Authors: Suzanne Supplee

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BOOK: Artichoke's Heart

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“Three,” said Mrs. Cox. “Kyle, Chris, and Kirk. Sixteen, thirteen, and ten.”

I nearly dropped my broom.

“They play football, don’t they?” I was always amazed at the number of details Mother kept stored in her brain. I fought back the urge to squeeze Mrs. Cox and introduce myself as her future daughter-in-law. Instead, I memorized her every detail.

“Oh, they all play everything,” Mrs. Cox went on. “The oldest one, Kyle, is the one in the papers all the time. He could use a social life. For him it’s sports and nothing else. I keep telling him to find a nice girl to go with, but nobody listens to me.”

Sweat prickled under my arms. My cheeks felt red. I couldn’t decide if I wanted Mother to introduce me or not. Finally, I decided
not
. I slipped off to the back room where I could still hear and see, but not be heard or seen. From behind the curtain, I scrutinized the woman who had given birth to Kyle Cox.

In a strange way, I was thankful she was frumpy and kind of overweight and wrinkled. Maybe Kyle wasn’t too picky about physical things. Maybe
that
was why he gave me nanosecond smiles. He was used to a big woman, after all.

chapter eleven

The Perfect Shade of Blue

Since Thursday, I’ve had nine Pounds-Away shakes, two Pounds-Away protein bars (Darlene -Charmaine talked me into buying them), and absolutely nothing else. This morning when I stepped on the scale, I’d lost a whopping five pounds. If a tornado ripped smack through my bedroom, I might actually move an inch or two.

I think Mother is feeling the effects of the chemo. This morning, when I asked her how she was, she smiled and said
fine
, but there were tears in her eyes when she said it. Of course, she was mixing up color for Nancy Guthrie, so I guess the tears could’ve been from the chemicals.

Tonight is Nancy Guthrie’s surprise fortieth birthday party, which Mrs. Guthrie knows all about (that’s why she was getting her hair done). Aunt Mary talked Mother into going to the party with her.

Right after Mother and Aunt Mary pulled out of the driveway, Grandma Georgia called long-distance from Florida. When she asked how Mother was doing, I did my best Mother imitation. “Just
fine
,” I trilled cheerfully.

Right away, Grandma Georgia
got it
.
“Oy vey,”
she groaned. Since retiring to Florida three years ago, my grandmother has taken up a second language. Her first language is Southern; her second, Yiddish. “How are
you
?” she asked.

“Not fine,” I said. “Scared. I’m really scared.” It felt good to say it.

“Me, too, Rose Garden,” said Grandma Georgia. “I expect your mama is, too. Deep down. It’s her genes that won’t let her admit it. She takes after your damn grandpa. God rest his soul,” she added quickly.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“He lived in a musical! I used to call him Oscar Hammerstein. I’d bring up some real-life thing that needed doin’ or fixin’ or some late bill that
had
to be paid, and your grandpa would start whistlin’! That was his response.
Whistling!
When I married him I thought some of that positive attitude would rub off on me, but it didn’t. It just rubbed me plumb raw, like sandpaper on a sunburn. Between his whistling and his toenails, I
had
to get out.”

“Toenails?” I asked.

“He never clipped them! Gouged me every single night when he climbed into bed. Toenails and toothpaste caps and toilet seats and whistling. It may sound like small stuff, but it looms large in the marriage bed. Don’t let nobody tell you different.”

“I’ll keep all that in mind,” I said, trying not to laugh.

“And you keep
trying
to talk to your mama, Rosie. I think it’d be good for both of you if you talked about it.” Grandma’s voice was serious now.

“I will,” I said, uncertain whether or not I would actually keep my promise.

“This Hodgkin’s thing . . . you know it’s pretty serious, right?”

“I know, Grandma. I found out a lot of stuff on the Internet.”

“So did I,” said Grandma Georgia. “Don’t be too hard on your mama now, hear? I was kvetching about your grandpa, but your mama’s different. She’s a responsible person. She doesn’t completely ignore her troubles the way he always did. She just doesn’t talk about them.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“Well, Rose Garden, this long-distance bill will cost a fortune if I don’t hang up. You call collect if you need to. Hear?”

