Deep Down Popular

by Phoebe Stone

  “Now there’s another one, Jessie Lou. Oh, did I fill out that form for Melinda? I swear I’m losing my mind. You know Melinda’s trying out for the Junior Teen Beauty Pageant up at the Apple Blossom State Fair this year. She’s gonna take the prize,” says Mama, looking all proud. “Can’t imagine anybody’d make a prettier picture than she does. Don’t you think so, Granddaddy?”

  “Beauty just shines out of that little girl’s eyes,” says Granddaddy.

  “Anyway, I’m taking the girls over to the shopping mall in Charlottesville tomorrow so we can pick out a dress for Melinda’s contest,” says Mama. “See what I told you, Granddaddy? If that shopping mall at the edge of town was already built, we wouldn’t even have to go that far.”

  “I don’t see what’s wrong with shopping at Muncet’s down on Main Street,” says Granddaddy.

  “They don’t have the selection,” said Mama. “All they have is work boots and work shirts for the farmers. They don’t have pretty little dresses for a state fair winner.”

  Then my older sister, Melinda, comes out of the back bedroom smelling like nail polish something awful.

  “Oh, Melinda, you’re trying red nail polish?” says Mama. “You’re supposed to wear pink, honey. Didn’t I take you over and get you color-coded? You’re supposed to wear summer colors like pink. Isn’t she pretty, Granddaddy?”

  “She’s like a little angel,” says Granddaddy. “Come over here and give your granddaddy a big hug.” My beautiful perfect older sister, Melinda, goes over and gives my granddaddy a hug, even sits on his old lap for a minute. “She’s my little angel girl, not like you, Jessie Lou, all shorn like a puppy, all cropped off. Jessie Lou’s cute though, isn’t she? Cute anyway,” says Granddaddy, “even with her hair all chopped off funny.”

  “I guess I’m just the bare old clothespin and Melinda’s the angel,” I say, starting to make headway on Granddaddy’s hamburger stew. My granddaddy’s just an old turncoat, kissing and hugging Melinda when I’m the one who takes the time to drive over to the shopping mall site every day with him. I’m the one who takes the time to check out every little change that happens over there. My granddaddy doesn’t stay loyal to me even though he knows I love him so. After all, who went and bought him that sweet-smelling aftershave lotion last week when it wasn’t even his birthday?

  When Mama and Melinda leave for the PTA meeting, Granddaddy’ll go and pretend to wash dishes but he won’t get very far. He’ll end up going to his room and playing the radio too loud, leaving the dishes every which way in the sink. Then I’ll go up to my room and get out my journal and write me a poem about feeling like a stupid old ugly beanpole, about never being able to be perfect and pretty like my snooty older sister, Melinda.

  First thing this morning Quentin Duster, that little scrap of a fourth grader, comes over to my table at school and holds up his newest Lewis and Clark drawing. The drawing is so big and wide it covers up most of Quentin except for his little head and those big old glasses. He’s smiling away as he looks over the top of the paper at me. Then his eyes roll over to Conrad sitting on the other side of the room. Then he looks back at me and he says, “Think this drawing should receive the Cabanash County blue-ribbon art award?”

  “Oh, Quentin Duster, I think you deserve the Nobel Prize,” I say, crossing my arms and looking up at the ceiling. The drawing is so big I couldn’t keep from looking at it even if I tried. It shows an extra-fat overstuffed dinosaur licking his lips with Clark riding on its back. Clark is saying, “I wonder what happened to Lewis and Sacagawea?”

  Quentin keeps hovering around me and then looking over at Conrad, who’s sitting on the other side of the room with his back to us. Conrad’s sitting near the popular table but not at the popular table. He reminds me of a rock that fell off a nice old rock wall and now that old rock is lying near the wall but it isn’t part of the wall anymore. It’s just a poor old rock lying in the grass.

  Quentin keeps looking over at Conrad like he’s got some kind of plan or something up his sleeve. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Quentin were to align himself with Conrad now in hopes of pulling himself up by his bootstraps from the deep murky lower depths of fourth grade. He knows how the winds change around here. He’s seen that river. He knows a kid riding low one day could be riding high the next.

