“Your dad has some things he needs to talk to you about, Aggie. In his own time. It’s not my story to tell.” Her dark hair slides out of its bun, and she looks so much younger with messy pieces hanging around her knife-blade cheekbones.
“You can tell me something.” I love my dad, but he’s a distracted phone talker, he can’t write an email that isn’t professional, and he refuses to use emojis when he texts. I’m not asking him to get on Snapchat, but he could edge into the twenty-first century. I hate that I feel relieved when I remember I have a science lab to finish, so I might have to push off a call to him for another few days. “I came here with you, but I barely know what went down. Tell me how we wound up in this bog of eternal misery.”
For a few seconds I hold out hope she’ll let me in.
“Is it really so bad, Aggie? A fresh start for both of us, is that so terrible? I would understand if you were being bullied or ostracized, but you’re going out to play baseball for God’s sake.” She flaps her highbrow magazine at me.
The scales have definitely tipped. “Right.” I swing my fist in a golly-gee arc and put on a big phony smile. “I’ll go play some baseball, and maybe you can bake a nice pot roast and an apple pie, and then I’ll come home and we can totally pretend like life in this backwater hellhole is a-okay.”
She sets down the glass—without a coaster…things must be about to get serious—but I’m out the door before she can say another word.
Doyle is sitting on my backyard fence when I storm out.
“I’m calling the neighborhood watch to report a suspicious hooligan hanging around my house!” I yell.
Even though he doesn’t look, I can tell he’s smiling when he answers, “Dontcha dare. This ain’t highfalutin New York City, with all their PC warnings and police interventions, Nes. This is shoot-to-kill country, and your neighborhood watch is Jonesy Whittle.”
“The nice guy with those cute concrete bulldog statues in his yard?” I hop up next to him, and he eyes me from head to toe.
I shift to give him a better view. My cousins in Santo Domingo would say the look he’s giving me means he’d like to make me his jeva—his girlfriend—but I can’t entertain that thought right now. What Doyle and I have between us is too complicated to explain in any language I know.
“Jonesy Whittle’s got a gun collection that could arm every soldier in a second War Between the States, and he’s a steady shot.” He hops down and holds a hand out.
I refuse his hand and land sideways on my ankle, correcting it just before it buckles under my weight.
“The War Between the States, huh?” I squint. “Is that an adorable Southern term for the Civil War?”
“No, ma’am.” He takes one step closer to me. “The adorable term is the War of Northern Aggression.”
I pop an eyebrow and a coordinating hip. “You’re kidding me.”
“Never would.” He stoops to grab the mitt lying next to the fence, and the smells of cut grass and warm leather rise into my nostrils like a whiff of pure, all-American summer. “My favorite’s the War for Southern Independence. It’s got a nice rebel ring to it without soundin’ bitter. The War of Northern Aggression sounds like some crybaby Southern kid tattlin’ on the North to his daddy.”
The mitt has been so lovingly oiled, I can practically see my reflection in it. “That is some certifiably crazy crap, Doyle.”
He shrugs and tugs on my curly ponytail. “Didn’t you steal my cap? How’re you s’posed to play ball without a cap, Yank?”
“Oh, so now the story is that I stole it, huh?” I whack him with the mitt, and the leather makes a satisfying thunk against his arm. “I forgot. I guess I’ll have to run back in and—”
I’m afraid to go into my house and see whether my mother traded sparkling water for something stronger. I prefer imagining her pissed instead of pathetic.
“No worries. My truck’s at the field, and I got so many caps, even a thief like you’d never be able to steal ’em all.” I stick the mitt over my hand when he reaches for it, and he chuckled. “Aw, I get it, I get it. You need to wear that big ole mitt ’cause touching me gets you so wild, you don’t know if you’ll be able to control yourself. I see how it is.”
I tug the mitt off and toss it up, watching it spin before I catch it. “Honestly, I have no idea why I hang out with you.”
“My charm’s pretty well documented ’round these parts,” he says. “Want some advice ’bout the game?”
“Don’t.” I toss the mitt again. “Please. I do not need whatever advice you’re about to give me.”
