The Spring Girls

4

When Meg pushed out through the front door, we all followed. Meg had that thing about her that made everyone want to follow her. She would have made a good politician or actress. It was something in her brown eyes or the certainty evident in the set of her feminine shoulders.

I wasn’t sure what it was, but people flocked to her like bees to honey. Meg made friends with boys easier than girls, which she told me was because girls were threatened by her. I didn’t understand that; personally, I was intrigued by her sexuality and fascinated by the way experience danced around her and shone like a spotlight on her. She loved being the center of attention. I was the opposite, but could still appreciate the way she was.

“Let’s go, girls!” Meg called to us as she sped up.

The toe of my boot got caught on the doorframe, and I stumbled forward. I would have fallen on my face if not for Beth’s sturdy grip on my elbow, steadying me until I could catch my footing. I caught my bag on my shoulder before it fell, but the same couldn’t be said for my new copy of The Bell Jar and my cell phone. My phone slid down the small hill that was our driveway, and I cursed after it.

“Watch your step,” Amy said with a braggy sort of smile on her face and laughter in her voice. Sometimes she drove me crazy.

I reached out my hand to slap her arm, but she dodged out of the way and ran down the driveway. I ran after her and grabbed the long sleeve of her sweatshirt and jerked her to me. Just as she squealed, I looked up and saw a boy standing in the driveway next door. He looked my age, maybe Meg’s. His blond hair was grown past his ears, and he was wearing a tan sweatshirt. The same color as Meg’s. They would be matching if he weren’t wearing black jeans instead of light denim. His most noticeable accessory was his smirk. He was trying not to laugh at me, and that would have pissed me off if I’d had time to process it.

“Jo!” Amy screamed as she jerked my hand, pulling me to the ground.

My knee hit the cement hard, and I heard Meg yell my name. I hadn’t realized Amy had hit the ground already. But there I was, lying next to her with my arm across her chest. My knee throbbed under my torn jeans, and I could see red seeping through the tear in the black fabric.

Amy was laughing and Meg stood over me, reaching for my hand. Beth was already helping Amy to her feet. When I looked across the yard, the boy was still staring at us. He was covering his mouth, trying to hide his laughter.

I wanted to flip him off, so I did.

He laughed harder and didn’t look away; he just waved at me. He waved with a big smile on his face as I climbed up to my feet and dusted off my jeans. He just kept that awkward shaking hand in the air until I waved back, with my finger still up. My hand was burning too from where the cement had torn the skin of my palm.

“Who’s that?” Meg whispered, and pulled my jacket down to cover my back.

I looked to my sister. She had on this red lipstick and looked so put together. The exact opposite of me with my scraped-up skin and ripped jeans.

“I don’t know.”

“Ask him,” Amy said.

He was walking down the driveway of Old Mr. Laurence’s house.

“No,” Meg and I both quickly said.

“Hey!” Amy yelled to the boy. She was like that.

I started moving my feet, ignoring the pain in my knee. My sisters followed me down the driveway and to the sidewalk.

“What’s your name?” Amy yelled at the stranger.

We were passing him, and I couldn’t get my feet to move fast enough.

“What’s yours?” He tilted his chin like he was saying “Hey” or “?’Sup.”

“He just gave you the chin tilt,” I said to my sisters. I was sure he heard me, but I didn’t care.

“He’s—” Meg said, probably checking his fingers for a wedding ring.

To me, he looked too young to be married. Older than me for sure, but too young to be someone’s husband.

How different he was from anyone Meg had ever dated. His hair was long, so he wasn’t a soldier, and Meg didn’t date anyone who wasn’t a soldier. She was like that.

The boy was walking fast, following us. I wanted to speed up and put some distance between us, but I also didn’t want to bust my ass again.

“I bet that’s the grandson that Denise was telling Mom about,” Beth told us. She always knew everything that was going on in the adult world around us.

