Chapter Text
The weather is the devil, sun glaring down like an evil eye as Jackie drives slowly down the road to the outskirts of town. It is fresh, this road, blacktop glistening while it cooks in the early summer hell, a black line departing away from sensible grid-like downtown for the patchy neighbourhoods that spring up randomly; bungalows with their neglected yards, stoic red brick affairs that perch out by the train tracks, the odd children’s toy sticking up through the weeds all sun bleached and faded, signs posted everywhere that read: NO TRESPASSING! HANDS OFF MY PROPERTY! Zero lawn crews are coming up to manicure these places. It all comes up uneven, the grass, presumably home to plenty of raccoons and snakes. The trees get bigger and taller, maybe some even older than the town of Wiskayok is.
Jackie pushes ahead. Driving is already a foreign experience. Technically she shouldn’t even be alone in this car, but her mom begged off on account of a migraine. No cop in this town is going to pull over the Taylor’s family car, at least. It is infinitely recognizable, gunmetal grey with tinted windows, ritzy compared to the car Shauna’s mom has been driving for the last ten years. Jackie feels herself wobbling a little bit, just like a kid trying to ride a bike for the very first time. The wheels catch gravel at the side of the road and spits up dust and she jerks back, stung by the sensation, attempting to get back onto a straighter path. Her stomach is full of butterflies, nerves and acidic, and she’s already stressing about parking the car.
She’s fine, Jackie tells herself. Two cars pass her, peppering the sticky air with irritated honks from their horns. She’s way under the speed limit, but at least this way she won’t end up wrapped around a telephone pole somewhere. Last year they brought officers into the school to talk about the dangers of driving and they passed around big photos of wrecked cars, the shapes crumpled up and mangled. Those images haunted her dreams for weeks.
Leaving the house had been risky business. She came shy of knocking over the trash cans out on the street which had her then jerking for the radio, killing the sound. No distractions. She could not do this drive with anything stealing her focus away. The whole point of getting her permit was that it should’ve been fun, all this freedom. She had imagined cruising around effortlessly, untethered and blasting whatever she wanted on the radio. Driving up to Shauna’s place and honking the horn twice. Rolling the windows all the way down and picking up speed.
But the feeling of actually driving?
It had her hands locked onto the steering wheel. A cold sweat came up fast despite the humid heat outside of the car. This is terrifying, Jackie realizes, being out on her own.
The car will not glide effortlessly. She cannot maneuver smoothly around turns without almost coming to a complete stop. Jackie looks out her window and starts panicking, seeing the ravine dropping down way below the road. She’s imagining falling now, that the car might slide off the road and tumble down the trees, that she might crash and burn—
Jackie clenches the wheel tighter until her bones creak. She refuses to look back over again until the road is turning to a gravel lane, space around her widening out into flat areas. It gets cloudy, all the loose dust kicked up, and she slowly ambles and coasts down to a patch of trailers beyond a big sign reading ‘Ivy’s Lot’. Technically she’s grown up knowing this park existed, but she’s never actually come here before. Twenty minutes further from this place is a red farm house where Laura Lee lives, and she knows Van has an address somewhere close, but Jackie’s never stepped foot out here before. Never had a reason to come out this way. Her parents certainly knew nobody who lived in a trailer.
There is a version of Wiskayok that Jackie knows, and there is this version of Wiskayok. Alien, scorched, unreadable. Jackie does not this place and this place doesn’t know Jackie.
Awkwardly she stops the car and considers it parked right where it is. Heat buzzes against her skin when she opens the door and she’s already turning red, hot summer leaving a mark early. Half the lawns around town are burnt down to a crisp. The other lawns are a miraculous emerald green, lush with the healthy spray of water from sprinklers. The keys go right into her pocket where they sit like a weight. Her mom, Jackie knows, would be bristling at the idea of parking the car out here and leaving it alone.
The grey metal exterior looks hostile. Jackie climbs the wooden steps slowly. Time and exposure has turned the wood grey and brittle, bits flaking off as she steps up. Her fist raps on the door. To the side is a little number that reads ‘seven’. Nobody answers immediately, but she can hear voices coming from inside. Jackie knocks again, sharpish. If she has to knock a third time, Jackie will start pounding on it.
