“Like, U City guys,” Rudy said.
Was she joking? She must be joking. “Or college guys. That would show Houston,” I said, in case she wasn’t joking.
“Yes,” Rudy said just before her eyes started to leak fresh new tears.
9
Junior Fall
Remember how I said Rudy was built from extremes? She might have mellowed, let it all simmer on the back burner or something, for the first two years of our high school career, but feisty Rudy came back. And the first semester of junior year began with an explosion of bad decisions.
You know how they say you rebound from a break up? Well, when Rudy bounced back from her fall, she didn’t bounce back up quite the same. Maybe she got scratched by the rough ground at the bottom of the drop or maybe a pebble gouged out a little, nearly imperceptible piece of her. Or maybe at that point she hadn’t yet reached the bottom; maybe she had further to fall. Whatever it was, she didn’t rebound straight back up to her old self. Instead, she rebounded sideways. She bounced left; out of bounds. And I felt like I had no choice but to chase after her.
We started small. Tiny, in fact, with a trip to the Galleria to have our ears double pierced. We didn’t warn our parents (we were so squeaky clean, so new at this rebelling thing) beforehand, and when we left the jewelry store, both of us sporting little cubic zirconia studs beside the usual earrings in our sore, red earlobes, we were inflated with a fresh sense of freedom, individuality and maybe a little bit of recklessness. We strutted through the mall and into the parking garage. I felt, I thought, like an adult. I didn’t want to go back to Rudy’s where, under the chandeliers and beside the sparkling pool and on top of the freshly cut grass, we would decidedly be kids again.
Apparently, Rudy felt the same. “Do you want to go get coffee somewhere?”
“You read my mind.”
“Let’s go to Wash U. They have a coffee shop on campus, right?”
I frowned. “Yeah. But where can you park on campus without a pass?”
“I don’t know.”
We sat. We buckled our seatbelts.
“Your earrings look really good,” I told her.
“So do yours,” she countered.
“What about the loop? There’s a Starbucks there, right?”
“Okay.”
Rudy didn’t know how to parallel park; she had lost all of her points on the driving test in that one section. We circled the block twice before we found a lot where she could pull straight into a parking space. We donned our sunglasses and got out of the car. It was the first week of September, and we still wore cut-off jean shorts and tank tops. We were both as brown as pecans, and the tops of my toes were rough from a summer of too much chlorine and not enough moisturizing lotion.
Inside, we both ordered vanilla lattes, and I felt proud of my taste for coffee the same way I felt when I drank beer. Like an adult. We settled onto bar stools facing out toward the street. I glanced at a discarded Wall Street Journal beside me, decided I wasn’t feeling that adult after all, then turned to Rudy.
“What do you think your mom’s going to say when you get home?”
Rudy shrugged. “What about yours?”
“She’ll probably try to rip them out. I should’ve gotten little skulls, just to mess with her.”
I sipped my coffee but it was still too hot to drink. I rubbed the burnt tip of my tongue over the backs of my teeth and looked around.
Students with laptops and open textbooks occupied most of the tables. One of them, a boy in a flannel shirt and black glasses was twirling a pencil in his fingers. A girl wearing headphones was staring out the window, mouthing the words to whatever song was playing in her ears.
Outside the window the people passing by carried shopping bags and Styrofoam food containers. It was a Saturday. They didn’t look all that different from the people at Ogden, but there were fewer button down shirts.
“I’ve been thinking,” Rudy started, then interrupted herself with a drink from her latte. “We should volunteer for something.”
I raised one blonde eyebrow. “Like?”
“Like something to help people less fortunate than us.”
“Okay? Like a soup kitchen?”
“I was thinking more like Habitat for Humanity. You know, building houses.”
“We don’t know how to build anything.”
“Not everyone does the construction stuff. They need people to paint and do little things too.”
Oh.
“Then, when it’s finished you get to see all the hard work you did really amount to something. It’s tangible, you know?”
“Yeah.”
