All the Ugly and Wonderful Things (10 page)

“I knew what I was getting into with him. I wonder if that bimbo he's with does.”

Later, Snake Girl wandered in and sat on the sofa next to me like we were strangers. That was alright with me. She picked up the bong and started smoking. Just like I had on the porch, I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. I wished I could go home, but I was too fucked up to ride.

“Whose little girl is this?” said some woman with a sloppy drunk voice.

I sat up and opened my eyes. Wavy stood in the trailer doorway, wearing her nightgown and looking lost.

High as a fucking kite, Dee made a beeline for the door, saying, “Wavy, baby, what are you doing here?”

Wavy dodged Dee's hand and Yvonne and Neil's legs, doing whatever they were doing on the other sofa. Before I could get on my feet, she came around the coffee table and wedged herself in beside me on the sofa.

“Hey, is everything alright?”

Wavy nodded.

“Is she okay?” Dee said.

“Yeah, she's fine.”

“Should I maybe take her back home and put her to bed?”

Wavy scooted closer to me, resting her hand on my belly to steady herself. It seemed like an invitation, so I put my arm around her.

“I'll take her home,” I said.

Snake Girl, who'd been crashed out on the other end of the sofa, sat up and said, “Where did she come from?”

“She's Liam's daughter,” Dee said.

Wavy glared at her.

For the first time since Liam left the room, Snake Girl looked interested in something. She held her arms out and said, “Aww, she's so cute. Come here, sweetie, you wanna come sit on my lap?”

Wavy ignored Snake Girl and slid her arm around my neck. Then she laid her head on my shoulder. Her hair was wet.

“She won't come to you,” Dee said. “She won't sit on anyone's lap except Kellen's. He's your boyfriend, isn't he, Wavy?”

Wavy nodded. Surprised me. So I was her boyfriend?

“How'd your hair get wet?” I said.

She pressed her cheek against mine and whispered, “Swimming.”

“You want a snack or something before Kellen takes you home? We have yummy brownies,” Dee said.

“Those brownies have pot in 'em.” I wished Dee would shut up and let Wavy talk to me. Her coming there like that, to talk to me, it meant something.

Before anybody else could say something stupid, Wavy put her lips to my ear and said, “Come into the meadow.”

It made my skin prickle all over. I'd wanted to go out to the meadow before, and I'd got myself stuck at that stupid party. I scooted forward to the edge of the sofa and said, “Saddle up.”

She put her arms around my neck and I gave her my hands for stirrups. Like I was her horse, and she was a cowgirl trying to make a quick escape from some hostile Indians. Except that I was the Indian and we were both trying to escape from hostile saloon girls. It made better sense if I didn't think about it too hard, but it made me giggle.

Out in the meadow, the hay was up past my waist, ready for cutting. Bugs chattered, went quiet as I walked by, and started up again once I was past. The air was less heavy out in the open, not hot and sticky the way it was around the trailers. It felt good to be out, getting further from the lights in the yard, so that I could see the stars overhead.

I kept walking until Wavy pulled up on the reins, tugging on my T-shirt and pushing the heels of her boots into my hands. I got down on one knee to let her hop off, and when I stood back up, she took my hand. She led me past a stand of cottonwoods that made a windbreak for an old five-hundred-gallon galvanized stock tank. There was just enough breeze to make the windmill blades creak, and make the pipe dribble water. The tank looked black and bottomless at night. I wouldn't be brave enough to swim in it, but she was.

Up above the cottonwoods, there was a bluff cut into the hill. In between, there was an open patch of hay. The grass was tamped down in a circle just about her size.

It was what I wanted before: someone to lie out under the stars with me. I could see how it never woulda worked with Snake Girl. She was only interested in bikes, getting high, and Liam. Wavy, though, she smiled at me like she was inviting me into her house. I flattened a bigger section of the hay, enough room for both of us. When I spread my arms out, she laid down next to me and rested her head on my arm. I felt so weird inside my skin, like the stars were pressing me down into the earth, pressing Wavy's head down on me. Part of that was the weed, I knew, but it was the stars, too. All that light traveling from so far away.

