"It's all right," Celia said softly to me. "I can't say I wasn't high-strung when I was a kid."
"I'm not a kid. I'm fifteen, nearly sixteen, and in some countries, women are married at my age and already have children of their own,"
Everyone stared, and then suddenly, they all laughed. Even Mama looked hysterical.
"They do!" I cried, which made them laugh harder. "Stop laughing at me!"
"We're not laughing at you." Mama said. "It's just funny to hear."
"Or to imagine you caring for children," Brenda said.
I glared at Celia and then lowered my eyes to my plate and continued to eat.
"This all so wonderful, Mrs. Taylor," Celia told Mama.
"Weren't your parents disappointed in your not going home for Thanksgiving?" Mama asked her.
I looked up quickly. That was a good question. How could she come here? Why was being with Brenda, someone she was with all the time, anyway, more important than being with her own family? Mama wouldn't approve of that. Mama always considered family very important. She finally realized it, I thought, and looked gleefully at Celia, who first threw a glance at Brenda.
"My parents were divorced. Mrs. Taylor." Celia began. "They divorced when I was only eight. My father had a girlfriend on the side, and my mother found out."
"Oh. I'm sorry," Mama said, bringing her hands to the base of her neck. She fingered the ruby necklace Daddy had given her on her birthday two years ago.
"My mother took it very hard. She thought it was her fault somehow, and no one, no therapist, anyone, could convince her otherwise."
Mama shook her head sympathetically. "How is she now?" she asked.
"She's dead," Celia replied. "She took too many sleeping pills one night, and it was too late to do anything by the time I found her. I went to live with my father's mother, actually. My father remarried, and his new wife wasn't keen on having me move in with them."
"How horrible for you," Mama said, practically coming to tears.
"My grandmother passed away last year." Celia continued, "and I really don't have anything more to do with my father. I think he's responsible for everything terrible that's happened, and he knows that's how
I
feel, so going to his home for Thanks ring wouldn't be very pleasant. I was grateful for your invitation:"
"Oh, of course. We're so happy to have you," Mama said, nodding at me.
I didn't say anything. What could I say? Despite all the sad and terrible events of her life. Celia Harding was a vibrant, cheerful, and beautiful young woman. Maybe that was why Brenda was so fond of her. She gave her hope about herself, not that I ever thought Brenda was too weak to overcome the sorrowful events of our lives. I supposed they were good for each other, and although I was jealous, I had to accept it reluctantly and be happy for them both.
The conversation at dinner changed to happier topics. Celia told Mama about her plans to become an advertising executive. She had taken a number of courses in psychology, and she loved marketing and how images and words manipulated and controlled the way people thought and lived their lives. She did make it sound very interesting. She said she wanted to begin by working for some magazines and gradually get to the point where she had her own advertising firm. Mama sat there nodding as if she expected nothing less. No goal was beyond the reach of such an intelligent and attractive woman,
"I'm thinking of getting back into the working community myself," Mama said. To me, it sounded like an echo. I couldn't count how many times Brenda and I had heard her say that before.
"That's good, Mrs. Taylor. You should. It would enrich your
"Oh, please, don't call me Mrs, Taylor. Call me Nora," Mama said. "You'll make me feel old."
They three of them laughed.
I rose and began to clear the table.
"April has been such a help to me." Mama said, putting her hand on my arm. "I don't know where I'd be without her. Half the time, she's the one preparing our dinner, and she's becoming a better cook than I am."
"Mama!" I said, For some reason, it
embarrassed me to have Mama tout my good qualities in front of Brenda's friend. I glanced at her and saw her smiling up at me.
"As long as she doesn't end up looking like a plump chef," Brenda commented.
I felt myself redden and quickly retreated to the kitchen to put the dishes and glasses into the dishwasher. Celia offered to help, too. but Mama insisted she and Brenda go relax in the living room. When I finally entered the living room, they were making plans for the next day. Brenda was going to show her around Hickory.
"What's there to show her?" I interjected.
