Innocents

by Mary Elizabeth

  “You’re mean,” I say.

  The five of us drop the drama to eat greasy hamburgers and drink more hot chocolate. Becka figures out the boys are high and totally digs it. She thinks it’s hilarious. We eventually make our way down to the beach where Becka and Pete wrestle like she was with Smitty an hour before.

  “Do you see that down there?” Thomas asks, pointing to the end of the beach toward the bluffs. It’s practically on the other side of the shore, and I can hardly see what he’s pointing to, but when I squint hard enough, I can make out an old boat dock. “We should go there.”

  “Now?” I ask.

  “Not now. Later.”

  “Okay.”

  On the car ride home, Lucas smells weed and there’s a lot of yelling. This time I put the earphones on and try not to listen.

  It’s easy to lose track of time in a small town. One day turns into another and another, and before I know it, summer’s back. Only this one comes with a lot of changes.

  It’s the first week of June and my mom and dad let me spend a couple of days with Rebecka. We’re at her house and I feel like dirt. My legs hurt, my stomach hurts, and I’m abnormally cranky. Petey and Ben look at me from behind fingers shaped like crosses.

  I say, “Do you go home?”

  And they say, “Do you?”

  Thomas ignores me.

  I’m lying in B’s bed, groaning, swearing that the world is coming to the end, when I feel it. I shoot out of bed and run to the bathroom, slam the door, and sit on the toilet. I look at my underwear and scream.

  “What?” Rebecka barges in, squared up like she’s ready to fight someone. “You’re bleeding!”

  “What do I do?” I ask, more confused than afraid.

  “Let me get my mom.” Rebecka runs out of the bathroom returning with Tommy two minutes later.

  Rebecka points and Tommy says, “Baby girl, you started your period.” She offers me her hand. “Welcome to womanhood.”

  I start to cry. So does Rebecka. Tommy laughs, opening the cabinet and pulling out a stick with a string.

  With a new pair of underwear around my ankles, my knees pressed together and my calves spread wide, Thomas chooses now to come and find out why the girls are screaming.

  “I thought there was a spider!” He closes his eyes and stands in the doorway, laughing.

  “Dammit, Dusty.” Tommy pushes him out and locks the door.

  I can’t look him in the eye for week.

  IT’S JULY and Thomas turns fourteen. I’m still eleven. I hate it.

  There’s birthday cake and ice cream. I’m sitting at the counter with Rebecka when Thomas walks by and asks if I grew my brand new boobs for him, because if I did, he likes them.

  “Probably my favorite present ever,” he jokes.

  I think he’s high. He usually is.

  But I did grow boobs.

  It’s weird.

  MY MOM won’t let me stay the night at Rebecka’s this weekend. She says I’m never home and my dad is grumpy. I’m growing up and he doesn’t like it. I wear a bra now—a real bra, not a training one. My mom bought me a white cotton one, but Tommy bought me a pink silky one.

  My parents were mad.

  It’s my beloved.

  I can curl my hair by myself, and I wear mascara and lipgloss every day. I catch Thomas giving me funny looks sometimes.

  “Hey, Blissy-Bliss, why aren’t you here? You’re missing out.”

  I roll my eyes and lie back on my bed. “Where’s Becka?” I ask into the phone.

  “Where are your boobs?”

  “Are you high?”

  “Yeah—hold on, here’s Rebecka.”

  “Hello.”

  “Your brother is dumb,” I say, wishing I was there.

  “Oh, I know.”

  IT’S THE last week of July and Thomas has Valarie over. She’s still pretty—prettier in the daylight. She’s still nice, and she’s still tan.

  Rebecka hates her.

  “Leave,” she tells Valarie. “Call me little sister again and I’ll rip your hair out.”

  “Stop,” Thomas warns.

  “You have a slutty tattoo.” Rebecka doesn’t stop. “I despise you.”

  Thomas kicks us both out of his room.

  IT’S THE first week of August and I’m school shopping with my mom. None of the clothes she purchases for me are as nice as the ones that Tommy gifted me the week before, but I don’t tell my mom this because I’m grateful.

