She just laughed to herself, a sad, wicked little sound, then said, “You just don’t get it, do you? You think you’re so cute. Little Miss Hot Thing with your skimpy bikini. You think you look so good in it. But you don’t. You just look slutty. And desperate. Which is all you’ll ever be.”
Tears stung my eyes, which made Julia smile even wider, andI dropped the hose, then ran into the house. I hate that she can still get to me. That I haven’t grown a thick enough skin to not care. But despite her nastiness, I miss her. I do. I miss the sister who used to be my one and only best friend. The one I used to race through fields with, prairies tall with grass, covered in wildflowers. She was my confidant, before she turned on me, became a stranger.
So yeah, I like it here where I can be alone, where I can let my thoughts run wild and free as a river, especially when I think about Luke, my stomach pinching with longing.
It’s him I really miss. Our fingers laced together as he sped through West End in Dallas in his Camaro, taking me to the clubs. Our kisses tasting of the clove cigarettes we’d smoke. His hand on my thigh as he shifted gears, the car bucking with each change, then taking off like a rocket through the sooty underpasses.
My hair is wringing with sweat as I twist the blackberries off the vines, but I put the headphones on anyway, press Play on my Walkman. A gift from Luke, as is the mixtape that begins to whir in my ears.
“Fall on Me” by R.E.M. starts and I spread out my thin blanket, lie in the shade of the orchard. It’s a broody song, but Luke can be broody. It’s the side of him I like most, the romantic side.
When we get out of this place, he often said, his voice low and rough in my ear,there’ll be nothing holding us back.
This placemeant Dallas. Meant school. Meant his lousyhomelife with parents who were too hardworking and who judged him too harshly.
New York City, that’s where I’m taking ya, he’d promise as his hands roved down my sides. I’ve never been to New York.
Dallas is one of the biggest cities we’ve ever lived in.
I was born in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, but we moved right after, when I was just a few weeks old, so I don’t even remember it. My entire childhood, my whole life, really, has been us picking up from one small town in the Midwest and moving to another, migrating south as we went.
It’s Pa’s business. He makes custom furniture for the wealthy, and small towns only have so many of those. So we have to move, sometimes hit the cities. I don’t usually mind, except now I miss Luke. I’m gonna quit early today, fix my usual ham-and-cheese sandwich for lunch, then ride Cookie to the general store so I can call him from the pay phone.
We have a phone, of course, but I like to call him in private.
9
Nellie
I can hear the shower running—Mom’s morning ritual—so I creep along the hall, head downstairs.
I want to eat my Pop-Tarts in private, without having to get into any bullshit “little chat” with her. But when I round the corner to the kitchen, I hear Dad’s laughter; he’s sitting at the eat-in, the small TV set tuned toThe Price is Right.
Bob Barker isnotfunny, it’s sonota funny show, but Dad’s a goofball, so between spoonfuls of Frosted Flakes, he laughs.
“Morning, dollface!”
He’s called medollfacesince I was born.
“Morning.” I open the pantry, slit open a foil pack of apple cinnamons, drop two in the toaster.
Dad’s sitting on a barstool, leaning over his cereal bowl. Still in his pj’s, with bedhead, he looks like a little boy. Make that a little boy with a hangover.
I’m crazy about Dad, mainly because his love for me has always felt real, with no strings attached.
No mind games, no control.
So freaking different from Mom.
Some of my happiest times have been with Dad. When I was little, I’d trail him around his great-grandparents’ land in Kilgore, the next town over. Just the two of us tromping around the hundred acres of woods and streams, the land that had made our family filthy rich when oil was struck on it in the ’20s. Black gold, they call it. Dad’s family was already wealthy, descended from some kind of land barons back in Sweden, but the oil money is a different kind of rich. Unlimited.
Mom hates anything that has to do with being outside—probably because she spent her own trashy childhood poor and depressed out on that hideous farm—so she’d stay behind, get pedicures with her friends, or spend some money.
But on Dad’s family’s land, crunching golden maple leaves under our feet, he taught me to shoot a rifle, use a bow and arrow. Shit I’m actually interested in.
He doesn’t care about all the social bullshit that Mom does. Doesn’t watch my every move. He lets me just be me. I think he actually would’ve preferred to have a son, so when I was little, I did my best to play the part, not that I had to pretend that much: not flinching when the rifle kicked my shoulder, keeping a straight face as we skinned the deer we’d hunted, begging him to drive his Jeep Wagoneer faster and faster down the back roads.
Sure, I had Barbies when I was younger—because everyoneelse did—but I liked to play with them differently.Perversely, is what Blair’s mom said.
