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‘Yeah,’ said Tully, getting up and walking over to Jennifer. ‘I do recall seeing you talk to some guy who wears those sexy football jerseys with a number on the back. What’s his number, Jule?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Julie.
‘Maybe sixty-nine?’ offered Tully, trying to peek at Jennifer’s face.
Jennifer didn’t answer, just pushed Tully away with her wet hand.
‘Jule?’ asked Tully. ‘What does he look like again?’
‘Kind of blond?’ said Julie.
‘Kind of tall?’ said Tully.
‘Always wears Levi’s?’ said Julie.
‘With stubble?’ said Tully.
‘Levi’s with stubble?’ said Jennifer, compulsively wiping the stove-top. Tully and Julie ignored her.
‘Really built?’ Tully went on.
‘And I heard he’s really smart, too,’ added Julie, getting up and laughing silently into her hands.
‘Julie!’ said Tully. ‘Smart? I heard he can spell his name but has a little trouble with his address. I guess that’s smart for a High Trojan.’
Julie shook her head. ‘Well, if Jen can be valedictorian and cheerleader, why can’t he be smart and a football player?’
Jennifer swirled past Tully to the closet and got Tully’s bag.
It was a warm and sunny early evening. Tully thought Jennifer looked warm and sunny, too, wearing a yellow tank top with white cotton shorts. She is so pretty, thought Tully. Does she even know? She’s got these nice thin legs and those beautiful arms. Her hair looks so nice permed. I should have mine permed again, except it’ll never look like hers, not in this lifetime.
Jen looked Tully flush in the face and said, ‘Are you two quite finished?’
‘Actually, no,’ said Tully, taking her bag and touching Jennifer’s hand with her fingers. ‘Jule,’ Tully said. ‘I didn’t go to the Junior Prom, but didn’t you tell me that some guy danced a lot with Jennifer? And that Jennifer danced a lot back?’
Julie smiled an unsuppressed smile. ‘Yeah,’ she replied. ‘Come to think of it. But I don’t think it was the same guy. I mean, the Junior Prom guy was blond and tall and well built and everything, but he was clean-shaven and wearing a suit.’
‘Oh, of course, we’re being silly, right, Jen?’ said Tully. ‘That was obviously a different guy.’
Jennifer folded her arms. ‘Are you two quite finished?’
Julie and Tully looked at each other. ‘I don’t know,’ said Tully. ‘Are we, Julie?’
Julie laughed. ‘Yup, I guess we are now,’ she said.
‘Good,’ said Jennifer. ‘Because I have nothing to say to either one of you. Get the hell out.’
‘We’re out of here,’ Tully said, pulling Jennifer’s hair.
‘Don’t forget my presents, girls,’ Jennifer said.
When Tully and Julie were at the end of the driveway, Jennifer yelled after them, ‘Oh, by the way, smartasses!’
They turned around.
‘He is number thirty, for your information.’ And slammed the screen door.
2
Outside, on the corner of Wayne Street and Sunset Court, Julie turned to Tully. ‘Why won’t she tell us?’ she asked.
Tully shrugged. ‘I suppose she’s told us as much as she wants us to know. Have you ever spoken to him?’
No, Julie said, and walked the five blocks from 17th to Huntoon in silence. Tully did not go to the Junior Prom last May, Julie thought. Tully had not seen Jennifer unable to look up into the face of a seventeen-year-old boy who had his arm around Jennifer’s back and her hand in his hand. Seeing them together and seeing the look on Jen’s face impressed Julie, but since Jennifer never mentioned the Junior Prom, or the boy, and since Julie did not see him all summer, she forgot to make him a big deal to Tully. Not until Julie saw the same look in Jennifer’s eyes while talking to a boy near her locker did she connect the dots. Then she told Tully. And Tully was a troublemaker. She put the boy in the fan and blew him around Jennifer every chance she got.