“I will, Grandma,” I said.

The night felt eerie after I hung up. The whole house was so quiet it was like white noise in my ears. I put on an old Bonnie Raitt CD and lay on my bed, staring at the blue ceiling. It was painted several shades darker than my walls—“to make the room feel cozy,” according to Mother. She’d tried four different hues before she finally got the right one. A mother who would paint the ceiling four times had to love her daughter an awful lot. I closed my eyes and pictured Mother standing on the rickety ladder in my bedroom, her face dotted with paint spatters. “I think I got it, Rosie!” she’d said after coat number four was applied. “It’s perfect! Finally!”

“Cool,” I remember saying. Personally, I couldn’t tell the difference between blue number one and blue number four, but Mother certainly could, and she would’ve put
ten
coats on the ceiling just to get the color right. I wish I could go back to that day, when Mother was perfectly healthy. I wish I could go back and say something nicer than
cool
.

chapter twelve

Fat Girl Goes Bad

Technically, you could say I’m
on
the treadmill. I don’t know why I’m sitting here. Just restless, I guess. Every five seconds, I either have to poop or I have gas that feels like it may or may not be a poop.
Gross,
I realize, but my stomach’s so twisted up, I feel like there’s a whole Boy Scout troop in there—working on their knot badges with my intestines.

Today at lunch, I felt the need to masticate. The liquid diet was making me insane. My teeth needed to crunch and chew! And there’d been too much misery all weekend—my depressing phone conversation with Grandma Georgia, surfing
more
Hodgkin’s websites. And to top it all off, Mrs. McCutchin had another heart attack yesterday. Every problem must’ve been thumbtacked to my face, because right in the middle of a unit test, Mrs. Edinburgh leaned down by my desk and whispered, “Are you okay, Rosemary? You don’t look like yourself.”

“I
wish
I didn’t look like myself,” I mumbled. Mrs. Edinburgh cocked her head to one side. “Only joking,” I lied. “I’m fine.” I smiled up at her just the way Mother would’ve done. Thankfully, Mrs. Edinburgh didn’t ask any more questions.

At lunch, I ate like a
Survivor
contender who’d just been kicked off the island. I grazed my way through three lunch shifts— two barbecue sandwiches, french fries, chocolate pudding, ice cream . . . I sat in the hinterland, my back to the world, and ate away the success of the last several days. If I’d been slashing my skin with razors or shooting up, someone would’ve stopped me. There would’ve been interventions and meetings. As it was, the fat girl was eating. What else was new?

By the time the episode was over, I was thirty minutes late for study hall. I didn’t have a late pass. I didn’t care. The whole waddle down the empty hallway, I thought about Kyle Cox. I wondered if he’d missed me the way I always miss him when he’s late to study hall.
Yeah, right. When pigs fly out of my ass!
I thought (and considering what I’d consumed during lunch, this wasn’t entirely unrealistic).

The library door squeaked loudly when I opened it. Every head turned toward me, then jerked quickly away. Just once, I’d like to know how it feels to walk into a room looking like Kay-Kay Reese—the lingering eyes, the longing glances, the envious hearts.
Fat chance.

Mr. Lawrence sat grading papers. I held my breath and waited for his scolding, but he just rolled his pointy black eyes at me and wrote something in his grade book. Points off for tardiness, more than likely. I didn’t look in Kyle’s direction.

Ronnie Derryberry was asleep and drooling on his books again, but for once his fingernails were clean and neatly trimmed, a sharp contrast to my own, which were now dirty and sticky with barbecue sauce and chocolate. I settled into some pre-calculus homework and tried to forget myself. Impossible. My overloaded stomach was
killing
me.

“
Pssst
! Hey, Rosemary.” It was Kyle (his cold sounded better). The shame of having gorged my way through lunch was lodged in my throat, and my gut rolled like that giant bingo barrel down at the American Legion building. I kept my eyes locked on the blurred page of my textbook. I didn’t want to see Kyle’s friendly brown eyes or Kyle’s million-dollar nanosecond smile. Kyle would never belong to me, and there was little point in torturing myself. “
Pssst
!” he hissed again.

