by Carrie Jones
“Obviously,” Em repeats, starting the car again. “Why did I shut this off?”
I lean in, smell her mandarin orange skin soap. “Because you were good and didn’t want to waste gas.”
“Right!” Anna says, plucking a water bottle off the floor, opening it and giving it a gulp. “Good Emily. But I like Kermit. Like how he’s so crazy awkward that Miss Piggy is chasing him around in a total lust frenzy. It’s like a role reversal.”
Em zooms out of the driveway. Her car tires kick up dirt, dust, little pebbles jolted out of their place by the movement of wheel and force.
“Role reversal?” I repeat.
“Yeah, because usually it’s the guy who’s chasing the girl, but the truth is that’s so not the truth, you know?” Anna’s voice gets all high-pitched excited. “The truth is that it’s the girls who usually chase after the guys. Remember middle school?”
I mind flash an image of Mimi latching onto Tom, grabbing his maroon EMS sweatshirt with the duct tape on the elbows, telling him how cute he was. “Oh yeah.”
“And in first grade when we had the kissing girls and we played tag but we only chased boys and then we kissed them and got points by how hot they were,” Em sighs. “I loved that game.”
“Dylan was a hundred points,” I say. “Tom and Shawn were like fifty. So, Anna, you dyed your hair to celebrate the role reversal of Muppets from an ancient television show, when it wasn’t even a role reversal at all?”
Anna nods. Her hair flops into her face. “It’s all about media distortion.”
I turn back around to face front, pick up the ripped-off cover of a Glamour magazine. The cover says the actual magazine’s got an article on how to catch your guy’s guy and super hot sizzling secrets in bed. “Is this all related to the teenage boy awkward sex thing you were talking about in Pat’s last night?”
Anna’s voice echoes through the car. “Yep.”
“So, it’s like you’re just trying to prepare me for bad sex.” I fold the magazine cover over and over again until it’s just a tiny square of shiny color. “Great.”
Em reaches over and pats my arm. There’s a tiny cut on her knuckle shaped like a moon. “It will be fine when you guys do it, I swear.”
“Colossal,” Anna giggles.
“Life changing.”
“Monumental.”
“Brilliant.”
“Miss Piggy inspiring.”
“Enough!” I bark at them, turning Em’s radio back on. I push the volume up to twenty so I can’t hear them anymore. It’s on Bangor’s one hip-hop station. It’s a Justin Timberlake song about consequences, which is great. “Can we put in some Christine Lavin?”
“No. Today is not a Bellie Folk Girl Day.” Em points at me. I grab her finger and pretend like I’m going to bite it. She squeals. “Today is a Bad Girl Buying Condoms Day.”
Anna manages to yell over the Justin Timberlake muttering. “Onward to condom quest!”
Em floors it. We move forward, faster and faster towards the next piece of road, the next piece of land, the next purchase of latex-covered awkwardness.
“Okay,” I whisper in a commando voice, nodding with my head at Em and Anna, my back pressed against the end of the Wal-Mart beauty products aisle. “Little Foot you go right. Killing Queen you go left.”
Latex-ware? What would Kermie think?
Em nods, starts a stealthy trot right and then says, “Little Foot is a stupid name. That’s not a cool name.”
I sigh. “Fine. Vampire Slayer.”
“Too used.” She crosses her arms and her pretend gun, which is really her index finger and thumb, balls up into a fist. Anna snorts and then looks so embarrassed she covers her mouth, which only makes us all laugh harder.
Marge Torrance, who works in the mouse room at the Jackson Lab over in Bar Harbor, pushes a shopping cart past us. Her little girl is hiccupping and asking for a Barbie.
“Maybe,” Marge says. The carriage wheel is loose and it makes a jarring noise that’s in synch with the hiccups, like it’s the bass beat to some generic Wal-Mart hip-hop song.
We wait until she passes, heading into the aisle full of toaster appliances and I offer up, “Okay. How about Sperm Slayer?”
