Dress Codes for Small Towns

by Courtney Stevens

  “Billie?” My name is a question.

  I carefully slip the bow and violin away and set them behind us. Her UGGs bump against my boots; her fingers, still tangled in my hair, touch my earlobe, once, twice, three times. “You love me,” I say, because that part of us is not in question.

  Her cheeks are flushed. Mine must be too.

  “I don’t know how I love you, only that I do, and I can’t not,” she says.

  “Me too,” I say quietly.

  My face is against her hand now. I am not the one who moved. I am not the one who has her thumb on my cheek.

  “Kiss me?” I say, choosing to only move my boot a fraction closer to her.

  I want her to make this choice so I will not look back at this moment and feel as though it was forced. And unlike Woods, she breaks the barrier between us first.

  I am being kissed.

  It is mostly mouth and no tongue—a quartet of lips and softness. She is all melody. My job is to harmonize. I hear the Irish ballad Davey played on the way home from Nashville. She has a merry and somber mouth. Just like the music.

  We are still kissing.

  I compare her to Gerry. Gerry kisses like the world will end soon. Janie Lee kisses like the world was born this morning.

  We are still kissing.

  I am living a moment the Spandex Junkwagons have gossiped about. That my father fears. That scares me. A lightning bolt from heaven doesn’t strike.

  I am okay. I am grateful.

  I am trembling. I am praying.

  It is me who breaks away. Me who wipes her spit from my mouth.

  Her fingers are stuck in her pockets; her hair is stuck to her lip. Casual as ever, I tuck it behind her ear. She half-grins, and rubs her cheek against her shoulders as if she can clean the red from her cheeks. Then she is busy dusting garage molecules from her violin and returning it to the case.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  Someone clears a throat.

  It is not me. It is not Janie Lee.

  26

  Dad and Tawny Jacobs stand at the open door of our garage, arms burdened with newspapers—a donation for the Daily Sit, promised the day I picked pecans on her farm. It was a kindness I had not expected her to offer. Certainly not one I predicted would arrive at ten thirty p.m. on the Friday night I was kissing a girl.

  She must have parked in the circle drive out front while I was malleting.

  She says nothing. Bless her. After lowering her stack of newspapers to the couch, she says, “See you Sunday, Brother Scott,” and dismisses herself. I hear her pull onto River Run Road over the sound of me kicking my own ass.

  I also swear I can hear my father’s heart banging against his rib cage from across the garage.

  He collapses on the steps leading inside, hands steepled, fingertips stroking the bridge of his nose. The rest of him is immobile. Janie Lee looks at me.

  “I think you’d better go home,” he tells her.

  It is amazing she didn’t say this herself. Amazing she didn’t run screaming away.

  Her violin case appears to weigh forty million pounds. Pausing at the garage door, she mouths, “I’m sorry,” and I hope she means for being caught, but I am unsure. When she reaches the end of the drive, Dad presses the lit orange button above his shoulder, lowering the garage door, trapping us.

  I am bathed in fluorescent light and humility.

  He’s wearing fur moccasins he keeps on the rug by the front door for errands. They make no sound on the three wooden steps or the concrete. Made no sounds on the sidewalk earlier. If he’d been wearing his wing tips, I would have heard him.

  Five steps. He crosses the garage and stoops to pick up the mallet and sets it on my worktable, as if returning at least one thing to order will help. When he arrives before me, I flinch as though he might strike. He does nothing with his outstretched hands. They stay between us like he means to lay hands on me and pray.

  My own arms are limp celery, falling at my sides. I squeeze the fabric of my athletic pants, work it between my fingers, waiting on judgment.

  He sniffs, and I can’t keep myself from saying, “Dad, it’s not what—”

  “I don’t care what it was.”

  His tone is even, which is worse than if it were rageful.

  “We—”

  “Stop. I need to think.” A tear hangs on his chin. “I’ve put up with ridiculous schemes. Footballs in the sanctuary. Church fires. But this, this is . . . something else. And Tawny . . .” He groans. Props himself against the freezer, body shaped like a C, unseeing. “You know. You know things at church are precarious. You know we’re under a microscope.”

