Ugly Girls: A Novel (19 page)

“I got held back,” he said through his thumb, aiming his answer at Perry. Better for Dayna to get the picture—no one wanted her here—sooner rather than later. “And I’ve always looked old for my age. I ain’t been carded since I was fourteen years old.” He moved his hand up to his hair, raked his fingers through. Shifted his weight to the other foot, so he’d look casual, so he’d look unperturbed by what Dayna had said or what she might say next.

“You get held back a whole decade?” Dayna asked. She smiled, her cartoon mouth in an ugly grin, but her eyes were red, the flesh underneath puffed and veiny. She’d been crying, Jamey realized. All girls, when you got right down to them, were pretty much the same. They all wanted to be the prettiest to someone, they all cried when things got to be too much for them.

“You been crying?” he asked. He tried his best to make his voice sound concerned. “Everything all right?” He knew she wouldn’t want him noticing that, wouldn’t want to talk about it with him most of all. And he knew it was the perfect thing to get her to shut up, to get her to mumble how she was going for a walk, or how she’d be waiting in the car. Or, even better, how she’d come back for Perry after a while. He was betting on that one, betting her embarrassment would send her somewhere she couldn’t see them.

But it was Perry who spoke next. “We just came to let you know we ain’t into you,” she said. “So you can just go ahead and lose our numbers. Stop waiting around by the computer for us to show up. I got a boyfriend and Baby Girl thinks you’re a shithead.”

It was clear she hadn’t wanted to use the word
shithead
, it wasn’t mean enough. Jamey knew the feeling. What was also clear to him was the wavering in her voice. A girl’s loyalty to her friend would make her say anything, try anything, Jamey knew.

A boyfriend
, for example. That had to be a lie. He hadn’t seen her with no boyfriend, hadn’t heard Myra mention it, either. Why would she say it? It was a risk on her part. How could she know how he’d react to it? Some guys might be driven off by shit like that. Not him. He felt as old and wise as a tree trunk. One little chop couldn’t take him down.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I ain’t into Dayna like that. I never have been.” He stopped just short of saying
I’m into you
, wanted to maintain whatever aloofness he had left, but he knew he had to say out loud what they were both wondering: Who was he here for? Had to calm them, reassure Perry most of all. He was her devoted. Another thing his momma said.
Are you my devoted? Huh, are you? Yeah, you are.
Her voice like a dog’s tongue on its own butthole. Another hot wave roiled through his bowels.

“Don’t say my name,” Dayna said. “You don’t know me.” She sounded like one of those white people who wanted to be black. Plenty of those in the jail, all of them crazy enough to swallow a sharpened toothbrush just so they could shit it into an enemy’s eye.

“Anyway,” he said, his eyes on Perry. “You want to go somewhere and talk?”

He might even show her the underwear. Why else had he brought it? He needed her to see that he was serious, he’d done his work. Maybe she’d be scared. Even better.

“Did you hear what I said, dummy?” Perry asked. The rain was picking up. Her eyes had slitted themselves against it. Jamey was shocked to realize she was near ugly. He could see the mean parts of her momma in her. Wet wasn’t her look.

“Did you hear what
I
said?” he asked. “You ain’t got to worry about me and Day—your friend here.”

The girls cut eyes at each other, laughed. It irked him, he couldn’t help it. This was one aspect of girls being friends that he did not like. Still, he smiled along with them, letting his thumb drop away.

“It ain’t no use,” Dayna said.

“Nope,” said Perry.

Things hadn’t gone his way before, plenty of times. Sometimes it took awhile for the girl to warm up to him, trust her emotions. He’d even given up a time or two, walked away empty-handed and disappointed. But he felt like it was too soon to make that kind of a call.

The girls were turning away from him now, still laughing a little. Dayna was shaking her head like he was a lost cause.

“Hey now,” he said. “It ain’t polite to leave the table before you’re excused. I want to talk to you.” He could hear how firm he sounded, how adult, but he hoped it came off as macho.

“What do you want to say?” Perry asked, only half-turned back toward him. “Might as well say it now, ’cause I ain’t going nowhere with you to hear what it is.”

