Ugly Girls: A Novel (10 page)

He allowed himself a smile, but only a smile. He wasn’t a boy anymore. He was an adult, he had to find reasons not to lie on the ground and wail. On his break he’d get a fresh cup of coffee. It was only two hours until he could punch out. Nasty men like Herman were locked up where he could see them, not out prowling around on the lookout for ain’t-nobody-can-get-me-type girls. Girls like Perry. Girls who just seemed to be asking for it. But that wasn’t a fair thought, either. Who goes around asking to be messed with?

PERRY MADE FUN OF IT,
and it was clear she felt a little embarrassed, but Baby Girl had always liked the trailer park where Perry lived. Most people kept their shit real neat, little potted plants and sets of chimes and even a birdbath out in front of one. There wasn’t hardly any trash in the yards, no rusted-up cars on cinder blocks, no smudge-faced kids in bloated diapers running wild. And the closeness of the trailers to each other made it feel all cozy, like a bunch of people got together and decided to live within arm’s reach of each other. At night you could hear what was on people’s televisions, what they argued about, and once Baby Girl had heard a woman praying.

Of course, there were a few trailers in the park that you wanted to avoid, trailers with music and yelling and shit flying from the windows, trailers with dogs on chains or bags of trash rotting out front. Trailers with people that didn’t know no better, or didn’t care to. Best just to look past, to the people that did.

Still, Baby Girl liked the trailer park because it was different from where she lived, which was a neighborhood full of gray and brown houses and people polite to your face. All fences and cul de sacs and garages. The trailer park didn’t have none of that, it was more real. Easier to be a girl with a half-shaved head who didn’t give a
fuck
, you was just one of many different kinds in the trailer park.

It was such a sorry thing, being in some weird girl fight with Perry. She and Perry should be beyond normal girl stuff, Baby Girl felt convinced. Especially when it was about some dumb motherfucker using one to get to the other, as she now knew Jamey was doing.
Fuck him
, she told herself for the millionth time. Couldn’t get the hope that he’d give up on Perry and try with her out of her mind, though. No matter how many
fuck him
s she chanted. And this made her hate him even more.

It had been days since they’d talked. A whole weekend had passed. Then Perry had texted
Quit acting like a little bitch
the night before, and that was why this morning Baby Girl had driven over, parked in front of the trailer. Perry calling her a bitch meant things were getting back to normal.

A car honked, Jim driving up behind her. She’d have to back up, around his truck, to let him in. Instead, he put the truck in park, got out, came around to her window. “You driving Perry to school today?” he asked her, leaning in. His collar was a faint yellow. Charles got ring around the collar too.

“Yeah,” she said. “I thought I might.”

“Just make sure you end up at school,” he said. “Don’t get sidetracked.” His voice was quiet, like it was only a suggestion; it was clear he was trying not to sound too harsh.

Baby Girl liked Jim. He tried real hard to keep it all together. She might’ve just said,
Sure, of course, we’re going to school, you bet
. Instead she said, “You should sprinkle some baking soda in the wash. You got ring around the collar.”

Jim straightened, backed away. A strong breeze caught in his hair. The neighbor’s chimes went ape shit. He ran his hand over his face like he was trying to smooth down the wrinkles. “Yeah,” he said, “I know I do.”

At last Perry emerged. Waved a Pop-Tart in the air like a stolen wallet, all
Look what I got
.

“We’re going to school,” Baby Girl said, but it wasn’t clear if Jim heard. Perry got in, didn’t offer the Pop-Tart. As they backed up she said, “Are we really, though?”

JAMEY STOOD
in his hiding spot, watched them pull out. Perry licked her fingers, that friend of hers bobbing her head, the loud, thumping beat hitting him in his sinuses, then fading as they drove off. When he was a teenager he hated school, never hardly went, but now he felt envious that they had somewhere to go, somewhere they were expected. In jail it was the same way. Eat every day at the same time. Shit when it’s your turn to shit. It got to where he depended on that kind of schedule, got lulled into it like a hammock he didn’t even have to rock himself. Even now, on Tuesdays, he got a taste for green Jell-O, one of the surprise desserts they were allowed if no one had fucked up too bad.

