It's Not Like I Knew Her (10 page)

Jodie stood aloof from the rest of the junior class on the pretense of watching the parade while she stole glances at Clara Lee Adams, the object of her secret crush since ninth grade. While she had always scoffed at the notion of love at first sight, the first marks she'd made in her new Blue Horse notebook that year were the initials
C.L.A.
written inside a lopsided heart.

Jodie glanced back at Clara Lee, who drew attention like bees to honey. Not only was she the school's smartest, she was hands down its prettiest. Her soft brown hair fell smoothly to her shoulders, not a strand out of place, even in the slight cool breeze of summer's relief. Her pleated skirt and sweater set were the same deep blue as her eyes. Her saddle oxfords still looked new, not as much as a mark on the toes.

Jodie wiped sweat from her temples on her sleeves and rubbed her scuffed oxfords on the backs of her sock tops. Polished shoes were easy, but shoe polish would not straighten her fuzzy hair, shrink her waistline, improve her social ineptness, or raise her average grades. Except for her infatuation with Clara Lee, she didn't give a damn about anything more than the accuracy of her jump shot. But best girls' basketball player in the county went unnoticed, except for the crude jokes about the certainty of her being queer—a word she now knew, replacing her earlier vocabulary for what it meant to be
peculiar.
In frustration, Jodie turned back to watching the parade.

“I love opening night at the fair. You are going, aren't you?”

The alluring voice Jodie knew with every fiber of her body and mind was that of Clara Lee Adams. It was her chance, and if she didn't faint, she'd say aloud the line she'd practiced.

“Yeah, I guess so.” She actually shrugged. “Opening night, sure. Why not? That's if you'll go with me … what I mean is, we could go together.” She felt a bit dizzy, and stepped back from Clara Lee's heat. Her dopy performance nothing like the cool, nonchalant Jim Stark character she'd wanted to imitate. She prepared for a swift and solid letdown.

“Yes, I'd like that. I think it would be fun.” Clara Lee smiled, and a wave of electricity shot through Jodie's limbs, settling in her crotch like a brush fire. Nothing less than a grand realignment of the cosmos could possibly account for the unlikely shift in her fortunes. They agreed to meet near the Ferris wheel and settled on a time.

Jodie would finally have what she thought of as her first date with Clara Lee.

Stuart Walker headed in their direction, his swagger leading his way. Jodie watched Clara Lee and wanted to believe she read annoyance in the slight resistance of Clara Lee's body at his approach.

“Come on, baby.” His tone carried ownership, and he gave Jodie a hard look. “Unless you'd rather be seen hanging out with weird gal, here.”

Clara Lee looked to Jodie with something like an apology, but she still walked away with Stuart, his arm firmly around her waist.

J
odie watched from a safe distance as the light-hearted crowd moved with the certainty of a river current toward the carnival's entry gate. Opening night, and she'd spent the day wrestling with her angst as to whether or not Clara Lee would show. She'd refused Silas's invitation, telling him she hated the noise and smell of fairs and had other plans. When he pushed her, she lied, saying she was going to the drive-in movie.

In conjunction with opening night, Red had arranged for an assemblage of home-bred musical groups, and each took their turn performing on a flatbed Red bargained from the owner of the local feed and grain by heralding the benefits of free advertising to a man who had no competition.

His rallies were popular with locals, and he claimed that free food and toe-tapping music persuaded the gullible to hear more promise in the words of politicians than they ever intended to deliver. He set events up so local politicians got their crack at the crowd between musical sets, and in that way the entire shindig was paid for by obliging traffickers in illegal liquor, gambling, and prostitution. Red joked that it was smarter for the poor to sell their vote rather than squandering it on empty promises. The secret ballot made any double-cross profitable.

Jodie crouched behind a vehicle, her attention focused on the approach of the carnival rover. He drew nearer, his muscled arms the size of stovepipes, and he wore a full black beard. He patrolled the flagged rope that encircled the midway, his target gate crashers like her. He twirled a three-foot baton, and Jodie imagined he enjoyed the authority it afforded him. Still, she considered those who paid the fifty-cent entry fee suckers. The carnies would get plenty of her hard-earned savings once she was inside. She got lower, the knees of her new blue jeans soaking up the fresh night dew. She held her breath waiting for him to pass.