  “Dad, you can’t think I could have known that you and Tawny would walk in right then. That wasn’t about you or church.”

  “Billie, that’s what I’m saying. You can’t predict anything. I asked you, I specifically asked you, to rein it in.”

  I nod that I understand.

  The warning continues. “I think you just bought us a one-way ticket out of town.”

  “Dad—”

  “If Tawny takes what she saw public, I can’t get you out of this.”

  I am grasping at straws. “What about the Corn Dolly? What if I turn it around?”

  He laughs. Please don’t laugh, I think. This is my life, I think.

  My cell buzzes from across the room. It must be Janie Lee.

  I want to tell him I love Janie Lee. That I always will. But that I have not had enough experience to trust my heart. That I still want to kiss Davey, who wants to kiss Thom, who is probably somewhere kissing Gerry. That I am hopelessly confused.

  I am open. I am closed. I am terrified. It comes out like: “Dad, I’m not pursuing Janie Lee—”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “You’re forbidding me?”

  He exhales. “No, I’m begging you, for once in your life, to think about someone other than yourself. Do you hear me?”

  I kissed her. I think I would kiss her again, but . . . I’m not sure. As much as I wanted this thing to happen, I wasn’t prepared to enjoy it that much and feel so uncertain at the same time.

  “I hear you,” I say.

  I hear that he has dumped a landfill worth of guilt on me. I hear myself shrinking to the size of my boots when I was just eighty feet tall a moment ago.

  The cell buzzes again.

  Dad examines my intentions. I have no idea what is there for his viewing pleasure.

  He tries to soften his blows. “Honey, this is not about whether you love her. Your mother and I have always known you might choose . . .” There’s a pregnant pause. “. . . differently from us. But this isn’t about your sexuality, this is about stability and sensibility in the moment.” He wipes his nose with his index finger. At the door to the house, he grips the doorframe and says, “I love you, but Billie, for the love of God, cool your jets.”

  My mind is a filing cabinet full of things I should not say.

  “Okay,” I agree.

  “Okay,” he says.

  We’ve struck a deal without a handshake.

  THE SHORT PART

  before

  PART THREE

  I know what I have given you. I do not know what you have received.

  —ANTONIO PORCHIA

  TEN YEARS EARLIER

  Whenever David’s teacher asked him to draw a picture of his home, he drew Big T’s instead.

  His grandfather’s house was a maze of interesting things, and nearly none of them was breakable. There were wooden bunk beds in the guest room, fields and barns to play in, and a library with so many books David needed a ladder to reach them all. But better than bunk beds and coffee table books about fighter planes was Big T himself.

  David wasn’t the only one who thought so, because Big T had his very own festival. And everyone in town came out to celebrate. According to Big T, there was cotton candy and roasted corn and dunking booths. There were games and square dancing and ceremonies. There was fun and fun an
d more fun.

  This sounded like a grand fairy tale or something David had read in a book. Can you imagine having so many friends they wouldn’t all fit in the house at once? thought David.

  He had a birthday coming up, and he was not above begging to attend.

  “Please, Mom, please. Please, Dad, please.”

  Twenty or thirty pleases later, his parents agreed. Everything in Otters Holt was better than David remembered. The Christmas lights had all been replaced with purple and orange blinking strings that lit Main Street. Pumpkins and hay wagon displays were on every green space leading to Vilmer’s Barn. Barbecue vendors lined the streets, tickling his tummy.

  His mother was happier than he’d seen her in a long time. She hummed along to the fiddle music, smiling, even while his dad complained about parking.

  David had his nose pressed to his half-lowered window; he had to elbow off the smudges every block. When the car finally stopped at the elementary school lot, Big T and David’s cousin, Mash, were on a small dirt field, playing Wiffle ball with other kids his age. His grandfather towered over a little boy in a Batman costume, showing him how to hold a bat.

  “Mom, can I?” David asked.

