Wannabe More

by Billie Dale

  “Let me talk to Preslee first.” My erection pressing on my zipper seals my decision. “Yeah all right, even if she doesn’t go, I’ll be there.”

  He lifts my hand and slaps it. “The best titties of the eighth grade and you’ll have them in your hand. Lucky bastard. Everyone knows an Asia party means seven minutes in heaven, and from the way she was looking at you; I guarantee it’ll be your meaty paws squeezing her delicious sweater puppies for the entire seven minutes. Brayden Williams was her chosen at the last party, and he said it’s a religious experience and we all should pray to the altar of Asia’s mountains.”

  I laugh. My brain already listing the reasons Sammy Lee needs this party. The bell rings and as I’m leaving study hall, I spot Elvis. “Hey, Pres, wait.”

  Twelve

  SAMANTHA

  PRESLEE SITS AT HER vanity wrapping the strands of her straight hair around the wide barrel of a curling iron. Clothes cover her floor and bed. I swear she emptied her closet looking for an outfit to wear. Mazric and Hendrix wait in the parlor. I hear a popular song play from the radio then it stops and replays, but this time it’s Hendrix repeating it.

  “You’re up next,” Preslee cheers. “Dig through my clothes and find something. This party is gonna rule.” Her baby blues gleam in the mirror, sparking with excitement.

  To appease her, I pretend to mull over options but all I’m doing is folding the mess she’s made. Her twin is the reason I’m in this mess. Well, him and Mazric with Preslee’s begging bringing up the rear.

  ON THE PIANO BENCH next to Hendrix I’m salivating over the pizza smell steaming from the kitchen, awed by his talent. His long pale fingers stroke the ivory keys without looking at sheet music. He’s playing Jimmy Eats World’s In the Middle but it’s mashed with retro Michael Jackson and pieces of Beethoven’s Fifth. I can’t help but wiggle and jive to the creation. Preslee catches me sit-dancing and drags me from my spot to twirl around the open space of the parlor.

  Carmichael Plantation is stupid huge with its Grecian white pillars, dual levels, and sprawling acres. Ten bedrooms with bathrooms, a parlor, a TV room, or as us poor people call it—a living room—a kitchen big enough to cook for an army, a grand dining room, and a freaking ballroom. Too much house for the three people who live in it. I thought Vivianne Carmichael would be stuck-up and judgmental, I couldn’t have been more wrong. With her hippy flowing dresses, free love ideas, and dreadlock-knotted blonde hair she is the antithesis to everything the house represents.

  Preslee and Hendrix’s parents are missionaries. Forever moving from one third world country to the next more dire third world country. What they do is inspiring, but after an attack on one of their camps, they decided it’d be safer for their twins if they lived with Viv. Hendrix’s talent couldn’t thrive bouncing from place to place. They visit several times a year and are great people who love their kids enough to let them go.

  Mazric takes my vacated spot beside Hendrix, talking fast with his hands flailing. The music stops and Hendrix eyeballs my best friend for minutes before shrugging his shoulders, nodding his head, and resuming his playing. I should’ve run the second their faces lit with the cat who ate the canary matching grins.

  Breathless, I flop on the settee and guzzle a glass of sweet tea. Once again, the music stops and Hendrix twists to face me. Where I talk too much Hendrix Carmichael doesn’t. He’s introverted and forever composing in his head. “Samantha.” He never calls me Sammy, says it lessens my value. “It seems our compadres would like for us to attend a party.” My refusal sits on my lips but he’s not done. “According to Mazric, said party is the pinnacle of eighth grade and is not to be missed. He has poised a solid case and for reasons of study, I’m inclined to go.”

  “Great, you all have a wonderful time,” I respond. Party plus Sam equals not a damn chance. Easiest equation ever.

  “Don’t discredit it yet,” he argues. “Since you will be here studying with me from now on, I figure this party and others of the such will be our only chances to maintain human interaction beyond the walls of the plantation and the varied opinions of my sister and Mazric.” His lips tilt in a knowing, rare Hendrix smile.

  For three years I’ve envied his tutoring. It is legions above the mundane I sit through in class every day. Though his lessons center around music, his other subjects are at college level. Two teachers visit Hendrix three time a week, but he does the bulk of his studying online. I’ve crunched the numbers and refigured our home budget many times, but Daddy could never swing the cost of me joining Hendrix.

