Ugly Girls: A Novel (5 page)

Then again, why had he acted like such a bitch about it?

She swept up the shattered horse, buried it under some paper towels in the trash can. At least six bottles in there, probably more around Myra’s bed. That answered that. She went back to the computer.

Jamey had left a comment on her newest profile picture.
Haha your beatifull even with that hat on!!
She had read one of Travis’s papers once during a group activity in English. He was a good speller.

Outside, Jim pulled up, honked once. Ever since he found out Perry had skipped a few times, Jim didn’t allow her to take the bus. “Jim, let her find her own way,” Myra had said, “trust me.” Perry could hear them through the wall. “Not when it comes to this,” Jim said. The next day, he’d driven her to school. And all the days after that.

Which didn’t mean Perry wasn’t still skipping. But at least Jim felt better.

PERRY’S HAIR WAS WET,
she was neatly dressed, she had her book bag. Jim knew if he checked she’d have made it look like her bed was slept in, had probably even punched a dent into her pillow, but the deep purplish lines under her eyes told a different story. He knew she hadn’t slept at all.

She got into the car riding a wave of gray morning light. When the door shut, the light was gone. He felt sad about that, which meant he was just as exhausted as she must have been. “How was work?” she asked, but immediately turned her head to watch herself in the side mirror.

He wanted to tell her how he’d watched an inmate swallow mouthfuls of his own bright blood after he got in a fight with his roommate over toilet rights. Just gulp, and then his mouth would fill again, and then gulp. How Jim had held a roll of toilet paper up to the man’s mouth and it got half soaked. But he knew he’d never say things like that to her, and he knew it wouldn’t matter if he did.

Instead, in his usual quiet way, he said, “It was fine. Glad it’s over. How was your night?” He said it in an
I know you weren’t in bed not one single second
kind of way.

“Fine, glad it’s over,” Perry answered.

Now what did that mean, Jim wondered. Was she being cute? Or was she in trouble? But of course she was.

“You see your momma this morning?” Jim asked.

“Sure didn’t,” Perry said. “She was still in the bedroom with the door closed when I came—when I got up.”

Jim let the slip go. “I’ll check on her when I get back,” he said. “I probably forgot to set her alarm.”

They sat in silence the rest of the way there, and Jim was grateful for it. The prison was an ocean of sound. If you worked one of its cinder blocks out of the wall and held it up to your ear you’d hear waves and waves of men—men shouting, crying, moaning. After that, even silence was a roar.

“Hey,” he said. “You want McDonald’s?” This was something they did on special occasions. Fridays. Or when Perry got a good grade. This morning was the opposite of a special occasion, but that seemed to Jim even more of a reason than a B
+
.

“Hell
yes
,” Perry said. She finally turned and looked at him. He could see what she’d look like as a grown woman: still pretty, but worn. Like a lily left on a tabletop for too long. Her green eyes were red in the corners. Then she smiled a little, her funny tooth resting on her lower lip, and she looked like a kid again. He filled with love for that kid.

“I could eat a whole hog,” she said.

“Don’t say hell,” Jim said.

WHEN MYRA FIRST STARTED
bringing Jim around, Perry thought he was some kind of scary giant who’d crush her like a soda can under his fist. This was after Myra’s other boyfriend, Donald, had finally gone on his way. Donald was a scary toothpick type who’d crushed her with his mean mouth and his needle teeth and his beer breath.

But Jim was different. Looked Perry in the eyes the whole time she’d be talking. Cooked dinner, brought Myra flowers. Cheesy red roses, not a lot of creativity there, but it’s the thought like they say. And he never drank. Perry was eleven when he came around, twelve when they got married. They moved into his trailer because it was a double and in a nicer park than the one they’d lived in before, an old Airstream with a single cot Perry slept on while Myra lolled on the two-cushion loveseat. He had a little garden out front, mostly strawberries and forget-me-nots, and he and Myra hung a wheel of chimes outside their window to christen the occasion.

Those chimes didn’t last. It was like Myra didn’t realize they’d make music every time a breeze blew by. They were gone after a week. And Jim’s calm didn’t fix her shit. She’d still miss a shift about once a week at Byron’s Truck Stop—where she made doughnuts and sold truckers and teenagers their gas—because she’d be doing her drinking.

