Like Mandarin Page 9

  How does Mandarin do this every single day?

  Mercifully, the loudspeaker beeped. As the other students settled down, I felt charged with a sudden surge of affection toward Mr. Beck.

  “May I have your attention, please. May I have your attention, please.”

  Several people groaned. Business as usual.

  “Good morning, everyone, on this magnificent Monday, April sixteenth, with the temperature in the low seventies. This is your principal, Mr. Beck. First news of the day: we’ve come up with a theme for the big spring dance.”

  The whispers rose to a crescendo, then quieted completely. For once, everyone was interested in what Mr. Beck had to say.

  At our high school, dances were huge. Mainly because Washokey evenings were particularly bland. Kids attended keggers out in the sticks, shot pool at the Old Washokey Sip Spot (where minors were allowed until ten), or lounged around the A&W. That was just about it. Dances, however, were the epitome of the High School Experience. I’d always wanted to attend one. Alexis & Co. had gone to homecoming, but I had pretended to be sick that week to avoid the awkwardness of inviting myself along. I might have sat with them at lunch, but we hadn’t hung out beyond the cafeteria since sixth or seventh grade.

  “The theme’s going to be …” Mr. Beck paused for dramatic effect. “Cowboy!”

  The class immediately toppled into chaos, shouts, laughter, the screech of desks. And though the school’s use of “Cowboy” as an allegedly original theme insulted my intelligence, I felt swept up in the excitement.

  “Hey, Alexis,” I called.

  Alexis turned to Paige, ignoring me. “Hey, isn’t Brandi on the dance committee?”

  Paige nodded. “If we want, you and me and Samantha can come in and help decorate. It’ll be so exciting!”

  Alexis glanced at me before scooting her desk farther away.

  It hurt. It really did, in the seconds before I remembered myself. Hurriedly, I readopted my insolent expression, my casual pose. Those girls didn’t matter. I was nothing like them.

  When the bell rang, Ms. Ingle called to me as I hurried from the classroom. I pretended not to hear her. I wanted to get to math early, because I didn’t want to run into Mandarin unprepared.

  It didn’t matter. Because she was standing right outside.

  She wore her lavender sweater, the one from the day she’d confronted me at the soda machine. It occurred to me that I was wearing purple too, that we matched, although she wasn’t showing nearly as much skin as me. Her thumbs were tucked into the back pockets of her jeans, her hair slung over one shoulder.

  I took a deep breath and walked over to her.

  “Morning,” she said. She didn’t mention my skimpy clothing, my loose, unbraided hair. “I missed you this weekend.”

  I beamed like crazy, even though it didn’t make any sense. Mandarin had my phone number. We all had everybody’s; the Washokey directory was more of a pamphlet than a book.

  “Hey, what’s her deal?” she asked suddenly.

  I followed the tilt of her chin to Ms. Ingle, who was waving at us from the doorway. I looked away quickly. “Wants to talk about service project stuff, I guess.”

  Mandarin waved back at her, pretending to mistake her gesture for a hello. “Geez, lady,” she muttered. “Drop it already. We’re on it, y’know?”

  She turned to me. “Ms. Ingle can be such a bitch. Don’t you think?”

  I hesitated. Ms. Ingle had never been anything but nice to me. She was nice to everybody, in that wishy-washy marshmallowy pushover way. Never in a million years would I ever consider her a bitch. But I wasn’t about to contradict Mandarin. Not this early in the game. So I nodded. “Yeah, Ms. Ingle’s a bitch.”

  To my surprise, Mandarin smiled condescendingly. “No she ain’t. Not really. Although she is always up in everybody’s business. But it’s her job, I guess.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Right.”

  “Ready to go?” She reached out and took my arm. Any bewilderment I felt sailed away as she led me down the hall toward math, through an ocean of staring students, all of them probably wondering where in the world I’d suddenly come from.

  For the fourth time that week, Mandarin and I bought platefuls of fruit at lunch and sat side by side on a cement planter overflowing with lilacs. I mimicked her as she dug her fingernails into an orange, twisted the stem off a banana, bit the ripe parts out of a peach.

