Ramona Blue

by Julie Murphy

  I stuff the bag into my backpack. “I guess. I don’t know?”

  “You should know,” she says.

  “Okay, fine, I’ll ask her about it.”

  “I don’t want to be pushy or anything, but she, like, is growing a living thing in her body, and that requires medical attention.”

  “Aww,” I say, “you care!” I reach across the Jeep and hug her tight with her arms pinned to her side.

  She groans. “Stoooooop.”

  “You love it,” I tell her.

  She growls and bites my arm as a warning.

  “Okay, okay,” I say, hopping out of the Jeep to grab my bike. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Inside, Dad is sitting in his recliner reading a Clive Cussler paperback. “Hey, sugar,” he says as he dog-ears his page and pushes his reading glasses on top of his forehead—a ridiculous pair with multicolored frames he picked up at the dollar store.

  As I chug a glass of water, I check my cell to find no new messages from Grace. I sit down on the arm of his chair, and it’s then that I realize my legs are a little achy from this morning. Working out is for rich people. I don’t have time to feel this exhausted for no reason.

  Dad immediately pulls me to him, and I curl into a ball in his lap while he hugs me tight. Being held by my dad is one of the few times when I still feel small. All six-five of him wrapped around my six-three frame reminds me who gave me my height and that maybe life up here isn’t always so bad.

  “I needed a good Ramona Blue hug,” he says.

  Sometimes when I don’t know how to explain my relationship with my mom, I can only describe it as a void. Whatever she is to me is everything my dad is not, and vice versa.

  He lets go, and I plop down on the couch across from him.

  “I checked the medicine cabinet and noticed you were running low on your cholesterol meds and a few other things, too,” I say. “Have you gone to the pharmacy to refill?”

  “Waiting for payday,” he answers.

  “Well, is that gonna last you until then?” I ask. “I could float you the cash.”

  He shakes his head. “Who’s the parent here, okay?” He smiles. “How was school?”

  I shrug. “Went to the Y this morning with Freddie and Agnes.”

  He laughs a little too loud. “How’d you get conned into that?”

  I roll my eyes. “Freddie.”

  “He’s a good man. Glad you’ve got a real friend.”

  “I had friends before Freddie, Dad.”

  “Hattie’s your sister,” he says. “And Saul is, well, Saul.”

  Saul is Saul. He is the sun, and the rest of us are just orbiting around him. He doesn’t have friends. He has an audience. “I have Ruth.”

  He laughs. “Ruth barely likes you.”

  I pelt him in the arm with the TV remote. “Ruthie barely likes anyone—except you.”

  “Jeez! That’s gonna bruise.” He grins. “Go do your homework or something like that.”

  I stand and pull my backpack up by the strap. “Don’t read too many books. They turn your brain to mush.”

  I grab half a box of Triscuits for dinner and head to my room. We never really have family dinner. Since all of us work in the restaurant industry, preparing and serving other people’s food, none of us is too quick to volunteer homemade meals.

  I spread out my homework across my unmade bed like I might actually do something besides wait for Grace to call me back.

  My phone vibrates and my whole body twists into a knot of tension. It’s only a text from Freddie, asking where I ran off to so fast, but I’m too anxious to respond.

  And then my phone really rings. It’s Grace. I force myself to let the phone ring three times before I pick it up. I take a deep breath, and even though my door is shut, I whisper because nothing about our walls is soundproof. “Hello?”

  She sighs into the receiver. “Hey, you.”

  It’s melodramatic, I know, but I could cry. Instead, I try my best for nonchalance. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing, really. Everyone’s at my brother’s soccer game.”

  “Why aren’t you?”

  “I stayed home from school, so now my mom won’t let me leave the house for the rest of the day. ‘On principle,’ she says.”

  I nod, even though she can’t see me. “Are you sick?” I ask with real concern.

  For a moment, all I hear are her steady breaths. “Yes. No.”

  There’s this wall between us that wasn’t there before. I can feel it. And on the other side of the wall is some piece of her life that she doesn’t know how to talk to me about. “Hey,” I say. “You can talk to me. Even if it’s about other people.”

