“No,” my mother said before I could answer, her voice all serious and mean. “Cheyenne does not want to go for a walk with a boy that has a sex button on his jacket. Come back wearing nicer clothes, and perhaps I’ll introduce you to her father so you can ask permission properly.
“And get a haircut,” she added as she closed the door in Jack’s face.
My sisters howled with laughter. I wanted to die. “Mom!”
She didn’t say anything, just walked by me with her head held high, like she’d won some sort of morality contest. I was fourteen, for Christ’s sake.
Anyway, from that day on, my sisters and mother referred to him as Greasy Jack.
For the record, he never came back, and I never went looking for him.
HARBINGER JONES
Greasy Jack? Yeah, I’ve heard the story of Greasy Jack.
I actually knew Jack. My mother and his mother were in the same bowling league, and he was forced to have playdates with me when we were younger.
When he found out I was in a band with Cheyenne Belle, he called and asked me all sorts of questions about her. This was like two years after the two of them’d met. I’d already heard the story from Chey, so I turned the tables and asked him about it. According to Jack, he and Chey did kiss at the mixer, but when he called her house several times over the next several days, she wouldn’t come to the phone. Mrs. Belle, according to Jack, was never anything but pleasant. Jack never showed up at her door.
But that’s Chey. It’s a better story her way, even if the truth is stretched a little bit.
CHEYENNE BELLE
When my mom said there was a boy on the phone, I rolled my eyes and picked up the receiver that sat between my bed and Theresa’s. My sister lived her life on that thing, so I hardly ever used it. If some girl from school wasn’t calling her to gossip, then some boy was calling to flirt.
It was Johnny.
“Hey, Chey,” he said, in response to my weak “Hello?”
“Hey.”
“How was Christmas at your aunt’s house?”
“It was good.” That was a lie, and Johnny probably knew it. “How was dinner at your house? Sorry again I couldn’t make it.” That was a lie, too.
“It was nice. Just me and my parents.” He sounded, I don’t know, sad, and there was a brief pause in the conversation.
“Did you get any good presents?” I asked. He had just the one brother, Russell, who didn’t live at home, so Johnny was pretty spoiled, though I don’t really think he acted spoiled. Since this was the first Christmas after losing his leg, the haul of presents was even bigger than normal.
He rattled off this incredible amount of loot he’d found under the Christmas tree while I listened. It’s amazing how two people can talk about so much while talking about absolutely nothing. It was like everything between us was so damaged that neither one of us could talk about it. It was early in the day, and I was feeling jittery. That’s not quite right. I was feeling . . . period. I didn’t want to feel anything. I wanted to cut the call short.
Johnny finished itemizing his list of Christmas presents, which trailed off into another long pause. He didn’t ask what I got because he knew it would just be embarrassing for both of us.
“Chey,” he started, “we need to talk.” Chey, we need to talk. That’s never, ever a good thing. It’s pretty much the exact phrase every boy uses before he breaks up with you.
“What about?” I asked. My whole body now felt like a sore tooth that needed Anbesol.
“I don’t know, all kinds of stuff. Can we get together before rehearsal tomorrow?”
“Isn’t Richie picking us both up?”
“Yeah, well, maybe we could meet somewhere first. Can you come over here?”
I don’t know why that pissed me off. It shouldn’t have pissed me off. I mean, the guy was walking around on a fake leg, right? But it was always me going to his house. Never him coming to my house, or even my neighborhood. When I think about it now, I was probably mad because of that day I’d walked all the way to his house when I was pregnant and feeling like shit, the day before I lost the baby. And even though I know it’s not true, some part of me feels like the long walk up and down that hill caused my miscarriage.
“Can’t we just talk at rehearsal?” I asked.
“I want us to be alone.”
“So we’ll go outside and talk.”
Johnny was quiet for a long moment. “Yeah, okay.” He sounded for all the world like he’d just lost something important. He regrouped and started again, this time somehow managing to sound more serious.
“Cheyenne, listen—”
“Give it back!” My sister Patricia, nine years old, ran into the room ahead of my sister Joan, ten years old. Their birthdays are ten and a half months apart, what some people called Catholic twins. Patricia was holding Joan’s diary, her Christmas grab-bag present from Agnes (also bought with my store discount), in the air, high over her head.
Even though Joan was older, she let Patricia push her buttons every time. (Patricia was actually kind of a bully.)
“Chey, make her give it back!”