by Julie Murphy
“Ma’am.” I stand and hold my hand out to her because I’m southern and even if my mom says otherwise, I do have manners.
“This is Willowdean,” says Bo. There he goes, saying my full name again. “We work together.”
“Willowdean. Well, isn’t that a mouthful?”
I half smile, about to say thank you—for what, I have no idea—when Ellen appears next to me and says, “But you can call her Will.”
I swallow and nod.
Bo’s stepmom’s head anchors to one side, like she’s just seen the most adorable thing. “And you are?”
“This is Ellen,” I answer for her. “My best friend.” I take a deep breath. “Ellen, this is Bo. We work together.”
Bo gives Ellen a short wave, but she touches his arm and says, “So nice to meet you.”
His stepmom smiles. “Aren’t you precious?”
I know that Ellen loves Tim. And yet jealousy creeps up my spine, paralyzing me. Over the course of the summer, I have given myself plenty of reasons why I shouldn’t tell Ellen about what’s been going on with Bo. But no matter how I spin it, I know that, to Ellen, my not telling her is as good as any lie. Actually, this might be worse.
“I guess y’all must go to Clover City High?”
We nod in unison.
“How wonderful that Bo will have some familiar faces on his first day!”
“Excuse me?” I blurt. There are many things wrong with the relationship between Bo and me. But the one thing that’s right is that outside of work, our worlds do not intersect. And for as long as that’s the case, it’s easy to pretend that I am a normal girl, making out with a normal boy.
“Yeah, Bo and Sammy won’t be back at Holy Cross this year.” She frowns a little. “It’ll be good. Change is good, right, boys?”
Neither respond. Bo’s lips press together in a thin line and I know that he knew this whole summer and didn’t tell me. “Loraine,” he says to his stepmom, “we better get going. Sam’s got practice.” He scoops up their bags and his stepmom leads the way, her hips swaying from side to side. And that’s it. Not even a gaze or a shrug. Nothing that might promise me an explanation.
Anger boils all the way up from my toes to my cheeks.
“Seriously!” screeches El. “He is even hotter than you let on.”
“Let’s go.” I storm ahead of her, toward the parking garage.
“Did you notice that, like, sexy bedhead thing he had going on? And that stubble?”
I noticed. Of course I noticed. But it doesn’t matter. Because this is going to have to end. My illusions of our after-school romance are dissolving like vapor.
I had a vision in my head of how I would survive the school year. We would both come to work and leave our real lives at the door. There would be no questions, only us. But there’s a reason why Bo didn’t tell me he was changing schools. There has to be. And even if there’s not, he and I have to be done because I can’t let this bleed over into real life.
I won’t be ridiculed. I won’t be one-half of the couple who everyone stares at and asks, How did she get him?
FIFTEEN
All summer I have spent every free evening at home, holed up in my room with my laptop and my summer reading looming on my shelves. But tonight my mother is dead set on me watching television with her while she crafts props for the pageant’s opening dance number.
I sit on the coach, opposite where Lucy always sat, with my laptop nestled on top of a pillow. My mom has moved her crown, which sits in a glass case, from the center of the mantel to make room for Lucy’s urn. It’s a small thing, but it’s enough to remind me that my mom is more than the pageant.
She uses wax paper to iron some kind of patches onto denim tablecloths, for the pageant luncheon, I’m sure. “Now, I saw a commercial for this special the other day.”
She flips through channels until she lands on MTV.
The camera follows a girl from behind, walking down the street of a snow-covered neighborhood. She’s wide and her stomach hangs over her jeans. I immediately know where this is going.
I hate seeing fat girls on TV or in movies, because the only way the world seems to be okay with putting a fat person on camera is if they’re miserable with themselves or if they’re the jolly best friend. Well, I’m neither of those things.