  It’ll hurt, I know, to hear about her life without me. Her friends. Her more than friends. But I’d rather her be transparent with me than to be left out of any corner of her world.

  “It’s Andrew,” she says.

  “So . . . I guess y’all are still together?”

  She’s quiet for a second. “Well, yeah. He’s my boyfriend.”

  My mouth goes dry. I don’t hate straight people, I swear. But the word boyfriend. I hate it. Especially coming out of Grace’s mouth. It makes my toes curl. “I thought you were going to break up with him,” I say, but it’s more of an accusation.

  “I was. I am.”

  I’m angry. At the both of us. Because somehow I had tricked myself into believing that he didn’t mean anything to her. That what we were doing wasn’t cheating.

  “You don’t get it,” she says.

  I don’t respond, because she’s probably right. I don’t know what it’s like to live a double life.

  “I’m back here,” she says. “And you’re not, and now I can’t remember why I was supposed to break up with him. I cheated on him. But I still like being around him.”

  I’m here. And you’re not. It’s all I can hear. Anxiety fills my lungs. And maybe she cheated on him this summer, but I feel like I’ve been cheated on, too. “Shouldn’t you at least tell him about us?” It’s hard not to feel like she’s stomping through the memory of us with a giant eraser, removing any evidence of me.

  She shrugs with her voice. It’s this sound I can’t explain. “We only have our senior year left. It feels silly to ruin it now. He’s going to Iowa anyway. And—”

  “I know how you feel about long-distance.” I’ve felt lots of things about Grace. Sadness. Frustration. Confusion. But now I’m just pissed.

  “Yeah.”

  I expect for the conversation to be over, but it’s not. There’s a moment or two of weighted silence before Grace says, “Oh my God. My mom started subbing at my school.”

  I’m both annoyed and relieved by the change in subject. I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth a few times. I have to make a decision right now. I have to decide if I’m going to hold on to this anger, which could downright ruin my already fragile relationship with Grace, or if I’m going to stifle my emotions in favor of any future we might have.

  “Awww,” I finally say, “your mom’s not so bad.”

  She laughs into the receiver. “No. This is bad.”

  I listen as she tells me all about how embarrassing her mom is and how she’s only doing this because it’s Grace’s last year of high school and she’s feeling sentimental. Her mom cries every time she sees her in the hallways and always checks in with all her teachers. I tell Grace about swimming at the Y and Freddie and how I knew him and Agnes when I was a kid. She asks lots of questions about Freddie. She has no reason to be jealous, but the idea that she might be satisfies me a little too much.

  We talk late into the night, taking breaks for dinner and for Grace to catch up with her family to get the play-by-play of the soccer game. When Hattie and Tyler finally come home, they head straight for Hattie’s room. I narrate their actions and moans for Grace as we giggle back and forth, and I try not to gag. It’s well past one in the morning when our conversation dissolves into heavy, sleepy breaths. />
  Hattie tiptoes into my room and looks at me with pleading eyes as she crawls into my bed, sighing into the cool sheets.

  I flip my bedside lamp off and creep out to the kitchen for a glass of water as I whisper, “We should probably hang up.”

  Grace groans into the receiver. “What are you doing right this moment?”

  I grin and sink into the couch. “Standing in my kitchen. Maybe turning on some TV.”

  “What would you even watch right now?” She yawns, and then adds, “All that’s on is soft-core porn and infomercials.”

  “Hey, both of those things have the potential to be interesting.” I reach for the remote and hit the power button. “And what do you know about soft-core porn?”

  She laughs.

  “Where are you?” I ask.

  “In my house.”

  “Where in your house?”

  “In my dad’s den.” Her voice sounds like a cat’s purr. “Do you want to know what I’m wearing, too?”

  Her words suck the air out of my lungs. “The answer to that is always yes, but you should go to bed.”

  She laughs. “I miss talking to you, but I miss other things, too.”

  My brain knows exactly what she means by other things. My lower abdomen aches like an unsatisfied itch. “Me too.”