  In the front seat, Hattie exchanged a look with John. John lowered his chin and said, “You stay with Tyson. Do you hear me?”

  David was out the door at a sprint.

  Big T stopped helping Batman to throw David, whom he called Buckaroo, into the air, and then he added him to the game. Buckaroo didn’t need his grandfather to show him how to hold the bat. He smashed the ball to the edge of the dirt, making all the boys whoop and hoot. One little girl on the bleachers clapped for him as he crossed home plate.

  Later, when the game was tied, it was Batman’s turn to hit.

  Big T called out, “Take off that mask and you’ll be better.”

  Exasperated, Batman removed the mask and laid it carefully next to the little girl on the bleachers.

  David’s jaw dropped. “You’re a girl,” he said to Batman.

  “Yeah, so?” she said. She strutted back to home plate and sent a pitch sailing into the grass—the farthest hit of the day.

  He slapped her a high five as she crossed home plate. “I didn’t know Batman could be a girl.”

  She huffed. “Well, Buckaroo, a girl can be anything.”

  David stored that memory in his secret heart. His mother had told him he’d been born with a second heart, and he could keep any secret he wanted in there.

  The secrets that day sounded like this: I wish I lived at Big T’s house. I wish my mom were happier. I wish I could be like Batman.

  Third-grade math trouble became fourth-grade football trophies became fifth-grade growth spurts became sixth-grade acne became seventh-grade first kisses. By the time David was a teenager, he’d forgotten about his secret heart, but he hadn’t forgotten that wearing a costume meant you could be anyone you wanted.

  PART THREE

  THE RAGING SUCCESS OF FAILURE

  Basically we’re all looking for someone who knows who we are and will break it to us gently.

  —ROBERT BRAULT

  27

  Eight. That’s how many moves we made before I entered first grade. That may not sound too traumatic for a six-year-old. Six-year-olds aren’t even responsible for packing their own toys. But I was a million years old at six, and I noticed. I remember the fear Mom lived with. How she stopped unpacking her paints so she didn’t have to pack them back up again. She seemed uncertain that this was the life for her. Uncertain that they’d brought me into the middle of something so tumultuous. Meanwhile, Dad bumped us from town to town, proselytizing his way to larger congregations, soulfully preaching his way home to Community Church. The church where his own faith journey began. He was baptized at that altar. I was dedicated and confirmed at that altar. Fair or not, I understand why he’s asking my emotions to take a backseat.

  I zombie over to the worktable. My cell is ablaze with messages from Janie Lee and one from Woods. Hers are still coming in.

  Woods: You okay, McCaffrey?

  Janie Lee: Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Janie Lee: Does he hate us?

  Janie Lee: Will he tell?

  Janie Lee: Will Tawny?

  Janie Lee: When you get this, will you please text me back?

  Janie Lee: I’m really sorry.

  I send her a heart text, the old fashioned <3, not the big red annoying emoji heart. At the moment, that’s all I manage. It stops the flow of her questions.

  I text Woods instead.

  Billie: I need you.

  Woods: On my way.

  Billie: Cut your headlights. Park on the road.

  Woods: Which door?

  Billie: Garage.

  Between texting him and Woods’s arrival, I arrange all the materials I’ve collected for Beauty and the Beast costumes. Turns out, the service projects for senior citizens were a real gold mine for LaserCon. Starburst wrappers, yellowed book pages, blue buttons, fur from Mr. Nix’s coat, fifteen pairs of fur-lined slippers (not unlike the ones worn by my dad) that can be cut, sewn, and inverted, the hundreds of newspapers I’ve collected for the Daily Sit. It’s not everything, but it’s a very good start.

  My hands need this task to drop my heartrate. My heart needs Woods.

  I’m going to tell him everything, and he’s going to fix this. Woods arrives, stealthily.

  “I thought we’d work while we talk,” I say, because I am not ready yet.

  “’Kay, what are we building this evening?”

  “Costumes. Beauty and the Beast, Billie-style. Sorry it’s so late,” I apologize unnecessarily.

