Sugar Land

by tammy lynne stoner

  “These are my interview butterflies,” she said. “I just came from the University of Texas for a college interview. I shoot bow and arrow pretty well, so my mother had me carry my bow in for the interview. My mother’s very keen on me going to college.” She leaned in a little and tipped her head sideways to get closer. “I felt ridiculous, though, seeing as how I have a bow but no arrows.”

  I held in my ample stomach and counted out six clean eggs, all brown, then put them into a bag with a flat of jerky three times the size of a slice of bacon.

  She looked around. “You sell anything other than eggs and jerky?”

  “We do pies every now and again, and at Christmastime we sell Mrs. Jameson’s fruitcakes. I help her do all the cooking. The secret is letting them ripen for six months in pitch black.”

  “Not much of a secret if you’re telling it,” she said.

  My face flushed and I lowered my head to concentrate on wrapping up her bag. Rhodie, meanwhile, examined a pile of books I’d stacked up between the tins of jerky on the shelf behind my stool: Joseph Conrad, E.M. Forster, Zona Gale.

  “Wow,” she said. “You going to college, too?”

  “No, no,” I smiled, looking down at my fat feet in my strappy sandals, feeling the dampness in my armpits running down the sides of my cotton shirt. I hoped my hair wasn’t too greasy.

  “With reading like that, you could surely be a college girl yourself.”

  “I’ve never known a girl to go to college before.”

  Rhodie smiled. “Well, now you do. Since we can vote, we need to be educated. Oh gosh, I sound like my mother.”

  Rhodie’s brother hollered from outside, where it was much brighter. “Let’s get goin’!”

  She whipped her head toward the door. “I got you jerky, so simmer down!”

  “It’s November,” I said. “They make you interview for school so far in advance?”

  “I’m fixin’ to go in January. I took a few months off after high school to move here. We come from Pecos. My brother’ll be going to Midland High next year.”

  “I just graduated from there.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Rhodie!” he screamed. “We got to go get the wasp house down.”

  She jerked her slicked-over hair toward her brother and sighed. “Well, I got to go but I’m sure I’ll be in for more eggs, hopefully with me not looking so silly.”

  “I don’t think you look silly,” I said, coughing to cover my blushing.

  Rhodie shrugged and left. As I watched her step out into the sunshine, I felt this warm spot in the center of my chest loosen up and wave out, like the long tail of a red kite.

  × × ×

  Rhodie came in the next day, telling me that her family knew fresh eggs and these were fresh eggs. She said she was likely to be in every day—and she was. That’s how we got to talking. We’d conversate about what I was reading or the places she wanted to visit someday—top of her list was California, where she’d heard that dolphins would swim right by you.

  “You can pet them like a cat—only wet, of course.”

  All the while I sat there, falling in love against my will and eating beef jerky even though it hurt my jaw.

  One day, I watched Rhodie walk up the dirt path to the store. I remember it so clearly. She had on a yellow and light blue striped dress with long sleeves. Halfway up, between two scraggly rosemary bushes, she stopped dead in her tracks and closed her eyes. A second later she opened them and, with a huge smile, nodded out to something in the dry, grassy area on the side of the egg store.

  When she came in, I asked what she was doing and she said that a little deer had stopped to eat at the edge of the path.

  “I didn’t want to startle her so I stood real still until she was finished. When I opened my eyes, she was looking at me—maybe thanking me for not interrupting her supper—then she hopped off as quiet as a breeze.”

  “You sound like a poet,” I said.

  “Baby deer can make anyone sound like a poet.” She shrugged. “You done?”

  “Just need to close up.”

  “Want to go for a walk with me down Old Spider Road?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said. Rumor was that a killer lived in a shack down Old Spider Road with the bodies of the children he’d caught coming onto his land.

  “You scared?”

  “You not scared?” I asked, locking up the money box.

  “I’m excited! Those emotions are similar, but they’re not the same.” She leaned toward me, over the counter. “Maybe you’re just excited but you can’t tell the difference.”

