A Life of Bright Ideas Read online

  “Some of it. It’s so crowded.”

  “Come on, I want to show you my favorite!” She led me across the room, and through a group of girls who eyed her with envy—or contempt, I wasn’t sure which. “This one!” she shouted above the jukebox, pointing to a big peace sign with the images of Jesus and Buddha painted inside. The symbol was made of arms sleeved in paisley print. It was beautiful and I told Winnalee so.

  “It’s my favorite, too.” I didn’t need to turn to know that it was Brody who’d claimed this.

  Winnalee rolled her eyes. “You probably don’t even know who Buddha is, Bishop. Or Jesus, for that matter.” She yanked some bills from her shorts and shoved them in Brody’s hand. “Here, shut up and go get us some drinks. Pabst. Five of them.”

  “Hey,” she told me. “Jezebel—I don’t think that’s her real name, though—the other dancer? She wants you to sew some of this lace on her shorts, too. Some other girls—that group right over there, talking to the lead singer—they asked me where I got them, too. I told them you probably wouldn’t mind adding some to their bell-bottoms or shorts—for a price, that is, so they’re going to drop them off here. I hope you don’t mind.” She didn’t wait for my answer. She just grabbed me with a beer-sticky hand and said, “Come on, let’s go outside. It’s hotter than a bitch under those lights. If I didn’t take a beer shower now and then, I’d frikken melt up there.” She grabbed Chet’s hand and tugged him outside with us, and Tommy followed like a conscientious bouncer.

  I was finishing my fourth beer (Tommy his fifth), and my legs were so wobbly that Tommy had to catch me from tripping on the cracked pavement just outside the back door. “You’re gonna get sick, Evy,” Tommy warned when Brody brought back another round. But at that moment, I didn’t care. I’d drunk away my shock and nothing much seemed like a big deal anymore. I didn’t even mind that my hair was hanging in bushy clumps over my boobs, or that my shirt had lifted out of the waistband of my hip-huggers and I could feel Tommy’s calloused hand on my bare hip when he steadied me.

  Winnalee took a joint from Chet and lit it. She held the smoke until her billowed cheeks darkened, then danced across the gravel, moving in slow motion, singing, circling Chet while the jukebox inside played “Spirit in the Sky.” In minutes, I knew, her face would morph into the little girl’s face it had been—the one that saw rainbows in shadows and beauty in raindrops.

  I don’t know what we talked about, or why we laughed. I didn’t care. All I cared about was that I felt carefree and young, and that I wasn’t worrying about saying the right things.

  Winnalee crooked her arm around mine, forcing me to dance with her. I giggled as we moved between the guys like square dancers, singing: When I die and they lay me to rest, I’m gonna go to the place that’s the best.

  But when I heard—really heard—the lyrics we were singing, I stopped, my mostly empty beer bottle swaying from my hand like a pendulum winding down. I let go of Winnalee and looked up—even the stars were swaying.

  Ma was up there. Looking down. Seeing beer slopped down my too-tight shirt—even if it wasn’t spilled intentionally—and me drunk and dancing “sexy” with Winnalee, who had purposely soaked her shirt in beer. I could almost feel her horror over Winnalee’s butt cheeks peeking from her pants as she bent to pick up a shiny pop-top that suddenly fascinated her, my naked hip bones showing above my too-low waistband. My head was spinning like I was on a carnival ride from the beer and the thoughts, and suddenly I felt sick.

  I tried to make it to a clump of brush before I vomited, but I didn’t. “Jesus Christ!” Brody bellered as he leapt back, then looked down to see my vomit splattered on the bell of his jeans. Winnalee hurried to me, and in between my heaves, I slurred, “It’s a good friend … who will … hold your hair back … while you puke.”

  I struggled for my breath and balance when I stood back up, and stared down at the splotch of vomit over my sandal. My toes wriggled to crawl out of the stenchy mess.

  Tommy crouched down and yanked the strap off my heel and pulled the sandal from my foot. Then he picked me up. “You either come with us now, Bishop, or you catch your own ride home. It’s midnight, and Cinderella just spit her pumpkin seeds. Time to go.”

  “She’s gonna barf on you, man,” Brody said.

