couldn’t win. “Watch out for Boney Billie, she’ll get y’all,” Lux called to Alan Ray. Alan Ray nodded. Then Lux started dancing around in front of her like a one-eyed prizefighter, black eyepatch and cowboy boots, his breath all beery and a stubble of whiskers poking out of his chin.
“Hey, Bag-a-Bones, put up your dukes,” Lux called. More than anything, Billie wanted to slap Lux’s cheek, eyepatch or no eyepatch. In a sly move, Alan Ray came up behind her and grabbed her wrists, holding them so tightly she could not move either of her hands, not even an inch, and before she could blink, Lux reached out with his right fist and popped her nose. Not real hard, but hard enough to make her eyes water. Alan Ray released her arms, but she wasn’t sure whether to elbow Alan Ray in the gut or to punch Lux right back. Lux saw her make a fist, and quickly he called out, “Ouch, ouch, I hurt my hand on that bony nose.” He shook his right hand back and forth like it really hurt.
Alan Ray had just laughed, face all red, freckles lighting up his nose and cheeks. “Hey, Lux,” he said, “you might need to get that checked out. Bring that big paw over here, I can splint it up for you.” He took the bandana from around his neck and started to make a bandage to tie around Lux’s hand. Billie looked from Alan Ray to Lux to Dessie. She wanted them to see how unfair that was, how mad it made her, but she sensed it would backfire. Dessie had laughed along with the rest of them. Bertram would say she should probably try to be a “good sport.” Whatever that meant. Billie had choked back the lump in her throat and retreated to the porch swing. Could a girl fight back? Boys her age were easy, but older guys were not, and no matter what, it seemed like they always had to get their way. They could be nice if they wanted, but they also could turn right around and ruin everything.
Through the floor above, Billie heard the phone ring out from its cradle on the kitchen wall, then the thumping of Dessie’s feet racing to answer it before Rose could get to it. It would be Lux, phoning from Cleve’s General Store to let Dessie know when he’d be coming over. Would she be invited to come along tonight? Doubtful. Would she want to go? Possibly. Was it always going to go like this? She never saw this coming; there weren’t any tryouts for this new role: Beverlee Ellen Price, tragic and forlorn but perky and pretty, starring as The Younger Sister Who Is a Good Sport.
Billie twirled the cigarette between her fingertips for a last, elegant Hollywood actress inhale. If she were writing this movie, there would be a big scene at the end where a handsome cowboy rode up on a white horse, hopped off, and punched Lux right in the gut so hard that he hit the dirt, swallowed a big old wad of chewing tobacco, and everyone laughed while he sat there, his feet splayed out wide, his mouth open, drooling, stunned, and speechless.
Billie snuffed the cigarette on the ground, crawled out of the trap door, inspected her clothes and knees for dirt, and made her way around the back of the house. Passing her mother’s salad garden, she picked some mint leaves to freshen her breath. With luck, she could slip upstairs past the kitchen when Rose’s back was turned. Dessie would know something about tonight’s plans by now. Billie wondered whether Alan Ray was going, too, and whether Alan Ray even cared if she went. Oh, just let Dessie marry Lux Cranfield, Billie thought. Then they can see each other all they want, and they can all keep away from me.
“HEY, WATCH where you sit,” Dessie said when Billie settled onto an empty spot on the foot of the bed. The quilt smelled of Johnson’s Baby Oil. Dessie still wore her pink nightshirt, her high school gym shorts underneath, and a white bath towel was coiled on her head like the turban of the Queen of Sheba. She was shaving her legs with Bertram’s straight razor, scraping against her pale shin with choppy strokes, holding a piece of broken mirror in her hand to see the back of her calf. Her right foot was propped up on a math book, and her toenails were freshly painted rose pink. Dessie’s radio, louder than usual, played the Jefferson Airplane’s newest single, “Somebody to Love.” Only on Saturdays, over Rose’s repeated protests, Bertram allowed the girls to listen to rock and roll.