  I truly am.

  IT’S THE day before class starts and Mom invited the Castors over so we can all bid farewell to the summer together. Dad doesn’t see what the big deal is, but he’s happy that she’s happy, and I’m glad that they’re glad.

  Lucas and Dad sit on opposite sides of the dinner table. I’m beside my mom, and Tommy is seated across from us between Becka and Thomas. Mom cooked all day, checking and double checking to make sure everything looks and tastes perfect. She even went as far as buying fresh dahlias and asters to decorate the kitchen.

  Our plates are full and the wine is following between the adults. But no amount of food or merlot or flowers could hide the tension between my father, the judge, and Luke, the defender. Luke’s fascinating and he’s laying the charm on thick, but it’s apparent my father would never normally befriend a person like this slick attorney. I catch him rolling his eyes and hear him mumbling under his breath. He’s never handled arrogance well, but he’s doing this for his only daughter, and that means more to me than he’ll ever know.

  “This is good,” Thomas says with his knife in seared steak.

  My mother beams, starry eyed and grateful to fill a stomach.

  As dinner moves along, I look around the table and see the differences between my two families. Tommy is on her third glass of wine, and my mom has only sipped her first. Lucas is full of stories about the courtroom, and my dad only speaks when spoken to. Rebecka can’t be bothered with her fork and knife and eventually picks up her steak and eats with her hands. And Thomas, unlike himself, doesn’t put his elbows on the table or curse when he speaks. He’s polite and gracious and respectful. Halfway through dinner, he bumps my foot with his underneath the table and winks when our eyes lock.

  And I decide in this moment that if I want to keep this, I can pretend—I need to pretend—I can keep pretending for the sake of my mother and father that nothing is changing, that I will not change. My parents need to believe I can follow their lead and trust in their ancient rules and concepts. I need for my parents to be convinced that I will forever be their little girl.

  Even if I need to find my own way.

  The gym’s crowded with every student and teacher for the Christmas pep rally. Coaches encourage. Cheerleaders cheer. The band clangs and honks and drums, and the other few hundred of us meander around until we find our friends and pretend to pay attention.

  I rock to the toe-tips of my shoes, looking between profiles for Becka’s blonde hair.

  “Leighlee Bliss!”

  I turn around to the sound of my name in a friendly, familiar voice. Two bleachers up from the top, Jackie and Laura wave. Oliver sits by himself one row down, and Becka and Smitty are standing on the floor. She’s on her tiptoes, hood up, blowing raspberries in my direction.

  We’re supposed to stay on opposite sides of the gym, but the seventh and eighth grade kids mingle. Not that it matters to me. I’m sure the only worthwhile eighth graders I know have ditched, and are probably halfway faded by now.

  Faded—another word I learned from Becka to describe Thomas and his friends when they’re so high they can barely keep their eyes open. Higher than a few hits high, somewhere above stoned, when they communicate in nothing but laughs and mumbles.

  “’Ello, love,” my best friend says with a pretend accent, blowing one of her raspberries on my cheek. She’s walking on light and energy; I can feel it.

  We illuminate each other.

  Becka and I can hardly sit still. The closer the hands on the o
versized clock edge to three, the more restless we both become to break free and get winter break started. I’m ready to be out of here and at her house, in her room, living easy.

  Since Thomas ditched with his sidekicks, I wonder if he’ll be home tonight. I haven’t seen him since this morning, when he pulled my hat down over my eyes.

  I was at my locker taking off my coat and talking with his sister when he snuck up from behind and made everything go dark. I nudged my wooly-soft knit cap back up onto my hair in time to see him walking by with dumb and dumber flanking him.

  “Hey, Bliss,” Thomas teased. Black hood up with white snow melting into it. As they kept walking, he flipped Becka’s scarf. “Punkass.”

  That is the extent of our involvement with them at school. We’re in the same building, but our worlds are far apart and Thomas is good at making that unforgettable. I’m princess pie and he’s nothing but trouble. When he starts high school next year, we’ll be in two separate worlds entirely.

