Corona of Blue

by Berntson, Brandon

  “Do you want to lie on the bed?” Janeen asked.

  “No!” Rayleigh said.

  Janeen giggled. “Ricky would be so jealous,” she said.

  “No kidding,” Rayleigh said.

  Janeen hummed and pretended she was cutting Rayleigh’s hair. “Now, we’ll just take a little off the top, highlight it in dark red.”

  Snip snip went the scissors of her fingers. Rayleigh smiled broadly.

  “Then we’ll trim the ends. You’ll be the talk of the town.”

  “How long have you been cutting hair?” Rayleigh asked.

  “Since I was twelve.”

  Rayleigh laughed because Janeen was only eleven.

  “How old are you now?”

  “Fifty-seven.”

  Rayleigh giggled some more as Janeen cut her hair. She eyed Rayleigh’s hair carefully, smiling. Snip snip.

  “You have such beautiful hair.”

  “Thank you,” Rayleigh said. “A friend of mine says the same thing. I like to give her grief about it.”

  “You’re so thoughtful.”

  “She thinks so.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Emma. She isn’t alive yet.”

  Janeen smiled and cut her hair or pretended to. She was having a good time. The tread of one of Rayleigh’s parents moved across the ceiling, making the boards squeak.

  “I can’t wait to have boobs,” Janeen said. “I look at myself in the mirror sometimes, you know? Waiting. Here they come! It’s starting!”

  “I can see a little bit,” Rayleigh said. “On you, I mean.”

  “Nuh-uh? Really. I like knowing you’re looking at me.” Janeen smiled and winked at Rayleigh.

  “You’re impossible. But I like that about you.”

  “Would you touch them? You know, if they were nice?”

  Rayleigh shook her head and rolled her eyes. “No,” she said.

  “I’d let you, you know. If you wanted…if you changed your mind.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t talk about it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I like you.”

  Janeen bent and kissed her ear. Rayleigh’s face flushed.

  “You know I would do anything you wanted. I would let you lick me if you wanted.”

  “Maybe,” Rayleigh said. “You shouldn’t talk about it. You should respect it.”

  “Respect what?”

  “My sexuality.”

  “But I do. Oh, Raleigh. All I do is respect your sexuality.”

  “I don’t mean like that.”

  Janeen smiled anyway. She talked this way all the time, and it bothered Rayleigh, especially when Janeen wouldn’t stop.

  “I’m not interested like that,” Rayleigh said.

  “But you like kissing me. You said so.”

  “But that’s all.”

  Janeen rolled her eyes. She put her hand on Rayleigh’s undeveloped breasts.

  “Don’t do that.”

  “Come on, Ray. I’ll be gentle. Honest. Let me lick them, just once.”

  “No,” she said.

  “Come on, Rayleigh, please. Just let me lick them. Let me touch them.”

  “No.”

  Janeen sighed and continued to hum and chop her hair, snip snip. Rayleigh felt very uncomfortable suddenly. She wasn’t sure if Janeen was being serious or not.

  “So, you want to kiss again?” Janeen asked.

  “If you stop talking like that, I’ll let you kiss me, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Janeen put the imaginary scissors down and leaned in to kiss Rayleigh. Rayleigh tasted cinnamon and a hint of lime.

  “I like kissing you,” Janeen said.

  “I know. I’ll let you touch me if you want.”

  Janeen put her hands up under Rayleigh’s shirt.

  “God, your skin is so warm.”

  “Your hands are warm,” Rayleigh said.

  Janeen moaned.

  “Come on, let’s stop. I think I hear my mom.”

  “That’s not your mom. It’s the water heater.”

  “No, I think it’s my mom. Quit it.”

  Janeen pulled her hands away, frustrated.

  “You shouldn’t do that so much,” Rayleigh said, frowning. Her cheeks were red.

  “You shouldn’t let me,” Janeen said.

  Rayleigh stood up from the chair. “We should finish our homework.”

  “Yeah, I have to show my mom everything, so she knows we actually did it.”

  “Not like other things.”

  Janeen smiled. “You won’t tell anyone, will you? That I like kissing you?”

  “No, and you’d better not tell, either.”

  “I won’t.”

