The Queen of Kentucky

by Alecia Whitaker

  “Candace!” one of her friends calls. “Let’s go!”

  “Look, I know you’re new and it’s probably hard,” she says, her words rushing out all at once, “but you’re already running with the wrong crowd, Ricki Jo. I hate those kids. They’re all stuck-up and fake. I actually bunked with you for a full week at camp, and we’ve talked on the phone all summer, yet all I get is a head nod in Spanish while you throw yourself at Wolf. It’s like you want to fit in with those snotty kids in your homeroom so bad that you’re changing.”

  A couple of kids around us snicker, and I feel my face flush again. Usually I can take her blunt, borderline-rude comments with a grain of salt, but today, I snap.

  “What’s your problem, Candace?” I’m mad. I can’t help it. I’m not changing, I’m upgrading. Trying to be a better me.

  She stiffens and I see her jaw tighten. “My problem?” she asks incredulously. “I’m not the one with a problem. But if you think cheering at the JV games is gonna win you Miss Popularity, you better think again.”

  And with that, she turns on her heel and boards her bus, smacking me with her fiery fluff of a ponytail. And then I get angry. Really angry.

  Screw everybody! I’m a freshman! What’s so wrong with cheering for freshmen?

  As if this moment can’t get any worse, my head is suddenly engulfed by a tanned forearm and I squirm ferociously under what I can only describe as a noogie.

  “Leave me alone!” I scream up at the face attached to the offending hand.

  Luke puts both hands up in defense, his leather bracelet sliding down his arm a little to reveal an untanned white strip near his wrist. “Whoa! Take it easy, champ.”

  “Bye, Ricki Jo!” I hear Candace shout obnoxiously from the back window as her bus pulls away.

  “It’s Ericka!” I holler at the top of my lungs, long and loud.

  Smoothing my hair into place, I look back at Luke, ready for a fight.

  “Hey, I know. It’s Ericka. Got it,” he says, eyebrows to his hairline, backing away from my wrath. I sigh heavily and walk toward our bus with him, completely broken down.

  “Ericky Jo!” I hear someone sing. “I love you, Ericky Jo!” I look up and see Wolf hanging out the passenger window of his older brother’s Audi SUV, blowing me kiss after kiss, the boys in the backseat laughing like maniacs.

  I don’t know what comes over me, but my middle finger is up before I can blink an eye.

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  “I guess it sounds like a pity party, but being the new girl sucks,” I tell Bandit. I’m sprawled out on an old blanket by the creek that divides our property from Luke’s and from my uncle’s. It’s always been a good spot to go and think. The water trickles over the rocks in a soothing melody and the maple trees here provide the perfect shady nook.

  “I mean, really, Bandit, anybody at school could be my new best friend. I just got thrown in with the W’s, and those girls seemed like a good place to start.” I pluck petals off of a dandelion and plead my case to my dog. “It’s not like I don’t wanna be friends with Candace, you know? I just don’t want to be in the band! Big deal.”

  Bandit has been very attentive, but suddenly he howls like crazy and darts off. I lean up on my elbows and see the cause. Luke and his beagle mix, Bessie, are walking along the creek in our direction. I like watching Bandit and Bessie together. They always run to each other as if it’s been years, and Bessie likes to show her dominance with an awkward, yet fascinating, humping technique. We always joke that Bandit and Bessie are married, the way they carry on when they’re together.

  “Mind a little company?” Luke asks.

  I lean back and cross my arms behind my head. “Make yourself at home.”

  He settles down on the blanket, his body diagonal to mine, and we’re head to head, looking up through the branches above.

  “Rough day?” he asks.

  “Rough week,” I reply.

  “Wanna talk about it?”

  “Nah,” I say. “It’s nothin’.”

  He knows. In these moments, we both know. The dogs walk over us, licking our faces, and we swat them away. I consider fetch, but just don’t have it in me.

  “You guys finish housing yet?” I ask.

  “All but the one small field by the red barn. Irrigate all summer, and then it finally rains when it’s time to house,” he gripes.

  “It’s clearing up.”

  “Yeah. But work’s boring without you there to complain about it,” he teases.

  “Ha! Well, I’m sure my dad will have me out in it tomorrow,” I say bitterly.

