Black Tuesday

by Susan Colebank

  She was trying to see how long she could hold her breath when she heard a squeal of tires. She looked up.

  And saw Darian in his BMW, the passenger-side window rolled down. “Hey there, stranger. Want a ride?”

  Her heart did a double flip. His being here was surreal.

  His grin was big and inviting. “Just came from renewing my vehicle registration and I need something to wash away the taste of the DMV. Wanna get a shake?”

  Jayne grabbed her bag, every fiber of her body humming. Then she saw the little old lady was waving her over.

  “Honey, I’m taking down his license plate in case anything happens to you.”

  For the first time in recent memory, Jayne laughed. Out loud.

  And for real.

  23

  JAYNE DIDN’T GO HOME. She had Darian take her to Outreach Arizona. She beelined it to Meadow, telling her that she needed her help. When the bored rich girl had heard about the plan, she’d gotten on board.

  “What color are we going for here? Cookie Monster blue? Bubbleicious pink?”

  “Brown.”

  The girl with the orange mohawk and shredded Lindsay Lohan T-shirt smirked at Jayne.

  “Aren’t you quite the daredevil.”

  “C’mon, Jayne, get a little wild.” Meadow sat on the velvet sofa in the center of the black-on-black salon, her eyes meeting Jayne’s in the mirror. “I brought you to Destiny because she’s great at Technicolor.”

  Jayne didn’t need wild. She needed shock factor. Especially after today, when her mom sprang that little ambush on her. She needed something Gen Thompkins would swallow her tongue over. That’s why she was letting a girl with more holes in her than a golf course stand over her with a straight razor and a smile.

  That’s why she wasn’t with Gustav, her mother’s colorist. The guy who’d made her a blonde at age thirteen and every eight weeks thereafter.

  Just thinking about it made the rage burn bright, white-hot. What kind of mother would cajole her pubescent daughter to burn her scalp with peroxide?

  The same woman who’d told Jayne, “You’ll be prettier, and prettier is always better in this world we live in.”

  Jayne scrutinized herself in the round mirror. “I’m going with plain brown. That’s my natural color, anyway.”

  Destiny ran her fingers through Jayne’s long, silky strands. “We’re keeping the length, right?”

  Jayne suddenly felt like little fairies were making flowers grow in her stomach. She was that excited. “Nope. Chop it.”

  Destiny’s mouth opened, showing the silver barbell piercing the flesh of her tongue. “We’re not talking G.I. Jane buzz cut, right? ’Cause I don’t do ugly.”

  “No.” Jayne pulled her hair back so that the only hair that was showing was what was left on the top and sides. “Short like Charlize Theron will do.”

  Destiny ran her hands down the sides of Jayne’s hair, her head cocked to one side. A tiny silver skull dangled from the six-inch chain pierced to her ear. “I can see that on you. You’ve got the bones to pull off something like that.” She put her hands on Jayne’s shoulders, her eyes growing serious behind her cat-eye rhinestone-studded glasses. “I know you’re messing with your hair to piss someone off, but can I at least suggest some red highlights? Your hair will still have the piss-off factor but it will also have some style.”

  Jayne studied her face in the mirror, imagining her new bi-colored hair standing up all over the place. Like some starving artist type living off Top Ramen and canned peaches.

  Her mom would die.

  “Go for it.”

  “What’s next?” Meadow slurped at a mocha double-whipped something-or-other as she edged her Mercedes convertible out of the parking lot.

  Jayne stared at the face looking back at her from the sideview mirror. Her body was on edge, like it wanted her to do something else.

  Something nuts.

  Jayne couldn’t have agreed more.

  “Do you know where the closest sanitary piercing parlor is around here?”

  Meadow’s cool blue eyes took Jayne in. She flipped on the air conditioner full blast while she pushed a button to roll down all four windows. In a bored voice she asked, “What, are you going to be a daredevil and get two holes in each ear? As much fun as that sounds, I’ve gotta get going.” She sucked noisily on the straw. “I’m meeting my personal trainer later.”

  It looked like Meadow was done with today’s portion of “See Jayne Get a Makeover.”

