Chapter Three

Geri’s Diary

 

            Matt came looking for me and I was at the creek. Ganny told him I was there. I don’t know, but I didn’t want to see him there. I didn’t . . . I don’t know.  He got mad at me for being mad at him! I tried to make something up. This place has to be to myself.  I like it down there. There’s something about the sound of the water as it comes around the curve, flattens out and gets shallow, the way it just barely trickles over the rocks. I want to sit there and listen to it and the birds and I don’t want anyone bothering me.

            He got in his truck and drove away mad. He’ll be gone soon. I keep telling myself that because I have been trying to get used to it. He helped me get through this year, and I don’t know what will happen, what I will be like without him.

At OSU, he’ll be so good. He already knows he wants to be a lawyer. He always has a level-head about things . . . well, most of the time. I do think I get under his skin once in a while. Sometimes when we’re kissing, and his arms are so tight around me, pressing me to him, I know he loses that rational side. I do, too. Even more than him.

 He would listen to me if I could tell him about everything that goes on inside of me.

            But that’s the problem too—there’s so much going on, if I only told half of it, that would probably be enough to scare him away. Someday I’ll tell him about how I came to be here—all I’ve said is that my mom died and Dad couldn’t take care of me. I cut him off if he tries to talk about it. I’m not ready for him to know that much about me. And then . . . he’s going to be gone soon, and I’m not deceiving myself about how we’ll be able to stay together. Seriously. He’ll be in college next year, and I will still have three more years of high school to go. Whatever he thinks of me now, and I know he thinks of me . . . I know how much he cares. But when time passes, and I don’t see him every day of the week at school. . . . What will he think of me?

            I told him once that I met Coach back when he was at the high school in Tahlequah. Of course, then he wanted to know all about it, and what could I say? I stumbled around and managed to make up something about how I went to a basketball camp for grade school girls that he was running one summer. Then I changed the subject.

            He finds me at the creek and the magic is gone. There is a magic down there. I can stop thinking about the game, about meeting Coach’s expectations  down there, and I think I sit very still when I’m there. I am never still anywhere else. The water slows me down and it fills my head and it helps me be me, as much as I can be. I don’t know who I am really. I don’t even know if I want to find out. I want to be left alone so much of the time, and then I want someone beside me, too. Now that I’ve quit running away physically, I need to learn how to quit doing it mentally. I want to think clearly, but I can’t yet.

 

            Matt didn’t seem to care about the homemade dress. His eyes lit up and he immediately reached for her when he showed up at the door.

            “Wow, you look gorgeous,” he said, pulling her to him and giving her a light kiss, before turning to Ganny who had come to the door.

            “Home at the same time,” she told him.

            “Yes, ma’am. She’s safe with me.”

            Ganny made a grunting sound. Geri knew that she liked Matt, but she wasn’t going to show it too much.

            Matt was wearing a black suit and a bright white shirt with a skinny purple tie that looked stunning on him, Geri thought. She smiled, thinking about how he had asked her what color her dress was. She hadn’t realized he wanted to match her in some way.

            “Nice tie,” she said.

            “Oughta be. Took me an entire day in Tulsa shopping malls trying to find a purple one.”

            “Oops, sorry.”

            He stopped at his car and pressed her against the passenger door. “Don’t be. It was worth it. Now everybody will know we’re a couple.” He kissed her then, not lightly, but with such intensity, Geri felt her knees almost shake. His lips were warm, and he smelt of a subtle cologne, like cedar trees and autumn air. His long fingers cupped her hips, and the silky material of her dress might as well have not been there. She felt naked when he held her like that.

            “Was there a doubt?” Geri said, coming up for air.

            “Oh sometimes . . . sometimes I think you’re not quite with me.”

            “What?”

            Matt smiled then and put his hand to her cheek. “Oh nothing. Let’s get going.”

            But Geri wouldn’t let it go. As soon as they got in the car, she said, “You’re going to be gone in just a few months.”

