Throw Like A Girl (4 page)

Jessie stared down at the placemat. The placemat had pictures of mermaids and anchors and seashells, the kinds of shells she had wanted to find: starfish, speckled cowries, sand dollars, conchs with their openings polished to the color of a rosy sunrise. She thought about asking the waitress if people ever actually came across the really gorgeous ones on the beach, or if maybe there was a factory that turned them out for tourists. Pretty things that weren't real. What was real was the inside, the horrible stuff.

Coffee coffee coffee, she didn't even like the taste and it made her brain itch, but she kept drinking it down. From time to time she picked up the menu and frowned at it, as if contemplating another order, trying to make it look like she had some reason for staying. Not that anyone seemed to mind her sitting there. The place was dead, acres of empty tables and the waitresses off in the back somewhere, what time was it anyway? She hadn't wanted to keep track of how long he'd been gone but it had been lunch and now it was not and if it got to be dinner what was she supposed to do? Maybe he was with some girl. He made jokes about it but what was stopping him? She knew he'd had other girlfriends, slept with them, sure. Who was she anyway, nobody special. What if he stopped being in love with her, what if he already had? She knew he didn't spend every second worrying about her the way she did about him. He'd get bored with her, shrug her off. It was a lot easier to imagine this than to believe in some perfect happy life. She wasn't meant to be happy. R.B. was only the particular way she had chosen to be unhappy, the sign that announced to the world that she was a truly fucked-up person. She almost hated him, him and his big plans and the blood trouble between them.

Calm down
. It was the coffee ripping through her and getting her so weird, oh sure, like coffee was the only thing wrong with her. She kept having to pee but she held it until it hurt every time because she was afraid R.B. would return while she was in the bathroom, see the empty table and walk out again.

And wouldn't you know it, she was on her way back, hurrying, and here was R.B. coming through the front door. He spotted her and waved, and when he got closer he said, “Hey Kathy, I want you to meet some friends of mine.”

There were two people, a guy and a girl, man and woman really, crowding in behind him, but Jessie didn't focus on them right away, wondering what he was up to. He'd told her that there would be times when they'd go by these different, traveling names. She was Kathy and if anybody asked, she was eighteen. He was Steve. Everything else she should leave up to him. So she said, “Hi, nice to meet you” to the two of them, the big husky burnt-pink blond guy, and the woman with her hair fixed in stiff curls on the top of her head and a lot of gold bracelets and a navy blue blazer with gold buttons that was supposed to remind you of sailors. Jerry and Pat. She thought he was Jerry and she was Pat, although it could have been the other way around.

R.B. said, “Jerry here's got this boat. I'm gonna help him figure out what's wrong with the engine.”

Jerry said, “Yeah, we're dead in the water.” He laughed, like this was the funniest thing in the world.

Pat shook her head. Her hair didn't move, as if it was made out of icing. “It's the oil pressure. The big doofus didn't check the oil.”

“You're not supposed to have to on a brand-new boat. Cherist.”

“All the way from Mobile I said, what's that light doing on, that red one, and he'd say, oh, it's a new boat, don't worry. Then when he finally goes to check it he can't find the thing, the oil thing.”

“Hey, it's a design flaw.”

“Yeah, your head's not supposed to be up your ass either. More bad design.”

They all laughed like crazy at this. Jessie figured they'd been at some bar.

R.B. said to her, “So, if you're ready to shake a leg…”

R.B. paid the bill at the register. Then they were out on the sidewalk, Jerry and R.B. up ahead, she and Pat behind. The sun was low and the air had turned hot and heavy, so that sweat started up under her arms and slid along the insides of her jeans, and she found herself walking slowly as if wading through water. “So,” Pat said. “Steve tells me you're from Ohio.”

They weren't, but Jessie nodded, wondering what else R.B. had said, what else she'd have to go along with. She hoped Pat wasn't a nosy type. What if she asked where in Ohio?

But Pat was still going on about Jerry and his boat. “I just love to give him shit about his little toy, all the money he spends on it. He tries to sneak the checks past me. Fat chance.”

“I guess boats are real expensive,” said Jessie, just to keep up her end of the conversation. It was so hot. They must have moved the heat in like furniture while she was inside the restaurant. Her head felt cottony. She didn't want to think about what R.B. might be planning. She guessed that Jerry and Pat had a lot of money, although they didn't act like it. They were too drunk.

R.B. and Jerry were now instant best friends, pounding each other on the biceps and yukking it up. Jessie hoped they weren't walking much farther. No one but her seemed to mind the heat. Pat was walking and talking and trying to get a cigarette out of her purse, all at the same time. She had long, silver-polished fingernails and big knuckles with sparkly rings perched on them. The rings looked cheap. Flashy, Jessie's mother would have said, but they were probably real diamonds and real gold.

Pat said, “So is Steve a good mechanic? I mean, we can always have somebody from the boatyard look at it.”

“He's good with cars,” said Jessie truthfully. “I guess a boat engine's not that different.”

Pat got her cigarette going and blew smoke. She had a narrow face and deep, gouged wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. “Oh, Jerry's probably hoping there's some quick easy fix. He's putting off having the engine pulled and finding out he wrecked it. He thinks he can sort of ease into the bad news that way. Then maybe I won't get on his fat ass about it.” Pat cocked her head and smiled at Jessie, like they were girlfriends sharing secrets. “Men. Little boys, every blessed one of them.”

Jessie smiled back. She tried to imagine talking that way about R.B., like he was somebody you could be fond and jokey about.

“He's a little old for you, your Steve.”

“I'm eighteen,” Jessie said and watched Pat not believe it.

