Margarette (Violet) (2 page)

“Well, then, sure.”

Both chuckle and walk out. They share a smoke and
slow walk instead of going to the car just to keep Julie waiting. Margarette
coughs a bit, since she’s never smoked before, but she does try to make it look
like she inhales.

Out of nowhere Alice gives up. “Okay, you can have
the knife,” she says, and the knife changes owners. Alice shows Margarette the
clasp to fold it in half. Margarette smiles and sticks it in her shorts’
pocket.

Eventually they meander back. They are discussing
the concept of suck and blow, a game that might come up at the party, when
Julie comes rushing back.

“Hey,” she says to Alice. “You’re never going to
believe it.”

Her skirt flips in the wind as she jumps up and
down squealing. She blocks out Margarette with her body, as if the topic is
only meant for Alice. Her voice is an elusive whisper that could be heard by
all, but still hoarsely hushed.

“What is it?” Alice asks.

“Tommy’s up front,” she says in that non-whisper.
“He’s here.”

Alice’s expression brightens, clearly interested.
“What did he say?”

“I don’t know,” Julie says. “Not much.”

“What? Then why are you so excited?” Alice asks,
surprised. “You saw him and didn’t say anything to him?”

“I just said hi, I guess,” Julie says justifying,
and hangs her head a little.

“He said hi to you?” Alice asks Julie.

“Yes,” Julie says, also nodding her head. She must
be so proud of this guy’s response. Margarette closes her eyes for a second in
disbelief.

“What about it?” Margarette asks, stepping into
the conversation.

“What about what?” Julie counters. “This doesn’t
concern you.”

Alice isn’t so brutal, but reinforces Julie’s
opinion. “Uh, it’s
Tommy
. He’s a legend on the football team,” she says,
as if discrediting Margarette for never being on cheer. In truth, none of them
were at this point.

“And?”

“And not just anyone talks to Tommy,” Alice says.
“We know him from cheering.”

“Like I said, it doesn’t concern you. He’s out of your
league,” Julie says.

“Oh-kay,” Margarette says rolling her eyes, but
doesn’t dispute out loud. She shrugs as if she doesn’t care. “Go get him,
then.”

They all go round to the front of the gas station
while Margarette fumes internally. Who are these girls to think they’re better
than she is? To hear that she can’t have something makes her want it that much
more. Not that she cares about the guy. She has seen Tommy before, of course;
he graduated only a year before. Other than his dad being rich, she doesn’t
think there’s anything special about him.

As they walk back to the pumps, Margarette sees a
dark black Chevy smeared with mud and dust. So this guy has so much money, yet
his car is still dirty just like every other car driven down the little town’s
dirt roads. Coyote Falls is the smallest of small towns. Only the areas by the
old railroads are paved properly; the rest is a patchwork of gravel and dirt.

Staring at the dirty car, Margarette wonders why
the girls are shunning her from him.
Tragic
, she thinks.
It’s just a
boy
.

Alice and Julie are slowly walking up to the pumps
as if they were having trouble putting one foot in front of the other, strutting
as if they were models on a runway. Margarette steps on the smoke and walks
into the sunlight ahead of them with a confident girly strut. The filthy car is
next to Alice’s mom’s dusty wood-paneled Dodge caravan.

She notices the football legend guy’s car isn’t
pumping gas, but is parked next to the pump. The license plate is smeared with
mud and hard to see, but everyone in town knows the car has his father’s name
on it. GALLAGR. Rumors were that they had enough money to make the entire
Gallager name fit on the plate, but didn’t pull favors with the state just to
try and fit in with normal folks. Margarette looks back at the attendant and
doesn’t see anyone at the counter either.

Alice and Julie finally catch up with her,
disappointed that Tommy isn’t there anymore. They look around. Julie mumbles
something that Margarette doesn’t catch.

Alice grits her teeth. “Where—is—he.”

“He was here,” Julie says, with a low growl.

Margarette smirks; she can’t figure out who they’re
angry with. She watches the recently retired cheerleader glide up to the guy’s Chevy
and squint as she walks up closer. Alice whispers something in Julie’s ear.
Julie’s eyes flash in the light as she turns towards Alice.

“Go pay; I’ll pump,” Margarette says.

“
You
pay,” Julie offers for her.

“No,
we’ll
pay,” Alice says, with a
meaningful glance at Julie. The debate ends with their overt look to the store,
presumably thinking Tommy must be inside.

Margarette instinctively shakes her head, then
squeezes the pump a few times making a loud clicking noise, and a frustrated
gasp.

In the end, both ex-cheer enthusiasts walk towards
the store laughing as if they just heard a joke. Clearly a ploy to appear more
interesting to a guy they hardly know.

