Peace, Love, and Baby Ducks

by Lauren Myracle

  I roll my eyes, since I’ve had too many crushes on too many guys for either one of us to think I might be gay. But I’m tempted to tell her that it turns out I am, that I spent all summer kissing hairy girls and now I want to kiss her.

  Only, she would laugh and make eww sounds and it would be too depressing. So I don’t.

  “Carly, what’s wrong?” Anna asks.

  “Nothing,” I say. “It’s just . . . hard.”

  Anna pushes herself up to a sitting position, and if Peyton weren’t between us, she’d probably hug me. “What’s hard?”

  How I am supposed to reply? Of all the thoughts rising to the surface—

  Why do people care about labels like “redneck” and “socialite” and “lesbo”?

  And why do they care so much about appearances?

  And why do I feel scared of drowning in all this fakeness when I’ve promised myself I’m going to be more real than that?

  —none of them is worth saying out loud. Also not worth saying is how pathetic it is that I supposedly “march to my own drum,” yet one of my biggest rebellions is not liking tiny printed whales. That, and having hairy legs.

  I shift my gaze, and my potato comes into focus. Or rather, my half-a-potato. I pick it up and trace the peace symbol I carved into the smooth fleshy part. My next step will be to use it as a stamp to make my potato-print T-shirt.

  “Forget it,” I say. “Let’s talk about something else.”

  “Okay,” Peyton says perkily. “Let’s talk about Anna’s boobs.”

  “Hey!” Anna says.

  “They’re bigger than my head,” Peyton goes on.

  “They are not bigger than your head,” Anna protests.

  I force a smile. I pour a puddle of blue paint onto a paper plate and dip my potato into it. Then I press the potato onto my soft, white, just-the-right-size T-shirt, which I’ve laid flat on the flagstone.

  “Half my head, then,” Peyton says. “Each of your boobs is the size of half my head. If you put them together, they’d equal one entire head.”

  I lift the potato to reveal a beautiful blue peace sign.

  “Nice,” Anna says, admiring my artwork.

  Peyton thinks Anna’s “nice” is in response to the head-boob comment, and she says, “Darn straight it’s nice. Your boobs are a blessing from God.”

  I dip and press, listening as Peyton warns Anna not to be taken in by senior guys who ask her out, but are only interested in one thing.

  “No senior guy is going to ask me out,” Anna says.

  “You never know,” Peyton says. “Face it, Anna. You’re hot.”

  “I am not.”

  “Oh, um, you are.” Peyton nudges me with her bare foot. “Carly, your sister’s hot. In fact, sorry to say it, but she’s way hotter than you.”

  A splot of paint drips onto the flagstone. “I know,” I say, pretending her comment doesn’t sting.

  “I mean, you look great, don’t get me wrong. You’re like . . . lima-bean girl.”

  “I think you mean string bean,” I say. “I hope you mean string bean.”

  “Lima bean, string bean, whatev. The point is, you’re a bean. But our little Anna is . . . a luscious pair of cantaloupes.”

  “Peyton, shut up,” Anna begs.

  “Last week?” Peyton says to me. “While you were off being a wild woman up on your mountain? Your charming neighbors”—she jerks her head at the stone wall separating our house from the Millers’—“threw one of their mom’s bras into y’all’s driveway. They put a rock in each cup and tied the straps together, so they’d stay in. The rocks.”

  It takes me a second, but then I get it. An over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder—hil arious.

  “What idiots,” I say. The Miller boys range in age from eight to twelve, and their names are Larry, Barry, Gary, and Terry. I tell people this, and they’re like, No way. But it’s true.

  The oldest, Larry, hasn’t even started junior high yet, while the youngest is in third grade, tops.

  “What are they doing thinking about bras at their age?” I say.

  “They’re not thinking about bras,” Peyton says. “They’re thinking about what goes in said bras. And yes, it starts early—especially if they have Anna living next door.”

  “Shut up,” Anna says.

  “So you know what we did?” Peyton goes on.

  “What you did,” Anna says.

  “You helped. You’re the one who got your dad’s jockstrap.”

  “Ick,” I say.

  “We taped nuts into it—teeny tiny peanuts—and tossed it back over the wall.”

  “Why?!”

