“O-kay.” I keep swinging my legs, pounding my heels against the concrete.
“I was wrong,” she says. “The night of the fire.”
“Oh.”
“Tuesday night, after practice, he kissed me. Or I kissed him. Either way, we kissed. We had finished singing. I was packing away my violin, and he was shoving sheet music into his backpack and he just came out with it. ‘We should kiss. Billie said we should kiss. And I’d like to so I can stop thinking about it.’ Can you believe that? Well, I guess you can if you told him to do it, or maybe he’s already told you this story.”
“He hasn’t.”
“And so we had an awkward moment where we worked out if it was okay with me. Which of course it was. You know I’d been thinking about it too. Except we were both worried that if it stank, our musical partnership might change. It’s funny the things you think about when you should just be feeling, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” I desperately want her to get to the heart of it. Tuesday night was five days ago. Five full days of seeing them nearly all day, and I picked up on nothing. Nada. They hadn’t even sat near each other tonight.
“So, the kiss, yeah, nope.”
“Huh,” I say. So, the kiss, yeah, nope: exactly how I felt. “Did you talk about it?”
“Yeah. I said, ‘That was sort of like dropping a book on the lower register of a piano.’ And he said, ‘Whelp, that’s that,’ and dusted his hands. Billie, he dusted his hands. That’s how bad it was.”
“Did he bite your lip or something?” I ask.
“No. He’s decent enough at kissing. It was because”—the palm of her hand lays flat on my stomach, above my belly button—“I don’t love Woods from here, from my gut. I love him from my head, from our history. I just got confused.”
I knew the feeling well. “It’s easy to get confused when you’ve got great people in your life.”
“Right? Don’t tell him I said this, but honestly, I had more going in the guts region when I kissed Mash.”
I whip around. “You’ve kissed Mash?”
She scrunches and takes her hand off my stomach. “You haven’t?”
“I kissed Fifty once.”
Her turn to scrunch and push me. “You kissed Fifty? When? Why do we even have that silly code if everyone has kissed everyone?”
“Everyone has not kissed everyone,” I say, locking eyes on a dock across the lake whose decorative pink lights have started flashing.
“Nearly everyone.” She moves closer, and returns to the posture she assumed when we first arrived. Feet hanging over the side, body slouched, hands back in the hoodie pocket. “You should kiss Davey. He’s into you.”
“I probably will if he’s not into Thomas,” I say, because maybe I’d like that. He has very nice lips, and he’s easy to talk to.
Should I tell her I also kissed Woods? I could, but it doesn’t matter now.
“To be honest,” she tells me, “I’m a little bit relieved. About Woods, I mean. It takes a lot of energy to like someone. And since Tuesday . . . I’ve felt better, lighter. It wouldn’t have worked anyway. Not only is he going to die in the 42045 zip code, someone will probably construct a forty-foot statue of Woods Carrington right next to Molly.”
“I’m glad you feel easier about things.”
“Me too.”
“Just friends is easier,” she says.
“Just friends is easier,” I repeat.
She leans her head against my shoulder, and we wait to pedal home until there are uncountable stars.
16
Billie, stop rocking on two legs. You’ll break the chair.” Mom beckons my brain back to the dinner table and looks past me to the television.
The New Madrid Fault Line rang like a rotary phone for four or five seconds yesterday—only a 3.5—and the newscasters are acting like we’ve never had an earthquake before. It happened during church and was over so fast no one even thought to get under the pews. It also happened while the church was recognizing—by standing ovation—that the preacher’s daughter had been nominated for the Corn Dolly.
“You don’t think the two things are connected?” a lady asked another in a way that suggested she most certainly thought they were.
“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” one gentleman replied.
I wish Dad hadn’t overheard that.
He hasn’t brought it up, because he’s focused on a more earth-shaking conversation he had with Davey’s mom at the BI-LO, which is not technically BI-LO anymore, but we can’t be bothered to call it Greg’s Market.
“Clare!” He often addresses my mother as though I am not at the table. “I ran into Hattie Winters today at BI-LO, and she looks like she could use someone to talk to. I wondered if you might phone her up or invite her to coffee.”
