Eating the Cheshire Cat

by Helen Ellis

  Nicole tucked her hands under her thighs. She wanted to reach over the stick shift and touch the black-and-blue, kiss it and make the bad colors go away. She chewed the inside of her lip. “You’re so pale, Ree.”

  Sarina stuffed her shirt back under her waistband. She shook her chocolate curls as if trying to shoo the comment out of the car. “Way to remind me.”

  “No,” said Nicole. “In a good way. You’re like a doll.”

  Sarina’s face reddened.

  “I don’t mean to embarrass you. You know you’re good-looking.”

  Sarina said, “I’m not embarrassed.”

  Nicole felt embarrassed. She felt that way all day.

  When the last school bell rang, Nicole left under scrutiny. She was all anyone could talk about. Teachers wanted to be shrinks. Students wanted to get the skinny. Everyone wanted to know how a good-enough kid could flunk out of school. Everyone wanted to be the one to make her crack.

  All day long, Nicole had kept her mouth shut. She chose a locker at the end of the hall. She ate lunch at the corner of the science nerds’ table in the cafeteria that stunk of gossip and Tater Tots. She wondered why anyone gave a rat’s ass. It wasn’t like she had a baby in the bathroom. It wasn’t like she’d killed someone.

  When she got off the bus at Central High East, her mother was waiting in the car, her sunglasses on, reading an oversized magazine. She asked, “Was it all that you remembered?”

  “It was fine,” Nicole said and buckled her safety belt.

  But it wasn’t fine. It was far from fine. Nicole had somehow found her way into a place where she was the last person anyone wanted to be friends with and still the center of attention. She was not happy there. But she was happy with the thought of tomorrow morning and of Sarina’s door-to-door and of fifteen minutes in a place where she would be giddy and grateful and could sleep easily if given the chance. All the way home, Nicole tried to figure out how she could spend more time with her friend.

  During the next morning’s commute, Sarina came up with the answer. “Tell her you have to stay late. Study hall. Extra credit. Tell her Jessup’s watching you. You know, he wants to make sure that you pass.”

  Mrs. Hicks did not doubt it for a minute.

  The fall semester continued this way. At the beginning of each school day, Sarina picked Nicole up where her mother dropped her off. On the afternoons that Sarina did not have cheerleading or Key Club, she took Nicole places where they would not be seen.

  “If we went to the mall, your mom would totally kill you.”

  Nicole knew that was true and allowed Sarina to tuck her away anyplace she saw fit.

  Sarina was great when they were alone. At times, Nicole thought, she was better than when their friendship was public. Sarina seemed more interested in what was on Nicole’s mind. How the West campus was treating her. If there were any junior-varsity cheerleading terrors who need to have beer spilt in their hair after the pep rallies. Was there anyone in particular who was making her life miserable? Sarina could take care of it. Accidents could happen.

  But Nicole just laughed at Sarina’s tough act. She hugged her own knees and rocked on the trunk of Sarina’s car wherever it was parked. Behind the Dumpster at the Piggly Wiggly. In the woods along the train tracks. Wherever. Whenever Sarina made time.

  * * *

  A week before Christmas break, Nicole knew something was wrong.

  “It’s nothing,” Sarina said.

  “It is too something. Look at you. You’re all twisted in your seat.”

  There was a chill in the supermarket parking lot. Sarina had the car heater running and the windows were fogged.

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Just tell me.”

  Sarina uncrossed her legs, took her clasped hands from between her thighs, touched the front window, and made five fingerprints. She admitted, “The Stewart thing has me all screwed up.”

  Nicole felt the heat rise to her face as it had when Sarina had told her about that one night at Deerlick. She hated to think of Stewart on top of her, breathing out of order, toes in the sand, trying to get his footing. For the first time, Sarina had told her very little about what had happened. Nicole had not pressed her. But she had wanted to. Real bad. She’d wanted to ask if Stewart knew the way Sarina liked her feet rubbed, the way she liked her hands played with, her scalp scratched where the roots met her neck. Did he know that the way to get Sarina to agree to anything was to point out how very pretty she was?

