All the Ugly and Wonderful Things(43)

He took ahold of her leg and said, “First thing, I’m buying you some new boots. You got holes in these from too much walking.”

Right up until that moment it was sweet and funny. Odd couple that they were, they had a real connection. Then he tugged her boot off and kissed the bottom of her bare foot. I could see him doing that kind of thing to his own kid, but she wasn’t. She was somebody else’s little girl.





9

WAVY

July 1982

I waited by the porch to Sandy’s trailer, where the old gray cat lived. At night, the big yellow light over the garage cast shadows into my hiding place. People walked by and didn’t even notice me crouched there.

Dee and Lance left, probably going to the barracks to f*ck. Sandy sat on the porch smoking and crying, talking to herself: “I don’t know why I put up with it.” When Butch came, she went inside with him.

Danny left in the Charger and brought back beer. While he carried a case to the lab barracks, I snuck out of my hiding place and stole two cans. When Danny came back, he looked at the torn-open case in the trunk and yelled, “That’s not funny, you *s! Don’t be poaching brewskies.”

I started to think Kellen wouldn’t come, or that he wouldn’t be alone. The night he brought the snake tattoo girl on his bike, I did something reckless. I went into the trailer to get him. After that, he came to me on his own, so it had been worth the risk.

I sat down on a cinder block and slipped my boots off to bury my toes in the cool silt under the porch. I listened for the Panhead, but it never came. Finally, Old Man Cutcheon’s truck pulled into the yard, groaning as Kellen stepped out.

He jingled his keys as he walked across the yard, clouds of dust kicking up around his boots. Only when he put his foot on the bottom step did I climb over the railing. Step out sooner and someone else might see me.

Kellen walked across the deck, making the floorboards thump. From inside, Butch called, “Fee fi fo fum!” Sandy giggled.

Careful to stay to the side of the front window, I stepped out of the shadows. Sometimes Kellen had business and couldn’t come with me, but tonight he was waiting for me step into the light.

“There you are. I was up to the house looking for you, but the Corvette was there, so I didn’t go in,” he said.

Uncle Sean was there all the time now.

“Fee fi fo no?” Butch called from inside the trailer.

Hearing that, I hurried back to my hiding place. Kellen came down the stairs while I put my boots on. When he walked around the porch, I picked up the quilt and the cans of beer, and followed him across the yard, going away from the sound of Butch and Sandy.

“Is that Kellen?” Sandy said.

“I thought so, but there’s nobody out here.”

In the meadow, I had Kellen all to myself. He smelled good. Sweat and motorcycle and wintergreen. No stinking weed smoke. No perfume. No sadness. He smelled like love. Between the cottonwoods and the bluff, I spread out the quilt and offered him the cans of beer.

“Dang, you even brought me beer. We need a better system. Some way for you to let me know where you are.”

I liked that he wanted to know, but I also liked him not knowing. Sometimes waiting and being disappointed was good, to remind me he didn’t belong to me. Nothing belonged to me. I shrugged and lay down on the quilt, which didn’t smell like Grandma’s house anymore, unless I closed my eyes and concentrated.

“How are these new boots treating you?” he said, as he pulled them off.

He bought me new ones every year to start school. This was the sixth pair, to get me ready for high school in August. Seventh grade was at the old middle school, the last year before they closed it. For eighth grade, I would be going to the new high school in Belton County, which was an hour each way on the bus. “You’re not riding no two goddamn hours on the bus. I’m taking you,” Kellen said. He didn’t care that it was farther.

The boots for eighth grade had to be bought early, because I not only wore out the old ones but outgrew them, too.

I nodded, but didn’t open my eyes, to test an idea. If I kept my eyes closed, would it be easier to send Kellen a message? I waited but nothing happened, except that he went on talking while he took his boots off.

“You know, I still got a whole lotta poker money burning a hole in my pocket.”

“Yours.” I squinted harder, making stars sparkle inside my eyelids.

“Only what I started with is mine. You won the rest. Shit, Scott isn’t gonna live that down for a long time.”

Smiling made it harder to send my message, but I liked winning and having Kellen kiss my foot. I crept my toes across the quilt to find Kellen’s feet, which were hard as hooves. I went without socks, when I forgot to do laundry, but he didn’t own any socks. Still, I liked to pet his feet with mine. Touch his hands with mine. Rub my cheek against his. I liked how we were different, but the same.

Lying back beside me, he spread his arm out to make me a pillow.

“You didn’t go swimming tonight?” he said.

“Before. With Donal.”

“That’s nice. Is he in bed now?”

I nodded and wiggled closer so I could press my face into his armpit. Sweaty but clean.

“You need to quit squirming and lay still,” he said. He was ticklish.

I swallowed a giggle and stayed where I was to tease him. He always wanted me to say the stars, and if I didn’t do it soon enough, he got impatient.