With her body turned that way he could see the beginnings of a roll of flesh at her belt line, just a hint at what was to come if she wasn’t careful. Jamey wanted to warn her of it, warn her that she’d get older and her body would get soft and no matter how hard she tried she’d never be young again, never be as young as even one second ago. He wondered did she get lonely for her past yet, did she? Even if it wasn’t all that great of a past. Even if it was a hell. It was still a bundle of days gone.

“I like you,” he said. Sometimes when it had gone bad he’d had to lay it all out on the table, fan out his cards face up and name them one by one. This felt different. Something about how rusty he was. Something about all those days gone by. Something about Jim, and how much he wanted the man to like him, but also how much he wanted to take a fishing hook to his belly. This time felt more raw. He felt himself get hard, another card.

“And I want to be with you,” he went on. It seemed like such a simple thing. He had this difficulty in his pants, this stiff offering, and she only had to take it. Accept it like a birthday gift, only there wasn’t even no ribbon to have to unbow. He took a step toward her.

“He’s got a fucking
boner
,” Dayna said. “Look!”

He only wanted to quiet her down, only wanted Perry to listen to him and not her, only wanted to place a hand on her arm so she could feel that he was a human being, not a monster, not a stranger. A friend. “That’s just my pants,” he started to say, his touch firm on Dayna’s forearm, his own dry hand soaking up the cold and wet of her, and okay, he pushed her a little, nudged her really. Move back, move away from here, you’re ruining it, can’t you see you’re ruining it?

But it was like a shock went through her, a jolt, his hand making her seize up, grunt an unwomanly
unh
, the arm he touched yanked up and away, her other arm going around the back of her and returning with the blackest gun he’d ever seen. With a gun. A gun. He repeated the words to himself, trying to believe his eyes. A gun! A chop of a laugh burst from him, maybe he was hoping it was a joke, maybe he was beyond his own control now. The whole thing felt beyond real. Felt like something he was watching. Next on the reel was Perry’s face, her mouth in an open rictus, so it
was
a joke! He reached out his arm again. He had the urge to stick his fingertip in the barrel hole, plug it up, show them he was a good sport.

Dayna lunged toward him, and then he was in the air, as weightless as if he was in the water, windmilling his arms like he was attempting the backstroke. He felt the gun fly off his finger. He tried to locate its arc with his eyes, could only take in the blurred wipe of the walls of the quarry, growing taller and taller, the ledge he’d just been standing on getting farther and farther away from him. He was falling. His underwear filled with the warm liquid of his bowels, finally, every part of him beyond his control now. He thought of his momma, the fallen cakes of her breasts. Whose hand on his pants front, which momma? He knew he’d land soon. His brain allowed one final thought, and it broke his heart before the rocks broke his body: Why so much silence? Why weren’t they screaming?

SHE’D PUSHED HIM,
hard, letting go of the gun and jamming her hands into his chest, getting ready to charge him if he came back at her, but his boot caught on a root and he tumbled backward. Right off the ledge. He was there and then gone. It wasn’t two seconds before she heard him land, a clattering and then a wet thump. He hadn’t even yelled. The gun had gone over with him, stuck to his finger. The stupid gun! Baby Girl felt like someone had wiped the spiderwebs from her eyes. Everything seemed bright, the wet trees and the rocks as crisp as if someone had painted them there and then outlined them in black.
A good news morning
is how Charles liked to word it. Only it wasn’t the morning and there wasn’t no good news.

A clattering and then a wet thump. All because she pushed him. All because she’d pulled the gun. All because she’d brought the gun in the first place. All because of her gaping ache. All because of her bald head, her fleshy belly, her ugly self. He hadn’t even yelled. Before she knew it Baby Girl was bent over, upchucking into the dirt. A wiggling pool of bile formed at her feet. She hadn’t eaten anything since the day before.

“Is he dead?” The words stung her mouth. She spat. “You think he’s dead?” Another gurgling mouthful tumbled forth.

“I don’t know,” Perry was saying. “I don’t know. It’s hard to say. He could be alive. He could be.”

When Baby Girl felt sure she wouldn’t heave again, she straightened, looked at Perry. Only then did she notice it was still raining, Perry’s face streaming, her eyes blinking away the water. The rain would wash away the bile. Maybe it could wash away what she’d done. But Perry was right. He could be alive down there. The thought was enough to compel them both to the edge to see for themselves.

