“Really, Evan, honey,” she said, turning it from crazy-town to nasty-town, doing her best, cruelest imitation of her mother’s voice. “What about pop-ups?”
Why did she want to hurt her mother, side with the boys? Her mother was right, after all: What about pop-ups? Her brother and her father were idiots, buoyed by a common dream. Any five-year-old on any pathetic T-ball team knew that baseballs didn’t always travel in straight lines, didn’t always rip mound to plate, or hand to glove, or bat to eye. What about pop-ups, those towering ones straight above the plate, a hundred feet in the air, the ones she’d seen Evan park under, his mask thrown aside, waving his arms, calling off the pitcher and the third baseman as the ball spun and wavered in the breeze, sometimes changing direction at the last second so that he had to lunge, throw that flat mitt out to snag it inches from the ground. Yes, what about those?
Her mother was absolutely right. Her mother who thought she could just sit in the Bellows’ living room drinking the Bellows’ coffee out of the Bellows’ mug acting like she knew every goddamn thing in the entire world. Her mother who always had an answer for everything, a reason why whatever it was you wanted to do wouldn’t work unless you did it her way. Her mother, always judging everyone, always knowing what was best for everyone. Why had her mother asked her about the stupid casserole? Driving home from the Bellows’, why hadn’t her mother asked her why the hell she was there to begin with?
?
The next day she walked into the PE locker room with Amanda and Becca, and instead of veering off to her usual spot in the corner found herself swept along into their aisle of lockers, the popular aisle, the one in the center of everything. Before she knew what was happening she was pulling her clothes out of her gym bag and opening a locker beside Becca’s. She glanced over to her normal area, the corner where she and Kristy had for almost three years now served as each other’s human dressing shield. Kristy was sitting on the bench with her back to them. Meredith turned to her new friends and found herself face-to-face with Amanda, who was naked except for her underpants.
“Want me to braid your hair real quick?” Amanda asked.
“That’s okay,” Meredith said. She sat down on the bench and stared straight ahead and slowly took off her shoes and socks. If she was slow enough, maybe they would go on into the gym without her. On her left, Amanda was wrestling herself into her sports bra. On her right, Becca, topless, bent over to slip on her shoes. Did they not know there was an order to things? Shoes off, socks off, leggings slid down and in one seamless move shorts slid up, shirt off, bra off with oncoming gym shirt as partial blocker, sports bra over breasts, sports bra strap adjustment, gym shirt on, socks and shoes on.
She peeled off her leggings without standing.
“Oh my god I love that birthmark,” Amanda said, plopping down on the bench beside her and putting her index finger on Meredith’s thigh. “Oh my god, that’s so cute.”
It wasn’t much, really, just a little sideways squiggle on her upper left thigh, although Meredith liked to believe it looked a little bit like a tiny dark bird in flight. No one had ever looked at this part of her body long enough to notice it.
“Let me see,” Becca said, squeezing in between Meredith and the row of lockers and crouching down. She traced the bird with her finger.
“I have one, too,” she said. “Birthmark. It’s not as cool.” She bent back and shifted her left breast and Meredith could see a small horseshoe.
“Ooh, some man’s going to love that,” Amanda said.
“What’s this?” Becca asked. She touched Meredith’s bare right knee. “Is that another one?”
“I don’t think so,” Meredith said. “I think that’s just a freckle.”
“It’s not a freckle.” Becca rubbed it with her thumb, then inexplicably blew on Meredith’s knee, as if the spot were an ash that might be swept away by a breath. The chill of Becca’s breath on her knee gave Meredith goose bumps up and down her arms, the same goose bumps she’d gotten when Steven Overbeck had drawn the watch on her wrist, and she hoped that no one could see them.
“You should probably have that looked at,” Becca said.
Amanda bent over to inspect it more closely. “That is kinda weird,” she said. “That’s how my aunt’s skin cancer started. With one spot.”
Meredith could not help herself—she glanced over at Kristy, who was already dressed (they could change in twenty seconds flat) and sitting on the bench tying her sneakers, watching the show. Amanda’s hand was on her left thigh and Becca’s thumb on her right knee. Alien examination, all the fun drained away.
The bell rang and Amanda and Becca threw on their clothes and ran out with their shoes still untied. Kristy continued to sit on the bench looking at Meredith.
“What?” Meredith said.
“Are you okay?” Kristy asked softly. Meredith had known Kristy practically her whole life, and she had never wanted to smack her more than she did in this moment. She couldn’t stand the look on her face.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean . . . are you okay?”
“Do I look not okay? Do I look like there’s something wrong with me?”
“I just—”
“Jesus, Kristy, it’s not like they raped me.”
She didn’t even know why she said it. The word hung between them for a moment and then Kristy got up and walked past her and into the gym. Meredith sat on the bench, still in her underwear, her heart pounding. She could feel their hands and their breath on her. From the gym came the throbbing of basketballs, five, then ten, then twenty, then thirty. She wanted to take a shower. She wanted to put on a winter coat. She wanted to wrap up in a blanket and sit on a couch. Or in a bathtub.
14