Authors: Diane Munier
Darnay Road (35 page)
Darnay Road 58
Is it over? Has she lifted my
punishment? It’s enough I can’t go to school, right?
I hear the double knock and the front
door opens and I know it’s Abigail May. I dry my hands and we meet in the
hallway.
She is in her gym suit with a letterless
letter jacket over that. She’s in the process of earning her letter for
cheering but that will take the rest of the year. She quit growing two years
ago. Five-foot-two, eyes not blue. That’s what Granma sings to her with a
slight modification on the lyrics. Then, “Has anybody seen my girl?” She means
Abigail. Abigail always laughs and gives her a hug.
But right now her eyes are troubled. She
wears her feelings like red lipstick Aunt May always says.
“Can I be here?” she whispers.
“Yeah,” I say, motioning she should
follow me upstairs. We go up and enter my room and I close the door.
“I’ve got so much to tell you. But
first…you first,” she says gripping my arms.
“Easy was here. I love him,” I say. I
can’t believe I tell her like that.
“You do? Well…that’s pretty much like
usual isn’t it?” she says with a big grin, passing me by and taking off her
jacket.
“It’s real though. He’s my boyfriend
now. My real boyfriend.”
“It’s the big news at school. You being
suspended too. That story is growing--the janitor catching you two doing it. In
the church.”
I pick up a china statue I got with my
watch years ago. It’s Cinderella and she’s holding the sides of her dress like
she’s going to curtsy. If I throw it I’ll lose it and maybe wake Granma. I put
it back on the shelf.
“I hate school. I don’t want to go back
there.”
“You have to go back,” she says.
“I wish I could run away to Canada with
Easy,” I say hotly.
Her big eyes get even bigger. “You do?”
“I would,” I say. “Who is saying this?
What have you heard?”
“It’s just talk. At the lunch table. I
told them to shut-up.”
“Who? Who says it?” I demand.
“I don’t know,” she drops onto my bed.
“I’m not going back there. I’ll go to
public.”
She flops onto her back. “You can’t do
that. You have to go to Bloody Heart.”
“No I don’t. I hate it there.”
She gets on her elbows. “I went with
Cap.”
All thoughts of Bloody Heart fly out the
closed window.
“When?”
“Saturday. Sunday. Tonight.”
“Wh…How?” I have that feeling like years
before when she flew past me on Cap’s bike, her arms raised.
“I tell Aunt May I’m doing regular stuff
and I meet Cap.”
She stares at me, not backing down, kind
of proud. Here I haven’t sneaked out to meet Easy and she’s been going ahead
and meeting Cap. I’m kind of mad and…jealous? I’m jealous.
“You can’t be doing that,” I say, but
it’s the other choice—if I’m not going to be honest I can always turn into her
mother.
She blows that off, “Too late.”
“What…what do you do?”
She
falls back and spread her arms wide. “Whatever we want. He’s so….”
“He’s wild,” I say. Just going by looks.
She’s up and all over my room, flitting
about in this kind of swirling dance, “He is. I love him so much.”
“Love him?” I’m appalled. I’m the one in
love. And my love is real, not some…joke.
She’s giggling and…shining. “Yeah.”
She’s playing with my Cinderella. “Yeah. Peace and love, right? Free love?”
“Free love?” Oh come on. We’ve talked
and talked about it. We say shocking things all right, like we plan to do it
someday when we’re in college…if we go. But not with just everyone. Just with
thee one. Well for me, just with Easy. But leave it to Abigail to take it all
seriously and start…whoring around.
”You didn’t let him, did you?” I say.
She goes back to my bed and falls there
laughing like a crazy loon. Her little butt is sticking up kind of quivering. I
walk quickly to the bed and smack her a good one right on it.
She rolls over, her face flushed. “Ow,
bitch.”
We call girls bitches all the time, but
just when we talk to each other. We’re trying it out—that word and it’s our
favorite. But she never calls me one.
“You deserve it,” I say. “Telling on me
about the church. You big stupid fruit.”
Her mouth is open and she moves her feet
fast and gets herself sitting upright on my pillows and wrecking my bedspread.
“I had to tell because I didn’t know what happened to you. I got worried,
freak.”
“You weren’t worried. You wanted to look
important cause that’s all you care about anymore—your reputation,” I say
squeaking out ‘your reputation’ like I’m mimicking her—which I am.
“At least I have one,” she says lifting
her chin.
“Shish-boom-bah!” I sneer.
“They were going to call the police,”
she says more loudly, “and you know what that means. Easy would be in so much
trouble and then it gets into the paper and dumb-ass Stanley gets the paper!”
