Piper (12 page)

I tiptoed downstairs to get some aspirin out of Dad's medicine cabinet. With no lights, I snapped the plastic top off, poured two into the palm of my hand, and threw them against the back of my throat. Then I cupped a couple of mouthfuls of water from the tap and smeared the last one against my face, massaging my forehead. When I dried my face, I smelled something sweet in the hand towel. Someone's perfume.

8

I was engrossed in an article from
Hustler
entitled “Dating Younger Women” by a man who told how to “answer the ten inevitable questions without lying or bullshitting.” Ned kept the dirty magazines in the regular rack instead of behind the counter like some stores.

“Hey, Piper!”

I hurriedly closed the magazine and shoved it back on the rack, cover facing in. I knew I was blushing when I turned to face Rozene Raymond. “Oh, hi.”

Rozene had a gaze that was non-judgmental and built on her natural strengths—prominent eyebrows, a rather broad nose, and full lips, which right then were parted in a kind smile. There was no makeup. The intensity of her eyes was deepened as the result of strong facial bones. She was standing erect, with her shoulders back. I was guarding my chest, hollowing it inward, hiding what wasn't there, while she made no attempt to hide what was. “Find anything interesting?” she said.

I shook my head, tried to slacken my cheeks, and glanced back at the rack. “It's just junk. I was looking for something light, maybe
People
.”

The pleasant smell of spearmint gum accompanied her words. “Personally, I'd rather read a skin magazine.”

My eyes drifted down her black tights to her running shoes. She had slender ankles, nice calf muscles and, instead of the knotty bulges for knees I had, her legs thickened gracefully above the knees and disappeared under a baggy Sonics sweatshirt that she managed to give shape to. A windbreaker was tied by the arms around her waist. She was holding a box of Super Tampax casually in one hand, and I tried to match her openness. “I wish they didn't airbrush the models though.”

“Yeah. Who says an appendix scar isn't sexy?”

We both laughed and then separated. I made sure she noticed me walking away from the magazines. I'd forgotten what I came in for, but quickly made up a list in my head to give my visit a licit purpose. We were always running out of toilet paper and Scotch tape. I didn't want to get anything too expensive, what with her mom being laid off and all. Normally, I would have jettisoned the toilet paper, but the fact she was buying Tampax made it feel as if the toilet paper would link us in some earthy way. As I picked out a four-pack, I looked over the tops of the shelves to see what else she might be getting, but all I could see was the part down the middle of her thick black hair.

“It's raining,” she said when we reached the checkout stand at the same time. “Can I give you a lift?” I politely declined and she asked again, looking me up and down. I was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt that seemed fine when I left the house. “It's no trouble, really. I won't feel so guilty about bringing the car if two of us use it.” I didn't have my driver's license yet, the result of an anti-technology corner I'd worked myself into to avoid the consumption of non-renewable resources. Now, in Ned's, my stand seemed so transparent.

On the third invitation, I accepted.

The Raymonds' car was immaculate. No thermos and plastic water bottles kicking around loose on the floor like ours. Neither were there maps, tablets, manila folders, pens, coffee mugs, Styrofoam cups, triple-A batteries, and old newspapers littered on the backseat. One of those Christmas tree-shaped pine fresheners hung from the rearview mirror and Rozene snapped it with her finger once she'd turned the engine over.

“My mom's a little bit anal, bless her heart,” she said. She must have picked up on my fear of things that were too neat, but the fact that she said it was positive.

“I'll bet she's mad about the whole paper thing.” I knew that her mom getting laid off at the paper had to be on her mind so I thought I might as well say it before I got too used to sitting in the same car with her.

“Disappointed would be the better word.” We were moving now and she didn't want to take her eyes off the road, but she gave a huff I interpreted to mean
Don't get me started
.

“It wasn't my dad's decision, you know.” That was my wish, at least.

“I'll bet nothing happens at the paper your dad doesn't bless,” she said.

“You think so?” I was ducking. I really had no idea what had happened.

“What did
he
say?”