“We should sign up,” she concluded. “Let’s do it when we get back to my house.”
I know what you’re thinking. Those weren’t bad decisions at all, but really, things started to snowball from there.
“You two be very careful today.” Mrs. Golden turned around to address us when she dropped us off on our first Saturday in East St. Louis. “Stay with the group. And give Dad as much warning as you can to come pick you up.”
She glanced out the window as Rudy pushed the back door open. On the porch of the house she had pulled up beside, three men sat in lawn chairs, smoking cigarettes and watching us.
“Don’t walk around by yourselves,” she added quickly.
“We won’t, mom.” Rudy scooted out of the seat and I followed behind her. “Love you.”
“Love you too, sweetie,” Mrs. Golden smiled. “Proud of you girls!”
She drove away and we walked toward the group gathered around a white banner on the dead lawn of a rundown brick house. All the houses on the street were dilapidated – shingles hanging off the roofs, windows broken out and covered with blue or black pieces of tarp. There were broken beers bottles and wax paper soda cups lying all over the sidewalk. A big, hulking apartment building stood in the middle of the block and a young woman in a baggy t-shirt dragged a wailing child up the crumbling apartment steps. She wasn’t wearing a bra.
Mr. Golden had decided it would be better if we didn’t drive ourselves; he said we shouldn’t leave either of our cars parked there all day. I didn’t get it at first.
We approached the group timidly. We were definitely the youngest of anyone there. It wasn’t habitat for humanity – Rudy was wrong, they didn’t have a St. Louis project for the fall – but we were refinishing two rundown houses. A duplex, actually. It was five after eight in the morning and the project lead, a bald, pot-bellied guy with a kind smile and a tape measure attached to his belt loop, began his welcome speech and an introduction to the work we’d be doing. When he mentioned splitting into groups to tackle separate tasks, I stepped closer to Rudy. I stuck to her like I’d been velcroed on.
Rudy and I got assigned to a group of six who would work on one of the kids’ bedrooms. The lady in charge of our group wore a bandana around her short hair and had ashy elbows and knees. She looked like a construction worker, I decided.
“Welcome, team!” She called, waving us over, despite the fact that we were only ten feet away and already heading in her direction.
“Hi.” Rudy smiled a polite smile.
“Calissa.” The woman held out her hand, first to Rudy and then to me.
“I’m Rudy.”
“Jillian.” She squeezed my fingers.
A fourth member joined the circle then, extending his arm toward Calissa.
“Jim,” he said. He was wearing the kind of shoes that had rubber finger toes. Covertly, I made a face at Rudy.
“Great to have you guys in my group. Is this your first time?”
“Yes,” Rudy spoke for us.
“Great, great. Well I’m glad you came out to help. It’s really a rewarding experience,” Calissa grinned. “So, we should have two more helpers, hmm.”
She frowned at a clipboard in her hand. “Looks like we’re missing our other gentlemen helpers.”
“Anybody know Tank or Benji?” She glanced up at us.
>
What kinds of names were those?
We shook our heads.
“Okay, then. Well, snooze you lose, right? Let’s head in and see what we’re working with.”
Whatever I’d been expecting, this wasn’t it. Inside, there were holes in the walls. Pink and yellow stuffing was falling out of some of the holes and onto the carpet, which was an unappealing dark green and looked like it had been attacked by a pack of rabid dogs. One long tear divided the living room into uneven halves, and one side of it was marked with darker stains. The whole place smelled like cat piss. My nose tingled.
We followed Calissa upstairs.
“Don’t worry,” she called over her shoulder. “These stairs are okay. They’ll get some sprucing up, but they’re safe.”
The step beneath me creaked. I wasn’t sure I believed her.
The bedroom was tiny – it was barely bigger than Rudy’s bathroom – and there was a dirty, discarded toy rabbit lying in the corner, his beady black eyes staring up at the ceiling. I wanted to bolt out of the house and back to the Goldens as fast as I could run. Give me a tennis court; give me a trip to the mall. Our lives were so lucky. I fidgeted uncomfortably.