“Jest as well.” He swings a lazy arm around my shoulders. “It’ll make it that much easier to trap you in my web if you ain’t prepared for what’s coming.”
I glance down at our feet, sinking in the asphalt that’s so hot, it’s liquefying. What kind of cursed place is this hot in the dead of winter? “We’re playing ball. Don’t you think sneakers would’ve worked better than boots?”
He takes inventory of his scuffed boots and shakes his head. “I can run circles ’round you in these,” he brags.
“Really?” I tuck the mitt under my armpit and rub my hands together. “Let’s race.”
“Race?” His eyes shine with blood-boiling, competitive excitement, but he sighs. “Sorry. It jest doesn’t feel gentlemanly.”
“If you win…you can kiss me.” It pops out before I can think it through. Those violet eyes of his darken with excitement. “I don’t want a pity race, and I sure as hell don’t want you trying to say you let me win. You want a kiss, right?” It’s a declaration, like I know he does for sure, even though I don’t, really.
Know, that is. If he wants to. Kiss me. My brain fuzzes like radio static.
I do have a firm grasp on my feelings about kissing Doyle, but I’m mostly ignoring them. Except when I’m playing with fire making bets I shouldn’t be making.
“A real kiss?” He steps closer and rubs the backs of his fingers against the backs of mine. And I imagine racing him, but slowing down just short of the finish line, so he can claim his kiss. Ridiculous girly fantasies. “We ain’t talkin’ some li’l peck on the cheek, right?”
“Fine. A kiss on the lips.” I try not to stare at his lips when I utter that mellifluous phrase: kiss on the lips.
“Tongue?” He holds his arms wide, an open target for my scorn.
“Pushing your luck, Rahn! You win, you get one kiss, on the lips. No tongue.” I crouch into starting position and point to the chain-link fence at the end of the street and across a field. “To the fence?”
He crouches next to me. I’m staring straight ahead, but I see the sunlight glinting off his bright hair in my peripheral.
“And what if you win?” he asks.
I straighten and ponder what I want. What I can realistically ask of Doyle Rahn anyway?
My brain skips like a broken record over one word: kiss.
“If I win…” I weed through different ideas—a week of him being my personal servant or buying me dinner, doing my English homework—but I dismiss them as too stupid or too likely to make him attempt to lose on purpose. “If I win, you leave me alone for a full week.”
I say it because it’s the one thing he maybe wouldn’t want, and also because I have no clue what I do want. Dread churns in the pit of my gut when I realize how blanketed in loneliness my life will be without the only friend I have down here.
I realize it also sounds unbelievably childish and petty, but Doyle doesn’t look remotely insulted.
“You’ll still go muddin’ with me next weekend, right?” he checks. “Jest in case we start this race and enter some kinda parallel universe where you’re faster than me or my legs fall off in the next two minutes. ’Cause I don’t plan on losing if circumstances’re fair.”
“I guess I can bend the rules for you this one time.” Our pride and dares spin out fast and furious in the subtropical heat.
He hocks from low in his throat. When I recoil, he draws even
deeper before spitting on his palm.
“C’mon, you lived in the big, bad city. You must’ve seen plenty worse than a little spit.” He holds his hand out vertically, and the lugie doesn’t budge.
“I saw all kinds of gross stuff, but I never stuck my hand in any of it.” I turn my face away as bile laps at the back of my throat.
“This is embarrassing. For you. Come on, tough nuts. Don’t be such a wuss.” He thrusts his hand my way, and I have no choice.
But if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it right. I snort as hard as I can and don’t spit until I manage a sizable contribution, but Doyle shows zero disgust; he just slaps his palm against mine and we shake, our bodily fluids squishing between our hands.
“I’m going to puke,” I moan when he releases my hand.
He crouches in starting position. “You wanna quit? Jest say, ‘I’m a big ole whiny quitter and Doyle Rahn is the fastest, smartest, best-looking guy in the world,’ and we’ll call it a day.”
“I’d rather die.” I crouch next to him and wipe the remnants of our handshake on the leg of my shorts. “No cheating.”