  I could feel Tommy’s chest and belly, hard and warm through his shirt. I wrapped my arms around his neck and tipped my head toward him to keep it from falling backward. His neck was soft against my face and smelled like Hai Karate aftershave. Suddenly I wondered what it would be like to have his skin in my mouth, giving him a hickey. Or to feel his mouth on mine as he gave me one. A real hickey, not a vacuum cleaner one. Like the ones that were as permanent as tattoos on Winnalee these days. I heard the soft murmur of my moan, and wondered if it was the heated thought, or the sick swirling in my belly that had caused it.

  Tommy insisted I sleep on the couch, so I’d be near the bathroom in case I needed to throw up again. I argued with him that I was done, but fifteen minutes later I was hanging over the toilet with dry heaves. When I came out, Tommy had a pillow from the downstairs bedroom on the arm of the couch, along with one of Aunt Verdella’s afghans. He led me to them. “I told you you were going to get sick if you drank any more,” he said. I told him to shut up. He shook his head and sat down on the chair across from the couch, saying nothing, as I ranted about Amy, and God knows what else, while the room whooshed in wide circles around me. Tommy didn’t comment, best I can recall. He just opened a pack of gum and reminded me to keep one foot on the floor.

  I woke once in the night, my head still spinning, and sharp pains in my stomach. I opened my eyes a crack and saw that the chair was empty, then closed them again. That’s when I heard Winnalee’s giggle in the distance, and Chet Bouman telling her to “Shhhhh” so she wouldn’t wake me. I tried to open my mouth to tell them to empty the trash can themselves this time, but I didn’t have the energy.

  The morning sun woke me, stabbing at my eyelids. It felt like woodpeckers were pounding on the sides of my head, and my mouth tasted like one had died in it. I could feel someone staring at me, and believed for a second that it was Tommy. I forced my lids open and there was Boohoo, lying stretched across the back of the couch, staring down at me. “You sick, Evy?”

  I groaned a yes, and asked him to leave and come back later.

  “You got stomach flu? You smell like you got stomach flu.”

  “Yeah. Now go away for a while. Please?”

  I flinched as the screen door screeched, then slammed. I wanted to fall back to sleep, but I wanted to brush my teeth and get a drink of water even more.

  I shuffled into the bathroom and grabbed my toothbrush. I looked like hell. My hair was matted like Boohoo yarn, and my skin was the color of soured milk. I was embarrassed to think of even Tommy seeing me looking like this. Yet in some strange way, I felt happy, too. Almost proud. I’d gotten drunk. Stepped out of my old lady mold and acted just like everybody else my age. And I wasn’t sorry, in spite of getting sick.

  I was lathering my mouth with toothpaste when I heard the front door open. I sighed. Why couldn’t Boohoo ever listen?

  “No, she was sleeping downstairs,” I heard him say. “She stunk like puke.”

  He was talking to Aunt Verdella! They couldn’t be here now! Not with Winnalee and Chet cozied up in the same bed! I spit, and wiped my mouth on a bunched towel.

  Boohoo was at the end table when I scaled the kitchen doorway, grabbing the pack of Dentyne Tommy had left on the living room end table. I jetted through the dining room just as Aunt Verdella was reaching for the bedroom doorknob. “Button?” she called, as she leaned into the doorway.

  Oh my God!

  “Aunt Ver—” I stopped shouting. It was too late. The bedroom door was wide open, and over her shoulder, I saw what had stopped her in her tracks. Winnalee naked under a spill of hair, straddled over naked hips and hairy legs. Her head was tossed back, and the room was filled with groans and pant
ing and the smell of body heat. Chet’s hands were cupped over her butt as she grinded herself against him. Oh. My. God!

  Aunt Verdella let out a high-pitched gasp, and Winnalee froze.

  Chet’s head lifted up from the pillow and I gasped. Because the man under Winnalee wasn’t Chet. It was Brody. “Oh, shit!” he sputtered. I darted around my stunned aunt, grabbed the doorknob, and slammed the door shut.

  Behind the door, the bed squeaked and feet thumped the floor. Aunt Verdella and I stood in place, too shocked and embarrassed to move. “Evy?” Boohoo called. “Can I have this gum?”

