Gringa Read online

  One day I saw a boy in the library, checking out a book. His eyelashes made shadows, he had extraordinary, glossy hair. I realized he was Mexican; his eyes never looked at mine. I started seeing him here and there, in the gym at assembly, in the lunchroom when I forced myself to eat. I thought about going up to him and saying “Como estas,” just like that, and the thought made me laugh at myself.

  I bought a bicycle. Kermit said I looked freaky, zipping around with my little basket in front piled with books and my purse. I didn’t care. Suddenly I could get around. I rode it to school, and to work on Saturdays. In the evenings I rode around my neighborhood, going a little farther each time. I realized that most of our neighborhood was Mexican. Their houses were like ours, on lots with scruffy patches of grass and weeds—boxy, dilapidated rentals where for block after block you never saw a tree. Cars sat up on blocks, and there were motorcycles, and sometimes a car polished like a gem, trimmed in pink and orange and yellow, with curlicues in front like moustaches, and tendrils running down the sides. Sometimes I saw the owners shining their prizes with soft rags. They would look up and watch me ride by. After a few weeks they recognized me and their gazes were more open, a little friendlier. Boys of eleven or twelve made chirping noises at me, but I laughed at them and they went off to other things. The men wore white undershirts with baggy pants, green or khaki in color; their hair fell down around their ears, and many of them sported trim moustaches. The women, in cheap dresses, sat on steps and watched their men, and the babies ran around naked.

  One day I realized I was looking for the boy from school. Then, not long after, I came out of school and found one tire flat. The boy I’d seen in the library was coming toward me. He wore a tight black knit shirt and jeans, shiny black shoes, and a chain with a medal around his neck. He said he had a pickup, he was on his way to work. “I’ll take you there and patch your tire,” he offered. “The Texaco on Sixth. I’ll put your bike in the back, okay?” His voice was soft.

  “I see you around school,” he said as he pulled out of the lot. “Are you a junior? Senior?”

  “Junior. What about you?” I couldn’t have guessed his age.

  “Senior,” he said. “Justaboutout,” he added, in a slur.

  “What then?” I asked, for something to say.

  “No more school. Like, you know. I mean, you just go on making it, huh?” He kept glancing back and forth from his driving to me. “What’s your name?” he asked. When I told him I’d been named for the song, “Abilene,” he didn’t react at all. Of course Mexicans are named for Jesus, and saints, heroes, and states of grace.

  “I’m Eddie,” he volunteered.

  “Eddie?”

  “Doncha like it?”

  I was embarrassed. I saw hostility flash across his face.

  “All right. Eduardo. My family calls me Lalo. But my friends, Eddie. Anglo. Better for getting by.”

  I wondered what I ought to do. Was he being bold? Would he flirt with other Anglo girls? (Was he flirting with me?!) Maybe he thought I was easy! I sat with my legs closed tight until we arrived at the station. He patched my tire while I stood by watching in silence. He checked the bike all over and got a grease gun to work down around the pedals. Then he wheeled it off to the side and propped it up. “Good as new,” he said.

  I didn’t want to leave. I stepped in front of him to take the handlebars, and I could feel the warmth of him coming off like steam. Somebody called out from inside the garage, “Hey Eddie, qu-hubo, mano?” There was nothing to do but ride away.

  That night I rode a long time through the streets near home. I looked at people sitting on their steps in the dark, or under the yellow glow of porch lights. I heard televisions blaring, and fast bouncy Mexican songs. I wished there was someone at my house to sit with. When I went into my room, I thought about Mr. Morales with his hair slicked down and his nylon shirt tight across his chest, and I thought again of Eddie. (Lalo, I rolled on my tongue.) I thought how he would sweat in the heat, how his breath would make a pillow damp. I bet he wouldn’t tell, I thought.

  I saw Natty Mooster coming out of the gym one day. She had lavender hair and a skirt six inches shorter than anybody else’s. She was gone before I could call out to her. What would I say? I wondered. “Remember me?”

  At Christmas we went in Kermit’s new (used) pickup to see Dad. He had rented a trailer in a cheap park, all dust and garbage cans and screaming kids. Once we’d gone to a cafeteria to eat, and Kermit and I had each given what sounded like little speeches about what we were doing (Kermit was going to start night school in January), Bud started drinking beer and turned on the television. We went home the next day. Bud didn’t act surprised. He said he was glad to see us, and maybe we’d come another time. That was all. That was the last time I saw my dad.

