The F-Word

I open my mouth to tell her that I don’t get the distinction, but when I look at her I see that she’s looking at me. Glaring at me. As if she’s daring me to be dumb enough to say exactly what I was going to say.

I keep silent.

“We were always in the same schools. The same classes.”

Okay. I’m sure I’m on steady ground here. I look at Bailey and smile.

“Where you outdid her, right? She got C’s. You got A’s. You aced every exam. She flunked them all and—Hey!”

Bailey has just slugged me.

It’s not much of a slug, just a balled up fist to the arm, but Jesus H. Christ, my calm paragon of efficiency is morphing from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde.

“She got C’s. I got A’s. Do you really think that was good, Mr. O’Malley? Do you think having my whole family talk about me being so bright and Violet being the godddamn Queen of the May was a good thing?”

“Queen of the May?”

“It’s just a saying. An expression. She was Homecoming Queen. She was Summer Festival Queen.” Bailey makes a gulping sound. “She was Winter Festival Queen.” Another gulping sound. “And I was an honors student. An honors student! An honors…”

She makes another gulping sound and, holy crap, I realize that she’s sobbing.

The on-ramp for the highway is just ahead, and right before it there’s a big, wide shoulder. No trees. Just a shoulder. I turn the wheel hard and pull onto it, unbuckle my seat belt, unbuckle Bailey’s, and pull her into my arms.

She’s not just sobbing. She’s flooding us both. My jacket. My shirt. Tears and, man, tears and snot because her nose is leaking.

I lift my ass enough so I can dig into my pocket for my handkerchief. Thankfully, it’s unused.

“Here,” I say, and I hold the white cotton square to her nose.

Her hand closes over mine and she gives a honking blow.

I go on holding her. It feels awkward. Until this moment the only parts of Bailey I’ve ever touched are maybe her hand or her elbow or her shoulder, so this really does feel, you know, weird. Not only have I never held her, I’ve never held anybody wearing coveralls. They’re stiff and scratchy, but beneath them is a woman.

I know that sounds ridiculous.

Let me rephrase that.

Beneath them, I can feel that Bailey is a woman.

Jesus. That’s even more ridiculous.

What I mean is, of course she’s a woman. I always knew that. It’s just that she’s, you know, female. Soft. Round, in the nicest possible way. Delicate, like I thought before…

She blows her nose again, pushes free of my arms and sits up straight.

“I’ve made a fool of myself,” she says.

“No. No, you have not.”

“I have.”

“You haven’t. Listen, the thing with your cousin Violet? Did you ever figure out a way to get even?”

She looks at me and cocks her head. Her hair has come loose of its rubber band. Her eyes are glittery from her tears. She looks sad and it breaks my heart. She’s such a good person. I hate to see her so unhappy.

“How could I? She’s always been perfect.”

“Really? Seems to me what she’s been is perfectly awful.”