Quietly, I closed my book and stuffed it into my backpack. I slid my purse over one shoulder and my backpack over the other. Thunder thighs swishing together, I walked out—no hall pass— no acknowledgment of Kyle’s
pssst
s. I did not tell Mr. Lawrence where I was going.

FAT GIRL GOES BAD! WANDERS HALLWAYS WITHOUT A PASS! That’d be the headline for Misty Winters’s next big Spring Hill High School story. The corridors were empty. I passed the teachers’ lavatory, then turned back again. My stomach rumbled like Mount St. Helens.

Inside, the cherry-scented disinfectant made me light-headed. My mouth watered. I sat on the floor and leaned my head against the cool cement wall, but the sick feeling wouldn’t pass. Before I knew it, all my lunch was back up again. Floating in the blue toilet water were bits of pork, a lump of foamy ice cream, some nuts from a Snickers bar, and lots of unrecognizable things.
How could stuff that tasted so good thirty minutes earlier smell so sour now?
I flushed the toilet, washed my face and hands, rinsed my mouth out, and spritzed Binaca on my tongue.
I have to stop this. I have to get control over myself! I have to change!
My desperation was practically palpable.

When I pushed open the door, Mrs. Edinburgh was standing on the other side. We both glanced at the sign that read FOR TEACHERS ONLY. I didn’t wait for the scolding. Rudely, I brushed past her. “Rosemary,” she called after me. I kept walking. “Rosemary!” she tried again.

The bell rang just as I was about to open the library door. Kyle and I ran smack into each other. “Rosemary!” Kyle smiled and looked surprised. “Are you okay? I saw you race out of study hall.”

“Oh, um . . . I’m okay,” I lied. Truthfully, my throat felt like I’d swallowed a package of thumbtacks, but at least the nausea was gone.

“I wanted to give you something,” said Kyle. He pulled a pack of tissues from his coat pocket and handed them to me. “Thanks for the rescue the other day. I thought my nose was gonna run right off my face. Where you headed?” he asked.

“Related arts,” I replied. Having a conversation with Kyle Cox was like riding a bicycle for the first time—once I realized it was actually happening, I fell off. My tongue got all tied up (those damn Boy Scouts again). Kyle said something, but I was too busy staring at the tissues he’d given me. “I’m sorry. What?” I asked, looking up at him. We were standing close.
Thank God for Binaca.
If only Kyle knew I’d had my head in a public toilet ten minutes earlier.

Kyle smiled, cleared his throat, and rubbed his large bear paws (minus the fur) across his faded jeans. “You like basketball?” he asked, flashing that smile. Several NBs crowded the hallway. One crashed into me, but kept going, no apology. “I was thinking how I never see you
out
anyplace,” Kyle went on. “You should come to our basketball game Friday night.” The warning bell sounded. “Oh, God! Another unexcused late and I’ll have to sit out a game!” said Kyle. “Bye, Rosie,” he called over his shoulder.

I stood at the bottom of the stairs and watched Kyle bound up them effortlessly, two at a time. His butt was a nice, wide, manly football butt, not exactly the basketball build. In fact, Kyle was on the stocky side. I stared at the small package of tissues he’d given me—little red hearts were printed on them. For exactly two seconds, I actually considered going to the game. It would be worth it just to get a look at Kyle’s thick legs, to watch his muscles strain.

“Get to class, Miss Goode!” I heard Mr. Lawrence shout from behind me. “Climbing a few stairs won’t kill you!”

Two thoughts pulsed through my head simultaneously:

1. What would become of all the fat girls in the world if people just treated them nicely?

2. The only people who call me Rosie instead of Rosemary are the ones who love me.

Kyle had just called me Rosie.

After my confusing pig-out-barf-up-heart-tissue day, I went to see Mrs. Wallace. We didn’t talk about Mother or Hodgkin’s or Mrs. McCutchin or Aunt Mary. I wasn’t about to get all shrinky today. Instead, I spent the whole entire thirty minutes obsessing over Kleenex. “Do you think it’s just a coincidence that there were little hearts on them?” I asked. “And
why
is he being so nice to
me
when he could have a Bluebird? Maybe they were just some old tissues his mother already had. Maybe he didn’t even
notice
the hearts,” I went on.