Perry tried to feel lucky that Myra didn’t drink all the time, just some of the time, tried to feel lucky that even when she did drink she kept it tidy. No public scenes, no weeping calls from a bar like Donald used to do. Myra just goes to her and Jim’s room and drinks in bed till she don’t know what’s what.

Perry knew it was because of a sadness of some kind, or a noise she didn’t want to hear. She had tried to get to the bottom of it, pin down the reasons why, but the truth was there was no list of reasons, unless that list included
everything
and
everybody
.

Myra had taught Perry about makeup and clothes and hair. Took care of her when she was sick. Smelled like Oil of Olay (her night cream) and limes (her Coronas). Once Baby Girl had called her a
drunk-ass drunk
and Perry socked her dead in her arm. Had meant to get her on the chin. It was the last thing Baby Girl ever said about Myra, and in return Perry stopped doing her impression of Charles in front of the TV.

Perry loved Myra the way any child loves their mother, only she could see her mom more clearly than just any daughter could. Myra wasn’t some smeary presence who lived only for her kid. Perry was just a midpoint on her timeline. It was similar to how Perry saw Baby Girl. Both of them had their flaws, but Perry had her own, too.

She and Jim didn’t have that same understanding, but that was a good thing. Jim wanted Perry to hold on tight to her innocence until she arrived safely into adulthood. It was nice to be seen that way, like she was unsmudged and unwrinkled and flapping dry in a clean spring air. Until someone pulls the pins and what, it’s time to lay flat on a bed? Was that what adulthood was? If so, she’d been an adult since she was fourteen.

Jim pulled into the Walmart parking lot so they could turn around and go back toward the McDonald’s. It was strange seeing it in the light of day, knowing she and Baby Girl had just been thugging there not hours before. Perry almost wanted to ask Jim could he drive around back, just real quick. She wanted to see the tire marks from the doughnuts. The embers from the fire. Had it actually all happened? It seemed like a dream she’d feel dumb for having.

WHEN BABY GIRL GOT HOME
Charles was eating Cheerios out of a mixing bowl. “This is good,” he told her. She could see the open bag of sugar on the table in front of him, a ladle sticking out of it. No wonder it was good.

“Hey, Charles,” she said, “you make some for me?”

“Oh my Lord,” he said. This was his new thing.
Oh my Lord.
He had gotten it from their uncle Dave, who they lived with, and who had found God after Charles got hit by a car while on his motorcycle a little over a year ago. Dave had been out all night that night, which used to be common, had come home to a police officer waiting in his driveway. Ran right to church after that. Baby Girl could understand. Church answers a lot of questions for you, so you don’t have to yourself. Back in the day she used to go to church and it wasn’t all that bad, she played bells in the kids’ choir, ganked Danishes to eat with her little friends before Sunday school, bowed her head to pray to a God she imagined looked like Santa Claus in his pajamas.

Church just didn’t intersect all that cleanly with her interests these days, was the thing.

“Dayna,” Charles said, “I forgot to make you some. This is all that’s left. The box is
empty
!” He handed it over, which was exactly what Baby Girl wanted him to do. When Charles ate too much sugar he crashed hard.

“Go get in the shower,” she told Charles. “Hurry up, ’cause I got to get in there after you.” She pointed at her hair with the cereal spoon. “My shit’s all kind of nappy.”

“You look beautiful,” Charles said. He worked his finger into a nostril. “You’re my sister!” He wiped his finger on the tablecloth.

“That’s fuckin’ gross, Charles,” Baby Girl said, but she was laughing. This new Charles had no shame. Walked out of his room naked, ate tubs and tubs of ice cream, loved giving high fives, told Baby Girl he loved her, she was beautiful. The old Charles wouldn’t be caught dead digging in his nose, wouldn’t be caught dead in basketball shorts, ate healthy, had tons of girls blowing his cell up day and night.

The old Charles also used to steal cars and deliver them to someplace or other to be stripped for parts, used to carry a gun. Baby Girl took the gun from him after he came home from the hospital, after he held it up asking,
Is this real?
It was in an old shoebox under her bed, wrapped in paper towels and duct taped.

Charles stood up, pulled off his shirt. “Do I have time for a bubble bath?” he asked.

“Hell no you don’t,” Baby Girl said. “You got time for a
shower
like I
said
.”

Charles kicked his chair over. This was another part of the new Charles. Whatever he was feeling, he made sure it was obvious. He had come at Baby Girl a few times, charging, but if you waited him out he usually calmed down or got distracted.