  He goes off with his big drawing, avoiding our teacher, keeping his picture turned away from her. He walks past Elizabeth Parnell and Sarah Jane Peabody and Tiffany R. (not to be confused with Tiffany B., who’s sitting up at the popular table). Those three used-to-be friends of mine are sitting together even tighter and closer than before. Last night their fairy tea party and special school-night sleepover got ruined by mosquitoes. An enormous swarm came in off the Cabanash River and tore into Elizabeth Parnell something terrible. She always says mosquitoes love her to death. And then Sarah Jane got a stomachache and had to lie down most of the evening ’cause they ordered pizza and it had anchovies on it by mistake. And then Elizabeth’s mama set up the fairy garden tent in the living room instead of the backyard and one of the little poles broke and the tent collapsed on them in the night. Because of all that, the three of them are huddled up even closer. Mama always says tragedy brings people together, and I guess they’re the living proof.

  Right now our teacher writes on the chalkboard A NEW WORLD and she underlines it with her usual swirling line that looks like a big Z from one of Granddaddy’s old movies, like Z for “Zorro was here.”

  “A new world — that’s what Lewis and Clark discovered, and Sacagawea and the other Indians helped them along the way. And what were some of the things they found in the New World?” says our teacher, holding her hands together and stretching them out toward us like she’s offering us an invisible bouquet of flowers. “What sort of things did they find?”

  “Dinosaurs,” says Quentin Duster loud and clear and smiling, looking around at the room. Everybody laughs. They just roar, and Quentin Duster settles back in his chair enjoying his great moment.

  Moon n’ Stars Montgomery raises her hand and says, “Lewis and Clark discovered lakes and streams and rivers and mountains.”

  “Ah,” says our teacher, smiling, “what a miracle it must have been. Just think of it! We’re going to do a little skit, a little reenactment play now.”

  Nathan Jones is waving his hand around and I know he wants to tell the class how his father does Revolutionary War reenactments. His father dresses up like a Revolutionary soldier and then goes into battle with a bunch of other dressed-up soldiers and Nathan sits on the sidelines wishing he could play too.

  “We’re going to do a little Lewis-and-Clark skit,” says our teacher. She seems not to see Nathan’s hand waving like a losing flag in the wind. Maybe it’s because we already know about his father’s reenactments. We’ve only heard the story six times.

  “Now we need to select the cast, Lewis and Clark and Sacagawea. By the way,” says our teacher, taking off her reading glasses and looking faraway out the window, “did you know that the whole time Sacagawea was leading those men through the wilderness she was carrying her young baby on her back? Yes, she had a papoose on her back. Oh, my goodness, just to think of it!”

  Then she looks sad for a half a second. Mama says this year Mrs. Duster lost her husband to a skinnier woman. It came out of the blue, says Mama, and completely took her by surprise. “Okay,” our teacher goes on, “write your names on a piece of paper and hand them up here and we’ll put them in a hat. Somebody have a hat they can pass up?”

  Ryan Ferguson, who always wears his hat with the bill pointed backward, passes up his green-and-yellow cap that says John Deere Tractors on it.

  “There are three parts here, so cross your fingers,” says the teacher, mixing the names around.

  Lord love us, as my mama says, please don’t pick me, I am thinking. If there’s anything I do not want to do, it’s to stand up there in front of Conrad Parker Smith stumbling over a bunch of stupid lines. It was bad enough
that I couldn’t say two words to him yesterday and that I threw myself in the muddy river and came up looking like something headed for the town dump and transfer station.

  The teacher puts her hand in the John Deere tractor hat and pulls out a name. First she looks at it and smiles an “of course” kind of smile, and then she says, “Lewis will be played by none other than Conrad Parker Smith!” and then she expects to hear a great rousing cheer roll across the class like a ripple of wind across undiscovered America. But the room is rather quiet, almost disinterested. The popular table seems disconnected. He isn’t one of them anymore. He’s gotten separated off like a little old lonely boat on a big lake. One of the fourth graders, a shrimp with braids and a squeaky voice who doesn’t keep up with what’s going on, shouts out, “Yeah, Conrad! Way to go!”

