“What about horses?”
“Because all little girls love horses?” I shook my head no. “I’m afraid of horses.”
“Not you. You’re not afraid of anything.” Cowboy set his fingers into the fur of the Flemish.
“Don’t pat against the growth,” I said. “He won’t like that.” I watched Cowboy correct. “So, you said that you wanted to talk.”
“I’m sorry I kicked you out of the garage today. I don’t talk about . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence. “But you, you’re different. I was an ass. I’m sorry.”
“I shouldn’t have pried.”
He looked up at the night sky. “It’s okay. You can pry,” he said.
“Can I? Okay, then tell me something about your brothers,” I said, and Cowboy let out a laugh.
“Well, one older, one younger. Michael and . . .”
“What’s Michael’s middle name?” I interrupted. “What goes with Silas Wolcott Shepherd?”
“Newlin. Michael Newlin. And the other one is Lincoln Hanley.”
“Nice names,” I said. “Huh, we both have two brothers.”
“Yeah, I saw yours again tonight while I was skulking. Their curtains are open and they’re looking at dirty pics on a tablet,” he said.
“Way to go, boys!” I had to laugh. “I mean dirty pics are demoralizing. But the boys snuck that tablet away from my father. They are going to survive this household fine,” I said. Cowboy smiled and we both fell silent for a moment. “So, I don’t get it,” I said. “How does someone make beautiful kids, give them beautiful names . . . and then one day start hurting them?”
“You’ve got a funny mind, Beta.”
“No, I’m serious. I want to know.” I eased the Flemish buck back into his hutch and gave him a few strokes before I latched the door. Cowboy held a cigarette between his lips and struck a match.
“Families,” he mumbled. “Shit happens.”
“That’s not a reason to—”
“To beat your kids? It was for my ma.”
I remembered Regina Colletti’s story, what her father did to her. It was horrible, but different from what Cowboy’s mother did to him. Cowboy shook out the match. His cigarette was still unlit and I watched him try again.
“Give it to me,” I said.
“You’re too young to smoke.”
“Are you ever going to stop saying that to me? Anyone with lungs is old enough to smoke. Besides, I was just going to light it for you. I really only smoke when I want to feel bad,” I said.
“Hmm . . . and I only smoke when I do feel bad. Like when I’m wrong—or when someone else is. This time,” he gave me a nod, “I was wrong.”
“Forgiven,” I said. “Maybe we can both cut that out for good someday.” I gestured at the cigarette, which now glowed at its tip. Then I asked him, “What set your mother off? What did you do?”
“Name it, I probably did it,” he said coolly. “School stuff.” He shook his head. “That was always tough. Late for supper, forgot to pick up the mail, mowed the friggin’ lawn crooked. Everything pissed her off. Everything.” He knocked ashes from the cigarette onto the ground at his feet. “Michael and Lincoln didn’t catch as much of it. But I wasn’t good at much except cars. I don’t think she liked having a grease monkey for a son. She could go off like a gun, and grab a stick or a strap—” I let out a gasp and my hands went weak.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“When I was a kid, I protected my head until she was done,” he said.
I could see him, a boy like Favian or Avel, ducking—it was unbearable. I brought my blanket up over my nose and wiped my eyes.
“Come on, Beta. No crying.”
“No, no, I don’t cry,” I said. “But I just can’t imagine it. Would you ever do that to your kids?”
“I’m not having kids.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yeah, I do,” he said.
“That’s giving up.”
“I know whether or not I want kids.”
“God! Why do you have to do that?” My tears were gone. “You tell me something important and then you cut me off as soon as I start to react. And I’m not even talking about the stuff we never talk about. I’m not—I’m not a stone, Cowboy.”
He drew hard on the cigarette and nodded. “Good for you, Beta.”
“Oh, screw off! That’s condescending! I count on you not to do that to me.”
“Not condescending. Serious,” he said. “There is nothing better for me than seeing you stand up for you.” He smiled at me. My heart turned to sauce.