A voice-over kicks in atop footage of the girl doing perfectly normal human things, like, walking and eating. “Sixteen-year-old Priscilla of Bridgeport, Connecticut, may have a sweet tooth, but that doesn’t mean that sixteen has been so sweet. Teased and ridiculed her entire life, Priscilla is done carrying the extra weight. She doesn’t know it yet, but we here at MTV have heard her plea.” The camera zooms in on her ass, which is the kind of butt that tapers down at the bottom and always makes you look like you have a wedgie. Then the camera cuts away to a purple screen with the title of the show stamped across it like a rejection stamp. TRANSFORM ME: I HATE MY FAT BODY.
I glance over at my mom, but she trains her eyes down on her project. I want to get up and lock myself in my room, but I sort of want to know Pathetic Priscilla’s fate, so I decide to stick around. Maybe Priscilla’s life is an even bigger mess than mine and I’ll walk away feeling like I’ve at least got it better than this poor girl.
This isn’t new territory for my mom and me. She had me on more fad diets than I can list before I even turned eleven. It was always a sore point between her and Lucy. I’d hear the two of them downstairs, arguing back and forth about it long after I should have been asleep.
“She’s a child,” Lucy would say.
“I want her to be healthy,” my mom would retort. “Surely you understand where I’m coming from, Luce? I just don’t want her to grow up to be . . .”
“Like me? Just say it, Rosie. You don’t want her to grow up to be like your big sister. She sees me every day for Christ’s sake. I think my existence is deterrent enough.”
“You know what it was like for us when we were kids. You remember.”
My mom never talked about her life before high school. She was big. Like me. And it wasn’t something she was proud of. But the summer before ninth grade, Mom shed her baby fat like dead skin. Lucy was in eleventh grade by then and she hadn’t been so lucky. The dieting eventually stopped when I hit middle school. I don’t know exactly what it was, but it could’ve only been Lucy.
On the TV, Priscilla is ambushed at school by a tiny yet aggressive woman who turns out to be her personal trainer. Despite signing up for the show herself, Priscilla goes into freak-out mode, locking herself in a bathroom stall and crying herself silly. Eventually the trainer comes in and shows her soft side while giving the ultimate pep talk. I mean, seriously, it even got me feeling a little fired up. Over what, I have no idea.
I don’t have to look at my mom to know that her eyes are watering. The this-is-your-life-stop-standing-in-the-way-of-your-thinnest-self moment is my mom’s favorite part of any weight-loss show.
I zone out for most of the hour, but I can’t look away when during a morning workout at the school track, Priscilla’s trainer pushes her so hard that she throws up all over the bleachers—just in time for the entire boys’ soccer team to bear witness.
After that, Priscilla’s trainer moves things to a local gym. But the girl refuses to go inside. The trainer loses it, calling her all kinds of names. “I’ll feel so alone,” Priscilla says between sobs. “Have you ever walked into a building that is dedicated to being everything you’re not? I want to be healthy, but I also want to be happy.”
In the end Priscilla loses twelve pounds. Her trainer claps for her at her final weigh in, but you can see the disappointment in her eyes. The credits roll and as they do, the captions tell us that six months later, Priscilla is still committed to a healthy lifestyle but has come to terms with the fact that her weight will be a lifelong struggle for her.
If El were here we’d talk about how ridiculous it was that this was even considered entertainment.
“Well,�
� says Mom, “that was inspiring.”
I have nothing to say that she would want to hear. “I’m going upstairs. Are you done down here?”
She takes the remote and switches over to the evening news. “No, no. I’ve got piles of things to do before tomorrow’s pageant board meeting.”
“I’m going to bed.”
“Night, Dumplin’.”
Upstairs, I stand in front of Lucy’s door for a moment too long before going to my bedroom. I unplug my phone from the charger and find that I have zero messages from Bo. Plopping down on my bed, I hold the Magic 8 Ball he gave me in both hands. I have too many questions to ask only one, but I shake the ball three times and check for an answer. Outlook not so good.
My phone buzzes.
ELLEN: Just got off work. You okay? You were weird after the mall.
