Ugly Girls

by Lindsay Hunter

  “Jim,” Myra called. “Come here for a sec.” She appraised herself in the mirror, straightened her neck and shoulders, allowed that flood of knowing vanity to fill her face. She had held the attention of a young man for quite some time the night before. When Jim appeared in the doorway, she took him by his belt and led him into the bedroom.

  IF YOU LET YOUR EYES LOSE FOCUS everything becomes a smear. That’s how Baby Girl liked to get through class. The teacher a moving smear of brown and gray, his voice like someone was rubbing an eraser over it: the words were there but you had to work hard to find them.

  She used to be good at this shit. Math, English. School. Back when it felt like it mattered, paying attention and doing homework and playing the clarinet and never missing class, not even when she was sick, not even when Charles called collect from jail at five in the morning.

  She checked her phone. No new texts. That was all right, she told herself. That was fine, they’d talk l8r.

  “Dayna,” the teacher said. “What’d I say about the next time you bring your phone to class?”

  She let her eyes focus. Even still, Mr. Clark looked like a smear. She hadn’t had the time to fully convince herself that no new texts was actually just fine, and maybe that’s why she answered, “That you’ll set it to vibrate and put it up your butt?”

  A boy in the back of the room exploded with laughter. Some other kids giggled behind their hands. Baby Girl hated them for it. They should think she was an asshole. What she said wasn’t even all that clever, had come out before she had time to stop it. Perry hadn’t laughed, either. That was happening more and more these days.

  She began packing up her things. She knew she’d be sent to the principal’s office, and she wanted to make it as easy on Mr. Clark as possible, the least she could do. She also knew she’d walk right past the office, push out the doors, run to her car to wait for Perry. She could feel the hard slaps her feet would make, could feel the heat of the treeless parking lot. Was already composing a new text to him: What u doin? or even just Hey.

  “Nope,” Mr. Clark said. “You’re staying right here in this classroom. And you’re coming up here to finish the equation we’ve started as a class.”

  He held out the chalk. Baby Girl felt excited, she couldn’t help it. Back in the day she loved to write on the board, loved erasing what she’d written and writing it all over again, only neater. Loved to have the class watch her get an answer right, please the teacher, be the best.

  But now she felt embarrassed by her excitement. She dropped her bag as hard as she could on the floor, walked up and snatched the chalk from the teacher’s hand. The equation had three different letters in it, or was one of the letters a multiplication sign? She felt ashamed that she didn’t know, angry that Mr. Clark knew she didn’t know and was making an example of her.

  Sometimes when it felt like there was no way out Baby Girl could feel her body getting cold, like it was shutting down so she could think. Like the time a man in his boxers had held up a bat and swung it at her and Perry, yelling how he was going to call the cops. At first it was like Baby Girl was hearing and seeing everything all at once, the man yelling, Perry laughing, a car going by two streets over. And then she had gone cold, could see the way out as if it had been blasted with a flashlight: scream, charge at the man, yank down his boxers, run.

  And now here she was again, cold as a lizard. The equation ordered itself, she knew the answer was 26x. Wrote it on the board, wrote suck and dicks around it, so the answer read, “Suck 26x dicks.”

  Mr. Clark looked like his boxers had landed around his ankles. The boy in the back exploded again. Baby Girl threw the chalk at him on her way out. She hated him, she felt sorry for Mr. Clark and that made her hate him, hate herself.

  Heat, footslaps, the wham of her car door. She hunched low, breathing the thick hot air in the car. The bell rang; the bell rang again. Perry would be in biology now. She sent two texts: P, I’m in the car and Hey what u doin? Added a smiley face, because it seemed more girly, less desperate for a response, but at the last second Baby Girl decided it made her seem high or dense. She fucked up the deletion, though, so her text read:

  Hey what u doin?:

  No smile, just eyes, like Baby Girl wanted him to know she wasn’t playing, she was looking for him, she wasn’t even blinking, she was looking so hard.

  He probably wouldn’t even notice the eyes. She hoped he wouldn’t, she hoped he would.