Anna jumps back. “Uck.”
“Your guns, girls!” I say and make a fake gun with my fingers. They copy me and start to giggle. “This is serious! Okay.”
I point at Em with my gun hand. She ducks and I bark, “No more talking back unless you want to buy your own tampons. You are now the Uterine Avenger. Now go!”
We scatter.
Anna’s assignment: three boxes of condoms.
My mission: a box of tampons. Two boxes of condoms, which I will hopefully some day actually get to use.
Em’s mission: volumizing shampoo and Cheez-Its—a.k.a. camouflage.
We don’t want to make it too obvious what we’re really here for.
We rendezvous at the self-checkout lane.
Anna and Em are laughing so hard that they’re having a hard time standing up straight, but they’re trying to shield their purchases from the eyes of my mother’s new boss, Mr. Jones, who is buying a hair dryer and some film with his wife and daughter at the next lane.
“Oh my God,” I say as I frantically push the first box of condoms over the bar code scanner. It beeps.
On the screen, in bright blue letters it reads: TROJAN. $4.99.
Em points at it and starts laughing again.
“Shut up!” I tell her.
“The commander commando has lost her cool,” Anna says as I scan in the other condoms. Em moves her position to bagging, plopping everything into the plastic Wal-Mart bag with the gigantic yellow smiling face. What is he smiling about?
Mr. Jones strides over. “Hey, Belle. How are you doing?”
I whirl around. Anna takes over with the scanning. The stupid thing beeps in another box of condoms. Then there’s the comforting sound of plastic crinkling as Em slams the box into the Wal-Mart bag.
“Oh. Hi, Mr. Jones. I’m great.”
I make a big, fake smile and wave at his wife, and Cala, his little girl. She hugs my leg.
“I love gymnastics,” she says. “You’re my favorite teacher.”
The scanner beeps some more, hopefully it’s the tampons.
“You’re a great gymnast,” I say and grab Cala, heave her up and twirl her around in my arms. I pivot so the rest of the Jones family is no longer facing our checkout with its condom boxes but watching us. Cala tilts her head back and laughs. Then I haul her over my head like she’s an airplane. Her little belly sticks out of her shirt and she giggles.
“Prepare for landing. Deploy landing gear,” I say and whirl her down, down, down, until she’s standing on the floor.
The moment her feet touch, she jumps up again, reaching out her arms and yelling, “More! More!”
Mrs. Jones shakes her head and grabs Cala’s hand, while looking at me. “You’re a great kid, Belle Philbrick. You’re going to be a great mommy some day.”
Behind me, Em announces, “We’re done with our purchases!”
Anna snorts.
Mr. Jones smiles at them and says to me, “Tell your mom to take it easy. She works herself too hard.”
“Okay,” I say.
“I heard she went on a date last night,” his wife says.
“You heard that?”
She smiles an apology. “It’s Eastbrook. Everyone knows everything about everyone. You know that, Belle. Sad but true.”
“And if they don’t know it they make it up,” Anna says, slugging one of her arms around my shoulder while Em starts chasing little Miss Cala Jones in a happy little circle. Em woofs at her, pretending to be a puppy, the blue Wal-Mart bag full of condoms, tampons, Cheez-I
ts and volumizing shampoo banging against her leg.
Mr. Jones ushers them all out after trying to get Cala to calm down. They wave goodbye. Cala blows kisses and then takes off through the half door that only shopping carts are supposed to use. Her little fanny wiggles in a defiant girl dance. You have to like that kid.
It isn’t until the Jones family is safely through all automatic doors and in the parking lot that Anna, Em and I lose it completely, grabbing each other’s shoulders, shaking with laughter and the relief of having escaped.
Operation Uterine Safety is complete.
Anna has stuff to do and leaves us, but she takes her prized box of condoms.
“Anna?” I lean out the car window. “Um. Who are those for?”
