Four-Letter Word

by Christa Desir

  “She didn’t really give him a blow job for his letter, did she?” I asked.

  “Probably. But she would have done it anyway, so it’s not like the game made her do it.”

  I hoped not. “Would you have . . . with Aiden?”

  She ran her fingers down the braid in her hair and smiled in that conspiratorial way she used to when just the two of us knew something. “What do you think?”

  6

  When Friday night’s game time rolled around, I was a nervous mess. I kept reminding myself it was no big deal, that we’d all had fun the first time. But platinum favor kept echoing through my mind, followed by the image of me studying in front of any of those guys without clothes on. Or doing anything else they might ask of me. And what would they ask? It was hard to imagine rounding all the bases as a platinum favor when I’d never even been up to bat. And it was even harder to imagine any of them asking it of me, which was the only reason I was still playing.

  I changed my outfit three times before settling on leggings and a stretchy T-shirt over a cami, with a tiny purse strapped across me to hold my keys, hand sanitizer, and phone. My chest was mostly flat and underwhelming and the cami didn’t help, but a padded bra seemed like I’d be trying too hard, like I wanted the guys to think about my boobs.

  As I walked along High Street on the way to Burling Library, I passed a bunch of college housing and then saw Melissa McGrill’s house. She was outside on the porch with a blanket wrapped around her, even though it was not at all cold. It’d been a bizarrely warm early April in Iowa, and I couldn’t help but think of my dad’s fears about our changing climate, fears that so many people had pushed aside as a “conspiracy.” I stood in front of Melissa’s driveway, waffling.

  “Hey,” I called out finally, lifting a hand to wave.

  She looked at me and kind of half smiled. “Hi, Chloe.” Then she pulled the blanket tighter around her.

  She seemed so sad. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to pry, and she hadn’t confided in me about being pregnant in the first place. I didn’t even know if the rumors were true, though the only time I’d seen her, she was coming out of the pharmacy and she’d missed the whole rest of the week at school.

  “You okay?” I asked. My mom’s miscarriage had left her basically bedridden for two months. Not just because she’d gotten an infection from the D&E they did after they found no heartbeat in the baby, but because every time she got out of bed, she’d burst into tears again. Dad fell apart too, climbing in bed with her more often than not, and leaving me to figure out my own meals. It took even more months for my mom to recover from the debilitating depression, and when she finally did, she explained everything that had happened to her. In detail.

  Melissa shrugged. “Sure.”

  “Do you need anything?”

  “No, thanks.”

  I couldn’t figure out what to do with my hands, having no back pockets to shove them in and not wanting to start biting them, so I waved again and said, “I’ll see you in church.”

  The one thing my grandparents insisted on—in spite of Mom’s declaration that I should choose my own spiritual path—was that I attend their Episcopal church every Sunday. I was happy to see Melissa there the first time I’d had to go, even though we didn’t say much more than hi to each other. It was weird how someone could be so important to you for so long, and then . . . not.

  Melissa blinked, adjusted the blanket again, then nodded. “Yeah. See you then.”

  Melissa and I didn’t ever sit together in church. I sat in the front with my grandparents’ friends, and Melissa and her mom sat in back. Melissa’s dad was in the army, stationed in the Middle East, and only showed up between tours. Part of the reason Melissa and I had grown apart in junior high was I didn’t ever really know what to say to her about her dad always being gone. I knew she and her mom could’ve gone and lived on a base and seen him more, but her grandparents lived here, same as mine, and they were dug in. So after a while, I stopped calling Melissa as much, letting our friendship fade because of my own fear of saying the wrong thing. How does a twelve-year-old ask her best friend if she’s worried about her dad dying in a country so far away?

  Of course, now, with my parents nearing their two-year mark in the Spirit Corps in a politically unstable country, and me deciding to stay here instead of live with them, I knew exactly what to say. I just wasn’t good enough friends with Melissa anymore to say it.

