The Quarry Girls(29)

“What’s that carpet made of?” I asked, trying to smooth over the part that had tripped me. It felt like it had been alive once, oily and sad.

“Who cares?” Ant asked, his voice wobbling as he pulled me to my feet. His blue eyes were overbright, his Popeye squint exaggerated, the right eye now twice the size of the left. I focused on his mouth, his full, soft-looking lips, his teeth white and straight. It was a good first-kiss mouth.

“You sure are pretty,” he said.

I laughed.

His brows shot together. “I mean it.”

That made me laugh harder.

He dropped my hand. “No one likes the nice guys,” he whined. “Girls always want the bad boys, like Ed or Ricky. Don’t you?”

“No,” I said. I tried to imagine what it would feel like to be alone with either one of them. The thought made me shiver. But at least Ant saw through Ed, saw him for the danger he was. “Why do you hang out with him? Ed, I mean.”

Ant twitched like something had bit him. “I dunno,” he said, glancing at a spot over my shoulder, his voice gone vague. “I spend so much time thinking I’m messing everything up. With Ed, I don’t have to think at all.”

I tried that on for size. I thought I might know what he meant.

“Can I take your picture?” Ant asked, staring at me suddenly, so sincere and urgent.

That’s when I remembered something else about Ant, something besides the paste he’d eaten in first grade or his dad yelling at him in their basement or that moaning he’d done during the winter symposium. Anton Dehnke used to make Barbie doll furniture for all us Pantown girls. He was a wizard with cardboard, glue, and fabric. He’d construct us tiny sofas, armoires with functioning drawers he’d crafted from matchstick boxes and Popsicle sticks, chairs upholstered with fabric scraps his mom had tossed. Remembering that warmed my belly.

“Sure,” I said. “You can take my picture.”

I thought my answer would make him happy, but instead something ugly bloomed across his face, a crawling bump-slide beneath his skin. He turned quickly away, giving me a chance to convince myself I’d imagined it. He flicked off the main room’s light, washing us in moonglow, and then indicated I should follow him through the closed door, which—I’d guessed right—led to a bedroom.

“Sit over there,” he said, pointing through the shadowy gloom to a saggy double bed shoved in the corner. He shut the door behind me and then tromped over to a lamp shaped like a bear holding a honey pot, a shade covering its bear face. He clicked on the light. A Polaroid camera sat next to it. Before I had a chance to ask questions, Ant threw a red scarf across the lampshade, painting the room with a bloody tinge. He picked up the camera and turned toward me, faceless, surrounded by an aura of red light.

“I meant it when I told you before how pretty you are,” he said, his voice husky. “Will you take your shirt off?”

“Gross, Ant,” I said.

He set the camera down and came over to the bed, dropping beside me. “It’s because I’m too nice, isn’t it?”

I started laughing again. I didn’t think what he said was particularly funny, but laughing seemed easier than arguing. I stopped only when I saw Anton’s expression. He had a stony look.

I scratched a bugbite on my arm. “What’s wrong with you?”

I didn’t mean just right now. I meant hanging out with Ricky and now Ed, smoking weed like them and cutting his hair like Ricky, and even before that, moving away from our group, becoming a mean little stranger.

“I told you,” he said roughly. “I think you’re pretty. I think you’re really, really pretty. Doesn’t that make you feel good?”

“Honestly, it makes me feel kind of weird,” I said. We were sitting close enough that I felt his leg trembling through his jeans.

“I’m the only one who never kissed a girl,” he said, his voice sliding to desperation.

“I’ve never kissed a boy, either.”

His hungry look made me feel powerful. I finally felt what Brenda and Maureen had been after, at least I thought I did, and I wanted more of that. I closed my eyes and leaned toward him. Something moist and sticky clamped onto my mouth. It tasted like Southern Comfort. A thick burp erupted from me.

The wetness retreated. “Jeez, Heather. That’s disgusting.”

I opened my eyes. “Sorry. Let’s try again.”

This time, we came at each other so fast that our teeth clacked together. It hurt. I didn’t think I’d have the nerve to try a third time, so I just kept kissing him. He kissed me back, his tongue like a muscled clam searching the back of my mouth.

It wasn’t the queasiest thing I’d ever experienced. That was the time Mom took me to Dr. Corinth when I was eight and had a fever, and he told her the best place to check my swollen glands was the ridge between my leg and privates. Right beneath my underwear lines. Mom seemed to think he knew best, and I suppose he did. Kissing Ant wasn’t that bad, but it had something icky like that in it.

While it didn’t feel good, I found I still liked something about it.

At least until he grabbed one of my boobs like he was stealing a Snickers from the Dairy Bar and squeezed it. I wanted to tell him if he wanted milk he should find a cow, but that brought the giggling back, which I did my best to cover up with a cough.