Grit

by Gillian French

  “Did anybody say it was?”

  I shrug. The bridge lights flash over the treetops. Scarlet, then blackness. If I’m ever going to tell them this, now’s the time. “You know who my first was?”

  Mags looks surprised when I say Adam Morrow. “I didn’t even know you knew him.”

  “I didn’t.” All I knew was he was beautiful. Beautiful on the soccer field, the red and white of his uniform bringing out the color in his cheeks on those fall afternoons when Rhiannon and I would sit on a blanket on the sidelines and scream for him. Beautiful at school, passing by the water fountain I’d stake out between periods every morning, just to catch a glimpse. It was one of those hopeless crushes that twist your insides because you love him so much, and you know it’ll never, ever happen. He’s perfect, and you’re nobody. “Rhiannon liked one of his friends. Having crushes on them was what we did. I mean, we talked about it all the time, what we’d do if they liked us back, how it’d be the best thing ever and totally change our lives.”

  Mags watches my face, the wind stirring strands of her hair. I don’t look at Nell, because I can imagine her expression exactly: lips slightly parted, hanging on words that I should’ve told her a long time ago, before it was too late. “I never would’ve talked to him in a million years. Seriously, who does that, ask out their mega-crush like it’s nothing?”

  “Rhiannon.” Mags’s voice is flat.

  “Yeah. If she wanted something, she went for it. She didn’t even tell me first. She asked a friend of a friend to tell the guys that some sophomore girls liked them, and when they said they’d be down for hanging out with us on Halloween . . . she set it up.”

  “Were you scared?” Nell sounds soft.

  “I got really mad at her, at first. But I let her talk me into it, fill me up with how hot I must be, a senior wanting a hookup when he barely knew my name. We got Rhiannon’s mom to drop us off at the school gym for the dance. Soon as she drove off, we walked up to the soccer fields and met the boys.” Rhiannon and I almost ran up the hill, giggling crazily with nerves, our breath steaming in the cold air. Trojans in our pockets because we weren’t stupid, you know, we read Cosmo. “We made a pact. Said this was gonna be the night. We were gonna give it away, ’cause there couldn’t be anybody better to give it to, ever.”

  The boys, parked at opposite ends of the lot, car engines running. Rhiannon smiling at me, looking way more fearless than I felt, saying, Have fun. Disappearing into the Mustang.

  Then I was inside the Explorer, with the smell of his cologne and the heater and a pine air freshener just out of the package. Being this close to him lit a fire in me, smoking and crackling away. I must be beautiful. I must be something. He’d showed up. “I was scared, but he didn’t make me do it or anything. I mean, it was my choice.” Pulling his weight down on me, dragging his lip between my teeth, letting my body take over to block out the confused, crazy messages my brain was sending. “I’m saying it wasn’t horrible or anything. But when it was over, he was like, ‘This was your first time?’ and he sounded, like, shocked. Because you’ve gotta figure any girl who goes after a guy the way I did must have some mileage on her, right? Even if she’s only fifteen.”

  There’s the softest sound of Mags drawing breath through her teeth. I can’t stand her feeling sorry for me. That’s not why I’m telling them this. “He tried to make it nice. He’d laid out blankets in the back, and I could smell that he’d washed them. It wasn’t like this awful thing.”

  “You keep saying that.”

  “Because I know how you are. You’ll waste all this time hating him and there’s no point. I mean, he doesn’t even matter, really. It was totally awkward after and neither of us could think of anything to say. Finally I said see ya and got out.”

  Into the freezing dark, walking faster and faster, ditching the girl who’d gotten into the backseat of that Explorer twenty minutes ago because I didn’t want to know her anymore. “The other car was gone, and Rhiannon was standing under the streetlight, shivering like she’d been out there for a while. All she wanted to do was go back to the dance, so we went.” In the girls’ room, watching her run hot water over her hands, trying to get the feeling back, her face pinched and frowning in the mirror, me asking, Are you okay?

  “Was she okay?” Nell’s voice is hushed.

  I bite my lip, literally counting to ten before I speak. My words still come out tightly. “She didn’t do it. She changed her mind.”

  “What?” Mags.