  Grace wasn’t the first girl I had sex with. That honor goes to Samantha Alice Jones, who I always called by her full name because it sounded so good all together. She was an incoming freshman volleyball player at Mississippi State and was down here at a camp training with her team. We met at Boucher’s the summer before tenth grade. She was white with a port-wine stain on her shoulder, wore her curly hair in two braids, and snorted when she laughed. She was from Kansas and told me she was bi.

  On the other line, Grace’s breathing gets heavier, like she’s fighting to stay awake. “Shit,” she says. “I really should go to bed.”

  “You hang up first,” I tell her.

  “No, you,” she says.

  I sigh into the receiver and she giggles. “On the count of three,” I say.

  In bed, when I close my eyes, I see Grace. I see her in the moonlight of her bedroom at the vacation rental. The shadows drape across her bare skin like a robe.

  Every inch of my body is on fire just thinking about it.

  My eyes spring open as Hattie flips over on her back beside me. I try to remember what it felt like to have privacy.

  Quietly, I tiptoe to the bathroom, which is the only place in my entire house where I can be alone with my memories of nights spent with Grace.

  ELEVEN

  In the morning, I go with Freddie and Agnes to the Y to swim laps again.

  I feel like I’m starting to get the hang of this, and I sort of love the idea of having my own lane for this slice of time a couple of days a week. It’s my own private world, and I don’t have to worry about how good Freddie is or if Agnes is watching or if Hattie is doing something stupid or if I can pick up any extra hours at work. All I have to do is stay in my own lane.

  As I’m hoisting myself out of the pool, Freddie says, “Hey, wait up. Let’s race just once. Whatever stroke you want there and back.”

  “I thought you were only supposed to be racing against yourself,” I tease.

  “Humor me.”

  I shake my head and say, “Fine, but there’s not going to be much of a competition.”

  The two of us position ourselves on the blocks while Agnes heads to the locker rooms.

  Freddie counts us off. “On your marks, get set, GO!”

  Again, my dive is a belly flop. This time I try the butterfly stroke, letting my upper body propel me forward while my legs work in unison like a mermaid’s fin. Or at least that’s what I’m going for. I probably look like I’m drowning and break-dancing at the same time.

  After the second lap, my body slams into the wall like when you’re roller-skating and you don’t know how to stop. Freddie is waiting for me in the neighboring lane.

  “I was wondering when you’d make it back,” he says.

  “Shut up,” I spit, wanting to say much more, but unable to because my lungs are on fire.

  Freddie pulls himself out of the pool. “Someone’s a sore loser.”

  Between breaths, I say, “Someone’s a shitty winner.”

  He holds an arm out for me, and I begrudgingly take it. “Come on,” he says. “Let me have this. Besides, after all those wasted years of training, you gotta admit it’d be pretty embarrassing if you kicked my ass.”

  I ignore his hand and get out of the water on my own, just barely, though. I’ve got to admit: even I’m surprised by the adrenaline that’s coursing through my veins. “Go on,” I tell him. “I need to catch my breath.”

  As he leaves for the locker rooms, I sit down on the block and pull my goggles off my head. I cringe as the elastic pulls at my wet hair. I suck at this. Freddie beat me fair and square and by a lot. I think that’s supposed to make me miserable, but it doesn’t and I’m trying to figure out what exactly that means.

  Finally I stand up to leave the pool. The woman in the black Speedo I saw last time is sitting in the same spot on the bleachers. Her short, spiky hair seems to match her prickly persona.

  As I pass her, she doesn’t even bother turning to me when she says, “Gotta learn pacing. You burn out too fast. Anyone can sprint. Stamina is something you have to earn.”

  I stop. “I’m not trying to be, like, a swimmer or anything.”

  She turns to me. “Oh, you’re a swimmer. You either are or you aren’t. And you are. You’re just not any good yet.”

  I shake my head and jog down the hallway to the locker rooms. I can swim. Of course I can. The ocean is my backyard. But I’m no stranger to adults telling me how I should use my body. With my height, it’s nonstop questions about basketball or volleyball or whatever other sports where my stature might serve as a benefit. But sports, and any other extracurricular, have always felt like a waste of time. If it’s not something I’m going to be paid for, I don’t really have the time to waste. Or the energy to invest.