  THEY WERE WATCHING A VIDEO about predatory animals when she got Baby Girl’s text. She could have stayed and watched that video, it was pretty interesting, especially since she was the only girl who didn’t hide her eyes when the animals would catch something, bite deep into flesh, the zebra or whatever thrashing and then woops, there’s its ribs. Perry wasn’t coldhearted. She just wasn’t scared like the other girls.

  She could have stayed and felt just fine with that, but she didn’t want to miss out on a ride from Baby Girl, didn’t want to miss out on the feeling of driving out of the parking lot while everyone else was still stuck inside the school. She asked to go to the bathroom, threw the hall pass in the garbage on her way out, waited for the parking lot guard to chug around the bend, out of sight. The school was a flat brown building with a parking lot in front and a bunch of trailers parked in what used to be the football field out back. The school had expanded enough to need trailer classrooms, and it didn’t have enough money to keep up with a football team, so problem solved. The parking lot guard patrolled the parking lot and the trailers, so kids always waited for the golf cart to make its way over toward the old football field before they made a run for it. Perry never ran, though. Running made you look guilty.

  Baby Girl was hunched low in the driver’s seat, staring at her phone. Perry got in and Baby Girl backed out of the parking spot, drove them through the gates, sped through the yellow light at the corner, still hunched. Perry felt it, she felt that freedom she’d been expecting, the sun suddenly brighter and the air quieter and the grass so green it hurt her eyes, everything seeming to say that what she’d done was right.

  They were on the other side, they were out, and the possibilities lay before them like dashes on a highway. Some days they never found a reason to be out, and maybe today was like that. And it wasn’t like they were trying all that hard. Baby Girl drove lazily, full stops at corners even when there wasn’t a stop sign, checking her phone again and again like she was waiting on something to come through.

  Perry’s own phone vibrated. A text from Jamey. U with your freind? U gonna get online? I wanna talk 2 u.

  Later, she wrote back. She didn’t want to talk to him, maybe ever again. Oooh baby. Thinking of Travis typing those words, now that was something to consider.

  They drove around, parked at the McDonald’s. Perry wondered if it was the same shift as when she and Jim had gone through that morning, if the girl with the lazy eye and long green nails would hand them their burgers if they hit the drive-through. Baby Girl looked at her phone again. “Who you waiting on?” Perry asked.

  “Charles,” she said. “He’s supposed to text me when he’s ready to get picked up.”

  Perry knew that was a lie. Charles didn’t text and Baby Girl picked him up every day at the same time. “Mm-hmm,” Perry said. A fat man walked into the McDonald’s, antlers of sweat on his shirt, spreading out from his spine. Perry liked to ask herself would she go for different kinds of men: fat, ugly, old. But no, not today. Today all she could think of was Travis, how he hadn’t smiled back at her, how when he’d handed the pen back at the end of class, he’d smiled at Matt.

  Baby Girl’s phone tittered. Perry snatched it out of her hand, scraping Baby Girl’s wrist with her nails, holding her off with her other hand so she could read.

  U with your freind?

  Jamey’s number. Baby Girl mashed Perry’s face with her hand until Perry could taste the salt on her fingers. She dropped the phone and it clattered over the gearshift, fell between the seats.
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  Perry’s face felt hot, branded where Baby Girl’s hand had been. “Don’t,” Baby Girl said. The heat traveled, covered Perry’s whole body. “Fuck you,” Perry said.

  Sometimes Perry wondered how they were friends, or even if friends was the word for what they were. They never talked about boys, Perry had never asked Baby Girl if she’d even touched a wiener before. They didn’t talk, really, they just did. Perry’d had a crush on Charles a long time ago, before his accident, before she filled out the training bra Myra had gotten on sale at Walmart. Perry wrote him a note saying how she felt. The next day Baby Girl brought it back to her. “I read this,” she said. “I took it before Charles could see it. You don’t want him seeing it.” Perry thought she was saving her from embarrassment, that Baby Girl knew Charles would laugh and keep ignoring her, but then she said, “You don’t want him liking you.” Perry never asked her why, too embarrassed that she didn’t already know.