Mrs. Wallace seemed glad to have me talking, even if it was about tissues. She didn’t provide any answers. She just kept responding with more questions.

“Next week I want you to come up with some reasons why Kyle might prefer a girl like you over a Bluebird,” said Mrs. Wallace.

“That should be one short assignment,” I joked. Mrs. Wallace didn’t laugh.

“May I disclose something about myself, Rosemary?” she asked, leaning forward a little.

“Sure,” I replied.

“I was at my very fattest when I married Joel, my husband.”

“You were
fat
?” I asked, surprised. Mrs. Wallace wasn’t skinny by any means, but she wasn’t fat either, just tall and
big-boned
, as Grandma Georgia would say.

“Oh, I was more than just fat. I was
o
-bese,” said Mrs. Wallace, “way bigger than you. Three hundred and fifteen pounds, to be exact,” she said. “Joel loved me, though.” She handed me a picture. In it, Joel, who was normal-sized and normal-looking, smiled and held a dog on his lap. “I just want you to know, Rosemary, that it’s possible to be fat and still be loved. You don’t have to wait until you lose weight to have a life.”

I glanced at Joel’s picture again and wondered what was wrong with him.

chapter thirteen

Life Force

Ginny Cronan came flying into the salon, acting all solicitous over Mother’s health. “Oh, honey, me and Hank’s been down in Florida. You know we spend most winters there now,” she bragged, dangling her left hand just right so her fat diamond would catch the light. “I just heard about the
cancer
.” She whispered the last word, giving it more emphasis.

Richard looked up from his
GQ
magazine. I stopped scrubbing the paraffin tub. Like matching copperheads, the two of us were prepared to strike. It’s Spring Hill common knowledge that Ginny Cronan hates Mother (something to do with high school cheerleader tryouts). No doubt the
real
reason Ginny stopped by was to see if Mother’s hair had started to fall out yet.

Miss Bertha hung up the phone. She’d been talking to some long-winded client about various straightening methods. “Rose Warren, Mrs. Simms just parked her car out front. You better get her color ready. She’ll be in a hurry today on account of her carpool.”

“Oh, yes. Well, you take care, Ginny,” said Mother briskly. With that she disappeared down the basement stairs.

Before I could take a breath, Ginny rested her hateful blue eyes on me. I suppose if she couldn’t slam Mother, I was the next best thing. “My,
you’ve
certainly filled out,” she said, her face plain and wide and speckled like an Appaloosa’s behind. Her thin, straight hair was cropped just below her ears, a style a five-year-old might wear. Richard eyed me. He was waiting for my verbal dropkick.

“You know, Mrs. Cronan, if all your freckles ran together, you’d have a tan,” I said. Richard’s face went red. He nearly swallowed the bobby pin he’d been chewing (his latest tactic to quit smoking). I waited for Ginny’s next insult, but she bolted out the front door, nearly knocking Mrs. Simms over.

Miss Bertha had an emergency budget meeting at her church, so I stayed late and helped Mother get the salon ready for the next day. For a long while, the two of us swept up hair and straightened work stations and folded still-warm towels in silence. Mother’s face was drawn and pensive. She hadn’t been the same since Ginny’s unexpected visit.

“Don’t worry about that woman,” I said finally.

“Oh, I’m not worried about
her
!” said Mother.

“Then how did you know which
woman
I was talking about?” I couldn’t keep myself from saying it out loud. Mother smiled slightly.

“She’s had it in for me ever since I made the Spring Hill cheerleading squad and she didn’t. Somehow she decided
I
was the one who cost her a slot, which is ridiculous. Considering we had fifteen girls and two alternates, it could have been any one of us who prevented her from making the team. She’s one person I hope I never lay eyes on again. If she went to Florida and never came back, I’d just love it.”

“That makes two of us,” I replied. “Why do you think girls like her are so mean?” I asked, but Mother didn’t hear me. While dusting her station she’d caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror.

“Oh, God. I look sick. I
look
sick,” she said again. “Why, that damn gossip Ginny will tell every soul in town how awful I look. She’ll have me at death’s door in no time! What if people think I’m too bad off to work? Why, this stupid disease could ruin my business! She’ll see to it! That’s probably why she came!”

