Neighborhood Girls

by Jessie Ann Foley

  “Who?”

  “Where?”

  She pointed to a tall kid standing in the ticket line about ten people in front of us, kicking around a hacky sack and laughing loudly with his friends.

  “Which one is he again?” I asked. It was hard to keep track of the men in Kenzie’s life.

  “You know! The guy who started stalking my Instagram after he met me at that party in the forest preserve for Sami’s birthday,” she said. “And he’s been, like, professing his love for me to everybody at Saint Mike’s ever since.”

  From the looks of him, Christian was just the kind of obnoxious boy-toy sort Kenzie often went for: a baby face partially obscured by a flat-brimmed hat, fake diamond earrings in both ears, and wrists weighted down with neon bracelets. His flip-flops were plastered with designer logos, the kind of shoes you buy at Marshalls when you don’t have a ton of money but you want people to think you do.

  “If he’s so madly in love with you,” Sapphire said, shading her eyes from the setting sun, “why don’t you see if he’ll let us cut the line?”

  “I was just thinking that.” Kenzie pulled down her tank top to expose the trim of her paisley-patterned bra and flounced in the boys’ direction while the rest of us followed in her wake.

  “Hey, Insta-Stalker,” she said, brushing her hand against his bare arm. “Mind if we budge the line?”

  Kenzie was such a child of the digital age that even her spoken words were like text messages: the tone was impossible to interpret. Christian didn’t seem to even notice that she’d just insulted him. “Hi, Kenzie!” he said, gazing at her like a slobbering golden retriever who just saw a piece of steak fall to the kitchen floor. “Yeah, totally squeeze in!”

  As we shuffled into the line, ignoring the halfhearted protests of the kids behind us, Christian nodded toward a dark-haired, lanky boy standing next to him. “Hey,” he said, “do you guys know my buddy Darry?” Before any of us could answer, the boy reached across the cloud of Christian’s cologne and shook each of our hands. This might be a normal thing to do in the adult world, but I couldn’t remember there ever being a time when a boy my own age shook my hand. I was used to guys who might glance up from their phones to give me the up-and-down and then mumble hey before returning to their mindless tapping. I wondered if Darry was one of those weird boy-men who wears blazers to parties and plays the stock market, but other than the handshake, he was dressed like, and looked like, a normal kid. Except for one thing. His eyes. They were a light copper brown, almost golden, and they were resting on my face, and they were not looking away.

  “These are my girls,” Kenzie said, pointing at each of us one by one. “That’s Sapphire, that’s Emily, and that’s Wendy.”

  “Wendy?” Christian snorted. “Your parents named you after a fast food joint?”

  “No.” I glared. “They named me for a girl in a Bruce Springsteen song.”

  “‘Born to Run’?”

  “Yeah.” I turned to Darry, surprised. “How’d you know?”

  “Because it’s one of the greatest rocks songs ever, and I know all the lyrics by heart.” His eyes rested on me in a kaleidoscope of soft browns and golds. “My parents named me after a book. The Outsiders.”

  “Darry Curtis,” I said, nodding. “I love that book.”

  We smiled at each other, and for just a second, it felt like the whole world was holding its breath.

  “Tickets, please.” The bored voice of the ticket taker broke the spell—we’d finally reached the front of the line. When Darry turned to hand off his ticket and we entered the stadium, Kenzie kicked me and bugged her eyes at me while Emily declared that she had to use the bathroom.

  “I’m having a few people over later,” Christian said, gazing hopefully at Kenzie and her peeking paisley bra. “We’re going to head there after the game. You guys should come.”

  “You really should.” Darry said. He was speaking to all of us, but he was only looking at me. “Corner of Strong and Melvina.”

  “Hey,” called Christian, grinning stupidly, “there are only three streets in Chicago that rhyme with a part of the female body. Know what they are?”

  Darry rolled his eyes at me, flattering me with the realization that he saw in me a person who was about to be as bored as he was with the immature comment that was sure to follow.

  “Melvina, Paulina, and Lunt,” Christian cackled. Kenzie graced him with only the slightest hint of a smile.