“Probably,” Amy agreed.

“Stop staring at him,” I hissed at my sisters. They all looked like drooling puppies.

“He looks like the type of guy who makes out with his long-term girlfriend over torn sheets of poetry he wrote for her,” Meg said, still gawking.

I knew she only said “makes out” for the sake of our twelve-year-old sister bobbing beside her. I knew what she meant, and I knew what boys that looked like him did with their girlfriends, plural.

“He does, doesn’t he?” Meg asked us again. Beth and Amy both nodded.

My sisters burst into laughter, and Amy bounced in front of me and turned on the heel of her boots.

The boy was only a few feet away from us. When he reached us, he walked next to Amy like he knew her. He kept pace with us. “I live next door now.”

“Good for you,” I said to him.

He turned back to me and smiled at me with bright, straight teeth. A rich kid, no doubt. “Oh”—he cocked his head to the side, and his light hair touched the top of his shoulder—“it’ll be good for you, too. We’ll be friends, I’m sure.”

His voice had a hint of an accent, but I couldn’t tell you what kind.

His cocky smirk mixed with his black eyes reminded me of the villain in a Saturday-morning cartoon.

“Doubtful,” Amy said. “Jo doesn’t have any friends.”

He laughed again. Amy turned and walked sideways, looking straight into his face. I pinched her arm and she swatted at me. I wanted to slap her.

“We’ll see,” he said, and separated from us.

The four of us turned toward him, walking backward. Our black boots were a line in the sand, an omen for this new neighbor boy.

“Don’t hold your breath!” Amy yelled, and Meg told her to shush.

He was back in the driveway where he came from just as a town car pulled up in front of Old Mr. Laurence’s house. He didn’t say a word as he climbed into the shiny car. He did smile toward us, but something about the way his eyes clouded made me think he was a little afraid of us.

Good.

Sometimes I felt like we were a force of nature. In that moment we were a powerful blowing wind, coming together to destroy a town.

Okay, maybe a little dramatic. But we were a force of nature, the four of us Spring Girls.

5

The community center was packed with volunteers and children running around like chickens. Meg took off her jacket as soon as we walked through the

door and hung it up on one of the hooks on the wall. The walls were covered in construction-paper crafts. Long banquet-style tables were lined up across the entire span of the room. Each table had something different on it—crafts for sale on one, crafts to make on another. An old man in a Santa suit was in the corner, and the scratchy, familiar voice of Denise Hunchberg came over the speaker, calling out the names of the winners of the raffle.

“Leslie Martin, Jennifer Beats, Shia King,” her smoker’s voice croaked. I walked with my sisters and looked for the food. If I was going to be here and be expected to smile, I needed food.

I walked behind Meg, but in front of the others, as we did a lap around the room. I found my spot: two long tables were covered with food, next to another with a face-painting station. Next to that sat a man drawing caricatures. The Christmas party felt like a fair, and I loved fairs. I watched the artist for a few seconds while he drew the Sullys’ family portrait. In front of him sat two kids and a mother, but the artist added Mr. Sully, who was in Iraq with my dad, to the drawing, using a small picture of him.

The battalion’s holiday party always brought out so many families. Last year, even though Dad was home, we came by and spent our day with the other families who had a mom or dad deployed. We had just moved to Fort Cyprus, and my parents wanted us to make friends with the neighborhood. To start over. Dad led the dance circle, and I spent the entire afternoon watching him teach little kids how to do the electric slide and the Macarena.

“Hey, girls, where’s your mom?” Denise Hunchberg asked the moment she spotted the four of us hovering by the tables of food.

“She’ll be here soon,” I assured the nosy FRG leader. Her husband and youngest child were so nice, but she and her oldest daughter, Shelly, reminded me of weasels. Shelly was awful. She looked nice and innocent, but I’d witnessed too many bitchy popular-girl fits to believe she was anything but a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and I did my best to stay away from her.