The Bitch Posse (29 page)

May 1988
The Porter Place

Walking into the barn, I breathe in the haystack spiderweb dusty air and sigh. I love it in the Porter Barn, the way the sunlight slants inside, the way you’re no longer in the real world but in somewhere from a long time ago, back when things made sense. You can almost believe that ghosts of chickens, horses, cows are here among the very real barn swallows that have built their nests in the rafters.

You feel, in a way, that you’re Laura Ingalls Wilder. That your Ma and Pa love you more than anything in the world. That your Pa’s about to call you his little half-pint of cider half drunk up. That the worst you have to worry about is whether your family’ll be eaten by bears. That it’ll all turn out okay in the end because Michael Landon believes in God.

Inside here, you can think that way for a minute or so.

I’m not altogether sure of why we’ve come here except we can’t go
home. I can’t face Mom and Dad today, I’m sick of their drinking, they’re so fucking weak and pathetic, and such assholes, Jesus. And Cherry? Where does she have to go?

The cut on her nose has come open again, and a few drops of blood soak through the smear of cover-up. Seeing her like this, my strong friend, makes me want to cry.

But the magic of this place is that once we’ve passed through the opening of the barn, we’ve walked into freedom, into somewhere where nothing matters. This is the place where you can believe your life’ll end up like a John Hughes movie. That you’ll be Molly Ringwald dancing with Andrew McCarthy at the prom. That the sound track of your life will be the Psychedelic Furs and OMD. That everyone will love you, even if you’re a misfit. That you’ll be Pretty in Pink.

This place just does that to you.

“Let’s hang out and smoke,” I say And it’s so Cherry-like to have thought to nab the joint off Sam’s dresser last night, why can’t I be so spontaneous and perfect?

But she shakes her head. “Let’s wait a little. I have a feeling Rennie’s going to show up later.”

“She’s at Rob’s.”

She shakes her head again. “I just have a feeling.” Her lips flatten, then she smiles. “Want to swing?”

We climb up into the hayloft. Even though it’s empty, a few shafts of golden straw catch the light, and Cherry unhooks the swing from the wall. I wonder who used to swing here. What little girls grabbed this rope and flung out into the outside? Are they old women now? Dead? Or just moved on in life, went to college out of state, got married? “You first,” she says.

“No, you. You deserve it.”

She holds the swing out to me, insisting. And so I wrap my legs around the rope, creep to the edge of the hayloft, hang on for dear life, and take a leap.

The swing floats out, and there’s that creak as the rope strains with my weight, and there, there’s that moment when the swing flings me out through the barn door into the daylight, and it’s just then that if the rope broke I’d be thrown about twelve feet in the air before landing on the ground—I’d break bones for sure, oh yeah.

The swing sucks me back into the barn, and then the world rushes back up at me as I fly outside again. I swing back and forth, a little less each time, until I hop off and toss the rope up to Cherry for her turn.

As she jumps I light a cigarette and watch her sail through the air, her red bob streaming out behind her. For a moment she looks like a little girl, eleven years old maybe, like Megan Follows playing Anne of Green Gables. I’d love to paint her like this, a blur of red and pale lemon and the black of her sweater and skirt. She’s swimming by so fast I can’t even see her bruises and blood; she’s just a palette of colors, the reds the yellows the blacks, the hair the blood the skin, the bruises the sweater the eye, and none of it matters because for that one pure moment she just is. It’s not even like she’s Cherry, she just is beauty and colors and the swipe of a painter’s brush across the sky. Slowly the rhythm relaxes, and she jumps off the swing and sits next to me on the ground.

“Don’t you love to swing?” she asks.

“I haven’t felt so good since I was a little girl and I still believed that every flower had a fairy living inside it.” I burst into laughter, but it doesn’t feel real. There’s more shit I used to believe—the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, that Callie would get well, that my parents were normal, that Jesus was keeping track of whether I got laid this weekend, that God cared if I gave Father O’Neill the full fucking report.