“Mother, clients aren’t going to desert you because you have
cancer
,” I said. A tiny gray feather had come loose from Mother’s duster. It swirled around on the linoleum floor as if empowered by a mysterious life force instead of the heating vent, which had just clicked on again.

Mother straightened her narrow shoulders and smoothed her hair out with her fingers. “Everything will be just
fine
,” she said. Her mouth was tight and angry now. “Damn it, it
will
!” she hissed under her breath.

Instead of going home and eating (or drinking) a nutritious dinner (or shake) and getting some sleep, we stayed at the salon until midnight. Somehow the threat of Ginny Cronan had energized Mother. She washed the front curtains and rearranged the chairs in the waiting area. She had me call Doris’s Florist to order a bouquet of freshly cut flowers to be delivered first thing the next morning (I had to leave a message, since sane business owners are home by that time of night). Just when I thought Mother was finally finished, she decided to give herself a facial and a vegetable hair treatment. After that, she made me do her nails.

Hope is the thing with feathers.

chapter fourteen

The Biggest Error

I haven’t eaten one bite of real food since Monday’s barf episode, just nine Pounds-Away shakes in three days. No one knows. I haven’t said a word to Mother about Pounds-Away. I know she wouldn’t approve of my method, but for some reason getting off food completely for a while seems like the right thing. This morning, I weighed 181.

Encouraged by my progress, I put Mr. Hershey, Mr. Goodbar, Mr. Nestlé, and Mr. Reeses out with the trash. Actually, I stuffed them into a gift bag and left them for the garbage collectors with a note thanking them for their dedicated service (fat girls and garbage collectors have similar disadvantages in this image-obsessed world). Besides, it was twenty degrees out. I figured they could use a few extra calories just to stay warm.

Mother was expecting a package, so instead of going to the salon this afternoon, she had me stay home to sign for it. Right in the middle of
Oprah
, Miss Bertha called. “I know you’re watching your show, Rosie, but I wanted to let you know a man just called for you.”

“What?” I asked, lowering the volume. “A
man
?”

“He asked for your number, but I told him I couldn’t give out the home numbers of employees without their permission first.”

“Miss Bertha, you can put my number on a billboard if you want! What did he sound like? Young or old? Did he have a sort of raspy jock-type voice?” I asked. A girl is allowed to fantasize, after all.

“Honey, I got to go. Richard just spilled a drop of hair dye on his new shirt, and you’d think somebody poured acid in his eyes the way he’s carryin’ on about it.” With the sound of Richard screaming in the background, Miss Bertha hung up.

“Damn! Why didn’t she just give out my number?” I was so focused on happy Kyle fantasies it took a minute for it to dawn on me. This could be a fat-girl prank. Misty still hadn’t retaliated for my insult in the cafeteria that day. Surely she wouldn’t let me off that easy. Fear soon replaced excitement, so I turned up the volume slightly on
Oprah
to distract myself.

Two seconds later, the phone rang. I sat there staring at it. After the second, no-I’m-not-a-loser ring, I picked up. “Hello,” I said, trying to
sound
skinny, just in case.

“Can I speak to . . .
garble
. . .
garble
. . .
static
?” The mysterious caller had a bad cell connection.

“Hello? Hell-
o
?” I tried. Dead air. Silence.

“Do you have anything in . . .
garble
. . .
garble
. . . ?”

“I can’t hear you. Hello?” I was about to hang up, but suddenly the voice came through clear as a bell.

“I
said
, ‘Do you have anything in
green
?’ ” a male voice shouted.

My heart sank. I recognized Kyle’s voice, and he’d just said something about
green
.
Green
is the color of artichokes.

“Sorry,” Kyle laughed when he realized he was coming through loud and clear. “I didn’t mean to bust your eardrum.” No, just my heart, I felt like saying. “The reason I’m call—”

“I
know
why you’re calling, Kyle. You’re not the first person to crank call me.”

“Crank call you?”

“Go ahead. Make your little
green
comment.”

“Well, what I was . . . um . . . about to say was that I just wanted to see if you’d come to the Raiders game tomorrow night.”

“What does that have to do with green?” I asked.

“Our school colors. They’re green and white. A lot of people wear green to the game.”