  “You promise,” Rayleigh said.

  “I promise.”

  “Good. Because if you do, I’ll fucking kill you.”

  “I’d fucking kill you, too,” Janeen said.

  They shook on it and went to do their homework.

  “You want to lie down with me, Rayleigh?”

  Rayleigh smiled and shook her head. “You’re unbelievable,” she said.

  ~

  Rayleigh wasn’t sure she wanted to be friends with Janeen anymore. Dreaming about her, wanting to kiss her and touching her here and there wasn’t the kind of friendship she was looking for. She hadn’t thought about sex that much until Ricky had come along. But with Janeen, it not only seemed wrong, but evil. She knew some people enjoyed kissing the same sex, but for some reason, she never imagined kids could be that way. She didn’t enjoy kissing Janeen as much as Janeen enjoyed it. Rayleigh let her kiss her only because Janeen wanted to. Sometimes it was easier to fight than to give in, she thought. But if Rayleigh didn’t put a stop to it, she was liable to make it worse. Wasn’t she as much at fault for allowing it to happen?

  Once, Janeen had tried to touch her…down there, and Rayleigh had quickly grabbed her hand. “What are you doing?” she’d asked.

  “I thought you wanted me to?” Janeen said.

  “What the hell gave you that idea?”

  “The way you were looking at me.”

  “You’d better knock it off.”

  “Okay okay,” Janeen said, backing off. “Sorry…”

  After a while—because Janeen wouldn’t let up, and every time they were together, it was no longer about scary movies, heavy metal bands, or boys—Rayleigh decided it was best to be by herself for a while. It had been nice before, watching movies, listening to music, everything she’d imagined a good friendship would be, but she didn’t like what it had turned into. She would rather be alone…and she still had Ricky.

  At school, Rayleigh avoided Janeen as best she could, making excuses every time Janeen asked her a question. She had plans with her parents. She was seeing Ricky that night. Even at the desk, where they sat together, she avoided eye contact. By the end of the school year, she was avoiding Janeen altogether.

  One night after dinner, with only a few days left in the school year, the telephone rang.

  “Rayleigh,” her mother said. “It’s Janeen.”

  Rayleigh took the phone and looked at it for a second before putting it to her ear. “Hello?”

  “Don’t you like me anymore?” A cold, almost broken-hearted plea came from the other end.

  Rayleigh waited until her mother was out of the room and whispered:

  “I want you to stop it, Janeen. I like you. I like being with you, but I want you to stop it. I don’t like you like that.”

  “But you kissed me. You told me you loved me!”

  “Not like that. I thought it was something you wanted to do…just for the fun of it. I didn’t think you were serious.”

  “I love you, Rayleigh.”

  “Janeen, stop it!”

  “But Rayleigh! Please! Can’t I see you? I have to see you? Can you get out of the house?”

  “No,” Rayleigh said.

  “Can I come over?”

  “No,” she said.

&nbs
p; “But I have to see you. I have to talk to you. You won’t even look at me in school. It’s killing me! You won’t talk to me. What am I supposed to do?”

  “I have to go.”

  “But there’s only a few days left. What am I supposed to do over the summer?”

  “That’s not my problem.”

  Janeen, surprisingly, began to cry. “Please don’t, Rayleigh. I promise I’ll stop. You’re the only friend I have. Please. I love you.”

  “I have to go,” Rayleigh said.

  “Please, Rayleigh. Tell me you love me.”

  Rayleigh heaved a sigh. Was this really happening? Wasn’t this more an adult soap opera than a couple of sixth graders?

  “I love you, Janeen,” she whispered.

  A click sounded on the other end, and the line went dead.

  Rayleigh stood staring at the phone for a long time.

  ~

  It was the last day of school, Friday, June 4th, and the bell sounded. Instead of tests and last minute homework, kids and teachers celebrated the end of the year with games and festivities. The games didn’t interest Rayleigh. She participated, but certainly didn’t try to win the pie-eating contest or participate in the baseball game between the kids and the teachers. Instead, Rayleigh was anxious to get home.

  She’d cleaned out her desk, throwing most of her things away already. Thanks to Janeen, she’d gotten a B-in math, and Janeen had gotten a C+ in reading and writing. It was better than her D average, Janeen had said.

