Pretending to Dance (7 page)

“Maybe this isn't such a great idea,” Stacy said with a nervous laugh. “We're like a million miles from everything.”

“We'll be fine.” I pointed ahead of us. “See? There it is. Wait till you see inside. It's really cool.”

“It
is
cute,” she said, when we were close enough to really see the building. “So tiny.”

The door squeaked as I pulled it open and Stacy followed me into the dark interior. She let out an excited yelp when I turned on the floor lamp and my little home away from home popped into view.

“Look at the posters!” she said, turning in a circle to take them in. “I had to get rid of mine when we moved down here.” She knelt on one of the twin beds to get closer to the New Kids on the Block posters, and I could tell she was drooling over Joey McIntyre. “Oh my God, look at his eyes!” She reached out to touch Joey's cheek. Then she suddenly seemed to notice the rest of the room—the sink and microwave and little dresser. She climbed off the bed and held her arms out at her sides. “I
love
this,” she said. “Oh my God, you're so lucky, Molly!” I saw the wistfulness in her face and felt guilty that I took everything I had for granted.

“Here's the cassette player,” I said, pointing beneath the sink. I bent over to push the power button and
Step by Step
started up again. I'd never get tired of that tape. Stacy started nodding her head to the music as she looked at the rest of my posters.

“You really are stuck on Johnny Depp, aren't you,” she said, pointing to the posters of him above the other bed.

“Do you watch
21 Jump Street
?” I asked.

“Of course.” She sat down on the edge of the bed. “But he's way too old for you. He's, like, twenty-six. You could never get him.”

I leaned against the sink, arms folded. “Well, do you seriously think you could get Joey McIntyre?” I asked.

“He's only seventeen. Better chance of getting him than Johnny Depp.”

“It's only a fantasy, anyhow,” I said.

Stacy looked toward the window. “Those bugs are so loud you practically can't hear the music,” she said.

“They're cicadas.” I'd left the windows open from when Daddy and I had been in the springhouse earlier. “Help me close the windows before the mosquitoes find us, okay?” She tugged one of the unscreened windows shut while I shut the other, and the hum of the cicadas turned to a soft, distant buzz.

“Who are these people?” Stacy picked up a framed photograph from the top of the dresser. I barely noticed the photograph these days. The picture of a man, a woman, and their three teenagers had been part of my life for as long as I could remember.

“Nanny and my grandpa Arnette, who died before I was born.” I stood next to Stacy and pointed to my grandparents. “And their kids. That's my aunt and uncle and father.”

“Oh my God,
that's
your father? He was so hot!”

I looked at the picture, trying to see it through her eyes. No doubt about it. My father had been good-looking. Dark hair, strong chin, white teeth in a killer smile, and those riveting blue eyes. How had I never noticed before?

I pointed to the teenaged girl. “This is my aunt Claudia. Dani's mother. And the other boy is my uncle Trevor.”

“Your father got the looks,” Stacy said, summing up the family as she set the frame back on the dresser. Then she flopped down on the bed beneath the Johnny Depp posters. It was technically my bed, but I'd let her have it for tonight. “Would you do it with him?” she asked, looking at one of the posters. “Johnny Depp?”

I sat down on the other bed. “Of course,” I said. I had not yet figured out exactly how “doing it” was accomplished, but I didn't want to look like a complete moron. “Would you do it with Joey?”

“Oh, hell yes! In a heartbeat.” She looked over at me. “We should practice French kissing with each other for when we get to do it for real.”

“Um.” I laughed. “I don't think so.”

“Have you kissed anybody?”

“No,” I said, embarrassed. “Have you?”

“Bryan Watkins,” she said. “I'm kind of going with him. But we only Frenched once and I'm not sure I did it right.”

I was shocked. Bryan Watkins was in high school. “He's a junior, isn't he?” I asked.

“Going into his senior year, actually.” She sounded so sophisticated all of a sudden. Even her voice sounded different, like a woman in a commercial for an expensive car. “Do you know him?” she asked. “He reminds me of Joey.” She pointed across the room at the New Kids poster. “A little bit, anyway.”

