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“I don’t want to be tricked,” I said, but he was already insidefield, with no end in sight “Not into a baby, not into a boyfriend, not into anything”
“Don’t worry,” he panted “You always get yours Just like me, always like me”
I felt us together, speeding up towards so faster, and he brushedblack ears, as soft as led and damp with our sweat, and I bit hiets his”
“Why not? It’s nothing we haven’t done before”
When I got up off of the horse blanket, old blossoms spilled out of me like Coyote’s seed
Later that night I fished a slove box and sat on top of the dented salt-rusted cab of my truck Coyote stood down by the lakeshore, aways off from the crohere the water came up in little foamy splashes and thetrees whipped around like they were looking for someone to hold on to Bobby Zhao was down there, too, his hands in his jean pockets, hip jutting out like a pouty lip, his hat on again and his face all in shadow They were talking but I couldn’t hear over everyone else hooting and laughing like a pack of owls The ; itand victorious and hu He took Bobby Zhao’s hand and they just stood there in the light, their fingers ether The wind blew off that str
aw hat like it didn’t like the thingat Coyote, his hair all blue in the night, and Coyote kissed hi, and Bobby kissed hi for it since he was born Coyote got his hands under his shirt and oh, Coyote is good at that, getting under, getting around, and the boys smiled whenever their lips parted
I watched I’ Who doesn’t like to watch? It feels like being God, seeing everything happen far away, and you could stop it if you wanted, but then you couldn’t watch anymore
A stor their kisses with autumn rain
Suddenly everyone cared about as going to make the Devil’s Court this year Even me The ust, and soet any more in, like ere an island mysteriously sundered from the land of sequins and sweetheart necklines Most of us were just going to have to go with one of our h you can be da off that poofy shoulder chiffon and taking up the he Businesswomen’s Association) had done all the costumes for The Music Man in junior year, and for 50 she’d take that cherry cupcake dress and turn it into an apocalyptic punkslut wedding gown, but girlfriend worked slow Whoever took the Ho up there in sorandmother’s funeral
The snant by then, and Jessica too, but I don’t think even they knew it yet Bellies still flat as a plains state, cotton candy lipstick as perfect as a Re sickness, nobody’s feet swelled Sarah Jane shone in the center of her ring of girls like a pink dia 40, equestrian club, head cheerleader, softball pitcher, jazz choir lead soprano, played Juliet in both freshman and senior years, even joined the chess club She didn’t care about chess, but it looked good on her applications and she turned out to be terrifyingly good at it—first place at the spring speed chess invitational in Free You couldn’t even hate Sarah Jane You could see her whole perfect life rolling on ahead of her like a yellow brick road but you knew she’d include you, if you wanted If you stuck around this town like she meant to, and let her rule it like she aimed to
Jessica and Ashley flanked her down every hall and every parade—a girl like Sarah Jane just naturally grows girls like Jessica and Ashley to be her adjutants, her bridesmaids, the baby’s breath to make her rose look redder All three of the would ever change, like Macbeth’s witches, if they wore daisy-print coats and their mothers’ Chanel and tearproofforever and the worldaside to let it pass So that was the obvious lineup—Queen Sarah Jane and her Viziers Of course there were three slots, so I figured Jenny Kilroy would slide in on account of her charitable work to keep us all in the shimmer
And then Fridayarrived, the dawn before the dance and a week before the shon game with Bobby Zhao and his Cowboys Coyote howled up 7 a—a hundred perfect dresses Whatever weon the rack of the h for daddy or bare enough for us, well, it was hanging in our closets with a corsage on the hip Coyote took us all to Holittered and threw pris the color of the ripest puh it invited the world to love ne like I’d already been sipping flutes for an hour, as if silk could e on reen ears not yet open
Coyote danced with all the girls and when the music sped up he threw back his head and howled and we all hoith him When it slowed down he draped hiht she had a chance The rest of us threw out our arht—Jessica spent half the night withherspun The music came fro We were so strong that night, ere full of the year and and no one drank the punch because no one needed it, we justout my arms and spun away from David Horowitz (pep squad, 100- a new body to carry s plinked in soymnasium and I opened my eyes to see Sarah Jane in my arms, her dress a perfect, icy white spill of froth and jewels, her eyes enerous rose-colored smile She smelled like musk and honeysuckle She smelled like Coyote I danced with her and she put her head on ht of her, the chess queen, the queen of horses and jazz and grade point averages and pyramids and backflips, Juliet twice, thrice, a hundred times over She ran her hand idly up and down my back just as if I were a boy My vision blurred and the Christ everywhere swaold The queen of the softball team lifted her sunny blonde head and kissed um and whiskey She put her hands in ht—but the song ended and she pulled away, looking surprised and confused, her lipstick dulled, her bright brown eyes wounded, like a deer with sudden shot in her side She ran to Jessica and Ashley and the three of the fluttered there, so as yet unknown and unnamed
The principal got up to call out the Devil’s Court Myand howling that had becoot out his index cards all the same He adjusted his striped tie and tapped the mic, just like every principal has ever done And he said a name And it wasme forward and I didn’t understand, it was Sarah Jane, it would always be Sarah Jane But I stood there while Mr Whitmore, the football coach, put a crown onCoyote stood there in his tuxedo, the bowtie all undone like a brief black river around his neck, and he winked athound-eye, and the principal called three more names and they were Jessica and Ashley and Sarah Jane They stood around ly tiaras on their heads and they looked at ht a pass in the end-zone, Hail Mary and three seconds left on the clock I stared back and their tiaras were suddenly rings of wheat and appleblossoes like suns, and I could see in their eyes mine wasn’t rhinestones any more than it was ice crea alive: a crown of corn, not the Iowa yellow stuff but blue and black, priht fit to rise, with tufts of silver fur sprouting froether with crow feathers and olds