The Law of Tall Girls

by Joanne Macgregor

  “Like this,” Jay said softly. He took a sharp knife and chopped off the stalky top and pointy bottom of a bean. Oh, top and tail, got it.

  While I trimmed the green beans, intent on not cutting off the tip of one of my clumsy fingers — that kitchen knife was psycho-sharp — Jay pressed pastry into a pie dish, and Mrs. Young stuck golden-yellow and orange flowers into a low floral arrangement with a giant sunflower at its center. The moment she left to place it on the table, Jack sidled up to Jay and handed him a piece of paper with some kind of grid printed on it.

  “Let the games commence!” she said.

  “I think we should backdate it by twenty minutes, because I’ve already got two,” said Jay tapping two of the blocks on the grid. I peered around his shoulder — a novelty for me, usually I was peering over shoulders — and saw that there were phrases written in the blocks of the grid. Jay was indicating the two which read: Dad calls J Jacqueline, and J says, “Just because she’s female doesn’t mean …”

  “No backdating, no way,” said Jack firmly. Then she asked me, “Do you want to play? I can get a new one printed off in a minute, if you’d like.”

  “Play what?”

  “Family bingo,” Jack and Jay said together.

  “What’s family bingo?” I was starting to think I didn’t understand anything in this house.

  “It’s like normal bingo,” Jay explained, “except you fill the blocks with the things that always happen or get said at family gatherings. Then you put a check in the blocks when that thing happens, and the first to get a line of five has to take the other one out to lunch.”

  “You’ve never played?” said Jack, sounding amazed.

  “We don’t really have family gatherings,” I said lamely.

  Just then, Jay’s parents came into the kitchen, and the bingo sheets disappeared faster than brownies at a full-cast rehearsal. Mrs. Young set about checking whether the turkey was done (“Another forty minutes should do it,”) and Mr. Young poured himself a glass of wine (“It’s one o’clock somewhere in the world!”), at which both Jay and Jack surreptitiously checked their bingo sheets.

  “Are you going to change before lunch, Jack?” Mrs. Young asked, eyeing the work jeans and old sweatshirt her daughter was wearing with disapproval. Mrs. Young herself was wearing a pretty mauve dress with matching kitten-heeled shoes.

  “No,” said Jack, energetically whipping butter into the potatoes.

  When all the food was cooked, transferred to blue-and-white patterned serving plates, and laid out along the center of the table, we took our seats — Mr. Young at the head, Mrs. Young at the end closest to the kitchen, Jay and I together on one side, with Jack opposite us, on her father’s right.

  Mrs. Young said a simple grace and wished us, “Bon appetit.”

  Mr. Young said, “Past the lips and over the gums, look out stomach — here it comes!” and poured himself more wine.

  ~ 30 ~

  I eyed the Youngs’ beautiful lunch table uneasily. It was set with a bewildering collection of china, silverware and condiments in fancy containers. Which of the confusing collection of forks, knives and spoons arranged around my plate was I supposed to use to eat my spicy crab salad starter? I glanced sideways to check which utensils Jay picked, and then followed suit. I’d copy him for the rest of the meal.

  The main course was succulent turkey and gravy with creamed potatoes, warm hush puppies (with whipped butter served in a tiny silver dish), green beans and baby carrots. Jack took a double helping of potato, as though to compensate for Mrs. Young who, with a comment about watching her waistline, had none. We all agreed the spread was feastworthy and paid Jay’s mom so many compliments, she turned pink with pleasure.

  Mr. Young made a show of sharpening the carving knife on a steel rod with ridges down the side, and then handed the knife and a long-pronged fork to Jay, saying, “It’s about time I passed the carving tradition down to my son.”

  “I thought you were supposed to hand over the family rituals to your firstborn?” complained Jack.

  “Be my guest,” said Jay, handing her the carving knife and fork. “Just make sure I get dark meat.”

  Mr. Young frowned and then redirected his attention to opening another bottle of wine, red this time.

  “Don’t butcher it so, Jack,” said Mrs. Young as her daughter plonked a roughly hewn chunk of bird down onto Jay’s plate. “And you really should serve our guest first.”