What did she mean, she was kind of going with him? I suddenly realized that Stacy and I were worlds apart in more ways than I'd guessed. “How did you even meet him?” I asked.

“He lives in my neighborhood.”

“So … you're actually going out with him?”

“No one knows.” She rolled onto her side, facing me, her arm beneath her head. “I sneak out to be with him.”

I wanted to ask her what exactly she did with him, but it sounded way too nosy. Maybe she'd tell me eventually. She didn't seem at all shy about telling me her deep dark secrets. She seemed so much older than me all of a sudden. I knew my birthday was actually a month before hers, but I was still fantasizing about Johnny Depp while she was sneaking out and doing who-knew-what with flesh-and-blood boys three years older than us.

“My sister's boyfriend goes down on her, which I think is totally disgusting,” she said, out of the blue. “Can you imagine?”

No, I couldn't imagine it because I had no idea what she was talking about. “What does that mean?” I asked.

She wrinkled her nose. “He
eats
her,” she said.

“What are you
talking
about?” I heard frustration in my voice. It was like she was speaking some language I didn't understand.

“He licks her … between her legs.”

“What?”
The image forming in my mind was revolting. “Why would he … that's sick!”

“I know. But it makes her come.”

“Come … where?”

She gave me a quizzical look, as though I'd asked an unbelievably stupid question. “Molly.” She sounded like a tired old schoolteacher. “Don't you at least know what
coming
means?”

I shook my head.

“You really missed out by not having any older brothers and sisters.” She sat up and leaned against the stone wall. “Coming's this amazing feeling,” she said. “It's not like anything else. It's totally intense. And it happens when you have sex, though you can do it to yourself, too. Make yourself come. I never have, but my sister says she does it all the time.”

I laughed nervously. This was the strangest conversation I'd ever had in my life.

“Have you read
Forever
?” Stacy asked. “The Judy Blume book?”

I shook my head.

“You really should. You'll learn everything. It's so awesome. I can loan you my copy.”

“Okay,” I said. I'd known I had a few things to learn, but I had no idea how much.

We both went really quiet for a few minutes. “Where Do I Go from Here” came on the cassette player, and Stacy flopped onto her back again. “Ah, Joey,” she said, staring at the ceiling. She sang along softly with the song.

I lay down myself, and the moment my head hit the pillow, a memory came to me. A year ago—maybe two—I'd walked into my parents' room one evening. I should have knocked, but I'd been in a hurry and didn't stop to think. The light in the room was very dim, but I could make out Daddy lying naked on his back in the bed. My mother seemed to be sitting on his face, her knees on either side of his head. She leaned forward, one hand grasping the headboard, the other holding her breast. She was moving her hips and moaning. Her blond hair was out of it's ponytail, loose and crazy around her head. I'd stood utterly frozen in the doorway, paralyzed by shock. Was she trying to suffocate him? Kill him in some weird, perverted way? And yet … I knew that wasn't it. I'd backed out of the room, shaken and a little sick, and I'd stayed outside their closed door until I finally heard my father's voice and knew he was still alive. Not only alive, but laughing with her. Now I wondered. Daddy couldn't touch her with his hands. Was his mouth the only way he could make her feel good? The only way he could make her come?

“Don't tell your parents about me seeing Bryan.” Stacy's voice brought me back to the springhouse.

I made a face at the ceiling. “Like I talk to them about that kind of thing,” I said. I sat up and shook out my arms as though shaking off our conversation. “Let's put on another tape.”

*   *   *

“Can you see without your glasses?” Stacy said as we ate the last mouthfuls of peach pie from our Tupperware containers.

“I can see close up,” I said. “Not very well at a distance.”

“You have such amazing eyes. Can I make them up?”

“I don't have any makeup here.” And all I had in my room at home was blush and lip gloss.

“I have a ton in my backpack,” she said. “Let me do you. I'm really good at doing eyes. I have a supersteady hand.”

“Okay,” I said, wishing the light was better in the springhouse. Plus, the only mirror was a small frameless one attached to the wall above the sink.