  And that’s probably why she didn’t tell Baby Girl what she knew. That Jamey was also texting her. The text just before the one Perry saw on Baby Girl’s phone said, I wanna meet up with u and your freind. He was only texting her to get to Perry.

  Baby Girl got out of the car, went into the McDonald’s. She knew she wasn’t supposed to follow. Perry could see her inside, typing into her phone. She should have stayed to see what happened to that zebra.

  When Baby Girl dropped Perry home, Myra’s and Jim’s cars were there, but their bedroom door was closed. Myra probably with a pillow over her head to block the light and Jim probably still in his work pants. He had another shift that night.

  Perry got online. Her chat was already blinking, just like she knew it would be.

  Hey girlie, missed u

  She typed fast, couldn’t wait to bust him. Why you messin with my friend? I saw your text to her

  He didn’t answer right away. Jamey is typing. Perry got up for a ginger ale, came back to see that he’d finally spit it out.

  U jealous??:p

  You checkin up on me?

  Aw girlie I’m just innerested in your life, he wrote.

  Then: We cant have the same freinds??

  It’s spelled friends. And why you so interested in my life? Perry signed off before he could answer. Her face still felt hot, and she didn’t care what his answer was, only that he knew she knew.

  MYRA HAD TAKEN HIM by the belt, had led him to their bed. He knew men, other guards, who were just grateful their wives could cook, who confiscated magazines from prisoners and saved them for their breaks, going at themselves in a locked stall, emerging sweaty and red-faced and pretending it was just a difficult dump. He had never had to be one of those men, Myra had always taken care of him in that regard. He was grateful for that, but he was envious of the other men, too. Such cheerful wives. Sandwiches and cookies in Ziplocs, no foamy glasses to clean up at home.

  But he’d rather make his own lunch, he supposed, than be a man in a stall.

  Phil was at the front desk. “Morning,” he said as Jim walked up. Phil greeted him the same at the start of every night shift, and Jim appreciated it. Made him feel almost normal.

  “Morning,” Jim answered, and pushed through the first set of doors. With every door he pushed through, the light changed. Like they used the good bulbs up front and the harsh fluorescents farther in. He didn’t know why anyone bothered pretending prison offered any kind of rehabilitation; even if the food didn’t come powdered or in cans or already ruined, the light was enough to drive any man to violence—an unnatural bluish white light that hummed like a bee under your pillow. And they never turned the lights off. No telling what a man could do with a few seconds and a dark corner. Can’t take that chance. If a light blew out, it was immediate lockdown until it was repaired. The men were just too bored not to be creative.

  Ten hours of that light left Jim feeling like an animal. And he got to leave it after that. These men had to stay. Once, a meek, whip-thin drug addict on a three-year stint had come in, and it was clear he had meant to stay under the radar, never asking for seconds, never looking anyone in the eye. Jim had hope for him, had even stopped outside his cell to talk about the weather. The addict talked about feeling the warm rain on his face once he got out. But those lights. After a month the man had to be thrown in solitary for writing CRACK in his own fecal matter on his roommate’s bed.

  Jim rounded the corner and saw that O’Toole was also waiting to be buzzed in to the next area. “Morning,” Jim said.

  O’Toole snapped his fingers what felt like mere centimeters from Jim’s nose. “Get a cup of coffee, Tipton. It ain’t fucking morning.” Jim grabbed O’Toole’s hand so tight he could hear the surprise pop pop of O’Toole’s knuckles cracking. Happened almost before he could stop himself. Like he had turned the channel and now he was watching some new scene. O’Toole wasn’t a big man, but he’d fight back if it was called for, and the thought made Jim let go.

  “What the fuck, Tipton?” O’Toole was panting, his breath warm and moist.

  “Just kidding around,” Jim said. He could barely get the words out. Lactic acid was pouring into his muscles. He felt feverish, and sorry, and filled with dread. “Go on ahead,” he told O’Toole, though the man had already turned.

  Sometimes Jim thought if he could just take Perry to work, if she could just see what breaking the rules did to a person … but then this shit with O’Toole reminded him that life wasn’t no better on the other side of the bars. He shook his head. Had to stop thinking like that. But it was true. Taking Perry to work would only show her that you’re damned if you do and goddamned if you don’t.