  “We’ll try to stop by,” she said, glancing over his shoulder to scan the crowd for people more interesting than him.

  “Come in through the alley,” Darry said, and when he turned to follow Christian toward the bleachers, I caught the faintest scent of piney soap, and then the world rearranged itself back into the infinitely less interesting place it had been before I knew he lived in it.

  “Christian’s hot, Kenz,” Emily observed. “And he’s totally into you.”

  “He’s pathetic.” Kenzie picked a long black hair from the strap of her tank top and rubbed it between her delicate fingers until it sifted to the ground. “I could practically see his boner rising when I came within ten feet of him. Does he even know that me and Evan are kind of a thing now? Evan would beat his ass if he saw Christian ogling my boobs like that.”

  “Yeah,” Emily said, quickly reevaluating her opinion. “I guess he is kind of sad.”

  “His party should be good, though,” Kenzie said. She took out her phone. “I’m going to tell Evan to meet us there after the game.”

  “What about that other guy?” Sapphire said. “Wendy, he was staring at you.”

  “He wasn’t staring at me,” I objected. “I mean, he just likes Springsteen.”

  “Staring. Like a stalker.”

  “He seemed cool,” I ventured.

  “Code for ‘I want to bang him,’” laughed Emily.

  “Well, you’ll get your chance,” Kenzie said. “Christian’s parties are always out of control. Come on. Let’s go find a seat.”

  At the risk of sounding like a shallow, superficial asshole, here’s why all the pretending and the fakeness of popularity is worth it: for that one moment when you and your clique climb the bleachers at a crowded football game. The four of us, dressed in our uniforms of tiny cutoffs and tinier tank tops, push-up bras thrusting our breasts up and out, sunglasses shading our eyes from the setting sun still warm on our bare, smooth legs, this was why I had made it my business to be popular when I started high school. This is the moment when everybody is watching you even if they pretend like they’re not, and everybody knows who you are even if they pretend like they don’t. It’s this crazy, intoxicating power, a power that I never had in elementary school, that makes me feel totally secure and completely unafraid. I knew that if I broke away from the group to go use the bathroom or buy a Dr Pepper at the concession stand, then all the magic would die and I’d just be me again. But surrounded by these girls, it’s different. It’s like no one can touch me. No one would say a word about my father; no one would post something awful about my family on social media. They wouldn’t dare. Being part of our clique makes me untouchable and admired, feared and respected. I’m not dumb enough to believe that everybody genuinely likes us, but they all do a good job at pretending, because they all know what happens when you piss off Kenzie Quintana. It’s an airtight kind of protection, and if it means that I have to dumb myself down a little bit and trade fake compliments and fawn over pimple-popping jocks, I figure it’s a small price to pay.

  We found an open spot near the top row, up against the protective fence that ran along the back of the bleachers. There had been other, closer spots on the way up, but this one allowed for maximum visibility.

  “Okay, everybody,” Kenzie said, leaning against the fence seductively and posing for a rapid series of selfies, “you guys need to help me pay attention to this stupid game. Evan is gonna be asking me about it afterward, and I have to pretend like I was on the edge of my seat, watching him tackle the sh
it out of people, okay?”

  “He’s a quarterback, Kenz,” I reminded her. “Quarterbacks don’t tackle.”

  She patted the open space on the bleachers next to her.

  “And that,” she said, “is why Wendy gets to sit next to me tonight.”

  Saint Mike’s kicked off, and the first quarter was underway. I was in the middle of explaining to Kenzie the concept of a first down for the hundredth time when I saw Ola Kaminski, Marlo Guthrie, and Alexis Nichols, the three smartest girls at Academy of the Sacred Heart, climbing the bleachers. They stopped for a moment, looking around for an open spot. Kenzie cupped her hands around her pink mouth and called, “Sit down, losers! I’m trying to watch a football game here!” The three of them looked up, in the direction of the insult, and Alexis’s eyes rested on me for just a moment. In that moment, I saw her taking in my carefully styled blond waves, my minuscule jean shorts, the sticky sheen of my lip gloss, the cotton candy–colored straps of my padded bra. When she finally looked away, I couldn’t tell if she was only squinting from the setting sun, or if she was smirking. Whatever it was, I felt a small crack in the armor of my popularity. I turned back to Kenzie and resumed my football tutorial as if nothing had happened. But I felt self-conscious for the rest of the game. Alexis Nichols was the only girl at ASH who could make me feel that way, because she was the only one who really knew me.