  What Nicole pointed out was, “Look, you asked for it.”

  “Nice,” Sarina said and reached for the keys hanging idle from the ignition.

  “Wait, I’m sorry. Tell me. Is it that you’re still in love with him?”

  “I’m not in love with him. At least, not like when I was a kid.” Sarina drew a plus sign with her knuckle on the driver’s side window. She traced the capital letters of her name on top of Stewart’s. “If we got married . . .”

  “You’d have the same initials.”

  Sarina wiped her hand over the inscription. “Not a sure-fire sign of love.”

  “So what is it?” Nicole whispered. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Once you’ve had sex, everyone expects it.”

  “Everyone knows about you and Stewart?”

  “God, no. He’s the captain of the math team.” Sarina turned toward Nicole. She tucked her feet beneath her. She put her back against the door. “Everyone knows about me and someone.”

  “Someone,” Nicole repeated.

  “Someone in college. A college boyfriend.”

  Nicole could picture Sarina in the locker room, all the cheerleaders rallied, eager for details from her long-distance love affair. Each girl wanting a man, not a boy. Each anxious to grow up. To be like Ree.

  “So you made him up.”

  Sarina nodded. “This way, I can still talk, but don’t have to go all the way with guys after the games. You know, it’s all just tits and tongue.”

  Nicole cringed. “Isn’t that cheating on Mr. Big Man on Campus? Which college did you say he’s at?”

  “Georgia. And it’s not cheating unless you really mean it.”

  “So what’s the problem?

  “Geez, Nic. The problem is the prom. I’ve just got to find some college guy to take me. None of the high school guys will ask me. I’m spoken for, remember.”

  Nicole said, “If it makes you feel any better, there’s no prom for me, either. No one’s going to ask a flunkie. Looks like we both screwed ourselves out of a date.”

  “I figured I could set you up. Get someone to ask you. We could go together like we planned. Do the hotel thing, the whole nine yards. There’s got to be a college boy. You’ve got to help me think.”

  With those words, Nicole was transported to a place without punishment. Her privileges weren’t stolen. The grounding surrendered. She would go to the prom and double-date like the old days. She would store the corsage in the fridge, pull it out and smell it if she was ever chastised again. Nicole had to make this date a reality. She had to think of a plan.

  She did. “What about Rick?”

  “Your brother, Rick?”

  “He even goes to Georgia.”

  “You’re right,” Sarina clapped. She reached out and practically fell on Nicole. Her hair covered Nicole’s face and Nicole remembered the scent of her pillows after Sarina slept over. Cheek-to-cheek, Nicole felt her skin vibrate as Sarina spoke. “He’s perfect.”

  Thus, the plan was laid out in a parked car between two girls. They would convince Rick to take Sarina. Sarina would convince an East Campus guy to invite Nicole. They would be together like last year. In pretty dresses and high-heeled shoes.

  Sarina

  IT WAS NOT part of Sarina’s plan to have Nicole approach her brother. She could get Rick all by herself, no assistance necessary. But the opportunity was there. Christmas vacation was well under way and Nicole’s parents had a day planned at the University Mall. So
when Nicole called and told her to come over quickly, the coast was clear, Sarina could hardly refuse. Nicole was so sensitive. If she didn’t feel needed, she was no use at all.

  Sarina stopped in the carport. She touched Rick’s bitchin’ Camaro. Just back from Georgia, the hood was still warm.

  Rick was in his room.

  “Be cool,” Nicole pleaded.

  Sarina said, “Sure.”

  At the top of the stairs, Sarina could see that his door was wide open. He was unpacking his suitcase, sorting his clothes into two piles. Bed and floor. Clean and dirty. When he looked up, he found them standing in the door frame, Nicole switching her weight from foot to foot, Sarina with her arms crossed, feeling feckless and more juvenile by the second. Before Nicole said word one, Rick put his hands in the air like a convenience store clerk under the gun. He said, “No way.”

  “But you don’t even know what the question is.”