  We’re both quiet for a while. A slight breeze shuffles the leaves above us. Sometimes I feel a security on our land that I don’t feel anywhere else. No one can hurt me here.

  “I’ve never seen you flip the bird, RJ,” Luke says.

  I can’t stop the little smile that creeps onto my lips. I really don’t know what came over me. I’ve never been the vixen. I’m always one hundred percent good girl.

  “Yeah, it felt weird. And wrong. And awesome.”

  “Well, you’re lucky Mr. Bates didn’t see you. Principals usually frown on that kind of sign language.” He laughs.

  “Mr. Bates can suck it,” I say defiantly.

  “Whoa!” Luke replies and we both laugh. “Have you been watching wrestling with Ben again? Admit it, Ricki Jo. You love oiled-up fat guys in unitards.”

  “Ew!” I scream and flick him in the head. He leans up and frogs my forearm, which can only be followed by my famous elbow drop, which turns our joking into an all-out wrestling match. As skinny as Luke is, his rough hands are strong; however, let it be known that I can give any opponent a run for his money. The dogs circle us and bark like crazy while we writhe around on the checkered quilt.

  “One! Two! Three!” I count, proud of myself for pinning someone twice my size. I know he is holding back, but it feels good to get out my frustrations.

  Looking up at me, he smiles an easy, genuine smile and says, “You got me, Ricki Jo.”

  And suddenly, things feel weird. Not bad, just different for the first time. Luke’s like a brother to me, but something feels strange. He’s staring, boring a hole through me, and just barely smiling so that I can see how his front bottom teeth are a little bit crooked. And I’m on top of him, holding his wrists out to the sides, with my face just a foot above his. My heart skips. Whoa. I feel Luke’s pulse quicken in my hands and I let go of his wrists, look away, take a minute. I am suddenly hyperaware of my entire body and fight a weird pull to turn my face back to his. To kiss him.

  No. I shake my head and flop over onto the blanket, running the stupid thoughts out of my head and feeling thankful he can’t read my mind. How embarrassing. Luke doesn’t like me like that. Too weird. He’d laugh me out of the county if I told him the stuff that just crashed through my mind, and really, I’ve had enough humiliation for one lifetime. Plus, I like Wolf anyway. I like Wolf.

  I lean back on my haunches and lighten the mood, clasping my hands together and swinging them from side to side in sweet victory. “Ladies and gentlemen! Your new lightweight champion of the world!”

  And then, in the midst of my due self-congratulations, I double over and clench at my abdomen. “Ow, oh!” It feels like someone is wringing out a dish towel right below my belly button.

  “Are you okay, RJ?” Luke asks, bewildered.

  And then it hits me. It’s so obvious! And I get up and run, leaving him, the dogs, my journal, and my blanket without a second thought. I’ve got to get home.

  “This is it,” I whisper to myself, wriggling out of my jeans in the bathroom. “This has got to be it.”

  I sit squarely on the cushiony soft toilet seat and look at the crotch of my panties, stretched between my shins, but do not see the red splotch I hoped for. Nothing. Still.

  When I was in the fourth grade Momma explained all about periods and sex using Christian literature, so I figured that the cramps I felt out by th
e creek would mean that I’d gotten my period. A period means puberty, which brings with it bigger breasts and a possible growth spurt. But nothing. Still!

  “Ricki Jo?” Momma calls from outside the bathroom door. “You okay in there?”

  Gosh, I’ve only been in here for, like, four minutes max!

  “Momma, I’m fine!” I call back, irritated.

  “Oh, well, you ran through the house so fast, I thought something might be wrong.”

  I roll my eyes and flush the toilet, just for the sake of my audience. Pulling up my pants, I unlock the door for Momma and head to the sink. I don’t know how she does it, but she can tell that I’m disappointed.

  “Ricki Jo,” she begins in her Dr. Phil voice, “your body is going through a lot of changes.”

  “Ugh, Momma, please don’t,” I groan, shaking the water off my hands and wiping them on my shirt, hoping that my not using the hand towel will distract her from where she’s going with this… which is obviously a puberty talk… which I obviously do not need.