  “Take it outside,” I said, without looking.

  “Why? Gum ain’t messy. How come you didn’t get a good kind? This stuff burns your tongue.”

  Aunt Verdella backed away from the door, one hand over her heart, the other clamped over her mouth. She looked at me with shock-shattered eyes, and I turned away, feeling as ashamed as if it was me having sex with a married man right before her eyes.

  Aunt Verdella walked stiffly but quickly to Boohoo. “Come on, honey,” she said, taking his shoulders with shaky hands. Boohoo snatched the gum off the table and babbled, “Why we gotta go already?” as she led him out.

  I just stood there. Not knowing what to do, my stomach feeling sick all over again.

  The bedroom door opened and Brody peeked out. He looked at me, then cocked his head both ways. “She gone?” he whispered.

  I turned my back to him, and itches devoured my skin.

  Brody went out the back door, then darted across the field, his shirt whipping from his hand, no trace of a limp in his stride. He was hurrying to get to Tommy’s house, no doubt. To get a lift home—and an alibi.

  We weren’t supposed to judge people, only love them. That’s what Aunt Verdella taught me. And I’d tried not to judge Winnalee when she smoked pot. I even forced myself not to judge her when I saw her spill beer on her shirt for the boys. And hadn’t I stopped myself from judging her when used rubbers showed up twice? But this? I struggled to remember to only love her, but at the moment I was feeling every bit as judgmental as Fanny Tilman.

  Winnalee sat down on the other end of the couch, and fidgeted some, then got up. “You want something to drink?” she asked as she headed to the kitchen. I was thirsty and my head felt like a ball of yarn, yet I shook my head.

  Winnalee went into the kitchen, her bare feet padding the floor softly, like she was walking on tiptoes. I knew that if she spilled on the counter, she’d wipe it up this time. Maybe she’d even pause to put the dish she’d left on the table last night into the sink, and pick up the couple of stray potato chips she’d dropped on the floor. She’d try to be helpful and good—as if I was the one she had to make amends to. I knew this. I don’t know how, but I knew.

  By the time she came back from the kitchen, I was both chewing my cheek and scratching. She set her glass of Kool-Aid on the coffee table, then busied herself picking up the tiny gum wrappers left on the couch cushion. She hurried to take her boots that were lying prostrate in front of the bedroom door and sat them upright alongside the front door, and she gathered her colored pencils from the end table. And when I still hadn’t said a word, she went into the bedroom and came back with the dirty sheets bunched in her arms and went in search of the laundry basket.

  I heard her ice cubes tinkle like wind chimes when she picked up her glass, and the whoosh of the cushion as she fell into the chair across from me.

  “You’re mad at me, aren’t you?” she finally said.

  I turned and stared at her in disbelief.

  “Not so much mad,” I said, “as disappointed. How could you, Winnalee? How could you do that to Marls … to yourself? Brody doesn’t care about you. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself. And you don’t care about him, either. Why would you do something like that?”

  “It’s not my fault he doesn’t care about Marls,” she said defensively. “And I don’t even know her.”

  I blinked at her. “And that somehow makes it okay? You’ve met her. You know she’s pregnant … You know she loves him. You know Brody and you couldn’t care less about each other. Isn’t that enough? Marls is just like you, Winnalee. And me. And everyone else. She’s just trying to find something good in life.” My mouth started quivering. “I’m looking at you right now, Winnalee, and I can’t even believe you’re the same person I used to know. You were mesmerized by the rainbowy shadows coming through the window at The Corner Store, and the thought of finding fairies.” I shook my head. “I would have never thought that you’d grow up into somebody who had to get high to get by. Or somebody who would slop beer on her boobs to get a buck, and sleep with some married guy who is just using her. You thought something of yourself back then, Winnalee. And I wanted to be just like you.”

  Winnalee’s nostrils worked like fish gills as her eyes gathered tears. “I told you I wasn’t the same person, but you wouldn’t listen!” Winnalee set her glass on the floor and dropped her forehead into her cupped hands.

  My head was pounding, and I felt like I might throw up again when Winnalee started sobbing. “Don’t hate me, please?” she begged.