  “An under-the-butt-nut-hut. Get it?”

  Again, it takes a second, but then I laugh. It breaks up some of the sludge inside me. “Did you make that up?”

  “Peyton taped the peanuts into it and threw it over the wall,” Anna says. “Not me.”

  “Y’all are crazy.”

  “But at least we shave our legs,” Peyton says.

  When I make an indignant sound, she widens her eyes dramatically and delivers her stock Peyton line. “JK! LOL!” She pretends to hit a computer button. “Enter!”

  I laugh some more. She’s so ridiculous.

  Peyton rises from her chair and stretches, her sun-streaked blond hair falling down her back. “Swim time, kids,” she says. She strolls to the deep end of the pool and dives in.

  I glance at Anna, the first full-on look I’ve given her since she sided with Peyton about my legs. “You going in?”

  “Nah,” she says, because she’s not very big on swimming. She can swim, she just doesn’t like to. Dad used to call her his little ducky, because she had a float shaped like a duck that she always insisted on using. The summer Anna turned four, Dad decided she was too big for her ducky float, and he confiscated it. So Anna decided not to get in the pool, even though the pool guys had just that day pulled the pool cover off and gotten the chlorine levels right and all that. She sat on the steps and refused to get wet, until finally Dad grabbed her under her armpits and lugged her into the deep end. When she started crying, he said impatiently, “You can still be a duck, Anna. Just paddle.”

  “I am paddling!” she’d whimpered, moving her arms in floppy, pitiful jerks.

  “Then paddle harder,” was Dad’s no-mercy response.

  Later, it became a joke between me and Anna. If one of us was struggling with something—homework, the too-tight lid on a jar of pickles, whatever—the other would growl, “Just paddle harder.” It was one of those sister jokes that was only amusing to us.

  “Come on,” I say to Anna now. “It’s practically the last day of summer.”

  “I’d rather work on my tan,” Anna says.

  I place my potato next to my drying shirt and get to my feet. Taking her hands and pulling her off her chair, I say, “Up you go, little ducky-wucky.”

  “I’m not little—and quit calling me that.”

  “Little duck with big boobs,” I say, and with the joke right there in front of me, I keep going without thinking it through. “Hey, I know! Your boobs can be your flotation devices!”

  She blushes. And then so do I, because now who’s being the jerk?

  “Sorry,” I say quickly.

  “It’s okay,” she replies, just as quick. She swallows.

  I point her toward the stairs that lead into the shallow end and get her moving with a push. She wades in waist-high, holding her arms up above the water. She looks back at me.

  “Doing great,” I encourage. “Paddle harder!”

  If Anna were the type to flip me the bird, she would. Since she’s not, she scowls. But it turns into a laugh.

  Peyton swims over from the deep end, pops up next to Anna, and uses her cupped hands to throw a handful of water at me.

  “Hey!” I yelp.

  “Get in, you wuss!”

  “Wuss? Wuss?!” I charge the pool and launch myself into the air, crying, “Cannonball!”

  Anna shrie
ks, and I land with enough precision to know she’ll be doused. Then I’m swallowed by the water, my cheeks puffed with air and my arms hugging my hairy shins.

  CHAPTER TWO

  PEASANTS AND ROYALTY

  After Peyton leaves, Anna and I go inside and change out of our swimsuits. Our plans for the rest of the day include back-to-school haircuts, followed by dinner at Slummy Peachtree. Slummy Peachtree is Dad’s name for the casual dining area at our country club, the Peachtree Club. The fancy dining room is called the Treetop, and Dad cracks himself up by implying that we’re slumming it when we eat in the sunny, pub-style restaurant instead of the fancy schmancy Treetop.

  I select the “Groovy Tunes” playlist on my iPod and peel off my bathing suit. I put on undies, a bra, and my peace shirt, which has dried in the sun. I pair it with a long, flowy skirt which has teeny mirrors sewn along the hem. I twist my hips to make the glass twinkle.

  If we were going to the Treetop, I’d be required to wear an actual dress, but at Slummy Peachtree, the attire is casual. Shorts and tank tops aren’t allowed, but pretty much everything else is. Another dining option is the Men’s Grill, and if we were eating there, I could wear tailored pants, but no jeans. There is no Women’s Grill.