I settle for a lie because I’ve already told too many to stop now.
ME: I’m fine. Just the pageant taking over my house. Boobs up! Ass out! So annoying.
ELLEN: Gross. Want me to come over?
ME: I think I want to sleep.
ELLEN: Cool. Tim bought massage oils. Is that trashy?
I think about this for a second.
ME: Not unless they smell like cotton candy. Y’all are disgusting. Night.
SIXTEEN
Yesterday’s pulsing anger is now just a sad frustration. I have no reason to think Bo owes me anything.
Kisses behind a Dumpster and in the parking lot of a condemned school don’t amount to anything. If that’s all that we are—those shadow moments and a bag of gag gifts—then how foolish of me to think I deserved anything of him.
This is the conversation I have with myself on my drive to work.
I drop my stuff in my locker and weave through the kitchen as fast as I can. I take orders as quickly and efficiently as possible, not even bothering to glance up at customers. Bo stares holes into my forehead as he sets sandwiches beneath the heat lamps or covers sandwich wrappers in unnecessary stickers, something that always wins a smile from me. But I stay diligent, with my eyes narrowed on anything but him.
I can feel the change between us, thick and palpable, but Marcus and Ron treat us no differently, because, to them, nothing visible is out of place. My little summer world is caving in on me and I am the only witness. This is what happens, I think, when a secret turns into a lie.
After the dinner rush, the entire kitchen is a mess, like there was some kind of take-no-prisoners food fights. When Ron asks for a volunteer to restock the condiment bar, I gladly offer.
I wait for the door of the supply room to shut behind me, but when it doesn’t, I know why.
“Hey,” says Bo.
I don’t turn around.
Pulling from different shelves, I begin to assemble a stack of supplies to take out front.
“Hey, listen,” he says. “I was going to tell you.”
I hear him take a few steps and his breath is on my neck. He covers my hand with his and his skin is dry from the plastic gloves he wears in the kitchen, but still, he absorbs me.
“It never came up.” He nuzzles the nape of my neck. His nose presses through the wisps of hair fallen from my ponytail. “Don’t be mad.”
“I—I can’t talk about this right now.” I don’t even know how to talk to him. Not without our lips pressed together.
He kisses my neck, the soft patch of skin south of my ear.
“Please. Please stop.” I yank my hand free and press the boxes of napkins, utensils, and condiments close to my chest and brush past him.
“Willowdean.”
I want to take back my name. I want to erase that moment when we first kissed and he took it and made it his.
“Come on,” he says, a little too quietly, like he’s resigned himself to losing a fight that hasn’t even begun.
At the end of the night, I start refilling the salt and pepper shakers. The bell above the door dings, so I let Marcus take it. “Hey,” he calls. “Bo, your boy is here.”
I peer around the corner to see Collin, the same guy who visited Bo at the beginning of the summer.
“What do you want, man?” asks Bo. He looks exhausted, with dark circles weighing under his eyes.
Collin grins. “Checking in on my old buddy. It won’t be the same at Holy Cross without you.”
“You’ll survive,” says Bo.
“Speaking of, Amber says hi. She’s doing a lot better. Some distance did her good.” Collin shrugs. “A few distractions didn’t hurt.”
“Good for her,” Bo says through his teeth.
“You should come by the courts one night. Hang out on the sidelines or something.”
Something tickles my hand. I look down to see I’ve poured salt all over the table. “Shit.”
Both of them turn to me.
Collin smiles. “Ah, I remember you. What was your name again?”
I open my mouth to answer, but—
“Will. Her name’s Will,” says Bo.
It cuts so deep to hear him call me anything but Willowdean. I leave the salt and pepper there on the counter, and head back through the kitchen to grab the trash. Footsteps follow me.
“Please talk to me,” Bo says.
I push through the back door without answering him. Reaching up for the tall Dumpster, I try flipping the lid one, two, three times. He reaches over me and opens the thing on one try.