  Turning to ask Becka what time her parents are heading out to dinner tonight, I pause as my girl crumples some small scrap of paper and tosses it into Smitty’s shaggy hair. As she does, dozens of knotted, braided, and chevron style friendship bracelets peek out from under her sleeve.

  We’ve made and traded a thousand bracelets in the last two years. I keep mine safe in a little white box on my dresser, only wearing one or maybe two a day. But once you tie a bracelet on Rebecka’s wrist, it’s not coming off. What catches my eye now is the connection I make when Smitty plucks the paper from his hair and flashes the corner of his grin over his shoulder at my girl.

  As she feigns innocence, and he tosses the paper right back at her, I notice a black and white bracelet around his right wrist matches the newest on B’s left.

  Tomboy Becka has come a long way from chasing Freddy Kruger around the playground.

  It makes me think of orange lamp light, Newports, and two anklets. Scanning the gym as we finally head toward the hallway and freedom, I realize it isn’t Thomas and his friends that are gone. Valarie isn’t here either.

  Thomas certainly doesn’t wear a bracelet around his wrist from her or anyone, but I’ve learned a lot from watching Becka and Smitty. Mainly: labels don’t mean much, but secret details do. I’ve seen Valarie’s ponytail holders on Thomas’ floor. I’ve also seen her pull his lighter from her pocket, but if you asked either of them, they’d deny being a couple as quickly as Smitty and Becka.

  Pulling my wooly pink hat and pink wooly scarf on first, I layer my pea coat on next and reach into my locker for my backpack full of sleepover supplies. Becka and I head outside, and Tommy is waiting for us in her car. We stop for Chinese food on the way home, ordering extra for Thomas and Petey.

  Becka and I are at the kitchen table, about to open fortune cookies, when Tommy comes in.

  “I want you to call me if Thomas tries to bring his friends in when they drop him off tonight,” she says, fastening diamonds to her earlobes.

  “Why?” her daughter asks.

  “The assistant principal called me again today,” Tommy answers with an unsurprised and sarcastic smile.

  There’s a lot Thomas gets away with scot-free. Unlike my house, he and Becka are given freedom by their parents. They barely have boundaries, but he pushes more against the ones he can find all the time, and I don’t get it.

  “He stuck a note in some girl’s locker. Kelly?” Tommy asks, shaking long bronze waves out, making the bangles on her wrist clink together.

  Becka snorts. I break my fortune cookie without meaning to, but I laugh because, really? Kelly?

  “Yeah, and?” B prompts her mother.

  Tommy shrugs her shoulders like she doesn’t know what to make of it except for the fact that Thomas is in trouble, again.

  “Her mom found it yesterday and Kelly told her Thomas did it. It’s not his handwriting, but the cameras show him putting it in her locker. And since he told the principal he wanted to talk to Portland’s finest defense attorney instead of saying who actually wrote it, this is his second warning.” She shakes her head with a disappointed sigh. “He’s got two days of in-school suspension after break.”

  While half of me wants to laugh at what the note probably said, and at the image of Thomas being a wise guy right to the face of authority, the other half of me sees how frustrated his mom is. Silently wishing he’d straighten up before Luke’s recent threats of military school become a reality, I read my fortune.

  Do what’s right, not what you should.

  I toss it on the table as the phone rings and Tommy answers it. Becka nudges my elbow, nodding toward the stairs. I grab my backpack and follow her up.

  “I wish it was summertime,” she says, flopping onto her bed and looking out the window upside down.

  While it starts to snow again, we flip through magazines. Her sea-green nail polish is chipped, visual evidence of her badassery, and when I pull a bottle of dark blue from my bag, she agrees to let me paint them. I stretch my legs out, wiggling my toes in toe socks while she gets the remover from the bathroom. As she gets back, I hear the front door open downstairs. Her eyebrows raise, and with a sneaky exchange of glances, I slip off her bed and we step out into the hall.

  Peeking over the bannister, I catch Thomas—a glimpse of his brown-blonde hair going every which way as he drops his snow covered hood. He’s out of sight then, and his mother’s voice is chilly-calm from the living room.

