Beth Bauman - Beautiful Girls

“Dorrie,” I said, “go get me some socks, will you?”

“Get your own,” she said, blowing on a nail. “I’m not going down there.”

“We’ve got a stink,” Daffodil told Inggy. Inggy opened the cellar door and gagged. “Come away from there,” Daffodil said, taking her hand.

“Are you guys waiting until the whole house is a giant stink bomb? Let’s see what it is, Dani.”

“Inggy, sit down ,” I said, getting pissed off. She came over here, waving catalogs, telling me to be some scientist, telling me what to do about the stink. I stared into that sludgy-brown bog, wishing she could somehow fall into it.

“Come on, lazy,” she said, giving me a tug.

“Leave it alone, Inggy,” I said, quietly. Daffodil and Dorrie looked at me, their red nails flashing brightly. Inggy looked at me for a second, then started down the cellar stairs. I hated her then; for a few burning seconds I loathed my friend, who was beautiful and faultless and braving the stinking basement. I leapt off the couch and grabbed one of her long arms and easily yanked her up the steps. “I’ll see you later,” I said, pushing the catalogs into her arms.

“Dani!” Inggy cried. “Are you insane?”

“Out,” I whispered.

“No!” Inggy said. Daffodil and Dorrie crept up beside me and eyed Inggy. We stood there tensely, and I finally shoved Inggy toward the front door, and Dorrie and Daffodil jumped in, poking and jabbing. We spun big skinny Inggy in a circle, her catalogs falling out of her arms. We knocked into a wall, jiggling a picture. “Our stink,” I cried, “is none of your business.”

“You big snoop,” Daffodil hollered, giving her a kick in the shin.

“Who do you think you are?” Dorrie shouted, pulling a wad of that white hair. We got Inggy to the front door and pushed her onto the stoop. I locked the door behind her, feeling lost and sick. My best friend in the world. So cocky, so sure of herself. I wouldn’t be Miss Merry Christmas, she would.

She rang the doorbell. Inggy never rang the bell, she always walked right in.

“What?” I said, opening the door a crack.

“Dani,” she said with tears in her eyes.

Daffodil squeezed in next to me and gave Inggy the evil eye. “Don’t,” I said, clasping Daffodil’s small head and nudging her away. “Inggy,” I said, “I’ll call you later.”

We trooped back into the den and sat on the couch, not saying anything. I knew what we had to do. We had to take some action. It was time. The stench was dizzying, and my sisters clutched my arms as we made our way downstairs. Daffodil went straight to the clothesline in the back of the cellar, pinched shut her nose with a clothespin and then stood in the corner with her eyes tightly closed, her glittery bodysuit and matching socks shimmering in the low light.

Dorrie started to sniff while I stood on a bucket and opened all the windows the best I could. Dorrie pointed under the freezer. Holding my nose, I kneeled. Something was wedged underneath. I used the mop handle and worked out a putrid, decaying pork chop with a swarm of wriggling maggots inside. Daffodil came running over, and both my sisters looked up at me with big eyes. “Gross,” Dorrie whispered.

“How did the bugs get inside, Dani?” Daffodil asked.

I said a leftover summer fly must’ve thought the stinking pork chop was a great place to lay eggs. “Which one of you dopes dropped the chop?” They each pointed a mean little finger at the other. I went for the shovel, Daffodil propped the front door open, and Dorrie dragged a garbage can to the curb. I scooped up the rotting chop and sailed up the stairs and through the front door, stopping short on the lawn. Garbage pick-up wasn’t for three more days. The stink would still be with us.

“Let’s bury it,” I said.

We stood in the backyard under a dark moon and a web of stringy clouds, digging a hole. “Give me an ‘S,’” Daffodil shouted. “Give me a ‘T,’ give me an ‘I-N-K.’” Shivering, Dorrie and I took turns working the shovel into the hard ground, and when we got a semi-deep cockeyed hole I kicked in the chop and covered it with dirt. We stomped on the hole, dancing it smooth with our feet.

“The stink is out of our lives!” I yelled.

“Victory cheer!” Dorrie shouted.

“Oooolala we kicked some ass

Oooolala we showed some sass

Oooolala we had some fun

Oooolala of course we won!”

We did the chicken walk across the hole, flapping our elbows and wobbling our knees. We buzzed around each other and gave high fives and whooped it up. A few of our neighbors’ porch lights went on, and we whooped it up some more. We did spring rolls in front of the bushes and flying wontons along the weedy fence. Daffodil started turning cartwheels, one after the other, and Dorrie and I joined in, the three of us whirling crazy under the night sky. Then I did a vault over a garbage can, my hands pushing off the lid and my legs spread wide, as I shot through the cold air and landed with a one-two hop right in front of my sisters. Their eyes were hugely dark and alive, their hair popping out of the elastics, their breath coming out in frosty little clouds.

Daffodil grabbed me tightly and covered me with frantic kisses. Dorrie’s eyes traveled carefully from me to Daffodil, from me to Daffodil, and watching her watch us, I understood how things were for Dorrie. My heart caught and I turned away. As we ran to the back door, I reached for Dorrie, but she dipped under my arm and sprang up the steps.

Inggy and I sat on the bed of the float sharing a bag of corn chips and staring at her one-hundred-dollar bill. It was crisp and new and made a snapping noise when the wind gathered beneath us. “I wish we’d both won,” she said. I nodded halfheartedly. She folded the bill in half, hiked up her cape, and pocketed it.

Today Inggy wore a little pearly eye shadow and some lipstick, and the rhinestone tiara sparkled on her head. The red velvet cape was too short on her and her jeans and sneakers stuck out the bottom. Pamela Zlotkin and the other girls and I wore white velvet capes. I wore my hair up and thought I looked particularly French.

A folding chair was perched atop the specially made staircase sitting in the middle of the float. “Come,” I said, climbing the staircase because I wanted to try out the chair and see the view. The day was cold, crisp and gray. Behind us were our school’s marching band, flag twirlers, a float with gift-wrapped people standing around a Christmas tree, another float with assorted elves. “Inggy,” I whispered, “What’s going to happen to us?”

“Good things, good things,” she said, checking out Main Street. There were honks and toots and mini drum rolls as the band warmed up. A baton shot through the air and plummeted into a twirler’s hand.

“Places, girls,” a fat man from the Chamber of Commerce said to us, and I slowly climbed down and took my place on the right rear corner of the float. Next to me were Styrofoam stars attached to broom handles.

We crept along to the tune of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” as people on the sidewalks waved to us. Inggy’s parents, the very tall and brightly blond Oberlanders, snapped pictures and galloped alongside us for a block. “Inggy! Dani!” they called. “Over here, love. Big, big smile.” Inggy sat on the folding chair, flushed yet pleased, beaming her big, big smile down on her mom and dad.

Mom and Franz had decided to call it quits, and she’d taken to wearing dark glasses as if someone had died. She demanded super quiet. Even walking around in our socks and opening the refrigerator door would make her scream and send us scattering to far corners of the house. This morning I’d left her on the couch with her diet soda, Motrin, box of tissues, can of mixed nuts, and the TV Guide , and I knew she’d still be on the couch when I got home, that she might be there for a long time. I hoped she’d find a new boyfriend, I hoped she’d soon put on her three-inch heels again and leave us in peace. But why couldn’t she have dragged her butt off the couch and brought the Instamatic and been here today? Even if it was me up there on the folding chair with the crown on my head, I knew she’d still be horizontal under the afghan in her dark glasses.