Arm Candy (2 page)

“That’s him, gotta go,” Eden said while opening a beat-up umbrella to shield the perfectly groomed shiny, straight brown hair down her back.

Jason was the quarterback of the football team. He had the blond, rugged good looks of an Abercrombie kid, but with a subtle tinge of extra cheesiness. His charismatic dad owned the nearby mannequin factory, and his stay-at-home mom looked like one hot off the assembly line, thin with a platinum do and those fifties-style dresses, cinched at the waist. No stranger to hair products, Jason knew he was the shit. The stud of the town, the local hero. But as Carol had attested, he was also nice. Always the gentleman, he opened the passenger door for Eden and greeted her mom with his wide grin of white choppers that rivaled Nancy Kerrigan’s.

“Have a nice day,” he said with a wave.

Inside the car, after he’d kissed Eden hello, Jason turned on the radio as they drove in silence for a mile.

“Have you thought about the lake this weekend?”

“Mm-hmm,” she said, meeting his gaze. “The weather’s supposed to be nice. I’m psyched.”

“Me, too,” he said with a hungry wink. “I was thinking . . . it might be a good time for, you know . . .”

Eden looked at him and smiled. Jason had had sex before, and he was very gentle with Eden in his coaxing—never with the assholic pressure of a player out to punch her V-card. They’d done everything but the deed, and Eden couldn’t bring herself to grips with the pressure. But maybe he was right, maybe it was time.

They pulled into the high school, and Eden looked at Jason as he turned off the ignition.

“Have a great day, J,” she said, leaning in to kiss his warm cheek. He put his arm around her and kissed her back.

“You, too.”

Inside she met her best friend, Allison, by her locker, their daily meeting place for the morning’s goss, picking up right from where they left off gabbing on the phone the night before.

“So, E,” Allison said, flipping her blond hair with an arm of Madonna-circa-“Lucky Star” black rubber bracelets. “Whatdja decide? You guys gonna do it finally? At the lake?”

“Oh God, everyone’s asking! Why does anybody care?” Eden said, rolling her eyes.

“Because! They just do! I’m not gonna lie to you: Everyone’s talking about it. You guys are like the celebrities of the school. I mean you are totally overthinking this. Jesus, just let him perform the Hymen Maneuver already. I can’t wait to do it.”

“I know. I’m just scared. Megan said it hurts like hell. She said her bedsheet looked like the flag of Japan,” Eden said with a nervous laugh.

“It has to happen sometime! And hey, you’ll be in those waterproof sleeping bags this weekend. It’ll be perfect.”

“Do I want to do it in a tent, though?” Eden mused.

“Why not? It’s outdoors! The way nature intended.”

Eden grimaced and went off to history class as Allison gave her a teasing index-finger-through-hole hand sign that made Eden cringe. She walked down the long hall wondering what the future would bring. Not just the immediate future of the upcoming big weekend, but the real future, like . . .
life
.

She loved Jason. She had dated a bunch of guys when she’d started high school—all seniors, all gorgeous—the basketball forward, the soccer star, the hockey captain. But Jason was different, sweeter, less apt to pat her bum in the cafeteria or make out in the parking lot. She wondered if she’d marry him one day, if they’d be the dream couple forever. It certainly seemed like everyone in town hoped so.

Jason was headed for college at State, which was only twenty minutes away, and she couldn’t imagine life without him. If she could save enough money, she would follow him there. He was worth following. But she was also curious what the world outside her town, her state, held for someone like her.

Saturday night rolled around, and Eden and Jason and a bunch of kids loaded up their trucks, drove to a nearby national park, and pitched tents by the water’s edge. In the evening, Eden sat on Jason’s lap near a campfire, nestled in his arms by the bright orange glow of the flames in the center of the circle of friends. Eden caught Allison’s eye, sparkling with knowing mischief. She winked at Eden, as Eden bit her lip and smiled back nervously.

As the silver sliver of moon hung brightly pasted against a blanket of stars, the gang paired off toward the tents. Eden looked around at the hunter green treetops and brightly lit cobalt sky and knew this was the perfect time; it was romantic after all.

Eden and Jason crawled into the tent and started kissing.

“I love you, Jason,” she said, searching for his ripped, muscular body. “I’m ready.”

“I love you, too. It’s gonna be great. Wait—I got music.”

He slid across the two red sleeping bags and retrieved a boom box from his older brother’s U.S. Army bag. He pressed the play button.

“I made a mix tape of all the songs that remind me of you,” he said, holding her face in his big hands. “I wanted you to lose it to something awesome.”

Inspired by Lloyd Dobler, he had selected “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel to commence the action. He was slow and gentle and while it was painful like Megan had described, it was hardly the crime scene she’d braced for.

“Eden,” he said, sweetly kissing her, “you’re the one.”

—Libby Reid

 

 

 

S
till together six months later, Eden spent every other weekend up in Jason’s college dorm room. When he had an away game one weekend and couldn’t see her, Eden decided to do a mini road trip somewhere fun with Allison rather than stick around in Shickshinny. Junior year sucked, and Eden’s restlessness was growing. But Allison was a little older and had scored her license, which provided some freedom for the duo.

They headed off an hour and a half away to some semblance of larger civilization, Prairie Falls, home to the Prairie Mall. Some malls euphemistically called themselves shopping centers, or worse, shopping
centres
. But this was not that—no marble, no waterfall centerpieces, no upscale boutiques. This was a straight-up
mall
: tacky, Bedazzled leggings stores, fanny packs galore, a couple movie theaters in desperate need of renovation, and Hot-Dog-on-a-Stick.

