The Female of the Species Read online

  “Excuse me?” she says, the brows finally separating a little as they fly upward.

  “How do you know the bag has puppies in it?”

  “I had to swerve to miss it,” she says, her voice losing a bit of its edge. “I could see it in the way that it rolled, you know? Like there was something inside trying to get out.”

  “Could’ve been kittens,” I say.

  “What does it matter?” the lady half yells at me. “I came here to the shelter to tell you there’s a bag of kittens or puppies or whatever lying in the ditch on 9 and you’re not doing anything about it.”

  “Why didn’t you stop?” I ask, feeling my internal gear switch from argumentative to combative smoothly, a well-oiled machine.

  “What?” She’s fuming now, her breath coming in shallow gasps that aren’t giving her brain enough oxygen.

  “You swerved to miss the bag. You care enough to report it. So why didn’t you stop and do something yourself?”

  “My kids are in the minivan,” she says. “I didn’t want them to see anything they shouldn’t. Look, I’m doing everything I can. I feel sorry for those puppies—”

  “I’m sure they appreciate your pity,” I say.

  She’s done playing nice. I see her own gears switching and know that I’ve pushed too far, called out a sanctimonious would-be do-gooder who isn’t going to fold under my logic.

  “Who is your supervisor?” she asks, glancing around the room as if suddenly realizing she’s the only adult here.

  “God,” I say.

  5. PEEKAY

  “God?” I close the passenger door of Alex’s car and she kind of half smiles as she starts it. The shelter is locked up, the sign flipped to “Closed,” a heavy cloud of dust marring the air from the lady in the minivan, who tore down the driveway like we’d loosed a biter on her. Alex left a message on Rhonda’s phone telling her we were checking into a “tossed bag that is moving” out on 9—not specifying puppies or kittens.

  “Technically it’s true,” she says, in answer to my question.

  “So you believe in God?” I want to kick myself as soon as I ask it, because first of all it’s not the best icebreaker in the world, and secondly I just firmly filled in all the cracks of the preacher’s-kid mold I’m trying to crawl out of.

  But Alex shoots back with a question I’m not expecting. “Do you?”

  I don’t think anyone has ever asked me that before. It’s assumed, like the fact that I don’t own any naughty underwear or am tattoo-free.

  “Yeah,” I say, and that’s actually the truth. I don’t like being a PK, but I’m not a liar, either.

  “Why?”

  I feel my imaginary ruff going up, like a dog trying to make itself look bigger. I don’t know Alex, I don’t know if I like her, and I don’t feel like defending something as big as my belief in God during our first conversation. I’m about to say something along those lines to her, even though it’ll be the pared-down version—fuck off—but I bite my tongue. All the shitty things I could possibly say back up in my brain because it sounded like an honest question, not a single-syllable word laced with derision, which is what I’m used to. And I guess if I’m going to be working with Alex at the shelter, we have to speak to each other at some point. Might as well cut the shit.

  I take a second to put together a real answer, not some blow-off recitation of “Jesus Loves Me” where I tell her it’s “because the Bible tells me so.” I know I’ve got something to say, but I want to get the words right, so I look out the window as Alex drives toward 9.

  We hit the one light in town on a green and head north, going past three bars and two pizza places before we get to the dead zone—a couple of paved streets with real signs (Fifth and Sixth) but nothing on them except dead-end drives. The town planners got a little overexcited in the nineties about what they thought the new calculator plant could bring to the community. Ended up all it had to offer was a broken lease and a big empty building two years in.

  Oh, and like a lifetime supply of free calculators for the school. But then someone programmed them all to spell BOOBS when they powered on (58008, upside down) and they got tossed into a school auction. In a terrible twist of fate, a church the next town over bought them for their school-supply drive and apparently a bunch of fifth graders got more than they bargained for the first day of math class. But none of that musing is getting me any closer to giving Alex an answer about why I believe in God, and she’s kind of giving me the side-eye while she drives.

  “I guess it’s because sometimes when I’m really upset, if I quiet down and let myself be still, I can feel . . . something.” Tears well up in my eyes even as I say it, because Lord knows I’ve been really upset lately and that feeling of comfort surrounding me for no reason I can put a finger on . . . well, yeah. It makes a girl cry. Even one who’s trying to shed the PK stigma.

  But in the end it’s still a shit answer.

  So I’m surprised when Alex nods like she totally gets it.

  “You feel it too?” I ask.

  She shrugs. “No, not like that. But things have a way of falling into place for me when I need them to.”

  “Cool,” I say, and our big soul-baring is over.

  Alex turns onto 9 and we spot the bag at the same time. It’s an industrial-strength black garbage bag, visible heat waves rolling off it. Alex pulls over and puts her hazards on—although why she bothers, I don’t know. We’re surrounded by cornfields waiting for harvest and haven’t seen another vehicle since we passed the last bar in town. We both get out of the car.

