Mavis left off staring at her phone to stare at her father’s bare back. Covered in dark hair, it was beyond gross. She had to say something. “So, Dad, give me one good reason why won’t you wax your back.” She resumed staring at her phone, it stared back at her, dark and silent. Mavis sighed. People were so rude.
Jack Bondurant peered up from the newspaper, grinning over his half-rimmed glasses. “Your ma won’t let me. She finds my masculine hairiness appealing.” He twisted his head around and smiled at his wife, standing at the cooking island just inside the sliding glass doors. “Don’t you, Cher?”
“Sure, dear, whatever,” his wife said, smiling and shaking her head. Jack resumed reading, satisfied with his response to his daughter and his wife’s response to him. He knew enough to keep things light; Mavis was of the age of tender emotions. Well, so what? What young woman didn’t have tender emotions? He loved her all the same.
Mavis hated it when he called her mother ‘ma.’ It was so hick. She hated the insinuating references to her parents’ “relationship,” like it was so absolutely fucking necessary. But she hated most that her dad didn’t shave his hairy back, and even worse, that he insisted on sitting around with his shirt off, for everybody to see, like he was showing off. Shit, he wasn’t going to hang out like that when her friends came, was he? Mavis stared sullenly at her phone. Her friends would be showing up any minute. Please, God, make him go inside.
Cheryl Bondurant emerged from the kitchen with a pitcher. Lemonade again, probably. Clad in sunny yellow top and white shorts, Cheryl even looked like a lemon. She smiled a lemony smile at her daughter. “Honey, I thought your friends were coming over.”
Mavis rolled her eyes. Why did her mother always have to try so fucking hard? Plus, she was always so anal about time. Like, because they weren’t here yet, that meant they weren’t coming ever?
Mavis sighed. “Yes, Mother, they are. They’re just not here yet.” Following the advancing sun, Mavis turned the recliner slightly and checked her phone again. Nothing.
Jack Bondurant rustled his newspaper and said, “Don’t be short with your mother.” His laid- back weekend manner concealed a crisp sense of propriety. He was acutely sensitive to any sign of disrespect toward his wife, whom he adored.
Mavis wrinkled her nose. “Sorry.” She hated his goddamn rustling newspaper, rustle-rustle. She bit her lip and shuffled across the patio. Leaning against the outdoor counter, she scraped idly at some grotty stuff with a newly-shaped fingernail and looked again at her phone. Why didn’t even, like, one of the bitches at least, text her? Was it so fucking hard? She wondered if she should change out of her green-and-blue-striped swimsuit. Fuck it.
Jack Bondurant set the paper on the table. “So, when are they getting here?” he asked Mavis. He smiled impishly and answered his own question: “After they’ve had their fill of the mall, I suppose.” He knew his brightness irritated her, as did his none-too-subtle digs at her friends—if they really were “friends.” It was impossible to tell with Mavis. These days, she didn’t seem particularly friendly to anybody.
Mavis wrinkled her nose again. What was up with her dad and the mall? Like it was some ritual thing he did every time they talked. “I don’t know, Dad,” she said, “they don’t live there, you know.”
He chuckled eagerly. “At the mall? Sure they do.” He couldn’t help himself; tender or not, he loved goading his teenage daughter. Teens were so pitifully self-absorbed. They had to be, of course, it was nature’s way; perpetuation of the species and all that. Still, you had to laugh. He twisted the knife a little more: “They were born there, in Toys ‘R’ Us. That’s where all kids are born. Every night, they let a few dolls out to become real kids. Isn’t that right, dear?” He turned to his wife, who, attuned to her daughter’s sensitivity on this issue and all others, merely smiled. Her husband’s levity half-amused and half-frightened her. She had been too much like her daughter, herself, not all that long ago.
“Ha-ha.” Mavis frowned, taking her eyes from her phone and gazing off at nothing in particular. Already, she felt the day getting away from her. “Seriously, Dad, why don’t you at least consider a back wax? I mean, back hair is so totally unbecoming.”
“Yes, my little princess. One day, when your tortured adolescence is but a painful memory, you’ll learn to accept yourself as God and nature made you.”
“Yeaahh…” Dad and his lame-ass “philosophy.” Mavis stood and shuffled toward the sliding door, picking at her nails. The Asian bitch at the mall had charged way much for her totally lame manicure; already they were fucked-up. Why were all the nail places Asian, anyways?