“That’s why you should swallow your fears and drop acid with me sometime. You would see fairies inside of flowers again.” She’s remembering something now and shakes her head. “Who’s that artist who does those paintings, it’s a flower but not really a flower, you look at it close and it’s a—”

And she’s going to say “cunt” and I hate that word so I interrupt. “Georgia O’Keeffe.” She’s right of course,
Black Iris,
my favorite one of hers, the folds of petals, well, let’s just say I am intimately familiar with them. Maybe she didn’t know what she was painting, but yeah, that’s was she was painting.

“Your stuff’s as good as hers, I swear. Someday you’ll be a famous painter and I can say I knew you when.”

Someday. If I can survive senior year.

“Speaking of pussy pictures . . . ”

Oh, thanks, Cherry. But I don’t say anything. Some of her fuck-the -world, say-anything attitude must be because of the shit she just went through. I wonder how much of Cherry is just an outer shell, armor.

It never even crossed my mind before.

I watch her talking, her lips moving. Funny, I think in a way I’ve idolized Cherry, it’s strange not to see her perfect. It’s like an answer on the SAT, one of those analogy questions. Amy is to Cherry as Cherry is to Diana. “I read or heard somewhere that all those years we were innocent little girls drawing hearts all over everything, each heart we made was actually a—”

She’s going to say “cunt” again, and I love Cherry but I can’t take it anymore so I say, “Did you ever feel so angry you felt like if you didn’t hurt something you were going to go up in a cloud of smoke?”

She stops talking and rests her fingers on my wrist. “Who are you angry at, Aim?”

I look at the clear blue sky, the sweat of the morning clinging to my arms. “I don’t even know, all the stuff with Callie, my parents, Mr. Schafer, Sam, the world I guess.” There’s no way to express it, so I settle on “Mostly I’m angry about Callie.”

The words fall hollow; that’s not quite it. As if by putting words to my anger I could define it, when it’s so prismatic that any way I could describe it would be only one of a million facets. It feels good to try to
explain, though, anyway it’s better than holding it in. “I’m eighteen, I should just get an apartment and take her home with me.”

Cherry blows a smoke ring and shakes her head. “It’s not so easy, Aim. You’d have to go to court. And aren’t you going to Michigan?”

Michigan. It seemed like such a good idea at the time. Big Ten school, I can major in art and study something else too, something practical. And Ann Arbor, what a great place. They have a Hash Bash every April supposedly. Supposedly, everyone gets high in the streets and the cops take a day off. Supposedly, I got accepted to the University of Michigan and I will receive a wonderful education and my life will be perfect.

Supposedly.

Michigan’s for smarties, Rennie-types. Lots of kids I know would kill to get in there. I should be happy. But now, it seems awfully far away. Which I guess was the point, but my ties, the ties with Callie; with Cherry, who’s going to community college; especially with Rennie, who’s headed out West, will be stretched so thin, like a wad of Juicy Fruit pulled from my mouth. Eventually all my ties will break, I know that. “I don’t want to think about Michigan.”

Abruptly she says, “You know you can’t stop them from drinking. They’re going to do what they’re going to do.” She flings out a tunnel of smoke. “I finally figured that out. If people want to destroy themselves, you can’t stop them.” She stubs out her cigarette and puts it into her pocket. Cherry hates it when kids litter at the Porter Place.

“I don’t get what that has to do with Michigan.”

“Just don’t sink your dreams on someone else’s ship. You know?” She touches her nose. “I should talk. I can’t even have a fucking relationship.”

“He’s a dickhead. That was his fault.”

“But I picked him . . . Why?” Tears glint in her eyes. Cherry, crying? Bizarre. She always seems so strong . . . so sure of herself.

I stub out my cigarette too, slink my arms around her, and float my fingers over her hair. Poor Cherry . . . poor Cherry. Her tears don’t fall.

Before I know what I’m doing, I lean over and brush her lips with mine. I twine my fingers through the short hair at the nape of her neck and she’s kissing me back. My lips fall open. This is so different from kissing Brandon or any of the Sigma Nu guys, different from kissing anyone. Something sharp skates through me, and I’m spinning a figure eight across the ice. My hand runs over her breast. Her nipple tightens under my fingers, and I’m dizzy, I’m in love, and my other hand slips under her skirt and stumbles up her thigh.