The voice cuts silent immediately. Footsteps sound. She waits until the door creaks open. A woman squints out at her, dark hair frizzy around her face. “What?”
This voice is not entirely strange. Jackie’s heard it all year as a tiny buzz through a phone line, Ben patiently trying to cajole Vera Scatorccio to attend one of their home games. He tries with all the parents even if Taissa’s family are the only ones that will bother showing up, each member with their faces painted yellow and blue for maximum spirit, but Jackie has a feeling that he tries extra hard with Nat’s mom. Vera’s voice isn’t kind, but Jackie doesn’t expect warmth and enthusiasm from a Scatorccio.
Her assumption, after all, is that Nat had to inherit her prickliness from somewhere.
“Hi. I’m supposed to pick Nat up for practice,” Jackie says. She forces a smile. This is a favour for Ben, she tells herself. It isn’t hard picking a teammate up. She just needs to collect Nat and hit the road again, showing up on time to edge Taissa back from her position.
Vera does not return that smile. Her mouth merely pinches tighter, dislike showing. “She’s asleep.”
It was noon. A sour feeling lodges deep in Jackie’s stomach. “I really can’t leave without her,” Jackie tells her. Yeah, yeah. Super easy. Number seven, got it, she had briskly told Ben last time, grabbing her oversized pink water bottle from the bench and trying to catch up to a departing Shauna before she was gone.
There’s a long moment that passes before Vera eventually turns around and walks off, door left open like a petulant invite. Jackie follows. Inside the trailer is a different kind of heat, trapped stale air that immediately makes her mouth go dry. It reeks of cigarettes and she understands why quickly when she gets a glimpse of a regular soup bowl overflowing with spent cigarettes and ashes. Vera lurches unsteadily on her feet for the couch before she sags right down onto it, hand wrestling for the remote and clicking the volume back up on the television set, flooding the room with voices. Italian, Jackie recognizes faintly. From the other side of the door, it had sounded Spanish. Beside Vera is a graveyard of bottles. They sit and catch light through their amber shapes, drained right down to the last drop. Her eyes shut and her mouth goes slack, woman melting down to her bones, and she does not provide a single instruction on where to go. Just sighs wearily, spent.
The place feels dirty and Jackie doesn’t want to hover around. She wanders down a skinny hallway that leads away from the living space and kitchenette, looking at a wedding photo hanging from the wall. A younger (and happier) version of Vera beams at her from beside a man. Two more photos are taped up of the same couple. It feels wrong to be walking around inside with her shoes on, but Jackie also feels a bit snobbish. She doesn’t know when Vera has last cleaned the place. The walls around her are yellow and nicotine stained, windows covered in greasy handprints. At the end of the hall is a door with scuff marks all down the bottom of it and Jackie chances it, pushing it open without knocking. It reminds her of Nat’s locker at school, bottom all dented and black from her boots.
A dark interior is her reward. Her eyes take a moment to adjust and she stands at the doorway peering in, uncertain of what to find, struggling to take in the exact shape of Nat’s body. She’s flopped over onto her stomach with one arm shoved beneath a flat pillow and one leg hitched up, spine contorted. The skin, Jackie realizes, is everywhere. She’s wearing boxers and a sports bra, but she doesn’t see that at first. Just the naked back of a knee, so pale from being without the touch of the sun, her lower back dimples. The sharp shoulder blades jutting out.
Jackie swallows.
This is technically not different from quick glances in the locker room.
This is technically very different from quick glances in the locker room.
Usually they’re a flurry of bodies. Everyone dances after a good game or practise, thrusting hips and jeering, all exaggerated hip swings and arm waves. Jackie’s locker is on one end from Nat’s and they’ve never been up close like this before. Usually somebody is interrupting that space; be it Shauna’s pretty brown eyes or Lottie’s loud laugh. Jackie has never really looked at Nat’s naked ankle before. How delicate it is, the slight groove of her bone, her bare foot. She’s missed a tiny patch of hair along her knee when shaving and it is dark in contrast to the bleached mess of hair Nat sports around.
