Like Mandarin (9 page)

“Problem is, the only extensions Shirley Colby’s got at the salon are those awful clip-on kind, like Barbie-doll hair. I’d never spend my hard-earned money on that garbage. But then I gave a few Park County salons a call, and one of them said …”

We’d just gotten our food when another family came in. The man wore a black and white checkered shirt that ballooned around him, as if he’d lost weight since he’d bought it. Or maybe he’d donated all the pounds to his wife, who was twice his size. She balanced a toddler on one generous hip. I didn’t recognize them, which was pretty unusual around here.

“Those are the Franks,” Momma told me. “Tom and Winnie Frank. Moved back a few weeks ago. Winnie used to be Winnie Hildebrandt. She was in my year at school. One of the only ones to leave the state for college. She thought she was so smart, and look! Now she’s back.”

We watched them strap their toddler to a high chair. Right away, it began to bawl.

“What a hassle,” Momma remarked. “But pregnancy’s even worse, you know. Especially my first time around. I think I must have spent the first six months sobbing in the bathroom with my arm wrapped around the toilet.…”

I picked at my fruit salad and tried not to listen.

Momma had told me about her pregnancy so many times I knew the story backward and forward. At eighteen, she’d been just a year older than Mandarin was.

Being pregnant was humiliating, she claimed—the morning sickness, the medical examinations, the ugly protruding belly no amount of padding would obscure. But worst of all, Momma had told me so many times the phrase seemed tattooed inside my skull, was the awareness that this
stranger
was growing inside her.

I had to remember it was me inside, the baby Momma hadn’t wanted in the first place. Taffeta was a different story. One hundred percent wanted, even if the marriage that had created her had been a joke. With me, Momma still claimed she’d never considered abortion or adoption—though whether God or my grandma was her reason, I never knew.

I was afraid to ask.

And yet I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her, that girl my mother had been. She’d tried to escape Washokey. Because of me, she didn’t make it.

On Friday morning, the wildwinds thundered down from the Bighorn Mountains. Dust and grit swirled over the ground in currents, stinging our ankles as Taffeta and I stumbled toward school. The chain-link fence surrounding the school yard quaked and rattled. My sister hid her face in my side at every gust, which made it even more difficult to walk.

All the students crammed into the building instead of hanging out on the lawn before homeroom. From the hallway, I could still hear the wildwinds bellowing, a mournful whistle that stabbed through the edges of the double doors.

By the time the late bell rang, Ms. Ingle still hadn’t arrived. Kids speculated that her car had been blown over or a cottonwood had fallen on top of her house. Tag Leeland, a senior, claimed school policy dictated that after fifteen minutes we were free to go. Alexis and Paige leaned against the wall, whispering, with their heads tipped together. I stood a few yards away with one hand in the pocket of my jacket, running my fingers over a translucent piece of agate.

After a while, Davey Miller approached me. He did it bit by bit, like a ground squirrel advancing for a morsel of food. Like if I made too sudden a movement, he’d bolt.

“Hello, Grace.”

He stood there with a goofy grin on his face, blinking hard, until I said hi back. I remembered the time a group of boys had stolen his purple baseball cap when he’d first moved to town. A farmer had discovered it masking-taped to the head of a steer.

“What’s up, Davey?”

“Oh, nothing much.”

I tapped my foot through a moment of blink-filled silence.

“Seriously, Davey. What’s up?”

“Um,” he began. “Well. I was wondering …”

Before Davey could reveal what he wondered, a sudden commotion stole our attention. The double doors at the end of the hall swung open with a violent crash. A blast of wind whooshed in, and the unexpected dazzle of light made me squint.

The voice came before I could see again: “Gracey! Grace!”

Then Mandarin appeared in the glow.

Even as my befuddled brain was still trying to make sense of it—that in front of God and everybody, Mandarin Ramey had
called my name
—she was charging up the hall toward us and skidding to a stop, her elbows knocking aside my astonished classmates. When she seized me by the shoulders, I felt like she’d reached into my chest and taken hold of my heart.

“Grace, you’ve got to come with me. It’s worth it, I swear.”

This time, I didn’t think twice.

Turning my back on Davey, slack-jawed Alexis Bunker, my homeroom, the world, I fell in step beside Mandarin. We sprinted back down the hall, the clap of our shoes on the tile resounding off the walls, startling poor tardy Ms. Ingle as she rushed around the corner from the teachers’ restroom. We flew through the double doors into the bright world outside.

