Chapter Text
Janie hangs under her boyfriend’s heavy arm, steps away to twirl under his hand, then lands against his side again, her feet childishly crossing in front of the other in a lilting step. She’s smiling with all her teeth.
Ethel lifts a procured flask to her lips, bottom half still in the upper pocket of her old leather bomber. This is the last party she tags along with the two of them, she decides. Her boyfriend calls her Jane. Just Jane.
The farmhouse ahead flickers and thrums, casting flashing lights out on the old field. Heat lighting roils off the dark distant sky.
“Oh shit,” Janie says, just skipping the missing step onto the sloping porch with an agile jump. She reaches behind to offer Ethel her hand up, a little afterthought. Ethel takes it.
Janie does eventually let go.
This place is his cousin’s, friend’s brother’s, something or other— whatever. It is a party and Ethel is hurting for a reason to get wasted and wake up somewhere questionable.
Ethel mumbles something about the restroom and disappears from them. She knocks once on the bathroom door, then twice. She jiggles the knob but it’s locked. She presses her ear to the wood and cups her hand over the other. Moaning. Some porcelain rattling. Ethel rolls her eyes. “Come on fuckers,” she slaps the door with her open palm. “I have to piss.”
Eventually she relents. She weaves through the busy crowd, recognizing no one. A tall, thin boy steps in front of her through the tangle of bodies, long, strawberry-blonde hair framing his sharp cheek and jaw. “Hey,” he says, cradling a beer close.
“Hey,” Ethel says, and presses on. There must be a bathroom upstairs. The crowd diffuses the further up the stairs she climbs. The bass becomes what remains of the sound filtering through the floor. It pounds against the worn soles of her boots.
She spies tile in the dark opening of a room. She wraps around the door and flicks on the light.
There she is, standing across the sink. She pushes her tits up in her shirt, pressing them together for more cleavage, but they don’t stay quite how she wants. She unzips the jacket fully, lets it fall to hang on her elbows, but decides it’s too put on and shrugs it up on her shoulders again. She lifts onto the scuffed toes of her boots and swivels to check out her ass. She parts the center of her hair, laying errant strands back to their respective side.
The black liner under her eyes has begun to bleed into the crease. She finishes what remains in the flask.
Eventually she meanders back down the stairs. The blonde-haired boy is leaning on the wall at the bottom, turned away. He holds his beer by the stem of the bottle, his long, scarred fingers coated in diesel grease and dirt. He has a face that gets more handsome the longer you look. He is lankier, taller than almost everyone in the room. He bobs his head to the beat of the song.
Ethel comes to the last step, using the crowd as an excuse to force proximity. She lets her shoulder brush up against him.
“Oh, hey,” he says again.
She looks back at him, feigning surprise. “Hey.”
“Can I get you a drink?”
Ethel nods. He ghosts his hand over her arm and guides her forward into a sitting room appropriated as a bar. He opens a beat up, blue-and-white cooler, plucking through the ice bath.
“Um, Heineken, PBR, um, looks like, one Bud Light. I think there’s also a shit ton of liquor— yeah. Over here.”
She doesn’t actually care, but she spied his brand of choice, so she says, “Heineken.”
He plucks the cap off with an opener hanging from his key chain and hands it to her.
“Thanks,” she says, and leaves a vacancy for his name.
“Uh, Willoughby.”
She swigs from the cold beer, rolling it around in her cheek once before swallowing. The carbonation stings her flesh. “Ethel.”
He nods at her. “Ethel.”
“I’ve never seen you around here before,” he says.
“I’ve never been here. I live the town over,” she says. People pass by them, bumping them closer together. She is tall, but he is taller, his face leaning over hers. She has to look up.
“Nice, nice.” He says. He nurses the beer like a comfort object, nodding his head to the next song, of which he seems to know all of. He mouths the words.
Ethel sees Janie’s shape in the archway, and looks away fast to seem as though she hadn’t noticed. She pretends to get pushed into Willoughby, pressing her hand against his chest, feeling the bone. “Sorry,” she says, lingering, smiling up at him.
He gazes down, the hint of a smile returned. “All good.”
“You’re really hot,” Ethel says.
Willoughby really beams back. He leans forward, bows beside her ear to tell her, “So are you.”
Ethel glances over at Janie, her hands pressing to Willoughby’s chest. “I just had to talk to you,” Willoughby is telling her, but Ethel is looking at Janie, who wraps herself up in her guy in response. She looks hurt. It feels worth it.
Janie lifts on her toes and kisses him. Ethel looks away.