  “She got into the car and changed her mind. The guy must’ve been pissed, because he kicked her out and left.” I can still feel how the whole room seemed to fall away, leaving us together in a pocket of sickening silence, even with the bass pounding on the other side of the wall and girls coming and going. Rhiannon’s quick, sharp little movements, like she was disgusted with me.

  “I was like, ‘You were the one who set the whole thing up,’ and she was like, ‘I didn’t make you do anything.’ That was when I walked away. She was right. She didn’t make me. But she still let me put myself out there alone after we’d agreed to do it together and everything. I mean, not that I wanted her to sleep with somebody, I just . . . hated feeling tricked. So I borrowed somebody’s phone and called Mom, said I was sick and wanted to come home.”

  Mags watches my face. “You never told anybody what happened?”

  “What could I say?” I brush at some dirt on my pants. “I thought Rhiannon would call and say she was sorry, but she didn’t. We didn’t talk at school on Monday, either. Or the rest of the week. By then everybody was whispering about what happened on Halloween, except nobody was talking about Rhiannon being part of it. So I figured she was the one who ran her mouth, and made herself look good.”

  “That bitch.” Mags sits very straight and stiff. Rhiannon’s lucky she’s missing, because my sister’s mad enough to come down on her like a 185-pound landslide right now. “She’s embarrassed about punking out, so she trashes you.”

  “And I heard her talking about me one time. Saying how easy I was.” I shrug. “So now you guys know.”

  “I always wondered why you stopped being friends.” Nell jumps when Mags brings her heel down against the shingles. “Shhh!”

  “Damn it, I never liked her.” Mags simmers for a few seconds, then says in a rough voice, “Sorry, Darce. Really. That sucks.”

  “It’s done.” I tuck my chin into the collar of my fleece. My words speed up, because I want to get this out while I’ve still got Nell’s ear. “The point is, your dream guy is just a guy, and he can stomp all over your heart. But then you got to move on, because he’s sure not wasting any time worrying about you. You got to protect yourself, or somebody worse will come along and smell blood in the water and they’ll come at you, too, and it won’t ever end.” As I say it, it hits me, what Shea really did, on the Fourth and today. I reach for the bruises, stop, and force my hand back down. “You got to be smart. You know? Smart.”

  Even in the dark, I know Nell’s eyes are wet, and she’s checking out her shoes. When it’s time to go inside, she climbs off the roof without saying good night, and I see her wipe her face with the back of her hand. Guess I hurt her. Good.

  Maybe she learned something.

  TWENTY-ONE

  WE’RE DOWN TO the last hundred rows of the west field, but there’s plenty of work for everyone because lots of people ditched today. That happens at the end of harvest, but this time, it’s got less to do with running out of berries and more to do with Mr. Wardwell telling the locals where to stick it. Good thing he’s not running for dogcatcher.

  Now that Shea’s off the board, Bankowski’s made it to first place. Nell sings “My Darling Clementine” while she rakes, and it’s nice, kind of, because it helps keep my mind off Shea. I’d like to think that he’d never show his face here after what he pulled, but yesterday he didn’t seem to care if he got caught, or what anybody thought of him. I remember Mom’s question: Is it over?

  I prac
tically jump out of my sneakers when Jesse comes up beside me at lunch. I swallow a dry lump of sandwich, my heart thumping. Mags and Nell get really interested in what they’re eating.

  He hunkers beside me. He smells good, like sweat and outdoors. “You get my messages?”

  I slap a horsefly.

  “So, are you okay or what?”

  “I’m good.” My voice is low as I pick at my sandwich. “You?”

  His left eye is purple, burst vessels speckling the white, and there’s a scrape down his cheek that looks pretty nasty. “Been worse.”

  I watched him for a few seconds earlier: he’s moving slowly today, biting his cheek as he rakes, like something hurts inside. Bruised ribs, maybe. He and Mason rake close together. Mason must’ve been in the middle this whole time, listening to Jesse and Shea both talk about me when the other one wasn’t around. He must’ve known something bad was going to go down sooner or later. I glance at the road again.

  “You heard from him?” Jesse knows who I’m worrying about. “If he’s bothering you, tell me.”