This would be easier if Nat wasn’t asleep and half naked. Shauna, in contrast, sleeps burrowed under layers of individual blankets, an oversized sweatshirt covering her up. She sleeps like she’s preparing for winter every time, feet toasty hot in fuzzy socks. It always makes Jackie’s stomach feel buttery and warm when she stretches her arms up and reveals a tiny sliver of skin across her stomach, or when Shauna rolls her pyjama bottoms up to her knees.
Sweat trickles down her back. Everything about her now feels sticky and overheated. Her soccer shorts are loose around her hips and Jackie tugs at them a little before gently kicking one foot up, nudging the mattress. “Hey. Wake up.”
Nat moans a little and flips her face deeper into the pillow.
Jackie kicks the bed impatiently and refuses to stop until Nat’s peeling the pillow back and scowling. “Fuck off,” she bites out through clenched teeth. And then her eyes widen a bit and she’s even angrier. “Jackie?”
“We’re going to be late,” Jackie informs her shortly. “Are you hungover?” She can smell beer radiating from the girl’s skin. They don't have time to shove a greasy breakfast down Nat's throat to stave off the worst of the hangover.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Nat slings out so fast it comes out as a single word: whatthefuckareyoudoinghere?
“Picking you up.” She takes the keys out of her pocket and rattles them. “Get with the program, Nat. I don’t have all day.”
Nat bolts upright and yanks a hand through her hair. “Did you break into my room? Jesus, dude. What is your problem? Are you a stalker or something?”
“Your mom let me in—”
The pillow from the bed goes flying into a wall. “No. This isn’t a thing. Get the hell out of here right now, I swear to Christ.”
“You already missed three conditioning sessions. They aren’t optional. I’m team captain now and it is my responsibility to make sure you attend every practise,” Jackie tells her. “I don’t want to cart your ass around all summer, but I’m not going to let you bail on us. So hurry up and get your shit together. We need to go.”
“Get out!”
Jackie rolls her eyes. “You’ve got twenty minutes before we have to leave.”
Which proves incentive for Nat to get ready in just shy of five minutes, rushing and stumbling over her own feet in order to get Jackie out of the trailer faster. She scowls as she yanks on a grey shirt and circles the messy space to find her shorts. Jackie is curious and cannot stop looking around her. The shadowy space reveals tiny things in flashes; dried flowers hanging upside down over the window, an empty cigarette carton left on the milk crate beside the door, a few records standing upright. Nat doesn’t bother to make her bed which makes Jackie’s skin itch a little. She was raised with a mother who valued perfection above all things. Jackie does not leave her room without smoothing her hands over invisible wrinkles and smoothing them away first.
Nat boulders into Jackie and forces her out of the bedroom. “This is the last time you ever come in here, got it?”
“Yeah, this has been a total delight.” Jackie rolls her eyes. “I’m getting us to nationals even if I have to drag your sorry ass there.”
Vera is asleep on the couch, cigarette dangling from her fingers loosely onto a tea cup beside her, red tip poisonously hot. “Don’t open the door for people you don’t know,” Nat tells her furiously as they leave. She then also slings something in Italian at her like she’s awake and listening.
Despite herself, Jackie is fascinated. She’s never spoken to her own mom like that. She can’t even imagine speaking like that to anyone ever. “Is she sick or something?”
“Yeah. Sick in the head.”
The humid air cooks her face when they exit, but Jackie gulps it down pathetically. Her hand is itching to grab onto the body spray in her bag to coat her skin with Candied Apples, but she knows that wouldn’t be polite. Nat’s not offering anymore details about her mom and Jackie kind of gets it, going silent and leading her over to the car, it literally gleaming like liquid mercury. They get in and she fiddles with the settings, forcing up a gust of chilly air through the vents.
And then she freezes up.
Jackie needs to reverse. She needs to turn the car around and exit the lot.
“Is this your first time in a car?” Nat asks her sarcastically when she notices the hold up. A beat passes and her head leans back into the leather headrest. “Is this your first time driving?”
“I got my permit.”
“Did you seriously wake me up to play copilot?”
“I woke you up because the team needs you.” That sounds corny. Jackie tries again: “Ben vouched for getting you onto the team and you’re going to be there whether you like it or not.”
