Chapter Thirteen #3
Maeve could not get out of the room and down the stairs fast enough.
She wished she could evaporate. Outside, Wendy’s brothers played basketball in the driveway, the hoop shaking and clanging on the misses.
She sat on the narrow step, her body quivering.
She could hear an argument in the house but not the words.
The boys pushed on each other, threw elbows, shoved, called each other names.
Maeve had half a mind to join their game if only to have the pleasure of laying one of them out on the pavement.
Wendy emerged from the house, the car keys in her hand. “I have to be back here in twenty minutes, so we’d better haul ass.”
Wendy drove too fast through town, too fast out of town. “Slow down,” Maeve said. “You’re going to get us killed.”
“I don’t care,” Wendy said, her voice petulant and seething.
“Well, I do. I’m sorry if I did something wrong. I tried to be cool.”
Wendy sighed, laughed a little. “You know you were not very cool, right?”
Maeve shrugged. She knew. “I couldn’t help it.”
“I’m grounded until prom. And it’s going to be strict.”
“Because of me?”
“Officially, because I violated the door rule. It’s so stupid.
My brothers and I aren’t allowed to be behind closed doors with anyone except for family.
No exceptions. She said I should have gone into the bathroom or their bedroom to change.
But yeah, it’s because of you. She’d probably be thrilled if I closed the door with Brett. ”
Maeve let out all her breath. She did not want to imagine Wendy with Brett Overton.
“Look,” Wendy said. “It’s not you. She doesn’t like me.
She doesn’t like that I’m not girly like her.
She doesn’t like sports. She doesn’t like that I play basketball.
I heard her and my dad fighting once, and she was yelling that it was like she had three boys.
She thinks girls should be girls and boys should be boys.
She even slapped Caleb when he called me a lesbo.
She thinks someone is going to turn me into one. None of them know I already am.”
“You’re already what?” Maeve asked.
Wendy swerved off the road onto the gravel. A black car zipped around them, honking. She blinked at Maeve incredulously. “A lesbian, Maeve. I’m a lesbian. You’re a lesbian. We’re lesbians.” She shook her head. “Is this some kind of revelation?”
Maeve’s parents had their own chairs in the living room, like Edith and Archie Bunker.
Normally, after dinner, they would occupy their spots in front of the television, and Maeve would retreat to her room to do homework or listen to records.
But it was Wednesday, and Wednesday night was family night.
On family night, there was no bickering between her and Molly, everyone lingered at the table, even Maeve’s grandfather, who came for meat loaf and mashed potatoes, then stayed for hot chocolate and an episode of Eight Is Enough.
Her father leaned back in his chair, set his crumpled napkin on the table. “Oh, you won’t believe who I saw today. Conor O’Kane.”
Maeve only half paid attention, her thoughts still on Wendy, what she’d said in the car. She startled at her mother’s response. A fist on the table that rattled the dishes.
“Ugh! What now?” She tapped three fingers into her forehead, a tell, like a squirrel hiding a nut for later.
“Says he’s trying to clean up his act. Guess he did some time down in Massachusetts. Counterfeit gun licenses. Something about grenades.”
“Guns? Who has guns?” Molly asked.
“Papa, take Molly out to the living room and set up the television, would you?” Faye said. “We’ll clean up and make the popcorn. Maeve, grab the plates.”
In the kitchen, William continued. Maeve washed and her father dried, while her mother wrapped up leftovers.
“Yeah, he said he and Glenda got married, but she walked out on him when he went to jail. He said he wants to win her back, though from the looks of him, he hadn’t made much improvement.
He was pretty sauced. He wanted to know if I’d put in a good word for him at BIW.
I told him I didn’t think I could. He wasn’t very pleased with me. ”
“I don’t like this,” Faye said.
Then Maeve remembered. “Um, do you think he still drives that black muscle car?”
Her father put the dishcloth over his shoulder. “Yes. Why?”
Maybe she was wrong. But she could picture the red streak on the side of the car that had sped past her and Wendy earlier. “I think I saw that car this afternoon. Close to here. Wendy—” She faltered. Even saying her name made Maeve blush.
“What’s wrong? Did you talk to him? Did he say something?” her mother asked.
