A family of quail ran along the edge of the orange glow cast by the Christmas lights. They moved side to side like a school of fish, kicking up little clouds of dust. A baby quail lagged behind, investigating something in a creosote bush. One of the adults returned for him, and he scampered along.
21
AFTERMATH
The low morning sun bounced off the white sheets standing in as tablecloths and flapping in the breeze. Grandpa’s embroidered hankies had blown away and were stuck in nearby creosote and scrub brushes. Ants had found some sugary pineapple on a cake knife, and they were making a treacherous climb up a table leg and onto the sheet. They could only get on when it rested still, without wind. There was an ant traffic jam going up the leg and no exit strategy once they’d made it to the cake knife, but the whole thing was about to end anyway, Edna thought. Life is fragile.
Grandpa stared out into the desert from his chair and tapped his foot again to the bluegrass records. They sounded eerie over the morning wind. The desert, Edna decided, could be as ominous in the daytime as it could be at night, maybe more so.
A few tender words had not turned Grandma into a Chatty Cathy, and they cleaned up the rest of the party mostly in silence. Edna was beginning to grasp that Grandma simply didn’t have much to say, and when she did, she said it. She wasn’t one to force a conversation. Edna usually looked forward to her mother’s postmortem of a party and evaluation of her stupid friends’ behavior, but Edna had never been so crushed at a party before. It was liberating not to have to conjure up chat about it while being perplexed by Johnny and Jenny. She was glad she was still stunned and numb, because when reality sunk in, it was going to be pitiful.
Everything she’d done for the last eleven days had been in anticipation of this one night, of spending time with Johnny and making plans to go out together again, if Edna steered the conversation successfully. It was supposed to have been the beginning of the rest of their summer together, not the sad end of it. She spent a lot of time sitting next to Grandpa on the porch, trying to picture and then not picture Johnny and Jenny together. She wasn’t sure how she could face Johnny the next time he came to deliver groceries, and it wasn’t nearly as satisfying to think about their kiss anymore if he was cheating on a girlfriend when he did it. Or maybe it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. No, Edna was sure it wasn’t as good.
She hoped that life was nothing if not unpredictable, and that if things were going to change, they would hurry up about it.
Edna might have known that Johnny was unavailable a long time ago if she’d had Facebook. She could have saved herself the emotional trauma and her grandmother a laundry list of crazy requests. Without the chance to obsess about him online, Edna got to know Johnny as a real person, not a cyber-reflection of one. She saw how he smiled and how he acted and how cute it was that his eyebrow went up when he was thinking. Her impression of him wasn’t based on stuff he bragged about or posted pictures of, or the things he had. Any girl would fall in love with Johnny because of the way he looked, but there were other reasons why Edna fell in love with him. Even if he hadn’t been as good-looking, she would have fallen in love with him eventually.
Her grandparents’ cabin and its surrounding property had been groomed as if the President had come and gone. Painting the porch, a main activity of Edna’s days, was done, and there wasn’t a weed left to be pulled out of the ground. If Edna wanted weeding to do, she’d have to start on the rest of the basin. She couldn’t languish on the porch for as long as Grandpa did in a day, so a little while after the party was cleaned up, she took a long bath. The bathroom was roomy with a big, old tub. Tubs were one thing Edna liked better old, and she couldn’t even tell the water came from a tank. It was an exaggeration, telling her father they had “no running water” here, but Edna didn’t mind exaggerating to make a point. The hot water soothed her back, which ached from overwork for the first time in her life. The bathroom window looked out into the wilderness. Edna opened it. The breeze was warm but it cooled her wet skin. The big tub with a view of distant, rolling hills could be a treatment in a spa. They almost never had a good view in the treatment rooms. Edna’s body relaxed, but her mind still raced.
The more she thought about it, the less she liked the fact that Johnny had kissed her when he had a girlfriend. She asked herself if this was something to confront a person about, and she decided it was. Johnny didn’t say he couldn’t kiss Edna because he had a girlfriend; he said it was because he thought she was too young. This wasn’t exactly honest. Honesty was important if they were going to be friends, which they naturally were, though it had never been mentioned. The next time Edna saw him, she’d have to clear this up. Edna was able to trick herself into having a reason to talk to Johnny as much as any other girl might.
By the time late afternoon rolled around, Edna was next to Grandpa on the porch again, gazing into the distance like they always did, and the new reality of a girlfriended Johnny had been fully absorbed.
Edna imagined that Grandpa’s mind was still, a crystal-clear lake, while hers was a storm, battered with violent, disturbing forces. She tried to lose herself in the sway of a creosote bush or a lizard sighting. She tried to be a crystal-clear lake like Grandpa, but the sinking pull of hopelessness kept winning. Even a cute bunny couldn’t liven her mood as he scampered through the scrub brush. Dinner with Grandma was more depressing than usual, and Edna missed her family and escaping into television terribly. In the days immediately after the party, Edna floated between jealousy and sorrow in a valley of despair.