  “Come on. You went after Shea yesterday for you, not me.” Nell flinches at my tone, pulling her knees in, making herself small. “Shea busted my face. You liked my face better the way it was, so you hit him.” I breathe out slowly, letting the shocked silence settle over us. “I’m sorry you got hurt. But it wasn’t for me.”

  He watches me for a long moment. “I was stupid about Shea. I’m sorry, okay. I didn’t see how things really were with you guys. But if you’re still mad about the raking thing . . . I mean, Shea’s done. Bob’s never gonna let him back into the barrens.”

  “Yeah. But he never got nailed for it, either.” I squeeze my sandwich into a tinfoil ball and chuck it down. “He got away with it, ’cause nobody did anything.”

  Jesse stays where he is, white-lipped and quiet. His hand grips his knee, and I can see the ground-in dirt around his thumbnail, the kind you need pumice soap to get out. “So that’s it, huh?”

  I squint off. “Guess so.”

  He stands. Then I feel his hand rest on the top of my head for just a second. His fingers slide away. “Take care of yourself, Darcy.”

  “I will,” I say faintly, but he’s already gone.

  It’s blue twilight when Libby and Nell get home from Bangor. I look out the living room window and watch Nell run across the grass, hugging a long garment bag to herself. Her face is lit up, hair bouncing around her shoulders as she hops over the first step and disappears into the trailer.

  I guess Nell found it. The dress she’s going to wear.

  “Show us.” Later, Mags flops onto her bed, giving Nell a look. “Come on, you’re really not going to show us?”

  “No. It’ll ruin the specialness.” Nell works a sponge around in a little palette of green concealer.

  “At least tell us what color it is.”

  “It’s the one. That’s all you need to know.” Nell touches my shoulders and lifts my chin with her hand, our reflections moving together in Mags’s vanity mirror as she lightly dabs my forehead and nose, then uses a little brush to spread the concealer around my eyes, practicing to see if she can fix my face for the big night. I look like I did a face-plant in a bowl of pistachio pudding.

  “You know about this stuff, right?” I watch Nell in the mirror as she starts smoothing her fingers over my skin. “’Cause, no offense, but this looks . . . kinda . . .”

  “Green covers redness and blotchiness really well. Mrs. Hartwell told you it would work, didn’t she?” She’s so gentle that her fingertips feel like wings brushing over my face. “The heat from my skin helps blend it. Your fingers really are your best tools for applying almost any makeup.”

  “Look out, Pauline’s School of Beauty,” Mags murmurs, smiling as she flips through one of her yearbooks.

  “Next, we build with foundation.” Nell lays it on heavier than I ever do, but you really can’t see the green through it. I sit up a little more, watching.

  Mags turns pages, then snorts. “I’m sorry, but what a moron.”

  She’s stopped on a page of candid photos. Her thumb rests on a shot of Kenyon. He’s half-turned at a table in some classroom, wearing a ski cap and hoodie, eyes heavy-lidded, looking even more like Kat than usual. “He’s not a moron,” I say. “He’s just . . .” I don’t even know if we’re still friends, and here I am, sticking up for him. “He got scared and screwed up.”

  “Holding on to that car for a year? That’s more than a screwup. How could he seriously not know that was the worst thing he could’ve done? He’ll be lucky if he doesn’t end up doing jail time.”

  Nell steps back. “Done.”

  I’m almost back to normal. If you really stare, you can see something isn’t quite right with my face, but I’ll be far enough away from the crowd on Saturday that nobody will be able to tell. “Wow. Thanks a lot, Nellie. That looks much better.”

  She smiles and shrugs like it doesn’t count, gathering her tools. “I’m smart with makeup.”

  “You’re smart with lots of things. Don’t run yourself down,” Mags says, setting the yearbook on the pile of novels on her nightstand.

  I’m still thinking about Kenyon, picturing his fist slowly meeting the heavy bag, the tightness of his jaw, the focus of his gaze when I asked if Rhiannon knew he was crushing on her. Wasn’t gonna happen, he’d said, not like somebody feeling sorry for himself, but like he knew for sure, like it was a fact. “You think he was lying to me the other night?”