She’s right. That’s how Stanley keeps
up. She’s right. He’d have that much more on Easy. He’d make that call to Fort
Ord. She’s right. It could have been that same cop that pulled us over. It
could have gone so much worse.
I plop on the bed, my head in my hands.
“He was so horrible,” I moan, meaning
Stanley.
I tell her what happened then. What
Stanley said.
She turns on her knees, making the bed
bob and wave like we’re on the high seas, and she punches my pillow a few
times. “He’s such an old fart bitch jerk.”
That makes me laugh. Then she laughs.
She half tackles me laughing and pulls me down on the bed with her. She loves
to do this, get on me and kiss my ear and be gross. She thinks it’s funny and
it always is and I hate it.
I try to get her off of me and she’s
laughing and so am I, and we end up on the floor and she’s doing her barnacle
thing and you can’t get her off, but I’m trying and I’m yelling at her.
I hear Granma somewhere in there. We cut
it out then and she leaps onto her feet and says, “Granma,” all sing-songy,
running to her and hugging her. She’s just doing it to get her way. She
probably shouldn’t be up here without permission since I’ve been jailed.
“Tell Crazy,” I say flapping my hand
toward Abigail.
“Granma I’m so, so hungry,” Abigail
says.
“Well it’s not going to be fancy but
you’re welcomed to stay,” Granma says.
Abigail gets all giddy and jumpy. No
wonder she loves cheering. Granma leaves and doesn’t say a thing about Abigail
being up here and all I can think is maybe this means Easy can come over
tonight too.
“So what are you and Cap doing?” I say.
Abigail smiles this tight smile and
flops back onto my bed and my teddy bear goes over the side. “Well the first
time…Saturday, I was at the five and dime getting some make-up and I saw him
out on the sidewalk.” She looks at me, “Well I knew you were grounded. Aunt May
said I couldn’t disturb you. So I went with Jessica…well not with her, but we
ended up walking uptown together.”
I don’t know what kind of face I’m
making, leaning against my radiator with my arms folded.
“Well she was ahead of me so she waited
and I caught up,” she defends herself. “Anyway….”
“You were just hoping he’d come by,” I
said.
She laughs and gets all spastic and
squeals. “Shut-up and let me tell it. I looked out the window while I was
paying at the store and he was out there on the corner, leaning on the
stoplight post smoking a cigarette. He looked so cute!” She has to roll around
some.
“You’re fixing my bed,” I say.
She ignores it and sits up clutching my
pillow. “So I put my make-up in my purse and go out there. I got some Sugar
Babies so I wave at him over there and he nods…so cute. And my heart….”
She is so dramatic I could strangle her,
but I can’t move I’m so interested.
“So I hit the button and all the cars
have to stop and I walk across toward him….”
“What are you wearing?”
“My plaid wool shorts and knee socks and
I’m freezing to death but I love those shorts….”
“Go on,” I cut her off.
“He finishes his cigarette and he’s
grinding it with his boot when I get to him and I say, ‘Sugar Baby?’ and hold
my little bag out and he says, ‘Sure.’ And then we just start walking.”
“Where’s Toady?” I mean Jessica.
“Back in the five and dime looking at
magazines. I wasn’t really with her or anything. So he starts walking with me
and he says, ‘Where you going?’ and I say, ‘The movies,’….”
“Did you see ‘Romeo and Juliet?’” I am
ready to choke her. We have been planning and planning to see that movie
together.
“No! We saw ‘The Love Bug.’” She says
folding her skinny arms.
Well I’m not happy about that either. “’
The
Love Bug
?’” Making fun of her is preferable to telling her this whole story
makes me green.
“So listen! I pay his way into the show
because he’s broke.”
“He’s like a hippie,” I say. Does she
know that?
“I know. He says he is a
non-conformist.”
“He says that?” That’s pretty smart for
someone like him.
“Well he isn’t very serious. But will
you listen to my story?”
“Go on.”
“We’re in the show and we eat all of the
Sugar Babies.”
“Wait…what did you do when you ran off
with him on Friday?”
“At me? He doesn’t have any right in
this world to be mad at me.”
“I don’t want to talk about him anyway.”
“Well tell me the other—the show.”
“Yeah, about halfway he says, and it’s
all kids and their mothers, but we’re in back, and he leans toward me and says,
“Hey taste this,” and I get closer and he kisses me and leans away and he says,
‘Taste like Sugar Babies?’ and I can’t say anything because I’m thinking we’ll
be making babies.” She dies laughing then, but I’m pretty mad. I’m thrown too.
I mean…she had her kiss on Saturday. Mine came on Friday and she’s ruined my
news. That’s so unfair. They’ve had so much time while I’ve been a prisoner.