22
THE PINK LIPSTICK NEGOTIATION
The groceries had to be delivered eventually. Bishop’s General had offered delivery service since they’d opened in the 1950s. There were always a few customers who were willing to pay extra to stay away from civilization. Until this visit Edna didn’t know she was related to people like that. No one told her anything.
Edna thought she’d be off the roller coaster she’d spent weeks on once she knew Johnny had a girlfriend, but adrenaline raced through her when she saw the red truck coming. It raced even harder when he stepped out of it. She was angry at her body for doing this. He waved hello before getting Grandma’s groceries out of the back, as if nothing had happened. As if nothing about the way they should relate to each other had changed.
She was sure her mother would advise her not to question him about Jenny. She would tell her that she shouldn’t push things. For example, having the party was pushing things, and look how that turned out. But if Edna was crazy when she thought Johnny liked her, she wanted to know. It might help her understand boys in the future. And there was still the issue of honesty between friends. She waited until they were out in the Bronco and some distance from the cabin.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you have a girlfriend?”
She tried not to sound too much like a lawyer for the prosecution.
“Because I don’t have one?”
“What about Jenny?”
He slowed down on the empty dirt road. He studied her.
“You were jealous.”
It was obvious. Edna never knew she had a problem with blushing before this summer. When she got home she was going to look up a good hypnotist.
“Jenny was my girlfriend for, maybe, a month. Last year. She works at the store. She didn’t have a ride to the party.”
“Oh.”
“My grandparents can’t stop talking about it, you know. It was nice.”
“Thank you. Thanks for all your help with it.”
This was mixed news. Mostly Edna was embarrassed, and she didn’t like the idea that Johnny had ever had a girlfriend before, though it was unreasonable to think he hadn’t.
“You and Jenny looked like you were in a fight. Displaying anger at someone in public is a sign of intimacy.”
At least she had a logical explanation.
“She was mad because I wouldn’t let her drive. She had her permit taken away.”
&
nbsp; Maybe Jenny was pretty, but after a month Johnny didn’t even like her. Edna was sure of it because there was no way she didn’t like him. Edna didn’t like Jenny either, and that was before she knew Jenny smoked and had trouble with the law. It made sense. Edna had spent the last several days with a stomachache, conjuring up horrific scenes. She’d never considered that she was wrong about the whole thing. She’d have enjoyed the party much more if she had. This illustrated her main apprehension with boys and love. Once Jenny got out of the Jeep, Edna couldn’t see reality. The reality was that a girl slammed a car door, she wasn’t nice, and Johnny didn’t talk to her. Edna dropped cake on him and didn’t even look up to say good-bye. It was awful.
“Oh.”
“I can’t be your boyfriend, Edna.”
“Who said you should be my boyfriend?”
“No one had to say anything.”
“Well, I can see how it might be confusing when you act like my boyfriend. When you take me places and punch people if they say something rude about me. And you do nice things for me. And you kiss me.”
It was all true. Johnny had never met a girl who drove him crazy, one he wanted to talk to or spend much time with or do things for. Edna was able to be herself more and more with him, and the more she was, the more confusing he found it.
“I said I shouldn’t have kissed you,” he reminded her. “We can be friends, OK?”
“If you say so.”
She wasn’t promising anything. Perhaps Edna couldn’t talk Johnny into being her boyfriend the way she might talk her mother into going shopping, but she had the confidence of Cleopatra, giddy with the disappearance of Jenny and the fact that Johnny thought about being her boyfriend even if he thought he couldn’t be. He pulled the Bronco into the garage.
“I have to wait a couple minutes before I check the oil.”
He was supposed to do that before he took the car out. He was always doing things wrong around this girl. She liked going out, and he’d forgotten about anything else. He put up the hood and realized he didn’t need to check the oil, really; he’d just checked it last week. Edna perched on a stool next to him, her foot rocking back and forth like a softly wagging tail.
“What do you do with your friends around here? Do you ride dirt bikes a lot?”
“Sometimes.”
“Do you go to movies?”
“Well, there’s a multiplex, but it’s far. I haven’t been there in, like, forever, and there’s an old drive-in in town, but—”
“There’s a drive-in? Can we go to it? I’ve never been to a drive-in!”
“I’m not taking you to a drive-in, Edna.”
“Why not? We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“Sure.”
“So we can go to a movie. I always go to the movies with my friends.”
“Maybe we should just be…acquaintances.”
“No, I have an idea.”
“What?”
“How we can be friends. Really. If I kiss you and you don’t kiss me back, it proves that we can be. That you’re serious. I’m not sure you are, but then I get to go to a drive-in movie.”
“And what if I do kiss you back? What would happen to our friendship?”
Edna had no clue where she’d gotten this idea or how she’d had the guts to suggest it, but he’d considered it enough for her to pursue it.
“Well, then we get to kiss again, but only once more and in the name of research. I don’t think that’s going to happen, though. We just have to prove it, and then we’re going to the movie.”
Edna hated kissing games, but she’d just invented one that worked for her, one she couldn’t lose. Whether he kissed her back or he didn’t, she was going to be happy with the outcome. She jumped down and steered him onto the stool. Johnny was beyond kissing games, but he was powerless against Edna’s logic. Or he let himself be. He might love her a little. This was a stupid idea.