"I'd like to see where Brenda grew up," Celia told me, and then smiled at Brenda. "Where a person lives tells you a lot about her, not that I don't know a lot already," she added, and once again, they both giggled like teenagers.
"If you want to, you can come along," Brenda told me.
I shrugged and plopped into Daddy's chair and listened to them chat about other girls at the dorm, some of the events that were coming up at the college, and Brenda's achievements on the basketball team. Even though Celia didn't strike me as the athletic type, she seemed well-informed about the league and the upcoming games leading to the championship. They were in contention, and from what Celia was saying. Brenda was a big reason why,
"I didn't attend any of the games until Brenda came to play for our school." Celia admitted.
Mama came in and listened to them talk, too. She practically said nothing for a long while, but just sat there with that smile frozen on her face. When they laughed, she widened her smile or giggled as they did. Once again, she began to tell some of her awn college stories, even one about a boyfriend she had.
"You never said anything about him before. Mama," I interjected.
She laughed lightly like someone caught fabricating. "Your father is not one to appreciate hearing about my past love affairs,
if
you could call it that. It was just an infatuation."
I looked at Brenda to see if she was as disturbed as I was about Mama using the present tense in relation to Daddy, as if he were still alive and in the other room. She seemed not to hear. I don't think she heard anything. She was just staring at Celia with a smile on her face that mimicked Mama's.
We watched some television together. but Celia and Brenda interrupted everything with their silly comments. I was glad
when they decided they were tired. Mama admitted to being tired herself, and everyone went off to bed, leaving me staring at the glowing box, not seeing or hearing anything in particular. I just wanted to be defiant and stay up longer than the rest of them. I wasn't going to sleep simply because Celia yawned, That was for sure.
Finally. I gave in. I didn't realize just how exhausted I was until I crawled under my blanket. I think I was asleep less than a minute after my head hit the pillow, but for some reason, my eves snapped open about two-thirty in the morning. It was almost as if someone had nudged me.
My room wasn't that dark, because there was a full moon, and it was just in position to send its rays full blast at my side of the house. The shade lit up, and shadows from the weeping willow tree outside danced over it, taking odd shapes and holding my interest.
Then I heard the distinct sound of a door opening. I listened hard and heard what I was sure were voices. Curious. I rose and went to my door, opening it slowly to peer into the hallway.
Celia was standing in Brenda's doorway. She was in a nightgown, her hair down over her shoulders and back. She was barefoot. I could just see Brenda inside. She was naked. It surprised me because I never saw Brenda sleep naked. If anything, she liked to wear Daddy's pajamas and, as far as I knew, still did.
I
kept quiet.
I
couldn't make out anything they were saying. They were whispering now. Celia laughed and then quickly covered her mouth, and they both giggled.
When
would I ever have a friend like that?
I
wondered sadly.
I
was about to close the door and return to bed, when Celia leaned toward Brenda. and they kissed.
Only, it wasn't a good-night best-friend kiss on the cheek. Oh, no.
It
was a kiss on the lips, a kiss like a kiss between a man and a woman, romantic and held much longer than a good-night kiss should be held.
My own breath stopped.
Celia turned and looked my way.
I
felt the blood rush up my neck and into my cheeks.
I
froze.
I
couldn't close the door. Her gaze held mine for a moment, and then she smiled that angelic smile and returned to her bedroom.
Brenda didn't see me.
She closed her door softly. Celia closed hers.
And the only sound
I
heard was the drumbeat of my own heart as it marched my blood around my trembling body.
Perhaps because of what I had seen and its effect on me. I fell into more of a coma than a sleep and didn't wake up until much later than usual. I had no real reason to make so much of what I had seen Celia and Brenda do. It was just a kiss. Maybe the way they kissed was their private joke. I had heard college changes you, and such unusual behavior could be something silly college girls did. I couldn't stop thinking about it, however, because of all the dirty jokes and nasty things boys said to me about Brenda in school.
By the time I showered and dressed and went to have breakfast. Mama told me Brenda and Celia had left.
"They left? But why didn't anyone wake me? I was supposed to go along," I whined.
"Really? I would have wakened you, but no one said anything," Mama told me.