  “It’s getting warmer out,” she remarked.

  I nodded. “I guess they’ll open the pool soon.”

  “Yeah, not really my thing.” She flung her banana peel into the lilac planter. “I love the heat, though. Can’t wait for summer.”

  I took a bite of my unripe peach, because I wasn’t sure what to say next. Were we really discussing the weather?

  Problem was, Mandarin and I didn’t have much to talk about. We’d spent four lunch periods together now, the majority of the time in silence.

  I knew we should discuss the service project, not to mention California. But I avoided both topics. The first because I didn’t want to piss off Mandarin. The second because it made me nervous—and for some reason, she didn’t bring it up either. Which was just fine. Even if our conversations weren’t particularly inspired, our friendship was enough.

  And now everybody knew about it. At least, the kids who cared. I savored their reactions when we passed them in the halls. Sideways glances, sudden silences. Jealousy that crackled toward us like blue electric fire.

  I loved it. I loved their jealousy.

  Especially Alexis Bunker’s. The day before, we’d been stuck as partners in PE. She was supposed to hold my feet while I did sit-ups. Instead, she rested two dainty fingers on each of my sneakers, as if I had scabies or leprosy or some other ruthlessly contagious disease.

  “Alexis,” I said when her fingers slipped off altogether.

  “What?” she retorted.

  Instead of snapping back, I felt sorry for her. My friendship with Alexis had been so lackluster; we’d spent it watching cartoons in her basement and painting Femme Fatale makeup on her decapitated doll heads. I didn’t doubt she and the other two-thirds of Alexis & Co. still did the same things. Now the most exciting thing in Alexis’s life was the Miss Teen Bighorn Pageant she kept squealing about in homeroom, just loudly enough for everyone to hear. All the other Washokey girls had given up pageants long before.

  Meanwhile, my days were filled with excitement.

  Or rather, they would be. Soon.

  Because that entire week, my friendship with Mandarin had been confined inside the school grounds. Which wasn’t much of a friendship at all.

  I swallowed my crunchy bite of peach, mustering up all my nerve before I turned toward her. “So,” I said. “Are you busy after school today?”

  She paused. And paused some more.

  My question hung in the air so long it began to wilt at the edges. I wanted to fling myself into the lilac planter, pull a banana peel over my head, and hide.

  “It’s okay if you’re busy,” I said quickly. “I understand. I’ve got plenty to do anyway.…”

  “How’s seven-thirty?”

  “Oh—seven-thirty’s fine.” I stuffed another bite of peach into my mouth to prevent a wildwind-sized sigh of relief. It was like I’d endured some sort of covert friendship evaluation and, at long last, was cleared for advancement.

  The A&W Root Beer Stand was a relic from the 1950s. Momma and Taffeta and I sometimes went through the drive-through for ice cream, but we never parked or sat at the tables. It was a rowdy place, where decades of students staked out benches as soon as the final school bell rang. I thought of it as haunted by the teenage versions of our parents and grandparents. Just not the teenage version of myself—until that night.

  By the time I arrived, the sun had set. Crickets hummed in the vacant lot behind the brown building. Two of the six orange patio tables were occupied by kids from school, so I chose the table farthest away from them, arranging my
self with my back against one of the cement pillars holding up the corrugated tin roof.

  From time to time, I leaned forward to scan the dark street so everybody would know I was expecting someone.

  I’d had to delay my meeting with Mandarin until eight to help Momma triple-check Taffeta’s pageant gear. Clothes tape and tulle—check. Glitter spray and body polish—check. When I left the house, Taffeta was sitting on the stairs, caged by the vertical bars of the banister, trying desperately not to slurp her polished fingernails.

  I had jogged all the way to the A&W. Forty minutes later, I was still sitting alone.

  By then, I’d memorized the place, from the ink-blot blobs of chewing gum splattered all over the ground to the little gray spider doing push-ups on the tabletop, to the insightful philosophies of the kids sitting around me.

  Flannel boy: They’re thinking of outlawing smoking in the restaurants.

  Girl with glasses: No way. That’s like outlawing drinking in bars!

