The Queen of Kentucky

by Alecia Whitaker

  “I showed fear,” I say. “Ow!”

  “Now you listen to me, Ricki Jo Winstead: It ain’t your fault. Those crazy beasts came running up on my Ava just the other day. My grandbaby! Not even old enough to run away! Playing in her pen in the front yard one minute, screaming from the middle of their pack the next. Scared the living daylights out of her and me both! In my own front yard!” She stops and looks out the kitchen window, her mouth set in a hard line. “There’s something mighty wrong when you don’t feel safe on your own property.”

  “You gonna call the sheriff again, Momma?” Luke asks.

  “I don’t know what I’m gonna do, son.” She sighs, turning her attention back to me and unwrapping a huge Band-Aid.

  “What about Animal Control? They gotta do something,” he insists.

  Just then the screen door from the back porch slams shut and his mom tenses up. “Mattie!” we hear his dad growl.

  “All done, sugar. Y’all hustle on outside and play. I’ll figure something out about those dogs later.”

  “My supper ready, Mattie?” I look up to see Luke’s dad leaning unsteadily against the door frame. His eyes are bloodshot and angry.

  “Dad, it’s only four o’clock,” Luke reasons.

  “I told y’all to get outside. Shoo!” Mrs. Foster ushers us out in a hurry and gives us a don’t come back look that makes me really uneasy. Luke hesitates, unsure. “Get!”

  And we go. We walk slowly; we can hear shouting, but we don’t look at each other and we don’t look back at the house. We hear glass break. We shudder. We walk through his backyard and climb the plank fence, headed for the pond behind his house. We walk on a grass trail, yellow and matted down from our long summer of traipsing this same route. We walk slowly, hear shouting, don’t look at each other and don’t look back at the house.

  At the pond, we skip rocks. Watch them sail across the smooth glass top of the water. Long, quiet minutes stretch between us.

  Finally the shouting stops and Luke speaks, bitter and angry: “There’s something mighty wrong when you don’t feel safe on your own property.”

  I look over at him, but don’t see my friend at all.

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  “So cheerleading tryouts are Monday after school in the gym,” Kimi tells us matter-of-factly. Mackenzie eagerly writes the time down in her notebook and the girls start talking about what to expect. I, of course, smile and nod, and then—

  “Ow!” I cry.

  It feels like someone just walked up behind me and flicked me on the side of my face. Looking down at the table in front of me, I see a thick triangular paper. I pick it up and look at Wolf, who is grinning devilishly, as usual.

  “What was that for?” I demand, lightly touching my temple. Kimi and Sarah giggle.

  “I don’t know.” He shrugs. “These girls are boring me to death with all their pom-pom chitchat. Wanna play paper football?” Their giggling abruptly stops and I abruptly soften.

  “Sure,” I say. He makes a goalpost by putting his thumbs together and lifting both forefingers in the air. I balance the paper triangle on one tip, then flick it hard.

  “Ahh!” he yells out, clapping his hand over his right eye, obviously hurt.

  “Oh my gosh!” I yell, my hand immediately flying to my mouth. It was a direct hit.

  He tilts his head back and pushes off of Laura’s chair, leaning his own chair way back on two legs. Laura looks at me wide-eyed and I freeze, stone still, next to Mackenzie. Kimi leans toward him over the table, her cleavage coming out to save the day, and Sarah just blows air through her bangs, looking totally bored. When Wolf puts his front chair legs back on the floor and lowers his hand from his face, we are all shocked, and relieved, to see that he’s laughing. He’s laughing really hard.

  “I am so sorry!” I exclaim. And so embarrassed.

  He blinks a few times and rubs his eye, really amused. “That’s the nature of the game, babe.”

  I sigh, feel the heat in my cheeks, and look at the clock. Wolf asks me to play a game with him—me! out of all the girls at our table!—and I injure him. Flick him right in the eye. I mean, he’s obviously not mad, but the football made its way to his front pocket pretty quickly, and then he put his head down on his books. I try to focus on the exhilarating fact that David Wolfenbaker just called me “babe” and not on the fact that he probably won’t talk to me ever again. The bell rings and he’s out the door before any of us. As I sling my backpack up over my shoulder, I watch him walk away. Game. Over.