  I walk past her and cross the hall to my bedroom. In this sanctuary, I sit at the desk by my window and open up my pre-algebra book, though it’s kind of impossible to concentrate on basic equations after the day I’ve had. Why does becoming a woman have to be such an ordeal? And why do I have to ask my mom about this stuff? I truly need a best friend for things like this, but I’m too embarrassed to call Mackenzie or Laura, and Candace isn’t exactly speaking to me. This is the problem with being a tomboy. I can’t really call up Luke and ask him about cramps. Ugh. This is exactly why I need Internet in my room.

  “Ricki Jo?” My momma knocks at my bedroom door a few minutes later.

  Oh, great. Round two of Knowing Your Body, by Debbie Winstead. I lay my forehead on the cool pages of algebra homework in front of me and yell, “Come in!” bracing myself for the worst. This has not been one of my best days.

  She sets a glass of sweet tea on my desk and sits down on my bed. “Ricki Jo, is everything okay?”

  Her tone is super serious, and I roll over on my cheek and look at her sideways.

  “Uh, yeah, Momma. Why?”

  “Well, just how upset you were after tryouts the other day, and then the kind of maniacal look in your eye this afternoon when you opened the bathroom door.”

  I sit up, feel the page of my textbook peel slowly off my cheek, and take a drink of sweet tea. “I’m fine, Momma.”

  She reaches over and tenderly tucks my hair behind my ear. “Has it been hard being the new girl, sweetie?”

  Most of the time, when I get hurt or sick, I suck it up. I’m tough. I’ll get through it. And then my momma comes in the room or gets on the phone and I just lose it. I don’t know what triggers it or what kind of hold this woman has over me, but once my momma’s in the picture, the tough girl caves. I start to cry.

  “I don’t know. I mean, there’s this one girl, Mackenzie, who’s really new. I mean, legitimately new. All the way from Minnesota! And she’s already one of the most popular girls in our whole school. She’s pretty and nice and her parents are in the country club and—”

  Momma passes me a tissue and I take a break to blow my nose and wipe my eyes. She is on her knees next to me now, not shushing me but letting me cry it out and scratching my back, which she knows I love.

  “I mean, I just want to fit in, you know?” She nods. “I want to have friends and be accepted and… I don’t know.”

  “Ricki Jo, you’re a beautiful girl,” Momma purrs. I roll my wet eyes. She has to say that.

  “And you’ve got a big heart,” she continues, “and you make people laugh, and you’re a hard worker and someone who always makes us proud.”

  Okay, even though she has to say all this stuff, it feels good.

  “I think I’m an okay person,” I admit, sniffling. “I’m not that pretty yet, but I think I’ve got potential. If I could just get my period!”

  “You know, hon, with a period comes pimples.”

  Eye rolling has become an art for me, basically due to parental statements such as these. Leave it to Debbie to point out the negatives. Pimples, huh? For boobs and curves? Bring it on!

  “Whatever, Momma. I’m fine. It’s just been a tough couple of weeks,” I say. I love my mom, but we’ve had our moment and now I’d just rather drown my sorrows in (a + b) + c = a + (b + c).

  “I’ve got an idea,” she forges on. Sweet. I love my mom’s ideas. “Let’s go to Lexington this weekend. Just you and me. Whatever money you made this summer working for your daddy, I’ll match toward back-to-school clothes. I imagine we missed the rush, so there should be some good sales.”

  My eyes bug out and, for a second, I’m not sure I heard her right. A trip to Lexington! To the mall! There is nothing to do but bolt from my chair and fling myself at my mother. I hug her tightly and can’t stop saying Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. And yeah, I’m crying again.

  CHAPTER

  ELEVEN

  “Since when did you become a morning person?” my dad asks me at breakfast.

  It’s Saturday morning and four hours ’til Momma and I head up to Lexington. The day is clear, the sun is shining, and I’ve got a skip in my step. Sure, I’ve got to work a little bit first, but whatever I make, my momma’s going to match.

  “Since I get to go shopping,” I say, scarfing down my biscuits and gravy.

  He smiles and downs the rest of his orange juice.

  “Let’s go!” I say to Ben. “We’re burning daylight.”

  Ben sticks his tongue out at me before finishing his milk. He’s annoyed. I would be annoyed with myself, too, if I weren’t so fired up. I’m thinking new jeans, new shoes, new tops, new everything! He’s thinking: Work sucks.

