Ugly Girls: A Novel (15 page)

That morning one of the guards had called her a goon.
Hey, Blondie, get your goon, someone’s here to take you home.
And it was true. She was a goon. Perry’s goon. The word felt like a second name. If the guard had wanted to insult her, well, the guard had done the opposite. The guard had revealed her, reminded her.
Fuck this
, Baby Girl thought, though by
this
she couldn’t tell if she meant everything—the guard, arrest, Perry, Jamey, her own sad vanity—or the nothing she was hoping to drive into.

It was Jim, waiting there for them, watching them come down the short hallway like he was just picking them up after school, hands deep in his pockets. Kept them there when Perry walked up, even as she put her arms around him.

“Y’all are lucky,” he said quietly. “Since Dayna didn’t technically steal anything the drugstore ain’t pressing any charges. And the old woman you assaulted says the Lord told her she shouldn’t press no charges, either.”

Baby Girl watched to see if Perry would laugh at this, but she’d just nodded, her head down. Like she’d learned her lesson. And maybe she had, at some point in the night, maybe she’d also been lying sleepless, but Baby Girl doubted it. It was more likely she was just giving Jim what he wanted, pretending like she’d grown a conscience overnight. It had disgusted her, seeing Perry’s bowed head like that, filled her belly like a fungus.

Now, in her car, she couldn’t understand her disgust. This was the way Perry had always been. It had never bothered Baby Girl before and in fact Baby Girl had treasured this about her, had envied it, even. So then what was different? She worried it was her own pathetic softening. She wanted to be touched. She wanted a friend. She wanted, she wanted, she wanted. She
was
pathetic.
Girly
. She had to get her shit together. She couldn’t blame Perry for being what she’d always been.

In the parking lot Jim had pulled Baby Girl aside, his hand firm on her shoulder. “I’d tell you to stay away from each other,” he said, “if I felt like you’d listen, but I know you won’t. You bring out the worst in each other, is what I believe.”

Baby Girl shook off his hand, wanting to say something back, but the words caught in her throat.

“You want to keep going on like that,” he said, “I guess that’s how it’ll go until something stops you. I hope this was the something for you.”

He had put a hand on top of her head, just for a second, like he was checking to see if it was real, what she’d done to herself. “Is this you?” he’d asked. “Is it?” Then he’d gotten in his truck, waited for her and Perry to follow so he could drive Baby Girl to her car.

“Fuck yeah, it’s me,” she answered now. It was ten in the morning, everyone at work or school. There were no cars in the rearview, just her own eyes looking back. It dawned on her that a man must have driven her car to the impound lot, had likely pushed her seat back so he could fit. She hadn’t shrunk in the night after all.

WHEN PERRY SAW JIM’S FACE
she knew her momma must have had a doozy of a night. Then when Jim told her about the old lady not pressing charges because the Lord told her not to, Perry could feel a ghost of herself standing nearby, laughing. It was how she would normally have reacted. But Jim’s face and the way he kept his hands in his pockets made her feel sick. Myra was an asshole. She herself was an asshole. They should be doomed to live together in that trailer, each driving the other to drink, or go out and throw shit at old ladies, until the end of time. Jim should be living with some woman who had a garden, could put her lipstick on straight, drank a beer only when it was rude not to. A woman that didn’t have no kids, a woman that didn’t need him so bad.

Sometimes Perry hated the understanding she and her momma had, especially when she remembered how that understanding came to be in the first place, remembered nights when Myra would bring a friend home to
play cards in the bedroom
, remembered nights when Myra would spit up, quick and deadpan as a baby, scoop it up in her cupped hand, remembered nights when Myra wanted to sleep fitted to Perry like a snail to its shell. Remembered how the trailer felt soggy with Myra—there wasn’t nowhere to go. Tears enough to fill the baths she loved to take, and it was a wonder those tears weren’t carbonated.

Perry had seen Baby Girl at school, she was chubby and freckled, with eyes the color of maple syrup, and she had a big brother that was nice to everyone, only he was dangerous, too.
You don’t want him liking you
, Baby Girl had said. Perry felt in love with him, felt desperate to play cards in her bedroom with him. Then after his accident Baby Girl started wearing his shirts to school, stopped bringing her books to class, shaved half her head. And Perry felt in love with that, whatever it was Baby Girl was up to, wanted some of it for herself. That armor.