  “All I know is that I can’t run too fast.”

  “You won’t need to run. Nothing to run from. Let’s go!”

  “Oh, all right,” I said.

  I just wanted to be with Rhodie, and if that meant walking down Old Spider Road, well, then I guess that was where I’d be going. Hopefully I’d make it back. Word had it that two boys rode their bikes down there last summer and were never seen again.

  Old Spider Road was mostly a heavily trodden dirt path between some ratty trees, on land nobody seemed to own. You could only access it by following two connected walking paths, the first of which started not too far from the back of the egg store, right next to the Watsons’ yellow windmill.

  Rhodie stood outside the door while I took my time covering the eggs up. She tapped her foot. “My goodness you are slow! Fright freeze your fingers?”

  “No . . .”

  “I’m going to wait at the trailhead. You come on now.”

  I joined her a few minutes later, just on the edge of the meadow before it became the woods. The path was so thin you had to walk single file, which was lucky for me since Rhodie couldn’t see my jittery, scared eyes. As we walked on, the trees got thicker and thicker. If you wore camouflage—which no doubt the killer did—you could easily hide behind any of those trees.

  Thinking talking might calm my nerves, I asked her, “You’re new here, so how do you know about Old Spider Road?”

  “My brother. As our mother says, my brother can find trouble on a cloud of sleeping angels.”

  We hiked up and over several large boulders to the second path. The sun started setting and my stomach ached with nervousness. If we got chased, I couldn’t run well and I definitely couldn’t run well over boulders.

  Finally, we turned on to Old Spider Road, which was wide enough for us to walk side-by-side. I put my feet down, one in front of the other, on a dried bike track, hoping it wasn’t the tread from one of the dead boys’ bikes.

  Five quiet minutes later, we spotted the murderer’s house: an old cement building without much of a roof—some living watercolor painting, all milky whites against the green and brown trees.

  Rhodie whispered, “Come on.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come on!”

  I took in a breath for courage. Even though I was terrified, I walked over to the cabin through the tall, browning grass and trees. It looked like something blown out in a war. It had no door, just a concrete opening where a door had been. We stepped inside, over layers of old, moldy newspapers covering the cement floor—some dating back to 1900—and empty brown bottles of moonshine.

  She asked, “Where do you think he relieved himself? I didn’t see an outhouse. Ew, I don’t think we should sit down in here.”

  “I don’t think he’d pee where he slept.”

  Her eyes got wide. “Maybe he slept outside, on the mound where he buried all those dead bodies! Maybe this here is his bathroom.”

  “Your mind goes wild sometimes.”

  “That’s why my mother says I’m so suited for college.”

  The mention of her leaving caused my heart to curl up into a baby’s fist, all tight and pained. On that deep, primal level, I knew I loved her even then—but of course I didn’t say anything. If I’d had my choice, I would’ve only felt for her the feelings of a friend. There was something in the joy I got just making her laugh
that might have been enough. Maybe.

  A gunshot flared from the denser trees farther down Old Spider Road. The sound nearly loosened my bladder, to be sure.

  Rhodie jumped up. “Shit! What is that?”

  “A gun—the killer’s got a gun. Dammit, I told you I can’t run fast!”

  “I can!” she shouted, a thrilled terror in her voice. “Come on!”

  Rhodie yanked me by the side of my shirt, which was damp with fear, and we ran. We ran so fast and hard I saw white flickers in the corners of my eyes and thought I was going to faint.

  “Footsteps!” she yelled, and sure enough I heard them too—footsteps trampling through the dry grasses behind us, gaining ground.

  Powered by fright, I passed Rhodie, my arms and legs finding some energy I never knew I had. She followed me, the edges of her dress flapping up. I skipped down around the boulders, my legs getting shredded by twigs, and off to a small side path I knew about from years and years ago—a shortcut to the creek. From the creek we could walk the long way back home, and make it in time for supper—if we didn’t get killed first.