Margarette stands there wondering about her choice
of friends. She hears a snapping twig behind her. The infamous young man that
Alice and Julie are fawning over, Tommy, steps out of a clearing of trees and
walks in the direction of the pumps. Margarette looks at him. He’s muscular,
with wavy blond hair and a nice haircut. She doesn’t see herself with a guy
like him, but she figures she has nothing to lose by talking to him if he talks
to her first. But she looks away as if she doesn’t care.

He approaches her but veers off to his car at the
last minute. Margarette walks around the minivan, stepping over the gas line.
She leans forward in her blue jean shorts and out of the corner of her eye she
can see him staring at her legs. She flips her hair back behind her and turns
to face him. He doesn’t say anything, but doesn’t look away at first, as if
wanting to be caught looking; the awkwardness builds until he finally pretends
to look for something in the glove box.

She grabs the gas pump and squeezes over and over
with no successful click; she turns towards the car completely frustrated. She
looks up again and catches the boy looking at her again. For the first time she
feels herself flush, or maybe it is the heat; but clear warmth ripples over her
skin and the hairs on her arms stand up. Why does he keep looking at her?
Agitated by her own body rebelling against her determination, she shoves the
nozzle further into the car and squeezes the grip. This time it works.

“Hi,” she hears a voice in front of her.

She looks up and faces Tommy. “Hey.” It comes off
with a twang. She curses herself for sounding way too country.

“Hey… you from my school?” Tommy asks.

“What school are you from?” Margaret counters.

He fans out his arm and shows the initials of his
school burned into his arm. Margarette isn’t impressed. It’s probably a
permanent marker. And if it isn’t, it would be totally trashy.

“That’s me too,” she says.

“Yeah. I finished last year.” Tommy says.

“I know,” she says, before she catches herself.
Shit… revealed too much.

Luckily he doesn’t comment on her slip-up. “You’re
a senior now, right?” he asks her.

“Yes.”

“Eighteen?”

“Yes.”

“Alright….”

“Alright what?”

“That means you can smoke.”

“I don’t,” she says, despite the fact that she
just smoked with Alice. She sneers at him and decides to ask him some questions
in rapid fire. “You in college?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I wanted to take some time off,” he says smiling.
“You know, play around and shit.”

“Do you work?”

“For my dad.”

“At the bank?”
Shit
. She didn’t mean to
reveal she knows who his father is.

Again, he doesn’t comment exactly, but seems
reaffirmed as though he was prince of Coyote Falls, and knows that everyone
knows him. “Yep.”

“That sucks,” she says.

Tommy chuckles. “I guess.”

She can’t think of anything to ask anymore without
getting too personal. Everything else she’s heard about him revolves around the
princess of her school, Sharon, who started dating him when she was a freshman.
There’s a drawn out pause.

Tommy breaks the silence. “You know, you look
familiar.”

“Do I?”

“Yeah, I think I remember you from grade school.”

She looks away, knowing that that’s not possible.
She grew up in a totally different town. A different state, even.

But she doesn’t contradict him. “You must have a
good memory,” is all she says.

“Not really. I think….”

“What?” she says, feeling very self-conscious.

“Nothing… I was going to say that I like your hair
like that. It’s better grown out.”

She smiles knowing he’s never seen her any other
way, but the compliment disarms her and strengthens her ego. “Thanks.”

“Yeah….”

The two girls appear out of nowhere.

“Hey, Tommy,” Alice says.

“Hey, there,” says Julie.

They flock around his car and his attention
switches from Margarette to them. She barely gets a word in after their arrival.
Julie takes advantage of her short skirt and shamelessly does what she can to
get him to look at her. The short discussion ranges from one subject to
another, mostly revolving around sports and those who watch them. Julie bats
her eyes and twists her fingers into her skirt tips. Alice is more direct and
has a flare for direct eye contact. Margarette notices Alice’s comments go to
the cusp of being rude, but Tommy doesn’t take notice or is just unfazed.

Margarette watches Tommy closely and never sees
him look at her again. She assumes it’s a confirmation of social influences,
not a true rejection. Nothing else is said that has any particular value until
the click of the pump acknowledges that the van is full of gas. They climb in
one by one and Tommy watches them all get into the car.

***

Tommy goes inside after they leave and speaks with
the attendant. He asks if anyone’s seen a buck knife he dropped out by the
pumps. The attendant doesn’t seem to know what that even is. Tommy turns around
to walk out but just before leaving asks the attendant if there’s a key for the
restroom. The attendant says no; it’s unlocked and the service guy is overdue.
Tommy goes around the station and enters the men’s room. He goes in and out
only stopping to wash the dirt off his hands and look at himself in the mirror to
fix his hair.