And oh, God, it’s then that I open my eyes and it’s my best friend I’m kissing, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t . . .

I break the kiss, pull my fingers away, retreat from her lap. She’s not looking at me, and that’s bad. “Cherry, I’m sorry. I’m not . . . ” How could I have fucked up like that? I’ve totally messed up our friendship, she thinks I want some kind of relationship with her, she thinks . . . “You know I’m dating Brandon. I don’t . . . I just . . . ”

She turns to meet my eyes and gives a little smile. “It’s okay, Amy. I love you too.” She stands up and brushes off her skirt.

As I stand up, apologies start flooding out of my mouth again.

She interrupts. “I’m not reading anything into it if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s fine. Let’s swing some more.” We walk back into the barn, and she slings an arm over my shoulders and gives me a bestfriend squeeze, and at once I know it
is
fine. “We’re friends, best friends.”

“I’ve never had friends like you and Rennie,” I say.

Suddenly, I know why it felt so good to kiss her.

It was because I was kissing someone who gives a damn.

“We’ll just forget it happened, it’s totally fine.”

I don’t want to forget it happened because it’s the first kiss I’ve ever had that’s meant something. But I know what she means. She means
we won’t be talking about it after this, and I think that’s a good idea. “Okay.”

Something rustles, clip-clops outside. We exchange a glance and walk back into the sunshine. There it is, a doe, soft-eyed, furry, close enough to touch. There are woods all around the Porter Place, and it must have wandered away. “Oh, it’s beautiful,” I say.

“It must be lost. I hope it doesn’t run into the highway.”

And just then there’s the spin of tires coming up the gravel road from the back way, by the silo and shed, and it’s Rennie’s Beetle. Damn, Cherry has some good instinct. “You were right,” I say. The Beetle frightens the deer; it trots the other direction around the skeleton of the farmhouse and, I hope, toward the woods. Rennie parks the car, flings open the door, and stalks toward us looking like she’s ready to explode. Thank God Cherry brought that blunt, because in a matter of minutes Rennie unloads an amazing but predictable story of Rob Sorry-Ass Schafer, and the deer trots away, farther into the distance. It’ll either run straight into Route 12 or escape into the woods, and I hope it heads for the woods, where it’ll be safe.

And despite all the shit, at least the Bitch Posse’s together again, together, together forever.

May 2003
Mill Valley, California

Rennie’s pretty beaten up when she pulls in front of her Sunnyside Avenue cottage. She curses herself. What was she thinking? A threeday coke binge and Mallory’s in town? Shit, shit, shit.

She walks up the sidewalk and pushes open the little gate. Caleb’s playing in the yard, alone. Damn it, Mallory, leaving him outside by himself? He’s discovered Beverly’s golden poppies, she can tell, because three have been uprooted and hang from his grubby hand. His diaper sags on his bottom, the tape barely holding on, and mud streaks across his full, candy-ribbon lips; he’s been eating it. Her heart soars. Her little nephew’s adorable—how long has it been, six months?

He sees her and points. “Intide! Wanna go intide!”

Beverly must have let Mallory and Max inside and they’re having coffee or more likely smoking a joint while the baby plays outside, ready to get kidnapped or eat a poisonous plant. How irresponsible.

Rennie laughs out loud. Who is she to judge?

She takes Caleb’s hand and squats next to him, pulling his fingers away from Beverly’s sweet peas, which crawl over the fence. “Hi, Caleb, remember me, Aunt Rennie?” She makes to give him a kiss. He turns away, pouting, but not before she sees laughter sparkling in his blue eyes. His blond curls tangle down past his shoulders, her little elf-boy.

Rennie puts her hands under his arms and lifts him up, and the vanilla smell of baby pours into her nostrils, warming her. She feels so good now, so happy, keying into some deep hurt that’s being smoothed over by Caleb, even though he’s got no idea she’s hurting. She gives him a squeeze. I
hope they’re staying awhile.