“Your father’s back is fine, dear,” said Cheryl, her voice a placatory murmur. “Why don’t you have some lemonade? Ah, I think I hear your friends now.” An automobile clattered jarringly in front, bringing the world to the Bondurant threshold.
Mavis frowned. Great, Mom and Dad were going to hang out. Why didn’t they just go? Go to a movie or out to eat or someplace. Anyplace, for a change. Why did they always have to loiter around her and her friends, like they were trying so hard to be cool or something? She skulked into the foyer, her spirit sagging once again at the tired paneling, the outdated family photos, the yellow-paned art-glass chandelier hanging over the stair. The whole house totally needed a makeover, it was so lame. Like that stupid hutch Mom thought was “cute”: couldn’t they see it was so tacky to have fucking Early American or whatever in a modern house? Same with the corny chandeliers, they were so faggy. Still, none of her friends had a pool. Only, what good was a pool if your fucking parents were always there?
A black Ford Explorer stood in the drive, dispensing four gangly girls in jeans and tank tops. Three of the young women looked pale and fragile in the sun, the fourth glistened darkly like a solar emissary. They held phones and beach bags in their slim, well-manicured hands. Mavis squinted through the window. Oh, God, they actually brought Maricela? She hardly knew her, only heard that she was some kind of gang-banger. She opened the door and grinned tightly. “Hey, girls, whaddup?”
“Hey, Mave,” said the tallest, a slender blonde named Shel. Shel bussed Mavis lightly on the cheek and reared her head back in frank appraisal of her swimsuit. “Oh, that suit is so chic—I love it!” Mavis’s mood lightened. Only, Shel could be so plastic sometimes; she was probably just sucking up. The others stared vacantly, bags dangling. Mavis felt an awkward pause looming. She waved her arm and said in a faux-Southern drawl, “Come on in, y’all.” God, where did that come from? She quickly reverted to a more neutral tone: “So, you want to go to the pool?”
“Sure,” said Jen, a short, slightly chunky girl with auburn hair (dyed, probably) whom Mavis secretly admired for her aloof, self-assured manner at school. Her clothes were always impeccable, but she wasn’t stuck-up. Jen and Shel were best friends, but Mavis knew they’d been cooling lately. Or maybe it was Jen who was cooling. She sniffed blood. This could be interesting.
“Yeeahh,” laughed Courtney, “why else do ya think we’re here?” She was a short blonde (obviously bleached), whose frayed voice and crooked, thin-lipped smile made her look like a total alchy. The girls laughed and Mavis smiled tightly. Fuck you, bitch, just because your dad’s a loser.
The dark girl, Maricela, simply smiled. Mavis sensed social inferiority; what did her parents do? She smiled faintly back, entertaining a fleeting vision of an older woman in a hotel maid’s uniform. So, Maricela, how long have you been in this country?
Of course, we couldn’t really say those things, could we? Why the fuck not? Why did we always have to be such hypocrites? Being honest and open about things would totally save so much hassle. Only, people would rather have their phony little dramas. Their little lies. “So, girlfriends, come on back,” Mavis said, leading her friends down the hall. “You can change in the guest room.” She slipped silently away down the dark hallway into the master bathroom, slid the door shut, and slumped glumly on the toilet. God, life sucked! Why did only girls ever come to her house? Were all her so-called girlfriends too embarrassed to bring guys over? Ashamed, even, maybe? She let a demure fart and wrinkled her nose. Girl-peeing was so gross. Maybe her friends were just too lame to get guys. Travis, he was cute, and so were Jeremy and Jason and Quinn. Only, Quinn might be gay. Oh, well, he was still cute, anyways. Mavis wondered what it would be like fucking a gay guy. No way, gay guys were, like, into the anal thing, which was too totally gross to even think about. She could see why some guys went gay, though. Chicks were such bitches.
Mavis quietly slid the bathroom door open and padded toward the kitchen, where her father’s voice rumbled. He was holding court with Courtney, who was already out and leaning against the counter in a taupe one-piece. At least he’d put a shirt on.
Mavis adopted a neutral tone. “Courtney, you’ve met my dad before, right?”
Courtney nodded over-enthusiastically, like some stupid bobble-head. “Yeah!” Bobble-bobble. “We met once at school.”
Please don’t let Dad say anything stupid.