I could just imagine Misty Winters or one of the NBs sitting next to Kyle, giggling into a pillow.

“I have to work,” I replied.

“Oh. Well, uh, some other time then.” Without a good-bye, Kyle hung up.

Either I had just made the biggest error of my high school career, or I had just avoided making the biggest error of my high school career.

chapter fifteen

To Be Continued

By some miracle the salon was quiet, except for the rain pounding the metal roof like noisy nickels. Richard had three no-shows in a row (no one wants to get their hair done in a deluge). Mildred had four (apparently, no one wants their nails done in a deluge either). Mildred threw a cover over the manicure station and went home early. Mother left for a hair show in Murfreesboro even though, as Grandma Georgia would say, she looked like death on a cracker.

While Miss Bertha and I updated client information cards, Richard spun round and round in his chair and ranted about the inconsiderate behavior of clients. “They don’t call when they’re not coming! They don’t say thank you half the time! They just take me for granted, completely and absolutely for granted! And the tips! Don’t even get me started on the—”

“You could go on home and enjoy the rest of your afternoon, ” Miss Bertha interrupted. She might as well have suggested he play a game of rugby. Richard lives alone. He needs an audience when he vents. Unless we could think of some way to divert his attention, his tirade was likely to continue until closing time.

“I could use a haircut,” I offered, which was true. It had been six months since my last trim, and that one I’d done myself at home with a pair of nose hair scissors.

“When did we do you last?” asked Richard, instantly perked up by the idea.

“Six months ago,” I confessed (I knew better than to tell him about the nose hair scissors).

Richard stared at me in horror. “Six months?” he asked. “Six
months
! Oh. My. God.” Richard strode over to the shampoo chair and patted its seat as if he were coaxing me to the operating table. “Right this way, please,” he said. “And FYI, Daughter of Hair Salon Owner. It’s not a hair
cut
. I’m not Floyd down at the barber-shop. It’s called a hair
style
.”

Obediently, I sat down at the shampoo station. Richard sang a Sting song falsetto while he lathered me up, and when he’d finished, he led me to his chair.

When Richard was done combing and cutting and pulling at strands to check the lines and blow-drying and styling, he twirled me around to face the mirror, but I could barely look at myself. “You have the hair of a goddess!” He clapped his hands together like an overly excited child. “I swear, you could be in shampoo commercials, Rosie!” I stared at Richard. His smile was wide and flashy. His skin, flawless. His cornflower blue eyes, full pouty lips, and Steven Cojocaru spiky haircut made him look like something out of a Calvin Klein ad (I suspect Richard would be very good at pouting and writhing around in his underwear).

“
You’re
the one who should be in commercials,” I corrected him.

“Oh, puh-
leassse
!” Richard protested, but I knew for a fact he thought the same thing. He was always talking about becoming a model. “Rosie, let’s do some makeup.” Richard’s reflection was talking to mine, and my reflection made an unpleasant face in response to his suggestion. “Come
on
! You’ll look great, I swear, honey. Just a tad to accentuate your features. You need to
work it
a little, girlfriend. Know what I’m sayin’?” he said, using his sista voice. Miss Bertha let out a cackle.

“Okay. Okay! Just a little,” I agreed, mainly to make him stop. “But if I end up looking like some character out of a John Waters film, you’re in big trouble.”

I settled back in the chair again and closed my eyes. Richard hummed an old Rod Stewart song, and I could tell by the light strokes that he was, in fact, taking it easy. There’s only one thing worse than being a regular fat girl, and that’s being an overly made-up fat girl. A blush brush is not a liposuction wand.

The concealer and base went on first, and Richard blended it with a sponge wedge. Next, he applied eye shadow and blush and eyeliner and mascara. He dusted my face with a coat of sweet-smelling powder, and I knew when he smudged my lips with gloss, he was finished. “You can open your eyes, Rosie,” he whispered.

“No.”

“Come on.
Look
in the mirror,” Richard insisted.

Reluctantly, I opened my eyes. The dark chestnut hair was sleek and shiny, as if it might belong to some really pretty, skinny girl. It certainly didn’t seem to belong on
my
head. The makeup was faint, an enhancement instead of a cover-up. Minus the extra person I was lugging around under my skin, I might’ve actually been pretty—brown eyes, small nose, full lips.

