South of Sunshine (4 page)

“Well—” She has to speak up because the music just got louder. “I don’t think we’ve lived anywhere long enough for me to pick up an accent.” She’s right. I don’t hear any inflection or drawl. It’s just clearly spoken words that pour out like warm sorghum.

“Your mom has one,” I say. Bren cocks her head. “Uh, she stopped by my mother’s shop today to pick up some stuff.” I feel like I’m yelling now. “She’s really beautiful.”

Why did I say that? The flames of the bonfire heat up my backside. Sweat trickles between my shoulder blades. I fan the back of my shirt.

“You want to move away from the fire? The noise?” she asks.

No. Yes. I follow her lead. Instead of going to the truck beds where everyone else is sitting, we walk in the opposite direction. Away from the music, the flames, and the chaos of farm boys who’ve had too many beers. Bren flips a water bucket over and offers one to me. I sit.

She positions her bucket right next to mine. It’s a low seat, so when Bren sits, she’s all granddaddy longlegs. Her knees jut past her armpits. She checks herself out, nodding in satisfaction. “Comfy,” she says sarcastically. A deep huff chuckles out of her.

“I can see that.” I grin. “If you’d rather sit over on the tailgates with the others—”

“Nope. I prefer to be over here with you,” Bren says. Her sureness sends a wave of tingles all over my body. The firelight barely reaches us, but it’s enough. I can see Bren’s eyes studying my features. It’s too much to bear her gaze, so I look out toward the lake. Not a single coherent thought comes to mind.

“Nice toes,” Bren says after a short silence.

“Thanks. My mom thinks they look
ghetto,
” I mimic my mother. “But I think they’re beautiful.”

“Me too.” But she’s not looking at my toes. My face heats up. Get it together.

“So … your car—glad to have it back?”

“For sure.”

“Don’t park that thing in the main school lot. It’ll get dinged in a heartbeat. I can’t wait to hear what Mr. Bobby says after you roll through town in that. He’ll think it’s ‘swaggy.’”

“Is Mr. Bobby that old guy who always hangs out in front of Kappy’s Diner?” The way she squints when she asks a question is so cute.

“Yep. He’s out there every day either sipping on coffee or munching on a bag of pork rinds.”

“What are pork rinds?” Bren’s face is a mix of curiosity and horror.

“You’ve never had pork rinds?” She shakes her head. “Oh, you haven’t lived until you’ve had pork rinds.” I explain what the crunchy goodies are, and Bren turns pale.

“Fried pig skin. That sounds disgusting.” She laughs. It’s all gruff.

“Hey, don’t knock it till you try it. Mr. Bobby says they’re ‘da bomb.’”

“Da bomb? Swaggy? Who talks like that anymore?”

“Only Mr. Bobby. He tries to be ‘hip’ with the kids. I heard him telling the preacher’s wife the other Sunday that she was his Woman Crush Wednesday.”

“No way.” Her whole body shakes from laughter.

I tell her how his newspaper supported the civil rights movement back in the day and enlighten her on a few colorful Mr. Bobby stories. By the time I tell her about him going to Black Hair Planet and having the girls put cornrows in his hair to impress his Ms. Doris, tears are welling in both our eyes.

“He’s a white man with a comb-over!” Bren chokes through her laughter.

“I know! But the man has got a sweet spot for that woman and will do anything to impress her.” My sides hurt and my cheeks ache from laughing so hard. God, her smile is amazing.

“Well, hello.” Van draws out his hello like he’s just caught my hand in the cookie jar. Sneaky rat, I didn’t even see him come over.

I straighten on my seat. “Vander,” I say just as pointedly.

Bren springs to her feet. “Dude, you want my bucket?”

“No,” Van and I say at the same time.

“Seriously, take it. I’m getting a leg cramp.” Bren stretches. Van takes the seat, and I narrow my eyes at him.

“What’s with all the giggles?” he asks, with way too much insinuation. I kick his foot, then glance at Bren. She’s busy looking at something over by the cars.

