“Hey.” He grins at me. Fuck. It’s like looking into the face of a model, and not a gay one. I’m no competition for this brute. Hell, I’d want him to father my children. Kidding.
B.T.B., who had stopped to talk to Mr. Ned, catches up. “What are you doing, sister?” His ever-present smile is a scowl when he looks at Chaz. There is some serious backstory here.
Mary Carlson puts her hand up on her brother’s shoulder. “Just talking about the game. Nothing more.”
“Hate football,” he mutters and turns red in the face.
Chaz clocks him on the shoulder. “Ah, B.T.B., you still sore about that tryout? That was in middle school. We didn’t mean nothing by it.”
“Don’t care about football. Don’t like your words.”
Chaz lifts his hands. “Whatever, man. Listen.” He drops his arm over Mary Carlson’s shoulder. “I like your sister. I want us to be friends. I need you to let that old mistake go.”
B.T.B. shakes his head in tight little movements. I take his hand to try to help him calm down. I don’t know what these guys did to him, but I hate them for it already.
Mary Carlson deftly maneuvers out from under Chaz’s arm. “Barnum. You know what Pastor Hank says about forgiveness. And look.” She smiles at Chaz and my heart plummets, because I swear it’s the same you and me against the world, babe smile she’s flashed at me. “Chaz and I are friends now.”
Chaz gloats, then gives Mary Carlson a head-to-toe checking-out. “No, man. Your sis here grew up. I have, too.” He calls to the guy holding Jessica’s hand. “Right? Bully no more.”
“Yeah, man, you’re the heart and soul of political correctness and charity.” Jessica’s football player laughs as he answers.
Chaz holds up his hand for a high five with B.T.B. “See, man? I’m cool.”
B.T.B. leaves him hanging.
I lean in and whisper, “Buddy, I know you’re like your elephants with that memory and all, but your sister is right. People can change.” If I’m going to be my father’s daughter, then I have to be the bigger girl even when I don’t want to be.
“Still don’t like Chaz.”
“Come on.” I tug him away from the girls and the football players. “You get to ride in my car and give me directions.” One look back and my gut clinches.
Chaz has stopped Mary Carlson, a hand on each of her shoulders, his handsome face staring down at her. They are the all-American couple crowned for every high school event. Sure, it’s easy when I’m hanging out with Dana and all the out kids in Atlanta to pretend like there might be two prom queens or two prom kings at any high school across America. But this image is the cold, hard reality.
A kick of fear reverberates up my rib cage. Fuck. I can’t keep doing this. What was I thinking saying yes to an overnight with a bunch of youth group kids? I can’t pretend to be something I’m not. Even if I’m not pretending, omitting is damn close to a full-blown lie. I can’t believe I agreed to this. I can’t believe Dad asked. I can’t believe fucking Three and her uptight homophobic mother. There’s no way I’ll be able to keep pulling this off.
“Are you coming, Jo . . . anna?” B.T.B. is smiling again and waiting for me to unlock my car doors.
I take a deep breath. Ten months, only ten months, and then I’ll surround myself with people who accept me. None of this fear or uncertainty. Even as I think it, I know it’s bullshit. But at least it won’t be high school.
At the game, it’s just us girls again. Gemma holds to her word and has her cell phone snapping pic after pic after pic, and when I look at the screen that she passes down the row, I can’t even. Other than the fact I’m the only one with short hair, it’s your prototypical five-girl selfie.
“You want to go with me to get something to drink?” Mary Carlson asks.
I look behind me, thinking she’s talking to one of the other girls.
She laughs. “Yes, you.” She grabs my hand. “Come on.”
I let her hold it down the stairs. Nobody even gives us a second look, because she’s Mary Carlson Bailey, goddess, and I’m another Foundation Baptist girl. Holding hands is a totally normal thing for girls to do. So why is it I’m blushing? She doesn’t let go until we bump into George.
“Well, hello, George.” Mary Carlson’s head twists looking at him, then me, and I swear I see the flash go off in her mind. “You’re coming to Rob’s party, aren’t you?”
