All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

I pried her hand off my arm. I didn’t even care if it hurt her. If nobody could touch me, that was her, too. When I opened the door, Patty stood outside with her eyes big. I swerved around her and ran.

8

DONAL

Wavy was lucky. She didn’t have to ride the bus to school, because Kellen took her. I wished he could take me, too, but there was only room for Wavy on his bike. Other times, not for school, he let me ride, but only because I was a boy.

Ricki got really mad one night, because Daddy took Dee riding, and left her and Sandy at home. So Ricki asked Kellen to take her riding, but he said, “Sorry. Wavy’s the only girl who gets to ride.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means Wavy is a very jealous mistress,” Sandy said. She wanted to go riding, too, but she wasn’t mad, because she took these special pills. I wished Mama would take some of those.

“Did you really buy her that diamond ring? There’s something seriously twisted about that,” Ricki said.

“Don’t be such a tight-ass,” Sandy said. “They’re in love. It’s sweet.”

“No, it’s fucking creepy. What is she, like ten?”

“Wavy’s thirteen,” I said. Ricki was bad at math.

“There’s nothing wrong with me buying her a ring. She’s my girl,” Kellen said.

“Yeah, except for the part where you’re a pedophile.” Ricki wrinkled her nose up.

“That’s not the only thing love means. You just got your mind in the gutter. Come on, Donal, let’s go ride.”

That night, I was the only one who got what I wanted, but I never got to ride to school. I had to go on the bus, because nobody ever got up early enough to take me. If I asked, Sandy would call the school to say I was sick, but if I stayed away too many days, Wavy would come down to the ranch and make me get up. Then I was in trouble.

On the weekends, it was easy to get up early, even earlier than I got up for the bus, because I could sneak up to the farmhouse and see Wavy. If I was lucky, she would let me get in bed with her, and she would talk to me.

Before Christmas something funny happened. I didn’t get to see Wavy for three whole weeks because I had chicken pox and got really sick. When I went back to school, I didn’t get to talk to her all week, because she was at the new high school, and then Friday night was Kellen’s birthday. So I got up early, early on Saturday, and I put on my Superman costume from Halloween since she never got to see it. Then I went up the meadow to the farmhouse.

When I went in, Kellen was coming down the stairs in his bare feet, carrying his boots. He must have got in a fight on his birthday because somebody gave him a black eye. He made a funny face when he saw me, I guess because of my costume.

“Hey, Superman. You want a ride down the hill?” he said.

“I just came up the hill. To see Wavy.”

“I think she’s still asleep.”

But why was he upstairs if she was still asleep?

Here’s what I think happened: Kellen went earlier than me and got in bed with Wavy. What made me mad is that he stole all her words and didn’t leave any for me, because she didn’t want to talk. She let me get in bed and she hugged me, but she didn’t say anything. And she was naked under the covers. I felt her boobies against my arm.

“Yuck. Where’s your nightgown?” I said.

She lifted her hands over her head. I wanted her to talk to me, but she was looking at her ring. The rule was nothing belongs to you, but I think she was breaking the rule. If somebody tried to take that ring, she’d sock them. It was her ring. Kellen bought it for her so he could marry her. If it wasn’t Wavy, I didn’t know how he could like a girl that much. They’re kinda gross.

She let the sun sparkle off the ring, so it made little rainbows on the walls and on me. I liked that almost as much as I liked her talking.

9

CASEY

December 1982

On the last Friday of Casey’s duty, Wavy came home in the afternoon and took a shower. That was strange enough, but then she went up and down the stairs a few times between her bedroom and the bathroom. Casey listened to it all curiously, while she coaxed Val into doing a few exercises. Val’s lassitude wore even Casey out, so they were watching TV when Wavy came downstairs.

Instead of her usual jumper, she wore a pale green dress with a fitted bodice and delicate shoulder straps. She was starting to develop, and the dress showed that off, fitted around her little breasts and her narrow hips. The outfit looked expensive, but of course, she wore big, heavy boots with it.

In one hand, she carried a matching sweater and a camera. Under her other arm, she had a wrapped package. She put the box and the camera on the coffee table and sat in the rocking chair next to the sofa, carefully, like she was worried about rumpling her dress.

“You look very pretty. Are you going to a birthday party?” Casey said.

Wavy nodded and reached up to adjust her hair.

She’d pulled it up into a chignon, but it was already slipping out. Delicate strands of blond fell around her ears, and it looked like she had sneaked some of her mother’s makeup. Thirteen seemed too young to be wearing makeup, but Casey wasn’t her mother, who was sitting right there on the sofa. If she thought Wavy looked too adult, she didn’t say anything about it.

All Val said was, “What’s in the package?”

Wavy didn’t answer.

“Is Kellen coming to get you, to take you to the party?” Casey said.