Red. Erica Spindler

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СКАЧАТЬ Lynn had been three the first time she’d realized she was different, that she and her family were less than; she still remembered the moment vividly. It had been a day like this one, hot and blue. She’d been standing in line at the market with her mother and her brother, Randy. Becky Lynn remembered clinging to her brother’s hand and looking down at her feet, bare and dirty from their walk into town, then lifting her gaze to find the other mothers’ eyes upon them, their stares filled with a combination of pity and loathing. In that moment, she’d realized that there were others in the world and that they judged. She had felt strange, self-conscious. For the first time in her young life, she’d felt vulnerable. She had wanted to hide behind her mother’s legs, had wanted her mother to tell the other women to stop looking at them that way.

      Becky Lynn supposed that had been back before her daddy had turned really mean, back when she still thought her mother to be an angel with magical, protective powers.

      But maybe she had already realized that her mother wasn’t an angel, that her mother didn’t have the ability—or the strength—to make everything all right, because she hadn’t said anything. And the women had kept staring, and Becky Lynn had kept on feeling as if she had done something wrong, something ugly and bad.

      Most times now, the respectable folks, even the customers she shampooed down at Opal’s Cut ‘n Curl, looked right through her. Oh, while she shampooed them they talked to her, but mostly because they liked to hear the sound of themselves and because they knew she was paid to listen and agree with them—something their husbands almost never did. But when they came face-to-face with her on the street, they looked right through her. She wasn’t sure if they pretended they didn’t see her because she was one of Randall Lee’s brood or if they truly didn’t recognize her ‘cause they’d never really looked at her in the first place.

      But whichever, she’d decided being invisible suited her just fine. In fact, she preferred it that way. She felt less different when she was invisible. She felt…safer.

      Becky Lynn took a deep breath as she cleared the railroad tracks. The air always seemed a bit sweeter this side of the tracks, the breeze a degree or two cooler. She stepped up her pace, hoping to get to the shop early enough to spend a few minutes looking over the Bazaar that had come the day before.

      Up ahead, Becky Lynn caught sight of a fire-engine red pickup truck barreling past the square, coming in her direction, a cloud of dust in its wake. Tommy Fischer and his jock gang, she thought, her heart beginning to rap against the wall of her chest. Probably on their way to pick up her brother. She darted a glance to either side of the road, to the fields thick with cotton, knowing there was no place to hide but searching for one, anyway. Sighing, she folded her arms across her middle, jerked her chin up and kept on walking.

      The group of boys began to howl the moment they saw her. “Hey, Becky Lynn,” one of the teenagers called, “how about a date?” In response, the other three boys began to hoot in amusement. “Yeah, looking good, Becky Lynn. My dad’s Labrador retriever’s been lonely lately.”

      That brought a fresh burst of amusement from the boys, and she tightened her fingers into fists, but kept walking, never glancing their way. Even if it killed her, she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of knowing how much their comments hurt.

      Tommy slowed the truck more, swerving to the road’s dusty shoulder. “Hey, baby…check it out.” From the corner of her eyes she saw the two boys in the back of the pickup unzip their flies and pull out their penises. “If you weren’t so ugly,” taunted Ricky, the meanest of the group, “I’d even let you touch it. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, baby?”

      The urge to run, as fast and far as she could, screamed through her. She fought the urge back, compressing her lips to keep from making a sound of revulsion and fear.

      Ricky leaned over the side of the truck and made a lewd grab for her, forcing her to step off the shoulder and into the muddy field. Tommy gunned the engine and tore off, spitting up gravel and dirt, the boys’ laughter ringing in her ears.

      Becky Lynn ran then, the gravel road biting the bottoms of her feet through her tattered sneakers, the bile of panic nearly choking her. She ran until she reached the safety of Bend’s town square.

      Drawing in deep, shuddering breaths, Becky Lynn leaned against the outside wall of the Five and Dime, the corner building on the railroad side of the square. She pressed the flat of her hand to her pitching stomach and squeezed her eyes shut. Sweat beaded her upper lip and underarms; it trickled between her shoulder blades. The image of the boys, holding their penises and taunting her, filled her head, and her stomach rolled again. They’d never done anything like that before. She was used to their taunts, their obscene suggestions, but not…this.

      Today they’d scared her.

      Becky Lynn hugged herself hard. She was safe, she told herself. It was getting toward the end of summer, the boys were bored and got off on seeing her squirm. In a month they would start football practice and wouldn’t have the time or energy to seek her out.

      Then she would have to face their jeers at school.

      She fought against the tears that flooded her eyes, fought against the despair that filled every other part of her. She had nobody. Not one person in Bend she could turn to for help or support. Alone. She was alone.

      Even as fatigue and hopelessness clutched at her, Becky Lynn curled her fingers into fists. She wouldn’t give up like her mother had. She wouldn’t. And someday, she promised herself, she would show Tommy and Ricky and everybody else in this two-bit town. She didn’t know how, but someday they would wish they’d been nice to her.

      2

      Becky Lynn managed to avoid Tommy Fischer and his gang for an entire week. It hadn’t been easy, they had seemed to be everywhere, just cruising, looking for trouble. Looking for something to ease their boredom, she supposed. She had made up her mind it wouldn’t be her.

      Darting a quick, uneasy glance behind her, she stepped onto the square and started for the Cut ‘n Curl, moving as fast as she could without running. Bend, named for its location at a bend in the Tallahatchie River between Greenwood and Greenville, had been built around a town square. The civic and commercial center of town, the courthouse, police station and mayor’s office were all located here, as well as the two best dress shops in town—the nearest mall being in either Greenwood or Greenville, the nearest real city Memphis. Shaded by magnolia and mimosa trees, sprinkled with azalea and oleander bushes, the square was the closest Bend, Mississippi, got to the places Becky Lynn saw in her magazines.

      But not close enough, she thought, hearing familiar laughter and the gun of an engine behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and her heart flew to her throat. Tommy Fischer had decided to take a swing around the square.

      The Cut ‘n Curl in sight now, she started to run, reaching the shop in moments. She pushed through the door with such force that the brass bell hanging above it snapped against the glass.

      Miss Opal stood at the first hair station, adding another coat of spray to her platinum blond beehive. She set down the can of spray and turned to Becky Lynn. “What’s the rush, child? You look like you’ve seen the devil himself.”

      Driving a bright red pickup. Becky Lynn sucked in a deep breath and forced a smile. “No, ma’am. I just didn’t want to be late.”

      Miss Opal smiled. “You’re never late, Becky Lynn. And I want you to know, I do appreciate it.”

      Heat stung Becky Lynn’s cheeks, and she folded СКАЧАТЬ