  “Sorry, Peyton. Do you want white or dark meat?” asked Jack, her hands poised over the huge, crispy-skinned bird.

  “Anything is fine.” I wasn’t fussy. It was treat enough to have this delicious home-cooked meal.

  Jack’s face broke into an evil grin, and she chopped off the obscenely big turkey butt bit and dumped it onto my plate.

  Okay, then. Hoping my revulsion didn’t show on my face, I mumbled a polite, “Thanks.”

  Jack and Jay burst out laughing. Soon I had a few roughly sawn slices of breast on my plate, and the disgusting bit was back on the serving plate, hidden under a mound of parsley. When Jack had served everyone, she took her seat but peered at something under the table and grinned again. Her hands disappeared for a few seconds, and I guessed that pranking someone with the turkey butt-flap was something of a Young tradition.

  We were on to our dessert, a rich pumpkin pie with a crispy sugar top, when the conversation turned to sport.

  Mr. Young clapped his hands together and announced, “The Ravens are playing the Rams this afternoon. Who’s going to watch the game with me?” He directed an expectant look at Jay, but it was Jack’s face which lit up at the mention of football.

  “I’m in. We have got to beat the Rams, or my life back on the rig is going to be harder than a bridegroom’s baloney pony on his wedding night.”

  I choked on a sip of water, Mrs. Young tilted her head and frowned in puzzlement, but Mr. Young thumped his hand down on the table and yelled, “Jacqueline Young!”

  Jay grinned and ticked off an item on his family bingo sheet. Jack thumped my back until I stopped coughing, explaining that her boss was from St. Louis and would love an excuse to give her a tough time.

  “Why would he want to do that?” asked Mrs. Young.

  “He doesn’t believe women belong on oil rigs.”

  “Neither do I,” muttered Mr. Young, earning himself a scowl from his daughter. “You watching the game, too, Jay?”

  Jay turned to me and asked, “Would you like to watch the game? There’s a Fellini film festival running all day on the classic channel if you’d prefer. We could watch it on my TV upstairs.”

  “It’s Thanksgiving!” protested Mr. Young. “And the all-American way to spend Thanksgiving is eating turkey and watching football, not watching some frog film.”

  “Italian,” Jay said, his mouth tight with some emotion I couldn’t easily read. Anger? Embarrassment?

  “Whichever, it still has subtitles. And it’s still not a sport.”

  “Not everyone likes sports, Dad. I was just offering our guest a choice.”

  “Well, let’s give her a choice then. Peyton, would you rather watch the game or some old Italian movie?”

  “Um,” I said, playing for time, because there was no good answer to that question. I might not know about pastry-making or family bingo, but I know about arguments. And I didn’t want to be in the middle of one in Jay’s house.

  “Let them do what they want, Dad. I’ll watch the game with you,” said Jack eagerly.

  But Mr. Young appeared not to hear her. He tossed his napkin onto the table and spoke directly to me.

  “What do you think of that, Peyton? I have a daughter who likes football so much she tried to join the boys’ team at high school, who can beat her brother at arm-wrestling” — Jack mouthed the words true story at me — “and who can work a rig with the best oilmen out there, but won’t be seen dead in a dress and doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘ladylike.’”

  “Damn straight!”
Jack said proudly, while beside me, Jay surreptitiously checked off another two blocks on his bingo sheet under the table.

  “And …” Mr. Young paused to sip his wine, noticed that his glass was empty, and reached for the bottle.

  “Dear, how about some apple juice instead?” Mrs. Young said softly.

  “Aaanndd” — Mr. Young poured himself another full glass — “I have a six-foot-four bruiser of a son, built like a fullback, with hands made for catching a ball and shoulders wide enough to power through any defensive formation. But what does he want to be? An actor!”

  Jack’s hands slipped under the table again.

  “He wants to prance about on the stage — he won’t even try to play sports.”

  “A, I don’t prance,” said Jay, sounding angry now. “And B, it’s not true that I didn’t try sports. I gave both football and baseball a shot in junior high, and I was hopeless at both. Besides, I work out at the gym, and I run.”