Nat’s stare is both flat and prickly. She’s displeased by this low blow. Her jaw is a little pink, possibly a mark from sleeping against her pillow, and Jackie wonders how she can sleep on such a flat and sad looking pillow. Jackie’s bed is complete with six pillows and one decorative one that often gets thrown to the ground whenever she gets into it. Her bedsheets alternate per season; linen in the summer, flannel for the winter. For the three years in her life that they’ve celebrated Christmas at home, reindeer patterned sheets come out for that particular holiday. Jackie knows a bed by the comfort it provides. Even Shauna’s bed, as familiar to Jackie as her own, is soft. The quilt is a little old fashioned and the attic roof makes it impossible to sit upright in bed, but Jackie knows that laundry detergent imbedded right into the mattress, the perfume that lingers. How safe it feels.
Right now Jackie imagines Shauna’s bed and tries to take comfort despite Nat’s silence. It is enough to get her started, yanking on the wheel and jolting backwards, softer with the clunk of her foot down on the brake, engine whining immediately. She guides it narrowly until there’s enough space to get around, snaking out of the trailer park.
This is not her place, Jackie thinks. Her neighbourhood was nothing like this patch of burnt grass.
Nat yanks her hair back with an elastic and flattens some of the scowl out. “You’re not stepping foot in my place again. Okay?”
“Are you going to show up for practise by yourself?” Jackie cannot imagine walking the distance to the school. Maybe that was why Nat ditched. Maybe that was why her school attendance was in such a state. “Ben said you had to start showing up.”
“We’re not friends,” Nat rejects. “You don’t just show up at my door. And you don’t ever speak to my mom again. I don’t give a shit if you’ve got a hard on for a trophy or something, I will break my legs and take the bench the whole season.”
Occasionally Jackie’s mom gets her shit together and finds a hobby. Last time it was yoga. Right now she wishes Nat would commit to some of those calming yoga breathing exercises. “Great, yeah. You’re just so tough,” mutters Jackie. They leave the trailer park behind, Nat still fuming. “What am I supposed to do? Pick you up from the side of the road like a homeless person? Would that be better?”
“Whole lot better than you showing up in my bedroom.”
“Your mom let me in. Most people are awake in the daytime. Can you chill? Just like, shut up and enjoy the scenery.”
They don’t know each other. This year was Nat’s first on the team, deposited there by a forcefully cheerful Ben. Jackie hasn’t had a reason to actually talk to her since they’re a grade separate. This is her last year at Wiskayok High School and her turn as team captain, and Nat isn’t going to drag her down. Jackie cannot tolerate failure. She will get them to nationals, secure that golden trophy, and leave a legacy so perfect that no one will ever be able to truly live up to it. When they talk about winning, they will be talking about Jackie Taylor. The girl who clawed her way for it.
Nat folds her arms across her chest and sits uncomfortably against the leather seat. The air conditioner is on high and the sound of it working overtime fills the car. Jackie does not cry as she comes back up the road by the ravine, managing to drive at a reasonable speed this time. They get to practise just in time for her to run out and meet with Bill on the edge of the field, car straddling two parking spots in the lot, already dreading the process of driving home after. Mockingly Bill claps his hands together when Nat comes to the bench, ducking down to tie her laces tighter, Van falling to her side like a magnet.
Easy, Jackie tells herself. It’ll be easy from here on out.
Gossip spins fast. Apparently Lottie figured out that Nat arrived to practise with Jackie which meant Mari also found out. Someone told Robin and eventually that bit of information got leaked to Shauna and Taissa, the girls standing out on the sidelines by the water cooler, idly fanning themselves to try and keep the heat at bay. Because of Nat’s unexcused absences, she’s gotten the task of cleaning up the field when they’ve finished for the day, all the other girls retiring for the locker rooms to change and clean up.
Jackie blots with a bit of toilet paper to her forehead and nose to remove any oils while some of the girls talk loudly around her. Akilah is off this week for a camping trip with her sister, and they seem louder in her absence, voices bouncing off the lockers. Taissa deposits her go-bag down on the counter beside her defiantly, taking up just as much space as Jackie is currently occupying. “I can’t believe you even knew how to find the trailer park,” Taissa tells her through their reflection. “Did you get lost on the way?”
