Like Mandarin - Kirsten Hubbard [59]
Now and then when we played our games, I suspected that Mandarin was testing me.
“If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be?” she asked one evening as we lay on our backs on the school lawn. The sprinklers arched over us perfectly, so we stayed dry.
I thought about it. “That’s tough.”
“Not California?”
“Oh, definitely!” I said. “I was thinking of islands and, like, ultra-exotic places—Antarctica, Brazil. But in reality, it’d have to be California.”
“I hope so.”
“Besides, the Amazon rain forest is in Brazil, and it’s got spiders as big as dinner plates. And I read Antarctica is colder than anywhere on earth—the lowest temperature ever recorded there was negative one twenty-nine.”
“I call bullshit,” Mandarin said. “Coldest temperature ever’s got to be Washokey Januarys.”
Another time, as we sat side by side on plastic chairs outside the Sundrop Quik Stop, Mandarin asked, “So where do you want to go to college, Gracey?”
That time, my answer seemed to please her: “Out west. Doesn’t matter where.”
We both had cups of strawberry ice cream from the deli, and as I watched her eat, I wondered. If we left Washokey, what did she expect me to do—sign up for eleventh grade in some unfamiliar city? Had she even considered it? I didn’t want to ask her, though. Like everything else, it could be put off until later.
But time was running out. That was what Mr. Beck had said when he’d called our house to remind me to send in my conference paperwork. Thank goodness I caught the phone before Momma answered. I still hadn’t told her about my win.
With Mandarin, our question games worked because I knew when to keep quiet. I didn’t bring up her father, or her schoolwork, or her men—though I was dying to find out more.
I also knew what not to tell her.
I never told her about Sheryl Bader’s alleged sighting of her mother at the Fremont County flea market, or the envelope I’d found with the telling blue letters of its return address, the angular object inside. I didn’t know how she’d react. So I kept my secrets bundled up like stones in my pocket, ones I still needed to decipher.
The day before my fifteenth birthday, Momma caught me as I was leaving for the Tombs. Mandarin was working that afternoon, and I feared being forced into child care while Momma shopped for pageant provisions at the junk shop. Unexpectedly, she wanted to bring me with her.
“I’d like your opinion,” she said.
I must have looked baffled. Momma rarely admitted I had something she wanted, particularly an opinion. I suspected it had to do with my birthday. Most years she offered me swatches to flip through, corresponding to Femme Fatale makeup colors.
“I need to pick out some fabric for a new dress for Taffeta,” she explained.
“What’s the matter with the one you just made?”
“Nothing’s the matter. I’d like to have a spare on hand, is all. Just in case. White’s a popular shade. Plus, you never know if one of the other girls’ll show up in a similar style.”
“Why don’t you go with Polly Bunker? She always has an opinion.”
Momma was silent a moment.
“Polly Bunker talks too much,” she said.
I stared at her. What did she mean? Did Polly Bunker talk to her about Mandarin and me? Was Momma defending me? I wanted to ask. But then I imagined the direction that conversation might head—especially if I was wrong—so I kept my mouth shut.
We dropped Taffeta off at the Millers’, a two-story yellow house with a wraparound balcony that overlooked nothing inspiring. Miriam Miller was one of the few little kids in town who didn’t participate in the Little Miss Washokey pageants. Sometimes I wondered if that was why Taffeta liked her so much.
The junk shop wasn’t really called the Junk Shop. Its official name was Nelly’s Bargain Boutique, even though Nelly Drummely had been dead ten years. It was now managed by Nelly’s daughter Tracy, the person responsible for the store’s current state of disarray. Tracy’s sole marketing effort was her rotation of unique items in the windows: a Lite-Brite set, a bearded African mask, a wedding dress with