Ugly Girls: A Novel (22 page)

She was having a hard time getting truly excited.
I’m going to have sex with him.
It wasn’t doing the trick. The feet, the fall, always there at the edge of her vision. She was at his door now, staring at her distorted reflection in the brass door knocker, and she reached out to herself, knocked three times.

And then there he was. Easy as that, always so easy, she had to remember. Wearing a white T-shirt and gym shorts, his calves tanned and hairy. And he was barefoot, which thrilled her despite herself, it made it seem like they were familiar that way.

He squinted one eye closed, the hallway dark behind him, the sun at Perry’s back. “Hi,” he said.

“I’m going to have sex with you,” Perry said. The words came so easily, like ice cubes tumbling into a glass.

He pulled the door open, stepped aside to let her in. “Do you want something to drink?” he asked. She wondered if he hadn’t heard her, if she’d even said it out loud after all. He had closed the door behind her, both of them in the dark hallway now, and as Perry’s eyes adjusted she could see that Travis’s mom was the type to fill the walls of her home, as Myra would be if she could nail anything to that wood paneling in the trailer. On the wall nearest her there were a dozen framed photos, each photo holding at least five people, as if Travis’s mother needed even her family photos to be filled up. Behind Travis were shelves holding tiny glass figurines, some identical to ones Myra had. Was every adult obsessed with these things that couldn’t be touched or handled or loved in any physical way? Maybe this was her attraction to Travis, maybe this was why they understood each other. Their mothers were nurturers of dumb shit. As Travis led the way into the kitchen she took a tiny glass dolphin and put it in her pocket.

In the kitchen the refrigerator held curled drawings, more photos, a years-old calendar from Jiffy Lube, an assortment of magnetic pens. Perry wanted the tiny calendar but left it where it was, and felt a weird pride in it.

“All we have is orange juice,” Travis said. “Or I guess water.”

“Hey, show me your bedroom,” Perry said.

“I don’t want to,” Travis said, quickly, like he’d had it in his head and was just waiting for his cue.

“Is it dirty or something?”

“No. Well, yeah, it is, but that’s not why I don’t want to show you. Let’s just watch TV or something instead.” His voice was cheerful, too bright, like he was forcing himself to stay calm.

There was that weird pride again, that feeling like she was maturing, doing something adult. “It’s okay if you’re a virgin,” Perry said. “It’s not a big deal, trust me. I’ll tell you what to do.” She had never had to beg like this.

“I’m not a virgin,” he said quietly, and Perry knew it was true. He wasn’t a virgin, and he didn’t care that his room was dirty, he just didn’t want her to be in there. She’d never cared all that much when people at school called her a slut, she’d always been able to get what she wanted anyway, but maybe Travis did care. In his work uniform he seemed so much like an adult, so beyond high school, but here in his gym shorts and bare feet it was clear he was just a kid, they were both just kids, and he didn’t want to be another notch on her belt, or whatever that saying was Myra always used.

But why let her in, then? Why not just shut the door in her face? Why kiss her back at the Denny’s, why agree to let her come over today? And then it came to her. He felt sorry for her. Felt sorry for the poor trailer park slut with the ugly friend. He probably thought she’d feel thankful toward him for letting her in despite what she was. Was probably waiting for her to thank him for allowing her her dignity. Instead she reached behind and up her shirt, undid her bra one-handed, watched him watching her breasts release and fall. By now she knew how to take off her shirt and her bra all at once, and she did it now, letting them fall into a twisted clump by her feet.

“Come here,” she said, but he already was, bending to pick up her clothes, holding them up against her front, looking down at his feet. He had a black toenail; Perry had seen it when he’d first come to the door, and in her experience that meant he was physical, had dropped something heavy on it, meant he was a man. “No,” she said, and pushed her clothes back to the floor.

“No,” he said back to her, and tried to bend again for her clothes, but she was quick, she had her mouth on his and her body pressed against him before he could stop her. And he was kissing her back, there was no doubt, he was holding her to him and his fingertips weren’t even cold, and it was then that Perry felt the tears in her throat, felt how she’d almost died a little when it seemed like he was going to turn her away, felt how maybe she loved him, maybe she deserved love despite what had happened with Jamey, despite everything that had happened, despite herself.