  Behind me Rhodie screamed, “Oh my God! Oh my God!”

  I focused only on the green trees ahead—the ones near the creek. Once we got there, I knew we’d be safe.

  “I can’t run anymore!” she panted.

  For a second I thought of leaving her there, but I didn’t. I stopped and we stood together, just outside the woods in the dimming light. My eyes ached from straining into the distance to see if the killer was still following us. I listened; no more footsteps—nothing but crickets and a slight trickle of water from behind us.

  “He’s gone,” she said between heavy breaths.

  “You excited now?” I asked her.

  She laughed and slapped my arm. “I hear water. There a creek nearby?”

  “Right behind us,” I said. “We can hide down in the grasses if we need to.”

  She looked all around. “I don’t think we need to.”

  “Shhh!” I focused on calming my breathing. “OK, it sounds all quiet now.”

  “Maybe we were imagining it.”

  “No. I heard steps.”

  “Me too,” she said, stopping for air. She moved a little closer and scanned the distant trees. “We’d see him now, though, coming across the meadow. He’s got nowhere to hide.”

  I nodded my agreement. “Let’s go sit by the creek. I need to rest.”

  Rhodie smiled, always up for an adventure. “You ever hunt bullfrogs?”

  “We almost died and you’re bringing up frogs!”

  “I think we’ve earned ourselves a nice meal. And to show my apologies for such a silly notion as Old Spider Road, I will make it for us. I already got the razor blades.”

  “What now?” I asked, my legs still shaking a little.

  Rhodie leaned on me, then lifted her shoe. Underneath, on the sole, she had taped down a razor blade. “One on each shoe,” she explained. “Two of them, in case we got caught by the murderer.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Of course.”

  “I come prepared.”

  “Prepared to take me into the lair of a murderer!”

  “Or, it seems,” she said, taking in a slow breath, “to catch us some bullfrogs.”

  I didn’t care that Mama and Daddy might worry—or worse, get angry—that I’d be missing supper. “Well, all right,” I said, “but we better catch quite a few. Seems almost getting killed can raise a girl’s appetite.”

  Following Rhodie’s directions, we walked around the creek’s edge until we found the perfect hunting sticks. We cut notches in them and sat down. She took out the razor blades.

  “Slip your blade into the notch, and then we’ll tie them in place with some of that vine there.”

  I did as instructed, rolling my spear over in my hands.

  “The idea,” she told me in the new moonlight, “is to stab the bullfrogs through the heart with the razor so they don’t suffer. You got to be quick and steady.”

  “OK.”

  “The males have yellow throats, which makes them easier to see.”

  Rhodie hunkered down a bit along the edge of the creek and listened. When she didn’t hear anything she continued: “We’re doing our civic duty by killing these bullfrogs. They don’t really belong here. They were brought in by somebody a long time ago and now they are ruining the creeks for other creatures since most animals aren’t accustomed to eating bullfrogs.”

  “Except us.”

  She smiled, her face tan and her hair nearly blond, despite the oils she used to slick it over. “Yes, except us.”

  She gestured that I follow her closer in to the water’s edge. The breeze felt good there, all cooled by the water.

  “They’re really awful creatures. They eat all kinds of things—like crawdads and ducklings. Some even eat baby birds.”

  “Lord,” I said.

  “It’s true.” She leaned in and scanned the water, her knee resting in some mud. “Remember, hit just below the yellow throat.”

  I whispered, “How did you get so smart?”

  She put her finger to her lips and nodded her head to the right, where a croaking noise started up. “Shh.”

  We caught six over the next half hour—her killing five and me one. I sat back and watched, amazed that this college girl could kill, butcher, and cook up a nice set of frog legs over a fire she’d built with little more than a clump of dry kindling and a match she’d put in her bra to set fire to the killer’s shack if the razor blades didn’t work.

  “Didn’t work?” I asked.

  “Basically, if I couldn’t kill the killer.”