  Conrad gets up smiling, like he expected to win, like it’s his natural-born right and like it would never be possible for somebody else to take the part. He turns his head toward the class in a beaming loving kind of way. He walks up there pulling that old leg brace and immediately without saying a word he becomes the great discoverer Lewis, looking out at us like we’re lakes and rivers and streams, like he’s not afraid of anything, like he’s longing, itching, begging to discover the river to the Pacific Ocean on the other side of the continent, to hear the waves crashing and to know that there are other unknown lands beyond that.

  Seeing Conrad up there, I’m just about cringing inside at the way I acted yesterday. Wish I hadn’t jumped in the mud, and I’m hoping my teacher will not expect me to help Conrad with anything more. Now that his bike’s gone that should be the end of it. Please let it be the end of it.

  Then Mrs. Duster squeezes her eyes real tight and gives Conrad a special valentine smile and says, “Almost forgot to tell you, your mama called a little while ago and she’s coming in to pick you up today.” Conrad nods at her and goes on back to being Lewis.

  I’m sitting here quiet as a laptop zipped up in its case, hoping I won’t get picked, thinking I just got saved.

  Somebody calls out, “Please, Mrs. Duster, can I be Sacagawea?”

  “Wait a minute,” says our teacher, pulling out another piece of paper from the hat. She looks down at it and smiles as if she’s opening an Academy Award envelope for Best Actress. “The Indian girl guide will be played by Moon n’ Stars Montgomery!” Sarah Jane and Louise and Elizabeth Parnell go completely insane hugging each other and jumping up and down. I guess Moon n’ Stars is part of their group now that she brought in her older sister’s iPod.

  “Moon n’ Stars! Y’all are the best!” the little fourth grader with the squeaky voice calls out. And Moon n’ Stars Montgomery goes up there, pushing back her just-washed pale yellow hair, and stands next to Conrad Parker Smith. He smiles at her real kindly and he gives her a high five and I just about die. I just smolder back here at my table like a bunch of wet leaves on a campfire.

  Next thing you know Quentin Duster’s got the part of Clark and he’s strutting up there, the shortest pipsqueak explorer you ever saw. And as soon as he stands next to Conrad, I know it’s a done deal. For the last few months there’s been an opening, a space, a vacancy next to Conrad Parker Smith, and for the betterment of his personal status Quentin Duster is going to try to fill that vacancy. He’s gonna try to play Clark to Conrad’s Lewis, starting from now till who knows when, right here at Cabanash County Elementary.

  As the afternoon wears on, I lean back and relax in my seat. Now that I know Conrad’s mama is coming in today, I take a big breath that feels at first like pure sweet relief, until it gets all through me and then it changes into something almost like disappointment.

  Granddaddy decides at the last minute to go along with us on our shopping trip to Charlottesville to get Melinda her dress for the contest ’cause he says there is a hobby shop downtown there that he wants to go in. They sell a lot of puzzles in that shop and Granddaddy loves puzzles. He’s doing one of every president of the United States. He makes the announcement getting in the van that he isn’t going near that shopping mall and that he wants to be dropped off outside the hobby shop and then be picked up on the way back.

  “Aye-aye, Captain Ferguson,” says Mama, throwing her purse in on the seat ahead of her. “Any other orders from above?”

  Melinda and I are sitting in the backseat. Granddaddy shuts his door and Mama starts the engine, backing slowly out of the driveway. I know I have to get some kind of clothes to attend the contest, just to sit in the bleachers being the sister of the winner. I’ve kind of settled on the idea of wearing black or dark so I won’t show up at all.

  Halfway out of town Melinda looks over at me and says, “I have to read something at the state fair, a short thing that I wrote, like a poem or something, at the event before the judging so they can hear the sound of my voice. Mama tells me my voice is one of my strongest features.”

  I am sort of listening and I am kind of looking out the window at the same time at the gas stations and restaurants and antique junk shops along the way, all of them with big signs hanging on the outside saying stuff like GET IN HERE AND BUY THIS JUNK.

  “Maybe by then your hair will be longer and I won’t be so embarrassed to admit you’re my sister,” Melinda says.

  “Maybe I’ll cut it again,” I say. “How do you know?”

