The Queen of Kentucky

by Alecia Whitaker

  “Whatever,” Kimi says, throwing a Hershey’s Kiss at Laura. “Uniforms can be very naughty. Drives the boys wild.”

  This declaration is followed by lots of squealing and laughing. Kimi pops a Starburst in her mouth, wrapper and all, and then sucks her cheeks in and rolls her eyes in deep concentration before proudly producing the wet wrapper on the tip of her tongue. I’m pretty sure Kimi is the kind of girl my momma calls “fast.” I make a mental note to get her talking about sex later. That girl’s a wealth of information.

  “So,” Laura says, refusing to let me relax and enjoy myself. “This’ll be so much fun. We’ll watch the movies Mrs. Winstead got us and then, once everybody’s asleep, we’ll sneak over to the Fosters’. Oh my gosh, it’s gonna be so scary!”

  “Ooh!” they all scream.

  They don’t know the half of it. It’s not like I haven’t sneaked out before, but I’ve always had Bandit. And it’s going to be the thumbnail kind of moon today, not God’s spotlight. And without Bandit… I think about the coyotes I hear sometimes at night. And about the rest of the Gumbels’ dogs, although they’re supposed to be chained up now.

  “Hey,” Kimi says, snapping her fingers in front of my face. “God, Ericka, seriously. You zone out more than anyone I’ve ever met. So, it’s a plan? Can you hook Laura up with Luke?”

  “I can try,” I say, working like crazy to think of a way to keep from sneaking out tonight without them thinking I’m a wuss. “But, um… why wait ’til tonight?”

  “Huh?” Laura asks.

  “I mean, they usually play basketball on Saturday nights before they go out. If we go on over there now, we’ll probably catch ’em before they go.”

  “Oh! Yes!” Kimi claps, bouncing up on her heels. “His older brother Paul is so cute. Let’s go before he meets some floozy at The Square! Let’s go!”

  With the proper amount of giggling, we get ready. Getting ready for barnyard basketball shouldn’t require much effort, but in our case, it takes us twenty minutes to squeeze into jeans and cute tops. I go back to my bedroom and zip up a fitted sweatshirt with a cool design on the back over a PCHS T-shirt, then pull my thick, dark blond hair up into a ponytail. Done. When I get back to the family room, I see that the other girls are wearing tank tops, putting on mascara and lip gloss, and fluffing their loose hairstyles. The thought enters my mind to change, but I don’t want to get cold, and I don’t see any point in dressing up for the Fosters.

  We pop into the garage because I, of course, want to bring Bandit along. But when he lifts his head up from his posh new doggie bed, I can tell that he doesn’t quite have it in him yet. It really is a long walk for somebody who’s got a tube running through his chest. And anyway, Luke’s dog, Bessie, would probably overexcite him. So my friends and I pet Bandit and offer him a little puppy love before sashaying across the backyard.

  Once we’re outside and away from my parents’ watchful eyes, I ask Mackenzie if I can borrow her lip gloss. I smack the strawberry goodness over my lips and walk through the grass with my pack of fabulous friends as if I’m walking on clouds. At the first field, I unhook the electric fence to let the girls pass, and we make our way over to the Fosters’.

  “Oh my gosh, there’s so much cow poop!” Kimi screams.

  We all laugh and dodge cow pies and thistles, some of the girls wishing they’d taken my advice about wearing tennis shoes instead of flip-flops.

  “Seventeen won’t help you out here,” I tease.

  “Yeah, that should be your first article for the school paper.” Mackenzie giggles. “ ‘What to Wear for a Day on the Farm.’ ”

  “Actually,” Kimi corrects her, “what to wear for a date on the farm. ’Cause that’s the only reason I’m out here. To straight hook up!”

  We all die laughing again, especially since we know that Kimi is absolutely serious.

  I usually make it over to Luke’s place a lot quicker, but the girls are really slowing things down. By the time we get to the barn, I figure the guys will stop playing soon for lack of light. The sun is setting and it’s chilly up here on the hill.

  “Wow, this is really gorgeous,” I hear Mackenzie whisper.

  I turn, surprised, and watch her survey the land. She’s right. The sun flicks the last of its rays across the rolling hills like highlights, marking my farm with golden kisses. I love the way it makes the pond’s surface shimmer and how the shadows are even more accentuated. I love that she thinks something of mine is beautiful.

