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

pounding.My lungs were taking in great gulps of air. As my heart slowed and my breathing calmed, I felt solidified. I was Jimmy’s Mary Jane! And nothing, not home jail, not my father, not my mother, and not even President Ford could shut down the person I’d become.

I peered out into the hallway again. My parents’ door was still shut. I hit rewind and backed the tape up to the beginning,and then I hit play once more. With my thumb on the toothed dial on the side of the recorder, I turned up the volume. Onlya little. Just enough so that I could feel the music around me more. This time I sang along quietly so my mother couldn’thear. “Mary Jane!”

When the song ended, I popped out the cassette, shoved it into the pocket of my nightgown, and then quickly put my father’stape recorder back.

I met up with my mother in the hall. She was fully dressed in a plaid skirt and white blouse, stockings and shoes. Her hair had a flip-up curl on the bottom, which meant she’d worn a cap in the shower to keep it styled as it had been for church.

“Why aren’t you dressed for school? Is your stomach still bothering you?”

“A little. But I’ll go to school anyway.” I rushed into my room, trying to escape before there were more questions.

“Maybe you should skip choir practice and come home right after your last class. I was going to change out the planter boxesand put in mums. You can help with that.”

I stood next to my bed, staring at my mother. The song was playing in my head. Jimmy’s Mary Jane was “brave as hell” and “spokeno jive.” I needed to be more like her.

“I’ll pick you up, and we’ll drive right up to Radebaugh to buy the mums. I was thinking we’d do all white this year. Noneof those golden ones.” My mother had a hand on each hip.

“Mom.” I fingered the tape in the pocket of my nightgown. “Mom. I—”

“Spit it out, Mary Jane. No time to dillydally.”

“Jimmy wrote a song about me.”

My mother got an inch taller as her back pulled up. “Have you been talking to those people?”

“No. Sheba mailed me a cassette tape—she mailed it to me at church. And my song is the title song of Jimmy’s new album.”

“Must you call them by their first names?”

“It’s the title song of Mr. Jimmy’s new album.”

“Mary Jane, I don’t even understand what you’re saying. What is the title song of Mr. Jimmy’s new album?”

“‘Mary Jane.’ That’s the name of the song.”

“He wrote a song about you?”

“Yes.”

“What could a drug addict possibly sing about you?”

Why couldn’t my mother see what Jimmy, Sheba, and the Cones saw in me? Did I hide myself so much at home that I was virtuallyinvisible? “Well, that I cook. And sing. Just . . . you know.”

“No. I don’t know.”

“I kinda . . . Mom. I kinda wish you did know.”

“Know what, Mary Jane? Will you make some sense here!” My mother looked at her slender gold watch, as if we were running terriblylate. We weren’t. We were always early.

I took a breath and got braver. “I wish you knew who I am. Or, how other people see me. I can play the song for you.”

My mother lifted her wrist again, as if time were jumping forward faster than usual. “How long is the song? You need to beat school and I need to be at Elkridge for coffee on the porch with the ladies.”

“I dunno. I mean, I don’t know. Maybe two and a half minutes.”

“Have you already heard it?”

“I played it on Dad’s tape recorder when you were in the shower.”

My mother took a breath so deep her entire body expanded and contracted. “This doesn’t make me happy.”

“I know, Mom. I know. You don’t like how I changed this summer. But I do. This song is important to me. It’s . . . it’s aboutthe me I became with the Cones and Jimmy and Sheba. I like that me more than who I used to be. I enjoy being the person they saw.” My face burned. I was embarrassed about what I’d just said; I’d always had the feeling that it was impolite and conceited for a girl to actually like who she was. But Sheba clearly loved who she was. And that seemed cool to me.

My mother stared at me like she was trying to bring a blurry blob into sharp focus. “Oh, Mary Jane. I hope I like the MaryJane those people saw, too.” She turned and marched toward my father’s office. I followed.

My mother knew exactly where the tape recorder was. She pulled it out, set it on my father’s desk, and then pointed at it,as if to direct me to it.

I hit stop/eject, and the plastic door popped open. I slid in the cassette, shut it to hear the satisfying click, and thenhit play. Jimmy said, “Mary Jane! What the hell, girlie, you are missed! Here’s the title track of my new album. I sure as fuck hope you like it.” My mother’s body jolted. She closed her eyes and put her hand up as if to say enough. I pressed stop/eject.

My mother opened her eyes. “You know this language is exactly why you shouldn’t fraternize with people like him.”

“I understand how you feel about it. But if you can get past the language—”

“And the tattoos. And the drugs.” My mother shut her eyes again. She held them like that for so long, I thought maybe shewas praying. Finally she opened them and said, “I’d like to hear the song.”

I hit play again. Before the first word was sung, I put my thumb on the dial and turned up the volume. My mother watched theway people in movies watch someone cutting the wires to stop a bomb from exploding.

“Mary Jane!” Jimmy sang, and my mother’s eyes blinked rapidly at the sound of my name. I couldn’t bear to watch her any longer, so I staredat the tape recorder.

It wasn’t until the