  “I think you could have.”

  She looked over at me. “I don’t know—you were the one who ran us out of there.”

  “I ran on fear alone.”

  “I think you have hidden strengths.”

  We ate the frog legs right off the cooking stone she’d used—after rubbing dandelion leaves on it so the legs wouldn’t stick—and drank some discarded liquor I’d found under a bush near where the creek narrowed. There were always half-drunk bottles lying around from kids who stole them and had to abandon them to run home.

  While we ate, Rhodie didn’t say much.

  Finally I asked her, “You OK?”

  “I’m leaving for college in three weeks, Dara. Exactly three weeks.”

  I knew it was serious because she hardly ever said my name while we were talking.

  “I know.”

  The creek trickled by, and the trees made this kind of rattling noise above us when the wind passed through the leaves. It was as if the whole world was shushing us. Still Rhodie continued: “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. Makes me wish I hadn’t let my mother push me into going away to school. Maybe I could put it off for a year.”

  “You can’t do that. Everything’s lined up. Plus, they already turned your bedroom into a sewing space!”

  Her eyes looked greener than usual in the moonlight.

  “I love you,” I blurted out, the words leaving me before I had time to consider them. I wanted to add “like a sister” but thought on it too long. I was stuck there and feeling sick about it. Dammit! I yelled in my mind. What did I do?

  Rhodie stayed quiet and I wanted so badly to take those words back, but I knew that if I did I would be a coward, so I let them just hang there as my guts churned.

  After a minute, I took in a big breath and looked back at her. A flush had come onto her cheeks.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Let’s just pretend I didn’t say anything.”

  She looked away from me and shook her head no.

  Half-digested bullfrog rose up in the back of my throat. I smiled as best as I could against the pounding in my ears and the feeling of panic. “My daddy told me that in every friendship there’s one moment when we get to turn back time. I want to use my moment now.”

  Rhodie still didn’t say anything. I set my hand on the dry ground near my hip and
moved to get up. She turned back to me. The grin on her face was as big as any Best Pie winner’s. She pulled on my arm, hard. “No, no! I love you too, Dara.”

  “You love me the way I love you?”

  She nodded her head yes half a dozen times, and my chest felt like it cracked open to let out this ocean I’d housed inside myself.

  “Like a man might love you,” she clarified.

  “Me too,” I said.

  “Come to school and we can be university girls together!” She leaned close to me, her bright eyes looking like she might cry. “Be with me.”

  “Well, maybe you could stay here another year? Stay here and kill bullfrogs with me every day. Do our civic duty. Do you really have to leave?”

  “Do you really have to stay?”

  When she said this, the world shifted back a bit, back to the way I knew things were: I could never be with her. Even while the love I had for her and the amazement at the love she had for me made me full enough to burst, I knew I could never be with her. It just wasn’t done. Ever.

  “You know I can’t go,” I said to her, anxiety already gripping me at the thought of someone finding out.

  “You can’t—or won’t?”

  I looked down, destroyed. “I’m sorry.”

  Then she did it—my beautiful Rhodie tipped my face up and kissed me. Her lips were as soft as a ripe peach.

  The kiss startled me, but I recovered quickly. I put my hand on the itchy ground behind her, where our bullfrog spears were, and fell into that kiss, forgetting all about the world. It started so slowly, like dipping your foot in cold water, but it got crazy fast, with her pushing against me and me lying back on the grass with her above me. I felt as if we were floating, and linked together only by our lips touching.

  A minute later, Rhodie rolled off me and sighed, as if she needed to recover. I know I did.

  Each of us propped up on one elbow so we were face to face. The world got so quiet, and I just looked at her, amazed. We had kissed.

  “I loved you from that first day in the egg store,” I said. “I just didn’t know what it was.”

  She smiled and leaned her forehead against mine, perfectly natural, the way she could make anything seem. “Well, seems we have three weeks to live a whole life. You ready, Miss Dara?”