sister.
“Hey, Des,” she started. “Did Lux say I if could come along tonight?” Billie tried to sound unconcerned.
Dessie shook her head, said, “Nope. It didn’t come up,” and turned to scrape the razor at a spot under her knee. Something about Dessie’s voice made it pretty clear that she should drop that subject. The music on the radio wailed and swelled, then ended, all the instruments stopping on the same beat. Billie thought that listening to each new song on the top forty countdown made Saturday afternoons feel like being at a party. Carefully, Billie took straight pins out of Rose’s little red hen pincushion and folded the hem for the apron.
“Did you know that right after dark tonight, the bright orange spot in the sky next to the moon will be the planet Jupiter, which is 365 million miles from earth?” Billie asked. “My earth science teacher said that.”
“Nope,” Dessie said, and then, “Did you know that Lux said he could not decide if I was prettier in the sunlight or in the moonlight?”
Billie yawned. “Nope,” she said, and turned away. Did everything have to begin and end with Lux? The cover of Seventeen caught her eye. She could see the full lips and high cheekbones of the model, long straight brown hair blowing back behind her, long slender legs in a short plaid skirt and knee socks, strolling right off the cover and into an active, fun life, with her long eyelashes and her bright red lips. Thin models were showing up on ads and magazine covers, though everyone at school poked fun at them, said they were flat-chested and undoubtedly undernourished. This could be a part that she, Billie, could try out for someday, The Actress Who Is Also a Cover Girl. She would have radiant and alive black hair that hung down to her waist, high-heeled boots in every color, skirts so short that if she wasn’t so famous, so rich, and so popular, she’d be grounded for years. When Dessie set the piece of mirror down, Billie picked it up off the bed and stared at her lips, practicing smiles.
“I hate Lux,” Billie mouthed silently, watching the lips in the mirror make words too terrible to say out loud. She looked over at Dessie to see if she’d noticed, but thank goodness, she didn’t. Her sister had finished shaving and had begun wiping her legs with baby oil, rubbing her toes, and working her way slowly up past her ankles, calves, knees, way to the top of her thighs and under her gym shorts. Billie caught herself staring and turned back her own reflection, sticking her tongue way out, close enough to almost touch the mirror, moving it around. From that angle, her tongue looked like a slimy sea creature, her face looked like a cartoon, neck stretched behind like a long skinny balloon that some clown would twist into the shape of a wiener dog.
“Lux hates me,” Billie said out loud, watching her tongue, lips, dark eyelashes, and the dimple in her chin with each syllable, then smiling into the mirror, not a good sport smile, exactly, but not a grimace of self-pity either. She checked her nose, to see if it was bruised from where Lux had punched her. It wasn’t, but it hurt if she wiggled it back and forth with her fingers.
“Huh?” Dessie said. “For the love of Pete! Don’t be such a little idiot.” She reached out her hand to take back the mirror. “What made you say that?”
Billie tried to come up with an answer, but the words were not in the script. What does the Younger Sister Who Gets Picked On say to the Older Sister Who Loves the Hillbilly-Pirate Bad Guy? “Oh, you know, it’s probably nothing,” Billie answered, watching her lips make these light and breezy words, words that seemed to miss the point entirely. She remembered how startled she was when Lux pretended that he hurt his hand. As if that was true. He was the one who hit her in the nose. She shook her head and turned away.
Handing the mirror back, Billie rolled down her own ankle socks. Dessie had blonde hair, blonde arm and leg hairs. Billie thought Dessie didn’t even need to shave her legs. Her own legs had black hairs, each one thicker, more obvious. No matter what Rose said, these legs of hers would have to get shaved. That way Lux and Alan Ray would have one less thing to tease her about.
“OK, I’ll tell you what made me say it. Lux is always picking on me,” Billie said.
“Are you ticked about last night on the porch?” Dessie was smiling like she thought it was funny. Dessie’s bottom teeth were crooked, actually the two center ones overlapped. Experts from Seventeen would agree that Dessie’s best smile would be with her lips closed. But Dessie’s lips kept on moving. “Oh, he’s just ornery. If he devils you, it means he likes you,” Dessie’s lips were saying. Her head tilted as if it might be a concept a younger sister could not fathom. “Guys want to get close to girls, but they don’t know what to do when they get around them.”
Lux? Not know what to do? How could Dessie say that about the best pitcher, maybe in the history of Fairchance High, or Alan Ray, who had traveled all over the country in the national guard? “Oh, sure,” Billie said. She stood up, held out her sewing project, imagined a finished apron tied around her mother’s waist. She checked the hem to see if it was even.
“I really mean it.” Dessie said. “You need to act different. Show you don’t care about them, and they’ll come over and sweet-talk you,” she said. Then Dessie lowered her voice. “If you promise not to tell Mama, I’ll show you what he does to me.” Billie nodded.
Dessie got up out of the bed, and her fingers opened the top buttons on her nightgown. Billie leaned in, stood on tiptoes to see what Dessie was talking about. A few inches below the neckline was a circular pinkish-red blotchy bruise the size of a small peach. Billie gasped. “Did he punch you or pinch you? Did it hurt?”
“No, stupid, it was fun. He did it with his mouth.” Dessie’s eyes darted back and forth, checking to see if anyone else was listening. “Don’t you dare breathe a word.” Dessie turned back, her eyes piercing into Billie’s. “Promise me. Swear you won’t.”
Billie knew about kissing, she had heard jokes about sex, but she was not sure how this fit in. This was different than other types of secrets, like faking a headache to skip school. She began thinking about how it felt kind of grown up to share a part of Dessie’s new life, like she just peeked through a doorway to a place that she would soon be able to enter.
Billie looked up at Dessie’s eyes and made her most solemn promise. “I won’t. I swear to God as He is my witness, so help me,” she answered, wondering if God heard her say this, if keeping this secret was another of God’s tests she had just failed. But Dessie did not seem to be the least bit concerned about God. She seemed more worried about Rose, and for that reason, this felt like useful information, though Billie didn’t even know why she thought that.
“Hey, Billie,” Dessie called out from the walk-in closet. “Will you look outside and tell me if you see Lux?”
Before she knew what she was doing, Billie lifted the sash of Dessie’s window and stuck out her head. Past the walk, past the dog box, midway up the grass of the yard, sat Lux’s jeep, the top down and fresh mud splattered halfway up the sides. Billie could see Alan Ray’s red hair and long white arms. He was in the driver’s seat, shirtless, wearing his army vest with a red, white, and blue bandana around his neck. The Jeep’s hood was up. Lux wore his A-1 cap and a black T-shirt. He and Bertram were standing over the engine with tools in their hands while Alan Ray was giving it more gas.
“Yeah, they’re here,” Billie said. She could hear them calling back and forth to each other over the rush and snort of the engine and the sound of Lux’s old-timey country music.
Dessie called out from the closet, “Oh, shoot, I better find something to wear. Can you be an angel and tell ’em I’ll be right down?”
DOWNSTAIRS, BESIDE the porch door, Billie halted. She had things