"I'm not surprised," I muttered, even though if anyone really checked, they would know I hadn't told Brenda I wanted to go along for sure. I had been annoyed that she was even thinking of doing something without me. so I didn't act excited about the idea. I just had assumed she wouldn't leave without me. How could she not want to spend as much time as possible with me?
After all, it had been months since we had seen each other. "What do you mean. April?"
"Nothing," I said quickly. I didn't know what to say, since I didn't really know what to think.
"Well, we're all going out to dinner tonight. We all decided that we didn't want to eat leftovers after all," Mama said.
"We all decided? No one asked me."
"Don't you want to go out? Your father hates eating leftovers," she said, and then caught herself this time and added. "hated.'"
"Yes. I want to go out." I said.
I made some cold cereal and strawberries with skim milk, but I didn't finish it. My stomach was still twisted. Afterward. I put on a jacket and went for a walk with my hands in my pockets and my head down. I didn't even notice where I was walking. Direction didn't matter.
After Brenda had left for college. I thought about the day I would leave for college, too. Despite what I had said at the dinner table about going far away. I often fantasized that I would follow Brenda and go to the same school. I'd be there while she was still there, and my big sister would show me around. I'd be proud, because by then, she would surely be a
star on the campus, and just being her sister would allow me to share some of the spotlight, the way it had when she was attending public school. I'd be thinner by then and maybe would have a boyfriend. There was even the possibility Brenda and I would go out on double dates with our boyfriends. We'd finally become real sisters in every sense of the word, confiding secrets about our love lives to each other, looking out for each other, loving each other the way sisters should.
How childish all those fantasies seemed now. As we grew older, the distance between us would only grow as well, I thought. I could never catch up to her. Brenda would be off on a whole new path that didn't include me at all. I'd be just like any other fan in the stands watching her play. Maybe. Maybe I would gradually stop going altogether,
With Daddy gone, with Brenda moving off like a planet that had broken its orbit, and with Mama drifting. I felt lost and very insecure. I wished Uncle Palaver could run his hand over my head and simply make me disappear. I walked along, feeling sorry for myself. I didn't even notice that the sky had become thickly overcast and was threatening a cold rain. The wind strengthened, slicing through my jacket. but I didn't care about being cold.
I
wanted to suffer.
The blaring sound of a car horn jerked me out of my thoughts, and
I
looked up to see David Peet, Luke Isaac, and Jenna Hunter laughing hard in David's car. They were all in the front seat. Jenna sitting on Luke's lap. They had pulled alongside the sidewalk and apparently had been following behind me for a while, amused by my slow, thoughtful pace. The three of them were seniors, but I imagined it was questionable that any of them would actually graduate this year.
I really hadn't spoken at all to David since I met him in the dean's office last year. He would wink at me and tease me, asking if my father had taken away my scooter, and his friends would laugh along with him. I would ignore him and keep walking, Both Jenna and Luke had been in trouble almost as often as David. I would look at them and their friends in school and think how true that old saving was: "Birds of a feather flock together."
"Where's your scooter, Scooter?" David asked after he rolled down his window.
"I don't have a scooter." I said. "The joke is getting tired. I'm going to have to send it to a retirement home," I quipped, and Jenna shouted. "Whoa. I guess she told you, David."
David held his smile, but I could see he was surprised by my quick comeback.
"Where you going, Scooter? There's no Big Mac down this street.
Jenna giggled.
"Leave me alone." I said, and kept walking, but he continued to drive slowly beside the sidewalk, even though he was on the wrong side of the road.
"You need to loosen up, Scooter. Hang out with some real people for a change, and have some fun." David said. I kept walking. "I've been watching you, and so has Luke. Right, Luke?"
"Yeah," Luke shouted over him.
"We see you've lost weight. You might even turn out to be a good-looking woman, right, Luke?"
"Yeah."
I caught my breath and turned. "What do you want?"
"Just want to be friends, don't we, guys?"
"David is right. April. Relax," Jenna said. "Luke here likes you, so when we saw you walking, we thought we'd come by and see if you wanted to go with us to the mall."