A smile creased Jack Bondurant’s well-tanned face. Not a smile, a leer. Yeah, right. “Sure, honey,” he said. “You don’t think I’d forget a face like Courtney’s, do ya?” Fuck you, perv-Daddy. Why didn’t he just put his fat hand on her ass while he was at it? Did he actually think Courtney could find him attractive? Maybe she did, the way she smiled, like she took it as a compliment. Was she actually, like, flirting with her father?
“Your dad was telling me you’re going on a cruise,” Courtney chirped. “That sounds awesome!”
Mavis shrugged. “Yeeahh, on the Titanic.” At dinner recently her dad totally out of nowhere was like, “We should take a cruise. Wouldn’t that be a fun family thing to do?” Yeah, right, a “fun family thing.” Mavis hoped to God it wasn’t for real, but her mom had like totally bust her face, “Oh, Jack, that would be lovely, blah, blah, blah.”
“No icebergs where we’re going,” said Bondurant, chuckling, “except in the drinks.” Courtney shrieked with laughter, darting her blue eyes at his.
It was more than Mavis could process. God, really, slut? “Let’s go back out,” she ordered, shooting a glare at her father. He was so fucking obvious—he probably had a hard-on. Fuck.
The pool lay before them, azure, glittering, ignored. The girls arranged themselves on the recliners and preened themselves, stroking their hair and studying their phones. “I wish I could do something about these nails,” Shel said in her hard edged voice that Mavis instinctively distrusted. The girl at her dentist, the hygenist or whatever, talked like that, too. Professional ice-queen voice.
Mavis nodded, adopting her own professional tone. “Mine, too, they are so brittle. They keep on fucking breaking.”
“Maybe if you didn’t chew on them,” said Courtney.
Mavis stared at her with mild incredulity. If I didn’t what, bitch? “I don’t chew on them,” she said, “they just get that way.” Courtney was so out of here.
Maricela said nothing. Did she feel out of her league? Maybe she fucking should. Mavis felt a sudden warm glow, thinking how it might be fun to totally ignore Maricela all day. Only, her swimsuit was being a pain. The crotch rode up too high, and today she was totally PMS-ing. Why did girls have to go through this shit and not guys? Guys were supposed to be so tough, when they were really a bunch of babies
“So,” Maricela murmured, “are any you guys gonna go in?” Her voice was tentative. Mavis continued studying her nails. Oh, she talks.
“Maybe,” said Shel, brightly. She looked at Jen, who was looking at Mavis. Her eyes masked by sunglasses, Mavis looked away toward the neighbor’s fence, but not before catching Jen’s eye. Hmmm.
Jen saw that her glance had been caught. She knew thatMave could be a bitch, but WTF? From French class she knew that she was also kind of sweet and very smart. She certainly looked ravishing in that suit. Could Mavis be, like, herbitch? Jen felt heat rise in her loins and let her gaze follow Mave’s. Maybe she would catch Mave’s gaze again—and hold it. Behind those black, masklike glasses…Only, what would she do about Shel?
Behind her glasses, Mavis’ eyes studied the gap in the fence. She hoped the neighbor, a fortyish man with receding but still-bushy hair, would not suddenly appear. At odd times and on weekends he puttered around outside in white undershirts and running shorts, flexing his muscles and fussing over his stupid Lexus which was already five years old. He was sort of hunky, in a way, but he had a bald spot and was so obviously trying to look young. Mavis was almost absolutely positive he was showing off for her, but she never actually caught him looking toward her house. He had a girlfriend, too, a permed-up cunt who walked stick-ass and looked like a total bitch. She probably worked in the guy’s office or whatever.
Courtney, who had been studying her phone, asked, “So, are you guys going to Amy Numa’s party?”
Mavis swiveled her head toward her, twisting a strand of hair. Parties were a bore, all boy-stink and beer and stupid drunk talk. She hated drunks, and already a lot of her friends were becoming total fucking alchies. What were they trying to prove? Mavis felt a pang of sadness, then relief. Soon, very soon, she would outgrow them.
Mavis took charge: this was her party. “Oh God,” she said, “her mom is like a total fucking biker bitch.”
The girls laughed in unison. “Yeahhh,” said Shel, “those clodhopper boots she wears!”
“Chad Morrison told me she wears a clit ring,” said Courtney.
“Ewww!”
“Who, her or her mom?”
“Her!”
“Oh, that is so totally gross,” said Mavis.
Shel grimaced. “You actually talk to Chad Morrison?”