“You make me really sad,” I said, and I accidentally let out a little cry. “You don’t know how much I wish we could both just . . . feel better.” I gulped and ducked back into the blanket. I wanted to hold him, wanted him to hold me. “Are you seeing anyone? I mean do you have a girlfriend? Somebody you haven’t told me about? Like, something physical—” I swallowed. He squinted at me—like I’d crossed a line.
“Physical? What? You want to know if I’m getting laid? God, there’s a question I couldn’t bear to ask you,” he said.
I couldn’t look at him. I glanced into the rabbit hutch where the Flemish had disappeared into his box for warmth. “I was talking about . . . I don’t know . . . comfort, I guess.”
“I’ve been there,” he said. “It’s not that comforting, Beta. You know that. Are you really happy with your dirtbag boyfriend? I mean, really?”
“Happy might not be the word,” I conceded.
“But still, you choose him.”
“I—I don’t have choices,” I said. My snappishness surprised me. “I let Brady in months ago. He was different then. Now, he’s the boy my father he lets me out of the house with. I’ve tried. Truth is, I’m not very good to Brady—not anymore.” I huffed a not-funny laugh. “I use him. I don’t want to be home and alone all the time. So there. Now you know how horrible I am,” I said, and I meant it.
“I don’t think you’re horrible.” His singsong was unusual.
“He cares more than I do. . . .”
“Yeah, don’t let that be your glue,” Cowboy said.
“What I said about you seeing someone, I wasn’t trying to be icky. I just meant that you have such a good heart—” My voice cracked, and I held on for a second. “And I—I want good things for you. That’s all.”
“You’re sweet, Beta. But don’t waste that on me. I’m fine,” he said. “And you should go back in.” He gestured toward the house. “I don’t want to get you grounded.”
“You go first,” I said.
He did. I watched him disappearing down the swath until I couldn’t see him anymore. I pictured his truck parked on River Road. I wanted to run down there in my blanket, catch up to Cowboy and just drive far, far away with him.
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Thirty-five
THE MIGHTY WHITE TIGERS WERE GETTING READY FOR their first scrimmage. It was planned for just after Thanksgiving recess. The days just before we went on that break felt like a lousy stretch when all I did was placate other people.
Brady was a wicked combo of pumped up and nervous. He’d been fretting over his grades; players had to have C’s or better or they’d be benched. He’d been chewing his callused knuckles raw. I pleaded with him to leave them alone. He’d come to me for dabs of Momma’s olive oil and rosemary.
Since he was so on edge all the time, I tried to be a sport about his latest trick: he kept dumping my books out of my arms in the middle of the hall. Then he’d bring out Mr. Adorable to joke and apologize and pick them up for me, only to knock them away again. He did it more than once a day. It got so old that I just stood there and waited—looking like a bitch to everyone else, I am sure—while he handed me back my books.
One day he made me a public offer. “Here, baby, here. Take a shot. You dump m
ine.” He offered me the armful.
“No,” I said. “Because that’s not nice.”
“Ooo . . . temperamental . . .”
Ass hat. I left him and went to my class.
Meanwhile, Momma and Bampas were having a hard time getting their heads around my upcoming game schedule, which was sure to crash into our dinnertimes.
“We will reconsider this next year, Bettina. There’ll be no signing up behind our backs again,” Bampas told me. He looked up from reading the mail to wag a finger at me. “This has been most inconvenient.”
Go ahead. Make me quit.
“Shall we all go to the game?” Momma asked.
I watched my father turn on his man-shoes so that both toes pointed at Momma. “And why?” he asked. “To add to our chaos, Loreena?”
“Well, the boys might like to see the game,” Momma said. Her tone was wimpy, but boy, she had a plan. “And I would like to see Bettina cheer,” she added.
Bampas peered over his glasses at her. “With the long days I put in, I want to be home at my quiet house come nighttime.”
“It’s not that much of a show, Momma,” I said. “Not like dance recitals. And if you want, I will try to get a ride home—”
“No,” Bampas said. It was his half-syllable no. Close to his siopi, but with less finality. “You will come home in my car. I will wait in the circle.”
