Southern Girl

by Lukas,Renee J.

  “I’m sure it is. You got a boyfriend now, right?”

  A long pause followed. Then Jess said, “I don’t know how to say it.”

  “Look, it’s me here. You can say anything.”

  “Remember when you told me about Cobb? How you got butterflies in your stomach?” Jess’s voice was thin, tentative.

  “Yeah.”

  Jess put her head down. The weight of the world was descending upon her. When she looked up again, her sister’s face was shrouded in darkness.

  “You better not tell anyone else,” Ivy warned.

  “I wasn’t plannin’ on it! Please, Ivy, promise you won’t say a word to Mom or Daddy.”

  “Daddy would kill you.”

  “Oh, you think!” Maybe this was pointless.

  “Sorry,” Ivy said, realizing she’d stated the obvious.

  “Promise!” Jess begged.

  “I won’t tell ’em. Promise.” Ivy was obviously concerned. “Well…don’t worry ’bout it so much. It might only be a phase. There’s no sense in gettin’ all worked up over somethin’ that might be nothin’.”

  “Yeah.”

  When Jess left her sister’s room, she knew that Ivy had judged her. There’d been a look in her eyes—shock and a tinge of fear. Fear of her own sister! Jess felt sadder than ever because of that. And alone—a kind of aloneness she’d never known before. Like desert-island alone. Walking down the long hallway to her bedroom, she knew she could never talk about this again. Not to anyone.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Coach Drysdale blew her whistle.

  “That’s it for today!” she shouted, expressionless.

  Before Jess could go to the locker room, the coach called her over.

  “Aimes,” she said, waiting until the rest of the girls had gone. “I’m gonna tell you something, but you can’t repeat it.”

  Jess stood frozen, wondering what was coming.

  The coach placed her hand on Jess’s shoulder. “You got that thing, girl. It can’t be taught. It’s pure instinct.”

  Jess nodded slightly. “Thanks.”

  Neither Jess nor the coach felt overly comfortable being warm and fuzzy, so it was an awkward, brief exchange. But it gave Jess an inside smile, knowing that this was important enough for the coach to make an effort to say it.

  In the locker room Jess tolerated Kelly, as usual. Sometimes Kelly could be that funny friend she would laugh with, but something about her—the darting eyes and poisonous remarks about others—reminded Jess of a reptile, someone she could never trust not to bite her someday.

  As Jess scrambled to put on her clothes, Kelly came out clutching a towel around her but still dripping from the shower. Jess knew what was coming since she hadn’t returned any of Kelly’s calls over the weekend. She obviously wanted to interrogate Jess.

  “Where did you go?” Kelly exclaimed. She’d tried to ask in biology class, but Jess had ignored her, pretending that she was paying attention to Coach Purvis. At lunch, Jess was a no-show. Now was Kelly’s last chance of the day to find out. “Everyone was looking for you!”

  “Alex and I went out after,” Jess lied.

  “He was lookin’ for you too!”

  “He found me, okay? What are you, my mother?” She pulled down her shirt.

  “You did it?” Kelly whispered. She had to have an explanation for the mystery at the dance.

  Jess rolled her eyes and threw the rest of her things into her locker.

  “Did you?” Kelly was deadly serious.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think…no.”

  Jess smirked. “You’d be right.” Then she slung her backpack over her shoulder and left, while Kelly watched her, speechless.

  Stephanie was waiting by the doors when the girls P.E. class left the gym and dispersed into the hall. When she spotted Jess, she chased her down the hall.

  “Jess!” Stephanie cried.

  Jess, pretending not to hear, was soon engulfed in the crowd of students making their way toward the bus line. It had felt that everyone was looking for her ever since the dance, but she didn’t want to be found. She’d expertly avoided Alex by going to her locker at unusual times and ducking out of sight the moment she spotted him in the hall, and that night, she instructed Ivy to keep telling him and anyone else who called that she was outside. When her parents asked why the phone was ringing off the hook, she simply said, “I’m havin’ teenage issues. I don’t wanna talk about it.” That seemed to suffice.