A typical pastor’s wife job. He traffics in souls; it’s her job to traffic in hearts. I am currently trafficking in roast beef, mashed potatoes drowning in gravy, and three bags of LEGOs on my placemat. The LEGOs have priority. I try to bring a distraction to the table that isn’t my life.
Dad, wanting my mother to pay attention to him instead of the news, says her name as if she is deaf. When that doesn’t work, he taps the tines against her plate. “Clare, did you hear me?”
“They’re showing coverage of the quake,” she explains. The news channel shows a picture of the elementary school, looking far better than it did two weeks ago, but several windows are broken.
I was on that roof recently, I think. I was on that roof falling out of love with Woods.
We have a small television in our kitchen that has one channel when Dad’s around: Fox News. It is this nine-inch screen that my parents squint at now rather than the fifty-five inches of HD beauty in the living room, also visible from the kitchen table. My mother wipes her mouth with a napkin. Folds the cloth into a triangle and places it neatly in her lap. She gives my father her full attention.
He says, “I wish someone would buy the school and tear it down. It’s an eyesore.”
I sit bolt upright. Four chair legs on the floor.
He continues, “Nothing useful will ever happen there again.”
So many useful things have already happened there. Who would have thought that a game of Beggar and a kiss could change the future? That school is directly responsible for my surname never being Carrington. I hope it will soon be responsible for saving the Harvest Festival.
Mom gently guides the discussion back to where it was previously going. “What were you saying about Hattie, Scott?”
He crams another bite into his mouth. “She could use someone to talk to.”
I’m adding LEGO bricks to my prototype of the elementary school, the very one my father wants to tear down, but I’m listening intently.
Dad speaks again. “You know everything she’s been through. First, John. Then losing her dad. And now . . . Davey.”
If we were a normal family, my mom would give my dad a look, and they would finish this discussion far from my ears. I’ve seen the Carringtons employ this tactic.
“What’s wrong with Davey?” Mom asks.
Dad checks in—I am a blank page—and answers, “Hattie was hinting that he might be gay. That maybe he’d experimented with a friend in Nashville, and he’s . . . I don’t know, dating someone? Billie, what do you know about that? I mean, I’ve noticed the eyeliner. But when I was your age I loved grunge bands and they used plenty of eyeliner and seemed pretty hetero. So I didn’t assume. Maybe Hattie is assuming.”
“Maybe she is.” Mom shrugs. “Maybe she’s not.”
Dad ignores Mom and taps his fork near my LEGOs. “I’m asking you.”
Lumpy mashed potatoes have never tasted so good. I fill my mouth, lift my shoulders as if I give zero shits.
This doesn’t suit him. “Come on, you have to know something. She needs some comfort.”
“Dad,” I say, using universal eye contact for I’m not answering that.
His head whips toward Mom.
“Clare?”
A simple tone that has come to mean: control your offspring.
Being nominated for the Corn Dolly clearly doesn’t fix everything.
“Elizabeth”—Mom is typically the only person who calls me Elizabeth, and she only does so when she’s caught between Dad and me—“he’s not asking you to betray your friend’s confidence. He’s asking if Hattie has any reason to be concerned. Right, Scott?”
“No,” Dad asserts. “I’m asking if Davey Winters is sexually fluid.”
Despite my best efforts, my tongue nearly licks the carpet. Sexually fluid? When did Dad zoom out of his century and into mine? Some preachers’ conference over the last year? “Dad, we don’t . . . we don’t talk about sexuality.”
“Please! I’ve read books about this. I’ve listened to podcasts and they all say your generation doesn’t care to define sexuality,” he says with all the confidence of an expert.
I curl tighter into my chair.
“There’s a whole alphabet of letters. L-G-B-T-Q-I-A-B-C-D—”
“Dad.”
“Oh, Scott, you’ve embarrassed her,” Mom says.
