IT WAS NOT part of Sarina’s plan to have Nicole approach her brother. She could get Rick all by herself, no assistance necessary. But the opportunity was there. Christmas vacation was well under way and Nicole’s parents had a day planned at the University Mall. So when Nicole called and told her to come over quickly, the coast was clear, Sarina could hardly refuse. Nicole was so sensitive. If she didn’t feel needed, she was no use at all.
Sarina stopped in the carport. She touched Rick’s bitchin’ Camaro. Just back from Georgia, the hood was still warm.
Rick was in his room.
“Be cool,” Nicole pleaded.
Sarina said, “Sure.”
At the top of the stairs, Sarina could see that his door was wide open. He was unpacking his suitcase, sorting his clothes into two piles. Bed and floor. Clean and dirty. When he looked up, he found them standing in the door frame, Nicole switching her weight from foot to foot, Sarina with her arms crossed, feeling feckless and more juvenile by the second. Before Nicole said word one, Rick put his hands in the air like a convenience store clerk under the gun. He said, “No way.”
“But you don’t even know what the question is.”
“Whatever it is,” Rick told his sister, “there is no way I’m doing it.” He ran both hands through his tall blond hair. He caught some of it in his fists and stared at the dirty laundry like it was the greatest burden he could possibly bear. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. When he opened them, he said, “You’re still here?”
Sarina gently pulled Nicole into the hallway. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I’ll see him at Tracey Hinkle’s party. I’ll take care of it.”
“What if he says no?” Nicole grabbed Sarina’s wrists a little too tight and Sarina noticed the skin eaten away at her cuticles. Nicole’s fingers were red, purple almost from the pressure she applied.
“Jeez, Nic. Let go.” She tried to twist free. But Nicole’s thumbs were white now. “He’s not gonna say no.”
That night, Sarina followed Rick’s car to Tracey Hinkle’s house. Tracey was a varsity cheerleader and hers was the first of many parties that would go on over the break. The same crowd would move from house to house depending on whose parents were out of town. It was the same clique Sarina hung with at school, plus alumni, plus anyone else who had the gumption to crash. The parties got big. They filtered into backyards. The music could be heard before drivers parked their cars on neighboring lawns. The cops were always called. The drunkest always stepped forward, volunteering to play sober.
Sarina got out of her car and met Rick as he stepped out of his. She took him by the hand, careful not to let her sleeve fall back to expose the marks Nicole had left. She teased, “You’re my new boyfriend.”
Rick reached through the open car window. He took his wallet off the dashboard and stuffed it in his back pocket. “You think so?”
Sarina pinned his elbows against the roof of the car. She let her body get close enough so that her breasts barely touched his sweater. She whispered, “You know you’ve always had a thing for me.”
Rick said, “You’re still a kid.”
As she followed him into the party, Sarina said, “Prove it.”
Throughout the evening, Sarina kept after him. She poured vodka, smuggled from the Hinkles’ liquor cabinet, into the Coke in his blue plastic cup. She helped him get wasted. Boys love that. What resistance he had was lost. Before his buddies drove him home, Sarina took Rick to the backyard, took off her panties, and pushed them into the front pocket of his jeans. She said, “You’re my new boyfriend.”
“Whatever you say.”
When he woke up, Rick would find Sarina’s party favor, remember grubbing behind an ivy bush, then call a friend to confirm. Everyone he called had seen the two of them together. Seen them go out to the backyard. Seen them stay out there long enough.
“Did you do it?” one would ask.
“What do you think?”
“Dawg!” his friend would say. “You dawg!”
Sarina knew how it would go. She would follow him to the next party. She would get into the host’s parents’ private stash of booze. Smile when Rick confronted her. Nod when he said, “Do you want to get out of here?” She would refill his plastic party cup. Kiss him till he couldn’t recall. Go along with whatever he could summon the next morning, what his friends could come up with, what she could imagine they might have done if the circumstances were different.
The day before Rick went back to Georgia, Sarina called him during her lunch period. She told him that as her new boyfriend, come May, he owed it to her to drive home and take her to the prom.
Rick said, “Come over while I’m sober and then we’ll have a deal.”