“We don't talk about that kind of stuff.” I was whipping myself for bringing up her mom. I also had this premonition we'd run into Dirk and he was going to be confused at seeing Rozene and me hanging out together. If we did see him, I was going to yell out the window and tell him the truth.
Don't worry, Dirk. By the time she drops me off, I should have pretty well shit-canned this one
. I seemed to have a death wish when it came to relationships. I didn't talk to people; I stabbed them with reminders of what they didn't want to hear.

“Mom's working again,” she said. “The Stamp Box weekdays, and cleaning motels on weekends.”

“Bummer.”

“She's used to it. That's what got us off the reservation. She'd shine shoes if it meant getting me into college. She spoils me, like with the car.”

Rozene remembered where I lived even though I didn't think she'd been to our house since grade school when Dad was still throwing Christmas parties for employees there. As the staff grew, the parties had moved to the Eagles Lodge. The summer picnics were held at Kla Hah Ya Park where there was room to set up a volleyball net, do the egg catch, and organize other children's games. The year I held onto Rozene's smooth brown legs and wheel-barrowed her over the finish line ahead of everyone else might have been the spark. She had on a pair of white shorts and a starched orange blouse that day with kisses of perspiration showing under the arms.

In front of our house, she put the motor in neutral and rested her arm on top of the seat behind my neck. The awkwardness of how I'd handled her mom's situation was eating at me.

“I'm sorry what I said about the job, Rozene. I wasn't trying to gloss it over.”

She tapped me on the shoulder with the tips of her fingers. “Hey, I know that. I saw what you did with the poster.” The wipers washed back and forth, a smooth swipe against the wet window followed by a rubber to glass backstroke that shuddered like my insides. I was still looking between my feet at the protective mat on the floorboard, but I could feel her turn and rest one knee on the casing between the bucket seats. The part I remembered about the poster was giving everyone the finger. She must have thought I was unbalanced and she didn't want a repeat performance right there in the frontseat of her mom's Corolla. “I wish
I
had an attitude,” she said.

“Attitude?”

“You know. Indians are supposed to be on the warpath for self-determination. I always do what everyone expects of me.”

“That's not easy either.”

“It is if you want to become a nurse and marry a doctor.”

“That's what you want?”

“Mom thinks because I water the plants and turn them to the sun so they'll grow straight I'd be good at nursing.”

“Go for it.”

“I'd rather rob banks,” she said, tapping me on the shoulder. “How's Dirk?”

“Not good.” I almost told her about the crush he had on her, but realized that would just be another awkward subject. “It would mean a lot if you said something to him.”

“That was such a crappy thing they did.”

Caucasian skin was so blah. Hers was tawny, almost bronze, and even through the mottled light from the windshield it looked warm and alive. I wanted to reach out and touch her cheek. Her knee was shiny where the fabric of her tights stretched over the bone and I wanted to cup my hands around it and squeeze. I wanted to say more and I wanted to sit there longer, but I saw Willard coming down the sidewalk with one of the dogs, a newspaper over his head. In a minute the dog would have its paws up against the passenger window. “I better let you go,” I said.

She patted me on the shoulder again with her hand. “Hey, I hope you go back for your magazine.”

I swatted her on the knee. “No way.”

She put her leg down and pumped the gas pedal. I opened the door, pulled the flannel shirt up over my fuzzy head as I stepped out, then leaned down to say goodbye before slamming the door. I walked backwards up the walkway, the rain blowing sideways against my bare midriff, and watched her drive away.

“Who's that?” Willard said when he reached the cover of the porch. Freeway shook himself, in a shudder that progressed from his tail to his ears.

“A friend.”

“I didn't know he had a car.”

“Different friend.”

He looked puzzled and squinted up the street in the direction of the Raymonds' receding tailpipe. Only when I turned to go inside did I remember that I'd left the sack with the toilet paper and toothpaste in her car.