As the girls licked soft serve ice cream cones, they walked by The Poster Shop as an image in the window caught Eden’s eye. Normally the window display posters were photos of saccharine nightmares, like a basket of puppies or a kitten dangling from a branch with a script caption of “Hang in There!” But this time, it was a shot worthy of Woody Allen’s lens: Manhattan at dusk, a man and a woman running through the street, holding hands.

“Look at that, Allison,” Eden said, her tongue circling the chocolate ice cream. “New York City. I love that black-andwhite—”

“I’d kill to go there. Like literally. I’d murder someone I don’t know.”

“Should I buy it?” Eden asked.

“Let’s see how much it is,” said Allison, walking in, ignoring the NO FOOD sign.

“Excuse me, how much is that framed photo in the window, the New York image with the couple?” Eden asked the guy with Buddy-Holly-slash-serial-killer glasses who worked in the store.

“It’s eighty,” he responded.

“
Eighty
clams? Forget it, Eden,” Allison said, turning on her feet to leave.

“Well, that’s framed. I do have it matted for twenty-two,” he said.

Eden walked away smiling with her new eighteen-by-twenty poster tucked under her arm as the girls headed back across the food court to Allison’s dad’s car.

“Excuse me—excuse me, miss?”

The girls turned to find a tall, good-looking man in a black leather jacket. He spoke with a crisp British accent, and with his aviator shades and gleaming smile, he looked nothing like the guys the girls usually saw around.

“Pardon me, I hate to interrupt you,” he said with an unbroken stare at Eden, taking off his shades. “I’m Pete MacGregor,” he said. “I’m a modeling scout for Ford in New York City.”

Carol and Eden packed the boxes while Allison giddily raced around like a jackrabbit on crack.

“Oh my God, this is it. This is so exciting. I can’t even deal. I mean, we, like, just bought that poster of New York, and now instead of that dumb photo you’re gonna have a
window!
”

“Eden, knock it off with the sulking,” Carol said, noticing that her daughter looked like she had just vampired a lemon. “It’s gonna be amazing there for you.”

“Mom,” Eden said, sounding frustrated, “you were the one who said to hold on to Jason. You told me he’s got it all.”

“Yeah, for Shickshinny. And that was then. This is now.”

As Carol loaded her daughter’s bags in the car, Allison walked with Eden, giving her a last pep talk.

“Eden: remember when we were little girls and used to watch
The Wizard of Oz
on a loop?”

“Yes,” Eden recalled warmly, putting her arm around her best friend.

“You know when Dorothy leaves all that black-and-white boringness? That’s this place. You are going to Emerald City.”

“Allison, the whole frigging point is that Dorothy missed the black and white,” Eden replied.

“Well, Dorothy was a dope. With that dumb apron. Look, you said it yourself in geography: We live in a box. Our state is a fucking rectangle.”

“I know,” laughed Eden. “I remember thinking the interesting states always have cool shapes. But not us. We just have four straight lines. Whoever made the borders didn’t care about fighting for the squiggles.”

“That’s right. No more lame-ass boxes for you. New York has tons of jagged lines. So pull it together and get in the car.”

After a tearful phone call to Jason saying good-bye, Eden loaded her last bag into Carol’s car. At the bus depot, Eden hugged her mom and then turned to give Allison something wrapped in newspaper.

“What’s this?”

“It’s the poster of New York,” Eden said. “You can keep it until you come and get your own window.”

Allison hugged her at the bus so tightly, Eden thought she’d snap.

“I’m coming the second I get my fucking diploma, so you better be on your feet,” Allison said. “That means a year and a half to make bank. You can do it, Eden! Cindy Crawford can suck it!”

Eden turned with a lump in her throat to climb the three stairs of the bus, then sat in her seat and took a last look at her mom, waving with her cigarette. As the bus pulled away and drove through Main Street, Eden watched as they passed the field where Jason had scored so many touchdowns, including one with her when they had snuck onto school property over the summer. She whizzed by, looking at the quaint rows of houses, the store where she’d worked, the market, and shuddered. Not because she was intimidated by the huge all-caps NEW YORK on the front of the bus. But because deep inside her, she knew she was never coming back.

—Winston Groom

 

 

 

M
odeling was not what it had seemed at first. Crammed into a tiny apartment with six anorexic girls, a fat, bulimic chaperone, and three bunk beds, Eden knew right away this was not her dream scenario by any means. She ran around town, headed to go-sees, where they’d look her over, snap a Polaroid, and send her on her way.

To escape the claustro digs, she walked the streets and eventually found her way around. She relished spying through large picture windows in the Village, wondering who the glamorous people were who lived in such lofty locales. She loved sending Allison New York postcards—from the dramatic and dreamily picturesque (Empire State Building at dusk) to the amusingly grotesque (a St. Marks punk with seventy-six facial piercings). She booked two photo shoots for catalogues and continued auditioning. But instead of getting down when she didn’t get a job like the other girls would, she still had hope—because the casting people always told her booker that while she wasn’t right for this particular gig, she had a striking look like no one else they had ever seen.

She got a part-time job at Tower Records to save money since twice-weekly jobs as a model for fashion designers on Seventh Avenue weren’t exactly keeping her in ka-ching, and she was an indentured servant of sorts to the agency, which paid for all her headshots and living expenses.

Her post at the record store allowed her to get almost-free cassettes, and to meet many customers, plenty of whom asked to see her again. She dated several men—a Wall Street banker, an eye doctor, a trust fund baby, each for a few weeks or a couple months. Until one day, in wandered Cameron Slade. Leather jacket, ponytail, pierced ear, gorgeous face. Eden knew who he was; she had seen his local band, Desperate Measures, play in the store at their record release party. He hailed from Southern California, smoked tons of weed, and never met a hairbrush he liked. His fingers burned through the fret, ripping riffs that made guys bang their heads and girls bang
him
.