  Early in the new year Kermit started acting funny. He was out almost every night, and I didn’t know what to say when Sherry called. One night he took me to a drive-in and bought hamburgers, and while we were eating in the car, I told him what I thought, that he looked like the cat that ate the bird.

  He leaned back and closed his eyes. “What you see is a satisfied man.”

  “Lord, what does that mean?”

  He sat up and took a bite of his dripping hamburger. “It means I’m getting laid,” he said pleasantly. “But don’t get any ideas, because it’s a man’s world.”

  “How come I don’t see Sherry anymore?”

  He backed the car out so fast my Coke spilled on my lap. I sopped it up with napkins and heard Kermit say, “I don’t see her anymore, nose-butt.”

  He wouldn’t say who his new girlfriend was. I figured it out one night when she called and I said he was asleep. “Can’t you wake him up?” the girl asked. I said he’d been really tired, he’d worked hours overtime. “Well hell,” she said, “how much rest does he need?” She laughed. “Tell him he missed a good time.”

  I told Kermit it was the weirdest thing I ever heard, that he would go out with Natty Mooster. And “go out” wasn’t what they did. He told me to stuff it. But with the secret out, Natty started coming over when my mother wasn’t home, lying around with Kermit in his filthy room drinking beer and watching the little television he’d bought for himself. (I hated him for that. All my mother had wanted for years was a TV.) She gave me superior smiles and said things like “Aren’t you growing right up now?” and “Wonder, do you take after your brother in any important ways?” Once she came up behind me when I was standing at the refrigerator thinking what there was to eat. She put her arms around me from the back and pulled herself close, and then she put her mouth down on my neck and made a chill run down my back. I yanked away so hard the pickle jar rattled on the top shelf of the refrigerator. I was going to say something really hateful to her, but when I turned around she had a soft look on her face, sweet as the way she’d look at her sister Plum, and tears came up so fast I had to run out of the house to let my feelings go.

  When a creepy second-string basketball player from history class called and asked me out, I said yes without a second thought. I didn’t even know for sure which boy it was until he said something to me after class about seeing an Elvis movie. After we did that, he drove to the edge of town to park. His name was Farin. He had beer on the back floor of the car. It was warm, but I drank two. “God I’m full!” I said in a while, in a giddy voice that amazed me and made me laugh. “I’ve got to pee!” Farin gestured grandly to the horizon. “Pick your spot,” he said. He gave me a smirky smile as I slid out of the car and went around behind. Pee splashed on my shoe, and I tried to wipe it against the tire. I knew I’d die if I had to think of anything to say. I wanted desperately to be at home instead, but not because there was anything so bad about Farin. (He wore a nice aftershave, and he’d been sweet and polite at the movie.) It was that I didn’t know what was coming or what to do. I didn’t want to do too much. I didn’t want to make Farin
mad.

  When I got back in the car, he pulled me toward him and put his wide wet mouth down over my face. What he got was a mouthful of lips. “You can do better than that, can’t you?” he said. He said it nicely.

  “Whatever you say,” I said, regretting instantly the generosity that implied. I opened my mouth and his tongue went in deep and glided around. I thought the beer from his mouth tasted better than the beer in mine. I was having a hard time breathing. He let off from kissing and began fumbling with my blouse. It was a bleeding Madras plaid from Penney’s. My straight skirt matched it. In a moment his hand had slipped inside my bra and over my nipple. I felt as if he had stuck a pin in me.

  “Whatcha scared of?” he muttered. I was cold and tense, but I moved a hand up on the back of Farin’s neck, and slid my fingers back and forth. “Let go!” he hissed. “You’re a-ticklin’ me!” Now I didn’t know what to do with either hand. I extended my arm away from Farin’s ticklish neck. My blouse was pulled out of my skirt by now. I felt twisted as a pretzel. Suddenly Farin moved away from me. He seemed to be staring at a spot on my throat. Then he lunged at me and pulled my blouse down off my shoulders.

  “I don’t know—” I faltered. I wasn’t sure what was expected on a first date. I felt absolutely nothing. Farin was tugging at me like I was a limp doll when I said, “I hardly know you.” I wondered if he was disappointed at my small breasts tucked inside my lightly molded bra. Farin ignored me. He expertly undid the bra. It dangled. He slipped it down so that it hung off the sides of my upper arms. It was ludicrous, my clothes dripped off me. I shrugged out of my blouse and bra and they fell into my lap.