Sitting in the wooden phone booth outside the Central East cafeteria, Sarina traced a slut’s phone number carved into one of the panels. For a good time, she thought, trust no one.
“Mars to Venus,” Rick’s voice came through the receiver. “Come in, Venus.”
“One more time and then you’ll take me?”
Rick said, “I swear to God.”
Sarina knew Rick would break that promise. Boys were taught by HBO After Dark to expect adult content and nudity on prom night. No cum shot, but definitely dyed-to-match silk shoes scuffing up the car’s interior. That, Sarina thought, she could handle. She’d spike his punch and watch him struggle with his cummerbund and his fly, his pesky penis too pickled to perform.
Sarina cut out of school early.
Pulling into her neighborhood, Sarina thought of the things people said that they did. She wondered if Rick really believed they went all the way. That he stuck it inside her. That it had been so easy.
Stewart Steptoe was the only boy she had ever made it easy for. In the Central East hallways, he looked at her and she knew he remembered. Wet sand. Her hair tangled. Candied apple breath coming close to his ear. The whole night and everything that happened.
Walking to the Hicks’ front door, Sarina assured herself that sex was the way to get what she wanted. She thought, If Rick challenges me after this, I’ll tell everyone he can’t get it up. “Just do it,” she whispered. “Do it and get it over with.”
But Rick wanted more from her. He wanted some romance. He opened the front door and led her to his bedroom. The desk light was left on and the shades were drawn. The clock radio was playing something slow where the singer interrupts the chorus to utter something provocative.
Rick smiled at Sarina like the boyfriend she told him he was. He eased her down onto the carpet, on top of an electric blanket laid out like a picnic. He pulled two pillows from the head of his bed. He placed them at the satin seam. “The bed makes too much noise. My mom might come home.”
Sarina kicked her shoes off. “So how do you want to do this?”
Rick said, “It’s not surgery.”
Sarina let him kiss her. His lips felt firmer than when he was drunk. He was more intent. Focused on feeling her out. When he was drunk, he kept his hands at his sides or dormant on her hips. Now, he was touching her, stroking her, tugging at her clothes. “You know,” he whispered, “you were right about me having a thing for you.”
Sarina began to enjoy herself. She kissed him back. She let him lie down and draw her down beside him. Her pelvis to his hip. Her breasts pushing into his right rung of ribs.
“Touch me,” said Rick.
“I am.”
“Not like that.”
He moved her hand from his cheek to the lump between his legs. He kept his own hand over hers and drew a sharp breath as he helped her massage himself out of rhythm with the radio. “Will you do it one more time?”
Sarina was not sure what he meant until he let go of her hand and unbuckled his belt. As if racing, he undid his button fly. Without any help from Rick, his penis popped out. He closed his eyes, tucked his hands under his butt and waited.
Sarina had never taken a good look at a penis. She had felt her fair share. She had felt Stewart’s as it went in. But she had never had one laid out like an autopsy. It was redder than Rick’s skin. She touched it. It moved.
“Do it right,” Rick said. He put a hand on the back of her neck. He guided her head toward his hot, sweaty crotch. When she resisted, he pushed harder.
“Okay,” said Sarina. She pried his penis off his stomach. It was warm and oozed at the tip. She put the head in her mouth and the taste made her gag. Sarina’s eyes stung as she held her breath for another try.
Five months later, Sarina held out her prom dress, ran her fingers down the length. It was black with velvet trim. It had a deep V-neck.
“It’s too old for you,” Mrs. Summers had said in the store.
Sarina insisted, “It’s what I want.”
Sarina held the dress up to her in front of the mirror on the back of her bedroom door. She stuck a leg out and noticed the slight sparkle from her midnight-sheer pantyhose with the panties built in. She folded the dress over her arm and leaned forward to examine the cleavage enhanced by her strapless bra. The electric rollers were still hot in her hair. When her mother called, Sarina put on her robe and secured the tie. She wondered if black heels really did match everything. It was a week before the prom and this was the dress rehearsal.