On the top step, we stopped. The doors slammed behind us. Our hair exploded around our faces in the sudden wind.

I gasped.

The air in front of us stormed white. Not with snow, but with the early harvest from the grove of cottonwood trees. Like dandelion down, the cotton whirled and tumbled in the wildwinds, catching the sunlight.

Sure, the cotton fell every year. But I’d never seen so much at once. This was a blizzard, a snowstorm from another world, littering the lawn with clouds.

Mandarin grinned at me, her cheeks pink, and I could tell: she knew I got it. If we’d turned back right then and gone to class, that shared understanding would have been enough to make me happy forever.

But it wasn’t over. “So?” she said.

“So what?”

“So … what are we waiting for?”

She winked at me. Then she charged down the steps.

I stood there, clutching my stone, while Mandarin spun with both arms out, like she had in the canal, her hair wild with wind, the cotton lighting on her upturned face before swirling away. A piece landed in her mouth, and she laughed and spit. She scooped up fistfuls of cotton and flung them over her head. Finally, she turned to me.

“You, now,” she called. “Come on!”

I tossed my bag aside, dropped my stone onto the steps, and ran to join her.

The cotton flickered around me, dancing off my skin. I stomped on the grass, sending flurries back into the air. I spun with my arms out, my head back.

“Watch out for the trees!” she shouted. “A concussion would ruin our party.”

Dizzily, I came to a stop and leaned against a cottonwood with one hand. When I glanced up, I noticed movement in the school windows.

Faces were pressed up against the glass. Dozens of students, opening and closing their mouths like aquarium fish, whispering to each other.

“They’re watching us,” I said.

Kids in Washokey had never learned to stare with subtlety. Like whenever the rare plane flew over town—usually a tiny charter carrying tourists to luxury ranches near Cody—they would all crane their necks to have a look at it.

I felt mortified. Appalled, thrilled, every kind of emotion. But Mandarin didn’t even glance up.

“Do you honestly care what they think? They can all go to hell.”

But I
did
care what they thought. I always had. And this time, I knew exactly what they were thinking: that Mandarin Ramey (town slut, scandal-plagued celebrity, Washokey’s real beauty queen) and I, Grace Carpenter (just five minutes earlier nobody at all), were
friends
.

In a decisive second, I tipped my face toward the students in the window and stuck out my tongue.

Mandarin screamed with laughter. Unexpectedly, she rushed toward me and threw her arms around me. Before I could react, she pulled away. “Gracey, I have something to ask you. And you have to say yes. If you don’t, I swear to God I’ll die.”

“What? What is it?”

She took both my hands in hers and looked carefully into my eyes. Cotton shimmered in the air between us.

“Will you go with me?”

For a moment, I couldn’t say anything. A million miles away, a hall monitor called to us from the top of the steps.

“What? Do you mean—”

“Yes,” she said. “That’s exactly what I mean. I want you to go with me. To California. I know it’s crazy. But the more I think about it, the more I think that together we can be something better, Gracey, something big. Please, please say yes. I
need
you.”

And just like that, my world burst apart. I was careening through the universe. Each bit of cotton was a speeding star. My head was dizzy, my mouth was dry.
Stop
, I wanted to cry out.
You’re moving too fast for me. You’ve got to slow down. I’m going to fall—

“Yes,” I said.

“Yes? You’ll go with me?”

“Yes!” I laughed helplessly.

“You’ve got no idea how much this means! Now it doesn’t matter that you didn’t win that stupid trip. We’ll be long gone by then. Right after graduation, we’ll go. We’ll have an unbelievable time, I promise. What a fucking gorgeous day!”

We spun like children in a school yard game, kicking up billows of glistening cotton, drinking in the crazy-making wildwinds with each gasp. They tore strands of hair from my braid, whipping my face. I found I was blinking back tears—from the winds or what, I didn’t know. At that moment, I would have followed her anywhere.

That Sunday, Momma drove to Sheridan to peruse the shops for last-minute pageant supplies. I was stuck with Taffeta, playing Candy Land.

I didn’t usually mind playing games with my sister. But that afternoon, I felt like every minute wasted could have been the best minute of my life if only I were with Mandarin.