Ethel just smiles prettily, hiding the hurt, and looks through her eyelashes at Willoughby. He smells like Backwoods, machine oil, deodorant and sweat, decadent and boyish. He barely fills out his t-shirt except for the wide set of his shoulders. She wraps her hands around the back of his neck, resting the cold beer down the center of his back.
“What else is there to know about you?” She asks. Wearing a mask of flirting borrowed from someone else. The booze helps.
“Hmm,” Willoughby rests his hand on her hip, the other on her jacketed waist. It’s over layers but still makes her hot. “This is my cousin’s place—“ they all say this, but they are probably not even genetically related, “—And I live a bit down the road. I like dirt bikes. Love Nirvana. Play the guitar. Um,” he laughs at himself. “I have no fucking clue what I’m doing.”
She giggles with him.
“What about you?” Willoughby offers.
“Hm.” She scans the space to her left, searching. “I also have no fucking clue what I’m doing.” They laugh again. “Yeah. I’m a senior, I guess. My dad was a preacher. Which…” she smiles, coy, flirting, “Might tell you something.”
He nods, looking surprised. “A preacher. Better than my dad.”
“No,” she shakes her head. “He fucking sucked.”
They keep laughing. It feels nice. Swaying to the music on the speakers, lined with interference but loud and bass heavy.
“You’re really pretty,” he tells her, two locks of hair hanging down beside his eyes.
“Thanks,” she says, staring at his lips. She is daring him, but he doesn’t follow through. His cheeks are dappled with freckles, his fair eyelashes long, straight, hanging over his blue eyes. There’s something pretty about him, too.
Another song comes on that he seems to know. He pats the exact drum-line on her body. She sways against him.
“Hey, Will!” some people say as they pass. He greets them back, but doesn’t look up from her face.
The booze begins to touch Ethel a little harder. She starts to dance. He seems smitten with her, watching her sway, swing her hips, nod her head. He matches her tempo.
Ethel grabs his hand and slides it under her jacket, rests it on the curve of her waist.
“You don’t have a boyfriend?” He asks her, plucking gently at the lace of her shirt.
Ethel shakes her head.
“Cool,” he says, and bows down to kiss her, pressing his hand against her body. He is amateurish, unpracticed, she can tell. But still. She feels hot.
“Let’s go upstairs,” Ethel says.
“You sure?” Willoughby asks, but she is already pulling him by the hand, threading them in a waving line through the mass of people.
She catches him looking at her ass on the way up the stairs, so she switches her hips dramatically, hugs her ribs in close to accentuate her waist, grips his fingers tight.
She has no idea how he’ll react when he gets in her pants. He might not care. Maybe he’ll beat the shit out of her. Her worst, most hateful place inside half hopes he does.
“Shit,” Willoughby says, eagerly looking out the window in every open room they pass. “Is it storming out there?”
“Not sure,” Ethel says. She leads him to the last room and closes the door.
Her ears ring against the new quiet. The light bulb is old, and the filaments buzz as it becomes brighter. She drops her jacket to the ground and sits on the bed, which is actually just a bare mattress on old wooden palettes.
“Romantic,” she jokes.
Willoughby says nothing. He sits beside her, one hand gripping the other wrist, knuckles white. She traces his glance. He is staring out the window. Heat lightning flashes against the dark sky, and the longleaf pines bow to the wind in the distance.
“You ok?”
He nods. “My dad’s gonna… fuck. My dad’s gonna be pissed.” He cradles his forehead in thumb and pointer finger, palm covering his eyes.
“We can go back downstairs—“ Ethel starts.
“No— it’s just. I can’t ride my dirt bike in the rain. He doesn’t know I’m gone— So, you know. I guess. Ahh. Yeah.” He rubs the top of his knees anxiously, long bony legs folded in front of his body.
“Oh.” Ethel is somewhat confused by his explanation. The air has sort of gone from the room. Suddenly she feels very sober, clasping her hands together, picking at the polish.
“Sorry,” Willoughby says. He tears his eyes away from the window. “Sorry.”
“No,” Ethel looks out the window again, wondering what he sees. “S’okay.”
He clears his throat, stepping up to the window, drawing in the lace curtains. In the dim light his hair could be brown. Even with a belt his jeans hang low on his hips. His sneakers are old, beaten to shit, part of the sole disconnecting from the toe.
She stands up again. Her boots land with sound on the old floorboards, which whine under her shifting weight. One step, another. She likes the way Willoughby watches her. The way he stands there waiting for her.