  I sit ramrod straight. “Did you say I’d be here with you? Don’t tease. My dad can’t afford this.” I wave to the expensive computer sitting on the desk in the back of the room.

  Preslee bounces across the room, plopping next to me, she slings her arms around my neck, “I’m gonna miss you at school. It took Aunt Viv and my parents a while but they found a scholarship. A professor at MIT wants to sponsor your schooling. Vivianne sent hundreds of packets around with your scores and testing. Starting next week, another computer will be over there and an adjunct professor from the University of Kentucky is coming to handle your ‘big brain math.’ Miss Castle, Hendrix’s tutor for all things not music, will take over the other subjects.”

  My eyes flit to Hendrix, who wears a smarmy smirk, back to Preslee who’s exuding spastic excitement, before landing on Mazric. Wariness clouds his eyes and his smile is tight but he nods.

  “I-wha... thi...” I stutter as it all settles in. No more listening to teachers ramble stuff I already know. The opportunity to challenge my mind and learn new knowledge. I clutch the warm stone at my neck. My wish. The same one I’ve been making for years has come true.

  “We rendered her speechless, Brother,” Preslee giggles.

  “So we are going to this party, Samantha,” Hendrix declares, turning back to his piano.

  Happiness, fear, and uncertainty battle royale in a spiral rush through my heart and brain. This is the opportunity I’ve yearned and begged the universe for. No more horrid teasing, which has gotten legions better since fifth grade but still sucks. Learning at my pace instead of following a prescribed curriculum sends me into an almost giddy tailspin. Spending every day here with Hendrix is easy, but an unsettling sensation of loss sweeps in like a fog clouding my joy.

  Mazric and I haven’t spent a day apart since I bulldozed in on his basketball tirade. Joined at the hip his mom says. We’ll still see each other but our worlds will be light-years apart.

  Fine. We’ll be fine. I tell myself, but the burning in my chest disagrees.

  THE PARTY. AN ASIA-I’m better than you-Demarco soirée. Why? Why am I subjecting myself to this abject horror? Because peer pressure is real, y’all, and I love my friends.

  “Pres, you’re all...” I wave my hands through the air, mimicking her curves. “And I’m more praying mantis. These clothes will fall off me. Besides what’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

  Her reflection eyes my camo green carpenter pants and baggy UK hoodie. She blinks and tightens the line of her pink painted lips at my trademark frizzed out low ponytail. Those same lips part but her words falter.

  Preslee’s short, round, ten-year-old body grew taller and thanks to Vivianne’s vegetarian eating habits and puberty, my friend’s heaviness spread through her now age fourteen body becoming breast, hips, and curves I envy. She’s still shorter than the rest of us and girls like Asia make fun, but Preslee Carmichael’s small waist and flaring lines make most of my fellow female classmates jealous. Add in her thick, platinum hair now streaked with pink and big Caribbean Ocean eyes and she’s perfect. Even when she forgoes her contacts and wears her thick cat-eye slanted glasses, you can’t deny her beauty. One day all these boys who think thin is where it’s at will realize what they’re missing in Preslee.

  I don’t have one single curve. My body is longer and years on the farm built tiny baby muscles on my biceps, but the hip and boob fairy breezed past my house and app
arently unloaded at Asia DeMarco’s. Carrie Lynn says I’m a late bloomer and only twelve. She promises my boy body will catch up with everyone else’s. I figure it’s punishment for pretending to be a guy all these years. Careful what you wish for and all that.

  Her eyes widen, glittering in their sockets. She bounces up from her seat situating the tiers of her sunshine yellow miniskirt before bounding to her closet. When she bends over, I see the edges of her panties.

  “Uh, Pres, don’t bend over at the party,” I suggest, containing a giggle.

  “Thought it felt drafty back there,” she returns, winking at me over her shoulder. “Ah ha, here it is,” she exclaims, dragging a large box from the back. “Something in here should fit.” Dust bunnies float to the ceiling when she yanks open the flaps. Articles of clothing flip from her fingertips, joining the already mountainous pile on the floor. She digs until she reaches the bottom. “Yessss,” she hisses, “Let’s tart you up, my friend.”

