Lindsay Hunter - Ugly Girls

They’d dropped Baby Girl near her car. She hadn’t turned to meet Perry’s eye, had just walked down the row. Perry watched her thick back and bald head until she’d ducked into the driver’s seat of her car, out of sight. The triumph Perry had felt the night before, revealing her secret about Jamey, felt shameful now. Worse than the triumph was that she’d needed to show those other women the power she held over Baby Girl. The power she held in the world: men wanted her .

Travis was right in not wanting her. And Baby Girl was right in not turning back.

“Myra told me to leave you there,” Jim said. His voice sounded etched through, scratchy and raw. “But I made the choice to leave you there all on my own. That ain’t no place for teenaged girls, hopefully you saw for yourself.”

Perry nodded. She knew that’s how Myra would react, it had been why she’d texted Jim instead of her own mother in the first place. Still, it burned hearing it, that Myra had decided to go home and drink herself into a stupor instead of … what? Standing outside the jail, calling Perry’s name? Offering to sleep with whoever if they’d release her baby? Getting arrested herself, to keep Perry company?

This was Myra’s voice she was hearing now, not her own, Myra’s voice running down the list of nothings she could have done. Perry was an expert at channeling that voice, at making excuses.

“I’m sorry,” Perry said, another thing her momma often said, but Perry wanted to mean it, wanted it so bad that she clenched down, molars grinding against each other until her ears rang.

“I ain’t taking you home,” Jim said. “Your momma’s not right, and since you already missed a day of school I figure you should go in today.”

“I haven’t showered or nothing,” Perry said. She tried to keep the whine out of her voice, but it was there.

“You can wash up at school,” he said. “I know they got sinks there.”

“My schoolbag is still in Baby — in Dayna’s car.”

“I don’t care if you sit in class and do nothing,” he said. “You ain’t coming home right now.”

Perry heard how he was trying to keep control of his voice, too, saw it in his grip on the steering wheel. She wondered did he ever think about putting his hands on her or Myra, shaking them, pushing them, hitting them until he felt better. Knuckles throbbing and bloody instead of throbbing and white, there in front of him on the steering wheel, him having to breathe through all that rage unspent. It made her feel better, thinking of him losing control like that. Like it was possible that everyone had something dark inside them, everyone had something they were barely controlling, even that nasty old lady at the drugstore, even Jim. Even anyone.

JAMEY’S MOMMA was perched on the edge of the couch, struggling to get her pants on without using her hands, since they were busy planting her firmly where she sat. Kicking her legs, her whole face wet with tears. A warbling sound burbled forth from her, surfacing like a fart in a bathtub, when she saw him come through the door. “I was fixing to go out and find you,” she said, “just as soon as I could get dressed properly.” It was a bright morning, the sun giving off the kind of light that made him feel like everything was going to be okay as he walked the short distance from where he’d hidden in Perry’s room to his momma’s trailer. He noticed things he’d never noticed before, like how the neighbor catty-corner to his momma had marigolds in a pot that were so yellow they were surely fake. Or how the neighbor next to that had a stained-glass butterfly hanging in the window. Such beautiful green wings that caught the light and gave it back in a way that he almost felt flirted with. Or how pretty the name of the road that snaked between the trailers was. Cinnamon Way. He’d never paid any attention to it before, but it had a ring to it. It was fun to say, and he did say it, letting his teeth linger over the starting s sound. The counselor at the jail had said Jamey’s urges were wrong, were sins if you were the type to believe in God. But he had her panties, he’d smelled the sour spot on her pillow. Jim had his hands full with Myra. Everyone distracted that needed to be. Except him. He was as focused as a soldier. His pecker so hard and sure it could have divined water in the desert. All the signs were saying his urges were just right.

But then he saw his momma. Her face slick with snot and crying, her hair mashed on one side, riding the couch like a lazy hooker, trying to scoot on her pants. His pecker had shrunk so fast he felt like it had dissolved. “Let me help,” he said, and that stilled her legs.

“Leave it. I don’t need them on now.” With effort she swung one leg and then the other so she could lie flat on her back. Jamey stood by like a spotter, though he’d long suspected if she did fall he’d edge out of the way as quick as a bobcat and let her splat splat splat.

“Okay?” he asked, still holding his hands up like he’d catch her.

“You can’t do that to me, Jameson. You can’t disappear on me. I got to know where you are at all times. I got to know you ain’t out there prowling.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“If you can’t find a proper girl — a woman — then I’m going to have to be enough for you, son. Enough woman in your life. You hear?” She had reached up, was holding on to his forearm so tight he was worried her nails would draw blood. “They said if you don’t do right they’ll take you right back in and there ain’t nothing I can do for you then.”

“You don’t have to worry, Momma. I was just out carousing with the guys.” The lie came easy, the phrase carousing with the guys something he’d surely heard on TV.

“I’m going to have to be enough,” she said again. Her eyes so brown they looked red at the edges, the flimsy lashes clumped and wet. She looked like something beached, something wet through and struggling for oxygen.

“You are enough,” he said, and removed her hand finger by finger from his arm, placed it on the fleshy rounded dune of her belly. She had always been a needy mother, had always fed upon his attention like a shark to the chum. “You want me to get the Jergens?” Had always demanded to be touched. The counselor had told him mothers weren’t supposed to behave that way, weren’t supposed to desire their son’s touch the way they might a husband’s, but it was all he knew. It had always been this way. He had been rubbing her feet, had been going higher at her demand, since he could remember.

“Just sit with me,” she said, another sign from above that everything would be okay. She fell asleep fast, her mouth open wide to scrape in any air it could. He hid Perry’s undies under his bed and signed on, waiting.

I WANTA MEET UP.

Finally Dayna had popped up online, and Jamey had jumped at the chance to talk to her, find out if they were out, where Perry was, if anything had changed. Find out if Perry had mentioned him, frightened in the cell, confiding in her friend, her one true wish coming finally clear: to meet this love-dumb stranger, this boy she’d been toying with for weeks.

Yeah? With me or with Perry too?

So she had mentioned him, Dayna knew he’d been talking to both of them. Probably knew he didn’t want nothing to do with her, in a romantic way anyway, knew he was just in it to learn more about Perry.

Both of u. That ok?

He wanted her to feel like he hadn’t only been talking to her to get to Perry. Wanted her to feel like he was in it for friendship, too. In a way, he was, he realized. She said shit that could shock you. She was interesting to talk to. And she had a car. Finally, she replied.