“You offend me.” His voice flattens. “I’m a joker, but I never cheat.”
“On three then.” I inhale and flex my legs. “One.” He leans low. “Two.” We both rock forward. “Three!”
I forget that I made a stupid bet I probably don’t even want to win the second I scream the last number. We run like two kids at recess who don’t have a single twisted worry in the world to anchor us. Neither one of us holds back: we pump our arms, jerk our knees high, throw our torsos so far forward, one misstep, and we’ll both wind up bloodied with road rash.
It’s clear from the heavy thunk-thunk of Doyle’s boots that running in sneakers would’ve been easier for him, but he’s long-legged and adapted to this tropical heat. I lag one step behind, then two, and, before I can catch up, he crashes into the fence. He shakes the fence and hoots, but I can barely hear him or the clank of the metal over my ragged breathing.
“I won!” he crows. He grabs my shoulders and pulls me up until I stand tall. Our faces are slicked with sweat, and our shirts stick to our chests in moist blotches, but I’m not thinking about any of that.
I’m thinking about how this prize kiss is going to feel, delivered under the blistering sun with my dignity sweating in crazy rivulets down my face. He tugs on my hand and pulls me close.
“So. You ready?” Doyle asks like he’s got this situation on lockdown, but his body language conveys nothing but nervous twitches suddenly. “Fair warning, this moment’ll prolly change your life.”
“You sound pretty sure of yourself. How much data do you have on this? Are you some kind of serial kiss stealer?” It pains me to imagine Doyle kissing anyone else, but my need to rib him is stronger than my jealous streak.
“Quality, not quantity,” he informs me. His heart races under the thin cotton of his T-shirt. “Trust me, this kiss’ll be a game changer.”
“Hmm, you think?” I edge closer, and he raises his eyebrows in alarm. “I don’t want to brag, but I’ve had some pretty great kisses in my time. Even if this kiss is amazing, I’m not sure it’ll even make my top ten.”
“This one’ll take first place, no contest.” One tug and our bodies lock tight. I can’t figure out if it’s my heart hammering or his. “Ready?”
Our lips are so close I can almost taste him. I’m a plucked guitar string, vibrating and anticipating the next notes, the whole, beautiful song. “I guess I have no choice,” I whisper.
A second later I’m puckering into the muggy Georgia air, and Doyle Rahn is standing too far away, his brow furrowed.
“What’s wrong?” It’s like I just jumped off the playground merry-go-round. The world around me swirls and dips, and I can’t trust my equilibrium. “Why didn’t you kiss me?”
“That was a decent race. You almost had me. I don’t feel right claimin’ the full prize,” he declares.
“Like my grandpa always said, ‘almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.’ You won. Fair and square.” I move a step forward, and he takes one back.
“Look, the truth is, it ain’t gentlemanly to kiss a lady who’s got no choice. Doesn’t sit right with me.”
Damn my clumsy attempt at flirting!
“That’s not what I—I mean, you were bragging about your kissing prowess…” I sputter because I can’t yell I was joking, kiss me! Kiss me right now, you gorgeous idiot!
His eyes light up like he had a eureka moment. “I’m man enough to admit when I’m wrong.”
“Maybe you just know your kiss wouldn’t live up to all the hype.” I hold my breath. He narrows his eyes.
He leans dangerously close, and I’m sure I’ve got this kiss in the bag…
But he bypasses my lips. His mouth hovers next to my ear. “Trust me, our kiss will be epic. As for when it’ll happen? Lady’s choice.” His ticklish breath breaks goose bumps out on my arms.
“But…I don’t want you to accuse me of wimping out later!” I yelp.
He wraps one arm around my waist and cocks an eyebrow. “We’ll compromise then. No lips.” He pulls my hand up to his mouth, sticks out his tongue and drags a long, hot lick across, the top of my hand. “All tongue.”
“Disgusting!” I yank my hand away, but it’s all for drama. My nerve endings scream awake, and the boundaries of my imagination expand to include all the places Doyle might lick if he bests me in another contest.
Game. On.