  Jim waited at one door for a buzz, crossed through it, waited at another door for a buzz, crossed through that. The buzzing echoed behind him in a long, retreating wail.

  Two hours into his shift, five minutes before Jim could take his break, he heard the muffled sounds of a quiet jump in one of the cells. It was the middle of the night, but that was when inmates were the most keyed up, too much silence, too much time to think. Men never screamed or called for help when they were being jumped; that was part of the code. At first he couldn’t tell if it was on the second tier, where he was when he heard it, or below him, or even if it was on the side he was supposed to be patrolling, but he could hear it clear as day: the unmistakable sound of fists and feet and elbows landing in the soft meat of a body, which meant the owner of the body had stopped fighting back.

  He couldn’t see O’Toole anywhere, so he shouted the man’s name. “I got it,” O’Toole answered from the far corner, where three other guards were pushing into a cell on O’Toole’s side. The guards and O’Toole started shouting for the men to get down, hands behind their heads, their voices guttural and angry, like rage had taken form and was all mouth.

  Some of the inmates on Jim’s side were getting loud, yelling across about what they could and couldn’t see. One of the guards pulled the downed man out by his arms. A blood bib on his sweatshirt, his face all smear. The inmates who could see cheered, the ones who couldn’t yelled, Who down? He dead? The rage was taking Jim now. Men cheering at the pulped man. He felt his nightstick in his hand, suddenly, and he beat the railing with it until his ears rang.

  Later, as they were clocking out together, Jim asked O’Toole what the fight was about. “Deck of playing cards,” was his answer. O’Toole wasn’t looking Jim in the face, still frosty over the scuffle they’d had clocking in, and he walked quickly to get ahead of Jim and out to the parking lot. Jim slowed, his legs tired, his whole self tired. He didn’t want to get in that truck and drive home, and he didn’t want to turn around and work another shift. He stood in the parking lot, the sky the pale blue and yellow of a child’s room, the day already warm. O’Toole drove by, didn’t return Jim’s wave. He knew he could have punched O’Toole till his brain was bent if he’d felt just a bit more provoked than he had. It occurred to Jim that it was in a man’s nature to fight, to wound. Playing cards sold for a dollar in the commissary. A single do
llar.

  THE DENNY’S WAS A SHORT WALK from the trailer, just up one exit. Stay close to the guardrail and try not to look directly at the headlights coming fast, get off at the next exit.

  She wanted to see Travis, so she went to see him. Easy as pie, as Myra would say.

  It felt strange not to call and ask Baby Girl to drive her. But then again, what did she need Baby Girl for? In the past she’d used Baby Girl’s car to get closer to a boy, but she didn’t even know what she wanted to do with Travis yet. And he didn’t seem like the type to rush to the backseat anyway.

  And plus her face burned every time she thought of Baby Girl’s hand on her cheek, mashing her lips into her teeth. She knew Baby Girl was capable of shit like that, of course she knew. But she’d never had to deal with it coming back at her. If it happened again … if it happened again, what?

  Anyway, she told herself.

  The Denny’s smelled like syrup and bacon and bleach. The same waitress, Pam, moving from table to table. Perry sat at the counter.

  “What you got a taste for, hon?” Pam asked. It didn’t seem like she remembered Perry. It was likely people came in at all hours and gave her shit, their faces all blurred together, a tapestry of assholes. Perry felt grateful that she could drop her guard.

  “Coffee,” she said.

  “Mm-hmm, and?”

  “And that’s it,” Perry said.

  “You still got to tip at least fifteen percent,” Pam told her. “Sometimes you young kids don’t seem to know that.” She put a cup and saucer in front of Perry, poured coffee into the cup so quick that it sloshed over the side. “Cream and sugar right there,” she said, pointing.

  Perry knew the thug code meant she should say something back, something that’d stop Pam in her tracks, something that might even get herself tossed out, but it felt like a lot, coming up with the right thing to say and then delivering it with just enough acid. Without Baby Girl there, it didn’t seem worth it.