  3

  CHRISTIAN’S HOUSE WAS A BEIGE BRICK ranch on a block of identical beige brick ranches, the parkways lined with those wimpy little trees the city plants each spring. We followed Kenzie down his gangway toward the drifting smell of cheap beer and the shouts of teenagers, through a small square of neatly mowed backyard, and out into the alley where the garage was packed from wall to wall with about two dozen kids, the door standing open to the warm night. Before we had a chance to even step inside, a burly kid with a patchy brown beard, a backward Cubs hat, and a Kris Bryant jersey blocked us from going any farther.

  “Five bucks each,” he said, thrusting a Solo cup in front of us that was already stuffed with money.

  “Christian invited us,” Kenzie said importantly.

  “So? It’s still five bucks. Or do you think kegs grow on trees?” He smiled, pleased with his display of figurative language.

  “Can you break a hundred?” Kenzie sighed, reaching into the pocket of her cutoffs and casually producing a crumpled bill. Her family had no more money than the rest of ours did, but she liked to carry around large bills to give the impression that she was rich. The boy was clearly impressed, though he tried not to show it. He plucked the money from her outstretched hand and made a big production of holding it up to inspect for counterfeit currency while we rolled our eyes at one other. Finally, when he was satisfied, he slowly counted out eighty bucks in change and handed us four Solo cups.

  “Wait a second,” Emily piped. “I’m the designated driver. You’re making me pay, too?”

  He looked her up and down, assessing her. Finally he said, “Consider it a tax for letting you hang out with us.”

  Emily shrank back, embarrassed, while Kenzie reached forward and neatly plucked a five-dollar bill back from the wad in his hand.

  “Why don’t you consider this?” she asked, leaning toward him on a jutting hip. “Your sandals are a fashion tragedy, and boys who haven’t finished going through puberty shouldn’t try growing beards. Now where’s the keg?”

  “Over there,” he muttered, pointing toward a big bucket near the edge of the garage. While the four of us collapsed into laughter, he sauntered away with his eyes downcast on his generic Birkenstocks and his fingers moving self-consciously across the patches of hair on his chin and cheeks.

  We filled our cups with watery light beer and stepped into the close, sweaty air of the party. Most of the space was taken up by a large Ping-Pong table, where a group of Saint Mike’s guys and some girls we didn’t know were playing a raucous game of beer pong. Just past them, in a clearing of space near a bunch of fishing rods, I spotted Darry. He was squatting down over a plastic milk crate, his dark, shiny head cocked to the side, and he was fiddling with a laptop that was connected to a pair of large black speakers. When he saw me, he winked at me—he actually winked at me, like some pervy old man. Except, of course, it didn’t seem quite so pervy coming from him. It felt, I don’t know, sexy. My face went hot.

  “Kenzie!” Christian, who was standing at one end of the Ping-Pong table, flagged her down with an eager hand. “Be my beer pong partner?”

  “Ugh,” Kenzie whispered to us, rolling her mascara-spiked eyes. “Could he be any more obsessed? Evan is gonna kill him.” But she accepted his invitation with a nod and sashayed over to the table, cozying up beside him as he beamed. The rest of us arranged ourselves against the wall and tried to look cool. Sapphire picked at her nails between slugs of beer while Emily took little sips from a can of Red Bull, her searchlight eyes sweeping across the party and filing the faces and actions of everybody there away in the gossip chamber that was her brain. Meanwhile, I tried to get drunk, hoping that it would help me feel like I fit in, help to loosen the spring inside me that tightened every time I went to parties like this. But the beer tasted so awful that I had trouble keeping it down. The last thing I needed was to puke all over Christian’s family’s collection of fishing rods. So I just sort of stood there and watched as Kenzie played beer pong with her new friends, tossing the little white ball with a graceful flick of her wrist so that it landed perfectly into the Solo cup of the opposing team and she curtsied gracefully to their applause.

