The Trouble with Emily Dickinson (7 page)

“But haven’t you ever considered just taking
your mom and dad aside and having an adult conversation with
them?”

Queenie lifted her feet off the treadmill,
resting them on the sides as the motorized track moved between
them. She fixed her eyes on JJ. “Really?”

JJ felt her mouth go drier than it already
was. She knew as soon as she said it, she shouldn’t have. She
stepped off of her treadmill and wiped the sweat off her forehead
with the towel that hung on the side bar. “I know,” she said
gently. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I just think you should try a
different approach with them, that’s all.”

“These are the McBrides,” Queenie replied.
“The only thing they know how to do is throw money around. They
don’t know any other way. I could talk and talk ‘til I run out of
air. It won’t matter. They cannot and will not hear me.”

For a brief moment, JJ thought that maybe she
saw tears forming in Queenie’s eyes, but because of the sweat on
her friend’s forehead and face, she couldn’t tell for sure.

“Sauna session?” Queenie asked, wiping her
face with the front of her T-shirt before JJ could say anything
else.

“Sure, why not.”

Once in the enclosed steam-stilted walls of
the sauna, JJ felt that Queenie finally could unwind. She’d been
high-strung and agitated ever since she’d returned from her weekend
visit with her parents and the wedding shower madness.

JJ tossed a cup of water onto the stones,
releasing a sizzling sound in that enveloped the room. Steam rose
up around them.

“I feel like a slab of bacon in here
sometimes,” Queenie said into the heavy air. “I bet we could just
bring some in, slap it down on the bench and watch it cook.”

“Sauna session and bacon. Yeah, I like the
combination.”

“Who wouldn’t? You can cook yourself and your
bacon at the same time.”

“The amazing sauna,” JJ added in an
infomercial voice. “Eat and instantly sweat away the calories.”

The sizzling ceased and Queenie rolled over
onto her side, resting her head on one elbow. “So, how was your
weekend?”

“Uneventful,” JJ responded, hoping that the
topic of Kendal would not come up.

“And the cheerleading queen?”

Great, JJ thought to herself as she tossed
more water onto the stones, sending a burst of steam into the air.
“Good, I guess.”

“You haven’t talked to her since your last
tutoring session?”

“Well, not exactly. I ran into her on Friday
night.”

“Where? At the library?” Queenie knew JJ
would never set foot in a soccer party and that Kendal was equally
unlikely to set foot into the athletic center, which made the
library the only logical option.

“No, I literally ran into her,” said JJ.
“Right on the lawn in front of the library. She was coming home
from a soccer party and I think she’d had too much to drink or
something. My hood was up so I never saw her and we almost collided
head-on. I caught myself, but she spun around and fell.”

“That’s priceless.”

“Then I helped her up and walked her home.”
JJ recalled the ensuing conversation and Kendal’s engaging
laughter. “You’ll never believe this, but she asked me the
question.”

“What question?” Queenie was sitting up now,
her cheeks dotted with sweat.

“The question,” JJ said again.

“Which is precisely what I am asking you.
What question?”

“You know, for someone as quick-witted as you
are, you’d think you’d be a little more able to pick up on the
obvious. The question, silly. The gay question! She asked me if I’m
gay.”

“Well that didn’t take long.” Queenie chewed
her lower lip. “It was bound to happen sooner than later. I mean,
everyone on campus thinks that the entire women’s basketball team
is gay.”

“Aren’t we?”

This was one of the unfortunate consequences
of attending a private school in the middle of a small,
conservative southern town. Most people at Sampson Academy assumed
that if you were a girl who was involved in sports, you
automatically belonged to the rainbow coalition.

“So, what did you say?” Queenie asked.

“I told her the truth.”

“And did she run away screaming?”

“Thankfully, no.” JJ sat up and hugged her
knees to her chest. “She was . . . she seemed okay with it.”

“Is she still going to let you tutor
her?”

“We’re supposed to meet tonight. We’ll see if
she shows up.”

Queenie started to say something else, and
then stopped.

“What?” JJ asked.

“Nothing.”

