She picked Bubba John.
“Having hung Glovina Armstrong’s panties on the flagpole pales in comparison to getting my daughter pregnant.”
I didn’t voice my thought that her daughter had played a role in the pregnancy bit.
I picked them both. I’d go out with Bubba John first, before he got liquored up, make him bring me home early, then I’d call Farrel and tell him he could pick me up in twenty minutes. That would fit nicely into my scheme of treating Farrel rough and telling him nothing. Also, I wouldn’t piss either of them off by turning one down. Nor would I have to be with either of them so long I’d increase the chances of blowing the ruse.
On Saturday night, I took two hours to get dressed. I was starting to like being in Julie’s room without her. It became mine then—all the pretty clothes, the perfume bottles on her dressing table, the earrings she hadn’t taken with her, and the silky underwear. Most of all I liked the pink walls and fuzzy white throw rug at the foot of her bed. It was my bed now, at least for a few months.
After soaking in a hot tub, I stood naked in front of the mirror and beneath the ceiling fan, allowing its slow-whirling blades to dry me off. Mama E had the attic fan going, so it was cool, despite the 98 degree temperature outside, and it only early April.
My body was firm like Julie’s, but my boobs were fuller and my hips slightly wider. We were the same height. I probably weighed a few more pounds—until she got pregnant, that is.
My conscience needled me. She wouldn’t like it that I was going out with Farrel. Sometimes at night I lay in bed and imagined what I would say to him when we were alone together in his classy car. I would continue the deception and pray he bought it. I’d make him burn for me, let him lure me to the backseat thinking I was Julie. Then, since I was me and not her, slap his face off.
I sorted through her underwear drawer and chose a pair of lacey white panties and a matching bra. They weren’t satin, but they weren’t cheap either.
At the closet, I flipped through the sundresses, the skirts, the pretty blouses. The outfit I longed to wear was the midnight-blue dress with the tiny gold stars and the see-through coat. I took it out of the closet and held it up at the mirror to see how I’d look in it. It turned my eyes dark blue, like it had turned hers. I laid the coat on a chair, slipped the dress on over my head, and pulled it straight.
I looked sensational. Good enough to be a junior class beauty. Quickly, I pulled the thin coat on and checked in the mirror again. I really was Julie in this dress, except for a barely noticeable pulling across the boobs. I would wear it tonight.
“Take that dress off this very minute, or you aren’t going out with anybody!”
Shocked, I turned toward the door. Elizabeth stood glaring at me.
“Did you hear me? Take it off!”
“I’m sorry, Mama E,” I said, stretching out my arms to fend her off as she stormed toward me.
“Surely you weren’t thinking of wearing it?”
“No! No! I just wanted to try it on. It’s so pretty. I never had anything so pretty.”
“You don’t have it now. But I’d like to know why you’ve never had a dress that nice. Your stepfather makes a good salary.”
“He’s a tightwad.”
“You mean frugal?”
“Hell, I don’t know!” I let her help slide my arms out of the coat. “He buys me clothes, but this is a dream.”
“Well, dream on if you think you’re ever going to wear it,” Elizabeth said, pulling the hem of the dress up and peeling it off over my head.
At the closet, she pulled out a lemon-colored cotton dress with puffed sleeves and tiny buttons running from the top of the white lace collar down to the waist and threw it on the bed.
“There, that ought to keep you out of trouble.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said.
“Not in the least.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Bubba John said, staring at the buttons when he came inside to get me.
“Not in the least,” I said with a grin.
Flying down the street with one of the coolest boys in school in his red-and-white convertible brought the mauve Chevy to mind. How the lowly had risen. The wind blasted my face and decimated the curls I’d worked so hard to create with Julie’s curling iron.
“I should’ve told you to bring a scarf,” Bubba John said. “Forgot all about it by the time my old man got through wearing me out the second time for that flagpole stunt. It was worth it, though. My mama saw old lady Armstrong in Samples at the lingerie counter, buying a new set of britches, white. Miss Glovina said she’d never again wear salmon undies. I said to Mama, ‘White makes sense. She’s bound to be a virgin. No man would have the old bag.’ My old man heard me, and that’s how come I got a second whipping. You a virgin, Julie, honey?”
And so it went, for an hour, until I broke the news to him that my mama had told me I had to go out with Farrel for part of the night, to be fair to both of them.
Bubba John pouted, but he took me home. At the door, he took my hand and held it up.
“Where’s your splint?”
I got way too many adrenalin rushes these days. I’d forgotten my fake finger splint.
“Oh, I got it off early. Thought you’d never notice.”
He gave me a look but said only, “Later, gator.”
He was probably glad to be free to chase another skirt that night, maybe one with fewer buttons.