He stopped, pulled a half-pint bottle from his hip pocket, clamped the cork between his teeth. She was close enough that she heard the gurgling sound he made downing the whiskey. He slipped the bottle into his pocket, slapped the baton against his palm, and squinted in her direction. She tried making herself smaller, but doing so would mean she'd need to disappear.

Terrifying screams erupted from those slung into space by the centrifugal force of the Hurricane, splitting the brightly lit night like a warning. Sweat ran along her temples, and Jodie began to second-guess her will to defy. Still she stayed down.

Perhaps satisfied there were no rope jumpers further down the line, the rover turned and walked back in the direction he'd come. Jodie exhaled but stayed put, watching his back until she felt sure his reversal wasn't a trick to draw would-be gate crashers from hiding.

Convinced, she crept beneath the rope and scurried onto the midway from the position of the last gaming stall. Its attendant was busy stealing dimes from a wad of giggling boys attempting to hook yellow rubber ducks to win big-bosomed Kewpie doll showgirls.

The midway was a kaleidoscope of color, tinny music, and the aroma of fried foods. Jodie was hit with a strong whiff of the pitiful menagerie of caged animals: a pacing black bear, a pair of disgusting baboons picking at each other's genitals, and an aging male lion. Jodie drew near the lion's cage, and the animal raised its massive head, its matted mane tangled and grey. He seemed sad and compliant, bearing no resemblance to the mighty beast he was born to be, and Jodie felt a strong urge to comfort him.

“Do that, and Brutus will make you supper.” The warning came from a boy only slightly older than her. He was dressed in a threadbare costume of red balloon britches and a black embroidered vest over a tattered shirt. He sat astride a hobbled camel, a needless whip in his hand.

As she walked further along the midway, the clamoring of men and boys caught her ears and she slowed. A stooped man, his skin pitted, barked the marvels of nature's most wondrous freaks: a genuine two-headed chicken, a sow with three rows of twelve teats each, and a six-hundred-pound woman in the raw. Rattled by the unbridled glee of those jostling to be among the first to witness nature's handiwork gone mad, Jodie shivered at the thought of what these men and boys might pay to gawk at a queer girl.

She rushed along the midway toward the soothing sounds of children riding brightly painted ponies. What Jodie needed was to find Clara Lee and be reassured that she waited for her. She rushed in the direction of the Ferris wheel.

“Damn her,” Jodie muttered aloud and pulled up abruptly. What she saw was Clara Lee with Stuart Walker. Her anger flashed like a gasoline fire, and although she wanted to choke the smugness from Stuart Walker's face, it wasn't as though she had suitor's rights, only Clara Lee's broken promise.

As she watched Clara Lee, Jodie couldn't be sure he wasn't forcing his attention. He was laughing, maybe bullying her toward the Tilt-A-Whirl. His two lackeys, Billy and Jake Timmins, snickered right on cue.

“Hey, what are you doing here? Thought you weren't coming.” The agitated voice at her elbow belonged to Silas.

“No, I said I wasn't coming with you.” Jodie continued to watch Clara Lee sidestepping Stuart Walker's attention. Her frustration mounted and her muscles grew spastic from holding back.

Silas followed her hot glare. “Damned if that rich boy don't mean to pop that sweet cherry.” Silas hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and Jodie knew he'd given the same lust plenty of thought.

“Damn your ass straight into hell, Silas.” She'd loved and hated him in the same breath for so long that her emotions kept them both off balance.

“Whoa down, girl. You're not her mama, now are you?”

“No, but I figure to even things up a bit.” She decided Clara Lee wasn't with Stuart, and had intended to wait for her. “That is, unless you've grown squeamish. Too afraid to spend a night in Daddy Walker's jail.”

Silas grinned, and for the moment she was back to loving him.

“My lead or yours?” The skin beneath his eyes quivered a bit and she remembered old scores between Silas and Stuart Walker, and wondered how far settling up might push Silas.

“All right, you take the lead.”

He nodded, and they walked toward the sound of Stuart's come-on and Clara Lee's weak resistance.

“Howdy, Stuart. You boys having fun?” Silas balanced on the balls of his feet before settling into the stupid hip hitch thing he did. With his bright yellow hair swept back in a ducktail, he looked more like a pale Woody Woodpecker than James Dean.