He was on his side, his arm flung out like he was reaching for something, his back arched. His legs were together, his feet one on top of the other, as neat as peanut shells, though he’d lost a boot. He’d have looked like he was asleep but for his head, which was facing up, his neck just a rope of jelly now.

There wasn’t any blood that she could see, and Baby Girl knew it was probably like someone took a meat mallet to his insides, everything a mush now, blood running wherever, all dams burst but the dam of his skin. That’s how it was with Charles, his head like a thick balloon swelling with blood.

She didn’t see the gun. “Where did the gun go?” she heard herself ask. She had wanted to say,
We need to do something for him
, but the thing about the gun had come out instead. Her voice as toneless as a bee’s whine.
I didn’t know!
she wanted to scream.
It’s not my fault! How could I know? I take it back! I take it back!
She should push Perry over, too, and then jump in after. Dive headfirst so her brain would go splat.

“Look,” Perry said, pointing into the quarry with all the fingers on both hands, like she was frozen that way, like she was about to dip them into a vat of something, or was showing off her nails. Baby Girl looked. The socked foot was pedaling fast. The fingers on his flung arm were fluttering, like he was typing in his sleep.

“He is,” Perry said. “He’s alive.” She sounded fascinated, lured in, like she was narrating her own dream.

“We have to go down there,” Baby Girl said. “We have to get him.” When Charles had his accident he’d lain by the side of the road for ten minutes before someone finally stopped to help him. People had come forward later to say they’d seen him but figured someone else had called for help already. But no one had, his brain swelling the whole time. When the paramedics finally arrived his head looked like it was near to popping. In the hospital they’d opened up his skull, stuck tubes in, the blood they drained out as black as ink.

There was a winding, rocky path that could get you to the bottom, and Baby Girl started walking toward it. It was Charles down there, Charles with the pulled taffy neck and the flung arm and the eyes that couldn’t look nowhere but up. The thought had her nearly running.

“No,” Perry shouted. “Don’t.”

“You think we should call nine-one-one instead?” Baby Girl asked. She hadn’t thought of that until now. She’d just wanted to be down there, holding his ruined head in her hands, calming his pedaling leg as best she could. Like he’d wake up just fine if someone came to see him. Calling 911 seemed like something she’d heard of, not something she could actually do.

“No,” Perry said. “I think we should go back to the car and drive home. Get out of this rain. Get out of these clothes.”

“We can save him,” Baby Girl said.

“He’s dead, Dayna.”

Perry hadn’t said her real name in a long time.

“He’s dead, and he was trying to hurt us, and it was self-defense.” Perry’s hair was coming out of its ponytail, tentacles of wet hair clinging to her face. She looked pale, drowned. Ugly.

Baby Girl looked again. The leg had stopped.

“We can’t just leave him down there,” Baby Girl said, but she felt herself weakening. What could they do? Drag him up? Then what? She let herself remember him lunging, remember the fear she felt. Remembered that it was she who’d pushed him. Her fault, self-defense or not.

“We’ll go home and decide what to do from there,” Perry said. She backed up a couple tentative steps, keeping her eyes on Baby Girl. Turned. Walked toward the car.

Baby Girl followed.

THE TRUTH WAS PERRY WAS ELECTRIC
with the horror of what had happened. There Jamey went, over the edge, over and over and over, nothing to be done. She hadn’t meant … but that was a useless thought. Of course she hadn’t meant it. Tons of shit she hadn’t meant, but it had all happened anyway.

Another truth: she didn’t want to have this with Baby Girl. They were done with each other, it was clear, would have gone their separate ways right as soon as Baby Girl dropped Perry off back at the trailer. Until now. Now they had this secret to share.

And so already Perry was trying to make it something else. Something tidy. He’d wanted to hurt them. He’d fallen, he was probably dead. He was not who he said he was. It was an accident.

She could even feel herself wanting to shout something like
Get over it!
at Baby Girl. Could feel herself actually believing it was nothing to get upset about.

But there was no need to yell, Baby Girl was right behind her, both of them nearly at the car now.