“Um, well . . .” He trails off. George, I’ve learned, is a National Honor Society kid, cross-country runner, good church boy, and trombonist in the band. Football player parties, I’m guessing, are about as natural to him as they are to me.
“We’re going.” Mary Carlson thumbs back and forth between us. She looks at me. “It’d be fun if George was there, wouldn’t it, Joanna?”
I shrug, my face as red as George’s. “Uh, yeah, sure, whatever.”
“Good, it’s decided.” Mary Carlson beams and leans in, giving George a quick hug. “Thanks,” she says as her hair falls forward over his shoulder. I get a whiff of her shampoo. Something refreshing, like green tea and ginger.
Then I wonder, why did she tell him thanks? Am I that much of a charity case?
George’s glasses slip as he bobs his head in acknowledgment.
We walk away and leave him gawking on the steps down to the band section. “Are you trying to hook me up?”
“Is it a problem?”
What do I say? “I guess not, but I’m not really looking for a boyfriend.” Totally not a lie.
“Two Diet Cokes, please. Or wait.” She looks at me. “Would you rather have regular?”
“Regular’s good.”
She turns. “Make that two Cokes, please.” Mary Carlson gives the concession attendant a ten-dollar bill as a roar sounds from the bleachers behind us. “Everybody wants a boyfriend, right? And George is sweet. He won’t get too handsy.”
“Handsy?” She passes me a soda and I reach for it, leaving my side exposed.
“Yes, you know . . .” She reaches out, tickling me until I curl in like a hermit crab. She pulls her hand back and makes grabby motions. “Handsy. Like you’re the football.”
“Uh. Um. I haven’t dated much.” Hooked up? Sure. Dated? Love? Not so much. Boys? Never.
“You’re lucky. I hate it. All the groping.” Then she blushes. “Does that make me sound weird? Jessica and Betsy are all about it. Betsy and Jake are actually having sex, which she loves to talk about. Gemma wants to be all about it if she could find a guy to handle her brainpower. But me? It sort of wigs me out.” She shrugs. “I guess I just haven’t gone out with the right guy.”
Or girl, I think. “What about you and Chaz?”
She sucks on her straw. “He’s pretty hot, isn’t he?”
“Yep.” He is. No denying it.
“I don’t know.” She leads me back up the bleachers. “We tried to go out in middle school but I was really into golf and blew him off. He was an ass about it. Started some stupid rumor about me when I wouldn’t kiss him during a seven minutes in heaven game. Of course no one believed him, but that’s why B.T.B. dislikes him. I’m hesitant still about him, you know? Even though it was middle school, there’s not much I hate worse than liars. But maybe now that we’re older, he’s changed and he’ll have more magic than the other guys I’ve been with.”
“Been with?” Was it that kind of rumor? Did he lie about what they’d done?
She stops and her mouth drops. “God, no. Not been with. I’m saving that. For love.” Then she rewards me with the smile and my stomach drops to my feet.
Nine
THE MUSIC DOESN’T STOP AS we step through the door of Rob’s house, but there’s a pause in the energy of the room. It makes me feel like Jane Goodall, observing the rituals of the small town straight. And believe me, the gorilla comparison, though definitely a bit of reverse stereotyping, is entirely too apt. The gorilla groups stop their conversations to do the quick scan and approval, or dismissal, of the new arrivals. In
this case, us. And fortunately, by how quickly everyone goes back to what they were doing, we’re approved.
I am out of my element.
Completely. So I mimic an earlier moment.
“Hey, y’all come here.” I gather the girls around me, and to their delight, snap a five-face selfie. As they walk in ahead of me, I text it to Dana. The need for a touchstone is great.
She texts back immediately.
Holy fucking mother of God. Which one are you? And who you going to do?
I. Am. Walking. Into. A. Football. Players. Party.
No.
Yes.
I am walking into Hellcat Coffee.
Dana is definitely winning. Hellcat Coffee is this amazing little place on South Moreland that’s enough on the fringe to feel dangerous. It’s also where all my friends from the last couple of years hang out on the weekends when there’s no rave to dance our brains off at. If I were there, I’d be curled on a tattered couch listening to spoken-word poetry. Not waxed and polished like some freak show at the prom.
