Barbie Girl (Baby Doll Series) (10 page)

She looks up from the game, “Thanks.” She goes back to shooting the alien spaceships. I have been avoiding her the last few days, but now that she is in front of me I want her to pay attention to me.

“So what, you go from one extreme to another.” I lean up against the game.

She stops playing. The game plays the music signaling the death of her star fighter. “What do you mean?” she asks.

“You know one moment you are hardly dressed, and now you are dressed like a bag lady.” I put my hand against the game screen. Being around her brings out the douche side of me, but hell she crashed our movie and is now ignoring me. Wasn’t she into kissing me the other day too? I think about that moan that escaped her mouth and I want to see if I can get her to produce another one. I want to feel her pressed under my body. I want to feel the explosion she causes deep in my chest.

“Oh I am sorry, I didn’t know that you wanted your fake girlfriend to dress a certain way. I will make sure I show more skin for you next time.” Venom laces her voice, and her teal eyes turn a deep shade of blue.

I want to apologize. I want to know what other emotion makes her eyes change color. Third comes back with his hands full of popcorn that spills onto the floor. “I got you a Coke, Dylan.”
Great
.

She sits in the middle of Third and I, but her body leans closer to him than me.
Why doesn’t she just climb into his lap
? A group of kids from Central sit right behind us laughing. If she is not careful she is going to blow our whole facade.

“Milk dud?” I shake the yellow box under her nose.

“I am good,” she says not even looking at me.

“I’ll take some” Third reaches his big meaty hand across her. I shake some in his hand. Barbie smiles and takes one when he holds his hand in front of her.

Okay so she is pissed at me again, ignoring her the past few days was a mistake, but I needed time to sort through my feelings. I am still not sure what is going on. When I am with her it is a hurricane of emotions that is swirling around inside me. And I still want Katie just as much as I did before Barbie came into my life.

I should have kept, my mouth shut about her clothes. My mother would be horrified; she raised a better man than that. I am about to apologize to her, but the lights dim and the screen comes to life with previews. I sink down in my seat putting my foot on the back of the chair in front of me. One minute Barbie makes me want to kiss her, the next I want to rip my hair out because she is infuriating me so. I try to focus on the movie and not on who is sitting next to me. I look at the screen and try to pay attention as the main character chop off the head of a hot zombie chick. But the screen starts to blur and the words float around me meaningless. My knee bounces up and down. I run my hands through my hair; there is no point in pretending to watch the movie. I steal another glance over at Barbie; she grips onto Third’s arm burying her face in his shirt. Jealousy sits heavy on my chest. There is no denying it, I’m jealous of the attention she is paying to Third and not me. This is ludicrous. I
don’t
like her; I like Katie, perfect Katie I remind myself. Not a girl who plays video games in a dress that looks like she got out of her grandmother’s closest. Not a girl who wears her hair in kid braids. I can’t take it anymore. I stand up ignoring the shouts and walk out.

I walk out to the red carpeted hallways of the theater searching for him. I should have stayed in the theater watched the movie, ignored him. Hell he kissed me, and then ignored me the past few days. Then he insults me. I am so mad at him, what right had he to say anything about how I dress. I don’t comment on his vintage video game T-shirts he loves to
wear
or his dirty converse that have seen better days. Or make comments on his stupid hair that needs a haircut. How it falls into his eyes covering them up, driving me crazy, or how he gives me those stupid cocky smiles like he is so much smarter. I promised myself that I would not care anymore, this was a job and I would not let my delusional fantasy get the best of me. He had my head spinning from that kiss, but not again, I would keep my head about me. I reach up touching my lips still feeling the electricity that dances on them.

I find Dylan sitting on a bench his head back against a poster for the new vampire teen romance flick. “You didn’t have to fallow me,” he says his eyes closed.

“Well what kind of fake girlfriend would I be if I didn’t check on you.” I watch the rise and fall of his chest.

“A pretty shitty one,” a smile tugs on his lips.