  I know before we get to it that there’s no hope. The bag’s not moving, which is part of it. But there’s also the reek of urine in the air and the slight metal tang of fresh blood. I don’t even know if I want to see inside, but Alex doesn’t hesitate. She opens it without flinching, both smells amped by about a thousand when she does.

  I look away.

  I hear the rustle of the bag while Alex checks to make sure they’re actually dead, and then the zip sound of her lacing the drawstings up tight and double knotting them.

  “Three puppies,” she says. “Two broken necks and an asphyxiation.”

  I look up and down the road, the only sound the dry corn stalks rustling against one another and the persistent, regular ticking of Alex’s hazard lights. “No chance anybody saw him out here,” I say.

  “No,” Alex says, taking the bag to her trunk and laying it in gently. She snaps the lid shut. “But at least that lady felt sorry for them.”

  We head back to the shelter, Alex in silence, me fuming. I’ve got my mouth clamped shut tight, all my breath coming in and out of my nose in short little bursts. All I can think about is that truck flying down the road, the hands that would’ve put their sleek little bodies in the bag before tossing it out like so much garbage.

  A puppy feels like life and love. Their entire bodies are soft—fur, skin, the pads of their feet new and delicate. They radiate warmth in the way science can explain, but it goes further than that. The heat of affection pours out of their eyes and makes their little butts wiggle like crazy as soon as they see a person—they don’t even care who. They’re love, encapsulated. And someone touched that, put it in a bag, and killed it.

  We come to a four-way stop in the middle of nowhere, corn stubble on one side of us, a collapsing barn on the other. It’s one of those places that have stop signs on all the corners for no apparent reason, because never in the history of the county have there been four cars here at the same time. But there is another right now, an elderly lady in her Buick. She waves at us to go ahead and Alex waves back, her fingers a casual up-flick on top of the steering wheel.

  My breath is catching in my chest, my mind still thinking of puppies wriggling together, trying to draw comfort from one another in the overheated trash bag, the little whining noises they would’ve made to signal to the guy driving that they were scared. Their mystification that he didn’t care. And the sound it would’ve made when th
e bag hit the road. For one second I wonder what I would’ve done if there had been a truck sitting at the intersection, and I let myself follow the thought.

  I imagine a rusted-out truck, a guy wearing a T-shirt with ripped-out sleeves. I think about how he’d roll down his window, a casual question on his face until I open the door, drag him out, and kick him in the gut over and over and over until he’s making the same noises those puppies probably were.

  It’s a fantasy, and I know it. I’m a tiny thing—five foot four—and on the days I have to bring more than two textbooks home I struggle lifting my backpack. I’m not big. I’m not strong. I’m not intimidating. I will never kick the shit out of anyone, and even if I had the chance I wouldn’t do it.

  But it kinda feels good to think about it.

  6. JACK

  I’m the guy who other people want to be.

  I see it in their looks when I sink a three-pointer, hear it in the collective roar from the stands when I score the game-winning touchdown and do a series of backflips—and fuck the ref for throwing an “excessive celebration” penalty flag, anyway. I can do those things and look good before, during, and after, knowing the whole time that I’ll have at least one tit shot texted to me that night. And then on Monday I can go to any one of my classes and deliver a speech, nail an exam, or speak in a foreign language the entire time without blinking because I am the whole package. I get girls, I get trophies, and I most definitely am going to get to be valedictorian.

  Except . . . I’m not.

  Alex Craft is.

  I’m sitting next to her in the guidance counselor’s office with my mouth hanging open just enough that I’ve probably disqualified myself from salutatorian as well.

  “I don’t understand,” I say for the third time. “I’ve got a 4.0.”

  “So does Alex,” the guidance counselor says. “And she’s taken more weighted classes than you have.”

  “But I want . . .” I close my mouth then, aware it’s more than a want, it’s a need.

  If I can’t get a scholarship, I won’t be going to college. I’ll be another senior who says they’re taking a year off first, and then ends up trying to pay for my kid’s college from behind a burger grill, wondering what the fuck happened. And then my kid’ll do the same thing and when I retire I can cede my spot in the drive-through to my grandkid. I can keep my body in shape anywhere, but my brain is going to rot in this shitty little town because I’m too poor to get out of here without a free ride.

  I’m so focused on me, I’m not sure I’ve heard her right when Alex says, “You should just give it to him.”

  Alex, who could write a book about things that aren’t fair. That guy in the woods had it right three years ago—I’m a douchebag.

  Miss Reynolds’s eyebrows come together. “Class rank is not given, Alex. It’s earned.”

  “It’s nonsensical for me to have it. I’m not going to college.”

  Now the guidance counselor’s mouth tightens as she says, “We’ve talked about this and—”

  “Why wouldn’t you go to college?” I interrupt Miss Reynolds, turning to look—really look—at Alex. I don’t think I’ve ever been this close to her, and when she turns her head, I see how green her eyes are.

  She shrugs. “I can’t conceive of myself outside this place.”