  * * *

  Walking onto the college campus was almost like entering a movie set. Mostly because all the students seemed like they had money. I knew this wasn’t true—had heard unendingly about the college’s unique need-based financial aid from my parents—but the buildings and the grounds and the way people were always outside with laptops or playing Ultimate Frisbee, it seemed rich in a way I’d never known. Most of the campus was filled with beautiful stone and brick buildings, a little like how I’d imagine one of those small East Coast boarding schools.

  Eve, Holly, and Chloe Donnelly were already on the square in front of Burling Library when I got there. I ignored my jealousy over knowing they’d all been together at Eve’s house first, but I couldn’t meet them there because I’d been waiting for an internet chat with my parents that hadn’t happened. Whether it was because they couldn’t get online tonight or because I’d never sent the letter to them letting them know when to call, I wasn’t sure. I felt guilty as hell for not sending that email, and even guiltier wondering if they would try to call when I was out playing this game because they’d assume I’d be home. Either way, it left me in a shame spiral I couldn’t quite shake.

  “Other Chloe!” Chloe Donnelly called, running up to me and hugging me hard like we were best friends. Were we? She’d sat next to me at lunch again today, entertaining the three of us with more stories about her Chicago friends, who all sounded a bit like characters from a TV show, but I wasn’t about to say that.

  Her arms were vise-tight around me, and when I finally stepped back, I could see she was a little tipsy. She was wearing a short T-shirt dress with pockets that made it flare out. And she had on Converse sneakers and no socks. Didn’t seem like the easiest thing to run in, but at least it was better than the platform sandals Eve and Holly wore. The exact same pair of sandals, as if they’d bought them together over spring break and planned outfits around them, which I was sure they had. Probably got them along with the BEST FRIENDS charm bracelets, sometime before Eve decided sex with a random guy from the college wasn’t that big of a deal.

  Chloe Donnelly did a quick-gaze assessment of me and said, “You’re dressed to run, huh? Even after getting Josh’s letter in the practice game?”

  I shrugged. What did she expect? I certainly wasn’t going to go on the offensive when a platinum favor was at stake. I cleared my throat and asked, “Could the guys really ask for anything if they won? And we couldn’t say no?”

  Chloe Donnelly laughed, kind of tinny and a little fake sounding. “Of course. That’s the definition of a platinum favor.”

  They would have a guaranteed yes. And so would we if we won again. I had to remember that or I’d never get through the night.

  I glanced at the brightly lit library behind her. I’d looked up the hours online and knew it would close at ten. It was basically empty already. The activity around that part of campus on a Friday night was minimal since the buildings were academic, a fact I knew from all the reunion weekends my parents made me attend with them as a kid. The few people passing by the library to get somewhere tonight didn’t seem to care about us at all.

  Eve and Holly tottered closer, dumb platform sandals keeping them from being able to walk steadily. Eve handed me a plastic party-shooter syringe of amber liquid.

  “What’s in it?”

  “Jack Daniel’s. Liquid courage. We’ve each already had two, so you need to catch up.”

  I handed the syringe back. “I’m going to skip it tonight.”

  “Other Chlo-e,” Eve whined.
“Don’t be weird.”

  “Let her do what she wants,” Chloe Donnelly said. “It’s probably smart to be sober the first time she plays for a platinum favor.”

  The first time. As if this was going to become a regular Friday night activity, which a big part of me hoped it wasn’t. Although the other part of me held on to our practice-game win and how easy it had been, and how I’d been part of that. Part of something with my friends. If winning were as easy this time, I’d have a platinum favor from Mateo. The idea made me kind of shivery and flushed.

  Will you kiss me in the hallway every morning? Will you have dinner with my grandparents? Will you write me if I have to move to Burkina Faso? So many favors spun through my head. And maybe Mateo would laugh and do all those things and tell me, “You didn’t need to waste your platinum favor on that. You just had to ask.”

  “Yeah,” I said, trying to sound casual. “I hate the taste of Jack Daniel’s.”

  Eve rolled her eyes. “Everyone hates the taste of Jack Daniel’s. That’s not the point.” Eve could be a mean drunk, and all the softness from the previous night seemed to have seeped out of her, leaving her judgmental and harsh. The Eve from the past few months instead of the one from our first few years as friends.