He howls with laughter. “You’re jest sore I did whatcha asked without you getting your way.” He’s bent in half, hands on his knees, cracking up. “Admit it, you wanted me to kiss you.”
“You wish,” I hiss, rolling my eyes at him.
“Aw, don’t be put out, now. All you gotta do is ask me for that kiss you want so bad.”
“You have zero chance of getting a kiss from me.” I shrug like I’m not light-headed with pure want. “Should’ve taken your chance when you had it.”
“If a lick on the hand got you so riled, imagine how it’ll be when you ask for that kiss.”
I order my wild, yapping, excited imagination to heel. “Never gonna happen,” I snort.
“We’ll see.”
He winks and sticks his boots into the diamond-shaped fence links. Doyle climbs as nimbly as a cat. When he’s at the top, he jumps and lands in a cloud of dust, presses his back to the chain link, looks over his shoulder, and crooks a finger. “Climb. When you get over, put your feet on my shoulders, and I’ll help you down.”
I don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of vaulting that fence without help, or I’d try. I haven’t hopped a fence since middle school and never one this big, so I climb slowly. When I finally make it over, I hang from my hands, kicking my sneakers until I balance on Doyle’s wide shoulders.
He reaches up and lowers me by the waist until I’m tucked in his arms. “Was this some kind of plan?” My mouth presses against his neck as he cradles me.
“Mebbe. Gate’s over there.”
I whirl around. Two girls with bats and mitts slung over their shoulders swing a gate open and walk through like normal humans.
“Doyle!” I beat his chest with the mitt as he cackles.
“It was fun though, right? You can’t say hangin’ with me ain’t fun.” Before I can argue, he takes me by the hand and we run to the far side of the field where his truck is parked. He leans into the window, then pops back out with a hat that says Ebenezer Rebels.
“What’s that?” I grab the bill and stare at the vaguely familiar symbol.
“You pullin’ my leg?” He narrows his eyes like he thinks I’m playing babe in the woods. My brain shoots through every image in its arsenal, searching for where I’ve seen it. “Front hall of our school, Nes. You don’t recognize our school mascot?”
The giant E in our school’s hall comes into focus in my mind’s eye, but I guess I never put together that it had Ebenezer Rebels plastered undernea
th.
“Our mascot is the rebel? I thought it was that giant E. I guess that would be a little weird…but Rebels? Is that even legal?”
Doyle tips his cap off his head, chucks it through the window, pulls a Yankees cap out of the truck, and presses it low over his eyes. “Is it illegal to have a team called the Yankees? With its weird giant NY symbol?”
“That’s different,” I argue. “Technically they also have that red, white, and blue top hat. Also they’re pro ballplayers. And it doesn’t mean—”
“Anything?” He raises his eyebrows and half smiles. “’Cause rebel ain’t jest a Civil War thing, y’know. I never met a bigger rebel than you, and I grew up smack in the middle of Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy Nation.” He tugs down on the edge of my shirt, and his fingers graze the quarter-inch slice of bare skin.
“Yeah, but here? I mean, doesn’t it get people…riled up?”
I want to ask if it gets black people riled up, but I don’t know how to ask that question. Back home I knew my classmates really well, and we had tons of conversations about what it meant to be whatever we were—for me, that was mixed race, but also black, European American, Latina, and Afro-Caribbean. Dozens of my classmates and teachers had cultural backgrounds just as complex, and we tried hard not to avoid discussing race and culture just because it was complicated—in fact, we talked about it openly and often in my school, so it never felt like a taboo subject. It was so commonly addressed, it barely registered on my daily radar, and I didn’t give it much thought outside of the occasional heated class discussion. Down here, I’m too new to know how people see me and too culture shocked to know how to start any kind of conversation about that.
I especially don’t know what to do about the fact that some people see me as black—as I am, proudly so—but assume that means I’m African American. Especially in the South, being African American comes with its own complicated set of experiences. It’s confusing and strange, to be seen and assigned a history at a glance by people who might not bother to take the time to get to know me. At least it makes me remember that I should never assume I know everything about anyone, but that’s a minor consolation in the face of a big, complex issue.
Rebels Like Us Page 12
