On Saturday, when their parents were gone for the afternoon, Twyla had a couple of friends over, listening to records in the living room, on the big stereo. One song had a line about “smoking,” which made them burst out giggling. Jessy didn’t know why it was funny, other than that they weren’t supposed to smoke.
Then they went into the kitchen, brought out a couple of cans of beer, and set them right on the table. Jessy had seen beer plenty of times, in the back of Twyla’s closet, but it shocked her to see it there, out in the open, in the kitchen, in the afternoon, where anyone could see it. Even if nobody else was home but her.
Twyla took out the tall soda glasses they used for making orange juice floats, and for lemon sherbet and ginger ale on New Year’s Eve. All the spoons were mixed up in the drawer -- the big spoons, the normal ones, and the jagged-edged grapefruit spoons that nobody ever used -- and she dug out a couple of long slender ones, good for tall glasses. With a big spoon, she scooped hunks of vanilla ice cream out of its cardboard box, and stuffed them into the glasses.
Then she opened one of the beer cans, which hissed at her, just like they did on television. Twyla poured beer into the glasses, using the long spoon to push the ice cream out of the way, getting the liquid all the way to the bottom, and sloshing evenly throughout the glass. A really good float had just as much juice or pop as it needed to suspend the ice cream in it, but not so much that it got runny, or as mixed up as a milkshake. The best was so that every spoonful had a clump of ice cream, coated with creamy -- beer, in this case.
“Want a spoonful?” Twyla asked.
Jessy had always disapproved of drinking, almost as much as the smoking. But she was intrigued by the innocent-looking glass of ice cream. And it would be great experience for when she and Karma played high school girls.
“Sure,” she said.
If Twyla was surprised, she didn’t give it away. Jessy took the long spoon and put it, very deliberately, in her mouth. Fortunately, it didn’t taste anything like beer smelled, which was foul. It had a faint malty flavor, mostly covered up by the creamy ice cream taste. It reminded her of the cola floats that Twyla sometimes made.
“This is delicious,” Twyla’s friend said. “We should make these at the Freezy Stand.”
“It would be worth getting fired.”
Jessy waited until the friends had left, and the glasses were washed and put away, when Twyla was hanging out in her room. Then she knocked on her door.
Twyla’s head appeared at the narrow opening, her body hidden.
“What?” she snapped.
“Can I come in?” Jessy asked. If she knocked and asked permission, a little formal, like she was afraid Twyla would say “no,” she usually said “yes.”
“Sure.” She opened the door all the way, and Jessy automatically scanned the room to see if Twyla had been hiding anything. If she had, it wasn't obvious. Twyla must have been sitting in front of the stereo, because there were records all over the place. Jessy dropped down on the bed and sprawled on her stomach, feet in the air, elbows hanging over the end, as Twyla sat back down on the floor.
“How’s school?” Twyla asked. Jessy made a face, and Twyla nodded.
“I wish I could bring that guitar home,” Twyla continued talking. “It would make it so much easier to practice if I had it here. It’s such a crappy guitar, I don’t know what he thinks I’m going to do to hurt it.”
“He just wants you to go over to his place,” Jessy said. Twyla looked at her, surprised.
“Maybe.”
“Are you getting any good?” Jessy asked. This wasn’t what she wanted to talk about, but she was interested.
“I don’t know. Not bad. I wish I was better.” She reached for a can of pop that was sitting on the metal stand by the stereo, surrounded by African violets in black pots, and geraniums in tin cans. “I really wish I had an electric guitar to practice on, but I’m working on it.”
They chatted a little more, Twyla sometimes getting absorbed in looking through the box of records, which she seemed to be organizing.
“Have you heard this thing?” Jessy finally asked. “About the Moonies?”
Twyla snorted, and looked pretty amused.
“Yeah, what a bunch of BS.”
“Really?” Jessy sat up.
“It’s some hippie church, like the Love Gospel or something. They have one of those old school buses with peace signs all over it. Has-beens.”
“I heard they’re going to kidnap a kid on Halloween.”
Twyla laughed out loud.
“People are so stupid.”
“And they’re maybe going to kill them.”
“On an altar in the graveyard, with a special fancy knife?”
“Maybe.”
Twyla looked her over. “They’re not even in town anymore. They were just raising money to fix their bus to go to the Cities. And nobody’s going to be sacrificed. I think someone’s trying to scare you kids into staying home, so you won’t get in any trouble.”
****
The Jack-o-Lantern Box Page 27