But it had grown from the inside out. She’d wanted to show Myra how she looked, so she’d made herself metal, shiny as a mirror. Learned all about playing cards in the backseat of whoever’s car. Getting warmed through with beer. And going further than Myra ever had: never, ever, asking could she have a hug or a kiss, never asking Baby Girl to spend the night in her room because she felt lonely. Ignoring loneliness, finding other shit to do with her time than be lonely.

Backseats and stealing cars and throwing gum at an old lady was easier than being at home.

She’d always wondered what Jim’s backseat or stealing cars was. Figured he had to have something. Maybe he went to a diner after work some mornings, flirted with a waitress. Maybe he didn’t even go to work some nights, and went to the home of a woman who had a garden.

But seeing his face at the end of the hall that morning confirmed it: he didn’t have shit. She and Myra were what he had. She’d tried to put her arms around him, let him know she felt grateful, but it wasn’t something she usually did, and it had felt like hugging a telephone pole. There had been no give.

They’d dropped Baby Girl near her car. She hadn’t turned to meet Perry’s eye, had just walked down the row. Perry watched her thick back and bald head until she’d ducked into the driver’s seat of her car, out of sight. The triumph Perry had felt the night before, revealing her secret about Jamey, felt shameful now. Worse than the triumph was that she’d needed to show those other women the power she held over Baby Girl. The power she held in the world: men wanted
her
.

Travis was right in not wanting her. And Baby Girl was right in not turning back.

“Myra told me to leave you there,” Jim said. His voice sounded etched through, scratchy and raw. “But I made the choice to leave you there all on my own. That ain’t no place for teenaged girls, hopefully you saw for yourself.”

Perry nodded. She knew that’s how Myra would react, it had been why she’d texted Jim instead of her own mother in the first place. Still, it burned hearing it, that Myra had decided to go home and drink herself into a stupor instead of … what? Standing outside the jail, calling Perry’s name? Offering to sleep with whoever if they’d release her baby? Getting arrested herself, to keep Perry company?

This was Myra’s voice she was hearing now, not her own, Myra’s voice running down the list of nothings she could have done. Perry was an expert at channeling that voice, at making excuses.

“I’m sorry,” Perry said, another thing her momma often said, but Perry wanted to mean it, wanted it so bad that she clenched down, molars grinding against each other until her ears rang.

“I ain’t taking you home,” Jim said. “Your momma’s not right, and since you already missed a day of school I figure you should go in today.”

“I haven’t showered or nothing,” Perry said. She tried to keep the whine out of her voice, but it was there.

“You can wash up at school,” he said. “I know they got sinks there.”

“My schoolbag is still in Baby—in Dayna’s car.”

“I don’t care if you sit in class and do nothing,” he said. “You ain’t coming home right now.”

Perry heard how he was trying to keep control of his voice, too, saw it in his grip on the steering wheel. She wondered did he ever think about putting his hands on her or Myra, shaking them, pushing them, hitting them until he felt better. Knuckles throbbing and bloody instead of throbbing and white, there in front of him on the steering wheel, him having to breathe through all that rage unspent. It made
her
feel better, thinking of him losing control like that. Like it was possible that everyone had something dark inside them, everyone had something they were barely controlling, even that nasty old lady at the drugstore, even Jim. Even anyone.

JAMEY’S MOMMA
was perched on the edge of the couch, struggling to get her pants on without using her hands, since they were busy planting her firmly where she sat. Kicking her legs, her whole face wet with tears. A warbling sound burbled forth from her, surfacing like a fart in a bathtub, when she saw him come through the door. “I was fixing to go out and find you,” she said, “just as soon as I could get dressed properly.” It was a bright morning, the sun giving off the kind of light that made him feel like everything was going to be okay as he walked the short distance from where he’d hidden in Perry’s room to his momma’s trailer. He noticed things he’d never noticed before, like how the neighbor catty-corner to his momma had marigolds in a pot that were so yellow they were surely fake. Or how the neighbor next to that had a stained-glass butterfly hanging in the window. Such beautiful green wings that caught the light and gave it back in a way that he almost felt flirted with. Or how pretty the name of the road that snaked between the trailers was. Cinnamon Way. He’d never paid any attention to it before, but it had a ring to it. It was fun to say, and he did say it, letting his teeth linger over the starting
s
sound. The counselor at the jail had said Jamey’s urges were wrong, were sins if you were the type to believe in God. But he had her panties, he’d smelled the sour spot on her pillow. Jim had his hands full with Myra. Everyone distracted that needed to be. Except him. He was as focused as a soldier. His pecker so hard and sure it could have divined water in the desert. All the signs were saying his urges were just right.