  Anna comes into my room and flops onto my bed. She’s wearing a fitted pink dress. Another of my small rebellions is to never wear a fitted pink dress, ever.

  “Fun skirt,” she says. “Where’d you get it?”

  “At a street fair on our last day in Tennessee,” I say. I turn toward her, moving to the music. The song playing is “Almost Cut My Hair” by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young—how can I not move to the music? I lift my skirt to display my Jesus sandals. “I got these, too.”

  “You look like a flower child,” Anna says.

  “And you look like a debutante.”

  “Nuh-uh,” she says. “You can’t be a deb till after your first year of college.”

  The song hits the amazingly awesome rock-out part, and I belt out, “I feel like letting my freak flag fly!”

  Anna’s smile says she likes me, but that she’s embarrassed for me.

  “Why do you listen to this old stuff?” she asks.

  I take a break from my solo. “Sixties music? Because it rocks.”

  “No. Really.”

  “Yes, really. How can you not like it?”

  “Because it’s old.”

  I shake my head. “Dude, the sixties were all about peace and love and happiness. Woodstock. Social change. Resisting the status quo.”

  “Never mind,” she says. “Forget I asked.”

  I stride to my iPod and change songs. The opening guitar chords of Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” fill the room, and five beats later, the harmonica part. God, I love the harmonica part. Anna, judging by her expression, does not.

  “Listen to the lyrics,” I urge.

  “Listening,” she says. “So?”

  “So he’s searching for a heart of gold!” I say. “He crossed the ocean for a heart of gold! Don’t you want that kind of love?”

  “Fergie sings about love, too, you know. And she’s still alive.”

  I lift my eyebrows. With zero inflection, I say, “The girl can’t help it oh baby.”

  She giggles. “You’re weird.”

  “Thank God,” I say. I change songs again and pull up “Sugar Magnolia” by the Grateful Dead. I return to her and grab her shoulders. “There is no way you can’t feel the joy of this song.”

  “Um . . . not feeling it.”

  I attempt to make her dance. She turns into a wooden plank.

  “Anna! You have to like the Grateful Dead. It’s the law.”

  “Oh, riiight.” She makes double peace signs with her hands and adopts the voice of a stoner. “I’m Carly. Aren’t I so cool?”

  “Shut up,” I say, laughing. “And, yes. I am, thanks for noticing.”

  She goes back to my bed and watches as I continue getting ready.

  “It must be fun to be so skinny,” she says. “Is it?”

  “Ehh,” I say to downplay it. But yeah, it is fun. My arm muscles are firm and lean, and my quads are defined from hiking up the trail every day. Not that anyone can appreciate the fabulous-ness of my quads right this second, since they’re hidden beneath my swishy skirt. But I feel stronger in my body than I ever have. I feel capable.

  Anna reaches over to my bedside table and picks up the framed picture of me standing on top of Lookout Mountain. Yes, I already printed the good ones from my digital camera, and yes, I even framed some. In the one she’s looking at, I’m wearing beat-up jeans, my scuffed leather hiking boots, and a sleeveless shirt that shows off my tan arms. I’m leaning on my pickax, and I look downright tough.

  Anna has never been that tough.

  “Being skinny isn’t important,” I say. “It’s just bodies, you know? Anyway, you’re the one who’s hot all of a sudden.”

  “Carly!” Dad bellows from the bottom of the staircase. “Anna! Get a move on!”

  “We’re coming, we’re coming!” I call.

  Anna clambers off the bed, and we go downstairs to join Mom and Dad. Mom’s wearing a linen pantsuit. Dad’s decked out in a short-sleeved collared shirt, his idea of dressed down.

  He jiggles his keys and says, “Well, daughters, shall we take the Jaguar, which is new, and be treated like royalty? Or shall we take the BMW—an older model, yet a few good years left—and be treated like peasants?”

  I groan, imagining what people not in our family would think if they heard Dad’s remark. Like if my crew leader, Sydney, heard him being such a tool, or the other volunteers I worked with. One of the guys in our group was from the Appalachians, and he pronounced “wash” like “warsh.”

  “I don’t know many peasants who drive BMWs,” I say.