  “Do you want to walk home with me?” Janeen asked.

  Rayleigh hesitated, then nodded. For three months, they’d been best friends. It had been an interesting three months, Rayleigh thought, if not a little twisted. She wondered if other sixth graders were experimenting with sex, and how they dealt with the onslaught of puberty as they got older.

  Janeen smiled and grabbed her yellow backpack. They said goodbye to Mrs. Shalay and walked outside into the June sunshine.

  Rayleigh looked behind her, thinking how weird it was she would never see Louisville Elementary again. She would be starting junior high in the fall.

  Ricky had also been acting bizarre lately, avoiding her in the same manner she’d been doing with Janeen.

  “Rayleigh,” Janeen said, as they started walking home. “I’m sorry about everything. I really want us to be friends.”

  Rayleigh looked at her for a second, then turned back to the road. The change in Janeen since the phone call had been abrupt. She was a completely different girl now. They could’ve been sisters. Janeen wore tight blue jeans, a Van Halen T-shirt, and thick, black mascara. She’d died her hair a deep, jet black.

  “I thought your mother wouldn’t let you wear make-up.”

  “I took care of that,” Janeen said, refusing to elaborate. Rayleigh waited for her to continue, but Janeen kept walking, staring at the ground.

  “Can I see you over the summer?” Janeen asked.

  Rayleigh looked at her again. Janeen’s green eyes did everything but beg. Other than the eyes, it was like looking at a macabre representation of herself, a demented reproduction. She wondered what had happened since that day they’d met. Rayleigh didn’t recognize the girl walking beside her anymore.

  “Yes,” Rayleigh said. “You can see me over the summer. I would like that.”

  Janeen’s eyes brightened as they walked.

  They came to Lincoln Street. Janeen stopped to head north.

  “Well, this is where I go,” Janeen said. “Can I have one last school-day hug?”

  Rayleigh put her notebooks down on the ground and embraced her friend.

  “No matter what happens, Rayleigh, I'll always love you,” Janeen said into her ear. “Okay? I want you to know I’ll always love you, no matter what. We’re sisters.”

  “I love you, too, Janeen.”

  Janeen held her for a minute more, then kissed Rayleigh on the cheek. When Janeen pulled away, tears were in her eyes. She tried to smile, but it was forced. “Sorry,” she said, turning away. “I’d better go.” Janeen clutched her bag and ran the rest of the way home.

  Rayleigh watched her, picked her notebooks up off the sidewalk, and started home in the opposite direction. She didn’t want to go home right away. She wanted to spend some time under the oak tree by herself. Maybe Bandit would pay a visit. She could use some cheering up.

  ~

  Under the oak, with Bandit’s head on her lap, she looked into the intense blue sky over Louisville, Colorado. She never thought this would happen, never dreamed of having a friend like Janeen. She didn’t know, at times, if she even believed it. She still wanted Janeen to be her friend, but she didn’t want her to act so inappropriately when they were alone together.

  “People are weird, Bandit,” Rayleigh said. “I just don’t understand them.”

  If you weren’t so beautiful, it wouldn’t happen. You live in a world of make believe with that beautiful face. You are too seductively clever for your own good.

  Rayleigh rolled her eyes. Bandit looked at her, cocking his head as if he’d heard the voice as well.

  “What’s your name, anyway?” she asked.

  But there was no reply.

  Rayleigh shook her head and petted Bandit, coarse black hair between her fingers.

  Footsteps approached. She turned, and Bandit disappeared. From the opposite side of the oak, Ricky emerged wearing an unbuttoned red and blue flannel with a Led Zeppelin T-shirt underneath. His jeans were snug but torn at the knees. His hair had grown to his shoulders. Rayleigh liked it.

  “Well, hello,” she said, smiling.

  “Hey,” Ricky said. His brows came together. He seemed deep in thought. “Can I talk to you?”

  “Sure. Sit down.”

  Ricky frowned. He sat on the other side of the oak, several feet away. He pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and blew smoke above his head.

  “What do you want to talk about?” Rayleigh asked, her heart fluttering. Was he going to break up with her?