  Back at Agnes’s place, Freddie whips together a frittata with cheese, mushrooms, spinach, and sun-dried tomatoes. The last three ingredients are the type of things I would never eat individually, but somehow Freddie has the ability to make them taste good. And of course, a plain sunny-side-up egg for Bart.

  “Hey, Gram?” he says once we’re all seated. “This week’s Viv’s birthday, and I was thinking I could drive back on Friday after school for her party.”

  Agnes doesn’t look up from her plate. “And what about your shift at the car wash?”

  Freddie looks to Bart, who shakes his head and concentrates on his eggs. “I thought maybe I could call in this one time. Or maybe Adam will cover for me.”

  Agnes makes a tsk noise with her tongue. “You know how I feel about commitments.”

  “Come on, Gram,” says Freddie, resorting to that boyish tone I recognize from when we were kids. It’s the same charm he used to help me get Tyler’s cake—and he clearly knows how to wield it to get what he wants. “You know leaving Viv wasn’t easy.”

  Agnes’s shoulders sink, and I see the weight of responsibility she carries and how well she understands the sacrifice that moving here was for Freddie. “Okay,” she relents. “But only if this one”—she motions to me—“agrees to go with you. I don’t like the idea of you making that trip by yourself.”

  Freddie turns to me.

  I take a moment too long to swallow my mouthful of frittata. “I’ll—uh, have to see if I can get someone to cover my route on Saturday morning.”

  Agnes doesn’t look up. “My kind of girl.”

  I shrug in Freddie’s direction, but his attention is in a far-off place outside this house. His legs bounce so aggressively that Agnes reaches under the table and pats his knee until he stops.

  We ride our bikes to school, the humidity so thick my hair doesn’t even begin to dry until third period, which is
the only class Freddie and I share. I’m dozing in and out of Ms. Pak’s economics lesson when Adam, who sits behind me, taps my shoulder. He reaches down low and shoves a note into my dangling hand. I glance back to get a read on him, but it’s Freddie, who sits two desks behind him, who I find winking at me.

  In my lap, hands positioned underneath my desk, I unfold the full piece of notebook paper that’s been folded into a sad piece of origami.

  In surprisingly beautiful handwriting, the top of the page reads:

  REASONS TO GO WITH ME TO BATON ROUGE

  1. BEEF JERKY, AND NOT THE SHITTY KIND. I KNOW THE BEST GAS STATION IN LOUISIANA, WHERE THEY MAKE THEIR OWN JERKY. IT’S A SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE.

  2. YOU GET TO LEAVE THE COAST.

  3. HAVE YOU EVER EVEN LEFT THE COAST?

  4. I’LL LET YOU DRIVE THE CADDY.

  5. YOU CAN MEET VIV. YOU GUYS WILL LOVE EACH OTHER!

  6. AND THE REST OF MY SWIM TEAM FROM BACK HOME.

  7. HOT GIRLS. I KNOW LOTS OF THEM.

  8. I WILL PAY FOR ALL YOUR MEALS.

  9. YOU’RE A GOOD FRIEND.

  I grin and try to fold the paper back the same way it was given to me, but give up and stuff it in my pocket. Under the cover of my desk, I text Charlie about my paper route this weekend to see if anyone can cover.

  A few seconds later, he responds. I’ll check with my little bro, he says.

  When the bell rings, Freddie follows close on my heels with Adam behind. “Well?”

  “I’m working on it,” I say.

  He nods and bounces on his toes a little.

  “Working on what?” asks Adam. “Your strokes?”

  “Ugh.” Freddie shoves him.

  Adam turns to him innocently. “What? I know you’ve been getting up early to stroke it.”

  “Swim strokes,” Freddie says. “Swim strokes, you perv.”

  I turn to Adam, grinning. “Nope. He got a membership at the YMCA to practice his strokes. The M stands for masturbation, obviously.”

  “You’re both filthy human beings,” says Freddie. “Oh, wait. Adam, you think you could cover my shift this Saturday?”

  Adam groans, his head rolling to the side.