Sarina opened her bedroom door to find her mother with the camera hung around her neck. The idea was to take a series of photographs of Sarina with her hair done different ways. With different level heels. Her mouth painted an array of colors. This process could stretch well into the night. Mrs. Summers had sent Willamina home early, ordered a pizza, and set the den with soft 60 watt lightbulbs. She was very excited. She had already bought an oversized picture frame for the best of the bunch. She had written Sarina a late note for the next day of school. Mrs. Summers tugged the belt of Sarina’s robe twice. “Hup, hup. Hop to it.”
Sarina backed up to let her mother in. As she went into the bathroom, Mrs. Summers sat on the end of the bed and hung her legs over the frame like a kid. Sarina rummaged through her lipstick drawer.
“Stay away from the red,” Mrs. Summers said. “If you dance, your face will flush and red lips will only draw attention to it.”
Sarina knew she was right. She twisted the Cherry Bomb back into its tube. She applied a frosty pink.
Mrs. Summers said, “Do you want help with your hair? I could put it up for you.”
Sarina imagined her hair in a French twist, her earrings dangling down. She would look incredible and her mother would do a better job. Sarina sat sidesaddle on the toilet and motioned for her mother to come in. With great effort Mrs. Summers pushed herself over the bed frame. As she walked toward Sarina, the camera bounced against her bosom. She picked up a brush and a can of White Rain. With bobby pins pinched between her lips, Mrs. Summers smiled a prickly smile. She handled her daughter’s hair like a pro. Careful not to inhale while the aerosol was in the air, Mrs. Summers spun yarns about her prom and what she wore and the sequence of forks Sarina should use at dinner.
Sarina could see through her mother’s cream blouse. She noticed that her camisole had birds in the lace. Their beaks were open as if to say Peep, peep, peep. Sarina said, “I’m sorry about how mean I was when you were getting divorced.”
Mrs. Summers put the White Rain on the back of the toilet. “Sweetheart,” she said, “why on earth would you bring that up?”
“He cheated on you, didn’t he?”
Mrs. Summers began to shove bobby pins into her daughter’s hairstyle. Behind the ear for working Saturdays. At the nape of the neck for working late. The French twist was fastened for cash withdrawals he could never seem to account for. At a medical examiner’s pace, Mrs. Summers semicircled her daughter. She examined her work. She gave Sarina a hand mirror, and Sarina stood and checked out her do from every conceivable angle.
“You were never mean,” Mrs. Summers told her. “Carolyn Hicks, now that woman is mean.”
“Why do you hate her so much?”
“She’s a liar. She’ll say anything against anyone for no reason at all.”
Before Sarina knew it, her mother was gone. Probably in the kitchen, pulling a little something from the fridge to wash a bad taste out of her mouth. She was always doing that. Pulling a little something.
Sarina let her robe fall onto the black-and-white tiles. She took her dress off the hanger and stepped into it. She pulled the zipper up her back. She saw that she did indeed look older. Maybe twenty. Maybe twenty-five. She looked better than a beauty pageant contestant. Better than those actresses who played college-age parts. The University of Alabama Home-coming Queens always made the front page of the paper. None of them were half as pretty as Sarina felt right now. Sarina imagined Rick ringing her doorbell, pinning the corsage, honoring the woman she was determined to become.
Sarina met her mother in the living room. She let her arms go loose but not limp as her mother placed them in different positions. On her hips. Click. At her sides. Click. One on the mantel, one behind her back. She looked good. In her heels, Sarina stood nearly five foot eleven.
Mrs. Summers said, “So how did you get away with going with your ex-friend’s big brother?”
“She’s not my ex.” Sarina tilted her head in the direction her mother was pointing. Down, at an angle to hide her slight double chin.
Mrs. Summers said, “I’m surprised she didn’t ask if she could tag along.”
Sarina said, “She did.”
Mrs. Summers stopped snapping snapshots. She sat down on the sofa. “Well, you certainly said no, didn’t you?”
Sarina tugged at her panty hose that were puckering behind her knees.
Mrs. Summers said, “I know she’s been a friend to you, but that girl is not well. It would be one thing if she was bulimic. But that girl is self-destructive. Don’t think I haven’t seen the scars on her arms.”
Sarina wiped off the frosty pink lipstick and applied a sheer beige.
“You didn’t invite her, did you? Tell me that you didn’t invite her.”