  “See you at lunch, Ericka?” Mackenzie asks.

  “Yep,” I say, snapping back to attention. “I’m already hungry.” She laughs and bounds off toward first period with Laura.

  I make my way through the masses to my locker, where Kimi is spritzing her bangs in her locker mirror and Sarah is flirting with an older-looking guy. I slide in and drop my book bag to the ground.

  “Okay, thirty-four, twenty-five, thirty-six,” I mumble to myself, trying to work my new combination from memory. My locker pops open and then—WHAM!—slams shut.

  “Whoops.” Wolf appears next to me, leaning against his own locker.

  I give him a not funny look and try again, a little more nervous this time as I spin the dial. So he is still talking to me. Thirty-four, twenty-five, thirty-six. Pop and slam.

  “Man! These new lockers are touchy, huh?” he says.

  “Wolf! I’m gonna be late!” I protest, a little annoyed and a lot liking the attention.

  I give it a twirl again, and just then I see a cloud of big red hair rushing toward me out of the corner of my eye. It’s Candace, and although she’s definitely wearing a fashion “don’t” (even I know not to wear pleated jean shorts), her big smile makes up for it. Lost in her own world, she hip checks Wolf out of the way and grabs my arm.

  “Hey! Are you still taking piano lessons, Ricki Jo?” she says excitedly.

  “Piano?” Wolf asks, eyebrows arched, clearly entertained.

  “Um, yeah,” I falter. “I mean, like, every now and then.”

  “Well,” she begins, as if she has the best idea of her life, “band tryouts for new kids are Monday after school and I totally think you should go! I mean, we get to go to all the home games, and we’ve won state the last five years in a row. And it won’t matter that you don’t know the marches, ’cause the keyboardists stay put up front. It’s really fun and I can introduce you to lots of people!”

  I look from Wolf to Candace, thinking about how I like them both, and how they couldn’t be more different if they tried.

  “Um, yeah, sounds like fun!” I say.

  Behind her, Wolf’s eyes bug out and he shakes his head no.

  “I mean, maybe,” I recover, my smile fading and my confusion growing. “I mean, yeah, I don’t know.” Candace looks stunned, but Wolf gives me a thumbs-up behind her. That makes me feel a little better, but then I wonder why Wolf’s opinion matters so much. Because it does.

  Candace is hurt, I can tell, but she covers quickly. She takes a piece of gum out of her purse, unwraps it, and pops it in her mouth before looking back up at me with a blank expression. “Yeah, sure. I don’t care. It was just an idea.”

  I nod. “Thanks. Really.”

  “Whatever. See ya in Spanish,” she says and walks away, blowing a big defiant bubble even though the hallways are crowded with teachers. I watch her go, feeling helpless. Feeling awful. And I’m not even sure why. I shake my head and turn back to my locker. Fitting in—trying to fit in, I mean—is really hard.

  I reach for my locker dial once again, but a tanned hand with thick veins and strong fingers covers my own. Wolf is directly behind me and begins to work my lock, his arm definitely touching my side as he twists. His chin is maybe one inch from the top of my head and I am keenly aware of his body heat. I want to run away. I want time to stand still.

  “Thirty-four, twenty-five, thirty-six,” he mumbles, and my locker pops open. I don’t move, blink, or breathe.
“Listen, Ericka, I know you’re new here and you seem nice, so I’m gonna give you some advice.” His breath is warm in my ear. “Cool girls aren’t in band, okay?” I look up and over my shoulder at him, my body frozen in place. “Cool girls cheer.”

  I could kiss him. I’m that close. I could kiss David Wolfenbaker right now.

  “See ya in Spanish!” he says, flicking that paper triangle into my face and strutting off to class.

  I shake my head, awake from the trance, and realize—

  “Hey! How’d you know my combination?”

  He half turns, midstride, and grins. Ah, that grin. I feel red and hot and tingly and in love all over my body. I close my locker and hurry off in the other direction.

  It’s not until the late bell rings that I realize I never got the book I need.