I smirked. Sure, I thought, or, as Brenda would say. Yeah, right.
"It's the truth," Jenna insisted. She was leaning over David and looking out the window at me. Luke sat up so he could gaze over her as well.
Luke Isaac wasn't a bad-looking boy. He had thick black hair he wore long in the back
and
swept back on the sides, a dark complexion, and light blue, sexy, sleepy eyes.
I
suppose he was attractive to me and to most other girls because he just looked dangerous, as if he could rape you with his eyes. He wasn't the sort of boy you played eye tag with. Give him the sense you had some interest in him, and he would smile and leer and swing his eyes suggestively before he started in your direction. It was enough to make younger, innocent girls like myself turn and walk away as quickly as we could without attracting too much attention.
"Why do you want to tease me so much?"
I
asked the three of them.
David shook his head.
"I
told you she was too young, man.
I
told you we were wasting our time fooling around with her."
"We're not teasing you. April. Where are you going, anyway?" Jenna asked me. She surprised me by getting out of the car and coming around to talk to me.
Jenna was tall, as tall as Luke and David. She had light brown hair cut stylishly. Her mother was a beautician with her own shop. Jenna usually wore tight pants and a tank shirt with a leather jacket. Some days she had a ring in her nose, and some days she wore it in her belly button. especially when she wore low-hung jeans. She had already been suspended this year for smoking in the girls' room.
All I could think at the moment was that Brenda would be so angry if she saw me talking to these three. When she was still at my school, she was always warning me about staying away from this one or that one. She had picked up an expression from Daddy she loved: "It only takes one rotten apple to spoil the barrel."
"Keep away from the rotten apples," was her constant warning.
"I'm not going anywhere special," I told Jenna. "I'm just walking," I said.
She drew closer and played with my hair.
"You know, you should let it grow out. You're like me. You need some hair around your face, but you're not doing a good job with your bangs. What are you using for a shampoo?"
I looked at her to see if she was sincere. She looked and sounded as if she was.
"I'm going to be a beautician. so I know about these things," she said. "I'm already working in the shop, doing the shampoos and stuff."
I told her what I used, and she said it wasn't as good as what she had.
"I'll bring some to school for you so you can try it," she offered. "Can we get along here, please?" David cried.
"Hold your water," she fired back at him. Luke laughed,
Jenna put her arm around my shoulders and turned me away from the two boys, who were sitting and watching us, both smoking and smiling.
"You see, here's the way it is," Jenna continued, "Luke has this thing for younger girls who are obviously inexperienced. He thinks they're fresher or something, like ripe fruit. That's what he says. Did you realize he's been watching you in school?"
"No."
"He's a lot of fun. I'm with David. You probably know we've been on and off for a long time. We sorts have one of those hate-love things, you know. We fight and then have a helluva great makeup date." she added, smiling licentiously. "You should come with us," she said. "Have a little fun. See what it's like. What do they say? Nothing ventured, nothing lost?"
"No, nothing gained," I corrected.
"Whatever. You know what I mean. Whaddya say?"
"I don't know," I said. As always, I was attracted and repulsed by them at the same time.
"You know the rumors always livin' around about your sister," she said.
"What rumors?" I snapped at her.
"You know," she repeated. nodding. "Some people think it's inherited or something. You're not like that, are you? I mean, you don't like girls more than you do boys?"
"No," I said. "and neither does my sister. Those are just ugly, stupid stories,"
"Good. So come along and prove it. We're just having a good time."
I looked back at the car as though it could transport me into purgatory as easily as Funland. Wouldn't the other girls in school be surprised to see me riding around with Luke, Jenna, and David?
"You're just going to the mall to hang out?"
"That's it. We'll go to the Music Hall to listen and shop or," she said, leaning in. "shoplift." She laughed.
"C'mon already," David called. "I got an appointment with my dentist."
"His dentist?"
"He's just kidding. Coming?" she said, stepping back and holding out her hand.
I looked at the car and at her, and then I reached out and took her hand. It was like reaching across some chasm, at the bottom of which was a pool of boredom.