He examines her tank top, which hugs her breasts, shows some of her tummy peaking before her jeans, leaves all the lines of her shoulders and arms bare.
She steps her two boots together in front of him. Heart pounding. He would be the first boy she would ever remember. All the others were only theories she put together with clues found after waking up. Some names, some blurred faces. Not a clue after that.
Willoughby may be her first boy at all.
He reaches out and taps his fingers one by one against her shoulder. The other hand slides under her curtain of hair, cupping her neck.
“You’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen,” Willoughby says.
Something cracks inside her.
The breath leaves her lungs. Her first instinct is that it is a joke, but he is not smiling.
“Really?” she whispers.
“Yes,” Willoughby whispers back. He kisses her again. His tongue doesn’t really know what it’s doing. His hands are stiff and still. But he holds her against him, and he gives way to her subtle instructions.
It plays in her head over and over again. It becomes a small prayer as she gears up to tell him.
She guides his hands to her breasts first. He squeezes one, almost too hard. See she means to say with this. All girl. Almost. She drags his hands around her body, helping him explore. Lifts the hem of her shirt, permitting him beneath. The longer she drags this out, the worse it could be for her. It’s a precarious game. Her heartbeat closes her throat. His dark eyes search her face.
“We don’t have to, yet,” Willoughby says. There’s nothing in it but kindness. This is something foreign. Her body recoils in unfamiliarity.
“You don’t want to?” Ethel whispers.
“No— no. I do.”
“Have you never—“
“I have. I’m just saying. We can wait. Get to… get to know each other.”
She’s almost confused. It makes her feel not sexy, not hot enough, for him not wanting to just fuck her here and now.
He must notice her hurt.
“Listen, it’s because. You know. We can hook up, but. I’d like to see you again, anyway.”
She looks at his shirt. Some band she doesn’t know.
“Is that ok?” He asks her, stepping softly against her, resting his forehead on the top of her hair.
She shuts her eyes. Something odd happens— she feels very suddenly that she is going to cry and that there’s no stopping it. “Yeah. That’s okay.”
“Cool,” he says.
Then he wraps his arms down around her body, laying his head against hers.
This is a new thing, too. She rests her chin upon his shoulder and grips his shoulder blades in her hands, arms not quite reaching around him. Touch without objective. Kind for kindness’ sake. A hug.
Willoughby makes her forget all about Janie. Suddenly something new lies ahead of her, quickening, terrifying, absolutely unavoidable. A new language of possibility. She wants to wrap her arms round his slight body and lay on his back, hair blowing in the wind on his dirt bike. And many other things.
Ethel stares at the bare bulb on the wall, burning its shape into her retina. She shares in its incandescence.
They talk all night, him lying back on his elbows on the old mattress, his hands on her legs, sometimes tangling with her arms, unthreading her boots and tossing them aside. He asks her questions. He asks follow up questions. He knows all her favorite movies already. They lament about their forced church attendance, share their favorite local hang-outs, make promises to go together.
“You’re going to be my girl,” he tells her. Just a statement of fact. Not a demand.
Ethel nods. “I’ll be your girl.”
They talk while the party downstairs quiets, the sky lightens to twilight, even while yawning in between sentences, wiping tired-tears off their own eyes again and again. Sometimes they kiss, only their mouths touching.
By the morning, Ethel has talked more in a few hours than she had all year. She finds a sharpie along the baseboard, and they write notes on one another’s arms. She writes her number, address, and name.
He writes his number, a time, the description of a car and a heart.
Willoughby places her jacket over her shoulders and walks her out of the house under his arm. They step over sleeping people and solo cups, smiling like little kids.
Janie waits in the passenger seat of the truck, her short legs perched on the running board.
Willoughby brings her just to the back door, then taps her arm where the writing is. “Don’t forget,” he instructs her.
Ethel beams. “You don’t either,” she begs of him. She has half a mind to just go with him.
“I could never,” he whispers, just for her. He presses his forehead to hers again. “I’m really glad we met,” he says.
“Wrap it up, lovers,” Janie says, and slams her door.
“Sorry about her,” Ethel waves. “Me too.”
“Cool,” Willoughby says.
“Cool.”
He opens her door and kisses her hair, then sends her up, holding her delicate hand like Princess Diana, so she can step up the running board into her seat.
He waves, and shuts her inside.
She watches over her shoulder as he gets smaller, more distant, the bed of the truck bumping down the dirt driveway.
She rests her head against the cold window, watching Alabama fields roll out for miles.