All weekend, Friday morning kept coming back to me like a scene from a movie. The feel of the cotton, velvety and weightless and slightly sticky with sap. Mandarin spitting and laughing as a piece went into her mouth. Spinning with our eyes locked, her hands gripping mine. Ms. Ingle’s face when I’d stolen back into the classroom, still flecked with white fuzz.

“I’m glad to see the two of you getting along,” she’d said when she kept me after class. “How’s the tutoring going? Have you come up with any ideas for Mandarin’s service project?”

I tried not to think about the reality of Mandarin’s request. All that mattered, for the moment, was that she had asked.

Now I sat on Taffeta’s pink shag carpet, navigating confectionary kingdoms like Gum Drop Mountain and the Candy Cane Forest. With my sister, Candy Land took ages. She counted her moves out loud, stubbing her index finger on each square. Every five minutes, she’d call a time-out for a bathroom break or a snack. Sometimes she would space out entirely, murmuring a song to herself in Italian, her eyes fixed on some glittering molecule only she could see.

It was like being hurled backward into my dismal pre-Mandarin past. No wonder I was feeling mutinous.

Once Taffeta finished her turn, I drew a card. “Uh-oh,” I said, holding the card so she couldn’t see it. “Bad luck for you. On your next turn, you’ve got to go backwards.”

“No way,” Taffeta protested. “There’s no cards like that.”

“Candy Land put out a mass email to all game owners. I guess you haven’t heard. Now the cards have different meanings. When people whose ages are double digits get red cards, the next player has to move in reverse. Sorry about that.”

“That’s not fair!”

“It’s the new rules. I can’t help it if you didn’t get the email.”

“You’re lying, Grace! There wasn’t any email.”

“How do you know? You can’t even read yet.”

“I can too!” Taffeta insisted. “Stop making fun of me, or I’ll tell.”

“Do you think Momma will care?”

Taffeta’s chin puckered, and for a second I thought she was going to cry. But then she whacked the game board with her fist. It flipped into the air, scattering cards and pieces.

I sighed.

“Hey, Taffy, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin the game.”

She wouldn’t look at me.

“Fine.” I stood up. “Be right back.”

I returned with one of those giant chewy SweeTarts, salvaged from my rock collection box. Momma used to use them as pacifiers on our road trips.

“Listen,” I said, flipping the candy between my fingers like a magician’s coin. “I was just trying to spice things up. I didn’t mean what I said about Momma.” I paused. “Anyway, Momma’s pretty clear about what’s important to her.”

“I’m important,” Taffeta said.

“Of course you are.”

“I’m more important than you. She likes me better than you.”

How did little kids know exactly what hurt the most? When I didn’t reply, she crept over to me on all fours and took my face in her hands, swiveling it toward her. Her bottom lip stuck out like a pink piece of gum.

“Grace, I’m sorry. Don’t be mad! Momma likes us the same.”

I dislodged her hands, trying not to let the hurt show on my face. “No, you were right. I’ll admit it.”

Determinedly, Taffeta shook her head.

Sometimes I could hardly believe my sister was real. She looked more like a doll than a flesh-and-blood child, with skin that seemed to glow from the inside, tiny dimpled hands, eyes as flawless as the brown glass marbles used for trophy eyes. I had to remind myself there was a person inside, listening, observing.

“Taffeta,” I said. “Don’t you ever get bored?”

She shrugged. “When there’s nothing on TV.”

“No, I meant—don’t you ever have the urge to do something crazy?”

“Crazy like how?”

“Like stick your tongue out at the pageant judges. Or sing a different song instead of the one you’re supposed to. Maybe a dirty one. Or at home, put your pageant dress on, and … I don’t know, maybe go and sit in the baby pool in our backyard.”

My sister wrinkled her nose. “Why would I do that?”

I sighed. “No reason. It’s just … There’s so much more to life, you know? Than Momma’s pageants. Than Washokey.”

My excitement felt effervescent, bubbling up into my throat. After an entire weekend of waiting, I was dying to let someone in on my secret. Taffeta’s wide eyes goaded me on.

“If I told you something,” I began, “would you promise not to—”

“Can I have the candy?” Taffeta interrupted.

All I’d been about to say gridlocked in my chest. For a second, I could barely breathe.

She tried again. “Can I
please
have some candy, Grace?”

I had no idea what I’d been thinking. I gnawed off a chunk of SweeTart with my molars before tossing it to Taffeta. While she chewed and slurped, I settled back against the bed, disgusted with myself.