Dad slaughters roast beef with a steak knife, lifts his fork, and chews a tine long after the meat is gone. “Hattie is the one who seemed embarrassed. She’s troubled over this, feels like her son’s not talking to her.”
I’m instantly pissed off on Davey’s behalf. Why would he talk to his mother about his sexuality if she seemed even slightly embarrassed? Before I remember I’m talking to Brother Scott McCaffrey, I say, “Would it be so bad if Davey were gay?”
“See?” Dad says to Mom. “I told you, they have talked about it.”
“No, we haven’t,” I say.
His retort is a classic parental redirect. “Please take the LEGOs off the table.”
“This has nothing to do with LEGOs.” I’ve built far more unusual things at this table while they talked to each other. If the diorama of my favorite Marvel scene made entirely of colored toothpicks didn’t piss him off, LEGOs certainly shouldn’t. I shove my plate off the placemat. The fork rattles on the plate. The knife falls to the floor.
He huffs. “I don’t understand what I’ve done to make you so unhappy. Clare, we’ve raised the most difficult child on the planet.”
“Scott! That’s ridiculously untrue.”
“Clare.”
My parents love each other, but neither of them loves the way the other deals with me.
“I’m full.” I’m up and in the kitchen using scalding-hot water to rinse my plate before Mom can say, “Billie, you don’t have to leave.”
I sweep LEGOs into a bowl I swipe from the counter and walk to the garage with Dad yelling at the back of my head. “Why am I the bad guy for caring about Hattie?”
“Why am I the bad guy for caring about Davey?”
“I should ground you from the gar—”
I slam the door.
Less than twenty-four hours ago, my father raised a glass on my behalf. That is the potential of us. The reality of us is me dumping LEGOs on a workbench, finishing my replica, and setting the display on a belt sander. I take out my cell phone, turn on the sander, and record an earthquake. I’m judging it to be 5.2 on the LEGO Richter scale while the argument coming from inside my house is an 8.
The LEGOs explode all over the floor.
I am nostalgic for a time when my family slathered butter on popcorn and watched Survivor reruns on the living room couch. I am nostalgic for parents I don’t have. What would it be like to be raised by a couple who say things like “Fall in love with a person, Billie,” rather than a minister who says things like “Hate the sin and love the sinner”? I am smart enough to understand that Dad’s conversation with Hattie was also about me. There among the subtext, he’s asking a question.
I wait for the yelling to stop before I slink to my room and fall into bed fully clothed.
That night, I dream I am a guy. One hundred percent all-American boy.
There’s no easing into the dream. No sense of being asleep. I close my eyes, and when my brain wakes up, I have a penis and a problem.
I live in the same saltbox parsonage. My father is still an issue. My mother is made of monograms and flowy shirts. My Grandy is still a thunder cat. I have the same friends. Own the same clothes. But I ride a green bike to school. My real bike is black.
Woods calls me dude and bro and hits me on the shoulder. Mash throws up. Fifty makes sex jokes. Davey is missing.
These things are banked in my dream memory, and I am aware of being me as I move through the dream. Only . . . Dream Me is a dude.
I am in the youth room. There is a wine cooler on the floor and an unopened bag of Twizzlers peeks out from behind the couch cushion. There is a stack of Bibles there too. I think . . . I am going to hell for this. Einstein says WAYS FOR BILLY TO EMBARRASS SCOTT.
I am on the couch with Janie Lee.
She’s wearing her big, gaudy glasses, and she is under me. Entwined with me. Her UGGs are scattered, as if she took them off in a hurry. The soft flannel of her pajamas is against my leg hair. I slide my hand under the black Victoria’s Secret cami she wears beneath her sweatshirt and tug until it’s over her head. The sweatshirt that is already on the floor. The sweatshirt I pulled off her.
I inch my fingers around to her spine and press my chest against hers. She is insanely warm, but shivering.
I am shirtless. She’s kissing my Adam’s apple; working her mouth around my neck, under my chin. I didn’t shave today, and the way she’s kissing me tickles. I am familiar with this body I’ve had for dream seconds, as if I’ve had it for years.