“Please,” he was saying, and Perry answering him, “Yes, of course, yes,” only his hands were pushing instead of holding now. “Please stop,” he was saying, pulling away from her, backing up until his back was against the refrigerator, a magnet dropping to the floor.

Perry felt that death coming back, a blackness spreading, felt the cold air-conditioning against her skin, the taste of him still on her mouth; he’d eaten potato chips right before she’d arrived. His mom’s endless piles of shit, the bowls of potpourri, the cheap framed prints of sunsets and babies in hats, one wall covered in decorative plates, all of it closing in on her like a burial. Now she was the one being pushed over. Had Jamey believed there was a chance with her, as she’d believed with Travis? And then she was on him again, pushing so hard she felt sure she’d split her own lip on his mouth, this time she wouldn’t let him up for air, wouldn’t give him time to think. She was beautiful, or at least she had been, and that was enough. She wanted him, and more than that she needed him, his kindness and strong hands and how fucking
normal
he was, and when it was over, when he was inside her, he’d feel it, and he’d thank her.

She pushed him to the floor, pulled his shorts down and her skirt up, yanked the crotch of her underwear over, easy as that, she’d have spat into her hand as so many of the other boys had done if she wasn’t so worried that it’d mean she’d have to stop kissing him and break the spell. Instead she pushed down until it was done, the pain not unlike the first time. Only then did she pull away so she could look into his eyes, something she’d been looking forward to doing, looking into his eyes while he was inside her, so he could see how much she loved him, could see the endlessness in her eyes.

At first his sadness seemed like an exhausted form of lust, and Perry felt herself give then, it didn’t usually happen so quickly for her, but then she saw that it was actual sadness. Sadness and fear as she quaked against him.

“I didn’t,” he began to say, and Perry felt him come inside her, and she thrust down to take it all in; this was involuntary, she’d have never allowed it, didn’t he see how much he meant to her?

When he finished he put his forehead on her shoulder, and she ran her fingers through his hair. It felt good to soothe someone in this way, in the way she herself needed to be soothed. “You see?” she whispered into his ear. “You see how much I like you?”

He lifted his head, to kiss her, she thought, but when she leaned in to receive him, he yanked his head back so hard that it hit the refrigerator, sent a photo of a woman in a lumpy swimsuit fluttering to the floor.

“I didn’t want this,” he said, his eyes closed, his head still tilted back. “I liked you.” He pushed at her until she let him go, her feet hitting the kitchen tile with a hard slap. She could feel the liquid mess they’d made running down her legs, wanted to ask him for a Kleenex or a towel just as much as she also wanted to squeeze her legs together, hold it there for a little longer. She saw in his eyes that either option would only make her look more pathetic to him.

“I want to be your girlfriend,” Perry said. She felt wild with wanting to make him understand how she felt, but the words came out in a whine.
Little bitch
, Baby Girl would have said.

“You need to go,” he said. “You need to get out.”

“You liked me,” Perry said, and it came out like a threat. She felt strangled, like her voice would never be the same. She tried again. “You liked me, right? Ain’t this what people do when they like each other?”

Travis shook his head. He hadn’t pulled his shorts up yet, and she took that as a good sign. She decided right then that she’d do what she swore she’d never do, what she had no interest in doing normally. She got on her knees.

His thing was limp and already dry, soft as a marshmallow in her hand. Perry gathered the spit in her mouth, licked her lips.

“Stop it,” he said, and held her wrist until she let go. Pulled up his shorts. “Go home,” he said. “Please,” he added, and it was that
please
that did it, Perry saw now how wrong she’d been, he was the type to want to cuddle and talk and hold hands and when it was time to do it, there’d be candles and music and a bed, and not the cold, hard refrigerator door at his back, not this attack from a girl he liked but didn’t love. She’d been wrong about him, but he’d been wrong about her. For a moment Perry mourned that other girl, that girl he thought she was. Still on her knees, she grieved that she wasn’t the type to go to a movie with a boy and not burrow her hand behind his zipper as soon as the lights went down. Grieved that Travis wouldn’t save her from herself, or at least distract her for a while.