“You would not believe the moons I’ve seen tonight,” Van says, changing the subject.

“Moons?” Bren turns back to us.

“Big and hairy and one was attached to Chuck the Buck, the big fat—”

“Oh, that is gross,” I say. Bren cringes too. “Seen it. Don’t need to relive it again. Thank you very much.”

Van pinches the bridge of his nose and shakes his head. “I think I’m scarred for life.”

“Who was he mooning now?” I ask.

“Hey,” Bren interrupts before Van can answer. “Be back in a sec.” She takes off before I can ask why.

“One of the M&M twins commented on his butt crack showing,” Van starts, but I’m watching Bren. She’s walking past the bonfire toward the trucks, with purpose.

“And he says”—Van pauses to control his laughter—“‘If you like my crescent, you’ll loooove my moon.’ He dropped his tighty-whities so fast our eyes were violated before we knew it. Ha, ha—what are you looking at?”

There’s a crowd gathering over by the cars, so I stand. “Something’s going on.”

Van pops up next to me. “Ooh, is somebody fixin’ to open up a can of whoop-ass?”

I shush him. The party chatter dulls to where the music is awkwardly loud. Van and I start walking toward the commotion. So does everybody else. On the other side of the crowd, I catch a glimpse of Andrew standing with his fists clenched tight by his sides, his face pinched in anger. I can’t see who he’s pissed at. Chuck the Buck pushes into the middle, concerned.

“Oh no,” Van says. “There’s a fight.” We move quicker.

Great.
There’s got to be fifty-something people here, and the biggest guys who could potentially stop a fight are the drunken ones causing it. Van and I pick up our pace, but so does everyone else.

“Who is he fighting?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” Van says with as much frustration as I’m feeling.

I hold on to Van’s shoulder, and he leads us through the thick mob of bodies. He shoves people to the side and clears a path for us.

We emerge at the front of the pack and my heart drops. Andrew is seething like he’s nine kinds of pissed off. Directly in front of him stands Bren. Why does she feel the need to involve herself? Seriously, she probably shouldn’t be drawing any unwanted attention. She plants a hand on Andrew’s chest, and he knocks it off with force.

Oh shit.
This does not look good.

Chapter 5

I lurch forward. Van snags my elbow and slowly shakes his head.

“My bad. I didn’t know,” says Bren. She throws her hands back in surrender.

Didn’t know what?

“They didn’t come to crash your party. I invited them.” Bren gestures behind her.

I didn’t even see the ten or so people standing there. It’s her basketball buddies, Tawanda and LaShell. I recognize Terrance Carver, LaShell’s boyfriend, who subbed as quarterback after Andrew busted his knee last year and cost the Wildcats the championship. The other faces I don’t know by name, but I’ve seen them at school.

A girl next to me mumbles to her friend. “Why’d she invite
them
?” The disgust in her voice is thick. “Don’t they have their own parties to go to?” She crinkles her nose.

“Yeah, in the hood.” Her friend snickers.

I turn toward the both of them, and the words “stupid” and “bitch” are very close to escaping my mouth. It’s pathetic that Sunshine hasn’t advanced past the sixties. These girls don’t even know them. Especially LaShell because she works her butt off in the college prep courses, and these two skanks skim by in remedial English. Second of all, LaShell doesn’t live anywhere near “the hood.” Her daddy is some big lawyer over in Memphis, and they live in a huge house out in the country.
Idiots.

Vander nudges me. My attention pans back to Bren and Andrew. Now they are talking in low voices, and I can only hear every other word. Some old school “Baby Got Back” is thumping in the background. I wish somebody would turn the music off.

Andrew points to Tawanda and LaShell. “Those two can stay. But everyone else has to go.”

Terrance moves forward. “Why you gonna play me like that?” He barely comes up to Bren’s shoulder, but he’s a stocky fellow.