  I wasn’t straight edge or anything, but there was no way I wanted to drink. Particularly because I was possibly an even worse drunk than Eve. Alcohol made me paranoid, and I was grappling with enough of that without a push from Jack Daniel’s. I could tell Holly wanted to say something snotty to me too, about not taking the syringe, but before she could, all four guys walked up.

  Mateo was wearing jeans and a light-blue T-shirt that said SO? All the other guys were in a variation of the jeans/ T-shirt combo; Aiden had a hoodie on too, and Josh’s shirt was tucked in to jeans that looked new. With six kids in his family, I knew they wouldn’t be new, but Josh wasn’t the type to have holes in his jeans or wear the same pair five days in a row like he couldn’t be bothered going beyond the top layer of the laundry basket. He wasn’t into dirt biking or playing touch football in the fields like most of the guys in our school. I even once saw him use a napkin at lunch instead of his pants. The tidy thing was pretty cute.

  “So tell me again how you’re going to make this bigger and better,” Cam said to Chloe Donnelly, like he hadn’t been there when she’d explained about the platinum favor. It was hard to tell if Cam never listened or if he pretended not to listen because it went so well with his general apathy about everything.

  She shrugged. “It’s not that different from how we played before. Just longer and with more area to cover. We’ll meet back here at ten thirty. The boundaries are the blocks surrounding the immediate college campus: Park, East, Sixth, and Tenth. You’re not allowed to go inside any buildings, and the big gym complex and all the fields and courts north of Tenth are out of bounds.”

  “The gym complex is called the Bear,” Eve put in, but then looked embarrassed for interrupting.

  Chloe Donnelly barely looked at her. “Yeah, I know. Anyway. The Bear’s too big, with way too many dark corners and hidden pockets. There are enough spots to hide without including it in our boundaries.” Then, looking at me, she said, “Overall, we’ve got plenty of places to transact in private.”

  “Speaking of transacting,” Cam said, pulling a handful of foil squares from his pocket, “a bunch of people were giving these out in front of the health center on my way over.” He started to pass them around to the guys.

  I leaned forward to look at what they were. Oh God. Condoms. He was seriously passing out condoms. I couldn’t decide if I was scared to death or mad at Cam for being so disgusting when there was no need. It was like he was intentionally being a jerk to show off.

  Chloe Donnelly smirked. “That’s a little presumptuous.”

  Cam grinned. “They’re safety condoms. Emergency use only. You never know when you may need one.”

  I couldn’t stop myself from looking at Mateo as Cam handed him a condom. His jaw was locked and he looked a little angry, but he didn’t say anything, just pulled out his wallet and shoved the condom inside.

  My stomach felt gurgly and full of acidic ire, and again I considered bailing on this whole thing. But then I thought of Chloe Donnelly sitting next to me at lunch this week and the way Eve and Holly looked at me as if I was suddenly relevant. How Eve had invited me to her house for the first time in months. How Mateo talked more in Spanish class because Chloe Donnelly kept dragging him into our conversations. How when we’d played at Cam and Aiden’s on Wednesday, we’d had fun. Together. All of us. We’re not on a spy mission going across enemy lines. We’re playing a word game, I reminded myself. And the only one who’d need a safety condom was probably Cam.

  I peeked at Mateo and caught him staring at me, maybe checking to see what I thought about Cam being such a dick. I rolled my eyes to indicate Cam and his safety condoms were dumb as hell. Mateo grinned a little, his lip ring glinting in the lights from the library. I picked at the cuticle on my thumb, trying not to be too obvious about how fluttery I felt when he smiled. He shook his head and grinned wider, like my nail picking was adorable and not this gross, nervous habit.

  “Okay, everyone exchange phone numbers if you don’t have them,” Chloe Donnelly said. We plugged them into our phones, and I hoped my flush when I added Mateo to my contacts wasn’t totally obvious. I’d been wishing for his number for almost a year, wishing for any way to connect with him outside of class, but I didn’t know how to ask. Didn’t think he’d give me a way in if I did ask. Even now, he looked a little put out by everyone having access to him in this way.