Calissa opened her mouth.
“Is this group seven?” A voice from behind us interrupted.
The four of us turned to see two boys standing in the open doorway. Tank and Benji, presumably.
“Welcome to group seven!” Calissa grinned again. I reevaluated the construction worker angle. She reminded me more of a therapist or an elementary school principal.
“Sorry we’re late.” The guys shuffled into the room, grinning sheepishly. They were good-looking. Who would have known?
“No problem, you’re here just in time.”
Calissa divided us into pairs to conquer the repainting, recarpeting, rewiring the lighting, building a shelving system for the tiny closet and a small window seat that would double as a toy chest. I had grabbed Rudy as my partner, and we’d been assigned to strip the old wallpaper and paint. The last time I’d painted was in Boston, when I did a watercolor princess mural on my pink bedroom wall. I was six. My mother had not been pleased.
Calissa and Jim left to get us some solution for the wallpaper and stuff for the guys to remove the old carpet. Once they were gone, I crouched over the rabbit. It was missing its little plastic nose.
“Planning on taking that home with you?” One of the boys teased me.
“Yeah, right.”
I pushed it with the toe of my tennis shoe, and a cockroach crawled out from underneath it. I yelped and jumped back against the wall.
“What?” Rudy caught my anxiety. “What is it?”
The boy who had teased me darted across the room and ground his foot into the wriggling bug. “Chill, it’s just a bug,” he smiled at me. “Look, it’s dead now.”
He lifted his foot to show me the dead roach, ground into the carpet.
“Thanks,” I muttered, blushing.
“I’m Benji.” He didn’t offer me his hand, so I knew he must be very close to our age.
“I’m Jillian.”
He looked to Rudy.
“Ruth Ann. But everybody calls me Rudy.”
We both looked at the second boy, who’d yet to speak.
“Tank.”
“Is that your real name?” Rudy asked.
He nodded.
“His mom was a crack head when she bestowed him with that,” Benji added.
Was he serious? Tank didn’t confirm or deny.
“Do you guys go to school here? UMSL or Wash U?”
He thought we were in college. Or, at least, he was pretending to think that. Either way, I was flattered.
“We’re from here. We’re high school seniors,” Rudy fibbed a little.
“That’s cool.” Benji ran a palm over his brown buzz cut. “Yeah, we go to Wash U. We’re sophomores.”
Something loud thumped against the wall downstairs and all four of us glanced down at the floor, as if we’d be able to see through it to the level below us. When I looked up, the guys were exchanging a look. I feigned an intense interest in my fingernails.
“So, have you guys done anything like this before?” Rudy soldiered on while I wallowed awkwardly. “This is our first time.”
“Same here,” Benji said.
“I’ve done Habitat for Humanity before,” Tank added. “Back in Boston.”
“You’re from Boston?” I perked up. “I moved here from Boston three years ago.”
“Oh, yeah? What part?”
“Okay, team.” Before I could answer, Calissa was back, her arms full of supplies. “I’ve got everything you need here. If you run out, just talk to Lou, the project lead. You know, the guy who spoke this morning?”
We nodded.
“Cool.” Calissa handed the box to Tank. “Jim and I are going to consult one of the electricians about the wiring work. If you need me, just come find me downstairs. Cool?”
We nodded again.
“Cool,” Benji spoke for all of us.
It was hot and stuffy in our little bedroom workspace, and the wallpaper – a dusty burgundy and gold flowered mess that couldn’t have looked good even when it was brand new – wasn’t coming off of the walls. No matter what we tried, it held on; the best we could do was pull off little chunks at a time, leaving behind a sticky residue. The smell of the solution made me light-headed; after an hour of work, the boys pushed open the only window in the room. Hot, Indian summer air leaked in through the torn screen but there wasn’t much of a breeze. By the time we broke for lunch at one, I was mortified to find that the back of my t-shirt was soaked with a spreading circle of sweat.