“You okay?” Mary Carlson sidles next to me and I shove the phone into my pocket before she can look at it. I’d done the great social media app purge for when Gemma eventually demanded my phone. But texts could be a problem.
“Oooh, you have a secret love? Not looking for a boyfriend because you have one already?” She nudges me with her shoulder and because she’s probably five foot nine to my five foot three, she’s got to crouch a little to do it. Then she laughs.
“What’s so funny?”
“Your face when I asked you that. It was like I’d given you a lemon.”
I smile and shrug. “Sorry. I was texting my dad and your question threw me off guard.” Her question is actually what I hate most in life. Why can’t people say boyfriend or girlfriend, or him or her, when they ask about relationships? Why can’t they drop the gender specification altogether?
“Come on.” Gemma motions for us. Betsy and Jessica have already wandered off to their respective guys, so it’s down to the three of us. We exit through French doors out onto a manicured brick back patio. The keg planted in the center of the mossed bricks looks completely out of place in this Better Homes and Gardens layout. My phone buzzes but I can’t pull it out without starting a thing. And I don’t need Dana to be a thing right now. Hopefully she’ll forgive me.
“Hi.” George is there with his hands in his pockets.
“Oh, hi.” Mary Carlson gives George the Bailey smile. Funny how B.T.B.’s makes my day breezier, but Mary Carlson’s makes me feel like I can’t breathe. Especially when she’s elbowing me in the sides in a completely unsubtle way to point out the boy she wants me to hook up with.
“Y’all want a beer?” Gemma eyes the keg suspiciously.
I shake my head. So do George and Mary Carlson. Awkward and sober. Just the way I like it.
“Well, since you’re driving, I’m imbibing.” Gemma turns on the charm for the guy at the tap, and now we’re two, plus George.
“Do you think there’s bottled water anywhere, or Coke we can pour in a red Solo cup?” George fidgets. I grab three cups from the table by the keg. “Come on, let’s go see what’s in the kitchen.”
We turn in unison and smack straight into Chaz. He wolf grins when he sees Mary Carlson. “There you are. Did you come to the game? See my big play?”
The roar from the bleachers while we were getting drinks from concessions comes to mind. But Mary Carlson doesn’t skip a beat and falls into some weird more-Southern-than-thou coquette role. “I did. You were amazing.” Chaz is tall enough that she has to tip her chin to look at him. He looks like he wants to consume her.
“Yeah, pretty great. Hey, you look hot.”
I’m sure to Chaz this is a compliment in the highest measure. Mary Carlson doesn’t drop the smile but it freezes for a microsecond. Maybe she doesn’t like him? But when he puts his hand to the small of her back and propels her in the direction of Gemma and the keg, she lets herself be directed. I let out an audible sigh.
“Stuck with the loser, huh.”
I’d forgotten about George, so focused was I on the Taylor Swift video playing live in front of me. “What? Oh no, you’re not a loser.”
“I am. To those guys.”
Poor guy, self-deprecation is going to kill his game. I take George’s elbow in both my hands. “You are so not. You’re a runner, an honor’s student. You can speak in Latin.”
He’s blushing under my attention and I drop my hands. Kindness can be misinterpreted, and though it would be easy to let George be my beard so I could fit in, it’d be a douche move. “You still want to find something to drink?” I waggle the cups.
“Yep.” He is pleasant looking when he smiles, and if I were going to date guys, it would be a George type. But yeah. No.
George inflates as we walk through the crowd because just as people made assumptions about me and B.T.B., the same thing’s happening with George. He’s getting fist bumps and nods in my direction. A girl even approaches me as we shoulder our way into the living room.
“Hi, you’re the new girl from church, right?”
“Joanna,” I say.
“Emily,” she says, then leans in. “George is the sweetest guy.”
“Uh. Okay.”
She grins like I confirmed everything for her and bounces off to the group she split from to share her juicy bit of gossip. At one point, George pulls the Chaz move, reaching out a hand for the small of my back to guide me forward, but I do a mean twist firmly back into the friend zone.