  “That’s exercise — not sport,” said Mr. Young, waving a dismissive hand in the air. “It’s not a sport unless it’s a competition, unless there’s a winner and a loser!”

  So, Tim’s report was inaccurate on at least one “confirmed fact.” Jay hadn’t played football at his last school. I wondered if he even had an Achilles tendon injury, or whether that was just the excuse he used to get people off his back about trying out for sports.

  It didn’t seem like there was any getting his father off his back though. Lunch at the Young house had been delicious and fun, but it had also made me anxious and a little sad. The family that had appeared so happy and content had turned out to have its own set of tensions and conflicts.

  I’d always felt like my excuse for a family was freakishly bad, but maybe no family was perfect. Even though Jay’s parents were married, and they all lived together in this beautiful house, there were deep strains running through their relationships like riptides below a seemingly calm sea. Jay had his own pressures to deal with.

  Maybe everybody did.

  It was almost three o’clock by the time we’d cleared away the lunch remains and helped Mrs. Young with the dishes, so when Jay’s father asked again whether I wanted to watch the game or a film, I tactfully declined both.

  “It’s getting late. I really should be getting back to my mother.”

  “I’ll give you a ride,” said Jay.

  “You kids be sure to put on your coats and hats, now. It’s freezing outside, and I don’t want anyone catching their death of pneumonia,” said Mrs. Young.

  Jack punched Jay in the shoulder and smirked. “Bingo!”

  ~ 31 ~

  The first Saturday in December was extraordinary for many reasons.

  First, we had our rehearsal in the morning, because Liz was going to be a bridesmaid at her sister’s wedding that afternoon. Second, it was our first full technical rehearsal (always a shambles). Plus, we had to squeeze costume fittings in between our scenes. Ms. Gooding popped in briefly to see how we were progressing but, as usual, said nothing. It seemed like she really believed in the “sink or swim” method of letting students mount their own productions.

  Doug looked maniacally stressed — nothing unusual there — and kept reminding us, “We are less than two weeks from opening night, people!”

  Our technical director, a senior boy called Sanjay, marked where we had to stand for our camera close-ups by sticking crosses of different colored tape on the stage floor, and made notes of exactly when to fade the music in or out so as not to drown out our lines. Then he worked his magic on the sound, lights and video feed from the control board in the lighting box located at the back of the auditorium.

  It was seriously awful seeing my face on the big screens mounted at an angle on either side of the stage. I could see every freckle and blemish, and the mole on my temple had never seemed so freakish. Jay seemed a little thrown at first, too, but soon he was experimenting with body angles and facial expressions, checking the effect on the screens — a total pro in search of performance perfection.

  Because the play was set in modern-day Baltimore, we’d all just sourced what we needed for our costumes from our own wardrobes or borrowed from friends. Even Liz, our gender-neutral, nondenominational religious leader, was merely dressed in black pants with a white shirt and an enormous crucifix.

  I had three costume changes, and our wardrobe mistress (Doug’s mother) had me try them on and parade around the stage in each so she and Doug could approve them. They all passed inspection, except the outfit I needed to wear for the last scene of the play — denim shorts and a top which I’d made by cutting the sleeves off an old pink T-shirt, and which I was supposed to wear with a cute sun hat. The only hat I’d been able to find was an old one of my mother’s and, of course, it was too small for my head.

  “We can fix the hat easily. I’ll cut a slit into the base and disguise the gap with a broad ribbon,” Doug’s mother said. “But the top is more of a problem. See how the armholes gape? She’ll be showing her bra unless she keeps her arms by her side for the whole scene.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” I said, running back to the dressing room. That morning, for extra warmth, I’d worn a spaghetti-strap tank top under my sweatshirt. It was one of those with the built-in bra section, and it would work just fine to eliminate the possibility of side-boob exposure. Plus, the extra layer would be welcome — the theater was cold.

  Five minutes later I was back on stage, where the director and his mother were now checking Jay’s outfit — khaki shorts and a white T under a blue button-down shirt which Jay wore open.

  “That covers things up nicely,” Doug’s mother said, nodding approval at my outfit.