“You”—Andrew stabs his finger in the air—“cost us the championship.”

“It was
one
game. How was I supposed to live up to the Goodman legend?” Terrance has a point. Those Goodman boys have sports soldered to their DNA. Sunshine High’s Trophy Hall should be renamed Goodman Hall with all the gold-plated plastic they’ve earned.

“Hey, man,” Chuck says to Andrew. “We don’t want this to get out of hand. They’re not here to cause any problems.”

Andrew takes another swig of his beer and his posture softens, but he doesn’t say anything. For once, I think alcohol might be helping to defuse the situation.

Bren looks at Terrance and eyes him up and down. She says to Andrew, “Bet his jump shot sucks too.” The tension breaks slightly when both of the boys smile.

Chuck puts an arm around Andrew. “Come on, give the little pit bull some love.”
Ha!
Terrance
is
thick and stocky like a pit bull. “Can’t we all just get along?” That gets a chuckle out of everyone. Chuck makes a ridiculously sappy puppy-dog face and nudges Andrew forward.

There’s a bit of reluctance and hesitation before Andrew takes one long look around at his audience and then reaches out his hand to Terrance. They shake. The gesture releases a universal sigh. Maybe there is some hope for this town.

Someone turns up the music, and a hip-hop dance mix blares. “Awwwww, hey.” Tawanda bounces to the beat. Her groove causes a chain reaction amongst her friends. The electric buzz is infectious.

Van swings his hips, and I join him. Sarabeth grabs Andrew, and their pelvises lock together, pumping to the base. I do a little wiggle dance with Van.

Chuck jumps into the back of his truck and points the spotlight on his roll bar over everybody, flickering it on and off like a strobe light. The crowd does a collective “Ooh.” I turn to see the excitement. Bren busts out with a pop-and-lock, then leans to one side and waves her body from head to toe.
Holy shit.
If it wasn’t for the fact that she was six feet tall, and, well, a girl, I’d swear Michael Jackson rose from the dead.

Everyone forms a semicircle around her, cheering. Her pelvis snaps up and down. She grabs her invisible fedora and glides backward out of the center of the circle, gesturing to LaShell as she exits. LaShell and Tawanda erupt into a stomp routine, but all I see is Bren.

Her skin glistens, and her chest heaves up and down. A stray hair hangs down her forehead like Superman’s curl. It’s a thing of beauty.

Bren cracks up, and I focus back on the circle. Chuck the Buck bounces in the center. His belly jiggles up and down while he’s riding the pony, then he flicks his tongue between the V of his fingers.
Gross.
The M&M twins shove him out of the way and do something … uncomfortably suggestive for two sisters. And what do you know, Van and Sarabeth clasp hands and do a swing dance. They look so freaking cute together.

Casually I let my eyes skim back over to Bren. I’m transfixed by the lines of her face, her defined jaw line, and high cheekbones. I’m tired of watching her from afar. I want to see her up close, touch her, and let her touch me.

It’s scary and freeing all at once to allow myself to look at Bren like this. But she’s different than any other girl I know. Bren is breathtaking. Magnetic.

Bren catches me watching her. It sends a shiver down my spine. She nods her head toward the dancing and raises a brow. But I don’t know if I can do it. Her wide smile urges me to go ahead. I think, yeah, I want to do this.

My feet propel me into the middle of the circle. At first I do my typical little ragtime ditty—I shake the hem of my invisible skirt with one hand while propping a pinkie on my lips with the other. Then I pause to the beat of the music and drop my body limbo-low to the ground and snap back up. Everybody roars in surprise.

Pipsqueak Harry jumps in after me and does his leprechaun/Charlie Chaplin thing, and everyone starts to boo him. Until Tawanda and LaShell move in to bump and grind on him like a Harry sandwich. The height difference is hilarious, and he loves every minute of it.

We’re in a haze of gray where things no longer fit into the tight, compartmentalized area of black or white.

