Becky's Kiss (11 page)

“Can you see me?” she said. Beth kept finger picking like it was second nature and gave a real look.

“Yes. What’s wrong?”

“No,” Becky said, trying to keep her voice even. “I mean, can you really see my face? Like, am I half in shadow or can you make out everything, like my eyes and cheeks and my chin and stuff?”

“Well, you’re a bit off center, but I see you just fine. Weirdo. What’s up?”

“Just look,” Becky said. She reached to the floor, grabbed the hat, gathered her hair and put it through the hole. She pulled the brim forward and pushed back from the edge to the middle of the chair, trying to find the exact position she had just vacated. The second she found her place in front of the computer, Beth’s guitar went out of tune. Her fingers jerked, and she almost dropped the instrument. Instead, it fell to her lap on its back and she gripped it there, eyes wide as saucers.

“Wow,” she said.

“What?” Becky said. “Tell me.”

“You look good in that hat.”

“How exactly?”

“I don’t know exactly. Hey Becky, you’re really cute, I mean, you were kinda cute before, but now…wowie.”

Becky moved close to the screen, grabbing her lap top at its edges.

“Look at me!” she said. “Real close. What exactly looks different?”

Beth studied her, and this close up, Becky could see the video lines making up Beth’s moving image before her.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t tell close up. It’s an overall effect, like the hat frames you nicely. More than nicely.” Her voice went down to a whisper. “It makes you a sexy kitten, or more like a lioness with that mane of hair.” She sat back, as did Becky. “And you made my guitar go out of tune, el jerk-o. Either that or my Capo is whacked.” She took off the accessory and Becky took off the hat, tossing her hair a bit. Beth looked at her and smirked.

“You shake it, girl.”

They both laughed. Becky’s smile withered.

“This doesn’t freak you out, then?”

“Why should it?”

“Like, I don’t look all plain and normal now, and that’s not strange and creepy?”

Beth tuned a string and then gave a good stare.

“You don’t look all that different to me now. The hat just frames your face. The rest is in your head.”

Becky felt her expression go to a pleading one.

“Then, I’m still pretty, even now?”

“What do you think?”

“What’s that mean?”

“What’s anything mean?”

Becky’s mouth dropped open. Beth stopped tuning.

“Close your mouth, girl. Flies are gonna get in.” Becky shut her trap so fast that her teeth clacked. Her eyes narrowed.

“Do you know a guy named Danny, blond and gorgeous?”

“No.”

“Swear?”

“Oh, I’m cereal. Total.”

“Ha, ha.”

“Really. I don’t know any gorgeous Danny. Why?”

“No reason.” She looked away for a second, bottom lip jutted out. “He’s just a dream maybe. My dream of someone who doesn’t need a magic hat to frame my face for him.” Beth hit something dissonant.

“No one needs the hat, Becky. Except maybe you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. You were a hottie before you decided to try out for the Tigers.”

“Like when?”

“Like when you knocked Cody Hatcher out of his chair. The rest is all angles and shadows.”

“Illusion.”

“More like attitude.”

“And the hat doesn’t scare you?”

Beth put the guitar to the side.

“No. Either way, you’re a sexy lioness. I think I’m going to write a song about you. I’ll call it ‘A Girl and Her Hat.’”

“Shut up.”

“No, you shut up.”

They both giggled.

“See you tomorrow,” Becky said.

“Later.”

Becky hit the buttons that darkened the screen and looked at the Rutledge Tigers hat there on her bed. A magic hat. Or was it really just framing, smoke and mirrors, a simple case of switching up your ‘personal scenery’ so you had the chance to convince yourself you were all that?

The laundry room door opened, and she could hear the heavy tread of her father entering the kitchen and moving stuff around. Time for the grand test. Time to put a measuring stick on this and see if dear old Dad would notice this change, come out of his funk, give up a warm smile—and a hug for once—and realize that Becky was more important than whatever it was he was chasing at the bottom of a glass.

Becky pulled a ponytail, stuck it through the hole, centered the hat, and walked down the hall to the kitchen.

Chapter Thirteen

He was rooting around in the fridge, hidden temporarily by the opened door. Becky stood there for a moment and then cleared her throat.