            What she wanted to say was that she knew they would stop seeing each other then. Even with the end of this school year one week away, things would change. For Geri it was a mixed blessing. Summer meant no more seeing Matt every day in the hallways at school, but it also meant no more schoolwork. Yet it was the beginning of the end. In August, Matt would be going to Stillwater, and though he was adamant about continuing to date Geri, she just didn’t see how it was possible when he was three hours away and surrounded by college girls.

            “So?”

            “You’re not going to be dating some tenth grader when you’re in college. Your friends would laugh at you.”

            “Like I care if anyone laughs at me.”

            “We’ll see.”

Geri had grown up avoiding attachments to people. In the past year, she had grown close to Ganny, Bird, and Matt. That was it. She wasn’t ready to lose Matt, and she knew their worlds would be so far apart come August.

            “Hey, maybe when I’m a senior, you can come to OSU too, and we’ll be senior and freshman again,” Matt said.

            “How would I even go to college?” She and Ganny barely got by on the little fixed income Ganny brought in every month. The social services had pressured Ganny to take Geri’s dad or mother to court to get child support, but Ganny wouldn’t have any of it.

            “Scholarship, you dodo. Just you wait—basketball scouts will be lining the road out to your house in a year or so.”

            “You sure have a lot of confidence in me,” Geri said. She reached across the car console and put her hand on his knee. He put his own hand over hers.

            “I do, and I don’t understand why you don’t. You’re a varsity-level player now, and you’re bound to grow another few inches and just get better and better. By your senior year, you’ll be setting Oklahoma on fire.”

            Geri loved the way that Matt could get so excited—his dark hair would fall onto his forehead and his blue eyes would almost seem to glow. When he smiled, the dimple on his left cheek elongated in such a way that she couldn’t help but reach out and kiss it.

            “I’m not sure I want to set anything on fire,” Geri said, teasing.

            “You know what I mean.” He squeezed her hand and then brought it to his mouth and kissed it. His eyes narrowed, and Geri’s stomach turned circles. What was going to happen? What did she want to happen tonight? She knew what he wanted, and she wished she could give it to him.

            She had always felt so unlovable. Why was it that she now had two people who seemed to love her to a fault? What did she have to offer them?

            “Watch the road,” she warned him, as he seemed to be staring at her more than anything.

            Geri leaned over and draped her arm across his chest and rested her head on his shoulder. His heart beat smoothly and loudly under her arm, and she wanted to remember the sound and the feel of him because she knew she was going to lose him.

She would lose him especially if she didn’t . . . if she didn’t give him what she needed.

As they drove in silence, she thought about that first time he had asked her out.

Matt and his girlfriend had just broken up a few days before. Talk about clichés, Geri had thought when she saw them together: the football quarterback and the head cheerleader. What a pair.

            She told herself that she had no interest in Matt at all. Besides she was a freshman, and he was a senior. He was 6’4 and not only the football team’s starting quarterback, but a star forward on the basketball team. The two coaches were always fighting over him, but in a town the size of Fishinghawk, a lot of students did double or even triple duty in sports and other clubs.

            It was the last hour of the day, and Geri had a pass from art class. She had told Mrs. Wilson she needed to go to the bathroom, but really she just felt like roaming. She was already done with the clay pot they had been working on, and she had begun to fidget and feel an overload of energy about to descend upon her. The art room was in a separate building from the rest of the school, and she crossed a little bridge to get to the gym door, which was closer than the main entrance of the school. Matt was sitting on the concrete steps right outside the gym door. He was lacing up his track shoes. Of course, it was spring—he ran track, too.

            Geri saw him and for some reason decided to go on by and come in through the main entrance after all. He looked up as she came near and said, “Hey, Geri, come here.”

            She didn’t even know he knew her name.

            “What’s up?” she managed to say, hoping she sounded casual. She could barely hear her own voice with her heart drowning it out. Her throat suddenly felt dry as unmixed cement.

