The Queen of Kentucky

by Alecia Whitaker

  “Got it,” I tell the girls, breathless, and drop the goods down on our blankets.

  “Perfect,” Kimi says. She unstacks the five cups and pours a little bit of Coke into each one. “Let’s play a real game.”

  Yes! I love games. I dominate board games, like Monopoly and Clue. And I’m pretty stellar at charades if I do say so myself. And seriously, I’m still small enough to totally destroy everyone at hide and seek. Lame? Or kind of awesome? You decide.

  “First, everybody take off all your clothes.”

  My jaw unhinges. Take our clothes off? Why? What kind of sick game are we playing here?

  “Seriously, let’s go,” Kimi says, standing up and dropping her shorts. “We’re going to streak.”

  I look around the group of girls and see that everyone looks just as baffled as I do, which is comforting.

  “We’re gonna do naked runs,” Kimi repeats, exasperated. “Two people leave from this door and run through the kitchen, all the way down Ericka’s hallway, and touch the wall beside her parents’ bedroom. The first person back wins, and the loser has to drink.”

  So many bells go off in my head during Kimi’s recital of the official rules of this made-up-on-the-spot game that I don’t know what to address first. The fact that I don’t want anyone to see me naked? Especially not a groggy dad or little brother in the event that we make too much noise. Or the fact that we have to drink? And drink what?

  “Drink what?” Laura asks, reading at least one part of my mind.

  “Sarah, if you please,” Kimi says, giggling and pulling her shirt off over her head.

  Sarah lifts up one of our couch cushions and pulls out a fifth of Maker’s Mark. A fifth of bourbon from the Winstead family room sofa!

  “What the—”

  “Got it from Paul Foster earlier,” Kimi explains mischievously. “Now let’s go, ladies. Chop, chop!”

  Sarah and Kimi are already in their underwear. I look over at Mackenzie, who starts unbuttoning her pajama top with an “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” type of shrug. Laura peels her pajamas off in a rapid motion, like ripping off a Band-Aid. I sigh heavily and do the same, embarrassed by my flowery training bra but glad to be wearing it.

  We stand there in a circle, looking at Kimi for further instructions.

  “Everything,” she says.

  But this time, nobody budges.

  “Ugh,” Kimi groans, obviously annoyed with us. “Okay, I’ll turn the lights out. Our eyes should get used to the dark, anyway, for the runs.”

  She goes over to the door and hits the light switch. The room goes pitch-black and all sorts of weird colors stream out in front of me as my eyes try to adjust. It’s completely silent and I haven’t moved an inch. Then I hear the rustling of clothes. The other girls are actually going through with it! Do or die. I sigh again, unclasp my bra, and slip out of my undies.

  “Sarah and Laura, you’re first,” Kimi says from somewhere in front of me.

  I see a human form coming toward me, arms outstretched. Assuming that form to be naked, I duck and back up so as not to get groped by one of my zombie friends, only to back my bare heinie into someone else.

  “Ahh!” Mackenzie screams.

  “Ahh!” I scream right back.

  Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, ohmygosh. My eyes are adjusting, and I see that all five of us are jumping up and down and screaming. We would usually hug or fall into some kind of laughing pileup in this kind of situation, but in our current state, we instead sort of cover our chests with one forearm and slap at the air in front of us with the other. Then we all start shushing one another, terribly afraid of waking up anyone else in the house.

  Kimi opens the door to the family room and we peek out. No sign of human life in the kitchen. I spooked myself in there only a few minutes ago, and now I’m about to run headlong into this very same nightmare naked. What is wrong with me?

  “Go!” Kimi whispers loudly.

  Sarah and Laura take off. I can’t really see them but I know their challenges: One, don’t wake anybody up. Two, don’t run into the walls or the furniture. Three, don’t touch the person running directly next to you—at all.

  “Oh my gosh, this is so crazy!” I whisper to Mackenzie and Kimi.

  “I know!” they both whisper back to me.