  Ricky took another drag and looked at her. “You and Janeen seem pretty good friends, huh?”

  Rayleigh studied him. “Yeah. I guess so.”

  He looked at her again and took another drag. “Too close from what she told me,” he said.

  Warmth spread through Rayleigh’s cheeks and ears. Her eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You tell me,” he said.

  His tone brimmed with anger. Rayleigh decided to match it. “What the hell did she tell you?”

  “Enough,” Ricky said, in the same defensive tone. “That you like each other quite a bit. That she fucking loves you. That she had sex with you. That’s what Janeen told me, Rayleigh.”

  Her thoughts ran like molten lava, face flushed an angry red.

  Rayleigh balled her hands into fists, and she clenched her teeth. She took a deep breath and looked at Ricky. “I’m gonna kill her! I swear to God!”

  But Ricky wasn’t fazed. He took another drag and blew out smoke. “Why would she tell me something like that, Rayleigh? Why would she say that?”

  Rayleigh gave him a look of pure hatred. “Because she does love me, Ricky! And she does want to go to bed with me. She’s fucking twisted! She tries to get me to kiss her all the time! Wants to touch me. I’m sorry if you believed it, but it really figures, ya know? It really does. It doesn’t surprise me at all. She told you, obviously, so you’d break up with me. And you fucking believed her!”

  Murderous thoughts raced through her mind! Rayleigh stood up, leaving her notebooks by the tree.

  “Where are you going?” Ricky asked.

  “Where the hell do you think I’m going?”

  “You can’t do that, Rayleigh,” Ricky said, suddenly worried. “I’m sorry. She was really convincing. I believed her. I’m sorry. She’s gonna know I told you.”

  “And you’re okay with that?”

  “No, of course not,” Ricky said, flustered. “I…I just don’t think you should go over there righ
t now. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, Ricky. But fuck you and Janeen both!” She looked at the notebooks by the tree. She would come back for them later. She needed her hands free.

  “Rayleigh, please,” Ricky pleaded. “Don’t go. Don’t do something you’re gonna regret.”

  “I’ve regretted a lot of things lately, Ricky,” Rayleigh said. “And you’re one of them.”

  Ricky turned pasty white, eyes going wide. She might as well have slapped him.

  Rayleigh, breathing heavily, clenched her fists again. She stormed from the shade of the oak and into the fields toward Janeen’s house.

  Be careful of your wickedness.

  “Fuck you!” she said. By the time she was out of the field, she was huffing and puffing like a steaming locomotive.

  ~

  At the end of Janeen’s block, Rayleigh tried to calm down, but it was difficult. Stepping lightly instead of stomping her feet, and taking deep breaths, her heart continued to trip-hammer. She unclenched her fists. She didn’t think she’d be able to control herself. Rayleigh closed her eyes and took another deep breath.

  It was a small white house at the end of the block, a neatly trimmed lawn with a plastic flamingo in the flowerbed under the living room window. Rayleigh walked the length of the sidewalk to the front porch and rang the doorbell. Janeen’s mother opened it seconds later. If it hadn’t been for the change in Janeen, Rayleigh would have seen the resemblance. Janeen’s mother looked very ordinary, and like always, frowned at Rayleigh.

  “Hello, Rayleigh,” the woman said.

  “Hi, Mrs. Kensington. Is Janeen here?”

  “Let me get her for you.”

  Rayleigh waited by the door until Janeen appeared.

  “Hi,” Janeen said, a pleasant smile on her face. “What a surprise! What brings you here?”

  “Can you come outside for a minute?”

  “Sure. I’ll tell Mom.”

  Rayleigh nodded and waited on the doorstep. Her heart thumped loudly in her chest. Her armpits and palms were damp with sweat.

  Janeen returned, stepping onto the porch, and closed the door behind her. They started down the walkway and turned left, down the block.

  “What’s up?” Janeen asked.

  Rayleigh waited until they were at the end of the block, stopped, and looked at Janeen. Without a word, she slapped her across the face as hard as she could. The force stung her palm. Janeen pin-wheeled, gasped, and fell to the sidewalk, holding her hand to her face. She looked up in shock and horror, crying.