Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray(41)
“So what did you think?” Richard had asked. They were walking past the busy nightlife of Oak Lawn. Hypnotic dance music pulsed out of a club where a line of fashionable men and a few women waited on the other side of a velvet rope manned by a bouncer with a clipboard and a discerning eye.
“The acting was good. I love Audrey Hepburn,” Jenny had said, as if she were talking to anyone and not Richard. The truth was she had been titillated to see a movie about two women in love with each other, even if the movie hadn’t ended well. “It was sad, though.”
“Yeah. Nothing like some tragic lesbians.”
She couldn’t tell if he was making a joke or not. She was still stuck on the word lesbian said out loud. Jenny looked over at the club line, her gaze landing on two women with short haircuts. One of the women smiled at her and Jenny wondered if she could just tell.
“Kind of awful that they couldn’t just be themselves. You know?” Richard said then. The way he had looked at her, in the glow of the traffic light, had felt like an opening. But she’d been too afraid. What if she was wrong about Richard being like her? What if he told someone else at school and she was whispered about in the halls? What if her parents found out? What if?
“You wanna go somewhere else? This neighborhood kinda gives me the creeps. Too many you know whats.” She didn’t know why she’d said it but as soon as she had, she’d wished she could take it back.
Richard’s face fell as if he’d been punched. “Okay. Sure. I should get home anyway.”
Jenny saw less of Richard after that. She had orchestra and track team. Richard had new friends he didn’t talk about, and on the rare occasions he and Jenny did get together, he was vague and distant, a conversation held at arm’s length with a stranger. Sometimes, she’d glimpse Richard in the halls and they’d both do the same move of looking off into a classroom, as if they didn’t see each other.
“Oh my gosh, did you see Richard Beverly’s neck? Total hickey town!” Heather had giggled one morning. They were at their lockers between first and second periods. “I wonder who the lucky boy is.”
Jenny’s stomach had tensed. “What do you mean?”
“Come on. Everybody knows Richard’s a queer.”
The word was a siren in her head. “Who says so?”
“Um, everybody?” Heather laughed. “Honestly, it’s good you stopped hanging out with him so much. People were starting to talk about you, too.”
Her head buzzed. She felt faint. “We’re not really friends anymore.”
Heather put a hand to her mouth. Jenny turned around. Richard was standing right behind her. He’d heard everything.
“Oops,” Heather giggled.
They never spoke again. Jenny hadn’t even let him know that they were moving to Germany. She wondered how far the gossip about Richard and Oak Lawn had spread this summer. She wondered if it would make his junior year hell. If it would make it dangerous. She should write to him about Berlin. She should apologize for how things had ended. She should tell him the truth about herself.
“Jenny? You home, honey?” Her mother gave one knock and opened up.
“Could you not do that, please? Why bother knocking if you’re just gonna barge in?”
“Well, pardon me for living. I just came to see if you needed any help getting ready for the party. What are you listening to?”
Quickly, Jenny lifted the needle and stopped the record player. “Nothing. A German band.”
“Sounds like a lot of noise.” Her mother crossed to Jenny’s closet and Jenny stiffened, thinking about the albums hidden there. Her mother pulled out the hated gingham dress with the puffy sleeves. “Oh, this is perfect. You look so darling in this.” She draped it across Jenny’s bed. She picked up one of the pictures splayed there, her brows furrowing in obvious disapproval. “My goodness! That’s certainly an interesting-looking bunch. Who are they?”
“I don’t know. I saw them outside the train station.” Jenny took the photo from her mother, stacked it in with the others, and shoved the whole stack into her nightstand drawer.
“Where exactly do you go when you sightsee, darling?”
Jenny didn’t like the feel of this question. As if the conversational ground were mined and she didn’t dare put a foot wrong. “You know. Around.”
“Around where? With whom?”
“Just some kids from German class. I’m trying to learn the city and not miss my friends so much,” Jenny said, adding a stab of guilt.
“Well. Just be careful, honey. This isn’t like back home. Don’t go anywhere dangerous.” She secured a lock of Jenny’s hair behind her ear and cupped her chin in a way she hadn’t done for years. Jenny wanted to shake free of her mother’s Lanvin-scented hand; she wanted to press it to her cheek and hold it there. She settled on an eye roll.
“Mom. I need to get ready.”
“Okay, okay, Miss Impatience!” The hand tweaked Jenny’s nose before it went away. “You should curl your hair. It looks so cute when you do that, don’t you think?”
* * *
The party started at eight, and by eight thirty, the apartment was filled with her dad’s business partners and their wives. Soft jazz, bland as rice pudding, played on the apartment’s stereo. Waiters in stiff white jackets paraded silently through the crowd offering hors d’oeuvres from silver platters. A bartender was doing brisk business in the library. The ashtrays were emptied and filled again. Jenny wore the hated gingham. She’d curled her hair and let her mother scoop up the sides with silver combs. Her pantyhose kept bunching around her waist and they made her sweat. She had taken refuge in the kitchen, ignoring the repeated frowns and sighs from Helga, who regarded the space as her personal lair.