  “Hey, boys!” Kimi yells obnoxiously. Why she thought a denim miniskirt was appropriate is beyond me, but she turns her hips on supershake and heads straight for the testosterone. Sarah follows, somehow slipping her iPhone into the tight front pocket of her skinny jeans, and Laura is right on their heels, eager to get to Luke.

  “You comin’?” I ask Mackenzie.

  “How much of this is yours?” she asks, rubbing her arms with her hands to keep warm.

  I smile and step beside her, pointing out our fields. I show her the property lines, the ponds, which fields are for hay and which are for tobacco. I motion wide, waving my arms over our land like a proud mother, the memories sweeping through my mind.

  Swept up in the moment, I start blabbing. “I fell off that shed when my dad had us help him reroof it when I was nine. One time, up by that patch of woods, I found a baby fawn, must’ve just been born. And over there by the creek, that’s the place I go to think. And all the water, well, some ponds are for fun and some are for work. Like, for instance, those over that hill are for irrigation, but that one’s where we go fishing. And even though Luke and his brothers love frog gigging, I can’t really bring myself to actually stab one, so I usually just hold the flashlight. My uncle’s farm is right by ours so we ride four-wheelers over there all the time and my aunt still makes my grandma’s famous peanut butter cookies when we visit. And you should see Bandit! He’s always chasing rabbits out of their holes and pestering the cattle. It’s hilarious ’cause they’re, like, eight times his size, but he really gets ’em jumpy.”

  The sun hits Mackenzie’s face, then slips down just a smidge so that I gasp. The light bounces off her eyes, blue like Caribbean water, and her freckles are like little stars. Her small mouth is turned down in a pout and I suddenly realize I’ve been talking nonstop.

  “Oh my gosh, I’m probably boring you to death,” I say.

  “No!” she says, turning to me and grabbing my arm. “Not at all. Sometimes I still get a little homesick, I guess.”

  I nod and shove my hands into my pockets. It’s getting a bit chilly.

  “And, I don’t know,” she continues. “I guess I’m a little jealous.”

  This is where I almost knock myself unconscious, tapping at my head, trying to regain my hearing. I thought she said she was jealous of me, but recognizing the absurdity of such an idea, I realize that I must suddenly be stone deaf.

  “Ericka,” she says, laughing openly and grabbing my hand before I can give myself another knock. “I’m serious! I’d love to have all this. I mean, I’d probably trade at least one cow in for a pony, but it’d be nice to have a place to go to be alone. I mean, when we finally got up here, I stood in this spot and did a complete circle… and I didn’t see one other house but yours. That’s incredible! It’s like your kingdom or something!”

  I hear her, but don’t. I mean, I love the farm, but I’d give anything to be as close to town as she is—to be able to walk down to the movies or over to other friends’ houses. And she has a pool! Who’d trade a pool for a pond?

  “The grass is always greener,” I say.

  She shrugs and we shimmy down the steep slope to where Kimi and the girls have totally disrupted a Saturday-night ball game. Luke raises his arms in an exasperated gesture, and the other guys look pretty peeved as well.

  Kimi screams, “Granny shot!” and swings the ball down between her legs, bending over and giving Luke a full view of her cash and prizes. He looks like he just saw his grandma naked an
d covers his eyes, then stalks toward me like an angry bull.

  “Listen, we’ve got about twenty minutes left of poor light, and our cousins are up by two,” he starts yelling at me before I’m even all the way down the slope. “You know you’re always welcome, but look! We start at seven, it’s almost eight now, and we’ve still got ten minutes on the clock. Everybody wants to go out later, so they’re gonna call the game pretty soon. Your girl’s killin’ me!”

  Kimi has now cajoled Luke’s older brother Paul into showing her how to shoot a free throw, complete with him wrapping his arms around hers to take aim. Her eyes are on his neck when she tosses it in the air, nowhere near the hoop.

  “That’s it!” Luke yells, rebounding the ball in a huff. “Paul, you’re out. Ricki Jo, play for Paul. You two go get a room or something, damnit.”

  Kimi sticks her tongue out at Luke, but obviously loves his idea. She threads her arm around Paul’s skinny waist and they stumble all over each other making their way off the court.

  “Good luck, Ericka!” she hollers back to me before disappearing behind the barn. I would wish her the same, but it doesn’t look like she needs it.