“What's it to you, Mister One-in-Three.”

Ouch! Jodie frowned. Stuart had landed a gut punch. The football team's start was nothing if not miserable, and Silas could get down on himself by shouldering too much of the blame.

“Plenty, since it's your candy ass collecting splinters on the bench.” Silas turned his hard stare on the brothers, and they stepped back. As quarterback of even a losing team, Silas had clout.

Clara Lee looked to Jodie, her eyes weepy, and Jodie stepped forward, bumping her way between Clara Lee and Stuart.

“Damned if it ain't the Amazon freak.” Stuart looked Jodie over in the nasty way he had, but when she stared down at his crotch without flinching, he looked back at Silas. “She what you've got as backup?” He glanced at his boys, who gave him half-assed grins but stayed where they were.

“Truth is, Stew Meat,” Silas lingered over the hated nickname like it was nine inches long, “you might say I'm tagging with her. She's short on warning. Just comes on you like a pissed off cottonmouth.”

“Screw you.” Stuart lowered his voice, likely not wanting to attract more attention from the carnival goers who had slowed, their interest pricked.

A devilish grin spread over Silas's sweaty face, and Jodie realized he was about to get really playful. Slipping her hand into her pocket, she tightened her fingers around the smoothness of her knife, the same knife that had once before delivered her from evil.

“Damnit, Jodie, you promised to keep that pig sticker out of this. Give me a chance to reason with these boys before you set about castrating.”

“Shit, what's the point unless I get a little blood on my blade?” Jodie experienced a quick shot of adrenaline, momentarily finding the best of her Wonder Woman, her strength expanding in rhythm with her challenge, and it felt as good as any memory.

Clara Lee moaned, “Oh, Jodie, please don't make trouble.” She moved nearer to Silas.

Stuart's eyes stretched to the size of half dollars, his round cheeks flushed. The hollow-heads stepped further away, and Jake's big hand flew to cover what Jodie imagined were his shriveled balls.

“Now, Jodie, stop and think. Are you ready to live with these town folk pouring out of them titty shows to watch you carve up old Stew? Personally, I think he's got it coming.” He turned to Stuart, his voice dropping. “It's your call, Stew. God knows, I've tried.”

“You damn crazy bastard. I don't fight girls.” Stuart's demeanor, stripped of its earlier bluster, carried the full weight of his defeat.

“I'm hearing you say she's back to being a regular girl? That's quick thinking. Oh, but Cinderella boy, I want you on your knees.” Silas glanced about at those who'd stopped. “Begging apologies right here before the good citizens of Catawba.”

Stuart stood motionless, as if rooted to the ground, and in that instant Jodie remembered the hobbled camel and the boy's pointless whip. She was satisfied to have shown Clara Lee that she'd stand up to bullies, but Silas wanted more. He wanted to humiliate Stuart Walker. Not for what he'd done alone, but for who he was.

Jodie placed a hand on Silas's forearm. His skin was hot and his muscles tense. “That'll do, Silas.”

Silas looked at her and then at Stuart. “Get, boy, while the getting's good.”

Stuart turned away from Silas's murderous glare, quickly disappearing among the sights and sounds of the crowded midway.

Silas leaned, his hands resting on his knees, and moaned. “Jesus, I wanted to hurt him. And I wanted to hurt him bad.”

Jodie nodded. “I know. But you didn't.” His tension lessened, he straightened, and she studied his drawn face. What she believed she saw was confusion, but maybe shame as well.

“Oh, Silas, I'm so sorry to have been the cause of such trouble.” Clara Lee placed a lingering hand on Silas's forearm and he blinked hard. His male sap rose, hastening his recovery.

“Aw, forget it, Clara Lee.” He exhaled and squared his shoulders. “It's not like you can help being the prettiest darn girl in the county. Maybe even the entire state of Florida.” Delivered with less than his normal bluster, his flattery still brought a cherry-red blush to Clara Lee's cheeks. Jodie shot Silas a look to kill. But he was much too busy wooing Clara Lee to notice.

“What do ya'll say we give that bad boy there a test run?” Silas nodded toward the Tilt-A-Whirl and pulled three quarters from his pocket.

Clara Lee looked to Jodie with new found excitement. “That would be great fun. Wouldn't it, Jodie?”