  “Do you have some explaining you’d like to do?”

  If I were him, I think I’d hate that question. With all the rules Thomas breaks, it’s like a trap.

  “You’re smarter than your friends,” Tommy says. “Act like it.”

  “You’ve got a lot of room to talk,” he tells her casually.

  “This isn’t about me.” Her voice raises.

  “Yeah,” Thomas replies, no shift in his laid-back tone. “Sure”

  “Look at me when I’m talking to you. This is your second written warning—”

  “Calm down,” he interrupts. “It’s not a big deal, Mom. Have some wine.”

  It’s dead silent and I feel my heart drop to my stomach. I’m used to Thomas’ defiance and audacity, but I can’t believe he said that.

  “Go!” Tommy shouts, making me and Becka both jump. “I can’t even look at you.”

  We trade glances at the sound of Thomas’ steps, and even though his mother told him to leave, her heels click like she’s following him.

  “You can tell your father about it this time,” she continues, threatening and desperate sounding. “Since it’s no big deal.”

  “Whatever,” he mumbles.

  “What was that? Thomas Levi, turn around and answer me right now. I swear to fucking God—”

  Becka and I scoot back to her room, and before my best friend closes her door—slowly, carefully to keep it quiet—I hear Thomas mumble something. I don’t think Tommy catches it, but I do.

  “I can’t wait to get out of here.”

  He slams his door, and behind Becka’s, I hear his bag hit the floor on the other side of his room.

  My heart’s beating hard and fast. I look around at the floor instead of at my friend because I don’t want her to feel any more awkward than she probably does. I lean against her desk and press my lips together, chipping at pink nail polish I painted on this morning.

  Becka shifts in my peripheral vision, and I look up.

  “I’ll be right back.” She opens her door, and when she leaves me alone, my stomach twists uncomfortably.

  It’s not the argument with his mom or his door slamming and bag throwing that’s unsettling. It’s not the trouble he insists on always being in or wondering how Luke is going to react when he finds out. It’s the last three words he said that hang in my head and churn my stomach.

  Out of here.

  Becka returns with a bag of cotton balls, and I remember I was going to do her nails.

  “Forgot these,” she says, shrugging her skinny-stro
ng shoulders like it’s all good.

  Swallowing my nervousness, I follow her lead and sit down across from her.

  WHEN LUCAS gets home later that evening, he doesn’t come in. Tommy calls her love up the stairs before she leaves. We call ours back down in harmony, but Thomas says nothing. The bass thumping from his room is loud enough he probably doesn’t hear anything else.

  “I’ve got the munchies,” Becka says, holding her hands out and looking at her freshly painted tips. “Want to go downstairs?”

  “Sure.”

  While she raids the pantry, I pick out movies. Halfway through the first Back to the Future, Thomas shuts his music off. The three words I’m trying not to think resonate in my mind. I push at them, but they push back.

  Out of here.

  They make me feel sickly-nervous. Worse than scrambled eggs. Worse than the first day of school in a new city. The thought of Thomas running away—

  Without a second to wonder why, I go instantly from nervous to scared. It creeps like icicle-drips down the back of my neck. Thomas is tough, but he’s not a grownup and the world is dangerous. My parents keep me from the dark parts, but I know enough. Newport is a nice town, but criminals and creeps exist everywhere, and they’re ruthless. They’re cold.

  Thomas isn’t like that. He’s warm. He’s a foulmouthed boy with some unseemly hobbies. He has zero respect for authority, but his heart is good. I can hear it when he laughs. It’s in the way he’s always watching out for his sister and me, and how sometimes he kisses his mom’s cheek for no reason at all. His goodness reveals itself in sparkler-sparks and stolen cartons of milk.

  We’re almost to the end of the sequel before I hear his footsteps on the stairs.

  “Hey,” Becka says quietly, watching her brother come around the sofa and sit down in the chair to my left.

  I glance up as I reach for a piece of licorice from our spread of snacks covering the coffee table.