  Nell glances at me, then down at her packet of brushes. “He lied to everybody for a year.”

  “All he had to do was tell his parents,” Mags says. “You know they would’ve smoothed everything out for him, like they did when he got caught with weed at school. Everybody knows they’ve got more money than God.”

  “Gimme the laptop,” I say. Mags raises her eyebrows at me and doesn’t move. “Please. Please gimme the laptop, Your Highness.”

  I private message Kenyon, and keep it simple: Y r u lying?

  The next morning, I oversleep and wake up to Mags’s big foot kicking my door. No time to see if Kenyon’s messaged me back. But at least I poked him. He knows I suspect something.

  The last day of the harvest is probably the most beautiful day of the whole summer. Hot but dry, the blue sky full of those big, rolling clouds that really do make animal shapes. We’ll be outta here by noon and everybody knows it, so the attitude’s pretty relaxed, people calling back and forth between rows, laughing. We girls work close by, not talking much, just feeling the sun and making our last few hours count.

  Mr. Wardwell blasts his truck horn three times when the field is cleared, and everybody walks up to headquarters and stands around in a loose knot. Mrs. Wardwell gets to her feet. “You all know we give something away at the end of harvest to whoever raked the most. This year’s a first. We never had a lady up here before. Therese Bankowski, come up and get your check.”

  I watch a hard-faced, freckled woman break away from the group. It’s the woman from the fire, the one whose family lost their stuff. She’s rangy and strong, shaking hands with Mrs. Wardwell—the tendons stand out in her forearms like baling wire—and taking the check for seven hundred dollars with no more change in her expression than if she was being handed a grocery store receipt. My gaze meets Jesse’s through the crowd. It’s a long look, neither of us wanting to be the first to break it.

  “Awright, people. We brought in some good berries this year.” Mrs. Wardwell drops back into her chair, massaging one foot through her moccasin. “Last checks are in the mail.”

  “And don’t let the door hit ya ass,” Mags whispers. I smile on reflex, watching Jesse step back, move away with Mason. Mason, I’ll see at school on Monday. Jesse, I don’t know when I’ll see again.

  Locals move toward the line of parked cars, heading home to houses and trailers. Migrants move toward the cabins; starting tomorrow, they’ll be heading north to potato country, or the next under-the-table con
struction or food service job. Wonder if they’ll come this way again next blueberry season. If I were them, I wouldn’t.

  As we walk downhill toward Mags’s car, I hear a whoop. Bankowski’s spinning her little boy around by his hands as he giggles crazily at the sky.

  The barrens really deserve their name without us rakers. Nothing left out there but the flatbed loaded with the last day’s haul, some pickups, and the toilets to prove we were here at all. I stop, squinting against the sunlight as I watch Jesse’s pickup pull onto 15 with the rest of the locals streaming back toward town.

  Mags stops with her hand on her door. “Forget something?”

  I take off my hat, toss it into the car, and climb in after it. “Not a thing.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  IT TAKES ME a second to recognize the gold SUV when it pulls into our driveway later that afternoon. We’re on the porch playing I Doubt It, and I stand, leaning against a column as Kenyon gets out of his mom’s car. Didn’t take long to flush him out of the weeds.

  He looks up at our house for a second. He’s never been here before, and the place does look kind of sketchy right now, scraped bare except for fresh butter-yellow paint up to the top of the first-floor windows. He stops at the steps. “Hey.” He sees my bruises but doesn’t ask; knowing the Sasanoa grapevine, he’s already heard the whole story.

  I nod. Nell’s curled up like a cat on the swing, studying him openly while working her fingers through an old afghan Libby knitted that we keep thrown over the backrest. Mags sits on the floor, watching him over her cards with absolutely no expression, her foolproof trick to make somebody feel unwanted. Kenyon checks out our setup—table with cards, change, and a bag of cheese puffs—then says to me, “Can I talk to you?”

  Mom’s at work, but we go up to my room for privacy anyway. It isn’t too messy except for a pair of dirty underwear that I kick under the bed. He goes over to the window and looks out at the road. “I got your message.” He reaches up and flicks the bunch of dried buttercups distractedly, making them sway. “So I’m a liar, huh?”