  Her mother, however, still tried. “Remember,” she said. “We were once teenagers too. We might be able to help.”

  “I don’t think so.” Jess smiled, hoping to avoid some embarrassing story from her parents’ youth. The idea of either of them dating was too weird to comprehend.

  Jess knew she couldn’t avoid the inevitable. The next day she went to her locker at the usual time, and of course, Alex was there. She hadn’t taken his calls since the night of the dance.

  “Hey,” he said, as if he wasn’t sure whether to be angry or not.

  “Hey,” she answered, opening her locker.

  He tried to block her.

  “Hey!” she protested.

  “Are you kiddin’ me?” He looked around, fuming. “The dance was Saturday. I couldn’t talk to you all weekend? Or last night? What the hell?”

  “What’s the matter with you?” She was now very annoyed. Because she went to the dance with him, was this how it was going to be? He had the right to call her every day and act as if he owned her?

  “I don’t know if you got my messages,” he continued. “But I was worried about you after Friday night, about your female thing.”

  “Don’t say it so loud.” She leaned her head against the cool of her locker. On the one hand, she was sort of impressed that he was the first boy with the guts to say “female thing” aloud.

  “Sorry.” He let out a long sigh. “I guess this isn’t gonna work, huh?”

  She turned to face him. “What’s this?”

  Alex turned red.

  “I don’t know,” he said, watching her take books out of the locker. “It isn’t safe, you know, how you were gonna walk outside at night by yourself.”

  “And that’s my fault?”

  “Huh?” He was obviously surprised by her reaction.

  “’Cause guys are a bunch of pervs?”

  He relaxed a little. “Not all of us. But it’s how things are. It’s not safe. If I hadn’t come and gotten you,” he continued, “something could’ve happened to you.”

  Her face broke into a warm smile. No guy she’d ever known thought about things like that. She knew he had a good heart. He deserved better than her.

  “Thanks,” she said, unable to look him in the eye.

  Beyond Alex’s shoulder, in the distance, Jess caught sight of Mike strutting proudly alongside Stephanie, who was wearing his jacket. The sick feeling in her gut returned.

  She realized she was still having a conversation with Alex, who seemed suddenly shy, as if something else was on his mind.

  “We okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Just tell me before you take off like that. Okay?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I’m sorry.” She started to walk away.

  “Uh, Jess?”

  She turned around. “Uh-huh?”

  “Will you wear my jacket?” He braced for certain rejection.

  “I already got one.” She brushed her hands along the front of her own basketball jacket, which she was very proud of.

  “I know, but you know what I mean.” He lowered his head. She figured he had to be insane, putting himself through this—either that or really in love.

  Stephanie, now close enough to see the two of them, appeared to be watching them.

  “Okay,” Jess said.

  Alex wasn’t the only one who was surprised. “Really?”

  “Yeah, really.” She pulled one arm out of her jacket, then the other and handed it to him. In a grand gesture,
she took his jacket and put it on, making sure Stephanie saw the whole thing. As if that matters. She then hung her own favorite jacket in her locker, something she never thought she would do. Today it seemed like the only way to subdue her troubling thoughts.

  She closed the locker door and faced Alex, now wearing his jacket, and saw his face light up. She felt good to make him happy for a change, although her heart sank when she realized that Stephanie and Mike were now gone. The show was over.

  For the rest of the afternoon, that ill-fitting jacket was the embodiment of the attention girls too often got in school. She played her part well, but in quiet moments alone she resented how, even with all of her other accomplishments, she was being celebrated more for wearing some boy’s stupid jacket than for wearing the one she had earned herself.

  Chapter Thirty

  “This is that age where girls notice boys and boys notice girls.” Coach Purvis cleared his throat more times than necessary, obviously uncomfortable with the material he had to teach.

  Clyde Tomkins raised his hand. “I saw some queer rabbits on a nature show.”

  The class laughed, everyone but Jess, who was quietly unfolding a note that had been slipped into her locker that morning. “Meet me at the train tracks after school.—S.”