I held my breath, kind of waiting. Usually we looked at the stars after dinner, out in front of the farmhouse, playing with Donal. Wavy would start by pointing out a few constellations, and then I'd pick out some I knew. Or thought I knew.

“Ursa Major,” I said, trying to get her to start. I could always pick that one out. Big Dipper. Except I couldn't find it.

She cleared her throat, like she was scolding me, but it was just to tease.

“Cassiopeia.” She lifted her hand up, drew it out for me. Five stars zigzagging.

“Cepheus.” Four stars that made a triangle, plus a fifth that dropped down like a kite tail.

I couldn't keep track, but after she finished, I was pretty sure that wasn't all them.

“What about Orion? Which one's Orion?”

She turned on her side, laid her hand on my belly, and slid it down to my belt buckle. I had to grit my teeth not to squirm. She had a way of making me feel ticklish.

“Right. Orion's the one with the belt, with the three stars, but I don't see it.”

“October.”

“Really? It's not out 'til October? We'll have to come back in October then.”

Then I saw a shooting star. I was trying to remember how that was supposed to go, to wish on it, when I saw another one and then another.

Thinking I must be imagining it, I said, “Did you see that falling star?” Right as I did another one flew across the sky.

“Perseid,” Wavy said.

“Persay-what?”

“Perseid meteor shower.” Another one shot past Cassiopeia like an arrow.

“Wow.”

She nodded against my arm and after that, we were quiet. We didn't need to talk. We just laid there watching falling stars go streaking white through all that darkness.

 

PART TWO

 

1

KELLEN

December 1979

In high school in Oklahoma, there was this girl I liked, and one night after I went out drinking, I climbed up to her bedroom window. In bed, she let me kiss her and grope her a little, but then she told me to get lost. She really only liked my bike. Not me so much. Climbing up to her window, though, that was fun. What Old Man Cutcheon called “shenanigans.”

Climbing the trellis under Wavy's window felt like shenanigans, but as soon as I knocked on the sash, I realized I was too drunk and being stupid. I shouldn't have been riding, let alone climbing up to her window.

I woulda gone back down, but Wavy opened the window before I could. I guess she'd heard the bike coming up the road. I crawled over the sill and managed to scramble into her room without busting my ass. She closed the window and stood there like a ghost in her nightgown. Waiting for me to say something. Well, yeah, since I just crawled in her bedroom window in the middle of the night.

“I brought you a present,” I said.

“Not Christmas yet.”

“No, not Christmas. It's a—a birthday present.”

“July.”

“I know your birthday's in July. I just—I don't—I'm a little drunk. It's actually my birthday. I brought you a present for my birthday.”

“Today?”

“Yeah, today's my birthday. Well, yesterday. I think it's past midnight already.”

Her teeth flashed in the dark and she took hold of my hand, pulled me toward the bed. It was the only place for me to sit down, but that spooked me. Made me think about climbing through that other girl's window to get in bed with her.

“No, sweetheart. I just came to bring you a present.”

I'd carried it tucked flat into the back of my waistband, but when I pulled it out, I dropped it on the floor. Before I could pick it up, she pulled me another step toward the bed.

“Cold,” she said.

“Yeah, you need to get back in bed. I let all the cold in opening the window.”

“You.”

I
was
cold. When Wavy held the covers open for me, I sat down on the edge of the bed. I shrugged outta my motorcycle jacket and kicked off my boots. Left my jeans, belt, and shirt on. Drunk as I was, that seemed okay. She was in her nightgown, but I was still dressed.

Getting under the covers was easy enough. I fluffed the quilts and tucked them around both of us, since my arms were long enough to arrange it all. She huddled up along my side, shivering, and rubbed her feet against my leg trying to warm up.

Once I got my arm around her and she laid her head on my shoulder, we were warm and comfortable, and ready to go to sleep. And that was the goddamn problem. This wasn't the same as falling asleep next to Wavy in the meadow. I was
in bed
with her. If Val came upstairs and found me there, I couldn't exactly say, “I was too comfortable to leave.”

“Wavy? I better go.”