“No. Nothing like that. Wendy wanted to show me her prom dress after school—” Maeve’s eyes fluttered.
God! Spit it out! “She drove me home, and a car kind of sped past us, annoyed and honking, you know? I guess maybe Wendy was driving too slowly?” She shook her head.
“Anyway, maybe it was that car?” She stuck her sweating hands back in the dishwater.
“William,” her mother said.
“I’ll deal with it. Don’t worry.”
Maeve sat on the floor, her back against the couch, a bowl of popcorn between her legs. Clearly, the conversation about that stupid guy still bugged her mom, based on the way her arms were crossed. Not Maeve’s problem. She had bigger ones.
It was family night, and Maeve wondered what would happen if she was what Wendy said she was.
While Molly giggled with their grandfather about the family on television, Maeve ate her popcorn absentmindedly.
The week before, Wendy had sucked salt off Maeve’s finger at the drive-in burger stand, tongue to fingerprint, fingerprint to lip.
She tapped her salt-puckered lips, remembering the sensation.
What would happen to family night, what would happen to her family—this one or the one she dreamed she’d have with some mystery man who would come along and love her the way her parents loved each other, who would carve their initials into a tree trunk and frame it with a heart? What would happen to her?
When the show was over, her grandfather went home, and Molly was sent to bed.
Maeve wanted to stay up to watch Charlie’s Angels but thought better of it, certain her parents would see the way her eyes followed Sabrina rather than Jill.
She felt like her insides were on her outside, her interior life exposed. “I’m heading up too,” she said.
She thought about sneaking into the kitchen to call Wendy, but Wendy’s voice was already in her ear, telling her she wasn’t normal, wasn’t .
. . straight. This couldn’t be true. Wendy made Maeve feel special, pretty and smart and funny.
Her head spun while she got ready for bed.
Maybe that was the plan, to confuse Maeve, corrupt her.
No, that couldn’t be right. She brushed her teeth, staring into her own eyes as her mouth foamed.
Where was the part inside her that had gotten mixed up?
Could she brush it away, pluck it out, scrub until this thing was not a part of her anymore?
She put her toothbrush in the cup, ran her hands over her chest, down her stomach.
Go lower, she thought. That’s where the problem is.
Monday morning, Wendy met Maeve by her locker. She fumed about her mother, the silent treatment she’d been given over the weekend. She slammed the locker shut. “I’m so sick of her.”
They walked together, Maeve’s books clutched to her chest. She felt newly self-conscious, all eyes on her and Wendy, sizing them up, a scarlet L pinned to her shirt.
She’d lain in bed the night before, unable to sleep, fretting over which was worse—her parents or the kids at school finding out about her.
Profound disappointment or relentless scorn?
Exhausting questions, wrapped in midnight blue satin, tied with an empire bow.
“You look wiped out,” Wendy said.
Maeve had noticed the dark circles under her eyes that morning but didn’t have the energy to try to conceal them. “Couldn’t sleep.”
The earth sciences teacher slowed down as he approached them. “Girls,” he said, eyes flicking up and down, back and forth.
Maeve groaned. “What was that about?”
“Pervs everywhere.”
The pressure felt like a sack of flour on her chest. She steered Wendy into an open doorway, peeked inside. Empty. “Listen. I think we should cool it. Your mom and everything. And I don’t want to tick off my parents.”
“It’s almost summer break,” Wendy said, her head tilted. “And then mayhem, right?”
Maeve scratched at a patch of dry skin on her forearm. “Mayhem.” That was the plan for summer—have as much fun as humanly possible before senior year of high school. “I don’t think we should be seen together right now. I have my friends. You have yours . . .”
“Lots of the same people . . .”
“No, I mean. You know, prom and all. Let’s lay low.” Maeve tried to ease her way back into the flow of hall traffic.
Wendy’s mouth fell open slightly, and she tipped her head forward. “Are you breaking—”
“Wendy!” Maeve interrupted, shaking her head. She lowered her voice, talked through her teeth. “Call me when you’re done being grounded or something.” She jump-skipped to get past a throng of freshmen, shoved a scrawny boy for good measure. She felt safer already.