  Boy returning from piss in vacant lot: Hey, whose hands was on my burger?

  Football boy: It was Ricky. You should cut his nuts off.

  Ricky Fitch-Dixon, from homeroom: Innocent till proven guilty.

  Football boy: It’s proved, all right. I saw you do it.

  I also watched Sarah Cooper, the counter girl, as she stared off into space. Momma claimed that the A&W waitresses used to deliver orders in roller skates until one girl slipped on a puddle of milk shake melt and broke her tailbone. She had to wear a plaster cast over her butt like a diaper. After that, the owners adopted a new policy: Go up to the window and get it yourself. Business never slowed, since the A&W was the only fast-food place in Washokey—other than the Sundrop Quik Stop, where the potato salad had a purplish tinge.

  I picked up a french fry, then set it back down. With the money I’d begged from Momma, I’d ordered cheeseburgers, fries, and strawberry milk shakes for Mandarin and me. By now, everything was lukewarm. I felt like a new girlfriend stood up on a date.

  Maybe our friendship hadn’t advanced after all.

  Just as I was prepared to slink away, Mandarin plunked herself down on the other side of the table with a world-weary sigh. Instead of greeting me, she withdrew a cigarette, lit it, and inhaled. I noticed a hickey the color of a squashed raspberry on her neck before she flipped her hair over it.

  “What?” she demanded.

  I must have been glaring. I didn’t know I had it in me—the audacity to glare at Mandarin Ramey. “I don’t know. It’s just … I was waiting a long time.”

  “Come on, Gracey. I was busy.”

  “I just thought we agreed on seven-thirty, is all.”

  “Don’t give me the third degree, all right?” A puff of smoke escaped from Mandarin’s lips. I had the urge to pluck at it. “I get enough of it at school. The last thing I need is to get it from my best friend, too.”

  What?

  I paused my brain, rewound. She had said it. I was sure.

  She’d called me her best friend.

  I just couldn’t believe it—that I could be the best at something, like friendship. To someone like Mandarin. And after such a short time.

  “Well,” I said, hiding my smile, “our food’s all cold. I guess we can order more, if you like.”

  “No big deal. I don’t eat burgers anyways, but thanks.”

  I should have known. I’d only ever seen her eat fruit. “Oh. Well, I got us both milk shakes. Strawberry.”

  “Perfect.” She stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette on the tabletop. Then she took her milk shake and began to drink and drink, ravenous for that dairy protein missing from her diet. When she came up for air, the shake was half gone.

  “So,” she began. “Did you hear about the dance?”

  I nodded vigorously.

  I’d already imagined the entrance we would make. Just like in one of those teen movies. Everyone would be shimmying to the beat in their cowboy boots and hats, and then all of a sudden the music would stop—screech—because Mandarin and I had stepped through the door. In all my daydreams, I had long black hair, like hers. We would cross the gym, and everyone would part to let us through, their faces slack with admiration, as we made our way to the center of the dance floor. And then …

  “My God,” Mandarin said. “I wouldn’t be seen at that thing if the devil jabbed his pitchfork in my back. What a nightmare.”

  I stopped grinning.

  “Can you believe that idiotic theme?” She pilfered one of my french fries and held it between two fingers as if she were about to smoke it. “Cowboy. As if we aren’t surrounded by cowboys every waking minute. And ranchers. And miners, all cruddy with bentonite dust. Dirty, worthless men.”

  It troubled me, the way she said it. I remembered meeting plenty of friendly, helpful cowboys and ranchers and miners during my pageant road trips with Momma. They gave us directions, pointed us to diners and motels. They patted me on the head and fished for mints in their dusty jeans pockets.

  And anyway, Mandarin sure didn’t act like she hated them.

  Or so I’d heard, anyway. I was dying to know how she really spent her evenings and weekends. Was my tally correct? What exactly did she do once the door closed? How could I truly be like Mandarin if she never told me the details?

  “Don’t you go out with some of them?” I asked.