  Thirteen

  MAZRIC

  TICK, TICK. THE PENDULUM on the large grandfather clock in the corner swings marking the passing time. Vivianne offers us tea and tells me to chill because my nervous energy is messing with the flow of the house. Hendrix strums a blue and white Fender American Pro Stratocaster, filling the air with chords before stopping and jotting down notes on music paper. He’s cool and calm wearing ripped faded jeans, a black T-shirt with Metallica scrawled across his chest in block silver letters, and loose-laced, scuffed motorcycle boots. His hair hangs in stringing chunks tucked behind his ears and ink stains his fingers.

  I mulled over my outfit forever, wondering what I want to remember wearing the night I got tit for the first time. I settled on a dark pair of Levi’s with a wide black belt, my well-worn Kobe Bryant Lakers tee tucked in, and topped it with a zip-up fleece hoodie before slipping on an old pair of brown work boots. Before Preslee and Sam ramped up my anxiety, I added mousse to my hair, piecing it together to sweep up and off to the side. In the last thirty minutes I ruined the effort by fisting it in my hands. Now the top hangs limp in my eye.

  At last Elvis hops down the stairs in a bright yellow, way too short, skirt, a white crop top with a hand making a peace sign reveals a slim patch of her belly showing off her bellybutton ring. Through her threadbare shirt I see lace of the yellow bra she wears underneath. Her white hair hangs in ringlets over her shoulders and the pink streaks shine in the overhead light. Makeup covers her face and sweeping black eyeliner makes her blue eyes brighter. She’s gorgeous. When she bounces up next to me in her mile-high heels, my eyes won’t stop watching her chest bounce.

  Hey, she might be my friend but the girl’s got phenomenal boobs. Off-limits titties but I’d have to be a dead man to not appreciate the round plump fullness. I’m so lost in the jiggle and shake I don’t see Sammy Lee come down. No, I miss her until the sweetness of sugar and fruit urges my tightening crotch to follow my nose. She smells the same as Preslee, but with a more enticing mixed temptation of fresh-cut hay carried on a warm summer breeze and an underscored hint of gasoline and oil.

  The girl standing on the bottom step is my best friend but more. Big black shoes on her feet hide under the same green cargo pants she had on, but now they sit lower on her hips held in place by a wide black belt with a jewel encrusted horseshoe buckle. Her flat stomach is on display up to the elastic edge of a flowing sheer pale green top with subtle flowers dotting the material. The sleeves fall off her shoulders, exposing the long lean column of her neck, but it’s not the clothes making my blood boil. Instead of a wild untamed ponytail, her ebony hair lays shining and straight, spilling over her shoulders and reaching down to her ass like an onyx waterfall. Her wide green eyes are more vivid and alive, accented with kohl lines, sweeping brown shadow, and mile-long lashes brushing her cheeks with each blink. Shimmering pink dusts her cheeks and her sexy spray of freckles hide under an airbrushed layer of makeup.

  “No, no, n-o-p-e,” I protest, twirling a finger. “Go back up there, wipe that shit off and put your sweatshirt back on.”

  Preslee argues but Sammy Lee stands blinking at me. When did her lashes grow so long and how long have her eyes been so hypnotically green?

  “I see nothing wrong with her.” Hendrix tugs a beanie down over his long hair, shoving strands out of his eyes and behind his ears. “She’s cute and we’re late.” He throws a leather jacket at Sam. “Put that on. Problem solved. Let’s go. Aunt Vivianne is waiting in the car.”

  Preslee harrumphs as Sam slips into Hendrix’s too big coat. Can’t say I like her wearing his shit any more than I cared for what she has on.

  The girls head to the car. Hendrix slaps my shoulder. “Your idea, man. Jealousy is an ugly emotion. You talked me into this thing, so let’s hit it, and you can show me how the other side lives.” He shoves me toward the door.

  I’m not jealous. Stop looking at me like that. I’m not.

  Sammy Lee needs protecting. For all her brains, she’s young. Johnny would want me to watch out for her. Yeah, that’s all it is. A gut-wrenching worry for her safety. This burning in my chest and brick in my stomach is nerves not desire. We’ll get to the party, and I’ll bury my face in Asia’s boobs for a good motorboating and this, whatever it is, will go away.