Across the crowd, through the bonfire blaze, Bren watches me. My smile falters for a second. I try to focus on the dancing, the fun. Anything but those sultry brown eyes that have me pinned.

In that moment, I realize I can’t fight it any longer. I can’t keep kissing boys and pretending I’m something I’m not. I can’t keep lying to myself. This ain’t some kind of new-girl girl-crush. This is a crush-crush. And I’m terrified. It’s not so much the fall that scares me, but the repercussion of the bottom I will inevitably hit.

Chapter 6

Okay, so I know I said I was ready to plunge into that ocean, but it’s not as easy to get your feet wet as you’d think. Especially when said ocean rolls in beside me at our table at lunch on Monday. It feels oh so right to like Bren, and pretending to like boys is no longer an option, but I have my mother’s reputation to maintain—not to mention my own.

It’s a torturous hell to be Switzerland.

As Bren sits down at our table, her beachy scent taunts me. And what the heck is that spice? It’s driving me mad.

She tips her chin in a hello to all the boys. Sarabeth gives a quick wave and cuts a worried look in my direction. Before I can understand what she’s concerned with, she’s smiling and talking about cheerleading stuff with Misty.

Bren stabs a few green beans with her fork. “That was one sweet party, Andrew.”

“Dude, where’d you learn to bust a move like that?” Chuck asks in awe.

“I think she’s got a little black blood in her,” Andrew says, chuckling.

Bren shakes her head, and her bronze skin shades a little darker on her cheeks. “Naw, man,” she says to her food. “It’s just … you know, something I do.”

“Yeah, I do lots of things too.” Chuck bucks like a bronco in his seat.

“I bet you do,” Sarabeth says. “Like eat your momma out of house and home.” Everyone cracks up.

“Them’s fightin’ words. Don’t be talking ’bout my momma like that.” Chuck fakes like he’s going to jump Sarabeth. “Yo Momma” jokes whip across the table.

“So, you always in the library on Fridays?” Bren knocks her leg against mine. My pulse ignites.

“Yes. You?” My voice peeps. I clear my throat.

“Yeah. Study hall. I took most of my required courses in Boston. College prep stuff and whatnot. I still need one more English class and another science, but the rest of my classes are fluff. Like drama.” She scoops up a bite of potatoes.

“What else are you taking?” What I really want to ask is,
Can you write down your class schedule so I can stalk you easier?
She names off her classes. Of course she has PE. She’s the one person in the whole school who actually
wants
to take PE. I tell her what I’m taking—in case she wants to stalk me. She doesn’t think it’s boring at all that I’m in AP History.

LaShell comes up behind us. “B-ball after school?”

“You know it,” Bren says. A fist bump seals the deal.

“You going to bring white boy?” LaShell nods toward Andrew and smiles.

Andrew looks up, not smiling. “I don’t play with a bunch of girls.”

“Aw, it’s a sex thing. I see,” says LaShell with a shaky smile.

“No.” He tilts his head. “Five days a week till sundown, I’m gonna be out on that field”—he points with his fork toward the football field—“making the Wildcats proud.”

“A’ight. Football’s cool.” LaShell reaches to fist-bump Andrew. He stares at his food, acting like he doesn’t see her hand reaching across the table. The silence is amplified by the scraping of forks against plates; it’s awkwardly loud. My face flushes with shame as I stare at my food like everyone else and wait for her to walk away. When she does, Andrew shakes his chocolate milk and eyes Bren with a long scrutinizing look.

Whatever happened over the weekend did not translate into today. I glance around the lunchroom. The clear dividing line between the blacks and the whites, the haves and the have-nots, still separates the cafeteria. Just when I think this school might be dangerously close to becoming
tolerant
, the sobriety of daylight nips that shit in the bud.

Midweek I race to the gym and change into my workout clothes. PE does not suck this week. Next week and for the rest of the year, there will probably be suckage and then some, but this week, it’s all about volleyball, my favorite sport. As for other things not sucking, Bren sitting with me at lunch all week also did not suck. Or that her science class is down the hall from my AP American Government class, and she walks me there every day.