“We couldn’t have people talking.” I sit down next to him, ignoring the spark that travels up my leg where his brushes against mine.

“I am sorry; I shouldn’t have said that about your dress… It is a very…nice dress,” he opens one eye and glances down at me.

“Thanks it was my grandmother’s,” I lie. It came from some church ladies that drop off clothes to people in our neighborhood along with a bag of food. What clothes I don’t get from the church ladies come from my mother’s dancer friends.

“I know I have been a dick…it’s just I am not used to having a fake girlfriend and I am not sure how to act,” he confesses.

“Just be yourself, if you have something to say just be honest with me. I will be honest with you,” I lie again. “We will figure this out.”

“I like it when you wear your hair like this,” he picks up one of my braids and gently tugs on it. “It reminds me of when we were kids.”

A flutter of excitement starts low in my stomach, “Yeah?” I whisper my voice barely there.

“Yeah,” he slips his fingers in mine; I try to ignore the tingling sensation. I have never been on a rollercoaster before, but I bet this is what it feels like. Being this close to him, my stomach does a little dance, and my legs feel weak, my breathing comes in shallow gasps.

“So shall we go fake our relationship some more? I think a group of Katie’s friends are sitting behind us.” He asks the fluttering turns into a heavy weight.

“Let’s…” I let him pull me to my feet.

I do my part of a good fake girlfriend leaning my head on his shoulder, hiding my face in his shirt that smells faintly of laundry soap. I even feed him pieces of popcorn. I try my hardest not to notice the warmth that spreads down my legs, when he sucked the butter off my finger.

I stand next to Dylan’s truck, “Are you sure I can’t give you a ride home?” he asks for the fifth time. Our hands are still laced; he leans against the rusty green door. We have an unspoken agreement between us.

“No it is okay I have a ride coming,” I gesture toward the entrance. I know I said I would be honest. But how do I say no one is coming for me. That no one cares. He grabs my free hand in his. My skin is alive with the electricity that is flowing from him into me. He pulls me closer to him, his warmth enclosing around me, my eyes flutter trying to close.

“Can I try something?” His voice
is
a husky whisper. I nod unable to speak, he lets go of my hand. I have to fight the need to pull it back into mine. He runs his thumb across my jaw stopping on my bottom lip. “Beautiful.” My eyes close and his lips find mine, gentle, teasing me, before parting slightly. Our breathing entwines as I wait in anticipation of his next move. He hesitates, teasing, I feel like I am going to scream, and then he pulls me to him and I sigh finding what I was looking for, he kisses me but not letting it become the hungry kisses we once shared. No these are carefully planned out, he is slowly killing me; slowly he is memorizing me with each kiss. Each kiss unties a carefully placed knot I tied myself, knots that hold me in place so tightly. He is single-handedly undoing each and every one.

* * *

“So what do you think of Ronnie,” my mother comes up next to me and bumps her hip with mine.

He gives me the creeps, “Umm… he is okay, I guess.” I dump the laundry soap in to the machine not bothering to measure it out and slam the lid shut.

She frowns and pulls a cigarette out of her back pocket, lighting it up she inhales deeply. “I really like him,” she says through an exhaled breath of smoke that travels up to the ever-yellowing ceiling. She leans against the dryer. Just because she likes him doesn’t mean he is good for her. I think how Dylan makes me feel, just because I like him does not mean I am right for him. I sigh, picking up the laundry basket of clean clothes and go over to the kitchen table and begin folding the contents of the basket. She comes over next to me lifting a shirt up and begins to fold it. She looks thinner than
usual;
her clothes hang off her small figure. Her dark, thin hair is pulled back showing off the dark hollows of her check. I wonder if she has been eating. Sometimes she will go days without eating; drinking herself in to a stupor. “He makes me laugh,” she says folding a shirt before placing it onto my pile.

I give her a forced smile. “That’s good.”