“Nooo,” said Courtney, “he talked to me, in study hall. Amy was sitting, like, three desks away, and he’s like, ‘You know her clit’s pierced,’ and I’m like, ‘Nooo, how would I know that?””
“No way!”
“Way,” said Courtney. “I think he was like trying to impress me or something.”
“He is so totally repulsive.”
“And then he looks at me and goes, ‘I’m thinking of having my cock pierced.’”
The girls shrieked in horrified unison.
Jen gasped. “Oh, God, why would anybody do that?”
Shel looked up from her phone. “I don’t know, Jen, why do you think?”
Jen squinted at Shel. Recently, her feelings toward her had hit a bump. Shel had been acting totally snarky, and even said some shit about her hair that was totally rude. “Why do I think? Uhhh…well, Shel, I guess I’ll have to get back to you on that.”
Mavis laughed, openly for the first time all afternoon. Her opinion of Jen rose another notch. Jen looked for Mavis’s eyes again, but they remained hidden. Okay, babe, we’ll see.
Courtney tried again. “So anyways, how ‘bout this par-tay?”
Mavis wrinkled her nose. “Are there gonna be any black guys there this time?”
“I don’t know,” said Courtney. “Why? Are you, like, racist or something?” The collective silence was deafening.
“No,” said Mavis, her voice dangerously low, “I am not racist. I just want to know.”
“Why does it matter?”
“It matters because at her last party, there were a bunch of total creeps, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t want to hang with gangbangers.” She aimed a frosty smile at Courtney. “That’s all.”
Mavis wondered if she hadn’t gone too far. Maricela was almost a gangbanger; at least, she dressed like it. Fuck it. Maricela-gangbanger-wannabe might as well hear it now.
“So, all black guys are gangbangers?” Maricela looked closely at Mavis.
“No,” Mavis replied. She held her glasses away from her face, looking Maricela straight in the eyes. “But Amy Numa’s friends are. I was there. Like, those guys in the hoodies that showed up late, and the guy who even had a bandanna over his face, like what was he supposed to be, a bank robber or something? I know they had guns. You could tell they were total users—they smelled. Plus, what about those two guys who I swear to God were Arabs or something. They never said one word all night, they just sat and stared at the chicks, probably getting hard. Very spooky. I’m not saying that all Arabs are terrorists, but…” Mavis shrugged and looked away.
“Yeah,” said Jen, “those guys were very creepy.” Jen remembered the night very well; she’d been frightened.
“I don’t know,” said Courtney, “one of ‘em was kinda cute.”
Mavis eyed her disdainfully. “Oh God, Courtney, you are such a mark.”
“I am not a ‘mark.’ I’m just tolerant. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, if you don’t mind being fucked over and God knows what all, gangbanged and left in some parking lot.”
“God, Mavis, you are being totally paranoid.”
Mavis sat up. Charges of racism she could handle, but her instincts warned against being seen as a party-pooper. Plus, air-head or not, Courtney was still her friend. At least, she was a potential ally, or enemy. Mavis did not need enemies, not now. Still, she had to stand her ground. “I’m serious,” she said, seriously, taking off her glasses and eyeing not Courtney—that would be too confrontational—but at a girl she was rapidly beginning to feel she could trust: Jen. “Guys like that are dangerous. I’m sorry if it looks ‘racist’ or whatever to some people, but I’m staying as far away from that whole hoodlum scene.” She let her eyes roam to the others. “If Amy can’t control who gets in, that’s her tough shit.”
Mavis didn’t want to get in any deeper. This was supposed to be a pool party, not an inquisition. Amy Numa was an attractive and mysterious girl who held some mysterious sway over a large contingent. Mavis wanted to keep all options open.
Shel spoke up: “I think Mave’s right. Why is it ‘racist’ to not like thugs? I mean, those kind of guys, you know they’re doing serious shit.
“Not to mention they actually carry guns,” echoed Jen.
“Not to mention they come in their pants all the time because they’re strung out,” added Shel. “I mean, they always have their dicks in their hands.”
Courtney giggled. “I wish one of them’d come in me!”
They looked at her in stunned silence. She laughed nervously and shrugged. “Just saying…”
“Jesus, Court,” said Shel.
“Hey, just being upfront. Upfront! Hah!” She burst out laughing, and the others giggled wanly.
“Whatever,” said Jen, shaking her head but smiling with wry amusement. She kept her own thoughts on such things to herself.
