3

Willow

“Hi, I’m Jorie,” says the girl who plops down next to me on the concrete bench.

Around us, people talk, most rehashing the details of the day as they wait for the bus home. I catch bits and pieces of conversations—a football pep rally, a bake sale, an opening on the school debate team.

“I’m Willow,” I say. “How do you get your hair to do that?”

Jorie’s hair is like a zebra, black with white stripes, or maybe it’s the other way around. I never could tell that about zebras—black and white or white and black? And her hair is the same.

“It’s a weave. My momma’s a stylist.” She pops her gum loud-like. “She does all kinds of hair but specializes in African American techniques, learned from her momma. They’re as black as the night sky all the way back as far as time goes until me. I got a bit of my daddy in me. His skin is light like yours.”

I like her skin. It’s not quite light or dark. I like her accent, too, though I can’t place it.

“Where are you from, Jorie?” I ask.

“The bayous of Louisiana originally, but I don’t remember it. Was just a baby when we moved here. You?”

“I’m from Georgia originally, a county two hours north of here. Moved to Florida for a bit before coming back. My parents study birds, and that’s a good place to do it.” It’s a lame thing to say, but it’s the truth.

“Wanna sit with me on the bus?” Jorie offers. “Then you won’t have to worry about people bugging you about Beau.”

“Why would they do that?” I have no idea how she knows that I’ve met him.

“Because he’s Beau,” she says.

Like that explains it.

Jorie’s all elbows and knees and sharp angles. I wonder how she stays in shape. I’m curvy and always carrying around what Gran calls biscuit weight. Not that I’m overweight—I’m not—I’m just soft. I once asked Gran over the phone what I could do to lose ten pounds after I saw this quiz in a magazine that said I could look my best with a little weight shed. She said I’d have to quit eating biscuits. But that’s crazy talk. Who has ever heard of giving up biscuits? No, thanks.

The bus pulls up, and we pile on. It’s not completely full, so I don’t think I need to sit with Jorie to avoid sitting by someone else, after all. But I’m happy to, all the same.

“What did you mean about Beau?” I ask, once we’re settled in, bags down between our legs to make room. The bus jerks away from the curb.

Jorie pops her gum three times before she answers. Her kohl-rimmed eyes remind me of almonds dipped in chocolate.

“You really don’t know, do you?” she asks.

“’Course not,” I reply. “Just moved here a week ago, and today’s the first time I met him. He seems nice.”

Jorie laughs. It’s a boisterous sound that turns heads. She smacks a hand on her thigh and says, “Girl, stop playing. Beau is not nice. Never is that boy nice unless he needs something. Hot? Yes. Taken? Yes. Smooth as a pearl shined? Yes. But nice? Never. Not once.”

I hear all of Jorie’s words. Each one after the other, but the only one that sticks is this: taken.

“He has a girlfriend?” I ask.

“I knew it.” Her eyes slide my way. “You like him. Every girl who likes boys does. It’s not just you. But you have to learn to fight it, or he’ll devour you.”

I’m not so sure I consider that a bad thing.

“And yes, he’s taken. Every day of the week. The girls don’t last more than a couple of weeks, but they are always there. One after the other,” she says.

The thought irks me. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know.

“Well, he and I aren’t anything to each other, so I’m sure there’s nothing for me to worry about,” I say. “I don’t even think he’s hot.”

Yes I do.

“Atta girl,” Jorie says. “Keep lying to yourself and eventually you might actually believe it. It’s a start.”

“I’m not lying,” I say.

“You’re lying now,” she says.

“Maybe,” I admit.

“Like I said,” Jorie continues. “Almost all girls fall for him. But be careful. He’s an inch shy of as wicked as they get.”

Maybe I like wicked. Maybe I top my pies with wicked, and maybe I order wicked every day; she doesn’t know. I can handle it, I tell myself. But that might be the lying liar in me.

“Him and that sister of his, both,” Jorie says. “You’ll mostly find him with those two goons, Grant and Pax. I’m sure you’ve seen them. One looks like a bird and the other like a gorilla. You might get a chance to see him alone more than most people, though, because he’s your neighbor, right?”

“Hard to tell,” I say. “I’ve never seen him before, and I used to visit often.”

A memory hits me. A stringy young boy—same age as me at the time, eight—running around the yard, chasing squirrels as though he means to catch one.

“If you’re looking to eat it, you have to set a trap, you know,” I say. “And try being quiet when you approach them—it helps. Plus, who are you and why are you on my gran’s property?”

“I’m not. I’m on my grandpa’s side. See?” he replies. “That’s the dividing line back behind you.”

He was right. He was technically on his side.