  “You’re sure a sweet little thang,” Farin said in a guttural voice. I was sweating heavily. Farin pushed me back against the door and put his mouth over my nipple. He sucked. I felt like a fool. I knew his hand was along a road he knew well and I was about to learn, I wanted it to be there, but I didn’t think it ought to be so dumb, so easy. I had heard all about basketball from Farin, last season and this. I knew how much his new seat covers had cost him, and that he planned to go to Tech and study business, maybe even accounting if he could do the work. This didn’t seem like a fair trade for my virginity, even if my virginity was something I was ready to be rid of. I squeezed my legs and twisted hard. His hand was caught between my thighs. I released it as I pushed it out from under my skirt.

  “Listen!” I cried, my decision made. He seemed to be holding his breath. “I am NOT going to do it!” Farin rallied and sat up again.

  “You tellin me—” he started to say. Both hands went down to his crotch, making a little shield over what he had there. “Shit!” he said. “You some goddamned virgin?” Then he said something that sounded like “Nuuuuh!” I was more embarrassed than anything. Weakly, I said I was. Soft, sweet as a chirping bird, he called me over. He hunched over his jeans, undoing them. “Just put your hand on it,” he said. I must have looked amazed. “On the outside, then, baby,” he said. He put my hand where he wanted it. He was hot and damp and swollen under the shorts. Size thirty, I thought. He groaned again: “Nuuuh!” He grabbed my bra and stuffed it down inside his shorts under our hands. He made his noise one more time and then fell quiet. Gently, I slid my hand away and put my blouse on again without the purloined bra. He wiped his forehead with his left hand, and pulled the bra out with his right and handed it to me. “Put it in your purse, honey,” he murmured. He got out of the car and pissed right by the door. I watched him shake himself dry.

  When he got back in he patted me on the arm and said, “S’aright.” He started the car and gunned the motor a couple of times. “I guess I figgered wrong,” he said. “You looked to me like—” He turned the car off again. “Damn it, you looked like a girl who’d like it. Do you?” At least he hadn’t said, a girl who’d do it. I didn’t have an answer. He leaned over and slid a hand up under my skirt very fast. I twisted away a bit and he snapped, “Be still!” I complied. His hand went straight up my legs like a snake until it bumped against my underwear. Briskly, he worked his hand beneath the nylon and thrust a finger inside me. I jumped, astonished, but he held on, not doing anything with his finger, simply being there, a stationary object. I felt myself pulsing, closing wet and slick around his finger, I felt the finger drawing from me, sucking me into his flesh. As abruptly as he had intruded, he pulled out. He made a big show of wiping his finger on his pants. “I thought maybe you were just teasing me,” he said. “Playing games with ole Farin. But shit, you want it and don’t know what it is! You got my timing all off, I had you figgered wrong. Then it was too late to slack off and go slow. But you ain’t lying. If you knew what it felt like, you wouldn’t be able to say no.” He adjusted his Levis around his crotch. “You got a sticky cunt,” he grinned. He burned rubber pulling away. In front of my house, he leaned across me and opened the door on my side. “See you around,” he said. As I got out, he slapped at my buttocks. “When you’re ready!” he laughed.

  After that I knew what to expect, and I knew I wasn’t, in Farin’s terms, “ready.” I went out because I was lonely and because I would take what there was, but I wasn’t going to lie down for some ducktailed conceited dumb boy who asked me out because he couldn’t think of any other girl. They rolled up the sleeves of their tee-shirts, these boys; they belched their beer and couldn’t think of anything at all to ask me about myself. My dates were a joke, slow and boring, but I couldn’t say, “Skip the movie, let’s go park.” They would never have believed me when I drew the line. Once we were in the dark, and I closed my eyes, I forgot who the boy was, and it was hard to stop in time. I loved the sly journey up my leg, a boy’s hand moving so slow. I longed for the finger inside me, the spasms it brought on. I remembered Natalie at twelve, with Kermit, and I struck her bargain with these boys: I would touch them and they could touch me. As for the rest of it, I said, “My brother would kill me.” Kermit was no big slugger, but he was older, out of school, and it called on some sort of respect when I said that. “Sure, whatever you say,” they said. There were three, then four of them, coming back every two or three weeks, seldom overlapping their calls. I thought maybe they got together and made a calendar for me, but this was so terrible a thing to consider I told myself I was being silly.

