All the Rage(9)

“Fucking hot outside, man.”

Brock gives him a look, but he doesn’t push it. He heads inside without spotting me and I exhale. I might not get so lucky on his way back.

I glance at Deckard’s and Mom’s still cornered by Conway. I get out of the car quick and go in after her. Inside, the AC is cranked and the cold air makes me shiver. My arrival brings the sound of Conway’s gruff voice to an abrupt halt. Mom looks at me. She’s got two unpaid bottles of Coke in her hands.

“Have I been that long?” she asks.

“I’m not going to have time, if we don’t go soon.”

“You’re right.” There’s something grateful in her face that makes me think I should’ve broke this up sooner. Mom turns back to Conway, who is all steely-eyed now that I’m around. “Well, you take care, Dan. It was nice talking to you.”

“You too, Alice.” He smiles at me. His yellow teeth stretch across his pudgy face. His bald spot is barely concealed by his blond comb over. “Hope you’re staying out of trouble, Romy.”

Conway says that to everyone but he doesn’t mean it because if they did, he wouldn’t have anything to talk about. Still, the way he says it to me is different than he’d say it to anyone else. Small town nuance. Something you don’t learn in the city. It’s knowing when hello means go away or when rough night means I know you got drunk again or when yeah, I’d love to see you, it’s just so busy lately means never, never, never. When Conway tells me he hopes I’m staying out of trouble what he means is I am the trouble.

I go back to the car while Mom pays and when I round my side, I notice a word cut through the dirt coating my door.





S L I T


Because “slut” was just too humanizing, I guess. A slit’s not even a person.

Just an opening.

The sun shines off the clean lettering. I slowly face the Escalade. Alek is looking elsewhere, but there’s a small smile on his lips.

I see Mom headed my way out the corner of my eye. I drag my nails through the word until it’s off the car, get inside, and rub my hand on my leg, streaking it with grime.

If Mom notices the Turner boy in his luxury truck, she doesn’t say so and it’s not until we’re on the road, heading out of Grebe that I feel like I can breathe. I watch the farmland roll past and wonder how anyone settles on this place when there’s Godwit only a few hours north and Ibis, which isn’t even a blink to the east, but far enough to feel like another planet.

Everything’s better somewhere else.

The Barn doesn’t even have the decency to look like what it’s named after, it’s just a boxy discount store—THE BARN, a sign in large, neon orange letters against an electric blue background over its entrance—with a parking lot that’s pretty full up because more people than don’t in this area get what they need to live here. We cross the parking lot and Mom puts in a quarter to unlock an orange shopping cart before we go inside.

Everything is here. Food and movies, clothes and cheap furniture that looks nice and falls apart fast. At the back of the store, there’s candy, toys, decorations for whatever upcoming holiday, then all your personal hygiene needs. The grocery department belongs to itself. In Grebe, there are two kinds of people: those who shop local and those who shop here.

Mom stays close while I pick through an eight-dollar bra bin at the back of the place. They’re so cheap, so unspectacular, they don’t even hang them up for display. Pieces of cloth with pads, that’s all. But it’s all I really need.

“Okay,” I say and toss them into the cart. There’s something about the way she looks at them that makes my face burn. It’s one thing when Tina calls my bras an embarrassment, but it’s another when my mother does, even if it’s not in so many words.

“Are those enough?” she asks.

“Mom.”

“I mean, are they going to give you enough support? They look sort of—”

“Yes. They will.”

She gives me a look. “You could have something nicer. I always think really nice underwear and pajamas are the best things you can get for yourself. I always feel so great when I have a good bra on or a—”

“Thanks for the nightmares, Mom.”

She laughs and wanders over to a rack of pink bras with fine, black lace edging. The tag attached to them has a picture of an amazing pair of breasts. It’s a push-up.

She holds it out to me. “Try it.”

“No. It’s okay.”

“What’s wrong with something like this?”

“I have what I need.”

I must have this look on my face because she drops it and I let her lead me through the rest of the store and stay quiet while she loads a week’s worth of groceries into the cart. At the checkout, it’s just boys at the registers and I can’t stand the idea of them knowing what I wear underneath my shirt. I tell Mom I have a headache, give her my wallet, and wait in the car while she pays for it all. I wish I didn’t have a body, sometimes.





i’m waiting for an old man to tell me what he wants to eat because he won’t let me leave his table before he decides because he knows he’ll decide as soon as I leave his table and then he’ll “spend the rest of the night trying to wave me down.” I can’t convince him otherwise, so I stand there while he adjusts his glasses and trails his finger over every menu item, waiting for something to call out to him, periodically asking my opinion on any potentials. It’s just f*cking food, I want to tell him. It’s fuel. It doesn’t have to taste good to keep you alive.