“Hey, yourself,” Billie said, standing up cautiously to keep from shaking the bed. Setting the Seventeen magazine and textbooks on the desk, she spread out her home ec project, an apron she was supposed to have already given Rose for Mother’s Day.
Billie lifted the roughed-out apron; then she pinned a cutout shape of pattern paper somewhat like an apron pocket where she thought a pocket should go. “I picked this material for Mom. How does this look?” Billie asked.
Dessie nodded approval at the fabric. “It’s coming out nice. She’ll like those large roses.” She paused, and took a second look. “Maybe use a wide red fabric for the pocket and sash? And red thread?” Billie nodded back. She was glad she had not sewn it together yet. She might find the perfect sash material in Rose’s sewing box. Billie set it carefully back on the bed, then looked over at her sister.
“Hey, Des,” she started. “Did Lux say I if could come along tonight?” Billie tried to sound unconcerned.
Dessie shook her head, said, “Nope. It didn’t come up,” and turned to scrape the razor at a spot under her knee. Something about Dessie’s voice made it pretty clear that she should drop that subject. The music on the radio wailed and swelled, then ended, all the instruments stopping on the same beat. Billie thought that listening to each new song on the top forty countdown made Saturday afternoons feel like being at a party. Carefully, Billie took straight pins out of Rose’s little red hen pincushion and folded the hem for the apron.
“Did you know that right after dark tonight, the bright orange spot in the sky next to the moon will be the planet Jupiter, which is 365 million miles from earth?” Billie asked. “My earth science teacher said that.”
“Nope,” Dessie said, and then, “Did you know that Lux said he could not decide if I was prettier in the sunlight or in the moonlight?”
Billie yawned. “Nope,” she said, and turned away. Did everything have to begin and end with Lux? The cover of Seventeen caught her eye. She could see the full lips and high cheekbones of the model, long straight brown hair blowing back behind her, long slender legs in a short plaid skirt and knee socks, strolling right off the cover and into an active, fun life, with her long eyelashes and her bright red lips. Thin models were showing up on ads and magazine covers, though everyone at school poked fun at them, said they were flat-chested and undoubtedly undernourished. This could be a part that she, Billie, could try out for someday, The Actress Who Is Also a Cover Girl. She would have radiant and alive black hair that hung down to her waist, high-heeled boots in every color, skirts so short that if she wasn’t so famous, so rich, and so popular, she’d be grounded for years. When Dessie set the piece of mirror down, Billie picked it up off the bed and stared at her lips, practicing smiles.
“I hate Lux,” Billie mouthed silently, watching the lips in the mirror make words too terrible to say out loud. She looked over at Dessie to see if she’d noticed, but thank goodness, she didn’t. Her sister had finished shaving and had begun wiping her legs with baby oil, rubbing her toes, and working her way slowly up past her ankles, calves, knees, way to the top of her thighs and under her gym shorts. Billie caught herself staring and turned back her own reflection, sticking her tongue way out, close enough to almost touch the mirror, moving it around. From that angle, her tongue looked like a slimy sea creature, her face looked like a cartoon, neck stretched behind like a long skinny balloon that some clown would twist into the shape of a wiener dog.
“Lux hates me,” Billie said out loud, watching her tongue, lips, dark eyelashes, and the dimple in her chin with each syllable, then smiling into the mirror, not a good sport smile, exactly, but not a grimace of self-pity either. She checked her nose, to see if it was bruised from where Lux had punched her. It wasn’t, but it hurt if she wiggled it back and forth with her fingers.
“Huh?” Dessie said. “For the love of Pete! Don’t be such a little idiot.” She reached out her hand to take back the mirror. “What made you say that?”
Billie tried to come up with an answer, but the words were not in the script. What does the Younger Sister Who Gets Picked On say to the Older Sister Who Loves the Hillbilly-Pirate Bad Guy? “Oh, you know, it’s probably nothing,” Billie answered, watching her lips make these light