  “Whatever it is,” Rick told his sister, “there is no way I’m doing it.” He ran both hands through his tall blond hair. He caught some of it in his fists and stared at the dirty laundry like it was the greatest burden he could possibly bear. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. When he opened them, he said, “You’re still here?”

  Sarina gently pulled Nicole into the hallway. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I’ll see him at Tracey Hinkle’s party. I’ll take care of it.”

  “What if he says no?” Nicole grabbed Sarina’s wrists a little too tight and Sarina noticed the skin eaten away at her cuticles. Nicole’s fingers were red, purple almost from the pressure she applied.

  “Jeez, Nic. Let go.” She tried to twist free. But Nicole’s thumbs were white now. “He’s not gonna say no.”

  That night, Sarina followed Rick’s car to Tracey Hinkle’s house. Tracey was a varsity cheerleader and hers was the first of many parties that would go on over the break. The same crowd would move from house to house depending on whose parents were out of town. It was the same clique Sarina hung with at school, plus alumni, plus anyone else who had the gumption to crash. The parties got big. They filtered into backyards. The music could be heard before drivers parked their cars on neighboring lawns. The cops were always called. The drunkest always stepped forward, volunteering to play sober.

  Sarina got out of her car and met Rick as he stepped out of his. She took him by the hand, careful not to let her sleeve fall back to expose the marks Nicole had left. She teased, “You’re my new boyfriend.”

  Rick reached through the open car window. He took his wallet off the dashboard and stuffed it in his back pocket. “You think so?”

  Sarina pinned his elbows against the roof of the car. She let her body get close enough so that her breasts barely touched his sweater. She whispered, “You know you’ve always had a thing for me.”

  Rick said, “You’re still a kid.”

  As she followed him into the party, Sarina said, “Prove it.”

  Throughout the evening, Sarina kept after him. She poured vodka, smuggled from the Hinkles’ liquor cabinet, into the Coke in his blue plastic cup. She helped him get wasted. Boys love that. What resistance he had was lost. Before his buddies drove him home, Sarina took Rick to the backyard, took off her panties, and pushed them into the front pocket of his jeans. She said, “You’re my new boyfriend.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  When he woke up, Rick would find Sarina’s party favor, remember grubbing behind an ivy bush, then call a friend to confirm. Everyone he called had seen the two of them together. Seen them go out to the backyard. Seen them stay out there long enough.

  “Did you do it?” one would ask.

  “What do you think?”

  “Dawg!” his friend would say. “You dawg!”

  Sarina knew how it would go. She would follow him to the next party. She would get into the host’s parents’ private stash of booze. Smile when Rick confronted her. Nod when he said, “Do you want to get out of here?” She would refill his plastic party cup. Kiss him till he couldn’t recall. Go along with whatever he could summon the next morning, what his friends could come up with, what she could imagine they might have done if the circumstances were different.

  The day before Rick went back to Georgia, Sarina called him during her lunch period. She told him that as her new boyfriend, come May, he owed it to her to drive home and take her to the prom.

  Rick said, “Come over while I’m sober and then we’ll have a deal.”

  Sitting in the wooden phone booth outside the Central East cafeteria, Sarina traced a slut’s phone number carved into one of the panels. For a good time, she thought, trust no one.

  “Mars to Venus,” Rick’s voice came through the receiver. “Come in, Venus.”

  “One more time and then you’ll take me?”

  Rick said, “I swear to God.”

  Sarina knew Rick would break that promise. Boys were taught by HBO After Dark to expect adult content and nudity on prom night. No cum shot, but definitely dyed-to-match silk shoes scuffing up the car’s interior. That, Sarina thought, she could handle. She’d spike his punch and watch him struggle with his cummerbund and his fly, his pesky penis too pickled to perform.

  Sarina cut out of school early.

  Pulling into her neighborhood, Sarina thought of the things people said that they did. She wondered if Rick really believed they went all the way. That he stuck it inside her. That it had been so easy.

  Stewart Steptoe was the only boy she had ever made it easy for. In the Central East hallways, he looked at her and she knew he remembered. Wet sand. Her hair tangled. Candied apple breath coming close to his ear. The whole night and everything that happened.