“Where’s the pizza?” his voice said. “I thought I had a piece of pepperoni from the other night wrapped up in tin foil.”

“Mom ate it.”

He backed out and straightened. He was wearing his favorite work t-shirt with the Philly Tool logo in green and the bumble bee working a jack hammer. He opened the freezer.

“We’re out of the Friday’s Burger Sliders,” Becky said.

“Oh,” he said. He shut that door and bent back to the fridge. “Had to skip lunch because Drisedale Wrecking needed a demonstration of an electric chop saw over at Children’s Hospital. Sold ten of ’em. Probably get a good Christmas bonus for that one, but I’m starved.” He reached for something and came out with a plastic tub that had a lump of chicken salad left at the bottom. It was a half-pound container yet looked tiny in his monster hands. He squinted at the expiration date.

“You do your homework?” he said.

Becky crossed her arms and looked up off to the left. She blinked a few times.

“Yes.”

“What you learn in school today?”

“Nothing.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Dad!”

“What?”

“Look at me!”

“What do you want me to…?”

He flicked up his glance, registered what he saw, and promptly dropped the plastic container. It hit the floor, kicking food onto his boots, and Becky backed off a step with a squeal.

“What is that?” he said slowly, pointing at her head, eyes flat like tombstones. Becky squirmed a bit. Of all the reactions, this was the last she had expected.

“A Rutledge Tigers baseball cap?” she said.

“Right,” he said. He turned away to bend back into the fridge, and when he came up to rest his forearm on the open door this time, there was a beer in his hand. He dug into his pocket and got out his key ring with the booby prize bottle opener he’d won at one of those Syracuse Tool golf outings. He pawed it across the bottle-top for the pop-n-snap, and let the cap bounce down to the floor by his Wolverines, still spattered with chicken salad. “Go study something, blossom. Get busy now.”

“Daddy?” she said, voice really small now.

“Yeah.”

“It’s just one little blunder…”

“Yeah.”

“You had a great day otherwise.”

“Check.”

“Do you think I’m pretty?”

He was still staring into the fridge, and he tipped the bottle to his mouth, drinking with big gulps that made his Adams Apple go up and down like a buoy in a storm. When he finished, he bent and reached in for another.

“Of course you’re pretty,” he said into the refrigerator, all deadpan and hollow. “You’re the prettiest girl in town.”

Becky turned and ran back to her room, knowing he didn’t mean a word of it, that he had probably wanted a boy all along, that he was no more than a drunk who would always think she was plain. She locked the door and buried her face in her pillow. Aaron Nola was pitching for the Phils tonight, and they were going to miss it. Ma was pulling back-to-back late shifts and remained a permanent no-show. Becky was trying her best to become a young woman, and even though she was doing it right here in front of her father, he preferred to look in the fridge.

She rolled over and stared at the ceiling, face wet.

Tomorrow, she was going to have the opportunity to actually participate in the game she had loved as a fan for longer than she could even remember. And she was never going to tell her father about it.

Not now, or as long as she lived.

Chapter Fourteen

Becky hoofed it to school the next morning.

Run, Forest, run!

Of course, she’d already considered the disaster of a ‘sighting,’ so she was ready to duck down a side street or dive into a bush if she heard anything even close to resembling a bus engine. Paranoid? A bit. It was 6:02 a.m. when she left the house, but there were early busses, choir, and bandfront, and she didn’t need anyone hazing out the window, or worse, getting a cell phone and recording the weird running girl, hair flying, arms pumping, her backpack stuffed so tight it looked like something an astronaut would wear.

She didn’t have any bricks, so she’d found a couple of pieces of slate from her neighbor’s stone garden barrier and put them in plastic with a whole pack of cotton balls in there as a buffer. On top of that, she had her old gray sweat pants, a t-shirt, and a pair of blue sneakers for practice, then her slender boot-cut jeans, her Heathered Pima cotton sweetheart blouse, and her Air Bacara Ballet’s, all jet black, meant to bring out the shock blue of her Rutledge Tigers baseball cap, that is, if she had the courage to put it on at all before practice. On top of that stuff, she had a shower kit wrapped in a beach towel, and a trash bag for her current running clothes. Oh, and of course there was her three-ring binder, her pencil case, and her two textbooks. She’d almost busted the main seam of her bloated backpack sitting on it and working the zipper around!