  “Our ball,” Luke demands, and the other boys are back on the dirt court, ready to play. I look at Mackenzie and she gives me a thumbs-up as she goes over to sit on the grass by Laura and Sarah. I step up to Luke’s shortest cousin, who is still five inches taller than I am, and get into the game. Luke will kill me if I screw up, and I don’t want to make him even angrier… although secretly, I’m glad he’s in a bad mood. I know Laura likes him and I know she’s my friend, but to tell the truth, I just don’t think they’re right for each other.

  Reading Luke’s cue, I set a pick for him and then move to the top of the key, knowing he’ll feed it back out to me once he drives. As I line up a three pointer from my sugar spot, I grin. Poor Laura. Luke’s just not in the mood for lovey-dovey.

  “Seriously, Ericka, you’re really good,” Mackenzie gushes. Her breath feels weird on my eyeball, which she has pried open. I would say thanks, but I’m too scared to move a muscle as long as that eyeliner is stabbing at my inner lower lid.

  “I was actually surprised,” Sarah says from the couch, her gymnast frame folded up cross-legged in front of Kimi. “You held your own with those guys and they’re all, like, twice your size.”

  “I seriously don’t know why you even cheer,” Kimi says around the bobby pins stuck in her mouth. She’s squatting, her fingers working through Sarah’s limp brown hair, and frowning. “I mean, I cheer for Girls’ Varsity, so I’m at all their games, and they could actually use a guard like you. Seriously.”

  I really don’t want to move my face since Mackenzie is jabbing at me like crazy with that eye pencil, but I’m pretty sure Kimi just gave me a real compliment and, against my better judgment, I blink.

  “Careful!” Mackenzie exclaims.

  “But I guess in reality, basketball players are all butch, and cheerleading will get you hotter boyfriends,” Kimi reasons.

  Ahh, that’s more like it.

  “Whatever, Kimi,” Mackenzie says, smudging the liner on my outer lid with her thumb. “Guys dig athletes.”

  “Yeah,” Laura says, looking up from her toes, which she’s painting Cherry Berry Red. “Guys do love athletes. Like, for instance, you and Luke have a really weird connection, right? I mean, on the court. Like you can read each other’s minds or something.”

  “Ooh, jealous much?” Sarah asks, wincing a little as Kimi tries to re-create a hairstyle she found on Vogue.com. Her hair is actually starting to look like the Great Wall of China. Kimi read that this style is “polished enough for work,” or, in our case, school, “but sexy enough for a date”—although I’m not sure she’s got the hang of it just yet. We had to open the windows when she brought out her second can of hair spray.

  “I’m not jealous,” Laura snaps back. “I mean, why would I be jealous? Ericka, should I be jealous?”

  “Of me?” I ask as Mackenzie sharpens her eye pencil. “Of course not. He’s like my brother.”

  “See, case closed,” Laura says, although she’s been in a really snotty mood ever since we got back.

  Somehow, this seems to be my opportunity. The other girls know I think Wolf is cute (although they don’t know just how much I like him, seeing as how I thought the rules were that I had to name four other different guys, too), but Mackenzie didn’t hear my top five because she was getting the pizza. I really need to let her know how desperately in love I am with Wolf before he asks her to homecoming. Then, when he does ask, she’ll want to say no out of loyalty to me.

  “I mean, just like I don’t need to be jealous of you and Wolf, right, Laura?” I say, trying to sound calm and confident, although my heart is in my throat as I brace myself for their reaction.

  Which is, of course, collective screaming.

  “I knew it!” Kimi yells, standing up and gesticulating with her hairbrush. “The way you two flirt at the lockers, and how you’re always mad at each other for no reason! I mean, all week he’s been following you around like a puppy dog! I knew it!”

  Oh! I only admitted to liking Wolf. Is Kimi saying that he likes me, too? My stomach flips. Oh my gosh! Does Wolf like me, too?

  “So, wait,” Mackenzie says, a frown wrinkling her forehead, eyes, and mouth. Wow. She’s even going to be pretty when she’s old. “So, like, you and Wolf are going together in secret?”

  “Oh my gosh!” I squeal. “I wish! No! Not at all!”

  She sits back on her heels, pensive.

  “It’s just that, at your party, you were upstairs for my top five. And I didn’t know you guys very well yet, and I was nervous to admit it, but”—I gulp—“I really, really, really like him. A lot.”