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  “Ricki Jo, get over here,” my dad shouts. I squint up at him through watery red eyes, cranky all over again. We’re helping Luke’s family house the tobacco we cut a few days ago and I am less than thrilled.

  Housing is about as much fun as cutting. After the tobacco sits out in the field for “three dews,” we load it onto the trailer and haul it to the barn. The men shimmy up, climbing higher and higher into the old wooden rafters, and plant themselves for a long day’s work. At the bottom, the smallest of us grab sticks, laden with six heavy tobacco stalks each, and pass them up. Then the men above pass them up and up and up, dirt and small leaves falling with each pass. The guy at the top levels each stick horizontally so that it fits right across the rafters and the leaves hang down straight to cure.

  I would like to hit puberty sometime this century, but right now I am thankful that I’m too small to be up high in the barn. The only problem with the bottom position is that it gets really dusty in here when we house and I end up sneezing my head off… which is why my dad brings along a white surgical mask for me to wear.

  “Dad, no, I’m okay,” I protest… then sneeze.

  “Wear it,” he demands, and then pulls himself up into the barn. I grudgingly pull the stretchy part over my head and pinch the small metal strip to fit over my nose, effectively trading my dignity for sinus relief.

  I meet Luke’s gaze and can tell he’s trying not to laugh. “That mask drives me crazy, Ricki Jo,” he teases quietly. “Really sexy.”

  I take a swing at him, but he’s up in the rafters in the blink of an eye, laughing down at me.

  “What’re we waiting for?” Mr. Foster hollers down gruffly from above.

  I grab a stick and pass it up, and even though it’s super heavy, I try my best to stab Luke, who reaches for it like a hot potato.

  “No goofing around, kids,” my dad’s voice warns.

  And we settle. Grab a stick and pass it up. And pass it up. And pass it up.

  I miss the days when Luke’s older sister, Claire, worked with us—back when I wasn’t the only girl and had somebody to talk to, and to look up to. I miss the days before she was pregnant and stuck—stuck in this town, in this life. I grab a stick and pass it up. Pass. Pass the time in a steady rhythm.

  When the trailer in the barn is half empty, my dad yells down to me, “Ricki Jo! You and a couple boys go get another load.”

  Gladly. I’m out of the barn, mask off and hair down, before he changes his mind and sends someone else. I climb up into the seat of my dad’s John Deere tractor and wait ’til Luke and his older brother Paul hop onto the empty trailer hitched behind me.

  I complain a lot about working, but I actually love driving the tractor. It’s a powerful feeling, and even though I have to completely stand, pulling up hard on the steering wheel while putting my entire body weight down on the brake to stop the dang thing, I feel in control. Nothing but waving bluegrass hayfields on one side and cattle-specked rolling green hills on the other. Put-put-putting over the fields, in absolutely no hurry, I soak up the sun and have a lot of quiet time to daydream while the boys lie stretched out on the empty trailer, exhausted.

  I follow the gigantic wheel treads leading back to the front field, pull up to the row where we left off, kill the engine, and lock the brake.

  “We’re already here?” Luke groans.

  I turn around in my seat and look down at the two boys, covered in dirt, sweat, and pieces of tobacco. Luke has one arm behind his head and one thrown over his face, blocking out the sun. Paul hops off the trailer and heads for the tobacco, while I climb down from my perch and up onto the trailer next to Luke.

  “Wake up,” I say, singsong.

  “Just five more minutes,” he groans.

  I touch his forehead and giggle when I pull it away to see a finger-shaped white spot fill in red again. “You got burnt.”

  “Sunscreen’s for sissies,” he replies. Then he moves his arm a little and squints up at me, a mischievous look on his face. “You hungry?”

  “Starved.”

  “Let’s go,” he says and springs to life. I follow him in the dirt, his footprints nearly twice the size of mine. Luke tells his brother that we’ll be right back and I hear Paul mumble something about “kids.” Whatever. He can kill himself in the tobacco field if he wants, but I’m going with Luke.

  Where the dirt ends and the grass begins, we head toward a small wooded area. I’m hesitant, worried it’s going to be some kind of gross boy-type surprise like a dead squirrel or something, but Luke motions me on. I step between a couple of walnut trees and see it in the shade—an orange cooler with a white top.

