Like Mandarin - Kirsten Hubbard [5]
How pathetic.
I mashed the heels of my hands into my eyes. Admittedly, I had no desire to be a politician. Or a leader of any sort. But I longed for those three weeks outside of Washokey, longed to see a different part of the country, to sample parts of another life. Miles of green grass. The Smithsonian—especially the gem and mineral collection. People in business suits. Here I saw nothing but jeans.
The essay contest was supposed to tide me over until my real, final escape to college. And if I tapped into that deep-down part of myself I didn’t like to face, I had to admit it—I also wanted to win for the sake of winning.
And to think that Peter Shaw—four-eyed shotgun shooter, demolisher of innocent anthills, a football player, for crying out loud—had written a better essay than I had!
Now I’d have to wait two more years to leave. An unfathomable length of time. Two more years of imprisonment in the sun-scorched badlands, surrounded by the same old scandals, the same dusty streets, the same products on the grocery store shelves. How could I possibly stand it? Without something to break up the monotony, I would fade into the hills like one of those solitary ghost-people, who spent their days listening to the wildwinds batter their corrugated shacks.
When I was younger, I used to beg Momma to move away from Washokey. She always shook her head and said the same thing: “I tasted it. That city freedom. But then I came to my senses.”
As if Jackson Hole could compare to New York, or San Francisco. We wouldn’t even have to leave Wyoming, I pleaded. We had passed many memorable places on our road trips between pageants. Why in the world were we stuck in the Washokey Badlands Basin?
“In a world that’s so big and wide,” Momma would reply, “you can’t blame me if I prefer this knowable portion.”
The more Momma told me she wanted to stay, the more I wanted to go. I used to suspect that the badlands were inhabited with malicious spirits who didn’t want us to leave. Although now I knew better, I still didn’t feel better. Because if it wasn’t spirits keeping me in Washokey, then it must be something much stronger. I wondered if Washokey life had infected me—if it had altered some secret part of my brain or reprogrammed the amino acids in my DNA so if I ever got out, I would never be truly happy.
Like a conch shell singing for the ocean. Washokey would pull me back.
Sniffling loudly, I must have missed the creak of the door opening. I didn’t know I had company until the faucet splashed on.
I froze midsniffle.
For a moment, I considered hiding out. But then I remembered how, back in fifth grade, Alexis & Co. used to wait outside a bathroom stall until the girl inside finished and then make fun of her for taking so long.
I scrambled to my feet, flushing the toilet on the way up, and pushed open the door.
Mandarin Ramey stood at the sink.
I saw her in fragments, like close-up snapshots. Her kohl-smudged hazel eyes. Her angular cheekbones—everybody said her mother had been part Shoshone. Her black hair, streaked with damp ridges and valleys from the comb of her wet fingers. The uneven hem of her white sweater. Jeans worn low on her hips. As she arched forward to shut off the faucet, the dip of her spine engraved in the apricot-colored skin of her back.
She wiped her hands on her jeans. Then she faced me.
“Grace Carpenter,” she said.
My name sounded foreign on her tongue. How could she possibly have known it?
“So it was you bellyaching in that bathroom stall.”
Mandarin Ramey knew I’d been crying. I felt like throwing up.
“It doesn’t matter to me one way or another.” She leaned against the dented metal sink. “I was only saying. It’s no shame to cry—I heard the essay contest announcement on the loudspeaker.