Baby Girl stared at the upturned chair, her eyebrows raised. Charles was breathing hard.

“Remember how you like the shower, ’cause it’s like that time you ran around in the rain?” Baby Girl asked.

“Oh,” Charles said. “Oh yeah!” He pulled his shorts down, ran to the bathroom, kicking them off as he went.

Baby Girl exhaled. She was gripping the spoon still, there was the bass in her heart again. Charles, if he wanted to, could do some damage.

But so the fuck could she.
She took a bite of the Cheerios. Gagged. The only crunch left was from the sugar. She checked her phone again, and her heart thudded quick and heavy, because this time there was a text. How she’d missed it she didn’t know.

U online?

She ran to the desk, where Dave’s PC sat like an old car waiting to be scrapped. Took forever to boot up, took forever to get online. Baby Girl imagined Jamey waiting, drumming his fingers, jiggling his knee just like she did when she felt impatient, then giving up right as Baby Girl finally made it online.

But he hadn’t given up. She saw his name right there in her buddies list.
Available.

Hey
, she wrote.

Well hey urself

Baby Girl smiled, because it seemed like she’d been forgiven, and because it was such a strange thing to say. No boy she knew talked like that. Cheerful, playful. Flirty, maybe, if she let herself think that far.

Where u ben u usualy always online wen I wana talk

Baby Girl felt indignant, even though it was true, she
was
usually online these days, waiting for him. But he was acting like it was her fault they’d stopped talking.

She didn’t used to go online all that much, it felt vain and desperate. She’d even chosen the worst photo she had of herself: head so freshly shaved it gleamed, bottle in a brown bag, red-rimmed eyes. Mean eyes, as mean as she could make them. She remembered taking the photo. She’d just dropped Perry off and was ditching a car. From the front seat, snap, the photo was born. The green-and-blue blur behind her shoulder: a kid’s car seat. Abandoned stuffed elephant, stiff with drool. It was because of that elephant she ditched the car only a block from where they’d taken it, and it was because of that elephant that she felt such meanness.

So she looked ugly and mean in the picture, but it had worked. Perry and some cousins were her only “friends” on the site. Until a couple weeks ago, when Baby Girl felt bored enough to go online and see that Jamey had friended her.

Hey there

Im new in town, lookin for freinds. U seem cool

Baby Girl felt embarrassed for him. The “Hey there,” like he was some kind of grandpa. The typos. The “U.” It all felt like he was trying to come off too casual, like her friendship meant more to him than he was willing to let on. His picture was of the back of his head—probably meant he was all fucked up in the face. She saw that Perry was friends with him, but Perry would let anyone be her friend on that site. Baby Girl wrote back:

You don’t know shit bout shit, how you know if I’m cool?

Figured that would be that, better for him to find out that not everyone would just blindly accept him into their world. But within an hour he’d written back:

I like your hair

Did he really like her hair? Or was that his way of coming back at her? If he did like her hair, he might be someone worth knowing, someone who couldn’t be fooled all that easily. And if it was his way of being sarcastic, Baby Girl almost liked him better for it. She wrote:

You’re fuckin weird

Yeah I am
, he’d responded.
Hope thats okay by u

There’d be a message from him every time Baby Girl checked. It got to where she looked forward to going online and seeing what he’d say next. He asked for her number, something that no other boy had ever done, and Baby Girl gave it to him. He never called, just texted, always wanted to know where she was at, who she was with, what her and Perry were up to. Online one night he asked:

U ever ben with anyone?

Never mind, aint none of my bizness

But Baby Girl wanted to tell him. Wanted to say no, she’d never been with anyone, not all the way, didn’t even let herself think about it too hard. She’d watched the way boys looked at Perry, had even sat on the other side of doors and, once, outside her own car, waiting for Perry to get done with a few of them. Had glanced over and seen Perry’s leg, her toes flexing like she was trying to crack one of them, and that was a private horror to Baby Girl, worse, she felt strongly, than if she’d looked over and seen Perry naked, or moaning, or even stabbed. Wanted to say
, I don’t even know if I’m attracted to you, you seem kind of simple and I haven’t seen your face, but if you’re asking me if I been with anyone so you can then ask me do I want to meet up and find out what it’s all about, I will tell you yes, I’m begging you to let me say yes
.