Like Mandarin - Kirsten Hubbard [64]
Mandarin and I could hear the wind-strewn music as we squeezed through a gap in the chain-link fence. We clanged up the empty metal bleachers and chose seats at the top. Mandarin was barefoot and bare-legged, having left her nylons in a ball on my bedroom floor. She’d traded her skirt for a pair of my gym shorts, with her frilly blouse half buttoned. The sky was streaked with clouds that glowed around the edges, as if somebody held a flashlight behind them. I could barely make out the visitors’ bleachers on the other side.
“I’ve never been here when there wasn’t a game going on,” I said.
My words reverberated off the bleachers, distorted and metallic-sounding. I shivered and lowered my voice before continuing.
“I think it’s crazy how involved everybody gets. Especially since we play the same two teams over and over, and the winners and losers never change. I’ll bet the wild animals within a twenty-mile radius bolt as soon as the floodlights come on.”
I waited for Mandarin to smile, but she didn’t seem to be listening.
“It’s not like I’ve been to many games, anyway,” I continued. Three. I’d been to three football games in my entire life. “My mother hates the noise. And … I never liked going with my old friends.”
“I love it when no one’s here,” Mandarin said.
I glanced at her, but she wasn’t looking at me.
“When everything’s quiet,” she continued. “Heavy and still. It feels like … like I’m disconnected. Like I’m suspended underwater. Nothing there but me.”
She extended her arms, palms down, and closed her eyes, like when she’d floated on her back in the canal.
“Sometimes I feel that way even when there’s lots of people around. In the halls at school. Or at the bar, real late. Like I’m just an empty space moving through the crowds. Like I’m not really there at all.”
When she opened her eyes, they had a faraway cast, as if they’d lost the ability to focus. They made me think of the eyes of the elk head trophy, drifting through the tunnel of river trees. My breath caught in my throat. Before I knew it, I’d reached over and placed my hand over hers.
Mandarin glanced at my hand as if she’d forgotten I was there.
“Y’know, your mom’s a riot,” she said. I drew back my hand and tucked it between my knees. “Does she really make her money selling that fatal female crap?”
“Not all of it. There’s an inheritance from my grandparents. And my father.”
“Your father,” she repeated, drawing out the word. “Who was he?”
“Some cop. When she was eighteen, she ran off to Jackson Hole after her parents died. She stayed with her father’s brother.”
Mandarin pulled the rubber bands from her pigtails and shot them into the dark, then began unwinding her braids.
“I guess he, like, felt her up a couple times,” I went on. “I don’t know the details. But after that, she moved back home to Washokey. A cop drove her most of the way in a police car. Did more than drove, apparently. Their fling didn’t last much longer than the car ride, though. My mother didn’t know she was pregnant until he was long gone.”
Talking to Mandarin came easy now. It was hard to believe I’d ever been too intimidated to do anything more than observe from afar.
“So did your mom track him down?”
I shrugged. “I think she was embarrassed. She didn’t want to make a bigger deal out of it than it already was. He never wrote or called. But I guess he knew about me, because years later, she got this letter from a lawyer with a check from his insurance. He got shot. Not while on the job. While hunting.” I paused. “Taffeta’s dad only lived with us for a year before he split. Fathers are unnecessary anyway, my mother says.”
“Damn straight.” Mandarin withdrew a cigarette from the pocket of her blouse and lit it. “The biggest mistake women make is falling for men. They’re worthless. They’re worse than worthless.”
“Then why do you …” I stopped.
Mandarin raised her eyebrows. I was afraid she was going to get angry, like she had when I’d broached the same topic at the A&W. But our friendship was a million times stronger now. And I was dying to know.
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