  “I actually have a question for you,” she says and then she starts to whisper and I figure there’s going to be a punch line at the end of her question, something like “and that’s why I hate you.” Granddaddy and Mama up in the front seat are listening to the radio. The news is on. The announcer is talking about the Iraq War and a soldier from Virginia who died this week trying to save a bunch of other soldiers who also died. “I was wondering,” says Melinda, “if I could borrow one of your poems, Jessie Lou? I don’t write poetry. I was wondering if I could read one of your poems and say it was mine just for the night?”

  I’m kind of taken aback by her question. I can’t quite make sense of her words. Am I missing something? That girl hardly says beans to me and here she wants to read one of my poems aloud at the state fair. I didn’t even know she knew about my stupid old poems. I just write them when I need to talk but can’t quite figure out how. Don’t have regular words to say, only poem kind of words.

  “’Course you can borrow one of my poems, Melinda,” I say. “You can borrow the whole lot of them. I didn’t know anybody had any interest in them.” Melinda smiles at me for half a second and then we both go on looking out our separate windows. On my side I am seeing rolling green hills now and all those white zigzagging fences and fields of running horses with their manes fanned out, rippling like silk scarves in the wind.

  I was kind of stunned out of my thoughts for a second, but now I go on back to thinking about Conrad and his leg brace and how my teacher didn’t say a word to me at school today about assisting him with anything. Maybe she’ll forget about it entirely and let the matter just slip away. I guess I’d be pretty glad of that.

  We’re just passing the area outside of town where every year they hold the Cabanash County Sausage Festival and I can see they are setting up the usual German village for tomorrow, with booths and benches and little fake bridges and houses that look like Swiss chalets. One of the Bailey brothers is out on his blue tractor pulling a sausage hut on a flatbed trailer. He drives it up to the edge of the road, waves to say he wants to cross with his tractor, and Mama has to stop the van with a line of cars behind us and let him cross.

  “May the wonders never cease — Frank Bailey on another one of his toys,” says Mama. “Glad he isn’t on that other contraption he drives. An eighty-two-year-old man on a moped makes my hair stand on end.”

  “Well, sugar pie, you can put your hair in curlers ’cause he’s only eighty-one,” says Granddaddy.

  “Whatever,” says Mama, putting her foot on the gas and moving on. “Rotary Club does a real nice job though. Don’t you think?”

  “Well, it’s a lot of fun,”
says Granddaddy, nodding to Frank Bailey.

  “Don’t get any ideas, Granddaddy. I don’t want you going up there horsing around this year. Last year you were up there all afternoon. You kept going back to the free sausage booth till Jean Duster had to lie and say they were sold out.”

  “Now what’s worse?” says Granddaddy. “Eating an extra sausage or two or telling a real live lie?”

  I put my head back against the seat and I open my window. The wind feels nice on my face. I guess I’d be more than thrilled never to hear my teacher mentioning me helping Conrad again.

  “Jessie Lou, would you kindly close that window? You are wrecking my hair,” says Melinda.

  On the other hand, I’d be wicked fried zucchini with hot chili peppers if my teacher gave the job to Moon n’ Stars Montgomery.

  When we get to Charlottesville we leave Granddaddy off at the hobby shop to poke through all the puzzle possibilities and we drive on down through the town, which is full of college students and professors hurrying along on the sidewalk. Now Mama is heading right out of there toward the shopping mall that sits in the middle of an ocean of cars and has a big cement arched doorway in the front that reminds Granddaddy of an opening to a giant tomb.

  “I suppose Granddaddy’ll go up to the drugstore on the corner and buy a bunch of lottery tickets, wasting what little money he has,” says Mama. “I know he gets on the phone when I’m not home and places bets on the horses, Jessie Lou. Go ahead and cover for him if you want to. I know what he’s up to. I don’t see the sense in it. He hasn’t won but once, and then what did he do with it? Went out and bought himself a big old lawn mower he’s too old to use. Where do you want to go first, Melinda, to JCPenney?”

  “I don’t want to buy anything, Mama,” I say. “Should have left me off with Granddaddy. I could have helped him pick out a president.”

  “You know your granddaddy never lets anybody help him pick out anything. Besides, Jessie Lou, you have to get something to wear, ’cause if Melinda ends up being Miss Junior Teen at the spring state fair, they’re gonna be taking pictures of the whole family.”