  Kimi flops back onto the couch and she and Sarah hold hands and kick their feet, screaming like banshees. It’s so clear to me why they’re cheerleaders. Laura, too, is grinning from ear to ear, looking relieved by my confession. But Mackenzie still seems to be in a state of shock.

  “But you know I like him, too,” she says. “I had him on my list.”

  “Technically,” Sarah says, “you all had him on your list.”

  “Well, I named him for all five spots! So, technically, I like him more!” Mackenzie cries, near tears as she turns back to me. “And what about my brother? He really likes you, and I thought you liked him.”

  “I do like Mark,” I say, surprised by her intensity. “As a friend. He’s really nice and he’s cute, too. I just… I don’t know, I really like Wolf. I have since the first day of school.”

  “No, you can’t like him as much as I do. I’m sorry,” she says, standing up.

  “But you said he’s a scumbag,” I say, standing up, too.

  “Just because I was trying to make you feel better!”

  We stand face-to-face, neither wanting to cave and neither wanting to fight and both crushing on the same boy. My brain is racing, but I can’t think of anything to say.

  “Ericka, you’re my best friend, right?” she finally says, her voice level.

  “Yeah,” I say. I grab her hands. “That’s why I—”

  “New Girls BFFs,” she goes on, “would never fight over a boy.”

  I exhale, relieved. “Totally. I’m so glad you said that.”

  “Good,” she says, squeezing my hands. “Then out of loyalty to me, you’ll back off since you know I’m new and don’t know that many people and really only like this one boy. Right?”

  Tears flood her blue eyes again and I’m totally taken off guard. I’m new, too. And she could have a million boys. And I love him… and I hate him sometimes… but only because I love him so much.

  “Right, Ericka?” she asks again.

  I want to rewind the last four minutes and abort this mission. My plan to leverage our friendship to garner a homecoming date with Wolf is backfiring, and I suddenly feel nauseous. Again.

  I give a slight nod—a tiny, minuscule, baby nod—and she h
ugs me tightly around the neck, all butterflies and happy places. Over her shoulder, I see Sarah look at Kimi and roll her eyes, which kind of makes me feel like she has my back. Still squeezing me, Mackenzie bounces and says “thank you” over and over, but I really am starting to feel sick.

  On autopilot, I sink back down to the floor, intensely grossed out by the fact that slumber parties, for me, seem to be so closely related to vomit. I grab a bottle of water and take a few sips, my head spinning. Wolf is going to ask Mackenzie to the dance and she’s definitely going to say yes. And just look at her—he’s going to fall in love with her, no question.

  “Okay, look past my shoulder,” Mackenzie says brightly, settling in front of me with her mascara, her tears already a thing of the past. I look at the wand and then up at her. She falters, then swallows hard.

  “It’s waterproof,” she says quietly.

  I nod and look over her shoulder, letting my eyes blur.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SIX

  “So, Sarah, truth or dare?” Kimi asks.

  As the night’s gone by, I’ve resigned myself to the Mrs. Mackenzie Wolfenbaker destiny. As much as I hate it, I’m comforted by the fact that at least Wolf will be going to homecoming with my friend and not that mystery hussy he made out with at the movies.

  “Truth,” Sarah answers.

  Smart girl. Laura chose dare and Kimi made her lick between her own toes. Disturbing.

  “Okay,” Kimi says, pouting. “This is getting boring. If you’re all gonna keep saying truth I’m not playing anymore.”

  She’s right. It’s midnight and nobody wants to admit it, but we’re all getting a little sleepy.

  “I think I’m gonna get another Coke,” I say, getting up from our circle on the floor. “I need my second wind.”

  “Bring a couple,” Kimi orders. “And some cups, too.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say, doing a little curtsy. She rolls her eyes and the other girls giggle.

  I half skip, half drag myself from the family room to the kitchen. The house is eerily still, and it feels weird. With all the lights on inside, the windows in the breakfast nook are like mirrors and I feel creepy thinking that somebody could be looking in and I wouldn’t have a clue. Of course, the alternative is turning the lights off, but walking around in the dark is even creepier. Scaredy-cat that I am, I find myself getting cold chills and run into the kitchen, sliding on my sock feet in front of the fridge. I grab a two-liter of cold Coke and five Solo cups from the counter, plus a whole carton of Double Stuf Oreos; then, I hit the lights as I hightail it back to the family room.