But then he saw his momma. Her face slick with snot and crying, her hair mashed on one side, riding the couch like a lazy hooker, trying to scoot on her pants. His pecker had shrunk so fast he felt like it had dissolved. “Let me help,” he said, and that stilled her legs.

“Leave it. I don’t need them on now.” With effort she swung one leg and then the other so she could lie flat on her back. Jamey stood by like a spotter, though he’d long suspected if she did fall he’d edge out of the way as quick as a bobcat and let her splat splat splat.

“Okay?” he asked, still holding his hands up like he’d catch her.

“You can’t do that to me, Jameson. You can’t disappear on me. I got to know where you are at all times. I got to know you ain’t out there prowling.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“If you can’t find a proper girl—a woman—then I’m going to have to be enough for you, son. Enough woman in your life. You hear?” She had reached up, was holding on to his forearm so tight he was worried her nails would draw blood. “They said if you don’t do right they’ll take you right back in and there ain’t nothing I can do for you then.”

“You don’t have to worry, Momma. I was just out carousing with the guys.” The lie came easy, the phrase
carousing with the guys
something he’d surely heard on TV.

“I’m going to have to be enough,” she said again. Her eyes so brown they looked red at the edges, the flimsy lashes clumped and wet. She looked like something beached, something wet through and struggling for oxygen.

“You are enough,” he said, and removed her hand finger by finger from his arm, placed it on the fleshy rounded dune of her belly. She had always been a needy mother, had always fed upon his attention like a shark to the chum. “You want me to get the Jergens?” Had always demanded to be touched. The counselor had told him mothers weren’t supposed to behave that way, weren’t supposed to desire their son’s touch the way they might a husband’s, but it was all he knew. It had always been this way. He had been rubbing her feet, had been going higher at her demand, since he could remember.

“Just sit with me,” she said, another sign from above that everything would be okay. She fell asleep fast, her mouth open wide to scrape in any air it could. He hid Perry’s undies under his bed and signed on, waiting.

I WANTA MEET UP.

Finally Dayna had popped up online, and Jamey had jumped at the chance to talk to her, find out if they were out, where Perry was, if anything had changed. Find out if Perry had mentioned him, frightened in the cell, confiding in her friend, her one true wish coming finally clear: to meet this love-dumb stranger, this boy she’d been toying with for weeks.

Yeah? With me or with Perry too?

So she had mentioned him, Dayna knew he’d been talking to both of them. Probably knew he didn’t want nothing to do with her, in a romantic way anyway, knew he was just in it to learn more about Perry.

Both of u. That ok?

He wanted her to feel like he hadn’t only been talking to her to get to Perry. Wanted her to feel like he was in it for friendship, too. In a way, he was, he realized. She said shit that could shock you. She was interesting to talk to. And she had a car. Finally, she replied.

I shaved the rest of my hair off and I don’t got time for you to pretend like you want to be my friend still. That ok?

Im not pretending
, he wrote.

I like u

Whyd you shave off your hair??

And plus, Perry was more likely to meet up with him if she knew she had a friend nearby. This was something he’d learned over the years: girls felt better if they traveled in twos. He’d learned to make it work in his favor. Flirt with the homely one in the pair and it stirs something up, a kind of pride—they always knew they were the better choice in the pair—that they’d feel ashamed of, try to tamp down by ramping up the loyalty. Show the other girl she wasn’t the jealous type, that she was the strong one, and fine, no problem, agreeing to take a walk, hoping with each step that he’d come after her, knowing the farther she walked that she’d had it wrong all along, feeling worse because of it, and more often than not this girl, this scorned dummy, walking home with a hot face and a throat full of tears. Leaving Jamey plenty of time with the friend, the girl he’d been after all along.