We’d warmed up to the boys, as it had been the four of us alone all morning long. They were funny, really. And smart, I thought. They were both sociology majors, from Boston and Philadelphia, and they were volunteering as extra credit for one of their semester classes. They definitely weren’t preppy, but they were cute. Different, if that’s what Rudy was after.
The four of us sat in a line on the curb and unpacked the brown paper bag lunches we’d been provided. I pulled out a flattened turkey and cheese sandwich and a shiny red apple. There was a Little Debbie snack cake at the bottom.
“What kind did you get?” Rudy asked, her hand in her own lunch bag.
“Zebra Cake. You?”
“Star Crunch. Trade?”
I nodded, and we swapped desserts. I set mine beside me on the cement to save for later.
“So, what’re you guys doing tonight after this thing’s over?” Benji spoke with his mouth full. He’d already finished half of his sandwich while I was still wrestling the plastic wrap off of mine.
“I don’t know.” I looked to Rudy.
“My dad’s supposed to pick us up when we’re finished. No real plans after that.”
“You need a ride?” Benji looked at Tank.
“We could give you a ride,” Tank added, like they’d rehearsed that very line.
Rudy and I shared a glance. ‘Do you want to?’ her eyes asked. ‘I’ll do what you do. I’ll always do what you do,’ was probably how mine responded.
“Yeah, that’d be awesome.”
Tank’s car was an older model convertible with a dent in the front bumper.
“Those don’t work,” he said, as Rudy and I tugged on the seatbelts in the backseat. “Sorry.”
“That’s fine.” I folded my hands in my lap.
It was a departure from the cars in which we typically bummed rides. In their black converse sneakers, so were Tank and Benji. My heart thumped nervously.
Benji turned up the volume on the car’s stereo.
“What kind of music do you guys listen to?”
“We like a lot of different stuff,” Rudy said.
The last concert Rudy and I had gone to was Carrie Underwood. Currently, there was a hip-hop c.d. in my car’s c.d. player that Rudy and I sang along to, loudly, on our way to school in the morning. I wasn’t su
re I wanted to reveal either of these things.
“That’s cool. You know these guys?” He gestured to the radio, to the song coming from the speakers.
We shook our heads.
“Ah, man, they’re pretty good. Really good live. I saw them at a show back home last summer.”
We smiled.
“I like them,” I added.
“Where do you live again? I don’t really know my way around here that great.” Tank turned to look at us in the backseat. He had pretty eyes under his thick eyebrows. The car drifted to the left a little and someone in the lane beside us honked. My heart leapt. Tank faced forward again.
“Just keep going straight. I’ll tell you when you need to exit.”
Benji drummed his fingers against the glove compartment.
“So, what do you do with a sociology major?” I asked.
“I want to go into social services. You know, working with welfare recipients and making sure everyone gets what they need to get back on their feet.”
We waited for Tank to answer.
“I think I want to do something with drug rehabilitation,” he said.
Interesting. Really, they seemed so grown-up and intriguing.
“What about you all? You know what you’re majoring in yet?”
I had no clue. Absolutely no ideas, though I knew I wouldn’t choose anything math-related.
“I was thinking maybe photography,” Rudy said. “Or possibly women’s studies. I’d love to be a photojournalist and travel. You know, exposing important issues.”
I stared at her. She’d never told me that before. True, I’d never asked – but when did she think about things like that? Was I supposed to be thinking about college now, too? When we were only half finished with high school?
Looking back, that was probably my problem and possibly my saving grace. I didn’t think about the future. Not that I was always living in the moment either. Often, like when I was in class, I was living for the very next moment, when I’d be in the hallway talking to my friends. Or when I was talking alone with a boy I liked, I’d be thinking about what came next – when he would reach for my face and kiss me – and what I should do with my own arms, or whether or not I should employ a new kissing technique I’d read about in Cosmo Girl magazine.
Golden Page 16