The challenging part of all this Bren activity is figuring out how to keep my personal space. The slightest nudge from her scatters butterflies in my stomach. And as much as I like being around her, I’m worried about people noticing how much we’re hanging out.

The class bell rings, and everyone starts warming up. I arc my body and nail a perfect serve.

“Nice,” a voice compliments me. Her voice. I close my eyes so I can absorb it in my bones.

I pivot on the balls of my feet toward Bren. “Young lady, aren’t you supposed to be in English lit?” Walking toward her, I check to see who might be watching. No one is within earshot. Grunts and smacks echo throughout the gym. I step past the edge of the bleachers, hoping for privacy.

“Mr. Wallace gave me a pass to skip so I can talk to Coach Wilson about basketball tryouts.” Bren props her hand up on the edge of the bleachers next to my head. I’m thrown off-kilter.

“I—I bet Tawanda and LaShell are happy about that,” I say. She smiles at my stuttering.

A whooping holler calls our attention toward the gymnasium. Halfway up the climbing rope, Charlotte Wozniak is scrambling up like a chimpanzee.

I knew Charlotte when I was a little girl. Ms. Veda used to babysit us during the summers. The girl I see before me today does not even remotely resemble the sweet creature I knew back then. Now, she’s got business-in-the-front-party-in-the-back hair. Camouflage and plaid are the only types of clothing she owns. Everybody in school knows she has a girlfriend, and I’m not talking girl-who’s-a-friend either. No one cares because she’s from the trailer park, so it’s not like they expect her to act any differently, which is a sad point of view. Jacinda, her girlfriend, used to date a black guy from the neighboring county. Both Charlotte and Jacinda are perfect outcasts for each other. Forever exiled from the social circles.

We’re supposed to be working on our volleyball form—which Charlotte stinks at—so she’s climbing the rope instead. Strands of hair from her mullet are plastered to her sweaty face, and her homemade middle finger tattoo mocks us from her shoulder. She slaps the metal beam at the top and slides down military style. After she lands on the ground, she tags Bren with her eyes.

My territorial instincts kick in, and I lean in front of Bren to block Charlotte’s view. Bad move on my part.

Charlotte’s hands hit the wooden floors, and her heels fly up in the air. She walks upside down across the gymnasium. It’s a circus sideshow long past its prime. Surely Bren is not impressed by such antics.

As the thought slips into my brain, Bren says, “Wow, that’s …” Shock and confusion twist her face. “Disturbing. I feel a strong need to call my mom.” She widens her eyes at me, smiling.

I release the tension from my shoulders and laugh. “Yeah, seriously.” I stare over my shoulder at Charlotte, wanting to grunt some ape commands to let her know to back off.

Charlotte stands right side up and spins a volleyball on her finger, probably about to balance it on her nose. Great, not only do I have Chesty Hannigan moving in on Bren, I have to worry about Charlotte now too. But then Charlotte smiles and flashes me a thumbs-up. The way she’s nodding her head, it’s like she’s encouraging me to make a move on Bren. I swear that girl ain’t right.

“You should have seen her do-si-do during square dance week. I had nightmares for a month.” When I turn back around—Smack! A sting pegs me in the back, and I tumble forward into Bren’s arms. It’s an awkward tangle of limbs, but I retreat fairly quickly.

“Wozniak, get control of that ball,” Mrs. Eastman barks. She is the epitome of a PE teacher: stocky figure, spiked hair, and a man’s voice. Charlotte smiles huge, like she meant to push us together. “Dawson, are you going to flirt with my pupils all day or do you have somewhere to be?”

Bren beams. I want to crawl in a hole and die. “Gotta go,” Bren says. And I’m left with a circus ape, a drill sergeant for a teacher, and twenty sets of eyes trying to figure out who’s flirting with whom. So much for my rocking week.