  “I’m thinking of getting a barbell.” Jayne paused, mulling over the words before she said them. “Like the one Destiny had.”

  “In your tongue?” Meadow took her eyes off the traffic. Based on the glossy lips forming a glistening O, it looked like an afternoon filled with three sets of eight was just going to have to wait.

  Jayne settled back in the seat and her eyes fell on a boy staring at her from the back of a rusted car with Mexico license plates. He waved at her enthusiastically. She winked back at him.

  Where had that come from? She’d never winked at anyone in her life, much less a strange boy in a beat-up car. She sat back and let the warm wind whip her face. It felt pretty good. Empowering, even, to interact with another human being.

  She’d never really gotten this high from a test before. Or from keeping her spot on the tennis team.

  Adrenaline, maybe, from the stress. But never an out-of-body happiness.

  Jayne felt her stomach do a tiny flip-flop. She closed her eyes and enjoyed this feeling of . . . weightlessness.

  24

  JAYNE EASED the front door shut, wincing as her shirt stretched across her stomach. Canned laughter of some studio audience floated to her as she slipped off her shoes. She winced yet again as her stomach rubbed the waistband of her jeans.

  The clink of a piece of ice hitting against crystal came from the dark study to her left. “God, Jayne. What have you done?”

  Ellie leaned against the doorjamb, her hand wrapped around a squat glass holding some kind of liquid. Her other hand held a cigarette.

  Jayne wondered briefly if the Lobotomy Fairy had dropped by when she was out.

  Jayne slammed her eyes shut, hoping that when she opened them again, Ellie was just a pain-induced mirage. She opened her eyes.

  Crap.

  “Have you lost your mind? Dad’s going to smell that smoke as soon as he walks through the door. You know how sensitive he is to that kind of stuff.”

  Her sister shrugged, the knot of hair on top of her head bouncing with the effort. “Like I give a rat’s fart.”

  Jayne raised an eyebrow. Ellie liked pushing the envelope with their folks. But this was suicidal.

  Ellie rolled her eyes. “Dad’s gone. An emergency marketing meeting about some lotion turning people’s skin green or something. And Mom won’t care.”

  It wasn’t so much that their mother wouldn’t care. It was mainly that Gen Thompkins, the woman who ate a macrobiotic diet and did cardio seven days a week, would be puffing away on her own stash of cigarettes before her health-fanatic hubby got home.

  She would think the smoke smell was her own smoke.

  Ellie punched her cigarette in Jayne’s direction. “What’s up with the make-under?”

  Jayne smoothed a hand down the back of her head. “I like to think of it as going back to my roots. Our roots.”

  Ellie perused her with half-hooded eyes. It seemed like she wanted to say something. She opened her mouth. After a minute, she exhaled and closed her mouth. Shrugged. “Whatever. I don’t care.”

  She sipped from the glass and grimaced. Jayne knew she cared. The only reason Ellie had gone blonde was that Jayne had.

  Jayne remembered that day. She’d held her then eleven-year-old sister’s hand while the bleach sat in her brown hair, burning into her scalp for an hour.

  She took in Ellie, with her glass of alcohol and boredom written all over her. “So, wanna help me test-drive this hair?”

  Ellie’s eyes b
rightened for a second. But then that guarded look came into them again.

  “You can’t drive and I’m not taking the bus.”

  “Fine.” Hearing Ellie talk about one of the stipulations of her probation didn’t send the usual dart of pain to her stomach. Instead, Jayne moved to stand beside Ellie and put an arm around her shoulders. She plucked the cigarette out of her fingers, examined the burning tip, and took a drag.

  It looked like she wasn’t done being bad quite yet.

  “You’re forgetting, Elle, that I’ve got friends in high places. With nice cars. With enough room for two girls looking for some fun.”

  “Yeah?” Jayne felt the tension ease out of Ellie’s shoulders with the word.

  “Yeah.” Jayne dropped the cigarette in Ellie’s still-full glass. The soggy ciggy was done for the night. “So scrub the stink off your teeth while I make a call.”

  Ellie squealed in her ear. “Are we, like, going out out?”