  When that was done, Chloe Donnelly pulled out a small square of paper and handed it to Cam. He was apparently their default captain. “Do you have a pen?”

  “No. They weren’t giving those out at the health center.” He winked and it looked so dumb.

  Chloe Donnelly rolled her eyes and handed him a pen. “I brought an extra one.”

  Then she stepped away and wrote something on her slip of paper before tucking it and the pen into the pocket of her flared dress. She hooked an arm around me and said, “Eve, Holly, come over here with me and Other Chloe so I can whisper your letters.”

  She waved a hand at Cam as if to say get to it and then pulled each of us away to whisper a letter.

  “T,” she said, soft and low in my ear. T. I thought of all the possible four-letter words that included a T in them and was glad I wasn’t the captain protecting our word—the one thing standing between us and an unconditional yes to the guys.

  I looked at Cam, all cocky and shoving Aiden, and imagined myself trying to get his letter or the guys’ word from him. What would I do? Could I sneak the paper out of his pocket without him noticing? Not with it tucked into his back pocket by his butt. Maybe I could get it another way. My neck felt all weird and splotchy, not in a good male-stripper-sex-movie way, and I put a different fingernail in my mouth. A game of rock-paper-scissors wasn’t going to seal the deal with someone like Cam, especially if he was passing out safety condoms.

  “Okay, girls,” Cam called out after he’d whispered into each guy’s ear. “You’d better go hide because we’re coming for you.”

  Chloe Donnelly said to him, “Wait here for five minutes while we get ourselves in position. And then we start. Don’t forget, stay outside, stay within bounds, and get letters by any means necessary!” Then she let out a dumb horror-movie laugh, and the girls all took off in different directions.

  I glanced back as I headed for the dorms on the south side of campus and saw Mateo’s gaze tracking me. I stopped myself from fidgeting or adjusting my underwear, which had ridden up my crack beneath my leggings. Faking calm, I looked at the other guys and saw Cam with his arms crossed and a smirk on his face, watching Mateo watch me.

  “Run and hide, little girl,” Cam yelled. “Your life is about to get a lot more interesting.”

  7

  The thing was, my life didn’t get in
teresting. At all. I planted myself behind a tree in the quad near the corner of South Campus, close to the fancy-looking dining hall that apparently the college didn’t use much anymore.

  There was more activity on this side of campus, college students popping in and out of the dorms, but after twenty minutes of sitting, I was bored out of my mind. A guy came down the street wearing a North Face jacket with no shoes on and his hair in a bun, then ducked into the loggia. I played Candy Crush on my phone and waited. Another twenty minutes and I decided I needed to move or I’d freeze. Maybe I could find Josh again. A cold and steady breeze had picked up, and I couldn’t imagine Chloe Donnelly in her skimpy T-shirt dress or Eve and Holly in their sandals and short skirts. I’d be pissed if they’d broken the rules and gone inside, though the sane side of me wouldn’t blame them.

  I walked north along the quad and came to Eighth, which split the middle of campus. Grinnell was such a weird place for a college. We didn’t have things like Thai food restaurants or twenty-four-hour pizza places or anything else college students might find useful. We had Walmart and the Dari Barn. I couldn’t imagine the appeal of staying in this town like my mom did. She’d graduated from GHS too, and then started at the college a few months later. Maybe that was why she was so desperate to join the Spirit Corps. For a dozen different reasons, she was finally ready to get out. I’d lived here seventeen years, and that was enough for me. No way would I end up at Grinnell College.

  More students were on Eighth, but none of them seemed to notice or say anything as I passed. Did they think I was just another college student? That was sort of an excellent thought, knowing my basic outfit made me blend in with older people instead of stand out.

  The JRC was lit up brighter than the library—one of the newer buildings my parents said “squandered the endowment,” though from what I could tell, all campus activity seemed to circle around it. Three guys were messing around out front, tossing a football beneath the streetlights.