            He was wearing a pale blue t-shirt that showed every chest and arm muscle he had, and the color emphasized his eyes, sparkling in the light from the sun. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.

            “How about you go to the movies with me tomorrow night?” he asked. His voice was much deeper than the ninth grade boys she shared most of her classes with. It was also a little hoarse.

            Geri hadn’t been on a date since moving in with Ganny. In fact, technically, she’d never been on a date, though she’d had boyfriends when she was in the foster homes—if you could call them boyfriends. She blinked hard to shut out memories threatening to ruin the moment.

            “What’s on?” she asked, not completely turned toward him yet.

            “Come here,” he said again. From a distance, he was okay to deal with—gorgeous but just that. Hearing him talk to her though was different. She felt so many things in just  those two words. How was that possible? She stepped closer to him.

            He stood up then and said, “Does it matter what’s on?”

            Geri got the feeling that they must have had this conversation before and she was supposed to know what he was thinking. She couldn’t read him. He leaned back and smiled real big. He had a dimple in his left cheek. It made him look younger. Geri relaxed.

            “No, I guess not,” Geri said, wishing her jeans didn’t have those silly little slit pockets. She really wanted some place to put her hands. She folded them across her breasts, or at least, under them.

            As if in response, he seemed to look at her chest just then. She could feel herself blushing.

            “I don’t like dumb movies though,” Geri said, trying to get him to look up, though now she was afraid to even look at him to see what he was doing.

            “I wouldn’t take you to a dumb movie.”

            When she looked this time, he was staring across the field in between the auto mechanics building and the parking lot. Did she just imagine him staring at her breasts? It was quite possible. She knew she was paranoid about them.

            Just then, the door to the gym swung open and Coach Thorpe strode out. He frowned as soon as he saw her.

            “What are you doing out here, Tang? Best get on to class.”

            Geri nodded as he walked by. He didn’t seem to expect an answer.

            “Why does he call you that?” Matt asked.

            “I don’t know—he’s weird,” Geri said with a laugh that she knew sounded forced. She had no intention of explaining her name just then.

            The gym door crashed open and three boys on the track team hustled out. They slapped Matt and jostled him around and kidded him as they passed, only noticing Geri enough to give her the once-over look.

            “Pick you up at seven?”

            “Yeah, okay,” Geri said, feeling her face redden again as the boys whistled and moaned her name as they ran across the field toward the track. “Do you know where I live?

            “Sure—out there on Jackson Road, right? With your grandma?” He had moved a few steps forward and was very close to her. He smelled nice, not like cologne but like freshly-dried clothes, a warm scent.

            “My great-grandma. But yeah—Jackson Road. Third house on the left.”

            “Gotcha,” he replied, pointing a finger at her. “Gotta run.” He brushed her arm as he passed and ran to catch up with the rest of the team.

Gotcha is right, Geri thought now, two months later. He got her that first night—not with sex. But he got her because of what he knew about her. He knew what she wanted. Sometimes she felt he knew what she was thinking. She had never had anyone like that—except for Bird or Ganny. And that was not the same. She didn’t feel that quick rush in her belly when thinking about Bird or Ganny. They didn’t make her want to give up the world for them. And she didn’t like the fact that Matt did make her feel like that. It was too dangerous.

Chapter Four

The last time she had run away from her dad and Sheila’s house, instead of walking the eight blocks to Fishinghawk Elementary, she headed toward the outskirts of town where Highway 82 ran through Fishinghawk and a smattering of other small towns before it reached Tahlequah, another small town but one that boasted a university and the seat of the Cherokee nation.

            A woman picked her up before Geri had gotten a half mile out of town.

The woman had a helmet of brown hair tall as a Pentecostal lady’s but she wasn’t wearing Hush Puppy shoes. She smiled a lot. Later, when Geri was going through the system, she had stayed for a few months with a Pentecostal family. It was the only foster home where she actually felt safe.

            “Your hair is pretty near the color of rubies, did you know that?” she asked in between smiles.