  “Sure.” It was Jayne’s turn to shrug. “Why not?”

  “Like to a party?”

  “Yep.”

  “With boys?”

  “There’ll probably be some.”

  “And a keg?”

  “If the boys have their way, yeah.”

  Ellie threw her arms around Jayne, squeezing her so tight that Ellie’s hipbone hit Jayne’s stomach.

  Jayne let out a low hiss between her clenched teeth.

  “What’s up, Jaynie?”

  Jaynie rubbed her stomach through the thin cotton of her black tank top. “I didn’t just get my hair cut today.”

  Jayne tugged the fabric away from the angry red skin.

  “Oh. My. God!” Ellie shrieked the words as she bent to inspect the barbell piercing the top portion of Jayne’s belly button. “You didn’t!”

  She flicked the tiny rhinestone star hanging from the end of it.

  “Hey!” Jayne jerked out of Ellie’s reach.

  “I can’t believe you got a belly-button ring before I did. It looks awesome.” She started dragging Jayne with her down the hall, the glass of whiskey and drowned cigarette left behind on the foyer table. “C’mon, you gotta wear those jeans I got you two Christmases ago. People’ve gotta see this.”

  “There’s a reason I’ve never worn them.” They showed butt crack. Jayne wasn’t a butt crack kind of girl. “And there’s no way you’re going to get me in them.”

  Jayne felt behind her again, her fingers gliding over her lower back.

  No butt crack was showing.

  However, her belly ring was being shown off in all its newly pierced glory.

  She slammed the BMW’s door shut, trying to pull her black tank top down. Trying to cover up her three inches of bare tummy.

  Each time she pulled the fabric down, it just shot right back up again.

  She’d once been a girl who’d tied a sweatshirt around her waist in the middle of summer to keep her too-short top from crawling up all day. She hadn’t taken it off once.

  And it had been 112 degrees that day. And her waist had been pouring sweat.

  “Where are we going again?” Ellie’s shoulder brushed against hers as she click-clacked across the parking lot in a pair of four-inch heels that made her legs longer and leaner.

  She was wearing her do-me shoes. They’d once been their mom’s, but Ellie had inherited them after her mom had declared them dated.

  When Jayne had seen Ellie in her short jean skirt and sky-high heels, it had taken everything within Jayne’s power to bite back the words Go change.

  Ellie was Ellie. Jayne was Jayne.

  They were both big girls.

  They were both capable of taking care of themselves.

  “We’re going to a friend’s houseboat.” Darian came around the car and slipped an arm around Jayne’s waist. “Can’t wait to show you off, you wild girl, you.”

  She looked up and saw his eyes matching the teasing tone in his words.

  “You don’t think I went overboard?” Jayne had started feeling like the old, cautious, overthinking Jayne about half an hour ago, when Darian had picked them up and greeted her with “Holy mother of Jesus!”

  She felt his fingers fluff the back of her hair. Her skin tingled from the caress. He whispered close to her ear, “I think you look hot, Jayne Thompkins. Totally hot.”

  Jayne felt a blush heat her cheeks, but she silently reveled in his words.

  “Are we gonna, like, fish?”

  Darian laughed, his body shaking against Jayne’s. It felt nice. Natural.

  It was friggin’ great.

  “This isn’t exactly a fishing expedition.” Jayne watched Darian’s face while he talked. There was just enough moonlight for her to make out that gorgeous jock-boy face of his. “Derek’s got three flat screens, a pool table, something like ten Jet Skis.”

  “Really?” Ellie sounded disappointed, judging by the level of whine in her voice. “I didn’t bring a suit.”

  “That’s okay.” He pulled Jayne closer as the three of them navigated the steep hill leading from the parking lot to the docks on Lake Pleasant. They were about thirty miles outside of Phoenix, where a lot of the city went to remember what water looked like. “You can strip down to underwear here, or skin. It’s that kind of crowd.”

  Ellie moved in front of them, walking backward. Jayne admired the way she didn’t biff it in those heels.

  “Jaynie, I think I’m liking this new crowd of yours.”