  Walking to the Hicks’ front door, Sarina assured herself that sex was the way to get what she wanted. She thought, If Rick challenges me after this, I’ll tell everyone he can’t get it up. “Just do it,” she whispered. “Do it and get it over with.”

  But Rick wanted more from her. He wanted some romance. He opened the front door and led her to his bedroom. The desk light was left on and the shades were drawn. The clock radio was playing something slow where the singer interrupts the chorus to utter something provocative.

  Rick smiled at Sarina like the boyfriend she told him he was. He eased her down onto the carpet, on top of an electric blanket laid out like a picnic. He pulled two pillows from the head of his bed. He placed them at the satin seam. “The bed makes too much noise. My mom might come home.”

  Sarina kicked her shoes off. “So how do you want to do this?”

  Rick said, “It’s not surgery.”

  Sarina let him kiss her. His lips felt firmer than when he was drunk. He was more intent. Focused on feeling her out. When he was drunk, he kept his hands at his sides or dormant on her hips. Now, he was touching her, stroking her, tugging at her clothes. “You know,” he whispered, “you were right about me having a thing for you.”

  Sarina began to enjoy herself. She kissed him back. She let him lie down and draw her down beside him. Her pelvis to his hip. Her breasts pushing into his right rung of ribs.

  “Touch me,” said Rick.

  “I am.”

  “Not like that.”

  He moved her hand from his cheek to the lump between his legs. He kept his own hand over hers and drew a sharp breath as he helped her massage himself out of rhythm with the radio. “Will you do it one more time?”

  Sarina was not sure what he meant until he let go of her hand and unbuckled his belt. As if racing, he undid his button fly. Without any help from Rick, his penis popped out. He closed his eyes, tucked his hands under his butt and waited.

  Sarina had never taken a good look at a penis. She had felt her fair share. She had felt Stewart’s as it went in. But she had never had one laid out like an autopsy. It was redder than Rick’s skin. She touched it. It moved.

  “Do it right,” Rick said. He put a hand on the back of her neck. He guided her head toward his hot, sweaty crotch. When she resisted,
he pushed harder.

  “Okay,” said Sarina. She pried his penis off his stomach. It was warm and oozed at the tip. She put the head in her mouth and the taste made her gag. Sarina’s eyes stung as she held her breath for another try.

  Five months later, Sarina held out her prom dress, ran her fingers down the length. It was black with velvet trim. It had a deep V-neck.

  “It’s too old for you,” Mrs. Summers had said in the store.

  Sarina insisted, “It’s what I want.”

  Sarina held the dress up to her in front of the mirror on the back of her bedroom door. She stuck a leg out and noticed the slight sparkle from her midnight-sheer pantyhose with the panties built in. She folded the dress over her arm and leaned forward to examine the cleavage enhanced by her strapless bra. The electric rollers were still hot in her hair. When her mother called, Sarina put on her robe and secured the tie. She wondered if black heels really did match everything. It was a week before the prom and this was the dress rehearsal.

  Sarina opened her bedroom door to find her mother with the camera hung around her neck. The idea was to take a series of photographs of Sarina with her hair done different ways. With different level heels. Her mouth painted an array of colors. This process could stretch well into the night. Mrs. Summers had sent Willamina home early, ordered a pizza, and set the den with soft 60 watt lightbulbs. She was very excited. She had already bought an oversized picture frame for the best of the bunch. She had written Sarina a late note for the next day of school. Mrs. Summers tugged the belt of Sarina’s robe twice. “Hup, hup. Hop to it.”

  Sarina backed up to let her mother in. As she went into the bathroom, Mrs. Summers sat on the end of the bed and hung her legs over the frame like a kid. Sarina rummaged through her lipstick drawer.

  “Stay away from the red,” Mrs. Summers said. “If you dance, your face will flush and red lips will only draw attention to it.”

  Sarina knew she was right. She twisted the Cherry Bomb back into its tube. She applied a frosty pink.