“I feel like I’ve outgrown high school,” Tilly pouts at her reflection in the mirror. “I can’t believe we still have two more years.”
Cornelia and I roll our eyes.
“Honey,” Cornelia says, “you’re sixteen, five foot nine, and a hundred and fifty-five pounds, you have not outgrown high school.”
“I just feel like I want to be a college girl.”
“Oh, gawd,” I groan. “Will you shut up and do your part of the work? Cornelia and I can’t carry you just because you’ve checked out.”
“Nah,” Tilly shrugs. “Can’t be bothered. You two do it. I’m outta here.”
“What?” I stop. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Yes,” Cornelia adds. “What are you doing?”
“I have a date, nerds. See you later.”
“With whom?” Cornelia’s tone sharpens.
“That’s for me to know and you to… I don’t know. Gotta go.”
She swings herself out the window and vanishes down the road.
A moment later, we hear a car rev and speed off.
“What on earth,” I mutter. “Who does she even have a date with around here?”
Cornelia rolls her eyes as the sound fades.
“Our girl is all grown up now,” I say, half-laughing.
“You sound jealous,” she quips. I shake my head.
“She’ll come back down to earth soon enough.” I say.
“Let’s just get this done.” Cornelia looks at the textbooks.
“Sure,” I sigh, settling in beside her. “It’s only History, this should be straightforward.”
“You say that,” she says, “but it’s still mindless work.”
“We’ll be done within the hour if we pull our socks up.” I reply.
***
Cornelia and I are growing closer now that Tilly’s in her ‘I’ve outgrown high school’ phase. It’s not as much fun when Tilly’s sulking and being difficult. When I call Miss Mary, she says Tilly will come back around, she’s just a little ahead of us.
I feel embarrassed. I’m not ahead in my maturing process. I’m just a bog-standard sixteen-year-old girl. Well, kind of.
Cornelia doesn’t care. She has a confident sense of who she is. She’s unapologetically herself, and sees no reason to be otherwise. In that way she’s fun. We can be silly and childish together, which embarrasses Tilly.
When I’m with Tilly, I always have to be on my toes. She’s genius-level clever and the best-dressed girl at school. She’s a little haughty, though she lacks softness. But Tilly doesn’t have time for softness. She’s already seen through it all.
And right now, she’s having an affair with a married man. It’s both exciting and troubling. It could ruin her reputation and her future prospects.
I shudder to think what would happen if anyone found out about me and the boy, and our summer of sin. Jesus on the cross, please never let anyone find out. I’d be branded the Scarlet Woman of Farmington. Grandpa George could take me out of school if he found out, and put me in a mental institution. I don’t think he would, but I think he could.
***
I don’t go to New York with Tilly for Thanksgiving or Christmas.
Instead, I go home to Miss Mary.
The boy is dressing flashier, wearing his hair in a rebellious way, and has grown flamboyant in his presentation.
At first, I laugh when I see him, but there’s a new, deeper affection for him.
“Look at you, my little flower! You’re in bloom!” I exclaim.
“You like?” he asks, twirling for me.
“Oh yes, baby. You look marvellous!”
“I do?” He grins and flaps his arms, turning away to throw a coquettish glance over his shoulder, and I can’t help laughing at his pageantry.
“I’m seeing a movie star here. Marlon Brando, but better, because it’s you. More panache.”
“Right,” he grins, then picks me up and slings me over his shoulder with sudden ease. “Come here, you.”
“What’s got into you?” I ask, giggling.
“I’m just happy to see you.”
“What’s brought on all this change?”
“Well,” he says, “I figured I was a man now, after this summer and all, so I decided to start actin’ like one. And you always say I oughta dress however I want, so I just went with it.”
“That’s good,” I smile. “But you’re still shy?”
“Yeah,” he replies. “I can’t shake the shyness. It’s only around you that I’m not. Outside the family, I’m not like that.”
“I think I’m even less inhibited around you than anyone else,” he adds, brow furrowed. “I wonder why that is.”
“Don’t think about it too much,” I say. “You might muddle everything up.”
“I reckon you’re right,” he says.
“Hey,” I say, “have you learned any new songs? Would you play for me on that old box of yours?”
“As a matter of fact…” he grins. “Lemme just go get it.”
He plays something new, bluesy, with a stirring quality in his voice I haven’t heard before. The floorboards groan under his feet as he stomps to the rhythm. It’s like the whole house is moving with him, and as he becomes lost in the music, his body catching more of its fire, a new room paints itself inside of me with that red paintbrush that marks all the new adventures in my life. When he finishes, I just stare.
“What?” he asks, suddenly self-conscious.
“Nothing,” I say. “That was… really something. Hot damn.”
He laughs. “You really think so?” He is suddenly vulnerable and self-aware again.
“Yeah,” I say. “Now, come here, you.”
I want to be as close to him as possible, but somehow it’s never close enough.
***
“Hey,” I say, “I might not come home much for the foreseeable future. I have to put a lot of work into school. They demand academic excellence, and I’m just a little above average.”
“No, you’re not,” he says. “You’re way above average.”
“Thank you, but I really am not.”
“Anyway,” I continue, “why aren’t you making more of an effort at school? Don’t you want to excel?”
“Nah,” he says. “Not really. What would it matter if I did?” He looks out the window. “I ain’t got no money to go to college anyway.”
He glances around my bedroom, as if trying to say I’m spoiled.
“Why do you want to excel so much?” he asks. “It’s not that you need to go out and get a job once you’re done.”
“I just really love school.” I sound almost apologetic.
“What do you want to do after school?” I ask.
“I don’t know. Get a steady job, I guess. I just wanna take care of Mamma and Daddy.”
“You could become a professional musician,” I offer.
“I ain’t good enough for that,” he grumbles.
“You could be,” I say, trying to catch his eye. “You really are very good. You could take over the world if you just keep at it.”
But I can tell this conversation is stressing him out, so I change the subject.
“Would you like to go out for burgers?” I ask. “You can drive. My treat.”
“No, my treat,” he insists. “I got money. I don’t like you payin’ for me.”
We run into some of his cousins at the diner. They’re not really my cup of tea, there’s a lot of insecurity in the air, and it comes out as rowdiness.
Stop being judgmental, I tell myself. Everyone’s just doing the best they can with whatever they’ve got.
Yes. That’s it.
The boy slides into the booth next to me and puts his arm around me.
“What’s cookin’?” he asks.
My World of Interiors 