“Pickup is in the back lot on game nights. The visiting team’s bus parks in the circle,” I told him.
“More inconvenience . . .” he muttered.
Yeah, Bampas, but only for you.
Then there were the Not-So-Cheerleaders. They were all aflutter and had their eyes on my eye—my black eye—and perhaps it was their prayers that helped turn it from blue-purple to yellow-brown just in time for that first preseason game.
“I’m so glad that’s getting better,” one of the girls told me. “Does it hurt?”
“Not anymore,” I said. I had wanted no conversation about it. No shudders, no glances.
“It must have been awful. What did you do? I heard you stepped off a log or something?”
“I just tripped,” I said. I pretended to walk through a cheer, arms pumping.
“One of my cousins, man, she has the hardest time.” One of the girls piped. “She’s is always getting hurt. We feel sorry for her. She’s sort of a klutz!”
“Yeah, me too,” I said. Then I excused myself to go into the bathroom and into a stall where I could ball my fists and silently scream at myself. What are you saying? You are not a klutz! You have never been a klutz!
Our barely-there faculty advisor came to hand out crisp new cheerleading uniforms—white knit dresses with cap sleeves and “tiger-blue” trim, and matching compression trunks. I hated them. The look was so wholesome I felt like a walking milk carton. While the other girls discussed how best to bleach out future spots or stains, I imagined the dresses benefitting from a Jackson Pollock makeover—drizzles of blue and splatters of gray, our school colors.
Worst, worst, worst of all was the news that we had to wear them to school on game days. This was decided by a show of hands—eleven to one. Not surprising, I guess. I shrugged off the decision while Emmy gave me a silent, apologetic shrug.
Tiger spirit. I pulled myself into the dress the morning of the first scrimmage. I stood at my bathroom mirror and sighed. Really? I have to walk around in this all day? How embarrassing. I might have sooner gone to class in an old dance costume. Still, I scrubbed the final traces of a skull and bones tat off my thigh. I dotted cover stick on my healing eye and blended it.
It was not a coffee morning. No way was I going into SWS Auto wearing that getup. At school, I smiled genuinely when I saw Brady Cullen. He was buttoned up and wearing a tie as were his teammates. He was in good-behavior mode, required to act like a gentleman for game day and I felt myself relaxing as we stood beside my locker.
“You girls look hot,” he said with a grin. He reached down to my thigh and drew his finger just under the hem of one leg of my compression shorts.
“You’re kidding, right?” I started to close my locker and he stopped me.
“You gotta lose the jean jacket.”
“The uniform has short sleeves and I’m cold,” I said. Partial truth. Brady shook his head at me. But he didn’t dump my books.
All day long I wondered how the first game would go. I tried to picture myself out on the gym floor, doing the cheer thing. But I found I couldn’t bear that image so I spent the rest of the day trying to put it out of my head.
“You look cute,” Big Bonnie said. We were standing at the paper cutter together after last bell. Mr. Terrazzi needed a three-inch border for a display case. I was measuring; Bonnie was cutting.
“Eh,” I replied. “White. It’s all I can do to keep it clean, especially in here. And I can’t think when I last wore sneakers for an entire day. I miss my boots. I think they hold me to the floor,” I said.
Bonnie threw her head back, laughing. “Well, maybe it’s not your look. But you’re pulling it off anyway—”
“Hey! Hey, P’teenuh!” I looked up. Brady was leaning in at the door, jaw in the air. He swung one arm in a come-here motion. Not in the best mood, I could tell. “We’re supposed to be down at the tiger,” he said. His hard edge softened some when he saw that Bonnie was looking at him. Then he brought the back of his hand up to his mouth. He was biting his knuckles again.
“Be right back,” I told Bonnie.
“I’ll keep cutting,” she said.
I shuffle-jogged toward Brady, my ridiculous cheer sneakers squeaking along the floors. “Hey, want some of that oil,” I said. I opened my locker, uncapped my little bottle and tapped out a few drops of oil onto his cracked skin. He massaged it in with his own thumb, hissing and cussing about the sting.