“Wish I was your age again. Young love, nothing like it. 'Course how would you know that, what do you have to compare it to. You plan on getting married?”

Jessie said yes, probably, just not right away. Making that up along with everything else. Pat nodded and blew smoke through her nostrils. “Well, don't feel like you have to rush it. Marriage. It's like a damn bathtub. Once you're in it and you're used to it, it's not so hot.”

The sunlight was so thick, she had trouble focusing on Pat's voice, which was melting into a sloppy buzz. Where was this boat anyway? She didn't see a harbor or anything like that, just streets and parking lots and the heat deep down in the pavement where you couldn't get away from it.

“Jer and I been married eight years. I was married before and he was married before. So we're experts at it. Sex doesn't stay the same after a while. I'm only telling you because I wish somebody would have told me.”

Was there any way to get her to quit talking? She couldn't believe it, this woman she only met two seconds ago. Jessie said, “Thank you.”

“Oh, now you're upset, don't pay attention to me, you get as old as I am, you lose all shame.”

“It's OK,” Jessie said. “Really.” Pat probably thought she was embarrassed. She was just tired of everybody who thought all the sex stuff was so important.

She felt Pat's hand brush against her hair, graze her shoulder. She held herself rigid. “You ever think about wearing your hair up? You have such a pretty little face but you can't see it.” The hand dropped away. “Now what does that fool want?”

Jerry was waving at them to catch up. “How about a grocery run? Something to throw on the grill.”

They were right in front of a grocery store. The rest of them seemed to think this was a good idea. Jessie could tell the kind of evening this was going to be, starting off in one direction, then getting distracted and heading off in another. At least the store was air-conditioned. She left Pat and Jerry at the shopping carts, fussing over what they should buy. R.B. was standing in front of the ice-cream freezer.

“Lookit that.” He indicated the freezer shelves. “Butter brickle. You can't hardly find it anymore.”

“Who are these guys, why are we hanging around with them?”

“Relax. I'm gonna do them a favor. Then they're gonna do us one.”

“That lady's kind of strange. How old are they anyway? I don't think we should be going around with people as old as them.”

R.B. opened the freezer and picked up the ice cream one-handed. “I said relax. Nobody's going to get bad hurt.”

She stared up at him, trying to tell if he was joking. “What are you going to—”

“You ever been on a fancy boat like they got? Mommy and Daddy have one of those?”

“Please, R.B.”

“I'm just messing with you, Worry Wart. We're gonna drink their beer and get their boat fixed so they can go on their merry way.”

“Promise we won't have to stay real late. Promise—”

R.B. made a sign to her to be quiet, because Pat and Jerry were coming up behind them with the cart. They'd already picked up different bottles of steak sauce and barbecue sauce and two jars of fancy olives. “Mesquite chips,” Jerry said. “Help me remember that. Mesquite chips, mesquite chips, mesquite chips.” R.B. put the ice cream in the cart and they wandered up and down the aisles, adding anything that caught their eye, a platter of cocktail shrimp, big red trays of steaks, tomatoes, garlic bread, tubs of bean salad and macaroni salad, a frozen coconut cream pie. Then Pat and Jerry got into another stupid argument about how were they going to get it all back to the boat because they hadn't even gotten to the liquor aisle yet and didn't they need ice too?

R.B. said it was no problem, he'd go back for the car and drive them to the harbor. Pat and Jerry acted like nobody in the history of time ever had such a good idea. Jessie wondered if it wasn't something R.B. had planned all along. And anyway, now he wouldn't have to help pay for the groceries.

So here she was, trailing after the two of them, Pat and Jerry, like she was their kid or something. Now that would be strange. If they did have a kid, it would be totally screwed up. It seemed that the longer they were in the store, the more reckless Pat and Jerry got about piling things in the cart, frozen waffles, cashews, onion dip, rice, nothing that made sense in terms of a meal. She couldn't imagine eating any of it. Something had come in between her and hunger lately. Jessie figured Pat and Jerry were just warming up for the liquor aisle. Sure enough, once they reached it they started hefting the bottles like pros. Jessie wandered off.

She was bored. One of the odd things about this new life was that she didn't have to
do
anything, school or chores or homework or anything else. It took some getting used to. She and R.B. just ended up in one place or another, doing the next thing that happened. It hadn't even been that long. A bunch of days. But already it felt like she'd never lived any other way. R.B. said it was better like that. They had made a clean break. They were born again, just like people sang about in church except it was better than church, it was their own invention, nobody but them could live like this, brand-new every minute. And Jessie believed him, except there were still those weird times when the gray and floating part of her mind got in the way.

“Now I know you are an intelligent person, so I am going to discuss things with you in professional terms. I'd like us to work on self-esteem issues. Unfortunately, our culture doesn't always do a very good job at making young women feel positively about themselves and their achievements and their futures. There are books about it, I can loan them to you if you'd like to read them. I'm offering to do this because, as I said, I know you are intelligent enough to understand them. And I'm sure you understand why your parents are so worried about you. They feel that Ron is not the sort of person who will help you reach your full potential. That even if he cares about you, even if he has the best intentions, you would be making choices that you'll—”

“No.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Jessie had been staring at the totally uninteresting carpet. Nubby beige. The whole office was designed to give you nothing you could really look at. “That's not why they don't like him.”

A small silence while the woman rearranged her voice to be especially patient, neutral, and flat, a voice like a beige carpet. “Why not, then?”

“They're afraid people will see the two of us together, me and him, and I won't look like anyone they'd want to be their daughter, I'll look like I belong with him.”