The door shuts behind him as he walks out. A few
drops of water fall from the dirty sink.

The door bursts back open and Tommy walks in. He
puts a quarter into the machine and turns the knob. Out falls one purple
condom. He sticks it into his pocket and then heads out to the car.

The following Friday the three girls get ready for
a party. There’s a lamp on the desk with bracelets dangling from it, and two
cartons holding fingernail polish organized like a spectrum of light. Every
detail in the room is a part of the mystery that is Alice; from unexplained
musical instruments to a collection of tiny umbrellas found only in drinks. The
bedroom is on the second floor adjacent to an elevated wooden deck. Margarette keeps
stealing glances at a big oak next to the edge, imagining how good it would
feel to climb it.

Alice’s hair is up like a bell and it curves by
her neck. She wears a soft white dress planted with dark flowers. Julie is
pretending again to be something she’s not and wears a princess-like tiara, a
golden skirt and yellow top. Watching her in the mirror Margarette realizes that
Julie looks like Big Bird, and even has the beak to match. After considering
how much cartilage it would take for Julie to fix her nose and extensive cost
of that job, Margarette turns to look at herself in the mirror.

She’s wearing an old pearly white dress with a faint
weaving pattern. When she chose it she was afraid that Julie would compare her
to a doily, but she didn’t have a lot of dresses to choose from. No—she actually
does own a lot of older-style dresses, but would rather die than wear them now.

This is the first time Margarette has ever been in
Alice’s house, but she has heard about the second story deck being the locale
for many stories and gatherings. Inside the house there is a distinct smell of
cedar that Margarette might be allergic to, which serves as an uncomfortable
reminder how little she knows of her new friends. The house has wood
everything: wooden staircase, wooden blinds and wood floors, currently littered
with dirty clothes that may have also been made from some wood pulp. Margarette
knows that Alice’s father is a doctor, but she figures he must have been a
lumberjack in a past life, or he just hates the woods.

Alice scurries into the bathroom to finish her
makeup and is jittery with excitement that she has a new perfume. The room
falls silent when Julie is left alone with Margarette. They both take a breath
and pause to see who’s weak enough to speak first. While holding her breath
Margarette ponders about her vendetta with Julie. It’s not like Julie has ever
done anything to her or vice versa. Their snide comments and evil glances were only
an indication of how little they liked each other; no real quarrel had ever occurred.
Alone in the room, no words are spoken—a simple look up with a faux smile is
the equivalent of a long conversation between the two. Perhaps being on either
side of Alice is the most ideal place for them to be.

Finally Alice returns and after another few
minutes they leave. On the way out she kicks open her brother’s door and steals
his keys. The car belongs to Alice’s father so technically it is fair game, and
the older brother is away anyway.

Julie immediately goes for the front seat, and
Alice drives, so Margarette ends up in the back seat. It’s cramped back there
with magazines and stale dirty clothes, a fact that Margarette doesn’t believe
is really fair. The two in the front rattle on about something that happened in
a different class and Margarette’s already lost before they even get to the
point of the story. She sniffs twice and pulls her hand back from what could be
a dirty gym shirt; at that moment she would have given anything to smell the
cedar again. Fortunately Julie doesn’t notice her suffering, because her smoke
addiction makes her crack the window, indirectly helping Margarette. As they
drive off, Margarette tucks into the seat with her head back and closes her
eyes.

Her mind wonders as they drive through the dark
road filled with trees and back wood roads. They spend what feels like hours
looking for a tree with balloons, but in reality only half an hour goes by;
time stretches in Margarette’s mind to prolong her discomfort.

Despite the vague directions and no address, they
irrefutably arrive at the right place when they see a tree plastered with
strings and several colorful latex scraps lying on the road. They slowly drift
down the long gravel drive, and eventually hear distant driving bass from the
party like a heartbeat in a track meet. They make it to PJ’s house, whom none
of them know personally, but who’s cool enough to have an older sibling that
likes his younger brother’s girlfriend’s friends. Long story short, he has a
keg.

The front of the house is black as night with
silhouettes fading in and out of yellow glowing windows. As they approach the
front door it flies open and a piggyback couple crashes into the yard with a
few other following after. The music blares from underpowered speakers laced
with laughter, and gets impossibly louder as they cross the threshold. Someone
presses a red cup into their hands, and the night of drinking begins before the
girls even reach the kitchen.