“Don’t do that,” JJ scolded. “Just tell me.
For crying out loud, it’s getting hot in here.” She could feel the
underside of her knees collecting sweat.

“I just think you should be careful. That’s
all.”

“Queenie, she’s straight. Remember?”

“Precisely my point. You always fall for the
straight girls.”

“I don’t always fall for straight girls.”

“No? Do you really want me to recite the list
of names?”

“Okay. So I’ve been attracted to a few
straight girls in the past, so what? It’s not like it’s a habit or
anything. They were just little crushes, nothing serious.” JJ
turned her head and muttered, “Except for the Dibble Syndrome of
course.”

“Oh, yes,” Queenie agreed. “The Dibble
Syndrome was something special. Thankfully though, the other girls
you had crushes on were fortunate enough to be spared your
obsessive ways.”

“Cute.”

“But my point is that I don’t think this is
just a little crush that you’ve got going on here.” Queenie sat up,
clasped her hands together and pointed her jointed fingers in JJ’s
direction. “You know how straight girls work, right? Girls like us
intrigue them and they get curious. Then, after their curiosity
wears off, they freak out and say they were just exploring that
side of things and while it was fun and all, what they really want
is a guy.”

“Queenie,” JJ sighed.

“It’s true! It’s called the science
experiment.”

“I don’t care what it’s called. You’re being
ridiculous.”

“Look,” Queenie said pointedly. “I’m not just
making this up for your amusement. I’ve been there, I’ve been the
science experiment before and it’s not fun. I just don’t want to
see you get used or hurt, and I think this situation has the
potential to go in that direction. You don’t think with your head
in these situations. You follow that emotional lump in the center
of your chest instead.”

JJ began to massage her forehead, shielding
her eyes.

“I know you like her,” Queenie continued,
unabashed. She lifted up her legs and stretched out her
sweat-saturated body. “The least you can do is admit that
much.”

JJ’s hand dropped swiftly from her eyes,
“Okay, so I like her. So what? She’s beautiful and smart and
there’s something special about her and I want to find out what it
is. There’s this energy between us, I can’t explain, but it . . .
.” JJ stopped talking as soon as she realized she had said too
much.

“I knew it,” said Queenie. “I knew you liked
her.”

“What do you want, a medal?”

“Nah—the simple thrill of being right is
satisfaction enough.”

JJ groaned. “Let’s get out of here, I’m about
to sweat away to nothing.”

They lifted themselves off of the benches and
opened the sauna door. The coolness of the locker room air embraced
them and JJ took a long, drawn-out breath to fill her lungs before
she went over to the sink and splashed cold water on her hot sticky
face.

“Hey,” said Queenie as she wiped off her legs
with a towel. “I did mean half of what I said in there. Be careful.
And don’t get wrapped up in something just to satisfy Miss
McCarthy’s curiosity because it’ll come back to bite you in the
end. A straight girl can’t be anything but straight. That’s
something that isn’t going to change.”

“You have nothing to worry about,” JJ said as
she wiped her face with her shirt before she slipped on her
sweatshirt. “She’s not interested in me like that.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know. And I don’t want to let myself
get hopeful about something that, quite frankly, isn’t going to
happen.”

“No, you don’t,” Queenie echoed.

“She’s a cheerleader after all.”

“That she is.”

“I hardly even know her. The whole thing is
just ridiculous.”

“Preposterous, really.”

“I’ll just stick to the tutoring.”

“Stick to what you know best.”

“Are you ready to get out of here?” JJ asked
while tying up the laces of her sneakers. “Or are you just going to
sit there antagonizing me.”

“You know, they are the most closeted of them
all—cheerleaders. I bet any one of these so-called cheerleading
camps is a breeding ground for closet lesbians. Hey! Maybe we could
do like an undercover operation. You know, like research or
something? We can pretend we’re writing a paper about it.”

JJ frowned.

“What? We can at least explore the idea,”
Queenie insisted. “It’s not without merit.”

CHAPTER 11

Kyan grunted as he finished the last set of
squats on his well-muscled legs that now shook more like quivering
rubber. He was pushing himself to the limit. But it wasn’t because
he was tired. It was because he was frustrated.