God, you never knew, Mavis thought. Chicks were so fucking weird. Why not, like, go out on the corner if you were so fucking horny? At least that would be honest. She picked up her phone and glared grimly at the black, opaque face. A vague reflection stared back, blurry, tenuous, unformed.
Jack Bundurant loomed over them, casting a long shadow. “So, anybody going in?”
Mavis tried to smile. “I don’t know, Dad, knock yourself out.” She flipped a dismissive hand toward the shining blue water.
“Gee, thanks, Honey, maybe I will,” he said, grinning. God, Dad, just fucking don’t, please. Her father dove neatly into the pool and shot smoothly half the length of the pool before surfacing in a burst of expelling breath and shaking hair. “Woo, that feels good! Come on in, girls, the water’s fine!” Great, thanks, Dad.
Courtney stood, dipped a tentative toe in the water. “It’s warm once you’re in,” smiled Bondurant, his head sleek with water. Courtney went to the ladder and eased her chunky body into the lapping water. “Ahh—cold, now!” she squealed. Jack Bondurant grinned and slipped again beneath the surface. He pushed off from the wall and thrust powerfully through the water like a dolphin. Something in Mavis stirred, making her more irritable than ever.
“Your dad’s a strong swimmer,” said Maricela. “It’s nice, having a pool. I bet you swim all the time, huh?”
Mavis shrugged. “I don’t go in very much.”
“I’d go swimming every day if we had a pool,” Maricela said.
Mavis shuddered. She knew she’d made an ass of herself—spoiled rich-bitch ass. Not everyone had a pool. She hated herself.
“Yeah, I know, I guess I’m busy with other stuff, mostly…” Lame.
Her father surfaced, spouting loudly, then plunged again. The girls studied their phones and retreated into themselves. Jen sighed and stared at the sky, Shel gave her a veiled glance and turned away. Mavis stretched and thought of her parents and their parents and sex. What was her dad like when he was young? What parties had her dad gone to? Who had he dated? What was it like—kissing him? The thought repulsed and intrigued her. It was all too weird, dating, mating, humping, having babies. She thought about cotillions, coming outs, all that old shit they used to do back in old days when they had, like “society.” Horseback riding. God, what did girls do, before Tampons? She lay very still, seeing a girl riding a white charger, brown hair flowing…
The heat was mounting. Summer was waning but the late afternoons were still warm. Her father spouted again and heaved his heavy bulk from the water, water dripping from his smooth chest. He grinned at the girls: “No takers?” Just another asshole-flirt, but then, not really. She suddenly got it: he wasn’t flirting—he wasn’t interested at all! He was happy! He liked his job—whatever the hell it was—and sometimes he even sang in the house, like after—oh, God, that was too gross. But it must be that he and Mom hit it off so well. Mom loved him, they really were happy together!
It all came down to sex, and the sex in this case must be good. Why else would her dad sing, for fuck’s sake? And her mom, too: she was always so fucking happy. The sex would have to be fucking awesome, for a woman to put up with a man’s bullshit, his farting and beer and stupid fantasies and general assholeness. Yeah, it was all about the sex. Jack Bondurant gave himself a brisk rubdown with a large white towel and strode into the house. Strong, confident dad; Mavis couldn’t help feeling a touch of admiration.
Feeling oddly sad, Mavis looked at the pool her dad had just vacated. “I think I want to go horseback riding sometime,” she announced.
“Horseback riding,” Courtney cooed, “la-de-dah!”
“Tally-ho!” shrieked Shel. “I would totally like to ride a horse!”
Mavis smiled tightly. Fuck you guys. Typical Courtney, to dis her like that. Again. It so figured; her mom was a total flaming shrew-bitch. She felt her self-control slipping. She knew that self-control was essential to maintain her position. Whatever the fuck that was.
“Yeah, horseback riding,” she murmured, zeroing in on Courtney, who could maybe use a bitch-slap or two to wise her up, “Horseback riding would be fun.” Mavis smiled sensuously, and snapped her head away toward the pool, flipping her hair. Take that, bitch!
Jen saw her opening. “I’ve always wanted to ride a horse,” she said, smiling at Mavis.
Mavis eyed her frankly. “Really?”
“Yeah, I’d be totally into it. I wonder if there’s, like, a stable around here.”
Mavis smiled back. “Hmm, I don’t know…” The girls dove into their phones, looking for stables. “maybe this one,” said Shel.