We washed the Tupperware and then sat facing each other on the bed beneath the Johnny Depp posters. Stacy had pulled the floor lamp close to us and adjusted the shade. My eyeglass frames were large, a pale pink plastic I'd hoped would blend into my face and not be very noticeable, but I wasn't fooling anyone. The glasses were probably the first thing people noticed about my face. Daddy said I could get contacts when I was sixteen, which was several lifetimes away. I took my glasses off now and offered Stacy my face.

“Hmm,” she said, studying me. “I can't decide if I should cover your freckles with foundation or not. They're kind of cute. Some boys really go for cute, you know?”

“Cover them over,” I said. I was curious to see myself without freckles for the first time in my life.

“Okay.” She'd taken an overstuffed makeup case from her backpack and when she opened it, bottles and tubes and compacts spilled out onto the brown bedspread. I'd never seen so much makeup. Even my mother had only a fraction of Stacy's bounty.

“Wow,” I said.

Stacy picked up a bottle and began shaking it. “I love this foundation,” she said. “It covers zits and everything.”

I studied her perfect skin. “Do you have it on now?” I asked.

“No. I only use it when I see Bryan or when I break out.” She opened the top. “It smells good, too.” She held it under my nose. “Sniff.”

I did. “Nice,” I said, although I really didn't smell much of anything other than the peaches on her breath.

“Let me dot this on. Close your eyes.”

I felt her fingertips smooth the liquid over my nose and cheeks.

“Oh, this is cool!” she said. “Wait till you see. This covers your freckles totally.” She finished with the foundation and I opened my eyes to see her pick up a small case of purple eye shadow from the bed. “I stole this,” she said, opening the case. She smoothed a foam-tipped applicator across the purple powder.

“From one of your sisters?” I asked.

“Close your eyes,” she said.

I shut my eyes and she began brushing the eye shadow over my lids.

“Not from my sisters, though some of this stuff is theirs. Or
was
theirs, anyhow.” She giggled. “No, I got this from a drugstore near my house.”

I opened my eyes. “You shoplifted it?”

“Close,” she commanded, and I shut my eyes again waiting for her to answer.

“Yes,” she said. “I don't do it a lot but this stuff is so expensive and it's so easy just to slip in your pocket. You've never stolen anything from a store?”

“No,” I said. I didn't have the guts to steal something. I'd get caught for sure.

“I can teach you how,” she said. “Open.”

I opened my eyes and looked into her face, and I saw a beautiful girl who looked so much older than me. I wasn't sure if I envied her or feared her.

*   *   *

It took her half an hour to make me up, but I looked absolutely amazing by the time she was finished. I had to get close to the mirror to see her handiwork, and I finally took the mirror off the wall so I could stare at myself while I sat on the bed. “I don't even look like myself,” I said.

“You look at least sixteen,” Stacy said as she loaded her bottles and pencils back into her makeup bag.

I thought she was right. I loved how I looked without freckles. And without glasses. Too bad the real me came with both.

She zipped her makeup bag closed. “I have to pee,” she said, getting to her feet. “Where's the bathroom in this place?”

“Oh, it's a latrine,” I said. “It's outside. I have to go too, so I'll show—”

“We have to go
outside
to use the bathroom?” Her eyes were open so wide that her lashes lifted her bangs.

“It's not too far.”

“If I'd known that, I would've said we should stay in your house.”

“Put on your sandals,” I said, tying my tennis shoes. I slipped on my glasses. I hadn't used the latrine in a few weeks and I remembered how overgrown the path was even then. By now, it would be impossible to find without my glasses, especially in the dark.

I grabbed a roll of toilet paper from the bottom drawer of the dresser, picked up the two flashlights from the counter and handed one of them to her. “Come on,” I said. “Just follow me.”

We stepped outside and the sound of the cicadas fell over us like a blanket of noise. I pointed my flashlight at the ground and could just make out the vine-covered path. Another week and it would be indiscernible from the forest floor. “Come on,” I said.