She shook her head.

“I can't stay here.”

She dug her chin into my arm. A nod?

“Seriously, sweetheart. I can't.”

Her answer was so quiet, I wasn't sure I heard it right. I didn't want to be sure, except I needed to be sure. It felt like two dogs were playing tug-of-war with my heart. She wouldn't say it again, and it turned out I wanted to know more than I didn't want to know.

“You love me?” I said.

The sharp chin again. Twice. There weren't many things she thought were worth nodding twice for.

“I love you, too. I love you.” I said it twice, to be sure she heard it. I shivered, not cold anymore but knowing that saying it out loud made it real. For a long time it was this sneaking feeling I didn't look at too closely, but now I'd said it. I laid awake for a while, feeling her breath on my arm, but finally, being warm and comfortable and drunk caught up with me, and I fell asleep.

*   *   *

I woke up needing to piss, with my dick hard as a rock first thing in the morning, and there I was in Wavy's bed, with her curled up next to me. When I went to get up, she held onto me.

“Present?” she mumbled.

“Yeah. Here, let me up. You think your mom'll wake up if I go down to the bathroom?”

“Window.”

“Sure, I can leave the way I came.”

“I won't look.”

Her eyes were squeezed shut against the sun coming up, but she turned her head away, too. It was the quickest fix, so I lifted up the window sash and undid my zipper. The cold took care of my hard-on right quick. Wavy giggled at the sound of piss splattering and freezing on the metal porch roof, but she kept her face hidden until I zipped up and closed the window.

“Present.” She must have been feeling brave. All that talking and the way she looked at me.

Her present was on the floor where I'd dropped it the night before. Seeing it in daylight, I was embarrassed it was something so cheap. I'd thought it was magical when I bought it and, when she took it from me, it still was. Her face lit up, so she was half angel and half little girl with sleep wrinkles on her face.

“They glow?” she said.

“Yeah, and you stick them up on your ceiling. So you can have stars even when it's cloudy like last night. So you can see Orion all year round.”

“Wonderful.” She said it so soft it wasn't even a whisper.

“I better go. I don't think Val would be too happy about me being up here.”

Wavy shrugged. I pulled on my boots and jacket, before I opened the window again. Looking at the trellis, I couldn't believe I'd climbed up it in the middle of the night. Stupid as hell.

So the boots had to come off again and I tiptoed down the stairs behind Wavy. In the kitchen, I tugged my boots on, while Wavy waited in her bare feet. When I reached for the knob on the kitchen door, she put her hand on my arm.

“Nothing for your birthday,” she said.

“Not nothing. You gave me the best present I've had in a long time.”

Since she didn't step back from me, I took her face in both my hands, turned it up, so I could lean down and kiss her. On the mouth, but nothing dirty. The kind of kiss you give someone you love.

She smiled at me. A real smile, with teeth and dimples and the whole shebang.

 

2

AMY

After Thanksgiving, Mom started calling Aunt Val and saying, “We want the kids to come for Christmas. If you'll tell me how to find your house, I'll come get them,” but Aunt Val wouldn't. Mom finally gave up, but four days before Christmas, this little bald man showed up to drop them off. He didn't even bother to take the cigarette out of his mouth to introduce himself to Mom. His name was Butch, and he was a “business associate” of Uncle Liam's, he said. He told Mom that somebody else would come pick Wavy and Donal up, but he didn't say who or when. Until then, they were all ours.

Dad made Wavy promise not to sneak out, but that didn't keep her from doing other weird things. At the rehearsal for the church Christmas pageant, Donal got cast as a shepherd and the choir director cast Wavy as an angel.

“That's probably not a good idea,” said Leslie, who had been passed over as the Virgin Mary every year and twice was stuck being the Innkeeper, the jerk who makes Jesus get born in a barn. Now that she was too old to be in the pageant, she helped the choir director corral angels. She didn't want to corral Wavy.

“Why not?” the director said.

“She won't talk. Or sing,” I said. In my last year in the pageant, I was the third wise man. That's the problem with the Christmas story: most of the roles are for boys. The only girl is there because men can't have babies.