The next morning, my alarm startled me from a dream of a deserted highway, with giant pink jackalopes hunched on both sides of the road. Every massive hop—
whump, whump—
made my teeth chatter. My jaw ached as I dragged myself out of bed and over to my mirror.

“Oh, crap,” I said out loud.

I’d slept in my braid, and now it pouched in a lopsided bundle at the side of my head. In my boy shorts and pajama top, I saw only the skeletal gap between my thighs. Washboard ribs instead of a chest. My hands and feet and eyes looked too big for the rest of me. If someone had told me that the girl in the mirror was twelve years old instead of almost fifteen, I would have believed him.

How could I take the same old body to school and expect everybody to believe I was anything like Mandarin?

I’d thought of the onlookers in the windows countless times, but I’d never pictured their faces. Alexis would have been there, and Paige Shelmerdine, for sure. Davey Miller. The sophomores and the juniors, like Peter Shaw. And the seniors, like Tag Leeland and Ricky Fitch-Dixon. Maybe even people from other homerooms.

I tried to picture how my classmates had seen me before the day in the cotton. What I came up with were three images, three incidents—all events Alexis Bunker had never let me forget.

The Saga of Grace Carpenter

Our fourth-grade English teacher, Mr. Moulton, had moonlighted as a reporter for the
Washokey Gazette
and had been notorious for his emphatic adverbs. He was always trying to show off his literary genius by coming up with journalism-related assignments. One day, he asked us to pair off and write reports about our partners. There’d been an odd number of students, and I’d ended up the leftover. Mr. Moulton suggested I write a report about myself. I still remembered how it began.

Grace Carpenter was born at eleven p.m. on what turned out to be a cold and blustery night. The nurses said she was the most complicated baby they had ever delivered. Her mother, Adrina Carpenter, said she howled bloody murder, like a puppy with porcupine quills stuck in its rear
.

I hadn’t realized that Mr. Moulton meant for us to read them in front of the class. He graciously allowed me to claim my seat early when a bout of fake coughing overtook me.

Sixth-Grade Graduation

June was sweepstakes month for Femme Fatale Cosmetics, Inc., when all purchases allowed the buyer to compete for a year’s supply of Femme Fatale products. Though it brought in good money, sweepstakes had made Momma so busy she forgot to finish my graduation dress. The morning of the ceremony, I’d found it draped over the sewing machine. I didn’t have any other dresses that fit; at twelve, I was already a jeans type of girl.

“Momma!” I’d wailed. “Graduation’s at ten!”

She had sewed as if her life depended on it, but the result was still a catastrophe: lopsided in the front, so short in the back it barely covered my underwear. My limbs poked out like winter branches. Crossing the cafeteria to get my diploma in front of all the other students and parents, I had shriveled with shame.

Little Miss Washokey, Wyo
.

My onstage strip show at age six.

Enough said.

In front of the mirror, I tugged my jeans low on my hips, as I had done in private so many times. Instead of a T-shirt, I put on one of the camisoles I used as pajamas, tight and purple with skinny straps. I brushed my hair loose over my shoulders. I had enough sense not to attempt anything as complicated as eyeliner or mascara, but I liked the sparkle when I touched a dab of Femme Fatale Misty Frost lip gloss to my eyelids.

Deliberately avoiding eye contact with myself, I practiced my saunter in the remaining minutes before I swooped up Taffeta and left for school.

“Why are you dressed like that?” she demanded.

“Dressed like what?”

“In your pajamas.”

“It’s not pajamas. It’s just a shirt. Isn’t a person allowed a change once in a while?”

Taffeta mulled it over, her shoes scuffling madly in her effort to keep up with me. “I guess so,” she said. “Your hair looks pretty. But not your belly stuck out like that. Momma would say that was obscene.”

“Bellies aren’t obscene.”

“Then what is?” she wondered.

“It depends on who you’re asking.”

Momma claimed that first impressions were the most critical part of every pageant: “Act like that first step you take onstage is the most important step of your life.”

So after Taffeta scampered away, I didn’t pause at the edge of the lawn, mustering up my nerve to cross it. Instead, I tucked my hands into the pockets of my jeans and sauntered forward, my chin tipped up, my line of sight just above the featureless smear of faces on either side of me.

I faltered just once: when I saw the agate stone I’d dropped on the steps Friday morning. It glittered like Cinderella’s slipper, but nobody had taken it.