  Her heart pounded. She read the words over and over, touching the handwriting with her fingertips. Stephanie knows where my locker is…

  “Another interruption, Tomkins, and you’re goin’ to the office,” Mr. Purvis shouted.

  Clyde shrugged as students laughed and patted him on the shoulder. They were grateful for any distraction in this class. “I’m serious,” Clyde insisted. “They were showin’ ’em on Wild Nature. These female bunnies were goin’ at it.”

  Mr. Purvis looked around, trying to regain control of the class. “The point is, what you’re feeling at this age is very normal. It’s natural.” He looked at Clyde and gave him a slight smile. “I can’t speak for them queer rabbits.” Seeing the smile as a sign of the teacher’s good humor, the rest of the class erupted in laughter.

  Everyone but Jess.

  * * *

  That afternoon Jess went to the train tracks, armed with Alex’s jacket for protection, although the sun was beating down so hard she thought she was going to fry in it. The tracks were on a raised gravel hill near a line of pine trees about a half a mile from the side of the school building. Jess spotted her right away, a flash of green and white up against one of the trees. The vision of Stephanie in Mike’s jacket reminded Jess how very different reality was from what she’d imagined. A memory, if held too tightly for too long, could very well become a myth. Maybe that was what had happened. Whether Jess wanted to admit it or not, Stephanie was a perfect stranger now. Jess realized that the person standing there probably had no connection to the mythology of their friendship that Jess had created in her mind. And how could any ordinary interaction compete with mythology anyway?

  She saw Stephanie’s casual posture tense at the sight of her climbing the small hill. She was probably getting ready for round two, Jess thought self-consciously, trying not to think of her odd behavior up until this point.

  As Jess made her way up the hill to where her old friend stood, she was breathless, her heart pounding with anticipation—of what, she didn’t know.

  “Hi.” Stephanie was shy and cautious. Of course she was. Jess figured that Stephanie had to be wondering if there was going to be another strange outburst like the night of the dance. She had to do her best to pretend to be a normal person.

  “Hi.”

  The wind blew a little through the pines. It was very quiet and secluded at this place.

  “You always were a pain in the butt.” Stephanie smiled playfully, but her eyes looked wounded.

  Somehow her comment broke the ice a little, reminding Jess of the girl she used to know. “Oh yeah? Well, you just show up whenever you feel like it and expect me to be your little dog.” Jess wasn’t sure what she meant exactly, where her hostility was coming from. “Like…I gotta follow you everywhere.” Was it the girl from the river talking?

  “I didn’t ask you to follow me.” Stephanie crossed her arms.

  “Why am I here then?” Jess looked around.

  “What is your problem?” Stephanie exhaled in frustration.

  Jess got quiet; she hadn’t intended to fight with her, yet there always seemed to be a palpable tension between them. She ran a nervous hand through her short blond hair, messing it up a little as she fought to get control of herself.

  “I was thinkin’,” Stephanie said, “we could get to know each other again, unless you don’t want to, which it looks like, so never mind…” For the first time, she looked vulnerable, at a loss. She started to walk away, probably to save herself from any more grief.

  “What for?” Jess called to her.

  She stopped walking and turned around. “Why not? It’s like you’re mad at me for movin’ back.”

  “I’m not mad,” Jess said quietly. There was a long pause, during which Jess searched the sky and clouds for something to say. “Sometimes I wish…”

  “You wish I hadn’t moved back?”

  “Will you quit puttin’ words in my…yeah. Sometimes. I mean, no. I don’t know!” Jess worried that everything she was feeling, whether she understood it or not, was showing.

  Stephanie reached for her hand. “Your hand’s all wet.”

  Jess yanked it away. “It’s hot out.”

  “So take off the jacket.”

  “Will you quit bein’ so bossy?” She always was on the pushy side. Annoyed, Jess pushed her hands deep into her pockets—they were unusually roomy, a reminder that it wasn’t her jacket. When her fingers got tangled in a stray gum wrapper, she quickly pulled her hand out.