“We need to talk.” He takes the bags from my clenched fists and vaults them over the top.
I drag my sweating palms down my thighs. “About what? How about that girl? Huh? What was I? Your summer rebound?”
He takes a step toward me and I nearly take a step back to restore the balance, but I’m not willing to show any ounce of weakness.
“You weren’t a rebound, okay? That’s not what this was. Is. What this is.” His voice drops an octave. “But it’s not like our relationship is based on communication.”
“You could have at least told me you weren’t going back to Holy Cross.”
He’s quiet for a minute, and I take his silence as a concession.
“Why wouldn’t you tell me that, Bo? What? Were you hoping I wouldn’t notice?”
“No, it’s just—”
“It doesn’t matter.” I sigh. “What are we even arguing over? We make out behind the Dumpster and in an old parking lot. That doesn’t really seem like anything worth arguing for.”
And then there’s the way everything in me turns to shit every time he puts his hands on me. Like, I’m not good enough. Not pretty enough. Not thin enough.
“I used to think that you were misunderstood. That people didn’t get you. But I was wrong. You’re a real jerk, Bo Larson.” I take a step back now, loosening the line between us that’s held us taut all summer. I wish I could tell Ellen about this. “And I’m done being your secret.”
SEVENTEEN
I barely even glance at my schedule before the first day of school.
I wait outside of second period for El. It’s the only class we have in common this semester. The second bell rings, and I’m about to go inside without her when I see her sprinting down the hallway toward me with Tim at her heels.
“So sorry!” she breathes. Tim squeezes her hand as he runs past her and on to his next class.
“What were you even doing?”
Her eyebrows pop up and down as she shrugs.
I shake my head and follow her inside.
There are only two desks left. One behind Callie, El’s coworker, who is waving her to come over. And the other is at the long table at the back of the room next to Mitch Lewis.
El turns to me and whispers, “I’m sorry, Will. We’ll get here early next class. I promise.”
I shuffle to the back of the room to sit next to Mitch.
As I sit down, Mitch pulls his backpack in, so that I’ve got more space at my end of the table. Mitch is big. He’s got a bit of a belly and shoulders wider than most door frames, but people don’t look at him and think f
at. They think athletic. Which makes sense seeing as he’s a defensive tackle for the CCHS Rams.
“Hey,” he whispers. His accent is the type of southern accent you hear Hollywood actors use. It’s almost charming. “Will, right?”
With my eyes on Mr. Krispin, I nod, like I can’t bear to be torn away from his riveting roll call.
“Well, I’d be willing to bet we haven’t shared a classroom since the sixth grade.”
“Mrs. Salisbury.” I smile, surprised that he even remembers. She was the best teacher I’ve ever had. I remember Mitch because he would ask the silliest questions, like, “Why can’t we see air?” and while everyone would snigger underneath their breath, she would answer his question. And her answer would be so smart that you’d start to realize maybe his question wasn’t so dumb in the first place.
Mr. Krispin goes through the first day motions and as the bell is buzzing, he says, “I hope none of you struggle with commitment issues. Where you sat today will be your assigned seat for the semester.”
As the rest of the class is pushing for the door, El fights the tide to get to me. “I am so sorry,” she says.
“It’s our only class together,” I say. “And we don’t even get to sit next to each other.”
Callie slips through the crowd and interrupts us. “El-bell, you’re heading to C-hall, right?” She turns to me. “Hi, Willow.”
I fake smile as wide as my face will stretch.
Ellen squeezes my hand. “I’ll catch up with you later, okay?” She’s three steps in the opposite direction before she turns and adds, “And hey, I’ll talk to Krispin about the seating chart.”
I see no evidence of Bo all day long except for his little brother when I pass the freshman hall. Even though I’ll see Bo at work tonight, I feel sweet relief as I head for the parking lot in search of Tim’s Jeep.
“Will!” I glance up. Mitch’s head bobs far above the crowd. “Walk with me!”
I find myself smiling as he catches up to me.
