What's Up With That?
What's Up With That
“So what’s up with that?” Bev asks.
I push away the tuna salad I brought from home and follow Bev’s polished pink nail and see it pierce the bubble of Julio eating lunch with another girl. I’ve seen this girl before.
I shrug as if none of it matters and conjure up images of sick kids, kids with scarves covering up bald heads, kids like Kimmie. But I suspect that Julio’s been hanging with her for a while since before Gitt’s Twister party. I imagine Bev’s nail has become the size of an entire football field and this gigantic fingernail slices their table in half (like the F5 tornadoes in the Twister movie we watched at Gitt’s) and Kimmie is no longer sitting next to my boyfriend.
I stare hard at Bev’s pretty, glittering tip as if she can actually spawn this kind of weather in our cafeteria and do the thing I have just imagined. I glance down at my own half bitten thumbnail and wrinkle my nose.
“Are you going to let cancer girl get away with that?” Bev asks.
“Even if Kimmie is one of those St. Jude’s kids, she shouldn’t be snuggled up next to Adrianna's boyfriend sharing a soda,” Gitt says.
I huff and start to dig my nails into the chipped table until I realize I’m tearing up my fingers and the table doesn’t deserve any more gouges. I head over to where Julio and Kimmie lounge.
I don’t want to pay attention to Kimmie's luminous clean complexion. She has the kind of light skin that flushes the exact shade of baby pink and makes me think of my old dance costumes, those tutus I secretly treasured but how my Grand mom used to go to my recital and sit and stare as if she was sleeping with her eyes open while everyone else said, “Aren’t they adorable?” Even in dreamland, Grand mom didn’t crack a smile – not like this girl’s dopey – ‘how you doing smile’ that makes me want to knock it off. It doesn’t help that Julio still hasn’t looked up and said, “Hello.”
I drum my fingertips on my hip and my arms start tingling as if both sides of me compete for the opportunity to smack her shine free face and turn it the same color as her hair.
My fists clench thinking about it, just remembering the party and how sweet Julio had been before Kimmie showed up, before I watched her drape all over Julio and before I ate all that Jell-O to forget all that draping.
I think about the power of a dime-sized pizza grease stain on Julio’s shirt and how it shuts him down, the way he acts as if the stain is the meanest bully you ever saw and he stops talking and laughing and eating. I imagine launching Kimmie’s loaded lunch tray at him right now.
Bev and Gitt glare at me from the other side of the cafeteria world. They want fireworks. I can almost see the whole show in their large, waiting, and watchful eyes - the way Kimmie's lunch lands on Julio, the barely eaten burger splitting open unleashing all the ketchup and mustard inside, and then the finale where I rip into Julio’s new bird, her fake fruit punch colored feathers floating all over the cafeteria.
I glance down at the floor imagining those feathers are already there but I see Kimmie’s feet and almost laugh. The girl wears dirty white basketball shoes that are so worn they even have holes. She must be some kind of joke. And I wear hand me down shoes. I study my gunmetal pedicure. Any minute now Julio will push her away from him and say, “You didn’t really think you could take Adrianna’s place?”
Bev and Gitt will punch my arm as if they were all in on it too. And Kimmie will cry and disappear along with all of her gross pinkness and all of her scarves and baldness and all of her cancer. But this isn’t April Fools. It’s October. I can still taste the blue Jell-O from the party.
And I ask Julio, “What are you doing with her?”
“So what’s up with that?” Bev asks.
I push away the tuna salad I brought from home and follow Bev’s polished pink nail and see it pierce the bubble of Julio eating lunch with another girl. I’ve seen this girl before.
I shrug as if none of it matters and conjure up images of sick kids, kids with scarves covering up bald heads, kids like Kimmie. But I suspect that Julio’s been hanging with her for a while since before Gitt’s Twister party. I imagine Bev’s nail has become the size of an entire football field and this gigantic fingernail slices their table in half (like the F5 tornadoes in the Twister movie we watched at Gitt’s) and Kimmie is no longer sitting next to my boyfriend.
I stare hard at Bev’s pretty, glittering tip as if she can actually spawn this kind of weather in our cafeteria and do the thing I have just imagined. I glance down at my own half bitten thumbnail and wrinkle my nose.
“Are you going to let cancer girl get away with that?” Bev asks.
“Even if Kimmie is one of those St. Jude’s kids, she shouldn’t be snuggled up next to Adrianna's boyfriend sharing a soda,” Gitt says.
I huff and start to dig my nails into the chipped table until I realize I’m tearing up my fingers and the table doesn’t deserve any more gouges. I head over to where Julio and Kimmie lounge.
I don’t want to pay attention to Kimmie's luminous clean complexion. She has the kind of light skin that flushes the exact shade of baby pink and makes me think of my old dance costumes, those tutus I secretly treasured but how my Grand mom used to go to my recital and sit and stare as if she was sleeping with her eyes open while everyone else said, “Aren’t they adorable?” Even in dreamland, Grand mom didn’t crack a smile – not like this girl’s dopey – ‘how you doing smile’ that makes me want to knock it off. It doesn’t help that Julio still hasn’t looked up and said, “Hello.”
I drum my fingertips on my hip and my arms start tingling as if both sides of me compete for the opportunity to smack her shine free face and turn it the same color as her hair.
My fists clench thinking about it, just remembering the party and how sweet Julio had been before Kimmie showed up, before I watched her drape all over Julio and before I ate all that Jell-O to forget all that draping.
I think about the power of a dime-sized pizza grease stain on Julio’s shirt and how it shuts him down, the way he acts as if the stain is the meanest bully you ever saw and he stops talking and laughing and eating. I imagine launching Kimmie’s loaded lunch tray at him right now.
Bev and Gitt glare at me from the other side of the cafeteria world. They want fireworks. I can almost see the whole show in their large, waiting, and watchful eyes - the way Kimmie's lunch lands on Julio, the barely eaten burger splitting open unleashing all the ketchup and mustard inside, and then the finale where I rip into Julio’s new bird, her fake fruit punch colored feathers floating all over the cafeteria.
I glance down at the floor imagining those feathers are already there but I see Kimmie’s feet and almost laugh. The girl wears dirty white basketball shoes that are so worn they even have holes. She must be some kind of joke. And I wear hand me down shoes. I study my gunmetal pedicure. Any minute now Julio will push her away from him and say, “You didn’t really think you could take Adrianna’s place?”
Bev and Gitt will punch my arm as if they were all in on it too. And Kimmie will cry and disappear along with all of her gross pinkness and all of her scarves and baldness and all of her cancer. But this isn’t April Fools. It’s October. I can still taste the blue Jell-O from the party.
And I ask Julio, “What are you doing with her?”
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