  Sarah breezes into the family room, with Laura a couple of paces behind. As soon as they’re safely inside, Kimi shuts the door and we all start laughing hysterically, wheezing from trying to keep quiet. I can’t see much, just shadowy figures, but even if the lights were on, my eyes are too blurry. I can’t catch my breath, I’m laughing so hard, and I keep wiping at the tears in my eyes. This is actually fun. I thought it would be weird, but it’s really fun and wild and totally reckless.

  Why, hello there, second wind!

  “Okay, Laura, you drink,” Kimi whispers. “Mackenzie and Ericka, let’s go!”

  Mackenzie and I line up at the door and I’m glad to have the home court advantage. When Kimi gives us the signal, we take off down the hall. I’d say that in a normal running match, Mackenzie would leave me in her dust; but tonight, I call upon all the inner strength I’ve ever possessed. I’ve got more at stake here. I pass the kitchen counter, hearing our bare feet slapping on the hardwood floor. We’re neck and neck. But around the corner, I squeeze into the hallway first and spread my arms out so that she can’t pass, barely grazing the old wallpaper as I go. At the end, I break out into a full-body sweat at the thought of being right outside the bedrooms of both my parents and my little brother, so I throw it into turbo and straight-up fly back toward the family room. I am on a mission. I would truly die on the spot if anyone in my family ever saw me naked.

  Mackenzie is on my tail, but I barely make it back through the family room door first. Bent over and jubilant, I crash onto the blankets on the floor and try to catch my breath while the other girls giggle uncontrollably. I won! My chest is heaving and my smile is wide.

  And then—

  The lights are on. My first reaction is the lack of one. I’m too stunned. One second later, though, I hit the deck, pulling at the blankets below me and shielding my eyes.

  “I need to find my iPhone,” Sarah explains from beside the door. When the lights came on Mackenzie and Laura dove under the blankets closest to them as well, but Sarah takes her time getting back into her bra and panties and I realize how very different our bodies are. Kimi jiggles back into her own bra and shimmies into a thong (loads of coverage there), and then leans over the couch to help Sarah look for her phone. I don’t stare or anything, but I see how different her body is as well. And it’s not just our chests; it’s the way Sarah’s back muscles jut out, and the surprisingly pudgy stomach that Kimi really hides well.

  “Mackenzie, you guys, stand up,” Sarah demands, pulling at the covers. “Maybe it’s underneath here.”

  Mackenzie and Laura obey, abandoning the safety of the blankets and diving for their own bras and panties. They both look totally awkward, and Laura sort of crosses her legs like celebrities do on the red carpet while she shakes her panties out of her shorts. Only a couple of inches taller than I am, she is meatier, compact, solid. Mackenzie crosses her arms as if she’s cold, then turns around to snap her bra back in place.

  I squirm, trying not to look at any of them, but, well, looking.

  “Ericka, get up,” Sarah says again.

  “Can’t somebody just call your phone?” I say, hunched over with the tiniest corner of a blanket covering me.

  “Come! On!” Kimi yells and jerks the blanket away.

  I scurry up and kind of turn away, trying to be as collected as the others, but totally not succeeding. We all have different body types, but at least they sort of look like women. I gulp hard and figure I’m further behind than I ever imagined.

  To tell the truth, I thought everyone would tease me—point at my mosquito-bite boobs or count my ribs or make fun of my bony butt. Obviously I’m not yet a woman. But no. Instead of making fun
of me, everybody sat down and started talking about all the awkward body changes that come along with growing up. Like, what things felt like and how it happened.

  “I started my period in the fourth grade,” Sarah admits, shoveling popcorn into her mouth like it’s her job. “I freaked the frick out! Mrs. Janson sent me to the nurse, and I literally thought I was dying!”

  I giggle, remembering the fourth grade and the one thing I was freaking out about: retainers.

  “I didn’t start ’til last spring,” Laura says, which actually makes me feel a little better.

  We’re sitting in a circle in the family room again, passing around the bourbon bottle and Coca-Cola. The Solo cups are a thing of the past. If you can run naked together, you can drink from the same bottles.