  One of the boys told me I was giving him blue balls, he was going to die. I said I’d made it clear from the beginning, he knew what was coming and what was not. When he didn’t push me any further, slumping down in the seat in a pitiable pose, I remembered what Farin had done, and I offered a little more, just that one time, for that one boy, but I was kidding myself.

  The others began to ache and complain, saying they didn’t have that much self-control, they were horny for sweet chrissake; they made it sound like I was so pretty and sexy, they fell down a dark deep sweet hole and couldn’t climb out, and I let myself believe it. I let them lie, and I bought the lie, and it was me who slid down.

  There had been Farin, and then there had been Larry, so what was it to lay a cool hand over Karlie, and then Maynard? They gave something in return, whether they meant to think of me or not. They wriggled faraway extensions of themselves inside me; I learned to put my hand on a wrist to quiet it, and to make the feelings happen myself, in my own rhythm. I learned to take pleasure from these shabby hours on the edge of town. And when I saw my dates in the halls at school, they grinned at me, the way Kermit had grinned that time in the car, telling me about Natty. And those grins—there was nothing hateful in them, nothing terribly smug. They said: Don’t we know it’s fun? They were all so gawky and young! They had big Adam’s apples and their ugly hair. And none of the “neat” girls—the ones in expensive dresses, with hair done at beauty parlors and pulled up in tortoise shell barettes—would have anything to do with them in a hundred years. Sometimes, for just a moment, I felt those boys tug at my heart; weren’t we all in the same sinking boat? Sometimes now, looking back, I think: I should have let them all. I should have lain in
the back seats of a dozen cars and made them feel important, because in the end, don’t I know they had little dreams and lost even them? Don’t I know I wasn’t any better?

  IN THE SUMMER I WORKED as often as they needed me, relieving clerks on vacation. My mother asked me, “What are you going to do with all that money, Abilene?” I’d bought a few clothes, and my bicycle. The rest was in a savings account. As soon as she asked me, though, I knew the answer was that I was saving to go away—from her, from West Texas, from all the Thursday nights at J.C. Penney’s, the cycle of dates and necking and the lack of hope. My mother saw it on my face; she never spoke to me again of my money, never once asked me what I was going to do after high school. She hardly spoke to me at all. The hard part was going to be getting through another year.

  Then one hot summer afternoon Natty came by my house looking for someone to “round out” a car full of boys. She was with Chip somebody, and Hoot Gibson, whose real name was Andrew, and Charlie Jamison, all of them out of school now, hot shot graduates. Hoot held up a six-pack and said, “Cold suds for a hot day,” and somebody said, “Hell, two girls will do, let’s get the show on the road.” Natty sat in the front between Charlie and Hoot, while I sat in the back with Chip. He was as quiet as I was. Besides, we couldn’t have gotten in a word over the other three.

  We went to a place in the sandhills that Charlie knew. That Natty probably knew. That I’d thought about a hundred times. I knew that sooner or later a lot of kids went to the sandhills, white and pale and yellow and gritty and hot in the sun, with sand that ground itself into your pores, into your ears and nose and mouth, that found its way into your private parts and made your hair heavy, sand that was soft to lie on. I’d never been there, but I’d dreamed about the sand, a Texas Sahara, to be lost in, to lie down in and say no, please don’t, not meaning it, and later stop stop, when it was too late. Nobody had ever asked me to go to the sand, because nobody had ever asked me out in the daylight. But I knew the questions girls asked themselves out there: If I let him will he love me? and If I let him will he think I’m awful after? I’d thought about how it would feel, white and twitching on the sand. I’d thought: What if it hurts? and then, So what, it’s only the first time it hurts. There were bargains made in the sand, and babies, and sometimes trouble. Not rich girls. Boys knew their fathers would be waiting up when the girls got home, knew that if you made a rich girl pregnant you didn’t have to get married, you could go to jail. But there were lots of girls who didn’t have fathers who cared. (I knew this, but I didn’t know any of those girls. I didn’t have any friends at all. What would I have done? Gone up to a girl and said, you’re no better off than me, let’s be friends?)