  I sighed. “I don’t hate you, Winnalee. You’re my best friend. But I’m … I’m just so disappointed in you. I always wanted to be just like you. A snowflake.”

  Winnalee continued to cry, and I started, too. “I don’t even know why I do those things,” she said. “I just don’t want to feel bad, and those things make the bad shit go away. But then afterwards, I feel worse.”

  “Then stop doing them!” I said.

  Winnalee looked up at me, torment twisting her features. “Don’t make me leave. Please.”

  The anger and disappointment seeped out of me, and I went and squeezed into the chair beside her. I wrapped my arms around her. “I’d never ask you to leave.”

  “I told you I’d changed, Button. I warned you. But please don’t stop being my best friend. No matter how disappointed you get in me. Please don’t stop being my best friend.”

  “I won’t,” I told her, and she melted against me like snow that had turned to rain.

  CHAPTER

  17

  BRIGHT IDEA #44: If your sister tells you she’s going to give you a swat on the behind if you try running off to play without cleaning up the mess you made in your bedroom first, don’t think you can outrun her if she has longer legs than you.

  When I was kid, I once sat on the cement casing of the basement window so I could overhear Ma having it out with Aunt Verdella. But I didn’t do the same when Winnalee went inside to talk to Aunt Verdella, three days after. Instead I sat at the picnic table and strained to hear Boohoo’s occasional excited shouts floating from the backyard, where he and Uncle Rudy were scouting for new sprouts in the garden.

  I felt sorry for Winnalee, who, as she headed for the front door, turned and said, “You want to ask me that question about my most embarrassing moment now? I think I have an answer.”

  I chewed my cheek and chipped frayed barn-red paint off the table with my fingernail as I waited.

  . . .

  When Winnalee finally came out, she was carrying a plate of watermelon wedges. She sat down on the front steps and set the plate down between her bare feet. She crouched forward, her face disappearing behind her hair. I got up and went to sit beside her on the cool cement. “You okay?” I asked, trying to get a peek at her face. She sniffled and wiped her cheek with the back of her hand, and nodded.

  “Aunt Verdella is the best person in the whole world,” she said. She shoved her hair over one shoulder, exposing a grouping of fading hickeys on her neck.

  “I know she is,” I said.

  Winnalee sniffled. “I wish she had raised me.”

  I shooed a fly away from the watermelon, which was glistening wet, and red like spilled blood.

  The screen door in the back squealed and Boohoo’s voice sounded through the windows. “You have to wash first, Boohoo,” Aunt Verdella called. And then “I cut the l
ast of the watermelon, honey. The girls have it outside. I’ll bet there’s a piece left for you.”

  Winnalee looked over at me and smiled sadly. Her eyelids were swollen and looked sore. I took her hand. “I’m proud of you for talking to her, Winnalee. That took courage,” I said, and fresh tears bubbled from her eyes.

  The door burst open, the edge whacking me between the shoulder blades. Boohoo shimmied himself between us. “Can I have some?”

  I handed him a slice, then grabbed one for Winnalee and me. “Spit out the seeds, Boohoo,” I reminded him.

  “Yeah,” Winnalee said. “Or else you’ll grow a watermelon in your belly.”

  Boohoo leapt off the steps and pulled out the front of his shirt. “Look at me. I got a watermelon growing in my belly. And now my belly’s fat like the Bishop lady’s.” He shook his hips and laughed, then squirmed back between us. I spit out a seed and Boohoo watched it arc and drop. He took a bite. “Watch mine,” he said, and he spit a seed. “Mine went farther than yours, Evy.”

  “Bet I can whip you both,” Winnalee said. She spit, and we soon had a game going: longest spit out of three tries wins.

  I guess I must have heard the motor, but with the relief that came after Winnalee’s talk with Aunt Verdella, it was easy to dive into the challenge of our silly seed-spitting game, and I, like Boohoo, like Winnalee, didn’t pay the approaching car any mind. That is, until it pulled into the drive.

  “No way, Boohoo!” Winnalee shouted, getting up and going to the edge of the half-moon patch of bald ground to stand beside Boohoo, facing the steps. She pointed at a seed lying in the dirt. “This is mine. Yours is way back there.” Boohoo protested, and their arms playfully wrestled as they bickered about whose seed was whose.