  “You’ve got food in there?” I exclaim.

  Luke nods smugly. “Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Mom made some for all the guys up at the barn, but I swiped a few just for us. And a couple of Cokes. We gotta hurry, though.”

  Hurry we do. I don’t know if it’s the fact that we’re sneaking around or that we’re truly famished, but I start laughing as I watch Luke inhale his PB&J.

  “You look like some kind of monster!” I giggle.

  He starts shoving the food into his mouth, getting jelly all over his face, and growls and claws the air like a wild animal. I can’t help myself; I fall down laughing, and Coke comes out my nose.

  “It burns!” I cry. “Stop! It burns!”

  I roll over on the ground, howling. I have a sharp pain in my side and my cheeks hurt. Luke plops down next to me and we sit back to back, propping each other up. As we catch our breath and finish our snacks, I figure this is as good a time as any to get the 411 on David Wolfenbaker, aka my future husband.

  “How well do you know that guy Wolf?” I ask as nonchalantly as possible, taking another bite of my sandwich.

  “Why do you wanna know?” he asks, suspicious.

  I shrug my shoulders against his and swallow. “I don’t know. I mean, he’s kind of friendly.”

  Luke spins around to face me and I fall back, the solid weight of him gone from behind.

  “You like him,” he states.

  I steady myself, take another bite, and nod, although I can’t really look at him. It feels weird talking about boys with Luke.

  He looks away, too, and I flick my eyes over his face, trying to read his thoughts in the deep creases across his forehead. He takes a minute, then looks back at me. “Let’s just say I’d play ball with the guy any time, but I’d never let him date my sister.”

  “Would you let him date your best friend?” I ask teasingly.

  He looks down at his Coke, then drains it, stands, and crunches the can under his foot. When he looks down at me, it’s like he’s explaining why two plus two equals four. “They call him ‘the Wolf,’ Ricki Jo,” he says, “and it’s not just because of his last name.”

  I pop the last bite of my sandwich into my mouth and drain my own Coke. He crunches my can for me, then tosses them both back into the cooler. The last thing I want to do is get back out in the field under the blazing sun, but things seem to be getting just as uncomfortable in our wooded hideaway. I follow him back to the field and jump up on the trailer as he joins Paul
, throwing a full stick over his shoulder, the two of them looking like those old caricatures of hobos who carry everything they own tied to the end of a stick.

  We work wordlessly for the next half hour, the guys passing the full sticks up to me, me arranging them against the back of the trailer, in an easy rhythm. I think a little bit about what Luke said… and a lot about Wolf’s heart-stopping grin.

  Obsessing over a boy makes the time fly. I grab the last of the load and hop down, my head in the clouds and my smile unfamiliar out in the tobacco fields. I heave myself up onto the tractor and get her going again. As the tractor roars back to life, I still can’t wipe the grin from my face. Ricki Jo as she is now may not be able to snag a guy like Wolf, but the new and improved Ericka will be. I just need to upgrade: Me 2.0.

  As the steering wheel slides back and forth through my fingers, loose like it’s got a mind of its own, I guide us through the fields and up toward the barn, giddy at the thought of no more tobacco ’til it gets colder. No more gum-stained fingernails or farmer’s tan. Not another whiff of this stuff ’til strippin’ season. That’s two full months to metamorphosize.

  CHAPTER

  SEVEN

  “Okay, so if I make the squad, we’ll have practices after school, and maybe a couple of Saturdays,” I tell my folks.

  The breakfast nook is my courtroom, and my parents are the judge and jury. I pace back and forth, having planned my case thoroughly during Mass this morning. Tryouts are tomorrow and the homily was on why God gave us free will, so I’m making my move while the iron is hot.

  “As it gets cold, I won’t be able to run around outside or ride my bike, so it’s an excellent way to get exercise. You can’t be on the squad without good grades, so of course I’ll stay on top of that, too. I’ve saved enough money this summer that I won’t have to ask for spending money on away games. And apparently cheerleading is really important to the girls at school, meaning I’ll be making the kind of friends who value work ethic and doing their best.”