  Dad laughs. “The Jaguar it is, then.” He punches the “away” code into the security system and hustles us through the door. We have thirty seconds to get out, or the alarm will blare and the people who monitor the system will call to check up on us. Dad will have to give our password, which is “Veuve Clicquot,” and in a week, Dad will get a bill for fifty dollars, because we’ve already gone over our allotted woopsies.

  We make it out in time, even though Anna trips on her stacked heel. Dad grabs her to keep her from falling.

  “Thanks, Daddy,” she says.

  He kisses the top of her head. “Guess you’re getting a little top-heavy, aren’t you?”

  Did he really just say that? Top-heavy?

  Anna turns bright red, so I say, “You just need to get some shoes you can walk in.” I show off one of my Jesus sandals. “Like mine.”

  Dad holds down his thumb and blows air through his teeth in a ssssssssss of disapproval. It’s classic Dad—he frequently gives Anna and me the thumbs-down even when we’ve in no way asked for his input.

  “What’s wrong with my sandals?” I retort.

  “Come along, girls,” Mom says from the front passenger seat. “Time to go.”

  “If one of my clients saw you in that get-up, he’d think you were in a cult,” Dad says.

  “Fine, forget it.”

  He chuckles, oblivious to the fact that he’s now hurt both his daughters’ feelings. Except . . . how can he not know?

  As we pull out of the driveway, Anna points at my sandals and whispers, “Cult member!”

  I give Anna’s stacked heels the thumbs-down and whisper, “Sssssss!”

  She shoves me. I shove her back. We giggle, and I thank God for giving me a sister. I really do send up a silent prayer of gratitude, because if I were an only child and Dad was my dad? I’d never survive.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE COLOR OF CONFORMITY

  Ten minutes later, Dad parks in front of Venus Salon, one of several stores in the boutique-y strip mall off West Paces Ferry Road. Toni, the owner, greets us at the door. She’s even more hyped up than usual.

  “Our expansion is complete!” she exclaims, leading the
four of us to the east side of the salon. She gestures at a sun-filled space that used to be a stationery store, but now boasts gleaming chrome salon chairs, silver mirrors, and pale pink walls. “I’m calling it my ‘New Talent’ wing. All my stylists go through extensive training, you know, and now I have the perfect way to help them make their debut.”

  “Toni, it’s lovely,” Mom says. I glance at the stylist who’s hard at work behind one of the salon chairs. He’s cute—probably gay—with spiky black hair, an eyebrow ring, and dark, almond-shaped eyes. Mediterranean, maybe? He’s wearing a black button-down with a flared collar and black pants. I suspect I could learn a lot about style if I had a gay guy pal.

  Alas, all the gay guys at Holy Redeemer are still deep, deep in the closet. Either that, or they’ve transferred to another school. If I were gay, I sure wouldn’t want to go to Holy Redeemer, where “the spirit of honoring Christ” includes stocking the nurse’s office with informational brochures on Hope for Homosexuals ministries and ex-gay summer camps.

  The girl whose hair the stylist is drying is about my age. Her haircut is awesome: short and flippy, with streaks of sky blue mixed in with her blonde layers. Ooo, I want sky-blue highlights, I think. Is it possible to do sky-blue highlights with dark hair?

  “So what do you think?” Toni says to me and Anna. She looks at us expectantly. “My feelings won’t be hurt at all.”

  “Sorry, what?” I say.

  “At twenty dollars a pop?” Dad says. “Absolutely.”

  Toni beams. “Terriff.” She steers Anna and me farther into the New Talent wing. “Carly, why don’t you go first. Anna, you can wait here.”

  I deduce that we’ve been bumped from Toni’s schedule and placed on the guinea-pig roster. Given that Toni charges seventy dollars per cut, I’m not surprised. While Dad has no problem forking over the big bucks for a new-model Jag, the prospect of “getting a deal,” no matter how small, fills him with little-boy glee. “Oh Boy” syrup instead of Aunt Jemima, bought in bulk with his well-used Sam’s card. “Wise Owl” cheese curls instead of Cheetos. Dinner for Anna and me from the child’s menu, though we’re both past twelve.

  Though he’s not going to be able to pull off that deception anymore, not with Anna. . . . But forget the kids’ meals. We’re talking hair here, not mac-and-cheese.