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Samantha
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SHE HAD FOLLOWED Mom’s minivan on her bike at a surreptitious distance until she watched it climb Bluff Road. Then Samantha hotfooted it on over to the Heathrows’ geodome house to wait out the drama and distract herself.
“Okay, but what if, the best way to create change was . . . to stay?” Samantha lay on Jamie’s bed, walking her sock feet up the wall. “No one besides Maddox was all that mean to you and he won’t even be around this fall. We’ll rule the school.”
Jamie did in fact seem over her near death aspect of the experience and agonized more over having been humiliated by a boy she kinda sorta liked. She’d never been one to make a big deal out being called Snowplow in grade school but this was ten times worse. Still, she seemed to prefer it never come up again. Samantha couldn’t help wondering if that was a remnant of her “boy” side, that fear of being perceived as weak. And because no charges were filed, few knew about it anyway. In fact, the only family member who still talked about it was Mom, though even she called it “Maddox’s stunt” as if he’d merely gone bungee jumping off the Leap.
“That’s not the point, Sam.” Across the room, Jamie talked into the mirror and delicately brushed the brown mascara up her already full lashes.
“What is the point? To only have queer friends? To march in a bigger parade?” The dome shape of the house created large triangles in the walls and the sun through the skylights sliced through them like an algebra problem. Sam placed her feet on two triangles at a time, walked to another. “We could march with the Civil Diss River Valley Contingent this summer.”
“Mom warned me you would go there.” She turned to Samantha. “Eyeshadow. Too blue?”
“Whoa, yeah you gotta gradate it, soften the edges. What do you mean, warned you?’
“That you’d get all moody about this. Yunno, you can’t guarantee next year isn’t going to be hell. I can’t do the guys’ locker room anymore, Sam. I need neutral space to decide what path to take.”
Samantha sneered and mouthed neutral space.
“Listen, dude,” Jamie said, “we’re going to see each other every weekend.”
“No, we won’t. Oh my God, you are such a sucky liar.”
Jamie added even more eye shadow, dragging it angrily across her eyelid.
“Whoa,” Samantha said. “Stop. You look like a . . .”
“Like a drag queen?” Jamie screeched, then her voice cut low. “Just say it.”
“Actually a ho was what I was gonna say. But you wanna look like a drag queen too, go ahead.” Samantha sat up and shook out her hair. “I’m outta here.”
“Oh, that’s mature.”
Samantha stalked to the door, opened it and was met by Jamie’s mom, who looked wide-eyed at her.
“Your dad’s here, honey.”
Samantha skated past her, across the cork floor in her socks.
Dad stood in the Heathrows’ entryway, still dressed in his short-sleeve dress shirt and tie, looking as stunned as Jamie’s mom.
With her lip curled and voice still perturbed, Samantha asked, “What are you doing here?”
“Put your shoes on. Your mom’s been in an accident.”
She’s dead. Shesdeadshesdeadshesdead—
He quickly moved to her. “She’s gonna be okay, kiddo. It’s all right. We just need to get to the hospital. I didn’t want to call and upset you. I put your bike in the truck.”
“Sam.” Jamie ran into the room and crouched down—one eyelid blue, one bare. “Call me as soon as you get news, okay?”
Samantha nodded quickly, her fingers spun through the laces of her shoes.