Like Mandarin - Kirsten Hubbard [65]
“Go on. You can ask me anything, y’know. I just don’t guarantee an answer.”
“Why do you …” I paused again, trying to think of the best way to say it. “Why do you have … Why do you sleep with so many of them?”
“Come on, Gracey. Isn’t it obvious? Or maybe you’re just too young to understand.”
I wanted to object, but I thought it might make me seem even younger.
Mandarin took a long drag on her cigarette. “There’s just something so …,” she said, “I don’t know … so exhilarating about making another person’s whole body respond. All their attention’s focused on you. Like in that moment, you are the most important person in the world.”
“The most important person in the world,” I repeated slowly.
Mandarin glanced at me. “To that one guy, at least. But I do it for me. Not for them. I hate how people insist a girl’s giving part of herself away when she sleeps with somebody. While men are gaining something. Why can’t it be the other way around?”
“What about what everybody says about you?”
“Who’s everybody? All the stupid hicks in Washokey?”
I shrugged.
“Look—it doesn’t matter to me what everybody thinks. You know that. But if I quit sleeping around, everybody’d think it did matter. See?”
“Kind of.”
“But it doesn’t,” Mandarin said, as if she still felt the need to convince me. Or maybe even herself.
“So it’s not because of …”
“Just say it.”
Far off, a balloon cracked against the barbed wire decorations. “Not because of … what your father did to you?” I asked.
“That’s what they all think, ain’t it? Nobody’d ever believe it, but my dad never laid a hand on me. I mean, he hit me and all, but no more than normal. He’s been useless as a father, maybe. Even useless as a human being. But he never did anything like … y’know. Nothing like that.”
We sat there in silence for a while, listening to what sounded like cheers coming from the direction of the cafeteria. Mandarin drummed her fingers on the bleacher seat. Then, suddenly, she grinned.
“Hey! Know what? I still haven’t given you your birthday present.”
She stood. A wind shuddered the bleachers, as if Mandarin’s body had been the only thing keeping them still. She dropped the end of her cigarette and mashed it out with her bare foot. Then she reached into her cigarette pack and withdrew a small package of folded newspaper, taped many times.
“I didn’t wrap it all pretty, like your mom did. And don’t expect much. It ain’t big. Or expensive. But—here.” She handed it to me.
I pried open the wad of newspaper. An arrowhead fell into my hand. Not just any arrowhead, but the one I’d admired the most from her collection. Tiger skin obsidian. The moonlight gave it an unearthly glow. Before I could get a good look, Mandarin wrapped her hand around mine, folding my fingers over it.
“I thought you should have it,” she said. “You’ll appreciate it more than I do.”
I held my breath, but she didn’t explain any further. I felt her fingers tighten almost imperceptibly around mine. The edges of the arrowhead bit into my palm.
“So about our escape …,” Mandarin began.
“To California?”
“I know we ain’t talked about it as much as we should have, but that doesn’t mean I ain’t been thinking about it. I got money saved up from cocktailing, way more than enough to start us out. I figure we can stay at a motel till we get an apartment. In the meantime I’ll be looking for an agent. So I can model.
“But I don’t have any pictures to show them,” she finished.
It took a few seconds for me to understand what she meant.
“My new camera,” I said. “I can take pictures of you!”
“You’d do that?”
“They might not turn out too well, but they’d be something to show people, at least. If you want, I could get a book from the library, maybe—”
“Gracey,” she said, releasing my hand. “Did I ever tell you how much I love you?” And swiftly and deliberately, without any warning at all, she took my face in her hands and kissed me on the mouth. Then she jumped to her feet, her hair swirling around her face like a tangled black witch’s wig. The bleachers