  I hop on the back of my dad’s huge four-wheeler and Ben revs up his mini-ATV. We drive over the fields and the wind catches in my hair. I throw my arms back and face the sun. I feel like Leo in Titanic. ’Course, it only takes one pothole to snap me out of that little fantasy, and I hold on tight.

  Up at the barn, we stomp through the dewy grass and meet the others: Luke, his dad, his sister, his four brothers, and us. This being a small field, we’ll be done before you know it. And even if we’re not, I’ll be done at eleven. Mrs. Foster unloads a couple of coolers and kisses Claire and each of her sons before climbing back into their old pickup. I love that. All tall and rail thin, each of them has to bend down to let her peck him on the forehead.

  Everybody knows his or her place. The guys climb up into the rafters, Ben and another kid clean up around the barn, and Claire and I unload the trailer, passing the tobacco up.

  “I’m so glad you’re out here today,” I tell her. It’s nice to have another girl around.

  “Yeah, being a mom is no joke,” she huffs. “I left Ava with my mom today. I mean, I never thought I’d say this, but I miss working out here sometimes.”

  I cock an eyebrow and give her one of the special looks I usually reserve for Momma. “You have officially lost your mind.”

  We work steadily. Our breathing is labored, but we don’t stop talking. I tell her stories about school and she tells me about changing dirty diapers, and our tales are equally glum. I’ve always looked up to Claire. She looks a lot like her brothers—same sandy blond hair and bright blue eyes—except she’s got a few womanly curves here and there. She could be a model—could’ve been a model—but when she got pregnant her senior year life changed for her. Everything changed.

  “You like working at the day care?” I ask.

  “It’s cool,” she says. “I mean, I get paid and—”

  She is cut off by the longest-sounding four-letter word I’ve ever heard in my life. The F word, the baddest bad-boy cuss word of all time, long and low and getting closer, as if time is standing still, followed by an empty-sounding thump and a scary crack. Then silence.

  “Dad!” I hear Luke yell.

  Claire and I hop off the trailer and run over to Mr. Foster, who is sprawled out on the floor of the
barn, wincing in pain. Thud after thud registers on the trailer behind us as the men thunder down from the rafters.

  “My leg!” Mr. Foster shouts. “I think I broke my damned leg!”

  I back away from the crowd assembling around him. Mr. Foster’s right leg is bent out in a way that makes me a little nauseous. My dad is already on his cell phone, calling 911, and he motions for me to pull Ben away. I look at Luke, bent over with his brothers.

  “I just passed it up!” I hear someone defend himself.

  “The weight threw me off,” Luke’s dad says.

  “You been drinking, Daddy?” one of the boys asks.

  The silence says it all. Every blond head hunched around Mr. Foster hangs. Of course he’s been drinking. And it’s only eight thirty in the morning.

  Luke stands up, puts his hands behind his head, and turns away.

  CHAPTER

  TWELVE

  At the mall, Momma and I started off with cinnamon-covered pretzels, and that’s the last thing we’ve agreed on all day. Everything I try on is too short, or too low-cut, or shows midriff when I lift my arms. Momma goes right for the sale rack, while I go for whatever the mannequin is wearing. She picks out flowery prints and muted colors, while I tend to go for the opposite of anything she likes. So far, we’ve agreed on two pairs of jeans and a headband.

  “Too revealing,” my mom says, shooting down the hundredth cool top I’ve tried on this afternoon.

  “Revealing what, Momma?” I exclaim. Frustrated, I place my palms down flat on the two minuscule bumps on my chest. “I’ve got nothing to reveal!”

  “Your father won’t like it, Ricki Jo,” she says in her and that’s that voice.

  “He doesn’t have to wear it,” I smart off.

  Her eyebrows cock up angrily, and I storm back into the dressing room.

  To tell the truth, this whole day has been a nightmare. First, Luke’s dad fell in the barn and broke his leg, putting us down two workers: Mr. Foster and Claire, who went with him in the ambulance. Nobody said a word the rest of the morning, but it was all anybody was thinking about. Work dragged on, punctuated by the swish of the leaves as each stalk was passed up and the clack of the sticks as they were leveled across the rafters. Over and over again, feet shuffled against the rough wood above, but no words were spoken. Nothing. Not a peep.