In the kitchen, we find liquor and mixers. I figure I’ll keep my mantle of designated driver going, because even though I’m tempted to get pissed to survive this messed-up night, I’m not sure how much the others are drinking.
“You don’t drink?” George asks.
I grab a ginger ale and untwist the cap. “Sometimes. But not often. And never much. I don’t like feeling out of control.”
“Me neither. It messes with my times.”
“Times?”
“Running.”
“Right.” I take a sip and wrinkle my nose at the spray of bubbles.
“What about you?”
“Me?”
“You know, outside interests, sports, clubs? Who’d you hang out with in Atlanta? What’d you do?”
My mind fires with images of Hellcat Coffee, Dana, GSA meetings that were more like hookup gatherings, masquerade balls, and parties, parties, parties. I can’t find a thing to share. Which is kind of embarrassing.
“Um. Not much. I guess I’ve always been the listening, observing type.”
“Like your dad.”
“My dad?”
George nods, then settles at a kitchen stool. I do the same.
“Yeah, I love your dad’s show. Especially the ones where he takes hot-button issues and looks at them through a more moderate lens.”
“You listen to my dad?”
“Yeah.” George spins the stool back and forth. “I’m debating theology, psychology, or pre-law in college, and I like his worldview.”
“Thus the Latin.”
“Thus the Latin.” He smiles, then gulps, his Adam’s apple bobbing like he’s nervous, and oh damn, is this lovely conversation about to get weird? But then, “Do you think I could meet him sometime?”
I laugh. Actually laugh because his question is such a relief.
“Sure. How about one day after school? I usually stop by to see him and Althea, his office manager, on my way home.”
George lifts his red Solo cup and we toast. “Cool. To new friends.”
“To friends.”
Mary Carlson bursts into the kitchen. “Thank God.” She slams herself against the wall dramatically. “You.” She points at me. “Bathroom.”
I’m off the stool before she has to ask again.
Ten
“ARE YOU OKAY?” NOW THAT we’re in the bathroom Mary Carlson seems kind of calmed down.
She groans. “One more f
ootball play and I would have reached for a third Jell-O shot. I had to get away or I’d end up wasted.” She hops up on the sink counter and thumps her legs against the cabinets. “What about you, did I steal you away from a riveting conversation?”
“Actually, George is okay.”
“So you have a cruuuuuuush. . . .”
I don’t know where to place myself. I could sit on the toilet. Or the edge of the bathtub. Or lean against the opposite wall. Normally when I’m in a tiny four by six room, I’m either having a clandestine make-out session or bullshitting with Dana and fixing my eyeliner. I opt for lip-gloss reapplication.
“No.” I plunge the applicator in a few times.
“Careful there, killer, don’t want to murder the gloss.”
My hand stops and I pull out a wand overloaded with color and shine.
“Here.” Mary Carlson grabs it from me and wipes off the excess on a tissue from the box next to the sink. “Now pucker up.” She holds the wand toward my lips and leans closer.
I grab the edge of the counter so I don’t fall, and lean in.
She’s coming in with the wand and I’m freaking. Is this normal? Because this feels like flirting.
With delicate strokes, she traces the applicator over my parted lips. Her eyes are focused and there’s the tiniest crease in her brow as she works on getting the color just right. Can she hear how loud I’m breathing?
She pulls the wand away but doesn’t move. Just stays kind of hovered in, her face leaned toward mine, her own breath sweet with the smell of strawberry Jell-O. Her face cracks into a smile. “Perfect. You have amazing lips by the way.”
There’s a swarm of butterflies looking for release in my core and I better move. And fast. I close my lips and pull my body back. Kissing Mary Carlson Bailey in my second week of school is the furthest thing from lying low as possible. Besides, I’m pretty sure this is all in my head.
She clears her throat and does this funny little shake like she’s bringing herself out of a trance. “Well.” She hops down. “Back to the boys.”
“Yeah.” My voice sounds like a load of gravel was just delivered to it. “The boys.”
Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit Page 6