Taissa has handled her becoming team captain terribly. Jackie has dealt with barbed comments for weeks since the announcement, Taissa literally storming out of the gymnasium when Bill gathered everyone to share the news. “This town is literally the size of a postage stamp. It isn’t exactly a challenge to drive from one end to the other.”
“Were the peasants quaint out there?” Mari adds from where she’s kneeling, trying very hard to lace up her gladiator style sandals up her calves. Her toenails are painted a bright orange and it reminds Jackie of fruit drinks, a creamsicle melting. Pretty. She’s jealous. Maybe tonight she’ll paint her own.
“Oh my god,” Jackie says loudly. “It isn’t that serious.”
“You’re playing chauffeur to Scatorccio.”
“Nobody goes to Natalie’s place,” Taissa reports before leaning towards the mirror to swipe a dark gloss over her lips. It makes her mouth look suddenly sweeter, like she’s dabbed a trace of honey there. “That’s kind of her thing. Her fortress of solitude or whatever.”
“Wow. That’s a real dork reference coming from you,” Mari says.
“I’m just saying, bitch, that she doesn’t invite people over.” Taissa looks through the mirror towards Van. “Right?”
“Nobody has seen her mom since the accident,” Robin chips in helpfully. They’re crowding in closer, all of the girls, each one straining for a share of the counter-and-mirror real estate. Jackie thinks she’ll do face painting here for spirit weeks, anything to get enthusiasm up. The lighting is good and maybe it’ll be easy, painting player numbers to the girls’ faces, even a yellow jacket.
Mari laughs. “Spooky.”
“Accident? That’s generous.”
Van doesn’t say anything immediately. She’s preoccupied with dipping her hair brush under running water from the sink before combing her hair with it, temporarily slicking it straight back, not really looking any of them in the eye. “Her mom goes out. Usually brings her empties over for cash at the beer store on Tuesdays.”
“Wow. Environmentally conscious. Impressive. First she blows her man’s brains everywhere, now she’s saving the planet.”
Jackie stares at Taissa. It would be, she feels, catastrophic if Nat walks in right now. They’re lucky she’s out in the heat collecting stray balls and pylons. Misty’s probably chasing after her, trying to manage the equipment Nat’s hauling around. “Knock it off,” she says. “You guys sound like a pack of ghouls. Her mom didn’t just—” Jackie cannot properly say it, “— do that.”
They don’t know each other, her and Nat, but she knows there’s a razor sharp line between Nat’s absences after her dad dying and the ones she’s accumulating now. A funeral at a church, Laura Lee being extra quiet for the days leading up. Jackie cannot imagine what it would be like if her own dad died suddenly, how it would feel.
Everyone goes quiet for a spell, just long enough for Lottie to dry two individual coats of mascara to her lashes before going in for a third time. “They’ve got this game, apparently, out there. Kids go up to the door and knock seven times to try and summon the ghost.” Her mouth tilts to a smile. “I remember trying to summon Bloody Mary over at the monkey bars in the first grade. Same shit, different ghosts.”
“Okay. So nobody goes to Natalie’s place unless they’re trying to summon a ghost… or they’re Jackie doing an errand for Ben.” Taissa stashes her lipgloss into her bag and zips it up tight. “Did you see any blood on the steps?”
“Do you wanna pitch in here or something?” Jackie calls to Shauna. She’s not stupid. Shauna’s been hanging out on the opposite side of the field from Jackie all practice, just beyond reach. “Seriously, don’t leave me playing one against ten.” Shauna is kneeling down at her locker and shoving books into her bag because sh ents to hit the library before it closes. “Earth to Shipman. Shaunaaa.”
“I don’t know,” she finally says. The bag is straining to hold the weight of all those books and one falls out. “What?”
“Hey, back me up here.”
“It really isn’t my business.”
“Just tell them that they’re being assholes and to shut up.”
Shauna rolls her eyes and looks at their audience. “Jackie says you’re being assholes and to shut up,” she parrots.
“Amazing words from our captain,” Taissa retorts before leaving.
Jackie grabs Shauna by the arm and pulls her away, blushing. “Are we good? What’s wrong?”
