It’s more dangerous today than when I was that age, thirteen-year-old girls knowing too much and being bored. Their little girl laughs belie their women’s walks as they pass. They’d never believe I could have been like them, and maybe I never was.
But Leitha was. And I was there.
Leitha and I were bored together for the last time on the last day of summer twenty years ago—not the equinox, rather the last day of summer when you’re thirteen, the day before school starts. But the weather was like Halloween. Leaves that had already fallen blew against the deli doors. Aside from Leitha’s mom getting busted with six ounces, nothing had happened that summer. Life at my house was Mom and Donald drinking rum, watching Columbo reruns. I thought something better should have happened before leaves started falling.
The muscleman behind the deli counter that day wore a wide gold wedding ring and didn’t seem amused by Leitha or me. Leitha leaned into the cash register, which came up to the level of her bra-less b-cup tits. Her t-shirt was thin and too small, but the muscleman didn’t look at her. He put her sandwich on the counter and ignored her, ignored me, ignored the cook watching us through the serving window. I wondered why he worked in the deli and not at the gym. These mundane thoughts clouded my head, and I thought the day would remain clouded with them.
Leitha and I took our usual booth. Arlo came in through the deli’s glass doors. He was a tall ninth-grader with big weird hands. Leitha rolled her eyes up to blink at him and wiped her greasy fingers on her black jeans. She scooted across the seat, toward the wall, patted the red leather upholstery beside her.
“No thanks, Babydoll,” Arlo said. “You know what they say about girls in black jeans.”
“No,” she said, her eyes wide. “I don’t.”
Neither did I. “What do they say about girls in black jeans?”
Arlo winked at me. “They’re looking for trouble.” He strutted to the counter.
I’d never heard this about girls in black jeans. Or boys. And I haven’t heard it since. I can’t explain why it stuck with me.
“I wonder what Arlo looks like with his clothes off,” Leitha said. It was all she’d had on her mind since we’d swiped one of Donald’s pornos in July. We’d watched it at Leitha’s while her mom slept one off. It made me sick, but after that, Leitha started taking her bra off behind the gas station after she left her house. I never had the sense to worry about her.
She put on her trying-to-be-a-woman face for our neighborhood cops, Rudy and Tom, who came in, laughing. Tom said to Rudy, “She’s gotta dance better than you do.” When they noticed us, they stopped laughing. I finished my root beer and watched Leitha drag tomatoes out of her sandwich with a plastic fork.
Everything was as normal as I could have imagined it.
But then she froze. Something outside had caught her attention, something behind me. “Oh my god, Q,” she whispered. “Wait until you see what’s about to come in here.” She sat up straight, and I knew it was a guy. When the door opened, I scooted against the wall, sitting sideways in the booth so I could see.
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