“Well?” asked Richard.

“I love the hair,” I said, which was true. “And the makeup isn’t bad.”

“Isn’t
bad
! Are you kidding me!”

“I love it!” I said, hugging him quickly. With Richard you have to make amends fast or he develops a grudge, and Richard-grudges can last months. He was just coming out of one with Mildred because she’d used his hair dryer on a client’s fingernails without asking. “I love this eye shadow and the way you contoured it in the corners here. And the blush! What’s this color called again?” The words came out so fake I reminded myself of a Bluebird.

“Berry Glow,” he replied flatly, putting all his brushes away. “Miss Bertha, will you clock me out. I’m all done here.”

“Richard.”
I tugged at his sleeve. Thankfully, the phone rang and distracted Miss Bertha. With Richard I could tell the truth about my lack of self-esteem. He wasn’t exactly brimming with the stuff himself, but I didn’t want Miss Bertha to overhear. “Richard, you did a great job. I love my hair. I’d love the makeup, too, if it were on another head, a less fat one. Please don’t be mad, okay?”

“I’m not mad. It’s just a sucky Valentine’s Day eve is all.” He glanced at himself in the mirror. “God, my hair is one giant frizz ball!” His hair was perfect, so I knew he wanted to change the subject.

Richard left, grudge-free, thankfully, but I knew I’d been the final thing to tip his rotten-mood scale. Sometimes the bad feelings I have about myself rub off on other people.

Miss Bertha dropped me off in front of my dark, empty house a little after five. The rain had stopped, and the street had that Krispy Kreme glaze about it. “We have a church supper tonight,” said Miss Bertha. “I’d love it if you’d come.” Miss Bertha always feels guilty dropping me off at an empty house.

“No, thanks,” I said. I squared my shoulders and bounded up the sidewalk with as much fake cheerfulness as I could muster. On the way home I’d started obsessing about Kyle’s basketball game invitation again. Maybe his invitation was real. But even with nice makeup and a new hair
style
, attending a basketball game alone on a Friday night was too much. I just didn’t have the courage.

“When I find myself in times of trouble, Ben and Jerry come to me . . .” I was creating blasphemous lyrics and staring into our empty freezer when I noticed the red light flashing on the answering machine.
Probably Richard,
I thought and pressed the button.

Message one:
Beep.
“Hi. It’s Kyle again. Just wanted to let you know the game starts at seven-thirty. In case you decide to come.”
Beep.

Message two:
Beep.
“It’s a home game, by the way.”
Beep.

My heart hammered in my throat. I glanced over at the fridge. The door hung wide open, and its interior light cast a haunting glow across the kitchen. I slammed it shut and looked up Melvin Plunkett’s Cab Service in the phone book. Quickly, before I lost my nerve, I dialed the number.

“Hi, uh . . . Mr. Plunkett, this is Rosemary Goode over on Stewart Street. I need a ride to Spring Hill High School tonight. I’m going to the basketball game,” I announced, as if Mr. Plunkett might comprehend the magnitude of this social stride.

I banged through the gymnasium door hideously early. According to the clock on the wall, which was protected by a metal cage, it was six-forty. The only other people there that early were a few of the overly involved parent types and their elementary-age kids. A brunette chattered animatedly about an upcoming fruit sale while her children slid up and down the sidelines and got their socks dirty.

Kyle stood at half-court. He was bulky-looking in his basketball uniform—thick arms that were not entirely muscle, beefy legs, a rounded middle. Right away, he smiled and waved. A basketball smacked him right in the mouth. “Eyes on the ball, Cox!” Coach Lord yelled. I jerked my head away and pretended not to notice the mishap.

The climb to the top and very isolated (just to be on the safe side) row of the bleachers made my heart pound. My deprived stomach growled. My low-blood-sugar head spun. The Pounds-Away I’d downed in Mr. Plunkett’s cab did nothing to stave off my hunger. I settled on my hard seat and watched Kyle practice.