“I don’t think so…”
“No, that’s, like, a hundred miles from here or some shit…”
Mavis sighed, saw a young woman in jodhpurs, boots, a riding crop in her hand, a gorgeous stable boy pitching hay. The thought made her warm and squirmy. “I wish we could go back to riding horses instead of driving cars.”
“Seriously?”
“Absolutely.” Mavis smiled slyly. Why not just fuck with everybody? Life was too fucking serious, anyways.
Jen was smiling at her. “I could totally get into it.” Mavis smiled back. “Yeah…oh, well, just a thought.”
“What about, like, the smell—all that horseshit everywhere.”
“They don’t smell that bad.” Maricella’s voice carried a note of authority. “I used to go riding back at my uncle’s. In Florida.”
Mavis turned toward her. “I didn’t know you were from Florida.”
“Tallahassie. My uncle had a place—he had a couple of horses.”
“So, you know how to ride?”
“Do you, like, use a whip and stuff?”
“No, I rode Western. Whips are for English.”
“Ooh! Whips and chains…”
Mavis eyed Maricela closely. “So, are horses hard to ride?”
“No, not at all. You just make sure the saddle’s on right, get up, and go.”
“Hmm…”
Maybe, maybe. Mavis smiled at Maricela. “So, maybe we should go, sometime…”
Maricela smiled, a nice smile, warm, confident. “I’d be into it.”
Mavis wondered what she’d just done. Made a date—with Mari-fucking-cela? God, it was getting hot. How could you even believe yourself, sometimes? She felt her body go from squirmy to tense, her insides turning over, her interest in the subject evaporating. This was all so fucked-up. “Yeah,” she said, looking vaguely at Maricela. “Yeah, maybe.” She turned back to face the sky.
She wanted a boyfriend. Or, she thought she did. She had one recently, Bradley, but he was history. She’d seen it in his face the last couple of times: the expression in the eyes and the feeling around the mouth that said all too obviously that he was ready to move on. Oh, well, tough titty. Boys were so slack, anyways. Slack and stupid and so into bullshit stuff like cars and sports. Not to mention their fucking dicks. Obsessing, like, constantly.
Sometimes, some secret, dark times alone, Mavis wondered: Did she like girls? God, a lezzie? The thought troubled her, all the more since she did not simply dismiss it. But just because you didn’t want to go to bed with everything with a dick didn’t mean you were gay. That was lame reasoning. And anyways, chicks were a pain, too. Even being one was a pain. PMS—God, whose idea was that?
The sun was hot, her nails were flaking, and Mavis felt an odd queasiness in her gut. Her friends had abruptly dropped the horse thing and moved on to boys. Specifically, Chad Morrison, and more specifically, Chad Morrison’s cock. God, how juvenile.
Was she, like, some long-lost princess stuck in the wrong time? Now, it was biker-bitches and gang bangers and losers. Fuck, why was she so stuck-up? And, like on this new thing—Facebook, where everybody is supposed to be “friends.” What was up with that? They didn’t feel like friends, they were just faces in, like, nowhere. So much of it was so bogus. Most of the time they didn’t even answer her posts. It was lame.
Mavis could see her mother in the kitchen—lurking, trying not to be obvious about watching the girls, and obviously failing. Stare hard, retard. Why couldn’t she, like, get a life? Cheryl Bondurant slid the door open and asked, “Would anyone like more lemonade?”
“No thanks, Mom,” Mavis said brightly, pre-empting any further communication. Mavis did not dislike her mother, just found her annoying. She tried too hard and lurked too much. “Give me some space, Mom, okay?” she had said this morning. She doubted it would change anything. Mothers never changed. Cheryl Bondurant had gotten that injured look again, adding to her daughter’s irritation. God, why didn’t parents just accept the fact that kids grew up?
Mavis swept her eyes around her friends, and idly pinched her navel into a long, narrow ovoid. She smiled slyly and yelled, “Hey, guys, check it out. A second vagina.”
The girls shrieked with laughter. “You are so fucking weird!” cried Jen, giggling. Mavis decided she liked Jen. Perhaps she should be cultivated—maybe even…Mmmm, best cool the jets. Things happened if they were meant to.
“So, Jen,” Mavis said, throwing a quick eye-flashed, “are you going to Amy’s party?”
“Haven’t decided yet.” Jen returned the look, but held it. Was she waiting, waiting to see—what?
