Like Mandarin - Kirsten Hubbard [16]
I had discovered the Tombs the past August, during one of my rock-hunting quests. I’d made the mistake of setting out at noon. Only half an hour in, I felt charbroiled. I sought shade among the piles of tomb-shaped rocks cooled by the river trees and meandering water.
I found the Virgin Mary on my third visit.
Each story described her differently: a head sculpted from stone, or a profile, or the whole holy likeness, holding baby Jesus. So-and-so’s cousin’s grandpa-in-law claimed she cried tears of holy water, or cured plantar warts, or sipped wine from a straw—all that mumbo jumbo typically attributed to magical Madonnas.
They would have been disappointed by my find: way up high, where the geometry of stone formed a sort of cave, a woman painted in a black and greasy substance, like wet charcoal or tar.
And she was extremely basic—not much more than an outline, though more complex than the cave paintings we’d seen on a field trip to the Medicine Lodge Archaeological Site. She wore a hood, or maybe a blanket, draped over her head. Because she was so obviously Native American, I knew she couldn’t be the Virgin Mary, unless she’d been painted after some Catholics had come and force-converted a local tribe.
But she was definitely a mother.
I liked to look at her. There was something comforting about her drowsy eyes, like those of a purring cat. Her almost smile. Her forearms, shaped like a cradle.
Now, as I sat in the cave, embracing my knees, pondering the unbelievable reality—that I was going to Mandarin Ramey’s house in ninety minutes, seventy minutes, less than an hour—I could have sworn that the Virgin Mary gazed at me sympathetically.
Of course, it would have been better if I could have found that comfort in Momma. But even the idea of that weirded me out. And she was preoccupied, anyway.
I ran my finger along a cleft in the stone floor, trying to appease my anxiety.
I’d imagined countless times the ways Mandarin and I might meet. During earthquakes. Tornadoes. Other natural disasters, like the storm that had created the Tombs. I imagined us holed up here together, sharing our innermost secrets while rain hissed into the river and thunder boomed outside. It was always a large-scale event that brought us together.
Never anything as ordinary as a community service project.
And I had never imagined—not in my most outlandish, plains fire–fueled, tornado-twirled fantasies—that Mandarin would come to me herself.
All because she thought I was, like, Washokey’s resident genius?
No girls ever went to Mandarin’s house. Not since Sophie Brawls—the only real friend Mandarin had ever had, or that anybody knew about.
Sophie was one of the ranch kids bused in from the south, like Becky Pepper. She wore dresses all year long. Even in the winter, with clunky snow boots, gravy-colored tights, and a hooded parka. I only ever noticed Sophie in town because she had the largest eyes I’d ever seen. Like soap bubbles, set in a pearly round face with pink cheeks.
When Sophie started running around with Mandarin, everybody noticed her. Their friendship was short and intense. Inseparable for two months and then came the fight. A real fight. Alexis swore she’d seen Sophie in the office afterward sobbing, with scratches like streaks of jelly on both sides of her neck.
Someone in my grade called it a dyke fight. A few people laughed, but the label didn’t stick. This was Mandarin Ramey, after all.
The fight was the reason Mandarin had spent the last three months of her sophomore year at the Wyoming Girls’ School. Sophie Brawls never came back. Since then, Mandarin had let no one into her life—well, other than her endless parade of men.
I listened to the wind whistling between the boulders, reaching inside my hideaway