‘He can’t be that important,’ said Julie, stopping at the corner of Wayne and 10th. ‘We don’t even know his name.’
Tully punched Julie lightly in the arm. ‘But we will. We will. Tonight.’ As an afterthought, Tully asked, ‘Is Tom coming with you?’
‘But of course,’ said Julie.
‘But of course,’ mimicked Tully. She rolled her eyes and snorted.
Julie leaned close to Tully. The girls were standing in the middle of the road, in the middle of Topeka, in the middle of America, in the middle of an Indian summer. ‘I’ll tell you a little secret, Tull. He doesn’t like you, either.’
‘What’s to like?’ said Tully.
What’s to like? thought Julie as she rushed to get ready. What’s to like? she thought as she walked down the stairs, unhappy as always with her Mexican face and her slightly rounded Mexican body. Tom wasn’t there yet, thank God, to hear her mother ‘Oh, conchita! Why, you so beautiful! What a beautiful dress, turn around, let me look at you, my, aren’t you growing up, your hair looks so lovely, you gonna be such a heartbreaker!’
Tom did hear her mother, though. Angela Martinez continued to gush well after he arrived. ‘Isn’t she beautiful, Tom, isn’t she lovely?’ Julie rolled her eyes, a gesture she borrowed directly from Tully. ‘Mom! Please!’
‘Yeah, she is,’ said Tom. ‘Now, let’s go.’
Angela came over and hugged Julie. ‘All right, Ma, all right,’ said Julie, hugging her back. ‘You’re messing up my hair.’
‘Julie! Julie!’ Vincent, the youngest of her four brothers, came running from the kitchen, his hands full of raw cookie dough, and grabbed her around the thighs. ‘Julie!’ whined three-year-old Vinnie. ‘I want to go with you!’ She screamed, peeling him off her. ‘Ma! Get him off my dress!’
‘Take me with you!’ repeated Vinnie.
Julie looked intently at her mother. Angela turned to her youngest boy. ‘But Vinnie, who’s gonna help Mama make cookies? Or did you eat all the dough already?’
Vinnie was torn, but stomach won over brotherly affection, and he bolted back into the kitchen after kissing Julie’s dress good-bye.
‘Your mother!’ said Tom when they were outside.
‘Yeah, I know,’ Julie nodded. ‘She only likes me ‘cause she’s got no other daughters.’ But though she said that, she felt a little defensive. Yeah, that’s my mother. Everyone should be so lucky to have a mother like mine. She glanced at Tom. He annoyed her sometimes. Oh, well, she thought. Being in the history club together is fun enough.
3
After Tully and Julie left, Jennifer sighed and went upstairs into her parents’ bedroom. Her mother, just out of the shower, was sitting on the bed, one hand on a towel, one on her cigarette.
Jennifer said, ‘Ma, did you know that Marlboro just patented a waterproof cigarette?’
‘Don’t start with me, Jen,’ said Lynn Mandolini.
‘I’m serious. I’ve seen the commercial. “Why not enjoy two pleasures at once? Wash your hair and inhale nicotine at the same time. You’ve always wanted to do it, and now you can. It costs a bit more, but it’s worth it.”’
‘Are you quite done?’ asked Lynn. Jennifer smiled.
No mother and daughter could have looked less alike. It was a running joke in the Mandolini household that Jennifer, Lynn and Tony’s only child, must have been born to a Norwegian family who got tired of all those fjords and came to landlocked Topeka, only to get tired of baby Jennifer. ‘But Mom, Dad,’ Jennifer would say. ‘Didn’t you tell me you found me in a cornfield where the sun made my hair blond?’