  “Oh, I was up. Had to drop off some Save the Harvest Festival signs at Abram’s house. He always goes bowling with Martha on Friday nights.” That’s all Woods says about that. As if everyone else his age has spent their night in the same fashion. “Tell me what to do.”

  I hold up the newspapers. “We make their outfits from papier-mâché. Belle’s dress and the trim on Beast’s jacket come from those”—I show him the yellowed book pages I’ve removed from their bindings—“and supplement with these.” He sees the bags of Starburst I’ve raided from every grocery and gas station in town.

  “All right.”

  “These blue buttons from Lois Carter’s basement can trim Beast’s coat.”

  “Yep,” he says, nodding his approval.

  “We’ll Photoshop a red rose to blue, and use those to cover the majority of Beast’s coat.” A computer and printer are set up opposite Guinevere for projects of this nature.

  He likes the symbolism of roses. “Good, yes, love it,” he says. “Billie, what are we actually building here?”

  A piece of chicken wire eats into my palm and I cuss. I wipe my hands on my jeans and grab a Band-Aid from the shelf. Woods takes the wrapper from me and peels apart the Band-Aid. Gently, he attaches the adhesive around the broken skin.

  And then I start at the beginning, and leave nothing out.

  He listens, brain whirling. Our technology teacher, Mr. Winnows, showed us a video once of the first computers: heavy, loud, blinking, room-sized machines. That is Woods as he puts his head in the crease of his arms. When he raises his head, flips his cap from front to back, he has a plan.

  “This is what we’re going to do. I’m going to text the Hexagon. They’re going to come over and we’re going to build these costumes with you. Then, next weekend, you and Davey will win a thousand dollars and give it to the Save the Harvest Festival fund during KickFall. And then we’re going to raise two thousand dollars with KickFall tickets. That’ll be three thousand dollars, which you are going to hand the mayor as a donation. That should do it, Billie.”

  “What if they think I’m trying to buy the award?” I ask.

  “You let me take care of that part.”

  “And Tawny?”

  He hmms. “I’m not sure yet. But thank God she loves Janie Lee.”

  “And my dad?”

 
; “Let’s pray he understands.”

  “Woods, I wish I’d never been nominated. This would probably still matter, but it wouldn’t matter as much.”

  His hand strokes his chin. “We’ll fix this, B. You’ll win the Corn Dolly. You won’t have to move. I swear it.”

  “Woods?”

  “Yes?”

  “How come you aren’t hurt by all this?”

  “The same reason you aren’t,” he says simply. “We’d know if we were supposed to be together. I mean . . . haven’t we known everything else when it comes to each other?”

  I am so relieved he understands. That he is just as uncomplicated as he’s always been.

  He texts Mash, Fifty, and Davey, but not Janie Lee, just in case Dad returns to the garage. They arrive like sneaky ninjas. After a short speech that leaves out all the whys and explains the have-tos, he divides the tasks evenly among us.

  Everyone nods. No questions asked.

  “We are the Hexagon,” Woods says.

  Fifty laughs and says, “Uh, technically, we’re a pentagram tonight.”

  No one touches that comment.

  Time slips away, mostly in the cutting of roses. I use a mannequin I’ve named Jim. I shape clothing molds from chicken wire that I will eventually cut away. I measure Davey and he measures me. Our waists are the same but he has six inches of height on me.

  Midnight. One a.m. Two a.m. Fifty and Davey have cut seventy roses. Woods has ironed crinkles from the Starburst wrappers and stripped fur from the moccasins. Mash has run to the gas station and gotten us all caffeine and Twizzlers. I am drying layers of glue with a shop fan.

  The radio is playing plucky music that keeps us annoyed, but awake.

  I think about my father, who is on the other side of the garage door, probably thinking about me. I think about Janie Lee, who is on the other side of town, probably thinking about me. I think about Davey, who is on the other side of Guinevere, probably thinking about Waylan Academy. I think about Woods, who is beside me, assessing the molds. I think about Fifty and Mash, who dropped everything to be here. The garage is so full of thoughts I need to find somewhere else to put the tools.