“Hmm, yeah,” Mavis said, “I haven’t either.” She lowered her voice to a near-whisper. “But, probably not. I don’t know—maybe I’m just not much of a party girl.” Mavis looked again at Jen and smiled, sincerely, wondering how her mouth would feel on hers.
Stockinged feet curling cozily on the leather ottoman, Jack Bondurant riffled through a sheaf of papers and thought of the girls at the pool. He thought of them quietly, intensely, even savagely; thought back to how much he had wanted them when he was in school, remembering even now how the air in the halls and the cafeteria crackled with erotic energy. He smiled and set the papers aside. Yeah, crackled. He didn’t use the word “erotic” then (nobody did), but he did now. Cheryl: she was erotic, and in ways the poor dumb kids at the pool would only discover later. If they were lucky. He stood, stretched, and headed for the kitchen. Maybe the girls would see him kissing his wife; maybe they would see him put his arm around her and steer her out of the room.
The poolside chairs were empty and the sky was darkening. Bondurant stood at the window scanning the sky as Cheryl chopped salad greens. “Clouding up,” he said. Autumn was in the air, you could see it, feel it. He hadn’t heard the girls leave. He hoped Mavis had had a good time with her friends. She seemed so moody, so down, but he knew this was common in girls her age. What could you do? It was hell, being a teenage girl. Funny, how much Mavis looked like the girls he’d wanted so badly. Funny, too, how much like him she looked.
Jack Bondurant sidled over to his wife, just finishing tossing the salad, and kissed her on the neck. Cheryl smiled dreamily.
Mavis entered.
“Did you and your friends have a good afternoon?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“What’s the matter, Sweets?”
“Nothing.” Her dad didn’t call her that as often as he used to. She liked it when he did.
“Nothing.” Jack Bondurant placed his hands on his daughter’s shoulders. They were getting wide. He smiled and looked into her eyes. “Don’t say ‘nothing’ to me. I’m your dad, you can tell me anything.”
“I know that, Dad. But I just—I don’t know.” Mavis shrugged, feeling near to crying. Jack Bondurant put his arm over his daughter’s shoulder, led her into the house. At the kitchen island, Cheryl Bondurant tossed the salad. “That’s okay, honey,” he said, “you don’t have to know. Hungry?” She nodded.
Bondurant smiled at her. “Well, come on, tiger, let’s get the plates on the table!” The two set the table as the setting sun threw long shadows across the empty poolside, toward the trees looming dark in the east, then Mavis wandered into the hall, toward the bathroom. She put some cool water on her forehead and started to touch up her makeup, then stopped. Why bother? In the mirror, she was suddenly gratified to see how good she looked without makeup. Maybe she’d go “natural” for a while. Lots of buys liked that. The shag carpet felt good under her bare feet, and the quiet was nice, too. Home—her home. She sighed deeply. Would she ever have a home as nice as this?
The door to her father’s study was open, and she wandered idly in. The room was so fucking neat—“tidy,” to use her stick-ass dad’s word. She sidled to her father’s desk. Papers, folders: work stuff. Funny, but she didn’t know exactly what her dad did. He never said anything much about it, either. She picked up a file folder marked Confidential. She opened it to a sheaf of photos of young men, dark-skinned, dark-haired. What the hell?
Drugs.
No. Not drugs. Arms supplied to known terrorists…Ops Post 18…Homeland Security…
OMG.
“Mavis?” Her mother called from down the hall. Mavis moved swiftly to the door and into the hall.
She smiled brightly at her mother. “Hmm?”
“Dinner’s almost ready, dear.”
“Okay, Mom.” She made to turn toward her room, stopped. “Mom, where’s Dad?”
“I don’t know, dear—outside, I think.”
She slipped back to the desk and studied the faces closely. Yes. She knew that face.
Jack Bondurant stood in the doorway.
She gulped and dropped the folder. “Dad.”
“Mavis.”
“I have something to tell you, and please don’t be mad.”
Jack Bondurant never promised in advance.
“Okay, so: These guys on your desk.”
“Yes, dear?” His voice was frosty.
“Dad, before you get mad, I—I think I recognize one of them.”
Jack Bondurant walked to his daughter. “You do?” he said, softly.
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Well…”
She turned to face her father. “Dad—Maybe I can help you. You know, with this.” She smiled shyly at him, but her eyes bore steadily into his.
Jack Bondurant smiled back, and quietly closed the door.