"Great."' she cried, and pulled me along.
Luke crawled aver the seat into the rear and opened the door. He fell back, his legs spread out.
"C'mon in, It's warm in here," he said. I hesitated.
"Scoot in. Scooter," David urged.
Jenna got in and closed her door. I did the same, but before I could close the door. David stepped on the accelerator, and the door slammed closed behind me.. I fell forward onto Luke, who laughed. Jenna screamed as we shot off down the street and turned the corner so sharply the wheels squealed.
Luke sat up and reached over to put his arm around me and
pull me closer.
"The way David drives.
I
better hold on to you," he said.
Jenna looked back and flashed a smile at me. Her eves were lit with excitement. David continued to accelerate when he turned onto a main highway.
I
could see we were going close to ninety miles an hour.
I
had never gone this fast in an automobile. My heart was pounding.
"Slow down." Jenna told David after she looked back at us again. "You've got the poor girl terrified. Don't worry," she told me. "David is used to driving fast."
"The problem is, he does everything too fast," Luke quipped, and they all laughed.
"How would you know that?" Jenna fired back at him.
It
was David's time to laugh.
"Don't you remember, Jenna? You told me," Luke countered, and they all laughed again.
Teasing and insulting each other was obviously their idea of
"Stop looking so worried, April," Jenna told me.
"Give her something to calm her down," David told Jenna, and jerked his head in my direction.
"Oh, sure," she said. "Here." She handed me a bag with an open bottle in it. "Take some of this."
"What is it?" I asked, without taking it.
"Just some good vodka. It'll warm you up and make you feel good."
"I don't drink," I said.
"Nobody drinks." Luke said. "but once in a while, it helps. No big deal. Go on, take a swig," he urged.
"You're not afraid of some vodka, are you. Scooter?" David taunted.
"No," I said. "I'm just not used to drinking."
Jenna held it out and smiled. "Get used to it," she suggested.
They were all watching to see what I would do. and I realized it was some sort of test. One sip can't hurt. I thought. I closed my hands around the bottle and brought the neck of it to my lips to take a very quick taste. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't anything delicious to me, either.
"That's not a drink. Take a real drink," Luke said, putting his hand under the bottom of the bottle and lifting it so I would bring it to my lips again.
I did, and he held it there while I swallowed and swallowed until I started to gag.
"Great!" Jenna cried.
"Good work. Scooter," David added.
Luke smiled and took a long drink from the bottle himself. "Good stuff. Where's it from, your daddy's private stash. David?"
"Matter of fact, it is," he said. "I poured it into that bottle and poured some water into his. He mixes it, anyway, so he won't know the difference," David said.
We were continuing down the highway and passed what I knew to be the exit for the mall. I looked back and nudged Jenna.
"I thought we were going to the mall."
"Yes, David," Jenna said. "I thought we were going to the "Later," he said. "I got a nice surprise for us."
"Oh, great." she squealed, and turned to me. "I love surprises, don't you. April?"
I shrugged. Luke handed me the bottle. "Your turn again." he said.
"I don't think I want anymore," I told him.
"Sure, you do. It will help you relax." He squeezed my shoulders, drawing me against him. "I can feel how uptight you are. You have to loosen up to get with it," he said. "Join the party."
"That's the surprise!" David cried. "We're having a party."
Luke brought the bottle to my mouth. "Hey, you hear that? That's great. Open now," he said. laughing.
"Go on, take a little more," Jenna said. "You'll love how you'll feel.
I let Luke put the bottle's neck to my lips again and swallowed as he held it up. It was like a father feeding his baby or something.
It
made me feel foolish. so I took the bottle out of his hands.
"I can do it myself." I snapped at him.
"That's the spirit. Scooter," David said. "Don't let him push you around."
"Look who's talking like a big shot. Mr. Henpecked," Luke told him.
I did take another long sip, and then I handed the bottle back to Jenna, who immediately drank. I thought to myself, since they were all doing it, it couldn't be so bad. I could feel it traveling quickly to my head, and either because they told me it would happen or I wanted it to happen. I felt myself loosen and relax.