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The first time they see the girl who’s moved from up North, they’re in their regular booth at Pop’s, and Archie’s jaw about drops off his face. Betty can’t quite place why she feels so rankled by her elegant black silhouette; she looks—well, pretentious for one, but so’s Jughead and that doesn’t bother her much nowadays, is honestly pretty endearing more often than not. Maybe it’s just that everything about her screams wealth, and not in the way Betty’s family is rich compared to Jughead, either. A kind of money that needs a scale all its own.
“Can’t take a girl like that down to the holler,” Jughead says, squinting a little, and Betty snorts.
“And we all know Archie gets his idea of romance from Fishin’ in the Dark.”
“Hey, don’t bash the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band,” Archie says, pointing at them, but he’s grinning. “That shit’s a classic.”
“We’re not,” Jughead says, lifting his palms in a halfhearted gesture of mock surrender. “We’re just sayin’, Little Miss City Slicker doesn’t seem liable to be romanced anywhere within spitting range of a cricket.”
“That’s basically everywhere in town,” Archie says, brow furrowed, and Jughead inclines his head, clearly amused.
“No kidding.”
“Y’all remember when we were kids?” Betty asks, smiling down at her hands. She’s maybe changing the subject on purpose, but it’s genuinely a good memory, and Lord knows they need those right about now. “And Mr. Andrews would take us fishing every summer?”
Archie grins. “You’d have to bait all the hooks for us ‘cause Jug and I were too scared to stick the crickets.”
“I wasn’t scared,” Jughead says, “I was a conscientious objector,” and Betty rolls her eyes.
“Yeah, well, you still cast the line once I did your dirty work.”
“He’d never watch Dad gut the fish, though,” Archie points out, and Jughead shudders.
“He did it on a rock in your backyard that he’d just hosed off a little! Excuse me for not wanting to witness the unsanitary processes that led to my dinner.” He casts another subtle glance at the new girl. “Anyway, I give it three weeks before either her wardrobe is 80% Southern Comfort t-shirts and she’s best friends with the 2016 Miss Clayton County, or she’s taken her private jet back North at the first mention of deer sausage.”
“Speaking of which, did my dad get y’all your cooler back?” Archie asks, and Jughead nods.
“Yeah. I’d say thank him again for his flexibility in payment method for patching up the trailer, but we both know he wouldn’t want me to make any more of a big deal about it. I could feel him itchin’ to duct tape my mouth on Saturday as it was.”
“Wait, what happened to the trailer?” Betty asks, and Jughead rubs at the back of his head.
“Ah, my dad happened,” he says, lifting one corner of his mouth wryly. “One of his drunken escapades, more specifically.” He’s over-enunciating, which is never a good sign.
“Are you and Jellybean okay?” Betty asks, and Jughead nods, swiping at his mouth.
“Yeah, yeah. She’s about sick to death of deer burgers, but otherwise we’re fine.”
“Well, maybe we can take her fishing,” Archie suggests, looking excited at the thought, earnest as ever. “It could be a good distraction from all this crap, and there’s no better way to spend the last weekend of the summer.”
“How about by sleeping?” Jughead asks, but he’s nodding. “I think she’d really like that.” He’s smiling softly to himself the way he always does when he’s thinking about Jellybean—when he’s not clearly scared to death, that is. “Beats eating squirrel next, that’s for sure. And she’ll definitely bait our hooks for us.”
“Hey, I grew out of that!” Archie says, elbowing him, and Jughead smiles fully now.
“Yeah, well, speak for yourself.”
*
They take Jellybean to the fishing hole early that Saturday, in the humid dark before the sun’s come up. She wrinkles her nose as Jughead rubs sunscreen over every visible inch of her skin and rolls her eyes when he aims bug spray at the sleeves of her flannel and cuffs of her jeans. “See how you’d like gettin’ ticks,” he grumbles, then mock ruffles her hair, which is tightly braided and topped with a bandana. Betty’s got her own around her neck, not fancying the prospect of a mouth full of gnats. She remembers Jughead mentioning the work boots Jellybean’s wearing are getting to be too small for her and wonders if they’ll last ‘til Christmas or if she should clean up her old ones for the kid sooner.
Jellybean is tough as nails and funny as hell, and she’s so clearly gonna be some sort of queer that it hurts Betty’s teeth to look at her, scared as shit that this town will tear her to pieces and spit her out.
Jellybean’s a strong kid, she’s gonna make it, Betty reminds herself, and casts her rod.
They banish Archie after about thirty minutes—“I forgot about the part where he could never sit still to save his life,” Betty whispers to Jughead, who snorts—and when the cooler’s full and Betty pulls her beat-up truck into the driveway, he and Mr. Andrews have sandwiches and sweet tea all ready.
“Okay,” Betty says, hauling the cooler out the bed, “who’s gonna help me gut these?” and Jellybean’s hand shoots up so fast it causes a little breeze.
“Be my guest,” Jughead mutters, and Mr. Andrews tosses him a bag of cornmeal.
“You can get everything ready to fry.”
“Sir, yes sir,” Jughead says, and he’s got quite the setup going when Betty and Jellybean get back in with their rough hewn filets: all four eyes of the Andrews’ stove are home to pans of various sizes, oil just starting to sizzle, and a series of mismatched mixing bowls hosts the ingredients for each stage of the battering process.
“I’ll take it from here,” Jughead says, working his way through the stack of fish quickly and methodically, pausing his rhythm only to whack Archie with a towel when he tries to steal a taste of batter. “Oh no you don’t. Out of my kitchen.”
“Technically, it’s my kitchen,” Archie says, and Mr. Andrews grabs him lightly by the shoulders and steers him out of the grease spitting zone.
“Technically,” he says, “it’s my kitchen, and I say let the man work.”
“Thank you, Mr. A,” Jughead says, smiling that small smile to himself, which only widens when he catches how Jellybean watches in awe as he flips each fish perfectly, cooking eight or so pieces at a time and never sliding anything cooked past perfection onto the baking tray lined thickly with paper towels.
They manage to send most of the fish home with Jughead and Jellybean—“She caught most of them, after all,” Archie points out, and she beams—wrapped in tinfoil and shoved in Jughead’s backpack, with a smaller stack left on the Andrews’ counter.
“You sure you don’t want any, Betty?” Archie asks, and she shakes her head.
“My mom would kill me. She’s on some other weird health food kick, which is why I ate my fill of hushpuppies while I was here.”
“Well, take care,” Mr. Andrews says. “Let me know if I need to pick up any spare chocolate bars at the store or somethin’.”
“Thanks, Mr. Andrews,” Betty says, smiling at him. In bed later, she shoves away her stress about school, worry about Polly, and tangle of—something—about the new girl to think instead of Jellybean’s laugh as they hosed out the cooler, her careful focus as Betty showed her how to move the knife between flesh and bone. One of the oldest forms of holiness, she’s always felt, and it sure doesn’t hurt to know where the Jones kids’ next several meals are coming from.