The spectators trickled in slowly at first, then all of a sudden the gymnasium was filled, and the game started. Clearly, anybody who was anybody sat on the lower bleachers—Bluebirds, NBs, miscellaneous popular kids—SGA officers, homecoming and winter dance stars (queens and kings were elected at both). I sat in the loser nosebleed section unnoticed, of course, which wasn’t all bad. Being unnoticed was way better than being spotted and subsequently tortured. Besides, I could stare at Kyle openly without feeling like some weird stalker chick.

For such a big guy, Kyle was in great shape. Effortlessly, he bounded up and down the court. He blocked shot after shot. He stole the ball. At halftime, I watched a parade of Bluebirds file out to the concession stand. Diet Cokes in hand, they filed back in again just as the buzzer sounded.

Kyle started the second half, too. Machinelike, he passed and shot and dribbled and rebounded. I didn’t know who to be more proud of—myself, for simply showing up, or Kyle, for playing so well. Finally, with only ten minutes left on the clock, Enormous Strapping Jock Boy came out for a break. We were a solid twelve points ahead, but he didn’t sit down. Instead, he paced the sidelines and gulped water. With five minutes left, Coach Lord put him back in again.

At Kyle’s return, Kay-Kay Reese and the other cheerleaders went wild. “Hey, hey hey,” they chanted, “another one bites the dust.” The bleachers vibrated. The scoreboard flashed. It struck me then that people did this every Friday night. While I was home with my head in a bag of peanut butter cups, the world went right on turning. Without me. I thought of Aunt Mary’s mantra:
Don’t waste your youth being fat.

The Wildcats, our opponents, tried and failed to score. Thirty seconds. Fifteen. At ten, the crowd started counting down. The victory horn sounded. The Spring Hill Raiders won! I felt myself leap to my feet and cheer right along with everyone else. For that shimmering, victorious moment, I was a Spring Hill High School Raider. Not a fat-girl Raider or a misfit Raider, but a regular Raider.

I watched as Misty Winters led the other Bluebirds out the door. More than likely, they were off to some postgame keg party. After everyone was gone (except for the clean-up crew), I made my way down the bleachers. It struck me then that I didn’t have a ride home, so I headed to the lobby and dialed Mother from a pay phone.

“Hey.” I felt a tap on my shoulder. “You came,” he said when I turned around. A freshly showered, still somewhat sweaty, but smiling Kyle towered over me.
He
is
delightfully enormous,
I thought to myself.
And handsome. God!

“Great game,” I managed to say.

“I had a feeling if you came you’d bring me luck.” He smiled.

Mother picked up. “Hello? Hell-
o
?” I held up a just-a-minute finger to Kyle.

“Mother, can you pick me up at school?” I spoke as if I were making the most normal request in the world.

“School? What are you doing at school? You didn’t ask me if—”

Kyle was mouthing something I couldn’t hear. “What?” I asked him. “No, not you, Mother. Hold on a sec.”

“I can take you home,” Kyle whispered.

My heart doubled in size and banged against my rib cage. “Are you sure?” I asked.

“Sure,” said Kyle, licking the small cut on his lip.

“Never mind, Mother. I’ll be home later. Bye,” I said, hanging up before she could ask questions.

Kyle’s ancient blue and white Suburban smelled of wet dog and mildewed athletic equipment. He hoisted a set of golf clubs over the seat, then tossed a pair of cleats, a basketball, and several mysterious padded items into the way-back. “Sorry.” He grinned. “We have a lot of jocks in our family. I mean . . . um . . . athletes,” he corrected himself.

Smokey Robinson’s "Cruisin’ ” played on the oldies station, and Kyle sang along,
loudly.
His voice (Kyle’s, not Smokey’s) was slightly off-key, but I liked his easygoing, sing-out-loud confidence.

All too soon, we reached my house. Kyle shifted the gear to Park and turned to face me. “Did you do something to your hair?” he asked. I nodded. “It looks nice.”

“Thanks,” I replied. “I work at my mom’s salon. One of the stylists there talked me into getting it done.”

“Kay-Kay told me you worked there.”

“Kay-Kay Reese?” I asked, even though there wasn’t another Kay-Kay in the whole town as far as I knew.

“Yeah. She says you have a great shop. Or your mom does.”

BOOK: Artichoke's Heart

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