The ride home with Rozene both excited and scared me. I kept thinking of how my throat had thickened in her presence, the pleasure I'd taken from swatting her knee. But I was on the edge of an abyss deeper than mere lust. This was down there with bestiality and Hermaphroditus. And the strange thing was, it was all happening inside my head. Rozene would have given anyone a ride home. She'd probably have laughed if she knew what was going on. So would have Mom. “Every girl goes through stages,” she'd have said. “Now fix yourself up and go out there and find a nice guy.”

I tried. I really did. For the next week, I wore blouses instead of flannel shirts, put rouge on my cheekbones, and even plucked my eyebrows. In Mom's closet, I found a floppy satin beret to cover up my baldness. I wore brown leather loafers instead of tennis shoes. I practiced walking in front of the full-length mirror on the back of Mom's closet door, cocking my hips, trying to get my buttocks in motion. I was going to beat this thing. I was going to quit straddling the fence. I was practically on the make.

I avoided Rozene in the lunchroom, taking a table as far from her as I could and away from the aisle so she'd have no reason to pass me on the way out. I sat on the edge of groups of guys and, when they talked about something I knew, I joined in. Sometimes I had to fake it and it got me in trouble, like the debate over why they shot horses.

“It's to save them from pain,” I said.

Jesse Little, who was across the table licking cold spaghetti sauce off a piece of wax paper, laughed. “You think a bullet in the brain doesn't hurt?”

Everyone else laughed, more at Jesse than with him.

Bagmore joined in to save the debate. “You're saying they do it for euthanasia?”

“Yeah.”

“Then what if the winner of the Kentucky Derby slips and falls in his stable after the race and breaks an ankle?”

“They shoot him?”

“Wrong. They fix him up and put him out to stud. Fifty grand a fuck.”

Everyone laughed, Jesse Little included. Certain words, when used with panache the way Bagmore could, always brought a laugh. Anyone who didn't join in, the laugh was on her.

There was another twenty minutes before fifth period bell and Bagmore asked me to join him in the tunnel under the grandstands for a smoke. When a couple of his buddies followed, he signaled them to beat it. Bagmore wasn't the target of my campaign—I was aiming for a species rather than any particular person—but the invitation was encouraging nevertheless. It meant that my efforts were paying off, I was putting out the right scent. I figured there'd be a crowd in the tunnel because of the rain, and being seen with Bagmore wouldn't exactly hurt the value of my stock. There were a lot of girls who'd trade their reputations to go out with him, and many of them had. He was one of the local horses who should have been shot, but was put out to stud instead. What the heck, I thought, I had to start somewhere. It wasn't my way to nibble at the edges.

The tunnel was empty.

“It stinks in here,” he said. “I know a better place.”

We walked down the steps to the running track, turned left, and walked another twenty-five yards. Bagmore jiggled open the door to a storage shed under the stands that I didn't even know existed. There were blocking sleds, hurdles stacked like portable chairs, yard markers, starting blocks, bags of wood chips, and other sports paraphernalia. The smell was pleasant, cut grass and cedar. He left the door open a crack, enough light to see the gleam in his eyes. He pulled a pack of Salems out of the inside of his jacket, jiggled the filters of two cigarettes out, and flicked a flame onto his lighter.

“Here,” he said.

“Sure.”

“You know what day this is?”

“No. Should I?”

“Evan went down seven years ago.”

Evan was his older brother, the one whose chute had failed skydiving over Harvey Field. I remembered the day it happened. There were sirens all over town and I was in the mountain ash tree in the backyard, trying to stop a cat from messing with a bird's nest. The meter reader from the water department was walking down the alley in his short pants and I yelled at him to find out what the sirens were for, figuring that his being part of government he'd have access to that kind of information. He told me they were heading to the air field, and I figured a plane must have gone down. “Sorry about that,” I said to Bagmore.

We were leaning against a blocking dummy, shoulder to shoulder. “Hey, you didn't do it. I don't know why I mentioned it.”

“I understand.”

“Of course. You lost your mom.” He put his arm around me and pulled me tight against him. I had to admit it felt nice and stirred up the old attraction I used to feel for him about the age I was when I climbed the mountain ash. Maybe there was nothing peculiar about me after all. I just needed exposure. “We should form a club,” he said.