It was anyone’s guess where them two were headed, though. Maybe school, maybe not. He texted the both of them. He knew that Dayna bitch would get back to him, in one way or another, she was so grateful to have his attention.

“Jameson,” his momma called. If she didn’t see him right in front of her, she started calling his name. He could be three counties over, for all she knew. She’d just keep calling until he showed up, or until she gave herself a stroke.

Worse, she was calling his name with that little baby-doll voice, that voice he’d heard her use on any man she wanted something from, didn’t matter if it was her son or just some crotch rocket she met at a bar. But her bar days were long gone, now that she couldn’t hardly get herself out of bed or off the couch. So that voice was all for him.

“Jameson!” It was the kind of voice he wouldn’t mind hearing from Perry, yearning, husky, afraid even. He walked quickly back, took the steps all at once.

“Jameson,” she said when she saw him. She’d worked some lipstick out of that nearly empty tube she kept under the cushion, he could see how the orange smeared on her lips matched the orange all around the tip of her finger. “You’ll rub my feet?”

If he said no, she’d make him regret it. On the occasions he did refuse, like when she wanted him to bathe her, or help her pick out an outfit she’d only be wearing to the couch, she’d thrown a tantrum she’d cooked up special for him, thrashing and yelling and even once flopping to the floor like all the life had gone out of her.

He had been a difficult son. He hadn’t made it easy on her. Had abandoned her when he went to jail. He knew this was her way of paying him back. He hated the thing she’d become, this sickly whale, hated that he’d been any reason for it. One hate repulsed him, one drew him nearer.

“My feet?” she said, that squeaking in her voice, that sexual squeak; she was begging.

Sometimes he hated her for being weak enough to conceive him in the first place. “Just let me get the lotion,” he told her.

“I have some,” she said. That plump claw going under the cushion, her mouth wet, excited. “It’s Jergens,” she said, holding it out to him. He didn’t know how she could lie comfortably with it stashed under her cushion like it was, but then again it was only one of many treasures she nested upon.

She hefted her legs up so he could sit, brought them down upon him. “Don’t be no skimp,” she said.

His momma’s feet were soft, white, thick, and as unlined as a baby’s. Ragged patches of polish dotted her toenails. He’d have to see about Perry’s feet. Did she keep them up, or was she the kind to pay no mind to stuff like that? It suddenly felt very important. He squiggled some Jergens into his palm, began working it into the tops of his momma’s feet. He tried not to watch his hands.

“I said don’t be no skimp!” She swatted at his arm and missed. Jamey pressed harder. “Mm,” she said, relaxing back into her cushion. “My boy’s got strong hands, don’t he?”

Jamey figured that Perry and Dayna must be at school by now, or still in the car on their way to somewhere, the windows down, air smelling like exhaust or biscuits or honeysuckle, depending on where they were. Here in his momma’s trailer it smelled sour, the sourness of a woman who didn’t move all that much, the sourness of her skin and breath and fear. The Jergens tendriled through, did its best. It smelled clean and plastic, and Jamey pretended like that was all there was to smell. He made another mound of lotion in his palm, ground it into his momma’s feet.

“Why don’t you have no girlfriend?” his momma asked. Her eyes were closed, the back of her hand across her forehead like she was bravely enduring whatever.

“How you know I don’t?”

His momma snorted. “Okay,” she said. “You don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. I’m just saying I know a man’s got frustrations, and you ain’t taking those frustrations out on me.”

You wish,
Jamey thought. She moved her toes, their sour smell familiar to Jamey, the definitive scent of his momma. He dumped on more Jergens.

“I’m working on it,” he said. “I got my eye on someone. She’s acting hard to get but I know she’ll give in. She’s nearly mine.”

“Good,” his momma said. “That’s real good, baby.” She flexed and pointed her toes, her voice that squeak again, that girlish hidden promise.

Jamey closed his eyes, tried to imagine it was Perry’s feet he was working on.
She’s nearly mine
, he thought again. He knew it was true, too, that it was flimsy, whatever was keeping Perry from him, delicate as a diary lock, and he just had to find the key. Or something proper to smash it with.