“I’m going Boy Scout. You know.” She snaps her fingers and cheesy-1970s points at us. “Be prepared.”
She salutes and skips up the walk to her house. Em squeals her tires backing out of Anna’s driveway, and runs her hands through her hair as we speed down the dirt roads of Hancock back towards Eastbrook.
“Thanks for getting me the tampons,” she says.
I clear my throat and wave to Danny Brown, who is biking down the bumpy, windy road. “And … ”
“And thanks for getting me the condoms, too,” she says.
Danny Brown is shirtless and he clutches a fishing pole in his right hand. He pedals slow, like he’s got all the time in the world. Anna’s little sister was hit by a car in Hancock. She died. Hancock’s always trying to petition the state for money to help them make breakdown lanes. The state keeps putting it off. You have to hate the state for that. Em honks at Danny. He laughs and gives her the finger.
“The Joneses were really cute at Wal-Mart,” I say. “They totally love their kid.”
“It’s disgusting.” Em laughs.
“I think it’s sweet. People should be nice to their kids. Usually people are screaming at their kids in Wal-Mart.”
Em turns onto Route 3, by the old cheese house where they used to sell cheese or something, way before we were born. It’s got a FOR LEASE sign up on the window.
It makes me sad. “It must’ve been hard on the cheese-house people when their business closed. It must be so hard to be a business owner, or even a parent, I guess. I mean, like you have to be all good parent all the time.”
“Right,” Em shakes her head. “Like your mom is.”
“She tries.”
“True.”
“She’s not a bad parent. At all.”
“Also true. I am going to be a sucky parent,” Em announces. “The whole diaper thing.”
I think of Em woofing at the Jones kid. “You’ll be a good parent.”
“Yeah, right.”
We get stuck behind an RV going twenty miles per hour.
“Swear to me that when I’m old you will not allow me to buy an RV,” Em says. “Swear it!”
“I will not allow you to buy an RV.”
“Or drive thirty miles under the speed limit.”
“I swear.”
“Or be one of those screaming mothers at Wal-Mart.”
I put my hand up in the air like I’m doing that Boy Scout Pledge thing. “I swear that you will not be one of those mothers, or one of those fathers if you have a sex change or something.”
“Belle!” she starts laughing. The RV slows down more. “I don’t want to get old and have to drive slow and be all responsible. I don’t want blue hair either.”
“Downer there, Em. The other day, Tom had this quote—”
“Duct taped?”
“Of course.”
“Where? I think I’m going to have to pass the RV.”
“Not on the right.”
She glares at me. “I promise. I will pass on the left.”
She peeks the car out, but there are other cars coming, big cars that are half SUV and half tractor-trailer truck.
“It was taped around his wrist. He has nice wrists.”
“And it said?”
“‘Freedom is the will to be responsible to ourselves.’ It’s Nietzsche I think.”
“Tom is weird.”
We nudge out again. Em’s frantic to pass. “I know.”
We’re clear. She stomps on the gas and her little, red car zips into the other lane, fast, fast, faster. We’re free.
“I think a better quote would be, ‘Responsibility is the freedom that comes from acting our will,’” I say. “Nice pass.”
“You’re trying to out-quote Nietzsche. A little pompous there, huh, Bellie?”
I smile. “Just a little.”
We go back into our proper lane. Em drives on. “You should probably stick to song lyrics.”
“I know.”
Emily has to work. I have homework and I have to ride my bike and play Gabriel. Tom and Shawn both have to work too. They do landscaping stuff and always get all smelly.
Our mail comes in the middle of the afternoon on Saturdays. I rush out, hoping there will be info about college. I still haven’t gotten the letter that says who my roommate’s going to be and all that.
But there’s nothing good in there. Just bills and flyers from real estate guys who want to BE OUR BEST FRIEND and MAKE A GOOD SALE because FRIENDS HELP FRIENDS. I start crumpling up the flyer as I walk back down our flat little driveway. I hate how fake people can be.