She takes that as enthusiasm from me and smiles. “He treats me real good; last night he even let me keep all my tips.
I didn’t have to pay out the ten
percent.”
What a gentleman
. “So what about this boy you been hanging out with? The one that you are deep in thought about.” She has this uncanny way of reading me. Maybe we are more alike than I like to admit. She takes a deep drag from her cigarette, folding abandoned.

“Dylan? It is nothing, he is just tutoring me in algebra,” I explain, because he is
only
my tutor, nothing more.

She gives me a tight-lip smile. “What’s that costing you?” She flicks the ashes onto a bill that
will not be
paid

“Nothing Momma, he is doing for free.” I pick up the folded clothes putting them back into the basket.

“Baby doll, ain’t nothing in this world is free. And men know that better than anybody, they are always wanting a reward.”

I stomp out of the kitchen done with the conversation. She follows me she is not done, “Baby doll, I am just looking out for you.” She says behind me. I sigh. Mad at myself for snapping at her, she doesn’t know any better. And she thinks by telling me this she is protecting me. How can I be mad at her for that? All I want to do is protect them. I drop the basket in the corner of the room and sit down on the bed. Everett lies on the floor drawing a maze. She sits down next to him pulling him onto her lap. He struggles against her hold, trying to get back to the maze he was drawing.

I drop to the brown-carpeted floor next to them and hand him his paper before there is a complete melt down. “Momma, Dylan is not like that he…” He is sweet, funny, and a little uptight at times. I laugh to myself, “He is different,” I elect.

She sighs, “You just be careful, boys like him are only good for one thing. A broken heart.”

“I kissed Barbie!” I lean my back against the cold metal locker. I wanted to see what would happen, if it was all in my mind these feelings I was starting to feel. But each kiss opened up something inside me. Each carefully placed kiss was another firework going off in my chest.

“So, she is your girlfriend.” Third is digging in his locker.

“No she is not, she is my pretend girlfriend,” I correct him. Do I want more from her than that?

“
I s
till
don’
t see the problem.” He pulls a book out from under his old gym clothes and a smell insults me, a mix between old onions and cheese.

“You are gross man, you know that. You’re supposed to wash those things when you are finished wearing them.” He shrugs pushing the offending clothes back into the rubble of his locker.

“I am trying to see your dilemma dude, but I don’t.” He slams his locker shut, a trapped gym sock hanging out the bottom of his locker. How can he not see it? I kissed Barbie. I might have some sort of feelings for her and I am not sure how I feel about Katie anymore. For so long Katie has been the one in my dreams, but now my dreams are filled with blond, crazy hair and huge, blue alien eyes. She is in my head like a parasite.

“The girl is a train wreck and I don’t want her to screw things up with Katie.” We stop in front of his Math class which just happens to be Barbie’s.

She gives me a small smile as she slips past us into the class. “Did you see that?” I gesture to where Barbie just stood moments before, a faint smell of sugar lingering in the air.

“Dude I think you are more screwed up than her. Look, you both know this is not real. The way I see it you have two options, one you bitch and moan about being with one of the hottest girls in school, or two you enjoy it while you can. If the girl wants to kiss you, then hell you kiss the shit out of her.” He claps me on the shoulder, “You are one lucky SOB.”

* * *

We are parked in the back of my grandfather’s old orchard; she talked me into leaving school during our free period. Me leaving school, another sign that this girl has me completely screwed up. We sit on the tail gate of my truck. Her knees are pulled up to her chest. The long flowered skirt she wears fans out around her, she absently smooth’s out the wrinkles in it. Her toes peek out; they are painted a bright green that reminds me of the color of new grass. Her hands and wrists are tattooed in blue ink, words and small swirls crawl up her arm.
Weird
. She is quiet. Not like the Barbie I am used to, the loud, boisterous, opinionated, stubborn, and completely infuriating. No this Barbie is quiet, with drawn. I am going to regret asking, but, “What’s wrong?” I set down the Math book. She is not listening to the lecture I was giving anyway. And she needs to be paying attention to how to solve equations by factoring if she wants to ace the upcoming test Gregor is giving.