Danny was right, though. Strangely, magically, she was in better shape than yesterday. Her breathing came easier, a routine instead of a chore, and her legs were stronger. She made it up and down two full rises before she slowed to a jog, and she never gave up to a walk until she had already passed the elementary school, with the high school’s roof poking up over the rise before her.

She was an absolute sweatball, but thankfully, the place was really empty: a few teachers walking around, a tech support guy with a tool belt, and a janitor with a broom cart. By the time she was done showering, however, her cell said it was 7:10 a.m., and she actually had to hurry a bit. Of course, her clothes took longer than usual to slip on since these were her tightest jeans and she had to sit, work in her feet, then rise to do the wiggle-dance, hips one way then the other. And on top of that, her back pack was still pretty much stuffed to the brim, forcing her to re-pack it twice to make everything fit right.

She walked into the hall now starting to crowd with students, and of course no one noticed her. She was ‘Invisible Becky’ with the nerdy, overstuffed backpack. She weaved through to the far side of the hall and made her way to English class, bumping shoulders with kids going the opposite way a few times.

Then, in front of room 245, there was a knot of girls spilling over into the doorway, all talking about some other girl who’d puked in a trash can during gym class yesterday.

“Excuse me,” Becky said.

They ignored her. The one with the longest hair Becky had ever seen, falling down past her waist and tied up in a series of lime green bows, took her warrior lock and flipped it all casual, catching her girlfriend in the eye with it. There were peals of laughter and Becky said, “Excuse me,” again.

Nothing.

Becky shouldered off her backpack, squatted down, and got out her Rutledge Tigers hat. She made a stalk with her hair, stuck it through the hole, and pulled the brim forward. There. Just to see…

She stood, backpack straps gathered in one hand, and one of the girls looked at her sideways, a fleeting glance.

“What?” she said. She was chewing gum like a horse, hair tied up in a flip down one side. Her expression was freezer cold, but there was something else there in her eyes as well. Looked like fear. Or jealousy. Or both.

“Move,” Becky said.

The girl altered her position abruptly, and in doing so, shoved her friend next to her. Becky pushed past and heard one of the girls mutter,
“Witch!”

But it was said in awe, like a compliment, somehow.

Becky walked into the room, and all the pre-class chatter stopped cold. Mr. Marcus was at his desk reading a book titled “The Weird Fiction Review.” He glanced up, looked back down, then flicked up a real glance, just for a second. Then he was buried back in his book, flipping a page.

“Take a seat, Michigan,” he said dryly.

Still, he was the only dead battery. Everyone else’s focus stayed trained all over Becky Michigan, and it was the oddest sensation she’d ever felt in her life. The smiling eyes of the boys were greasy somehow, and she could feel the various scans going all over her body, north to south…perverts! And the girls were worse. Their eyes were absolute lasers, wide-brimmed and angry. They hated her! But it was a hatred that had surrender in it, like they all had to recalculate things, include her, pretend that they liked her. It was like a bite of dark chocolate with a super-tangy orange flavor—long deserved, bitterly sweet, bad as heck for you, but delicious.

Cody Hatcher’s mouth was open. He still had a spot on his forehead from yesterday, a dull, sickly blue, and his hair looked tangled, like he had forgotten to shower. His big friend sitting next to him punched him in the arm, and Hatcher bit down on his tongue, then crossed his arms on the desk and put his head down rather ashamedly.

Becky looked at Joey on the other side of the ‘U’ and waved, just the fingers, real subtle. He smiled foolishly, blushed, and waved back. Eyes across the room went back and forth, measuring the exchange, clearly indicating that Joey Chen’s stock just went up. Tabitha Messersmith looked down hard at her desk. She was having none of this, and there were a couple of other students that appeared to feel the same way. Still, they were the minority. Heads were leaning toward each other in little whisper-knots, and it was clear Becky had become far more interesting than the pre-class work up on the blackboard.