Jennifer was a tall, blond, busty girl, who had always battled with weight. At eighteen, she was still winning; just. But she had the kind of body that with time and kids and plenty of good cooking might get heavy around the middle. Big breasts, small behind, thin legs. She was the only one on the cheerleading squad with a chest larger than 34B. Tully was usually merciless when she described the mammary attributes of the rest of the team when compared with Jennifer, and Jennifer all too frequently had to point out that Tully herself fell into the 34B category. ‘Yes, but I don’t go around parading my tits in a low-cut costume while I dance,’ Tully would say. At this, Jennifer would raise her eyebrows, widen her eyes, and stare mutely at Tully, who’d say, ‘All right, all right. But never on a football field, and only very rarely with a pom-pom.’
Jennifer’s mother was as dark and thin as Jennifer was fair and robust, outwardly anxious as Jennifer was outwardly calm, elegant as Jennifer was casual.
‘Everything ready?’
‘More or less,’ replied Jennifer. ‘Tully ate all the dip.’
‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’ Lynn smiled. Then, ‘You must be happy Tully was allowed to come tonight.’
Tully and Jack. Yes. I’m not unhappy. ‘Sure,’ Jennifer said. ‘It’s been a long time.’
‘How’s she doing?’
‘Okay. Her guidance counselor’s giving her a hard time.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ Lynn said absentmindedly. ‘Why?’
Jennifer did not want to talk about Tully at the moment. ‘Oh, you know,’ she said, rolling her eyes, a gesture she borrowed directly from Tully. ‘Guidance counselors.’ She plodded back downstairs into the living room, where all the furniture had been moved to the walls. Jennifer sat down on the carpet. Her thoughts ran to the calculus quiz she had failed earlier in the week and told no one about; thoughts ran to the calc quiz and passed onto cheerleader practice on Monday. Here the thoughts stopped. Jen, a cheerleader! The valedictorian of her middle school, a former president of the chess and math clubs, a cheerleader! Well, at least she wasn’t a very good cheerleader. It seemed every time she threw her pom-poms up, they fell to the ground instead of into her hands. She got up off the floor and lumbered into the kitchen.
Her mother came up close to her and touched Jennifer lightly on the cheek with her floured fingers. ‘My baby. My eighteen-year-old, grown-up, big, big baby.’
‘Mom, please,’ said Jennifer.
Lynn smiled and hugged her. Jennifer smelled Marlboro and mint, and did not pull away.
‘Are you enjoying your senior year?’ Lynn asked.
‘For sure,’ said Jennifer, remembering her father’s exact same question three days after senior year began. At least Mom waited a few weeks, Jennifer thought, patting her mother gently on the back.
Lynn let go of Jennifer and went to look for her bag. ‘What’s the matter, Mom?’ Jennifer said. ‘Too long without a cigarette?’
‘Don’t be fresh.’ Lynn lit up.
Jennifer silently sidled after her mother, watching her make pigs in a blanket and sprinkle a little cinnamon on the apple strudel. Jennifer loved apple strudel. She walked over to the counter and broke a piece off the end.
‘Jenny Lynn, you stop that now,’ said her mother. ‘Go upstairs and get ready, will you?’
Jennifer went back into the living room instead. She was a little sorry her dad wasn’t going to make it to the party. Tony Mandolini, assistant store manager at J C Penny, always worked till ten on Saturday nights, and after work tonight, he said, he would rather disappear to his mother-in-law’s than face Sunset Court with thirty howling kids. He promised Jennifer a great present tomorrow when she woke up. Jennifer already knew what it was; she heard her parents talking one evening.
I hope I can gush effectively, she thought. Hope I can satisfy them with my gushing.
She looked outside the living room window onto Sunset Court. Sunset Court. Sun-Set Court. Jennifer had always liked the sound of that. Sunset Court. Unlike Tully, who said she hated the name of her own street, Grove Street, and told everyone she lived in ‘the Grove.’ Please drive me to the Grove, Tully would say. The Grove.
‘Jen, phone!’
She picked up. ‘How’s my birthday girl?’ boomed a familiar jolly voice. ‘Couldn’t be better, Dad,’ she said. Maybe a little better. ‘Ma, it’s daddy,’ she called across the house, relieved he didn’t want to talk to her again. This was the fourth time he had called today, each time greeting Jennifer with a resounding ‘How’s my birthday girl?’
