First & Then(31)

“So is this like a ballet school or something?” I asked.

“Oh, honey, no.” Miss Vicky had that old-time Southern dialect.

Marabelle entered the studio from what seemed to be a dressing room, followed by six or seven little girls. They were all wearing pink tulle skirts, but they weren’t doing ballet. They strutted behind Marabelle and swished their hips. Marabelle swished along with them, a sort of creepy, runway-walk Follow the Leader.

“This is a beauty pageant school. These girls compete in pageants all over the country. See Tiffany over there? Wave for us, Tiffany.”

Tiffany looked like a china doll I had when I was little. Brown ringlet curls and perfect tiny features. She waved and smiled, exposing missing front teeth.

“Tiffany won Supreme Ultimate Beauty last month at the Southern regionals. She’s our very best.”

“She’s cute,” I said, and couldn’t help but feel as if I were appraising an armchair or something.

“When she puts her flipper in, she’s even cuter. But Tiffany hates her flipper, don’t you, sugarplum?”

“What’s a flipper?” I whispered to Foster, like he would know the answer.

But he surprised me. “It’s fake teeth they make them wear.”

“How do you know that?”

“Marabelle told me.”

Miss Vicky overheard us. “Oh, Marabelle was our very best, our very, very best, student here at Miss Victoria’s. She won Supreme Grand Beauty three times at Fabulous Faces. I was so delighted when she came back to work with our girls.” She dropped her voice. “Some of the parents questioned the example she would set in her current situation, but I said, there is no way I’m letting my very best student go. And these little girls don’t know where babies come from, so what does it matter?”

“Okay.” Marabelle clapped her hands. “Let’s see our swimsuit walks.”

We sat and watched the whole class, from the swimsuit walks to the choreographed dance routines. I must admit, the whole thing was slightly unsettling. But Foster didn’t even seem to notice what was happening. He never took his eyes off Marabelle. And a couple of times I thought I saw her smiling in his direction.

This was singularly odd.

“Thanks for coming.” Marabelle walked us out the door after the five-year-olds had broken for the day.

“Do you need a ride home?”

“Oh, no, there’s another class in a little while.”

I looked to Foster to say something, but he was just staring out at the highway.

“Uh … thanks for having us,” I said. “It was really … interesting.”

Marabelle’s eyes flicked toward Foster. “See you at school,” she said after a pause, and then retreated back into the building.

I shoved Foster. I couldn’t help it.

“What?” he squawked.

“Why didn’t you say something? She was waiting for you to say something!”

“I didn’t know what to say.”

“Foster, you have something to say for every minute of every day.”

“I panicked.”

Once again I was reminded of how little I knew about Foster. “Have you ever had a girlfriend?”

“Sure.”

I eyed him as we got into the car. “For real?”

“Uh-huh. We made out and everything.”

“Liar.”

“It’s true! Have you ever had a boyfriend?”

“Sure.” My eighth-grade boyfriend was Kyle Morris. Future cymbal player in the high school band.

“And you made out and everything?”

“Foster.”

He eyed me. “Are you still a virgin?”

“Yes!” I screeched. “And don’t tell me you’re not or I’ll drive this car off the road right now.”

Foster just laughed.




I sent Rachel’s questions to Ezra that night. I started the message with “Hi!” and then thought the exclamation point seemed a little too excited. So I put “Hi,” but then that looked oddly glum. So then I wrote “Dear Ezra” and erased it, closed my laptop, squeezed my eyes shut, and wondered how or why my greeting to Ezra possibly mattered at all.

Then I opened my computer again, wrote, “Ezra, here are Rachel’s questions. Get back to me whenever. Devon.” And sent it. But I forgot to attach the questions.

Not five minutes after I succeeded in actually sending the questions, there was a ping signaling a message back.

Ezra had changed the subject to “I think Rachel Woodson hates me.” I cracked a smile. The body of the message just said “Will get back to you soon.”

I was sitting in bed not long after, slogging through a set of calculus problems, when there was another ping.

I could hardly believe it as I scrolled through. Ezra had answered all of Rachel’s idiotic questions. Not just answered them, but answered them seriously and with thought, with the authority of someone who knew what he was talking about.

I fell back against my pillows when I was finished reading. Ezra was far and away the best at football in our high school. That he made All-American said that he was one of the best high school football players in the country. What must it be like to have a path so clearly delineated for you? To have talent and a passion that guide your future like that? It seemed so foreign, and unlikely, and yet it made me feel weirdly … adrift.