            Geri twiddled with the straps of her Spice Girls backpack and didn’t answer.

            “We had a shipment of ruby rings in yesterday,” she said. “I suppose George got a deal on them. I don’t know how we’ll ever sell them all. It’s the July birthstone, and here we are only in January, so it will be a while before we can advertise them as such.”

            She went on talking about her job at a jewelry store in Tahlequah, the price of silver and something about carrots, which Geri had thought odd at the time, thinking she was maybe talking about bunnies and Easter jewelry. Geri stared out the big block of window on the passenger side and watched as they sped by familiar landmarks.

Geri had been to Tahlequah with her mom when she still lived in Oklahoma and with Dad and Sheila because they liked the Wal-Mart there better than the one in Pryor.

            Geri didn’t know where she was going. She listened to the woman, who seemed to have picked her up, not out of any mothering instinct but because she wanted someone to talk to. Sometimes Geri’s voice worked against her. Her words didn’t come out right. Sometime like now, all the parts of her body were working against each other—head saying “sit still,” legs saying, “jump out of this car,” hands saying, “open that door,” stomach saying, “I need to throw up.”

            The lady kept smiling and talking.

            Geri felt she was doomed to be one of those people whose instincts were so strong and roaring in their heads so loud that they figured with all that noise something must be wrong. So the thing to do was just to ignore the instincts and go in the opposite direction. If all the signs were shouting at you to go one way, then that must mean that there’s a problem and you should try the other way.

            The lady had stopped talking. Geri glanced at her and noticed she was staring at her rather than watching the road. Her eyes were hidden by mirror-lensed sunglasses, and her lips were thin with red lipstick only clinging to the outline of them.

            “What?” Geri whispered.

            With that, Geri realized it was the first word she’d said since telling Sheila the night before that she really didn’t care if Sheila was having a baby, and she had no preference about having a brother or sister.

            “I was saying that I was trying to help a lady buy her daughter a birthday present yesterday. I’m afraid I wasn’t a supreme help though I did make a sell. I don’t have any children,” she said, her attention swerving back to the road, a smile creeping out again. “You’re about fourteen, fifteen, right? What kind of jewelry do girls your age like nowadays?”

            “I . . . uh . . .”

            “Yes? Well, speak up, can’t you? It’s a simple question after all.”

            The smile disappeared. Her voice was suddenly shrill. Geri felt sure the woman had quickly came to the decision that it was a mistake to pick her up, that Geri had failed her as a passenger.

            “I don’t have any jewelry,” Geri finally said.

            The lady made this sound that was a gasp and grunt at the same time, half surprise and half disgust. The sound Geri’s dad made when she did something, like refusing to let Sheila fix her hair, that made him mad and unable to tell her why.

            “I think girls like those bracelets with all the little stones in them—tennis bracelets, is that what they’re called?” Geri said, finding her voice.

            Why should she want to please a total stranger and not her own dad? The thought rose and she stifled it.

            The lady’s smile came back and Geri was relieved. She had said the right thing.

            “Of course! Do you know that’s exactly what I suggested? She bought one with cubic zirconias and some laboratory-created emeralds that I thought was just darling. Made a nice commission off that one, too,” she added, as her tongue came out to lick her thin lips.

            She lifted one hand from the steering wheel and twirled her wrist. Her gold watch sparkled in the morning sun. She wore it with the face on the inside of her wrist, probably so she could show off the pretty stones that lined the band. You wouldn’t even know it was a watch unless she turned her palm toward you.

            “I’m fixing to be late to work. I must have lost a few minutes when I stopped for you.”

            She concentrated on the road and the car jerked forward with the extra weight she put on the gas pedal. She no longer paid attention to Geri. Geri noticed that light brown makeup was smeared on the white collar of her silky long-sleeved shirt.

            In Tahlequah, she made a few right turns and stopped in front of a large red brick building—the high school.

            “Here you go,” she said. Geri stared at the building without moving. “Well, here you are. Go on, get out. I have to run.”