  Ellie skipped ahead. This was the happiest Jayne had seen her sister in weeks. Heck, this was the happiest Jayne had felt in months.

  Ahead of them was the one lone restaurant the lake had. It was one of those places that turned into a bar at night and had a dress code of swimsuits, sunburns, and day-old suntan lotion. Jayne had been here before, when her mom and dad had taken her to a party on one of the huge houseboats parked at these docks.

  She didn’t feel like some sixteen-year-old, though. Not with this hair, this piercing, these jeans.

  This boy.

  “Hey, Darian.”

  “Hey, Jayne.”

  “You’ve got fake ID, right? You seem like the type of guy who would.”

  Darian laughed, tightening his arm around her. “Yeah, why?”

  Jayne leaned closer, resting her head on his chest. “I’m thinking a six-pack or two.”

  “Of Diet Pepsi?”

  She pulled away. She saw the teasing in his eyes. “Sure. If that’s what they’re calling Heineken nowadays.”

  25

  WHERE WERE YOU TWO last night?” Sean Thompkins looked over his reading glasses, taking in the scene in front of him. “Having fun, I hope?”

  Jayne was too tired to answer. She rested her forehead on her hand and wrapped her other one around her orange juice. Heineken needed a warning label. Not for pregnant people. For teenage people who’d never drunk before.

  Warning: Drinking a beer and a half might make you throw up three times. And miss the toilet one of those times.

  “I think I had more fun than Jaynie here.” Ellie pulled apart a cinnamon bun, popping the center into her mouth. Her parents didn’t say anything about Ellie’s sugar-filled food choice. She wouldn’t, either. “She’s not used to . . . um . . . fun.”

  Gen Thompkins flipped through a tabloid. She hadn’t said good morning when they sat down. She had, however, pushed Star over to Ellie, since she liked looking at the Best and Worst Dressed.

  She still hadn’t acknowledged Jayne.

  The phone ringing interrupted Jayne’s thoughts.

  “Gen Thompkins here.” Her mom always answered the phone that way. Like she was taking a call in her office or something. “Yes, she’s here. Just a moment, please.”

  She put the phone down in front of Jayne and sat back down.

  I guess it’s for me.

  Jayne took the cordless and walked to the living room.

  “Hey.”

  It was Darian.

  “Hey yourself.”

  �
��You’re coming to Outreach later, right?” he asked.

  “Last time I checked, I still have a court order to appear.” Had she just attempted a joke about her probation?

  That was a first. Having a hangover and downing six aspirins must’ve loosened her up a bit.

  “Just making sure.” He dropped his voice. “I’ve got something for you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. And you’ll be knocking yourself out trying to think of ways to thank me.”

  “Why do you say that?” He had a present for her? Why’d he have a present? It wasn’t her birthday. Heck, they weren’t even seeing each other.

  Yet.

  “You’ll see.”

  They both hung up a few minutes later, with Jayne still not knowing what Darian had for her.

  The surprise of not knowing was kind of nice. It gave her butterflies that felt sort of good.

  “What’s the deal with this boy?”

  Gen stood behind her, her arms crossed, a magazine in one hand, open and hanging to the side.

  “There’s no deal, Mother.”

  “From what I’ve seen, I beg to differ.”

  Jayne walked back to the kitchen and hung up the phone. Her dad was still there, doing the newspaper’s crossword. Ellie was gone. Probably upstairs sleeping some more.

  “He was asking if I’d be at the Outreach program today.”

  “How are things going there, kiddo?” Her dad looked up from his crossword, his eyes moving from Jayne to Gen and back again. “You doing okay?”

  She knew that she had to answer this question carefully. Otherwise she’d be getting another session with Larry tacked on. “Yeah. Answering phones isn’t that hard.”

  “Get any interesting calls over there?”

  She shook her head, watching as her mom focused on the tabloid she’d been carrying around. She was pretending like she wasn’t listening to the conversation. But Jayne knew her mother’s routine—turn the pages fast and furious, tearing out any stories that interested her: five-year-old beauty queens, dogs that could bark “The Star-Spangled Banner.”