Mary Jane by Jessica Blau (debian ebook reader TXT) 📗

the past had seemed uneventful. It was easy to findshoes I liked. But now that I had been shopping with Sheba, I saw the stock differently.

The salesman returned with two boxes and sat on the the stool in front of me. Just as he was slipping the saddle shoes ontomy feet, Beanie Jones entered the store. She was wearing a bright pink headband that pulled her thick blond hair away fromher face. The headband was the exact pink of her dress, a honeycomb-patterned shift that fell above her tan knees. Her fingernailsand toenails were painted the thick white of whole milk. The pink band of her sandals crossed her bronzed feet. All I couldthink was I’ve seen you naked.

“Hello, you two!” she said.

“Oh, hello!” my mother said, too cheerfully, I thought. When I didn’t respond, she shot me a look.

“Hi, Mrs. Jones,” I said.

“Are you getting school shoes, Mary Jane? I hear this is where everyone gets the latest fall styles.” Beanie Jones pickedup a pair of oxfords on display.

“Mary Jane’s at Roland Park Country; the girls there can only wear two kinds of shoes,” my mother said. I doubted Beanie Joneswas interested.

The salesman double-tapped the back of my calf like I was a horse that needed prodding. I jumped. I’d forgotten he was there.“Stand,” he said.

I got up and walked in a circle.

“I remember the saddle shoes I had to wear at Rosemary Hall.” Beanie Jones looked down at my feet, smiling. Then she put a hand on my mother’s upper arm. “Oh! Did you hear?”

“Feel good?” the salesman said to me.

“Hear what?” My mother glanced between my feet and Beanie’s face.

“Yes, perfect,” I said.

“Though I don’t know why I should be shocked, considering what went on at the Cones’ this summer,” Beanie half whispered,like she was trying to keep a secret but not really.

The salesman bent down and pushed on the tip of the shoe to see how much space there was between there and my big toe. “Nowthe oxford.” He horse-tapped the back of my calf again. I sat while he removed the saddle shoes. I couldn’t take my eyes offBeanie Jones.

“Oh, dear. What is it?” My mother took a half step closer to Beanie.

“Bonnie packed up, took Izzy with her, and moved into one of those dinky little row houses in that Rodgers Forge neighborhood.”Beanie shook her thick blond hair as if to let dust fly off it.

“Up.” The salesman calf-tapped me again. “Walk.”

My head and my stomach felt thick and curdled as I walked a slow, close circle around Beanie Jones and my mother. Beanie Jonespooh-poohed the row house Mrs. Cone and Izzy lived in as well as the idea that Mrs. Cone would leave Dr. Cone all alone in that big house. And then she said, “I’m pretty sure there was some canoodling going on between Bonnie and Jimmy.”

My mother gasped.

“That’s not true.” I stopped and faced Beanie Jones. My face was red and hot. My eyes felt like I’d sprayed perfume in them. “You know that’s not true.”

“Mary Jane!” My mother jerked her head forward, like a hen pecking corn. “Watch your manners.”

Beanie Jones pushed her face into a smile. “Darling, don’t be upset.” She put her hand on my arm. I wanted to shake it awaybut was afraid of what my mother would do if I did. “Sometimes the grown-up world is too complicated and messy to understanduntil you get there.”

I thought of Dr. Cone looking for his car keys, with no one to help him out. Izzy suddenly removed from the bedroom that wassafe from the witch, the bathroom with the footstool under the sink, the kitchen with the window nook to sit in, the diningroom with the records on the floor, the family room with the ironing board, and the living room with all the books we’d socarefully alphabetized. My heart hurt. My head hurt. And my pride hurt a little too, in knowing for certain that after theStarsky and Hutch kidnapping, everyone had given up on me.

“These are good.” The salesman was pushing on my toes again. Then he tapped the back of my calf and I sat.

“We’ll take them both,” my mother said.

“Poor Izzy,” I said.

“I heard she’s being enrolled in public school up there.” Beanie Jones said this as if public school in Baltimore County was like special ed for the serial killers in aprison system.

“We reap what we sow,” my mother said, and I knew she was trying to end the conversation.

“Have you heard from any of them, Mary Jane?” Beanie Jones ignored my mother and beamed her giant smile on me.

“Oh no, Mary Jane has nothing to do with any of them now.” My mother motioned with her fingers for me to stand. The salesman was headed toward the register with the two boxes of shoes.

“Of course,” Beanie Jones said to my mother, and then she winked at me, as if to say she knew better.

I turned and started toward the register.

“Mary Jane,” my mother said firmly.

“Oh, sorry.” I turned around. “So nice to see you, Mrs. Jones.” I pushed my mouth into a big, painful smile. I hoped she wouldthink I was pen pals with Jimmy and Sheba, that a day didn’t go by without a fresh letter with fresh news. Beanie Jones wasthe only person I knew who understood how energized and dazzling it felt to be with Jimmy (and Sheba). She was the only witnessto my secret summer. But she was someone with whom I wanted to share none of it.

15

A couple of weeks into the school year, Mr. Forge asked if I would join the grown-up choir, which took over the Sunday servicesonce summer had ended (relegating the children’s choir to special performances on holidays). At fourteen, Mr. Forbes said,I would be the youngest voice the adult choir had ever had. The only person I wanted to relay this news to was Sheba. I imaginedher face, how happy and proud she had looked when she watched