THEY WERE AT THE DRUGSTORE.
Baby Girl had driven right past the school, right past the entrance to the highway, right past the turn they’d have to take if they wanted to hide out all day in the woods or hang out by the quarry. Plenty of kids did it—you just drove in as far as you could go, parked your car off the side of the road, and then plunged in on foot. If anyone was determined enough to drive in and go looking for someone, they’d only find your car, and they’d assume you was just someone who lived in one of the shacks or huts or tents way back there. Most people would assume, anyway. And then you’d just spend your whole day in there, sitting around, daring each other to run hard toward the quarry, and only stop just short of tumbling in, ha-ha, close one. Throw your old cigarette packs in, or someone’s shoes if they were dumb enough to lose sight of them for a second. Perry wouldn’t have minded going there, being outside, daring Baby Girl to lumber to the edge. But Baby Girl had kept driving.

“What you wanna do?” Perry asked her, three times, and each time Baby Girl just shrugged, but it was clear she had a plan. Hadn’t even slowed in indecision. And then finally she’d pulled into the parking lot out front of the Walgreens.

“I got an idea,” she said.

The plan was for Perry to distract the cashier. They were counting on the cashier being male, so Perry wouldn’t have to work too hard to keep his attention. Just push her hair around, cross her arms so her shirt got tight over her chest, ask what time it is.

They’d walked in separately, Baby Girl about thirty seconds after Perry. Once inside, Perry saw that the cashier was an old woman, her hair a pink-tinged cloud, her mouth so beset with lines it looked like she’d once had her lips sewn shut and the scars had never healed. Perry texted Baby Girl:
This bitch looks mean
.

Itll be fine
, Baby Girl texted back.
Go to plan B
. Plan B was for a female cashier. “Ask about pregnancy tests,” Baby Girl had said. “Lady cashiers will either want to lecture you or else they’ll want to take you in the bathroom, help you unzip, and pat your head while you pee on the stick.”

She was in one of her moods, Perry could tell. Couldn’t take her eyes off the goal, which Perry wasn’t even clear on to begin with. Distract the cashier. Wait for Baby Girl to walk out. Wait for her cell to ring, pretend like it’s urgent, walk out fast with her phone to her ear, get in the car.

But what was Baby Girl even doing? Obviously stealing something, but what? She’d find out soon enough, she figured.

A man was buying cigarettes. Perry waited behind him. She checked her phone, she shifted from foot to foot, she touched the packets of gum like they were jewels. She wanted the lady to see how nervous she was, wanted the lady to feel sorry for her. Didn’t want the other option: getting a lecture about keeping her legs closed. She was surprised to realize the dread in her belly was real: it swirled and stabbed, it had a mouth with teeth.

The old woman finished with the man, looked at Perry with her eyebrows arched. They were mostly drawn on, Perry could now see, in a navy blue pencil. Her lips just lines of orange. Perry felt for the woman, all those colors that didn’t go.

“You buying something?” the woman asked. “I can’t sell you no cigarettes unless you got an I.D.”

“No, ma’am,” Perry said, using her best
I’m scared
voice. “I’m not a smoker.”

“Not here to judge you,” the woman said.

“Thank you, ma’am. No, I’m, I need help with, pregnancy tests?”

The woman watched her, those two orange lines moving like the woman was working her answer around in her mouth first, making it smooth and clean, before spitting it at Perry.

“I’m not saying I
am
pregnant,” Perry said. “I just need to know.”

Finally the woman answered. “Well,” she said, “what do you need help with? Are you asking do we sell them?”

Perry hadn’t prepared for this. The woman’s eyes were pale blue, like they’d been put through the wash too many times. They glittered at Perry, watching her act like an idiot.

“I know you sell them,” Perry said. She hoped it hadn’t sounded too bitchy. Where in the hell was Baby Girl? “I’m just asking if you know which is the best one. And also what aisle?”

“Sweetheart,” the woman said, but it was clear she didn’t feel like Perry was no sweetheart. “I am seventy-two years old. When I was the age to have babies they didn’t have no tests. You just waited for the doctor to nod or shake his head. Aisle three. As to which is the best brand, your guess is as good as mine.”

“Well, thank you, I guess,” Perry said, and this time she hoped it did sound bitchy. Fucking Baby Girl. Now Perry wasn’t sure what to do. This woman had clearly dismissed her but her job was to distract the woman, not go off to aisle three and stare at the pregnancy tests. In fact, she hoped to never have to look at a pregnancy test, ever in her life.