“Hey Belle!”
Eddie’s voice hits me.
I turn around, check to see if anyone’s looking and give a weak wave. “Hey, Eddie.”
He’s wearing long jean shorts that are just above his knees and a black wrestling T-shirt. He’s holding his mail.
“What’re you up to?”
“Homework. Stuff,” I say and turn around again and start back down the driveway. One step. Another step.
His voice stops me. “You feeling okay?”
“Yeah.”
“No repeats?”
“I’m good,” I shout over my shoulder but my stomach’s all cringed up. No repeats. There will be no repeats.
“Hey! You want to hang out?”
I whirl around. The mail drops on the driveway. It scatters across the asphalt. I start picking it up. Eddie darts across the street. I hold out my arm straight like a crossing guard.
“I’ve got it,” I say.
“I just wanted to help,” he says, eyes wounded.
“I know.”
We just stare at each other and I don’t know what I’m supposed to say next.
I’m really mad at you Eddie.
I’m really mad at me for not hating you.
I’m really mad and sad too and embarrassed.
Tom was right, and if you’d done what you did to me to any of my friends or even someone who wasn’t my friend I would kill you, even if you were high when it happened. You still were responsible. Right?
But I don’t say anything, because my cell phone rings. I open it up really quickly and say, “Hi.”
“Hi,” says a handsome male voice. “It’s me.”
“It’s Tom,” I say to Eddie and wave goodbye, hauling away into the house because it’s a safe place to be. I look down at my right hand. It almost feels funny, that jerky feeling. The mail shakes a little. Obviously nerves. Right?
“You want to see a movie tonight?”
“Again?”
“Yeah.”
“With Shawn and Em?”
“Nah,” he says. “Just you and me.”
“Oh, like a real date.”
“Yeah, a real date with just two people.”
“Are Em and Shawn okay with that?”
His voice hardens up. “Belle. We don’t have to ask them permission.”
“I know. I just
… I don’t want them to feel left out.”
“They’re going contra dancing with Shawn’s mom.” Amusement makes his voice hoarser.
I giggle, trying to imagine it. “Poor babies.”
“So, you and me?”
“Okay, if you really don’t want to go contra dancing.”
“Commie, you kill me.”
I sit on the stairs. “I promised my mom I’d have dinner with her, but after that?”
“The nine o’clock,” he says. “It’ll give me a chance to shower.”
I imagine him all grass-smelling and salty-sweat from mowing lawns and cutting bushes and weed whacking.
“You don’t have to.”
He chuckles. I imagine his lopsided smile that’s a little bit smirk, a little bit dangerous. “Oh, you like me all man-gross.”
I bite my lip because I do.
Once I’ve dropped my mail on the counter and trotted into my room, I decide to procrastinate and make a list. A Tom list. I write it on my computer. This is stupid, but I am stupid and I’ve obviously read Sloppy Firsts too many times. So …
Things That Are Good About Tom Tanner
The way he can smell like pine or like mint or like grass, but there’s always this sexy Tom smell underneath.
The way he calls at just the right moment.
The way his cheek twitches when things bother him.
Those creases in his legs. I will not think about those muscle lines in his legs because he is not here right now and it is dangerous to think about these things because they make me long for him. Long should be with a capital L. Longing hurts.
The way he makes me long for him.
Crap.
I take Gabriel out to the backyard and plop myself down between two big spruce trees, leaning my back up against the trunk of Clannad, which is what I named the tree when I was little. The other one I named Guthrie. Muffin follows me out. Her tail twitches because she’s looking for something to hunt.
“No killing,” I tell her, scratching the top of her head.
She casts me a disdainful look worthy of Mimi Cote, and saunters off. I start working, tune Gabriel up, and practice some legato slides before I get into the heavy stuff. Legato slides are when you hit the note and then slide your finger down the string to the second note. You don’t strike the second note. It’s a nice noise. Gabriel likes it.