“I want to use tampons,” Gia said. “But my mom said no.”
“My mom said the same thing,” I said. “She said I was too small inside.”
“I used one of my mom’s once,” Becca said. “And you can’t be too small, because babies come out and—”
“You did?” I said. “You never told me.”
“I didn’t have any pads left. What was I supposed to use?”
“What did it feel like?” Gia asked.
“Kinda weird at first, but it was gross when I took it out. It smelled like raw hamburger.”
“That’s what pads smell like anyway,” I said.
“Yeah, but it was different,” Becca said.
“Hey, I think it stopped raining,” Rachel said. “Want to walk around?”
“Not if it’s muddy out, no,” I said.
“Want to watch a movie?” Gia said. “We rented Dick Tracy from Blockbuster.”
“Please be kind,” I said.
“And rewind!” Becca finished.
“I’m serious,” Gia said. “And maybe you can tell more of the story after?”
“Maybe,” Becca said.
But when the movie credits rolled, she said she had to go home, so I went with her because it was close to dinnertime. Halfway to my house, it started showering again and she grabbed my wrist.
“It’s only rain,” she said as I tried to pull away.
“I don’t want to get wet.”
“We’re already wet!” She jumped in a puddle on the sidewalk, the way we did when we were little, splashing water everywhere.
“I’m getting soaked,” I said, peeling my shirt away from my body. As soon as I let go, it stuck to my skin again, a soggy lasagna noodle at the bottom of a pot.
“So go home then,” she said.
“You won’t be mad?”
“Uh-uh.” I couldn’t tell if she was serious or not, but my hair was plastered to my back and my socks were a sopping mess. When I got to the end of the street, she was still outside, face turned up to the sky, all of her blurry, but not so I couldn’t tell she was happy.
* * *
It rained the rest of the week. Becca ate dinner with us Friday night and ran home after to change her shirt because she spilled spaghetti sauce on it. While I was waiting for her to get back, a neighbor brought over my mom’s Avon order. Mom asked if I’d borrowed any money from her wallet, which I hadn’t, and then she sent me out to ask my dad for some. He was taking pictures of a crunched bumper on his car where some-asshole-hit-it-in-the-parking-lot-and-didn’t-even-leave-a-note. Becca came running up the sidewalk at the same time.
“Hey, girls,” my dad said, lifting his camera. “Say cheese!”
We linked arms, and right before Dad snapped the picture, Becca grabbed my braid and pulled it forward. My mom was tapping her foot when I brought her the money, and she shooed us upstairs so I could pack for spending the night with Becca.
When we got to Becca’s, her mom was upstairs and didn’t even come down to say hello. I’d never tell my mom, though. She’d get upset.
We went down to the TV room in the basement; the living room was all fancy furniture and a big glass case of creepy antique dolls. If you looked at them the wrong way, their eyes followed you. Becca said they’d been in her family for a long time, but she couldn’t wait to smash them to pieces. I’d help her, too.
After we watched Full House, we put on MTV and danced around until her mom yelled to turn it down because she had a headache. Becca turned it super low and said, “She can’t even hear it up in her room, no matter how loud it is.”
Her mom had never been the chaperoning-on-field-trips kind of mom. But if she gave us a ride somewhere, she’d never minded if we told ridiculous knock-knock jokes like knock-knock, who’s there, Europe, Europe who, no, you’re a poo or sang along to the radio. I wasn’t sure when she’d stopped letting us, but the last time I’d ridden in their car there was all this silence, so big it hurt my ears.
Becca rubbed her side and her shirt lifted, revealing three scabbed lines like healing cat scratches, but she didn’t have a cat.
“What are those?” I said, my voice low.
“Nothing,” she said, pushing her top back down fast.
I tried to grab for her shirt, but she shoved me away, hard enough I had to pinwheel my arms to keep from falling.
“Stop!” she said.
“Sorry, sorry.”
She tugged her ear. “It’s nothing. I scratched myself the other day. It’s not a big deal.”
“Then why are you acting like it is?”
“I’m not,” she said, turning so I couldn’t see her. “You are.”
“Do they hurt?”
She blinked at me a few times, then went upstairs, walking the way my mom did when she was late for work. She was getting out mint chocolate chip ice cream when I went up.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Okay,” she said, but she didn’t sound okay at all. I wasn’t sure if she was mad about the scratches, but I didn’t want to ask and make her even more mad at me.
We were only there for a couple minutes when Becca’s mom thudded down the steps. We hurried but weren’t finished scooping the ice cream, then Becca dropped the scoop in the sink and had to rinse it off.
“What are you girls doing?” Mrs. Thomas said, leaning against the doorway, holding an empty glass.
“What’s it look like?” Becca said. “We’re getting ice cream.”
“Don’t eat all of it. I might want shome, some, too.” When she spoke, her mouth was trying too hard to make the right shapes.
I moved as close to the counter, as far away from her, as possible. I wanted to run back down to the basement, but Becca was between me and the door. And anyway, I’d never leave my best friend like that.
Becca and I kept hurrying as her mom pulled a bottle of wine from the refrigerator. After she filled her glass, the wine sloshing near the top, she petted my hair. I hated when people did that without asking, but I held still, even though my hands were shaking.
“You’re a good kid, Heather,” she said.
“Thank you, Mrs. Thomas,” I said, the words barely above a whisper.
“And sho polite.”
When she let go of my hair, I exhaled long and slow. Becca shoved the ice cream container, lid only half closed, toward me, and I put it in the freezer.
“Are you girls watching television?”
“Come on,” Becca said, nudging my foot.
“I’m not finished talking to you.”
“Our ice cream’s going to melt,” Becca said.
Mrs. Thomas laughed, the sound like a glass dropped on pavement. “Go then,” she said. She took a couple steps forward, moving in a zigzag rather than a straight line. Wine crested the edge of the glass and ran down her hand.
“Let’s go,” Becca hissed, and slammed the basement door shut behind us.
I tensed, waiting for her mom to yell, but she didn’t. We sat between the coffee table and sofa, ate our ice cream, and didn’t say anything. Her mom banged around in the kitchen, opening and closing cabinets, before thumping up the main staircase.