“We’re fine. I just don’t have anything to say about Nat’s business. When did you take up the role of crusader?”
“First of all, the only role I’m taking on is that of princess,” Jackie says, trying to summon a smile. “You’ve been quiet all day.” Three weeks, actually. Ever since she got her permit. Ever since Shauna secured her employment for the summer. “Do you want to hang out at the pool later?”
“Can’t. I’m working.” Shauna shoulders her bag, strap fraying. “You know I had to work my shifts around these practise sessions, right?”
“Don’t look at me. I didn’t schedule them.” This wasn’t the lazy summer that Jackie had been anticipating all year. She doesn’t know if it’s the fact that she’s working at the country club where Shauna’s mother is also working or if it’s because she’ll be working at the country club where Jackie hangs out, but she’s different now. Jackie feels like a kid trying to get her mom’s attention, putting on her best smiles for a tiny bit of approval. “You know, I don’t think there’s a law against me sitting by the life guard post. We’d be hanging out and you’d be getting paid for it.”
“Can’t. They really hate when a kid drowns and the life guard on duty is distracted.”
Jackie’s smile grows wider. “Am I a distraction?”
“Look, I really need to go. I’ll call you later, okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Can’t wait.”
Shauna exits just as Nat’s coming in, her face shiny and red. Every eye lands on her and she doesn’t wilt under the attention, just peels her sweaty shirt off and reaches into her locker for a fresh one, absolutely silent. Mari lifts her brows a little and smirks over her shoulder, following some of the girls out.
It leaves them alone. Jackie sighs. She wants a good shower, the kind she can only get at home. “Ready?”
“I’ll walk.”
“It’s a billion degrees out there. You’ll die of heat stroke.”
“Should’ve thought about that before you had us come out here to kick a ball around.”
“I didn’t assign the practise!” Jackie snaps. “Just shut up and get in my car.”
Nat slaps her locker shut with her hand and fists her dirty shirt in the other. “I’m fine on my own,” she tells her.
The air is cloying in here, dozens of body sprays mixing together. If Jackie had the patience, she might try to decipher it all. Figure where Taissa’s vanilla sugar sits against Mari’s Indian rose. But she’s pissed now, kicking her own locker with her foot and stalking over to the book on the floor and scooping it up. Virginia Woolf’s name stares back at her, a library tag on the spine. She’ll tell Shauna that she has it later, Jackie decides. But right now?
She’s sick of it all.
The house is dead silent when she gets home that night. The car gets parked crookedly in the driveway and she enters like a thief, not bothering with the lights. Like a sick joke Jackie finds her mom passed out in the living room, television set flickering some black and white film, orange bottle of pills sitting right next to an empty wine glass. Her mom has been claiming migraines Jackie’s entire life, but the only cure for them is apparently the kind that comes with self medication.
Jackie gets it. She’s swallowed some of those pills just to understand her a little more, filling her skull with that sleepy buzz, stumbling around until she spilled across the floor, unstable on her feet. Her mom won’t wake for anything right now, but she’s still careful. Toes her shoes off and tucks them in the hallway closet. Feels her way down the hall to the kitchen without turning on a single light. Inside the fridge is a plastic baggie of carrot sticks and celery that she takes along with a Diet Coke, scooping both up to her chest and heading straight up to her room.
A trophy, an acceptance to college, and getting the hell out of here. Jackie feels those three goals like a vice around her chest. She wants to believe that she’s capable of achieving those things, but they feel beyond her reach tonight. The best she’s got in her is the ability to crank up the hot water in the shower and let it run for a few minutes, eating her dinner alone in her bedroom while the bathroom fills with steam. There’s no blinking message on the answering machine. Her mom was passed out from pills and wine, but no missed message from Shauna.
Jackie eats the celery only as punishment for a bad day. The Diet Coke tastes hollow and leaves her unhappy. She abandons the mess and goes into the washroom, smearing her hand through the hazy mess on the mirror, wiping until her face is revealed. Her hair is curling around her throat and shoulders from the heat and she yanks on it lightly, stretching it out from the roots to her fists. She doesn’t want this, Jackie knows, but she isn’t sure what she actually wants.
Shauna to call her back, maybe. Or if Shauna would just look at her again and really see her.