Sarina sat down in the leather La-Z-Boy her father had left behind and her mother had consequently recovered with a pale, creamy shade to match the living room curtains. She pulled out the foot rest. She told her mother the truth.
“You did what?”
“Mom, don’t worry about it. I just told her she could come so she wouldn’t freak out about Rick.”
“So what, you’re double-dating? Who on earth did you get to go out with her?”
Sarina said, “No one.”
Mrs. Summers began to fan herself with her 35mm camera. She reached for the end table where Willamina always placed a coaster for that glass of white wine. Mrs. Summers brought the half-empty wine glass to her forehead. “Tell me.” She shut her eyes as if imagining the Prom Under the Stars gymnasium photograph. “Tell me it’s not just the three of you.”
Sarina had to laugh. “Mom, come on. I’ll take care of Nicole. Trust me. My reputation is safe. Next week, it’ll only be me and Rick.”
“Rick and me,” Mrs. Summers corrected.
“Rick and me,” Sarina agreed and pushed herself forward, her lips like Spring, the La-Z-Boy back in position for a sitting-down shot.
Initially, Sarina had toyed with the idea of accompanying Nicole to the prom. After all they were best friends. There was nobody else who she’d have as much fun with. Nicole was good that way. She did not mind tagging along. Whatever Sarina wanted to do, to try, wherever she wanted to go, Nicole had always been right there with her. Nicole had always been very supportive. She could sense when things weren’t right. Sarina never had to say she was feeling fat or insecure or depressed or not like talking. Nicole always knew. And she knew what to do. She said the right things. Noticed a new outfit. She could sit with Sarina in front of the TV and never say a solitary word. Nicole let Sarina live out her cold funks. She was happy just to be with her and expected nothing in return. So as her pinkies healed and Mrs. Summers wrote the book on bedside manner, Sarina had come up with a plan. She would seduce Rick. Mrs. Hicks would fold when he informed her he was coming home for the prom. Mr. Hicks would convince his wife that their daughter had been grounded long enough. The prospect would give Nicole a few weeks of happiness. Something to look forward to. A dream. Some time well spent.
Sure the other kids would gawk, but Sarina’s excuse would be Rick. When Sarina told Nicole she had lied about dating a college guy, she wasn’t telling the whole truth. From the very beginning she had claimed the guy was Rick. At separate campuses, Central East gossip would never reach Central High West. Even if it did, no one talked to Nicole. That was the beautiful part. She could hang with Nicole under the carpooling circumstances. She could tell those who judged her that she was doing her boyfriend a favor. Being nice to his kid sister. Giving an old gal pal a break.
But the school year hadn’t worked out as Sarina had planned. Her classmates weren’t behaving like an After School Special. In their minds, Nicole had cut herself out of their circle of friends. She had cut herself out of the mold they’d all known. No more cheerleading. No more clubs. No classes together. No parties. No fun. Nicole had sunk to the bottom of the popularity food chain. Below the potheads and head-bangers, Special Ed and the dykes. She might as well have shaved all her hair off and pierced her face a million times. Nicole was no longer a girl to be seen with. Not without a damned good excuse. While Rick had served as an adequate explanation, his mileage wouldn’t take Sarina from car service to the biggest high school spectacle of the year.
In a way, she was grateful for the prejudice of her peers. Since she’d introduced the prom plan, Nicole had gotten weird. Weirder than the obvious failure of tenth grade. Weirder than the additional grabbing she had done since that day outside Rick’s bedroom. Nicole had started passing her notes. Notes really wasn’t the word. They were ten-page letters, backs and fronts of spiral paper. The edges were frayed and so was her handwriting, her diction, her cursive to caps, cursive to certain words scrawled out in crayon. Every letter was complimentary, full of metaphors for her eyes, lips, and skin. They were the love letters she had dreamed of receiving from Stewart, from Rick, from a real college boyfriend.
Sarina never knew what to say in response. What could she say other than thank you? But that was certainly enough for Nicole. The notes kept on coming along with Home Ec–sewn pillows and Wood Shop–sawed key racks. And every time she gave a gift as minor as a stick of Trident, Nicole leaned forward to receive a hug that always lasted longer than Sarina would have liked.