            Geri pulled on the door handle and let her body take over.

            “No thanks is necessary,” the lady said sarcastically, and before Geri could get her footing, she reached across and pulled the door to her. A sharp pain told Geri she’d caught a wad of her hair in the door. As the woman sped away, Geri could see one reddish-gold curl dangling against the passenger window.

* * *

            The track meet was in Tahlequah. Retying her track shoes, Geri stared across the field at the entrance to the school. It hadn’t changed since that day the woman had dropped her there. She had stared at the entrance and started to walk away when Coach Thorpe walked out the door. That was the first time they met.

“Earth to Geri. Earth to Geri. I’d like to follow you around like a puppy all day but I guess I won’t get to,” Matt had said, indicating the record book he was carrying. He had pulled a hamstring and so instead of participating he was acting as recorder for the day.

            Geri smiled, trying to imagine Matt as a puppy. The picture just wouldn’t come into her head. He was way too tall and his voice way too deep. Plus, though she was ready to admit to herself that he seemed pretty crazy about her, she couldn’t see him worshipping her every move.

            “Okay,” she said, wanting to add that she would miss him, but too many people were standing around, including Johnna who was glaring at both of them. “But you can give me a little nudge every once in a while if we meet in passing.”

            “More than a nudge.”

            He winked and set off across the field.

            “I expect you’ve been doing more than nudging for a while, huh Geri?” Johnna said as soon as Matt was out of earshot.

            All kinds of witty phrases came into Geri’s head: What’s wrong—you can’t get any nudges yourself? Wouldn’t you like to know—or watch?? What the hell business is it of yours, bitch? None of the phrases had a chance to come out because as if on cue, there was Bird standing between them.

            “Hey woman, let’s go to the bathroom. I’m about to stain my drawers,” she said to Geri as she placed herself firmly between Geri and Johnna.

            Johnna scowled and said something about “guardian,” but she walked away.

            That was the thing about looking older than your years, Geri thought. Everyone assumed you were doing everything that older girls did—like having sex with your boyfriend. Geri had begun to wonder what her life would be like if she were a short, flat-chested, ugly ninth-grader instead of 5’10 in her socks with a 36C bra and, apparently, a quite pretty face.

            “Are you going to follow me around the rest of my high school career and get me out of trouble?” Geri asked. She tried to have a light, joking tone, but it didn’t come off since Bird responded with irritation.

            “I’m not your guardian! Though you sure seem to need one a lot of the time!”

            She stalked off toward the fieldhouse and Geri followed, murmuring an apology and putting her arm around Bird’s shoulders. Geri was glad that Bird usually forgave her easily, which was a good thing since Geri seemed to be popping off like a jerk a lot lately.

            “You know I’d loan you my drawers if you stained yours,” Geri murmured, making the word “drawers” have about five syllables in it.

            Bird laughed and ran ahead of her into the bathroom.

            Coach Thorpe caught them on their way out and showed them the schedule of events. Geri’s first event was the 800 relay, and it wouldn’t be for an hour or so, but Bird was in the broad jump and they were getting ready to start. Geri followed her to the pit and sat down by the chain link fence to watch and cheer her on.

            “You should be up and walking around,” Coach Thorpe said in passing. “You’ll get cold and your muscles might tense up if you just sit there.”

            “I’ll get up in plenty of time to stretch and warm up,” Geri said.

            Coach had a crevice in the middle of his forehead that seemed to deepen every month. He frowned and the crevice became a minor canyon.

            “Is it possible that maybe one time you could agree with me and do what I say?”

            Geri thought, I always do what you say. She looked up at him, her mouth open but nothing came out.

            “The first time I saw you, even then, when I was just trying to help you, you were a belligerent little girl.”

            He said this without looking at her. He nodded to another coach who waved at him from across the broad jump sand pit.