She showers slowly and with great intention. Dozens of products are stacked up around the tub and she selects whatever will make her smell like a cupcake tonight. Washes her hair twice before applying a mask to the ends, using an Apricot facial scrub to banish any dead skin. Doesn’t stop until she feels a little newer, like this Jackie has been hiding under the skin of the old Jackie. Her skin is red and irritated but also softer now. She washes the mask out of her hair and kills the water immediately, sinking down to the bottom of the tub to watch the water drip down from the shower head.
Heat makes her exhausted. She feels it acutely now.
Eventually the tub grows cold. It makes her back hurt enough to force her out, towelling herself off and dressing quickly. Jackie ends up in a pair of satin shorts and matching tank top and is immediately reminded of Nat’s attire for sleeping, how pale her skin was without all the layers. She had intruded, she knows, on her private space. They’re just on the same team. That means nothing because they aren’t even friends. Jackie doesn’t have Nat’s number written down in her address book to call her.
Whatever. Vera opened the door. It was an invitation to get in and yank Nat out to practise. Someone had to do it.
At least it was clean in her pace. Jackie cracks the window open and immediately shuts the curtains tight, hiding her lamplight from view. If Jeff walks by tonight, she doesn’t want him getting any wrong ideas with the house dark and her room bright. Seriously? Can you give me a— give me a little something to work with, okay? I like you a lot, Jax, but I don’t want to just hold hands. They’ve split, again, and Jackie feels the absence of a person much more now that Shauna is beyond her reach also.
Pills are not necessary to sleep tonight. Jackie’s gone the minute her body hits the mattress, fading right out in a single second.
She’s doubtful when she drives up the second time to Ivy’s Lot, but Nat’s standing by the sign with a duffle bag at her feet. “That bag makes you look super homeless,” Jackie tells her. She’s joking, or trying to joke at least, and Nat doesn’t react. She’s wearing a leather jacket despite the heat wave and it smells like beer, like enough drink has been doused across the surface of it that it has sunk right into the pores of it. “I can wait outside your place, you know. You don’t have to stand out here for me.”
“I’m good out here,” Nat grunts.
“Right.” Jackie stares awkwardly at the road. She hasn’t really mastered the art of a three point turn. When she starts, it quickly evolves into a five point turn. Just get from point A to point B, she tells herself. It doesn’t have to be pretty.
Allegedly her dad was going to show her this stuff, but he got busy with work. Last time she saw him was five days ago when he returned home for clean clothes and papers from his study, bumping into him in the hallway. Not much time for the father-daughter lessons. On the bright side, Jackie reminds herself, he always fills the gas tank up every Sunday. Shauna is spending her money covering the cost of the car she bought, but Jackie gets the luxury of the family’s unused vehicle to get around town.
But besides practise, she hasn’t really taken it far. The permission to go sucks when there’s no place she’s actually going.
“Can we listen to something?”
“Sure, if you wanna die,” Jackie mutters. She pushes the gas pedal a little harder. “I keep it off when I’m driving because I’m pretty sure I’ll run us off the road if something is playing. But if you wanna listen to something, go for it. Be my guest.”
She can feel Nat’s stare. The music does not turn on. “Pretty sure your hands should be lower on the wheel. No— no, not that low. Yeah, that looks better.”
Jackie feels strange with the adjustment. Her shoulders are less tense, at least. “Thanks.”
Silence passes. And then—
“Dude, push your seat forwards.”
“What?”
“You’re sitting in the backseat.”
Jackie hits the brake and they stop roughly in the middle of the road, seat belt digging into her chest. “What?” She repeats herself.
Nat reaches down and under Jackie’s legs, tugging at something. Jackie squirms until she understands, the seat sliding forwards. Her dad must’ve set it back last time he filled up with gas and she hadn’t noticed. Blushing, Jackie doesn’t want to thank Nat a second time in one conversation.
At least Nat doesn’t look condescending or even concerned. Dark smudges line her eyes and Jackie cannot decipher if they are dark circles or smudged eyeliner. The heat makes everything feel like it’s melting off her face and she gave up her lip gloss in favour of regular lip balm, swiping it on before leaving the house.