  Fourteen

  SAMANTHA

  MAZRIC HASN’T SAID two words to me since we left the house, which I gotta say has confused the crap out of me. I mean come on, the first time I try to look the least bit like the girl I am, he turns all Johnny Gentry on me, no, he became worse than my daddy. Daddy never looks hard enough to notice, too many bad memories of Mama hidden in my green eyes. Aside from a series of grunts, my best friend stoicism is killing my enjoyment of knowing I never have to go back to that horrible school again. Thankfully, thinking about what’s stuck in his craw keeps my nerves over the party at bay.

  Vivianne cruises down the main drag past all the shops. At the edge of town, she turns on DeMarco Way.

  Yes, the DeMarco’s have their very own road. First item Asia’s father checked off his list when elected mayor of Seven Mile Forge ten years ago was to give himself a street. It’s the best kept roadway in town. We approach looming concrete towers and a huge iron gate. As Viv comes to a stop, a hulking man with a gun on one hip and a Taser on the other exits a tiny building asking for ID and the reason for the visit.

  Within seconds he disappears and the gate swings open. Beyond the steel, trees hide the house.

  “They have a security guard,” Preslee whispers. “What are they afraid of? The worst thing to happen in SMF is when Bobby Lee scaled the water tower to profess his love for Clara Belle with a red painted heart.”

  “Perhaps they’re scared Ole Man Brisbee’s gonna drunk drive his John Deere down here. I mean, Chief Buford indulges him by giving chase behind at two miles-per-hour before citing him with operating while intoxicated. Man’s never gonna get his license back,” Vivianne adds, laughing.

  Our giggles die when we break through the tree line. “Holy crap. Asia lives in a life-size Barbie DreamHouse,” Preslee squeals.

  I stare up at the bubble gum pink monstrosity with the baby blue clay tile roof. Preslee is spot on with her assessment. Years ago, when I traded my dolls for tools, the dollhouse was the first thing to go. Mama was so proud when she saved enough to buy me the brand-new Victorian Dream House. And here it stands in living color.

  “No wonder they keep it hidden behind the trees,” Mazric grumbles.

  “Well go on, y’all,” Viv says, waving her hand to usher us out of the car. “I’ll be back at ten unless you call sooner.”

  The minute we shut the doors, she zips down the drive fast enough she’d kick up dust if there were any. We stand shoulder to shoulder, staring up at the pretentious white columns stretching up to the latticed balcony spanning the entire second floor. Another SUV full of partygoers rolls up. As they exit, Asia bounds down the front steps.

  Her face turns predatory with a sneering grin and I catch her si
de-eye me over her shoulder, as she drags Mazric by the hand through the white door with a stained glass rose etched in the oval center.

  We’re ushered through the immaculate parlor along a straight path to a double set of back doors. “The party’s in the pool house,” she informs.

  Our feet slap on the concrete around the tarp-covered hourglass-shaped pool to a small building where loud music vibrates the windows. Asia left us behind, not wanting to walk in with the geek squad but staking her claim on Mazric.

  Inside the various cliques group around a makeshift dance floor. Speakers stretch to the ceiling blaring Just Lose It by Eminem at brain shaking volume. A maroon floral couch sits in the far corner with matching plush chairs on either side. To our left, an opening shows a hallway with three closed doors. A kitchenette with a bar separates the rooms behind the sound system. Snacks line the counter surface next to a stack of red cups and a punch bowl. For a pool house it’s spacious enough to be a home. Freestanding lamps covered with colored scarves create a rainbow of color on the dark paneled walls.

  Preslee urges us to the sofa and the music drowns the sound of her heels on the hardwood floor. “Well, well, well, look who’s trying to fit in.” Brooklyn Cates, Paris Jones, and Dallas Evans hover in front of us staring daggers at my straight hair. The Townies new addition, Dallas, appears uncomfortable and wanting to be anywhere else. She’s not as vapid as the others but popularity is wicked and necessary, so she follows their lead.

  “Oh look, Sam, Brooklyn’s using their shared brain cell. Better get back over with Asia or she’ll forget how to breathe without her friends whispering ‘in and out’ in her ear,” Preslee sasses.