“Hey, don’t push it,” Jason warned as he
watched Kyan from the bench beside him. “You’re going to hurt
yourself.”

“Relax,” Kyan said, straightening up. “I’m
fine.” He breathed in hard and wiped the sweat away from his
forehead with the bottom of his muscle tank top.

“You don’t look so good,” Jason remarked.

Kyan glared at him. Then he studied himself
in the mirror and frowned. It was true. He looked absolutely
horrible. His skin was extremely pale, without the usual hint of
golden brown that he’d achieved over the summer lifeguarding at the
beach where his parents owned a summer home.

His eyes had grown gloomy and gray, and he
bore a fresh scratch just above his left cheek from having been
elbowed in the face while trying to head the ball.

They had traveled across the state to play
Cartwright, the lowest-seeded team in their division. Lately it
seemed as if the entire soccer team was comprised of a group of
underweight sissies who didn’t comprehend the meaning of teamwork
or dedication. They had been outplayed and outmatched by a less
talented team. As a result, they had lost the game, getting
pummeled five to nothing. And to make matters worse, Kendal
McCarthy had snubbed him completely on Friday night.

After she’d left him sitting alone on that
couch, wondering what in the world he could have possibly done
wrong, Kyan realized that he was going to have to step up his game
just a little bit. Kendal was playing hard to get and while it was
a tad annoying, it was also incredibly appealing.

“So what happened Friday night?” Jason asked.
“Did you hook up with her?”

Kyan picked up two dumbbells and knelt down
on a bench. He started working his triceps, his eyes glued to the
mirror so that he could observe his form.

“I thought so,” Jason concluded after a
moment.

Kyan immediately dropped the weight from his
hand and stood up. “Thought what?” he asked firmly.

“Thought that she was out of your league,”
Jason laughed. “Even for you.”

Kyan took a step closer so that his nose was
about an inch away from Jason’s. “Who said she’s out of my
league?”

“Dude. Relax. It’s obvious that you didn’t
get anywhere with her.”

Kyan lunged forward and pushed Jason in the
chest.

Jason gritted his teeth, “What’s your
problem?”

Kyan glared hard as he tried to think of a
good reason to get in Jason’s face. He stood face to face with him
a moment longer before he bent over, picked up the weight and began
lifting again. “Nothing,” he said between breaths. “She’s just
going to be more of a challenge than I had anticipated, that’s
all.”

“I hear ya,” Jason said, not wanting to add
to Kyan’s salty mood. “It wouldn’t be any fun if she just gave in
easily.”

“Exactly.”

“You almost done? I’m hungry.”

Kyan’s stomach was growling so loudly that it
seemed to be echoing throughout the entire workout room. But he
knew he still had more work to do. His stamina had weakened early
during yesterday’s game, so he was determined to work out longer to
build up more endurance and strength. “I’ve got more work to do
here.”

“All right,” said Jason. “Catch you later
then.”

Kyan began to work on stretches with his arms
and legs. Maybe he would even head over to the soccer field and
take a few shots on net. Though his legs ached, he pushed through
the pain. Something else was aching inside him, as well.

Though he had singled Kendal out as the girl
he most desperately wanted to be with during his last year at
Sampson Academy, he wasn’t even sure he liked her that much. Sure,
she was pretty and probably the best-looking girl on campus, but
there was something missing. Whenever he thought back to the list
of girls he dated, that seemed to be the prevailing issue—something
was always missing. But he also knew that it wasn’t the feelings he
was supposed to have for them. It was status.

Maybe one day he’d meet a girl he actually
cared for, one he’d want to get to know on a deeper level. With
that, he centered his thoughts on next weekend’s party, the
legendary invite-only soccer party. Each player was allowed to
invite one guest. And his guest was going to be Kendal McCarthy.
There’s no way she would turn him down. Invite-only was a gathering
of all the VIP students at Sampson. And Kendal had a reputation to
uphold. Kyan was confident that he would get another shot. And this
time he was going to convince her to give in to him.

CHAPTER 12