Jennifer went back to arranging the records. Bee Gees, Eagles, Stones, Dead, Van Halen. The Grease soundtrack, the Beatles. A little lone Garfunkel. Pink Floyd. As she worked, her face was soft, her gaze blinkless, her body outwardly relaxed, nearly motionless. But inside her head there was a relentless noise, and to shut it out she started counting her records and then counting sheep. One sheep, two sheep, three sheep…two hundred and fifty sheep think of nothing but sheep. Calm, she thought, calm.
4
Tully walked purposefully but not fast. She knew she had to go home – it was five-fifteen and home was more than a mile away from where she had left Julie. She needed to shower, get ready, and walk back to the party by seven. Yet Tully did not rush. She walked slowly up Jewell.
The three girls lived in a geographical near-straight line from each other, with Jennifer’s house on Sunset Court the farthest away from Tully and in the nicest neighborhood. Julie lived on Wayne and 10th, in a four bedroom two-floor bungalow that housed five kids and two adults. Tully lived closest to the Kansas River. The low-level rush of the river would’ve been soothing to her if only the river hadn’t been drowned out by the endless hum of the Kansas Turnpike and the clanging of freight trains on the St Louis Railroad. If not for the Kansas Pike and the railroad, and the sight of the horrendous structure that was the City of Topeka’s sewage disposal plant, the sound of the river would have indeed been pleasing to Tully.
On her way home, Tully passed a park so small it had no name. There the kids from the nearby elementary and nursery schools played on weekdays. The playground was long on the ground and short on the play, with only the standard slide, a swing, and a seesaw to entice the little ones. Not like the great playground at Washburn University. Now, that was a playground, thought Tully, sitting down on the swings and swinging for a while. She was rocking herself gently, back and forth back and forth, when she heard a woman with two young babies heading her way. The older boy was toddling along and griping about something, while the infant was squawking in a huge pink carriage. The trio passed by her, the little boy grumbling to his mother to take him to the ‘baby sings.’ Looking at Tully, the woman smiled wanly, walking after her son. Tully smiled back. She watched them putter about, watched them aimlessly, without time, without thought, without feeling – until she remembered Jennifer’s party, got up hastily, and hurried out.
Standing in front of her bedroom mirror, Tully appraised herself. Her hair needed perming and bleaching again. Skin was too pale, thanks to the sunless summer, and her cheeks had on too much rouge – made her look like a clown in the daylight. But now, in the evening, it was more acceptable. More acceptable to who? Tully thought. To mother?
Tully had not been to a party by herself for more than a year.
Tonight’s the night, she thought, straightening her collar and adjusting the belt on her leather pants. I’m too angly. Not quite thin, but angly. Arms, legs all over the place. And not enough breasts to go with them. Wide hips with no meat on them. She touched her behind. Too flat. To match my chest. She peered into her face, bringing herself flush against the mirror. Squinted her eyes. Hey, you. You going to a party by yourself? Aren’t you a little young to be going anywhere by yourself? Aren’t you only seventeen? Hey, you?
Too much makeup, she’ll say, thought Tully. Too much eye shadow, too much mascara. Will she even notice? She was sleeping when I came in, maybe she’ll stay asleep…In any case, I’m not coming into a house full of people with nothing on this face, that is just not what’s going to happen. Say it.
‘I am plain,’ she said. Plain. ‘Plain Tully, that’s what they call me.’
But I look all right now. The red blouse’s nice (to match my red lips). But tight. Pants are tight, too. She’ll never let me out again if she sees me. Seventeen and a half, but just too young to go out, just too young to go. Tully snickered. Now, isn’t that just the biggest joke in the Grove. Ah, yes, but I’m so safe here at home. Why, this is the safest place.
Tully found a toothpick. A party! How many people? How many of them guys? How many on a football team? Nice going, Jen. She smiled. Jennifer even promised there might be some guys at the party Tully – remarkably enough – did not know.