  “So, obviously I have the biggest boobs,” Kimi says as she takes another nip of bourbon. “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be, though. Like, in cheerleading, I have to wear two sports bras.”

  “Yeah, but you’re only a C-cup,” Sarah says. “They just look huge ’cause you’ve got a short torso. I mean, I’m almost a C-cup, too, but I’m so tall.”

  “Almost,” Kimi points out.

  I grin at the dynamic of their friendship.

  “But I don’t think all guys care about boobs,” Laura speaks up next to me.

  “You show me a boy who doesn’t care about boobs and I’ll show you a flying cow,” Kimi says with a snort.

  I giggle and pass the bourbon bottle. I can smell the sweetness of the alcohol as it whiffs past me. I’ve never been interested in drinking, probably because of all the stuff with Luke and because my folks hate it, but I feel tempted at this moment. I don’t know; I feel safe right now, in my house, with my best friends, and everybody seems to be taking really tiny sips. I watch the bottle circle and chuckle as they make funny faces with each drink. We’ve been passing the booze and spilling our guts for the past twenty minutes and hardly any of it is even gone!

  “Come on, Ericka,” Mackenzie says. She loops her arm through mine and makes a silly face. “Take a little drinkity-drink.”

  We all giggle and I hold the bottle up to my nose.

  What the hell.

  I take a deep breath and barely tip it back, just to get a little taste and see what all the hoopla’s about.

  It burns! All the way down. I start huffing, like when you blow on a fogged window, to cool my mouth. It’s like drinking fire!

  “The Coke,” I breathe like a dragon. “Pass me the Coke!”

  Mackenzie passes me the Coke and everyone cracks up. Kimi, of course, does a hilarious impression, like I’m some kind of parched survivor on a deserted island. I laugh so hard that I snort, which makes me blow Coke through my nose.

  “Ahh!” I scream. “It burns!”

  We fall over in one another’s laps. Nobody can stop the laughing and everyone’s dabbing at their tears, none of us eager to ruin our makeovers.

  Then Sarah’s phone beeps and she squeals like a maniac, kicking her feet in the air.

  “Jimmy’s here!”

  I look up at her in shock.

  “Here? Like, on the front porch?” I ask, totally imagining how long I’ll be grounded if my dad sees him.

  “No, they’re parked down at the Fosters’,” she whispers urgently. We all have our heads together in the middle of the room. “They wanna know where we can meet ’em.”

  I whisper and giggle with my friends, my heart racing.

  It looks like we’ll be sneaking out after all.

  And at this point, I’m okay with that.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  “I guess we should go up to the side barn,” I say, my breath clouding the air in front of me. “At least there’s a security light there, and we can get to it from the road. I don’t think any of us want to go trekking through the cow pastures in the middle of the night, do we?”

  “Ew,” Kimi replies, her nose crinkling.

  We head down the driveway, trying to keep quiet as the gravel slips and crunches beneath our feet. My heart is beating wildly, both because I’m really sneaking out for the first time and because I finally feel like I fit in. Once we’re on the road, our flip-flops flap against the blacktop in a way that would be totally normal in the middle of the day but sounds eerie this late at night. Once day gives way to night, everything changes. Even the crickets sound menacing.

  “Wow,” Mackenzie breathes, “it feels like we’re in a movie or something.”

  The other girls nod and I watch their faces. When I try to put myself in their places, I realize how beautiful the elm and maple trees are, draping over the small country road. I admire the stone fences that line our boundaries, fences built by our Irish ancestors generations before I was even a thought in God’s mind—pretty cool, even if they are crumbling in a few places.

  I smile to myself and take a deep breath of the crisp country air, feeling content.

  Right before the Gumbels’ house we hop a small stone fence and walk up to the barn. I miss Bandit, but I’m glad those crazy dogs aren’t out. It’s scary enough out here at one in the morning without a pack of Cujos running around.