  Stephanie looked at her strangely. “Can we hang out sometime? Just for a little while?”

  “I guess.” Why was this so important to her? Jess didn’t make eye contact. If she had, she would have seen that Stephanie seemed a little upset. Jess felt it though. She tried to reassure her. “Yeah, sure we can.” What was wrong with her? Stephanie must have thought she’d been hit in the head with too many basketballs.

  Before Jess could leave, Stephanie fished around in her jeans pocket. “I have something,” she said. She pulled out the clay-colored rock that Jess had given her when they were kids. It looked slightly darker, a little worn with age. But there was no mistaking it. That was the rock.

  “You kept it.” Jess thought for sure she’d thrown it away.

  Stephanie placed it in Jess’s hand, closing her fingers over it. She smiled intimately, releasing her hand and backing away. It was a slow-motion moment, and Jess had forgotten to breathe.

  Suddenly there was the sound of gravel crunching, getting closer. It was Kelly and Fran. Fran lived near the school, and Kelly sometimes would go home with her instead of taking the bus. Jess recognized their high-pitched voices immediately. “Here come the squirrels in heat,” she muttered.

  “Huh?” Stephanie seemed puzzled.

  “Nothin’.”

  “I’ll see you around?” Stephanie started to walk away.

  “Yeah.” Jess stuffed the rock into the pocket without the wrapper and watched her go. In another second, her friends swarmed to her sides.

  “Whose jacket?” Kelly sang, already knowing the answer.

  “Shut up,” Jess responded, still watching Stephanie go.

  “Is that Stephanie Greer?” Fran asked.

  “Yeah.” Jess was too distracted to notice how distracted she was.

  “Are y’all friends?” Fran seemed impressed.

  “Kinda.”

  “Kinda? What does that mean?” Kelly demanded. “How can you be friends with a cheerleader? They’re all snobs.”

  “She’s not.” Jess was fierce, defending her.

  “’Scuse me,” Kelly teased. “I didn’t know your childhood friend was still your best bud.”

  “She’s not my best bud.”
Jess kicked at the tracks.

  “She seems nice,” Fran said.

  “Well,” Kelly replied. “No one is ever what they seem.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The cooking club met every other week in Abilene Thornbush’s mansion on a hill. They usually met in the afternoons, but because there was a pressing Thornbush family event later in the day this week, the meeting had had to be rescheduled for Saturday morning. It posed a major challenge for the phone calling tree, getting everyone contacted in time so they wouldn’t miss the social event of the week.

  The Smurf Club, as Jess called them, all had blue hair except for Carolyn, who was now styling her hair in a more relaxed perm with sienna highlights, and Marla Gibbons, a newcomer with long stringy brown hair who was around the same age as Carolyn. Marla was considered an outsider because she had moved up from Macon, Georgia. By comparison, Carolyn, a Bostonian, might as well have been born on Mars.

  This group comprised Carolyn’s only social life. No wonder she was depressed, she thought, and had frequent fits of crying. The one time Dan had asked about it she told him she was experiencing a hormonal imbalance. He automatically believed her because he’d never taken the time to learn anything about “women’s issues.” Hormones were as foreign a concept to him as lobsters.

  The Thornbush mansion was three levels of brick with giant imposing white antebellum columns and a front porch that had no end. Whenever Carolyn pulled up the circular driveway, she expected the theme song to Gone with the Wind to begin playing.

  Inside, the rooms were opulent, bordering on gaudy. Velvet curtains and a gold-trimmed staircase banister all screamed how rich the family was. Every detail was placed to be seen and admired. They met in what Abilene called her “knock-around room,” which had such ornate furniture you could do anything but knock around in it.

  This week’s assignment was to make Abilene’s cornbread recipe, handed down all the way from Jefferson Davis. She liked to claim him in her lineage every chance she could. Of course, sometimes it was hard to work him into a conversation, but Abilene was resourceful. At the last meeting she managed to connect him to her fruit salad.