Tully started making friends with boys when she was around thirteen, going to a bunch of boozeless kiddie parties. Then boozeless kiddie parties started to bore her silly, and when she was fourteen and fifteen and sixteen but looked nineteen, twenty, twenty-one and had the ID to prove it, she went around with a wilder crowd. Most of the girls she hung out with were not in school anymore. Some were pregnant, all were husbandless. Some were still in school but truant; many were in foster homes. It all seemed kind of fun at the time. Nothing quite like a dozen kids, running around the Midwest, going to College Hill, drinking beer, dancing on the tables, smoking pot, having a good ol’ time. She got to know some older boys then, too; some college students. They looked like men and talked deep like men, but when it came to wanting to touch her, they had no self-control, just like boys. Mother did a lot of sleeping back in those days and didn’t mind Tully’s going out. After working hard for the Topeka refuse plant every day, who would have the energy for anything but sleep? Tully had been telling her mother she was sleeping over at friends’ houses since she was thirteen, knowing Hedda Makker would always be too tired to check. That’s what it was, thought Tully, as she ran a pick through her frizzy hair. She’s always been just plain too tired to ask me where I’ve been.
The younger boys and the older boys had all watched Tully dance, danced with her, and cheered her when she danced alone. They came up to her, they bought her drinks, they laughed at her jokes. All those boys who kissed her told her she was a good kisser; who fondled her told her she had a good body. Tully scoffed but listened to them all the same. And some had come calling for her in the following few days but did not stay long, disheartened by the stares of her mother and her Aunt Lena, or by the condition of the beaten-down house in the Grove with a broken front window, broken during Halloween of 1973 and boarded up ever since. Or disheartened by the Grove or by the railroad or by the river.
In many ways, Tully minded Topeka more than the Grove itself. Oh, it was just a town, a small, subdued green capital town, with empty streets and lots of cars. But when the town ended, and quickly end it did, after a narrow street, or a road that suddenly became a hill, there was nothing but the prairie stretching out ad infinitum. Fields and grass and an occasional cottonwood, all on their way to nowhere, windblown, ravaged by fires, never broken up by an ocean or even a sea. Just pastureland, millions of miles long, seemingly up to the sky, westward, outward, onward, to absolutely nowhere. Tully never felt more intensely confined than when she thought about the vastness beyond Topeka.
For sure, there were other nearby towns. Kansas City bored her. In Manhattan, there was nothing to do. Emporia and Salina were smaller than Topeka. Lawrence was a university town. Wichita she had been to only once.
The Grove emptied out on the western side into Auburndale Park, right next to the Kansas State Hospital with its Menninger facility for the insane, and on the eastern side into Kansas Pike. Fortunately, the Grove was too far a walk for most of the boys who got interested in Tully. It was just as well. Most of the boys Tully met were not to her mother’s taste.
When Tully was sixteen, all the ‘staying over at friends’ houses’ had stopped. Hedda Makker, having been too tired for years, suddenly expressed interest in the contents of Tully’s desk and found some condoms. Tully swore up and down that they were given to her as a joke, for balloons, that she knew they were bad but didn’t know what they were. It was to no avail. The ‘sleepovers’ stopped. That was a shame. Tully had made a lot of money on those dance contests up on College Hill.
Tully went nowhere for six months, except Jennifer’s and Julie’s, and when she had turned seventeen last year, her Aunt Lena came with her. Loud, laughing, partying teenagers, who drank Buds and told dirty jokes and sang the Dead, and Aunt Lena, sitting in some corner like a fat mute duck, watching, watching, watching her.
Not being able to go out and party, Tully, who for years had tried to shut out her childhood friends, reluctantly returned to the Makker/Mandolini/Martinez circle. They became known around Topeka High as the 3Ms. They were always together again, but it wasn’t the same. There were…things they did not speak about.
