotter. I think it’s his summer tan.
Joan Jetteson, a.k.a. Jet. Not convinced her nuts and bolts are secure. Proceed with caution.
CHAPTER 2
Shooin’ Flies
The quad we were assigned was in the same tower building as last year, Grogan. And same as last year, the structure still lacked two essential comforts, carpeting and air-conditioning. This year our two-room quad was on eight, the top floor, and had a northern bird’s-eye view of Campus Drive. Stretched below our window was a canopy of oak limbs that were blanketed in waxy green leaves.
The first room you entered from the hallway was where my roommates had put all our desks. The second space was a catch-all for everything else: Beds, closets, a sofa, TV, and Francine’s lavender butterfly chair that rested on a collapsible metal frame. Katie Lee had brought a giant industrial fan, the type a contractor would use to dry a flooded basement. With the girls’ and Clay’s help, it only took two trips to move my stuff in.
Before Clay left, he and I arranged to meet at the Holiday Inn bar later tonight. He whispered in my ear, “Wanna spend the night at my apartment?” When I kissed him back, he knew my answer. With spacious accommodations, good friends as roommates, and a boyfriend who I’d planned to remember as The One, this year was going to be memorable.
“How did you convince your daddy to let you drive from Canton, Ohio, to Greensboro, North Carolina, alone?” Francine asked.
“Now that my dad dates, he’s morphed into a more reasonable, less dictatoresque father.” Squaring the sheet corners on my bottom bunk, an irony struck me. Before Mom bolted, she’d been a stickler about clean sheets and well-made bed linens. In the vast menu of PU—parental unit—idiosyncrasies, her neuoratic fussiness had been ingrained in me. I couldn’t believe that it had been a whole year since my life went schizoid.
One week into my freshman year at college, my parents parted ways. I know this happens to a lot of families, and nowadays is even considered normalish. There was nothing normal about my mom’s departure. Without driving down Nitty Gritty Lane, she skipped out on my dad with her psychic girlfriend in search of her vortex of happy. Since she took flight on her—inner-self adventure, Dad started dying his hair, taking step-aerobics classes, and dating his instructor. His girlfriend, Trudy Bleaux’s personality resides between Flake City and Middle-of-Nowhere. To be fair, she has had one positive effect on him: He’d loosened up on the rules and regulations. Funny how an emotional snowball disturbance can have a benefit.
Jet bunked above Katie Lee, and by default I’d be bunking below Francine. The nut-and-bolt enthusiast kept her jewelry and personal beauty items in a metal container that looked like a fishing tackle box, complete with rusted clasps. It was open on her bed, and she busied herself arranging packages of liquid-eye liner and stud earrings in the compartments. With arms in a wing position, she rocked her behind. “Y’all, this bunk feels jiggly.”
“Top bunks are like that,” I said.
Digging in her toolbox, Jet removed a wrench, and jumped down.
“Did you tell the FBI about your Bubba sighting in Canton?” Katie Lee asked.
Swiveling her head, Jet fixed a stare toward me. “Whoa. Why would you tell the FBI about someone called Bubba?”
I palmed some wrinkles off my van Gogh Starry Night comforter. When I looked up, Jet hadn’t dropped the curious gaze she held on me. Her inquisitive manner chimed a warning bell. In a small voice, I said, “Bubba’s a wanted man. I called Agent Cauldwell yesterday.”
A few hours ago, I’d been making out with Clay and felt guilty at the mention of Bubba. I didn’t know Jet from a hole in the wall, and didn’t want to divulge my deranged tale that I’d had one too many encounters with Bubba Jackson, a.k.a. Jackson Kimball, who’s on the FBI felon list. Determined to ax the drama karma, I lied. “Summer is barely a memory. There’s nothing to tell, really.”
Jet cranked a wrench counterclockwise on a corner bolt that secured the top bunk to the bottom.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“They’re stripped. I’m gonna replace them.”
Nested in her butterfly chair, Francine nibbled the edges of a packaged cherry pie
she’d bought from the hallway vending machine. “Bubba Jackson’s from New Bern,” she said, before licking the filling that had dripped onto her wrist.
Jet asked Katie Lee. “Your hometown?”
Before Katie Lee responded, Francine grumbled, “Um-humn.”
In a huff, Katie Lee stepped out of the closet where she’d jammed a season’s worth of clothes, shoes, and spare bedding. She put a bulging Gucci wallet with navy G’s printed on it into a matching purse. “Jesus Christ, Francine. You’re acting as if New Bern is a cesspool of criminal activity.”
Francine thrived on creating combustion, the stuff that fueled Katie Lee. “You said it, not me. And watch the JC references. The last thing we need is some of your bad luck channeling us.”
“Francine Battle, I take offense to that comment. Y’all, last year was a total fluke. Normally New Bern is a sleepy Carolina town where nothing ever happens.”
“Y’all are killin’ me here,” Jet said as she loosened another screw.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” I asked.
“I know how to replace a few screws,” she muttered. “So what happened?”
“Nothing,” I said, in an attempt to diffuse the electricity that sparked between Katie Lee and Francine.
Pausing to look down her nose at Katie Lee, Francine continued. “Spring semester, Rachael uncovered an art thug. Billy Ray ran his art forgery business out of New Bern and sold ‘em across the southeast. Over Easter break, he cornered her in a bathroom. Like a chicken on an assembly line at a nugget processing plant, he tried to wring her neck. Saved herself by ramming his towel rod.”
“I didn’t ram his towel rod. I rammed him in the ear with a towel rod.”
Francine flicked her wrist. Moving out of her chair, she closed in on Jet. “The thug had a partner called Bubba Jackson—another New Bernian.”