Farrel showed up dressed in blue slacks and a cotton shirt with pale-blue stripes. His hair was still damp with comb tracks, and he smelled divine.
“I wore your favorite, Old Spice.” He smiled. “This feels like old times.”
I turned on the tough act. “It’s new times, big boy, and don’t get any ideas.”
He clearly had some, for his face fell. In the car, he backed his ears and tried again.
“Shall we go to our place?”
I had no clue what “our place” was.
“Absolutely not. Mama’s let me out until ten thirty. If I’m not in by then, I can’t go out with you again—ever.”
He shot an anxious look at his wrist watch. “That won’t give us much time.”
“We don’t need much. I’m just going on this date to prove I’m not mad anymore about you and Maylene. In fact, I’d almost forgotten about it until you brought it up at the Dairyette.”
While he drove, silent and brooding, I studied his profile. This was the father of my little niece or nephew to be. A part of me bore guilt for not telling him about Julie and the baby, but it wasn’t my place to do so.
He made right for the oilfields. When he pulled onto the dirt road and parked near a plum tree, I instinctively moved farther away from him, my back pressed against the door. He flipped on the radio, and wouldn’t you know, Elvis’s voice singing “I Was the One” floated out into the mellow night.
“Don’t be scared, honey. I’m not going to try anything.”
He put his arm on the seat back and shifted to face me. I only smiled.
“Not that I don’t want to. I do. I want you so bad, Julie. You’ve always done that to me.”
“Done what?”
“Made me want you, you know, like in the backseat.”
Being careful about my phrasing, I said, “Now that you’ve been told I didn’t get pregnant that time we . . . did IT, you’re more than willing to put me at risk again.”
“I said I wouldn’t try anything.”
“I know what you said. I also know you will if you get half a chance.”
“You’re a hard-headed woman, Julie. Come on. Let’s get out and wish on a star.”
With his arm around my waist, we walked across the clearing to the plum tree.
“Remember the first night I brought you here?” he said.
My heart sped up. Of course I didn’t remember a thing about it, nor had Julie mentioned it.
“I spread out that blanket I always carry in the trunk.”
“That must make things convenient for you.”
He sputtered. “I mean, my old man always carries. Please, honey, go with me on this. I’m trying to make things right with us again. Just think back with me. Remember how we kissed and how you were scared to take home the plums we picked ’cause your mama would put two and two together? You told me I’d better take them home to my mother.”
I answered with the truth. “No, I’m afraid I don’t remember. You look like it makes a big difference to you that I don’t.”
“It does. I’m not a man of words, Julie. I’m a man of action, but you won’t let me act. And you’re right. We shouldn’t mess around at all but . . .” He exhaled. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore.”
“Just fantasize, I guess.”
I had never felt like such a conniver in all my life. It was a good feeling—a feeling of power—and I liked it.
“Okay,” he said, taking my hand and looking up at the stars. “Let’s wish. I wish you would let me—” he began.
“Better hush up. If you tell your wish, it won’t come true.”
He looked at me with wide eyes. “That’s my line.”
I tensed. “Your line?” Maybe he had led me into some secret ritual he and Julie acted out with the star-wishing bit.
“I’ve always been the one that told you not to say your wish out loud.”
“Whoever’s line,” I said. “You’re the one who better not say your wish out loud, if you want it to ever come true.”
He was breathing hard.
“I do want it to, Julie. I do.”
He put his hands on my waist, stared into my eyes, and bending down, pressed his lips to mine. With calculated detachment, I let him go into a deep kiss I knew would lay bare the magic he had that drove Julie nuts. I found out, all right. His kiss was good. No, it was better than good. It jazzed me up. No wonder she flipped over him. This was the finest kissing I’d ever had.
His hand slid up from my waist. The way he touched my boob, only on top of my clothes, mind you, turned me into putty. I was almost unable to resist when he reached to pull up my dress—almost, but not quite.
I slapped his cheek and demanded he take me home. To my surprise, he agreed.
At the door, he surprised me again.
“You know something, honey, your knockers have grown. Did you know that? In just this short time since we were together last, they’ve gotten bigger.”
“It hasn’t been a short time. We haven’t been out since last December.”
“Naw.” He cut his eyes away. “It can’t have been that long.”
“You must have mine mixed mine up with Maylene’s.”
He laughed. “Maylene’s too uptight to let a boy fool around with her.”
“Then you did try.”
“Naw, now. Don’t go cooking up stuff. Hers are so little that when we were slow dancing I felt a tiny bump on her back and I thought one of them had slipped around behind, but it was only a mosquito bite.”
I watched, solemn, while he guffawed.
“Come on, honey, lighten up. You know old Maylene would never let me mash her. But I’m telling you, yours have gotten bigger. If that don’t beat all.”