This is not the first time anyone has made a Woods’s wood joke. We land on familiar ground. Everyone cackles except Woods, who isn’t laughing because he’s too busy lunging at me. He’s twice my weight, so when he drags me into the middle of the floor and draws dry-erase lines down my nose and across my cheeks, I am forced to jab his ribs incessantly like a child. “If you break my sunglasses—” I threaten.
He’s squirming and nearly defeated when Mash says, “Better not let Mary Dancy see you mounting Billie like that.”
From beneath the attack, I say, “Mary Dancy?” very differently from the other three boys chanting, “Mary Dancy, Mary Dancy, Mary Dancy.”
In a quick, painful, show-stopping moment, I get my first look at the top of Einstein—a line attaches Woods Carrington to Mary Dancy. Janie Lee throws an UGG at Woods’s head—the first good use of those boots.
Breathless, I cock my head to the side. Reread. Mary Dancy? She’s the only female in the history of Otters Holt who has ever kicked for the football team. She has rock-hard quads and a stack of tiaras from the county fair and a zillion other beauty contests.
It all started with Woods, Davey had said.
“What do you two think?” Woods directs his question at Janie Lee and me.
I think my eyes might explode and take Janie Lee’s heart along in the explosion.
I say, “I’m forming an opinion.”
“Me too,” Janie Lee chirps.
Sadie fucking Hawkins.
Everyone hee-haws at something Fifty says and none of them, except Davey, hears me ask, “Am I on the board?”
Davey tightens the laces on his high tops, throws me sympathy from the corner of his eye. Woods moves aside. I read the whole board.
HEXAGON OF LOVE
* * *
GUYS
GIRLS
WOODS
____________________
MARY DANCY
MASH
FIFTY
____________________
CARLEY DAVIS
DAVEY
_________________
ELIZABETH RAWLINGS
?
JANIE LEE
BILLIE
?
12
I read the board again. Guys = Mash, Woods, Fifty, Davey, and Billie.
I am not waffling on my tombstone inscription. Elizabeth McCaffrey, born 1999—d. ? IN LOVING MEMORY: She had balls.
This is not conjecture, because when I say, “WTF?” to the whole lot of them, Fifty says, “You got the biggest balls in the room, B,” and Woods adds, “Yours dropped before Mash’s,” and then Mash salutes my nonexistent balls.
Which leaves me grasping at Janie Lee, who was, I might add, sharing a twin bed with me on the night I got my period in seventh grade. Among the Hexagon, she is the one person who should be saying, Hold up a minute.
Here’s the problem: Janie Lee’s not a boat rocker. If Woods Carrington wrote FIVE WAYS TO KILL PUPPIES on Einstein, she’d endure and cry like a fountain when she got home. Her tongue is currently lodged in her yellow-bellied gut, and mine is fixed to the roof of my mouth.
Davey appears nine kinds of torn. Part of him wants to punch Woods and Fifty in the face. Part of him wants to text Audi Thomas to escape this meeting. Instead, he drums, his nails galloping against the table like horses running on asphalt. Over and over, he drums.
Behind me, Mash chokes on a peanut and throws up on the other side of the couch.
“Seriously, dude,” Woods says, as if he is surprised.
Mash has throw-up tears rolling down his cheeks. “Sorry, guys.”
Like clockwork, Mrs. C appears in the doorway—the sound of Mash’s hurling is a very specific thing—and sets a towel and some carpet cleaner on the closest table. She pats the items as if they are friends and tells her son, “Don’t let it sit. I’m off to the grocery.”
Woods and Mash cleaning up puke gives me two minutes to think.
Here are the facts:
I’m no stranger to dyke comments.
I’m a thorn, not a petal.
If Playboy did a spread on flat-chested women, I’d be a cover model.
And not a single one of those things mattered, ever, not even when I was quizzed on sexuality by my own pastor father, until put into a different context by the Hexagon. Does Woods, master of the marker, think I’m gay? Or is he like, “Billie’s my brother?” or “Billie wishes she were Bill.” Or maybe being gay is synonymous with being a tomboy to them? I am baffled.
Woods is returning from the bathroom; he’s offering Mash a glass of water, all while I’m making up my mind about tackling this situation. There’s only one thing to do right now that does not involve me crying and screaming: go with it.
“If you leave me there, you’ll have to retool Einstein to say WAYS FOR BILLIE TO FIND A NEW HOME. Brother Scott would flip,” I say.
Davey’s galloping fingers stop. He gives me the briefest headshake as Fifty and Mash clap and catcall. He realizes I’ve chosen to soldier on. Two people in this room usually read my mind, and both of them missed my sexuality or gender or both by a mile.
It’s a lot to process and hide. Even for me.
Mash has a thought. “I’m not sure it’s wise to blow up a microwave and date a girl in the same month. But if anyone can do it, you can.”
One vote for gay.
Woods sashays over and scrubs the top of my head. “Billie doesn’t let anyone tell her what to do. Not even Brother Scott. Right, B?”
This earns him a hearty nod, even though I’m currently letting five jerkoffs tell me exactly what to do. In my head, I stand and scream, “Raise your hand if you have a vagina and you’re not gay.” In actuality, I bite the insides of my cheek and freeze my face in a blank stare.
Meanwhile, Janie Lee stops rubbing Mash’s arm—I assume she decides he has the peanut problem under control—and slides onto the floor next to me. She leans her head on my shoulder. It’s awkward for me, but I pat her hair—the way I would a puppy. Her hot cheek presses against my shoulder, her pain presses against my anger. I suppose she’s having a crisis too. Janie Lee loves Woods, who likes Mary dang Dancy. And I like him, and I’ve thought about liking her, and they’ve thought about me having a dick.
In an epic gesture, Woods sweeps his hand in front of both columns on the board and asks me, “Well, what think ye, Billie McCaffrey?”
Now, I’ve been known to hate on my father, but I silently worship at the altar of his teachings. Billie, don’t ever let them see you tremble. The church eats the trembling man. I go toe-to-toe. “I think Clyde Lacken will kick your overly presumptuous ass if you make a move on Mary. And I want to know why Mash is holding out.”
Mash musses Janie Lee’s hair. “J-Mill is all mum and shit too. Pick on her.”
Fifty says, “Mash, go on and admit to us what you’ve been admitting in your shower for years: you’re in love with yourself.”
Woods will stomach the occasional sex joke, but he’s old-fashioned enough that he’d rather avoid a full-blown masturbation conversation when his mother could still be in hearing distance. “You don’t have to pick anyone,” he tells Mash. “But you”—he stares at Janie Lee with great persuasion in his chocolate eyes—“must.”
Janie Lee turns her gaze on me and says ten boat-rocking words. “What if I wanted to choose someone in this room?”
This is how really bad becomes terrible. I teleport into her brain and scream: Don’t do it, Miller.