“Shhhhh,” she tells me. “We’re going to wake up Mash and Fifty.”
She says shhhhh, but doesn’t say stop. She means, Be quieter, Billie. Don’t let them catch us. They are propped on the opposite couch five feet away. Mash is wearing one of those Breathe Right strips over his nose. Fifty’s snoring. Even though it’s blazing hot, I stretch a fuzzy blanket over us in case they wake up. We whisper. We giggle. I want to know every part of her.
I am scared of being caught. But I am terrified of losing her or hurting her or going too quickly. I want to live on this couch for the rest of my life.
Neither of us is scared this is the wrong thing. She is worth polishing all the pews in every church in America if we are caught. Worth all the service projects we might be assigned. Worth my father hating me.
I tell her that.
She touches my stomach like she did the night at the dam and says, “I feel love right here.”
“Me too.”
Mash coughs once, twice, three times. Smoke seeps under the door, starts rolling in like a fog. It is somehow dark in the room and light enough to see gray clouds consuming the mini fridge. Consuming Einstein. The church alarms go off, the phone rings, and I think, Please don’t interrupt us. Why didn’t we put a Do Not Disturb sign on Youth Suite 201?
“Mash cooked socks in the microwave again,” she says.
“Yeah,” I say, as if I care about Mash right now.
Around the room, there is suddenly an orchestra—every player a twin of Janie Lee. Violins, cellos, upright bass, viola. With perfect timing the musicians draw fingers and bows across the strings, manipulating the air with an emotional, haunting melody.
Janie Lee tastes like Gerry. She tastes like music. We’re biting each other’s lips. I lean away from her, realizing again how beautiful she is.
The orchestra sounds like it’s grieving.
How I love her glasses. Her toothpaste has Scope in it. Her blush smells like sandalwood. The song is between us. I taste her soul on my tongue.
I promise I won’t tell Woods that this happened.
She says, “No one has to know.”
Gray clouds of smoke engulf Mash and Fifty. The cello is the only instrument I hear.
Dad bangs on the door. “Billie, the church is on fire. Billie.”
“Ignore him,” I say.
“Ignore everyone.”
“I love you.”
Words I’ve never said in real life.
“I love you too.”
We keep right on kissing until the flames singe our skin.
17
Six hours have passed since I put my head on my pillow. Five minutes have passed since I woke up from that dream. That dream. That sex dream.
My first sex dream. My first sex anything.
And . . . I was a guy.
And . . . I was with Janie Lee.
And . . . I don’t know what to think about anything.
Light spills into my room through my curtains. Mom’s frying bacon in the kitchen. I don’t have any clean socks. Morning is here. Morning doesn’t care about my sexuality.
Jesus, when I see Janie Lee in first period, I’ll be thinking about that thing she did with her tongue instead of dangling participles. That’s an improvement to language arts, but a danger to friendship.
Before I further question my sexuality, I consult the internet’s opinion on sex dreams. According to “experts” I am starved for intimacy and have “a masculine mind-set.” “No,” I tell the internet, and then scroll mindlessly through Janie Lee’s Instagram account, registering photos of her, the Hexagon, and us. In each one, her expression is unshakable. Even when we’re all making silly faces, there she is, perfect mascara and straight white teeth.
There’s one particular photo from three months ago. It was taken at the wedding chapel on Highway 62. Woods and Janie Lee share a piano bench. Violin in her lap, grin on her face: she’s full, bright. Woods has his mouth open, singing. His hair is gelled as straight as it’ll go; he looks about ninety-five years old. The caption reads Carson Wedding #fallingslowly #once #happyforthem #happyforme.
Janie Lee’s wearing a sexy black dress. And I suppose it strikes me for the first time that dress clothes are like jewelry—accessories to skin. I’ve been using wardrobe as a fuck-you statement for so long that it hasn’t occurred to me clothes aren’t what I’m seeing when I look at Janie Lee. It’s her in all her Janie Lee–ness. The same way I put on different clothes and went to a costume party with Davey, I can costume any part of myself I want.
Dress Codes for Small Towns Page 12