            I was a scared little girl, was what Geri wanted to say. She didn’t get a chance because he took off across the field again. He wasn’t any taller than her, a blocky man, Cherokee with dark skin and hair. He had a way of taking charge of a situation, almost without words. He’d done that when she was a girl standing in front of the high school building. She had never been in a high school. She was 5’2 and weighed 105 pounds, but she had never been in a high school.

            Though the sun was shining, a cold breeze was lifting up the edge of her jacket, and she wanted to go inside. She needed to try and think out her next move. When she’d run away before, she’d usually call home after a few hours or someone would get suspicious and call the cops if they saw her sitting around on the sidewalk during school hours. This morning, she hadn’t had any special plan. She didn’t want to go to school and he wanted to piss Sheila off. That was as far as the planning went.

            Soon her ankles were red from the cold. She had on a pair of jeans and t-shirt with a brown pullover jacket that was too small. Her socks were also too small and didn’t cover her ankles well. She pulled at a loose thread on the socks until she had a small pile of thread on the concrete next to her.

            “I hope your mama doesn’t mind you wasting a good pair of socks.”

            Who knows what my mama minds? Geri thought, hardly aware that the words had come from someone outside her own mind.

            “Don’t you think you ought to be inside in this weather?”

            Geri sensed the man standing next to her now, but she didn’t look up.

            “Are you waiting on someone? You’re obviously at the wrong school. Did you get off the bus too soon?”

            “My mom’s in California,” Geri had said then, immediately cursing herself. What a stupid statement.

            “So I take it, she’s not going to pick you up.”

            “I don’t give a crap who picks me up,” Geri said, finally looking up. She hoped she sounded as tough and mean as she felt.

            The man startled her—he was wide and dark and had the most intense look on his face. He wore a creamy-white sweater and a pair of very black slacks. There was a whistle on a leather string hanging around his neck, along with some sort of tie with a diamond-shaped turquoise stone on it.

            “You don’t need any help then?” he asked, and Geri distinctly sensed he was trying to keep a smile off his face. That made her even madder than Sheila had made her the night before.

            “No, I don’t. I can take care of myself,” she said with gusto she didn’t feel. But she quit playing with her sock and stood up.

            “I’m Coach Thorpe,” he said. “Come on inside and I’ll find someone who can give you a ride over to the middle school.”

            “No thanks,” Geri said and turned way, realizing she wanted to run now.

            “Hey, get back over here!” he hollered after her. “I’m just trying to help.”

            “I can get to school by myself,” she managed to yell back to him as she ran across the driveway and narrowly missed a car that was circling it.

            She was ten-years-old and in the fifth grade then.

            Geri had been surprised when she’d moved in with Ganny and started at Fishinghawk school to see Coach Thorpe there. He’d transferred from Tahlequah. Their encounter had been very brief, but she remembered him, and he remembered her.

In fact, she remembered a lot of the detail of that day—the jewelry lady, Coach Thorpe, the convenience store she’d ended up at a few hours later, the ride out of Tahlequah and toward Muskogee that she’d gotten with an old couple, ending up in a park in Atoka in southern Oklahoma, sleeping under a picnic table in the corner of the park.

Her life only felt like it was hers when she was running away, and that’s one reason, she told herself, that she did it so much. Still, there was something in Coach’s voice and the way he looked at her that made her want to stop running, that made her want to talk to an adult for once and tell the truth, to seek comfort. She ran away from comfort back then. She still found it hard to accept a hug from Ganny even though she loved her now.

She got no comfort from Coach now. He just rode her all the time, pushing and shoving her to wake up, stretch, run faster, compete, do your best! She hadn’t been looking for someone to be on her case like that. But that’s what she’d found and she was hooked on it.

As soon as he was a safe distance away, Geri stood up and started stretching. She would stretch for a half-hour and then spend the other thirty minutes jogging in place and practicing her start. She would do what he wanted. At least what he wanted wasn’t her body like almost every other male she knew. But then, maybe he wanted something even more important. She leaned forward to stretch, her face level with the ground.