“Guess walking to practise right now is looking pretty good, huh?” Jackie tries weakly.
“You flying us off the road right now is looking pretty great,” Nat jabs back. “You gonna put this thing into drive or what?”
She has to adjust the mirror before she tries again and by doing so, Jackie catches a glimpse of the book left in the backseat. Orlando, the flowery script says. She tried twice to phone over to Shauna’s and caught her mom both times which was embarrassing. I’m just returning Shauna’s call, she had lied both times.
Shauna never called her.
“Do you— like, do you do anything?” The question takes her by surprise, nearly choking her. Her fingers clench around the wheel. She didn’t mean to actually ask out loud. “It’s summer,” Jackie says, having to clarify. “Just… you’ve got the team, but what else do you do?”
Nat shoves her hair up into a crooked ponytail. “I hang out.”
With who? Jackie doesn’t know if she’s ever really seen Nat with people outside of the team. Until Ben tossed her in with the Yellowjackets, Jackie’s never noticed her before. The blue and yellow uniform put her on Jackie’s radar, but she’s an unknown variable still.
“Okay. You hang out.”
“What do you do?”
“I hang out,” Jackie bluffs, stealing those words for herself. Tries to sound cool when she says them.
“Great. You hang out and I hang out. Glad we covered that.”
Warmth floods her face. “Do you want to hang out sometime?” She pauses, completely a jerky, sharp left turn. “Together?”
“Hilarious,” Nat says. “Are you having a stroke right now?”
“My parents always get me a membership at the club for the summer and usually Shauna’s my plus one.” A house flickers by and Jackie catches a fast glimpse of a porcelain doll’s head stuck up by a branch of a bush. “Free pass. You want in?”
“I’m not a replacement for Shipman,” Nat tells her with a faint trace of heat.
“Obviously not. You’re… you. Shauna’s Shauna. But your place is a hot box,” Jackie says, trying to emphasize that she’s talking about the heat and not the place itself, wary of stepping on toes. “This place has a decent pool. Three pools, actually. Your choice if you want in.”
“Why are you asking me?”
She looks and catches sight of that book again. Shauna’s name is written on the inside library label with a due date that she’s four days shy of. “We play for the same team.”
Nat laughs. “Sure we do.” It sounds sarcastic when she says it like that and Jackie’s immediately irked. What does that mean? Is Nat secretly rooting for the opposition to win? “Why don’t you invite Taissa?”
“I’d rather boil myself alive then hang out with Taissa.”
“Fair point.”
She huffs a little. At least it feels easier driving now that Nat has adjusted her seat. “Yes or no. This is a one time offer.”
“Are you allergic to going by yourself?”
Jackie isn’t going to beg for a favour, but if she goes to the pool, she’ll be sitting alone this year and Shauna will see how pathetic she really is. That’s unbearable. And she also has this weird, premature bit of nostalgia telling her that she’ll never have this summer at this age again. Next year she’ll be preparing for college. The summer after that will be somewhere else with new people. She’s growing up and it feels like the ground is sliding out from beneath her feet, pushing her along faster and faster. “I’m not asking for a fucking kidney, you asshole.”
That kills the conversation. Nothing is spoken until the houses around them are denser and a little more colourful, closer to the school. Nat turns her face to the window and looks away from Jackie. “I don’t really have anything for swimming.”
Oh. Now she understood. “I’ve got a ton of stuff you can borrow.” They weren’t much different in size. “Are you coming with me or not?” Outside she can hear the buzzing of cicadas, a surefire sign that tomorrow will be just as hot as today. “Look, I don’t really give a shit. It’s your summer, you can do whatever you want. But I’m wasting mine by a pool.”
“Alright, fine.” Somehow Nat makes it sound like Jackie’s pulling her teeth out. “I’ll go with you.”
“Great.” The green field shows crisply from beyond the bleachers. Suddenly Jackie is reminded of what Taissa said, talking about blood on the steps up to Nat’s trailer. Faintly she feels disgust. Jackie had walked up those stairs without even thinking twice about it. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow.”
And she does in the morning, halting to a hard stop right at the side of the road, Nat flicking her spent cigarette away like it was nothing. Easy, Jackie tells herself. This can be easy.