  “Can I see it without the overshirt?” Doug asked.

  So much for staying warm. I pulled off the sleeveless pink shirt and turned around in a circle wearing just the black tank top, rubbing my hands up and down my arms.

  “It looks nicer with the pop of pink,” Jay said.

  “Yeah, okay, wear both,” Doug agreed. “Might as well keep that outfit on — we need to rehearse the final scene now.”

  The last scene of the play was the passionate kiss of our happily-ever-after ending, set on a beach with a sunset lighting effect projected on a plain backdrop at the back of the stage. We made our fiery declarations of everlasting love, then Jay had to remove my sun hat and lay his beach towel out on a massive “rock” in the center of the stage. The play ended with me perched on top of the rock, with Jay kissing me passionately while around us the light gradually faded from crimson through fifty shades of coral, to a final pinky purple on the back screen, and the two of us outlined in dark silhouette up front.

  The big “rock” was constructed from chicken wire folded around a wooden crate, covered with glue-hardened canvas painted brown to resemble a rocky outcrop, complete with a trail of fake green seaweed at its base. I lived in fear of it collapsing under my weight. In the second run-through that night, it made a cracking noise and gave way a little under my butt, but when I yelped in surprise, Doug yelled, “Keep going! It’ll hold up, I promise.”

  What refused to hold up was my tank top — the spaghetti straps kept slipping off my shoulders to hang down my upper arms. I made a mental note to sew them to my shirt’s shoulder straps.

  When I pulled back from Jay to give the smile I had to give him before our final clinch, both shoulder straps fell down. Staying in character, Jay merely smiled, reached out and lifted the straps back onto my shoulders, slowly trailing his fingers up my arms as he did so — flustering me entirely before leaning in for the final kiss.

  I had prepared myself, over the course of all the rehearsals, for the touches we’d blocked and practiced, but every time Jay went off-script and improvised these sorts of tender caresses, it threw me entirely, because it seemed to bounce us out of Romero and Juliet’s scripted stage relationship, and into Jay and Peyton’s budding one.

  Since Thanksgiving, Jay and I had exchanged daily good morning and goo
d night texts, sat together at lunch, and had two more dates. I’d dragged him to the weird and wonderful Museum of Visionary Art, and he’d taken me to see Macbeth at the Roundhouse. The couple sitting in the row behind us groaned as we sat down and didn’t bother to lower their voices as they complained about how they couldn’t see a thing because of the two giants sitting in front of them.

  “Should we offer to trade seats with them?” I asked Jay softly.

  “Then we’d just block the view for the couple behind them, and we’d keep moving backward until we were in the back row and we couldn’t see a thing.”

  “I feel guilty.”

  I tried to slide down in my seat, but with my knees already jammed up against the seat in front of me, there wasn’t anywhere to go.

  “Life is tough for all of us. You don’t have to play small for the benefit of others,” Jay said.

  I got a kick out of watching him watching the play. He leaned forward as though to catch the lines before the rest of us, his eyes bright with excitement and his lips moving silently on some lines. Occasionally the hand holding mine twitched at a particularly intense moment.

  “Wasn’t that brilliant?” he asked afterwards, beaming his megawatt smile.

  “The best,” I agreed.

  Only one of us was talking about the play.

  As usual, Jay dropped me at home. That night I didn’t want to play games to keep him from the door, so I just said, “Please, stay here. I’ll let myself in.”

  He tilted his head, studying me quizzically, and just when I thought he was going to demand an explanation for why I never invited him in, he leaned over the stick shift, kissed me softly on the lips and said, “Goodnight, Tiger Eyes.”

  It was just a peck, but it was real, not scripted, and I treasured it.

  The kiss in the climax scene of the play, however, was one that I both loved and hated. Although the final kiss in the play was not “real”, it was still intimate. I wanted to kiss Jay, but not with these fake kisses. I felt like a fool pressing my lips and twisting my face, while my butt perched uncomfortably on the slowly sinking surface of the rock. Zack and Wren, watching the scene projected in unforgiving close-up onto the screens, were reduced to helpless giggles, but Doug, judging by his deep frown, only found further fault with my technique.