  I spin the combination and slide the big barn door open. We walk inside and the smell of straw hits us hard. Dad keeps the hay in here nowadays, but the scent of cured tobacco still lingers. I take a big breath, then notice the other girls doing the same, filling our lungs with past and present. There is a buzz in the air.

  Mackenzie throws a blanket down on the ground and we huddle together to wait for the boys. Kimi and Sarah are giggling like crazy, texting Jimmy and Paul on their phones. Mackenzie fishes through her bag while I daydream, thinking about “sneaking out” and my parents and whether or not this would count if push were to come to shove. Technically, I’m still on our property.

  “Laura, jump up on that hay,” Mackenzie says. “I want to take your picture.”

  Laura looks at me and rolls her eyes. Mackenzie is just as bad as her mother. The three of us get up and walk deeper into the barn. Laura situates herself on a square bale of hay and looks at Mackenzie, waiting for further instructions as if she’s done this before.

  “Now, sort of lie back,” Mackenzie instructs. “Yeah! Like that! Hold it.”

  The flash goes off brightly in the barn and Laura quickly shields her eyes. I giggle and step behind Mackenzie to see the shot.

  “Oh, wow,” I say. With the makeovers from earlier and the backdrop of the barn, this picture is really cool. Like, I could totally see it in a Seventeen Halloween special issue or something. “You look awesome.”

  “Do another without smiling,” Mackenzie commands.

  A mini photo shoot begins. I love watching Mackenzie zoom in and out, love hearing her give Laura directions as she walks around her muse. Honestly, she has a real knack for photography. The way she positions Laura is fascinating. I mean, I would’ve just put her on the hay and said, “Cheese.” But Mackenzie makes it more artistic, sometimes shifting the camera so that Laura is off-center, and making the blurry shots look purposeful.

  “I didn’t realize you were a photographer,” I say to Mackenzie, kneeling down with her as she shoots Laura from below.

  Mackenzie snaps the shot and looks at me. “I’m not.”

  “You should be, then,” I say. “These are incredible.”

  Mackenzie shrugs and stands up, brushing the straw from her knees. “You’re next.”

  I stare. “Me?”

  “Yeah,” she says, “but over by that tractor.”

  By the time she finishes her sentence, she’s already walking over to the small red tractor. She walks around it, pensive, while I look at Laura in bewilderment. Laura rolls off the hay and stands up, brushing off her butt.

  “She doesn’t take no for an answer,” she says, and drags me over to Mackenzie.

  I look back at Kimi and Sarah, wishing one of them would take a turn instead. But they’re so excited over the prospect of making out (and who could
blame them?) that we are the furthest things from their minds as their busy little thumbs race across the keypads of their cell phones.

  “I don’t know how,” I mumble.

  “Don’t know how to what?” Mackenzie asks, smiling. “Take a picture?” She pats the big back tire of the tractor, motioning for me to take her place.

  “Model,” I answer, moving over to her.

  “It’s easy,” she says. “Here, let’s just…”

  Her words trail off as she goes to work. Before I know it, my T-shirt is twisted around and pulled tightly against my torso, held in a knot at my back by her ponytail holder. I pull at it self-consciously, but she keeps me from covering my now exposed midriff. She bites her lip and looks at my jeans.

  “Are these old?” she asks.

  I nod, embarrassed.

  “Perfect!” she exclaims, bending down on one knee and putting her finger in the hole on my left thigh. I cringe, wishing I would’ve just spent the money at Guess, but seventy-five dollars seemed like so much for a pair of pants I would just grow out of. Oh, god, I sound like my mother—

  And then, I hear the rip. Looking down, I gape at the hole, which is now the size of a half-dollar, and she keeps clawing at it, making it even more frayed.

  “Sweet,” Laura quips, standing nearby.

  Mackenzie pops up and digs into her pocket, producing lip gloss and slapping it on my mouth. For the first time in my life, I know what a mannequin feels like.

  Laura pipes up, “Now you know what a model feels like.”

  Hmmm… same thing?