Alice and Julie continue talking with each other completely
ignoring Margarette as she trails behind, telling stories Margarette doesn’t
know. It doesn’t take long for Margarette to fade into the scenery of warm
bodies and she finishes her drink out of boredom. As she gets handed another,
she catches Julie’s eyes and notices the other girl smiling—Margarette finds
that odd. A few sips and it isn’t long before the music seems to slow down and
her legs buckle. She looks up and the two girls are gone and she ends up
confused, alone and in the living room with strangers, mostly from the public
high school from the other side of town.

She begins to realize her hypothetical friends are
much like mirror copies of each other during social events and less like anyone
she’s ever been friends with before. She judges them a bit harsher than she
would lend judgment to herself. If the situation were reversed and it was
Margarette with a close friend and Julie tagging along, she would probably
exclude Julie to some extent; however, she would at least keep an eye on her. From
the moment she started hanging out with Alice and Julie, she hoped that they
would listen to her as some form of friend, but in public there is far too much
background noise for that.

Somehow not having someone else to complain to
makes her more frantic; she scans the room looking for almost anything to catch
her attention. She may be the only one that notices the lights flicker with
every pulse of the bass in the music or the two overgrown football players eyefricking
every drunken girl from the corner of the room. Margarette frowns thinking
about the indecent thoughts clearly flooding their minds.

She decides if there is to be no reason then she will
be the unreasonable one. But she feels a strong emptiness in her chest, as if
she had exhaled and had not come back up for air. A new feeling creeps over her;
it goes beyond the absence of her friends. The physical reaction grows and she
forgets what she is thinking about. Her body slumps forward as the music lulls
between songs. She shuts her eyes and the entire room falls black with only the
ignorant background chat in tune with different frequencies. She briefly
remembers Julie’s obtuse smile as Margarette been handed the drink, but again
she forgets what she was thinking a moment after it was thought.

The next song starts, and it is familiar to her.
Margarette stands with the intro and without ever opening her eyes she begins
to dance as if she were the only soul that the song was crafted for.

A person taps someone on the shoulder; eyes meet
eyes; a finger points; the simple gestures notify others in the room that hadn’t
seen Margarette, and they now stand watching her with their mouths agape. The
song grows in volume and tempo, and her hips rock back and forth. Her arms
cradle her body; her fingers float in the air as if the tips were electric and
she’s being careful not to touch her wet body.

Even her artificial friends notice her dancing
alone and smile at first, thinking she’s making a fool of herself. But then
they scan everyone else in the room and notice them all watching her; even the
ones that were dancing stopped and now watch Margarette. Alice takes a step,
but Julie grips her by the wrist and feeds a secret into her ear that stops her
from interfering.

Margarette feels her legs bend beneath her, weak
under her own weight, and too late realizes that whatever potion she drank was
beyond alcohol. She folds into her own mind and continues to dance without the
light creeping beyond her eyelids. The focus is slipping, but she feels herself
move perfectly along with the music. Alice and Julie are no longer in the
kitchen nor are they in the room. They are gone without a word of warning or
polite excuse, leaving her alone. Had Margarette noticed, she would have
wondered how girls could be capable of being so wicked.

All eyes stay fixed on her as she stops dancing to
the music and a soft smile comes over her face.

“Is there somewhere I can lie down?” she asks
faintly. “I need to….”

She falls back down on the couch and tumbles into somebody’s
lap. If she were awake she wouldn’t remember ever having spoken with him, but
he remembers her and every casual word in passing.

Paulie Sharp is a fragile youth that would rescue
a bird from a cat while it pecked at his hand. His clever wit and charm would
bore a girl like Margarette out of her mind on even a short field trip. He
grabs Margarette by the shoulders to get her stable. Her blank stare turns into
an intoxicating smile, driving his heart to flutter. His arm reaches behind her
and hooks under her. Some people in the living room call out names and whistle
as a new song starts. He tries to stand up and to drag her to the edge of the
couch. Her legs fold under her Indian style and she slips down to the floor
sitting flat on her butt, pulling him down on top of her. Everyone rolls and
reacts with a round of applause and laughter.

She slams her head forward and she slurs with way
too happy of a tone. “Congratulations.”

“What?” Paulie asks. “Are you okay?”

“Sleeping Beauty…. Beauty has been poisoned.” Her
slurred words are barely audible.

“Don’t go to sleep,” Paulie warns softly, forcing
her back up.

He slides her up against the edge of the couch and
her hands fall limp into her lap. She smiles and her head rocks to the side.

The crowd murmurs over the guitar solo in the
song. An older guy in the room says, “That kid’s going to get laid.”

The majority of the girls watch and laugh,
discussing Margarette’s character in typical girl gang fashion: judgmental and
mean.

“That girl’s so wasted!”

“She’s such a slut….”

“She’s a total pro.”

“I know.”