  Mandarin took a long swallow of her milk shake. I suspected I’d asked the wrong question. I tried to clarify what I’d said, to make it sound innocuous, since I didn’t want her to think I was accusing her of sleeping around. But all I could think of was “Like, your boyfriends?” which probably made it worse.

  “I know what you’re saying,” she said.

  “No,” I interjected. “No, I’m not. Not saying what you think I’m saying, I mean.”

  “Don’t lie. I can’t stand liars.”

  “But I didn’t—”

  Deliberately, she set down her shake. “Listen, Grace. Don’t you go asking about things you don’t understand. What I do in my own time is my business, and it ain’t for anyone else to judge. Including you. All right?”

  “Fine,” I said in a small voice. “Sorry.”

  “I sound like a hypocrite. That’s what you think, right? Hating on men, and then sleeping with them. Well, maybe I know a few more men than you do. So don’t that give me a better perspective?” She picked up a clear plastic water cup and dumped the water on the ground. “Trust me. You sure as shit don’t have to like somebody to take ’em to bed.”

  She overturned the cup on top of the little gray spider. Instead of squishing it, she slid the cup across the table and shifted the spider to her hand.

  “Besides,” she said as she released the spider in a patch of weeds, “I don’t just hate men. I don’t discriminate. I hate all people equally.”

  “Errybody freeze!” hollered a man. “I got a gun!”

  Nobody froze. Because everybody recognized the wheezy, boozy voice of Earl Barnaby, the most notorious drunk in town.

  Earl’s everyday apparel included two dirty plaid shirts in contrasting colors, one unbuttoned over the other. His face was usually scorched pink, from the midday hours he spent passed out in parking lots. Momma said he’d been a year behind her at school, but he looked old enough to be her father.

  He slapped his hand on the counter in front of Sarah Cooper. “Now, nice an’ easy, empty that there register, or I’ll blow this pop stand into the ground. I gotta catch a plane to the izzlands t’night.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “Aw, come on, Earl. Can’t you just leave us alone for one evening? I’ve been here almost since noon. I’m exhausted.”

  “But I gotta burgle. I’m a burglar, it’s in my blood.” He aimed his finger at her menacingly.

  “The only thing in your blood is too much whiskey. Now fuck off, Earl, all right?”

  The huddle of teenagers began to laugh. They weren’t paying any attention to Earl, but he seemed to think their laughter was directed toward
him. His shoulders sagged.

  “Jess a little loan, darlin’,” he pleaded. “My plane’s taking off! I gotta get to the izzlands t’night, but I got nothing to get there with. Ain’t there nothin’ you can do?”

  “I would, but it’s not my money to give you,” Sarah said.

  When Mandarin turned back toward me, I saw that her whole face had changed. Like she was holding back tears. I’d never seen her look like that before.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “At least Earl over there’s dreaming of better places. But I swear, sometimes it seems like he and us are the only ones. It’s like no one else is even aware that there’s a whole world outside Washokey.” She closed her eyes. “God, we need to get out of here!”

  With her eyes still closed, she spoke again. “Did you know I’ve never even seen the ocean?”

  I shook my head, then realized she couldn’t see me. “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “Have you?”

  “Once,” I said. “I had an aunt in Washington, and we flew there to see her before she died. I was seven or eight.”

  My memory of the ocean came crashing back. A gray sea. Cliffs, tall trees. A plane journey to Seattle to meet my mom’s dying sister. Momma rarely spoke about her, so the trip had been a surprise. It was during the pre-Taffeta, postpageant days of my childhood, when Momma didn’t know what to do with herself, and I used books to hide. We slept on the pullout couch for three nights. Each morning, Momma rose before she thought I was awake, to sit on the porch and drink black coffee and stare out at the water.

  “Tell me what it was like,” Mandarin commanded.

  “The ocean? It was big. And gray. And constantly moving. Like there was a storm inside it. It scared me, I think.”

  “I wouldn’t be scared.” She took a small, deliberate sip of her milk shake. “Y’know, there’s strawberry fields in California. Stretching on for miles. All the way out to the sea. Rows and rows. You could run forever and never see them all. And the way they’d smell … Can you imagine?”