  We heard the arrival of Evan Munro and his teammates before we actually saw them. They’d destroyed Notre Dame 31–0, and Evan had thrown for a career-high 365 yards. They came careening down the alley—Josh Gonzalez, Derrick Dunn, and a guy who was known only as Sully—in Sully’s beat-up Chrysler convertible, wearing their jerseys, chanting the Saint Mike’s fight song and waving white-and-green flags. It was like they were throwing a parade for themselves, and everybody at the party went nuts. Sully came screeching to a stop in the middle of the alley and they all hopped out, 1980s-movie style, without opening the car doors. As soon as Christian saw them, I could see the conflicted look on his face: excited that the coolest kids in his class had shown up at his party, disappointed that Kenzie, who he thought he might have a shot with, had now detached herself from his side and was jumping into Evan’s arms, wrapping her long, tan legs around his waist and pouring her beer directly into his open mouth.

  Seeing how everyone was now distracted, I took advantage of the moment and stepped out into the alley to dump out the warm remains of my own beer. When I returned to my station against the wall, Darry was once again squatting before the speakers, laptop balanced on his knees, and finally the music kicked on, guitar chords as familiar to me as the sound of my father’s voice.

  In the day we sweat it out on the streets

  of a runaway American dream,

  At night we ride through mansions

  of glory in suicide machines

  It was the opening lines of “Born to Run,” and suddenly, I was transported away from this party, even away from Darry, who was smiling at me now over the glow of the laptop, and I was remembering a late-summer night like this one, up on the shores of Crooked Lake, with all of us: Stevie Junior, Aunt Col and Uncle Jimbo, Aunt Kathy and one of her weird hipster boyfriends, Mom and Dad and me sitting on the pontoon boat that was docked, bobbing, in the harbor, and in the middle of the lake the fireworks were exploding against a black sky, reflecting in trembling mirrors of light on the surface of the water, and my dad turned on his portable boom box, while I perched on his lap in perfect happiness, hoping that the song would never end.

  Together, Wendy, we can live with the sadness

  I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul

  I felt my stomach go sour, detached myself from the wall, stumbled past Darry and the fishing rods, past the beer pong table, out into the dark alley, and found a spot between
a trash can and the neighbor’s backyard. I leaned over the chain-link fence, waiting to puke. But the cooling night air calmed my nausea, and instead of vomit, what came instead were tears. I didn’t know that I was going to cry—the sadness had come from somewhere deep inside of me, from a place I thought I had buried because I knew better than to dwell on pointless scenes from the past.

  “Hey. You okay?”

  The dark figure coming toward me was carrying a giant garbage bag full of crushed cups and empty cans. He stepped beneath the streetlight and I saw those copper eyes and died a little inside now that I realized my new crush had found me crouching behind a trash can like some complete head case.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. “It was sort of hot in there.”

  Darry smiled and adjusted the clanging bag over his shoulder.

  “Open the lid for me?”

  I lifted the top of the blue recycling bin and he heaved the bag inside.

  “Hey,” he said, closing the lid and looking at me, his face pale and serious. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I thought you’d like it if I played your song.”

  “I’m fine,” I said quickly. “It just reminds me of something, that’s all.”

  “What does it remind you of?”

  “My dad.”

  “Oh. Did he die?”

  I was sort of thrown off by this question. People weren’t supposed to go around asking you this sort of stuff directly. They were supposed to say something vague, change the subject, and then Google your name later in the privacy of their own homes.

  “No.”

  He waited a second, expecting me to elaborate, but I didn’t. Sergeant Stephen Boychuck was a conversation topic that, for the past two years, I had declared officially off limits—even for tall boys with golden eyes who thought “Born to Run” was the greatest rock song ever made. I took the opportunity of the awkward silence to dig a tin of Altoids from my bag. I offered him one, and he took it.

  “Thanks.” His fingers, warm, brushed my palm.