But Sarina ignored how uncomfortable she felt. She reasoned Nicole was just going through an emotional phase. She was her only friend. Nicole’s appreciation was natural. Besides, Sarina did not want to risk hurting Nicole. God forbid she tell Rick and for once he play the part of protective older brother. If Rick dumped Sarina, the prom would not be such a victory. But if they took Nicole to the prom, the night would be disastrous.
So Nicole had to be clipped and Mrs. Hicks had to be the one to do it.
Mrs. Hicks had always had it in for the Summers. Sarina didn’t know why. She really didn’t care. She liked Mr. Hicks. She watched him every night on the ten o’clock news. He was handsome and spoke in the sincerest of voices. Sarina felt sorry for him. To guarantee that Nicole be re-punished, Sarina had to tear his family apart.
Since Nicole had given her the third “Ree Ree” nameplate, Sarina started plotting to push her out of the prom. Sarina knew where the school year would take them. To this very moment: the Kelly brothers’ pre-prom party.
There were four Kelly brothers, each two years apart. They were blond and funny and sexy and smart. The last week of April, their parents always went on a ski trip. That weekend, the brothers hosted an out-and-out free-for-all. The whole school came. They had a huge house with an even bigger backyard and a lake. There were illegal firecrackers their father always “accidentally” laid out on the kitchen table as their mother started the car. They had a tree house and a hammock, a pool table and Foosball. It was better than any bar. It was the party of the year.
The night of the Kelly brothers’ pre-prom party, Sarina would make two phone calls. One to Nicole. One to the police. There was no way things could go wrong. It was the master of her master plans.
At midnight the party was reaching its peak. The place was packed, kids everywhere. Through bodies and wine coolers, Sarina pushed her way into the youngest boy’s bedroom. In the darkness of the room, she saw the shapes of science-fiction action figures, books and magazines, clothes on the floor, clothes all over everything. And yet, the twin bed was made like a soldier’s. Sarina sat down. She picked the phone up off the floor and dialed Nicole’s number, which she still knew by heart.
She let the phone ring half a ring. That was their signal. She counted One Mississippi, two Mississippi until she reached sixty. She called back and Nicole answered the phone before the ring was even finished.
“Ree?” Nicole whispered.
Sarina kept her mouth shut.
“Ree?”
Sarina could hear the panic squeezing Nicole’s voicebox. Sarina squeezed her own voice by imagining being blind. She put herself in a wheelchair, a paraplegic, blowing herself down the street with a tube. What if she got her face sliced with a box cutter? What if she tripped and knocked out her front teeth? Sarina felt her throat close, her eyes start to sting. “Nicki,” she choked, “Nicki, it’s me.”
“Where are you? What’s wrong?”
Sarina was amazed at her ability to cry. “I’m at the Kellys’ house. You’ve got to come get me.”
“Ree, I don’t have a license. I don’t have a car.”
“Nicki, please!” Sarina hung up the phone.
Sarina sat still in the youngest brother’s bedroom. She knew what was happening a five-minute drive away. Nicole was scared to death. She was racing for the car keys and climbing into her father’s new convertible Jeep. She probably didn’t even take off her pajamas. She probably didn’t bother to drive away quietly.
Sarina called 911. She said there was a party and she gave the address. She said there was underage drinking and firecrackers and about a thousand stupid kids disturbing the peace. Yes, this was an emergency, some kid could get killed.
The operator said, “Officers are responding.”
Sarina hung up the phone. She left the party. She kept the radio low as she drove the long way back to her house.
The police and Nicole should arrive at the same time. Even if they didn’t Nicole would be the one person there they’d be able to catch. Everyone else would scatter when the cops rang the doorbell. Nicole would be found searching for her friend. In her pajamas. Without a license. Behind the wheel of a car Sarina would now call and report as stolen. The daughter of Tuscaloosa’s local news celebrity in apparent disarray. It was sure to hit the papers. news anchor’s daughter arrested delirious. Maybe Nicole would hit a parked car. The Hicks could be sued. Their insurance rates would double. There were endless possibilities. But all had the same result—Mrs. Hicks would be humiliated and Nicole’s prom privileges revoked.