But then the moment passed. The tile was hurting her knees, she was still naked from the waist up, she was still leaking, there was probably a small puddle on the tile underneath her. They’d fucked, it felt good to think of it in this way,
fucked
instead of
made love
or
done it
, and now he was kicking her out. She would have told him about Jamey, she realized now. She had
wanted
to tell him. Her grief turned over to rage, like a key turning in a lock.

He was standing in the doorway now, waiting for her to get dressed, get up, get out. She did get dressed, so quickly that she put her bra on inside out, but first she took the dish towel hanging off the oven handle, wiped herself, and hung it back up. How easy it was to do mean things, to downright bask in them, though Travis didn’t even try to stop her.

When he opened the front door, the bright afternoon made them both squint, and Perry could only make out his mouth when she turned and said, “Don’t tell no one about this,” and he answered, “There’s nothing to tell.” She had meant to hurt him, to make it seem like she was the one with regrets, but his quick answer showed her how backward she had it. “Little bitch,” she added, but he was already closing the door.

The neighborhood was stone quiet, like everyone had gone inside to take a nap. A hot breeze came and went as she walked to the bus, delivering the smell of her body to her nose. That sour salt smell of sex. She was a walking trash heap of smells now. Ugly and foul. She thought how she’d believed Travis would be her boyfriend. How they’d drive around, go swimming together, how he’d maybe bring fried chicken over to the trailer and help her arrange it on Myra’s good platter, how he’d look away like it was nothing when Myra popped the tab on another beer. She felt like laughing, so she did laugh, right there on the sidewalk in front of a house with cracked green shutters. Laughed like those women in the cell had laughed, like they were trying to drown each other out. If she could take it all back she’d have just gone ahead and fucked Jamey, too. It was all the same when you got right down to it. A little bit of her would die, but at least all of him would be alive, she thought, instead of dead and broken at the bottom of her gut. At the bottom of the quarry, she corrected herself.

THE DOORBELL WAS RINGING AGAIN,
and because Myra had never shut the door after Jim left, she could see through the screen that it was that woman, that mother from a few trailers over, though she’d changed into a shirt and pants in the hour since she’d last been by.

Myra pushed open the screen door, too quickly it seemed, because the woman jumped when it banged against the stair railing. Sometimes beer could sharpen Myra’s senses, make her overenunciate, hear every tiny sound, or go too far when trying to do something physical, like just now with the door. Like everything she did had to mean it.

“You changed,” Myra said, in a kind tone, hoping that’d make up for the banged door, and that they could talk about the heat, or fashion, or any goddamn thing aside from her missing son, even for a few seconds. The woman was wearing a shirt with hot-air balloons embroidered in a diagonal across her big middle and melon-colored sweatpants. Something a toddler would wear.

The woman looked down at her balloons, brushed her free hand down as if to clear crumbs. “Yes, I put on outdoor clothing, since I mean to ask you could you drive me around. I can pay you,” the woman said, and Myra saw now that she was holding a coffee can half filled with pennies. “I don’t know no one else,” the woman added, and the apology in her voice showed Myra that she knew what a burden she was, knew it wasn’t a normal thing to ask.

Myra knew what it was to be a burden, those days when she couldn’t even get up to pour a glass of juice for herself. It almost made Myra feel tender toward her. And sometimes she could convince herself that doing nice things for others was like an atonement, like the preachers on the radio were always talking about. An atonement that could erase a lot of her sins, make room for more. Plus she knew that Jim might see her a little differently if she helped this beast of a woman—not selfish, not drunken. Human.

“I’ve had a couple,” she said. “But if you want to wait a bit while I get some water in me, I could drive you around a little, sure I can. Come on in.” She stepped back to give the woman the full width of the doorway, though it was clear she’d have to turn sideways to get in, and in fact she did just that, bumping the coffee can on the door frame, ignoring the pennies that scattered down the steps and into the dirt. Myra took the can from her, set it on top of the television. Not because she was taking it as payment, but because she didn’t want no more pennies tumbling out, dotting her rug like flat, dead eyes.