“Unless he was the boy I once met years ago,” I say to Jorie. “I’d always thought he was visiting before. I never saw him afterward.”

“Well, you’re Old Lady Bell’s family, right?”

“Yes,” I confirm. I’m proud of Gran. Don’t care what anybody says. And I’ve heard it around town, how my gran’s the crazy lady who lives in the deep swamp, who’s taken to feeding the gators and yellin’ at anyone who tries to trespass her land. Doesn’t mean she’s bad. Just means she likes privacy and animals. She can’t help it if most of the animals in the swamp are of the reptilian kind.

“Then he’s been your grandma’s neighbor since he was ten,” she says. “I knew your grandpa, by the way. He was a good man. My grandpa used to frog hunt with him. He’d stay for dinner from time to time.”

“Sounds like Grandpa,” I confirm. “May he rest in peace, amen.”

I was taught to give respect to the dead and attach amens to the ends of sentences like periods.

“When was the last time you visited here, before actually moving, I mean?”

“More than a year ago,” I say. I wonder why Gran never mentioned having neighbors my age next door, but then I remember how she warned me away from Beau. She must not have wanted me to befriend him or his sister.

My hands shoot out to stop my body from hitting the seat in front of us as the driver slams on the brakes at a stoplight. Jorie grabs a sheet of paper and begins writing her number.

“Here, call me if you want to hang out sometime. I live down the way from you, about ten miles.”

I take the paper and fold it until it fits tight-like into my jeans pocket. My red-and-white-striped shirt sticks to the back of the seat as I scoot forward. The bus seems to have no air-conditioning, even though it should because senior year is only three weeks in and summers in Georgia are brutal.

“Anyway,” Jorie says, “Beau’s family—him, his sister, momma, and poppa—moved in with his grandpa when his parents fell ill. Rumor has it that they eventually died.”

What a wicked-sad thing to have happen. If it’s true, maybe that’s why Beau supposedly isn’t nice? Grief can make a person act all sorts of ways.

“No one reliable has seen his parents there or around town. ’Course you always get those few looking to tell a juicy tale, aching for attention, who want to say they’ve seen them. No proof, though. No pictures. Supposedly seeing them when there are no witnesses to back up their claims. You’ll learn that some folks ’round here are as good at lying as they are at breathing, and they’re not afraid to show it. Carry it around like a prized medal for winning best pie or something.”

I can tell the exact moment we leave the city part of town and enter the swamp because the driver stops roughly and lets most of the kids off. Only eight of us remain. Like a demon straight out of hell, the driver takes off again, leaving stoplights and houses behind for trees and water encroaching on both sides.

“I guess the mystery works for him, though. He has half the girls at our school in love with him.”

“Must be more than his mysteriousness.” I watch the muddy water bubble and pop. “If girls are falling that hard.”

Vines slither and wind their way around trees, choking the trunks. Very little light enters the cover of leaves, making daytime appear more like dusk. The road is the only thing lit by the sun, save a few breaks in the vegetation.

“Do you know what it’s like to be in love, Willow?” Jorie asks.

It’s a personal question, but I answer anyway. “No.”

“Neither does Beau,” she replies. “For all the girls he’s broken, he doesn’t know a thing about love. You’d be wise to remember that.”

I have no idea what she means, but I realize that people in the Georgia swamp are simply different than the people I knew back in Florida. They speak their minds here. Leaving Georgia when I was only nine affords me few memories of small-town life. What always did stick was my accent. Tried scrubbing it away with many years in Florida. Tried not standing out, but it never worked. Always felt forced.

“Jorie,” I say. “If all girls fall for him at one point or another—if they like boys, that is—how have you not fallen?”

“Oh, I have,” she says. “You think I don’t look? It’s too hard not to. I’m not immune, but I’ve learned how to avoid him. How to not draw his eye. Maybe when he’s made it through all the girls here, he’ll come for me. But for now, I’m safe.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.

“It means that he’s not finished breaking hearts. That’s what.”

She looks me over, eyes resting on mine.

“Or maybe I’m not safe at all anymore now that we’re friends,” she says. “We are friends, right?”

“Sure.” She’s the closest I have to a friend here.

Jorie twists the bangle bracelets on her wrist in a nervous kind of way. “Then maybe I’m not safe. I will be in his line of sight now. He might be too preoccupied with you, though. He’s taken to you already. That’s not a good thing, by the way.”

“Maybe it could be a good thing.”

“You think that now,” she says. “But your tears will tell you differently later.”

Maybe she’s right. But maybe she’s wrong. I think about Beau’s disarming smile and how I could hardly look away from him. Yes, she’s probably right. She is most likely absolutely right.

And somehow, I don’t care. I’m going to talk to him again anyway.