She rested her hands on his shoulders. Edna finally had him again. This time she was the predator and he was the one who didn’t know what was going on. She could see this when she looked in his eyes; she had power over him. She liked this, and she liked her own desire. She touched her lips to his. It felt beautiful, like something she should do all the time. He stayed still but breathed deeply, as if inhaling was a way of touching her. She pressed against him with the insides of her lips, tasting his skin. She put her arms around his neck and caressed the back of his head. She pressed her body against his. She felt sexy; this was new. He put his hand on her hip at one point and then took it away. The only thing that could explain his ability to keep from devouring her was a deeper desire to show Edna that he was strong and in control enough to take her someplace she wanted to go.
“That’s pretty good,” she teased, and she kissed him again.
“That’s enough.”
“OK, but you didn’t kiss me back, so we’re going to the drive-in movie, right?”
She fell into his arms and insisted, “Right?”
Defeated, he was still thinking about it.
“Right.”
“When?”
“Let’s ask Mary if it’s OK, and if she says yes, we’ll go.”
Mary noticed that Edna put on pink lipstick every time Johnny came over, and she thought that was fine, but she didn’t think it was fine that Johnny had pink lipstick faintly streaked across his face and on the forearm he’d wiped it off with.
“Grandma, Johnny wants to ask you a question.”
Edna was loopy. Johnny could ask a question without the help of an announcement. Not that Mary needed it, but it was more evidence that these two had been kissing. Mary was impressed with Edna; Johnny was as good as any boy she could think of. She put down the button she was sewing onto Zeke’s shirt and set her elbows on the picnic table.
“All right.”
“Mary, would it be all right if I took Edna to a movie? In Desert Palms? It’s the drive-in.”
“I’ve never been to a drive-in before,” Edna added, too enthusiastically.
Mary studied Edna, then Johnny, then she looked away, leaving them in the awkward silence that Edna was used to but Johnny had probably not experienced. He’d probably never asked Mary any kind of personal question. Edna was amazed at how much power Grandma held in her pauses, and it occurred to her that Grandma might know that. Edna wasn’t as embarrassed by the delay as she might have been; Johnny already knew her grandparents, and, unbelievably, he liked her anyway. She found it hard to stand being so in love with him. He looked back at her as if to ask if Grandma was ever going to answer.
“Let me think about it,” Grandma said, and she went back to the button. Mary wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but the smartest thing at the moment was to do nothing. Even if she was going to let them go, it was up to her, as Edna’s grandmother, to make him wait. She wouldn’t answer today. It was no good if it was too easy for anyone to see her granddaughter.
23
THE DRIVE-IN
The drive-in was built a long time ago. Tall, fluffy trees called tamarisks must have been as old as Grandma’s eucalyptus trees and encircled the property. People camped out with blankets and pillows in the beds of their pick-up trucks. There were only ten cars. Edna thought the place couldn’t possibly be making any money. Johnny bought them popcorn at the concession stand, a bare-bones structure that was like the poorer buildings Edna had seen in Mexico. Chubby girls were dressed in pajamas and fuzzy slippers. They talked about the last movie they saw there, and neither of them could remember the name of it. Edna noticed their sparkling, long fingernails as they dipped each already buttered popcorn kernel into a cheese sauce before putting it in their mouths. This would be such a nutritional offense in Edna’s world; some parent might be outraged enough to call the police.
In front of the large screen, poles sticking out of the dirt divided the parking spaces. Johnny explained that they used to have speakers that hung inside the car windows before they had the sound on the radio. Edna�
��s stay in the desert had established the longest time she’d gone in her life without looking at a screen. This one was framed by the windshield from inside the Jeep and suspended in front of the stars. Bloodied zombies attacked the terrified inhabitants of a small town. Johnny and Edna cringed as a zombie ate someone’s brain. People in a nearby truck moaned, and some girls in the next car screamed. The lucky, young survivors with their brains intact ran away. There was a cough from the backseat.
“Are they gone?”
Mary hated horror films. On the way to the drive-in that evening, she’d told Edna and Johnny that her favorite film was From Here to Eternity, and while she knew it was a cliché, she was certain they didn’t make them like that anymore.
Edna was infuriated with Grandma’s condition that they could only go to the drive-in if she went along with them, but Grandma firmly established that it was with her or nothing. Grandma made decisions, and then she didn’t participate in discussions about them, which was totally unfair. Meanwhile, Johnny acted as if it was going to be fun to have Grandma come along with them, and that she was naturally invited. He was either impossibly nice or a little relieved, but Edna would have preferred if he sounded disappointed.
The Jeep had bucket seats in the front, and Edna felt too much distance between them. With a more discreet seat, she could have hoped they’d hold hands without Grandma noticing, but she had to settle for being near Johnny for the entire movie without touching him. She could see why he had reservations about taking her here alone. It was cozy. Soon their seats were tilted back; it was a more comfortable way to watch the screen. Edna wasn’t getting exactly what she wanted, but she knew there was a good chance Johnny would be kissing her if Grandma wasn’t behind them.
Edna in the Desert Page 13