He took a breath. “Okay, okay. Come on, let’s go. We’re friggin’ late.”
“I’ve got more paper strips to measure,” I told him. I pointed my thumb toward the art room. “You go. And I’ll be right behind you.” I reached into my locker to put the oil back on the shelf.
“Jesus, P’teen-uh! What the hell?” Brady swore. He slammed his palm on the locker next to mine. I jumped. “What the effin’ hell!” He snarled.
His hand came up again. I flinched. He grabbed my braid and yanked it down—hard. He pushed me forward into my open locker. My fingers found the shelf to hold on to. Before I could get steady, my locker door bounced off me and crashed back. I stood clinging to that thin metal shelf.
In the quiet, I lowered my head and cupped one hand on the back of my neck. I tilted my head—carefully. Looking underneath my own elbow I saw the back of Brady striding away down the empty hallway. I let my head hang.
On the floor at my feet, a small, golden-green puddle of oil spread, all studded with shards of glass. It was the end of the day and the custodians would be coming around. I needed to clean that up. I felt shaky. My scalp burned and my neck felt strained—and something else hurt too. My hip, or was it sort of one side of my butt? And my shoulder? Or everything? I took a few seconds to breathe.
As soon as I felt like I could move, I scuffed into the art room for some paper towels. “I just broke a bottle in the hall,” I told Bonnie, and she grabbed a can of cleanser. We blotted and scrubbed. I kept letting my head hang, trying to release tension and convince myself that my neck was okay.
Mid cleanup, Bonnie asked me, “Bettina, are you all right? You seem sort of . . . upset.” It was clear she had not heard any commotion in the hall. For all I knew there had not been much to hear.
“I’m okay,” I said. I stole a look at the locker next to mine. There was a new dent in the metal and when I opened my own locker door against it, the handle fit the mark. Brady had really whacked mine back off its hinges. “Come on, Bonnie,” I said, “Let’s go finish that job.” I pushed my locker door to the closed position but it wouldn’t go. Bonnie watched me pressure it into place with my whole body.
&nb
sp; “Oh, wow.” Bonnie cocked her head at my locker door. “You’re warped.”
“Yeah,” I said. Then I lied, “It’s been like that all year.”
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Thirty-six
I DIDN’T GET MUCH TIME WITH EVERYONE DOWN AT THE White Tiger and I was fine with that. My parents were onto the fact that, on game nights, there were no after-school practices, and therefore, no reason for me to be anywhere but home. Momma picked me up after fetching Favian and Avel. I moved stiffly as we rushed dinner onto the table, though nobody noticed, and Bampas dropped me back to the school before the game.
I could see evidence of electricity in the air. I truly wished I could feel it. Even Big Bonnie was into it; she had covered a giant hoop in crepe paper. When the announcer called for the mighty White Tigers, the team burst through it. I watched Brady circle straight to the hoop for warm-ups. I thought he might look for me, but he was all about the game. I watched the team do drills. I rolled my shoulders, I checked my neck.
As for the cheerleading, I jogged out to the center of the court when that first time-out came. I felt like a total ditz. Meanwhile, the space between my neck and my shoulder blades started cramping up. But that was secondary to the heat I felt in my face when I turned around in my position and saw the sea of tiger fans filling out the bleachers. People are going to see me do this cheerleading stuff, I thought. Why had I done this? Couldn’t someone pull the fire alarm and get us all out of here?
I began with the Not-So-Cheerleaders, my own lips barely moving. We sang out:
We are the Tigers,
Mighty, mighty Tigers!—
I felt a twinge in my neck when we tossed Emmy nine feet in the air. I felt it again just watching for her to come back down on my forearms. Ugh. I should not be catching a person—a person who was relying on me to be sturdy and accurate. I was aching. It was terrifying. But Emmy grinned as we leveraged her up to her own two feet. Success.
The Things You Kiss Goodbye Page 16