  “Oookaaaayyyy,” I say, glancing at the guidance counselor. She smiles at me encouragingly, but her eyebrows are still stuck together in concern.

  “It’s very simple,” Alex says patiently, dividing her words between the two of us. “We’ve both earned it. He wants it. Give it to him.”

  The way she says this makes it seem so easy that I know I’m wearing a yeah, see? look on my face. But the guidance counselor sighs and shakes her head.

  “I can’t just arbitrarily decide who is the valedictorian.”

  “You’re misinterpreting where ‘arbitrary’ fits in this conversation,” Alex says.

  Miss Reynolds closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose. I get the feeling she’s had many, many conversations with Alex that end this way. When she looks up, she’s got her professional face back on.

  “A lot of things can change before the end of the year,” she says. “And, Jack, you need to remember that being salutatorian is nothing to sneeze at.”

  Which to me sounds like: Alex is very unlikely to make any mistakes, so you need to start adjusting to the new reality.

  Alex and I walk out of the office together and I find myself in an awkward situation that only people from small towns can appreciate. I know Alex Craft. I know her in the sense that I could pick her out of my class photos from kindergarten on. I know her because people don’t leave this place and our parents know each other—hell, I’m pretty sure my mom dated her dad. I know her because everyone knows everybody here, and Alex especially because her sister is the only reason a news crew has been in this town, ever.

  I know Alex Craft. And I have nothing to say to her.

  But I want to find some words that will make her look at me again, because I liked the way her green eyes stood out among all those freckles. And the part of me that goes to AP English digs that she’s smart, while the part of me that slaughters freshmen with dodgeballs is kinda turned on by the idea that I’m competing against her for something.

  And she’s walking away from me.

  I know how to do this. I know the things to say to people that will keep them at arm’s length while reinforcing how cool I am. I know how to speed up or slow down to give them the idea that you’re really not into talking to them and the distance between the two of you grows even though you’re the only ones in the hallway. I know how to make a joke about taking a shit and duck into the bathroom for a few minutes until they’re gone.

  Instead I take a few extra inches in my stride until I’m keeping pace with Alex. I see her eyes flick in my direction for a nanosecond when she picks me up in her peripheral, but she doesn’t slow down.

  “Crazy, huh?” I say.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The valedictorian thing. Crazy.”

  She stops at her locker, gaze going to the hallway clock instead of me. “I don’t know that it’s crazy so much as an indication that we’re both intelligent people.”

  “But you’re more intelligent.”

  Alex spins her combination lock. “Not necessarily. I’ve never been quite clear how such a thing is determined.”

  “They take your GPA and—”

  “I know how the school does it,” she says, snapping her locker open. “I mean in general.”

  “Oh,” I say, because I can’t really think of anything else.

  The bell rings. The sound slices through the hall, scattering all the words I’m trying so hard to accumulate between us. She jumps as if she wasn’t expecting it, her hands curling into fists.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “No,” she says immediately, the unexpectedness of the question prompting an honest answer.

  “Can I”—help? Have your number? Touch your arm? Get you to look at me again?—all of these things are utterly lost as my name comes rolling down the hallway in Park’s drawl.

  “JAAAAAAACK,” he’s calling for me, more than a little obnoxious as he turns the corner to find me at Alex’s locker. The halls are filling up and there’s no reason for him to think that I’ve actually been talking to her. Except she’s finally looking at me again, waiting for me to finish whatever this sentence is going to turn into.

  And I can’t come up with a single goddamn word. My mouth is hanging open and it’s like she’s the hook and I’m a fish and I can’t do anything but flop around when Park pushes his body against mine so that we’re touching from toes to forehead and all I can think is Jesus, really? Right now? This is the moment he chooses to pull out a joke from seventh grade?

  “Jack, baby,” he says. “I missed you so much.” He clenches my head in his hands and covers my mouth with his thumbs and fake kisses me so hard I swear I�
�ll have bruising tomorrow. “And you, girl,” he says to Alex after pulling away from me. “I could just eat you up.”

  He’s going for her with a big dumb grin on his face, absolutely certain that she will have no problem with him smashing his fingers into her lips and his face up to hers. Her expression doesn’t change; that slightly confused look that had been directed at me as I struggled with words now turns to Park as the fist that never unclenched finds a target.

  She drops her shoulder to gain some momentum as she takes a jab at his crotch, one bony knuckle protruding on purpose for maximum effect as if she wants to pop his testicles like water balloons.

  And he goes down like a box of rocks.

  7. PEEKAY

  We are having a funeral for Park’s balls.

  That’s how it seems, anyway.

  After Alex brought him to his knees in the hallway and walked away like she’d done nothing more than litter, Park curled up into the fetal position. He pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head so that nobody could see his face while he recovered his masculinity, and everyone gave him a wide berth. The hallway was totally silent except for the occasional What happened? followed by an explanation, followed by the kind of respectful silence we reserve for male groin injuries.

  Jack tried to talk to him but got only grunts in response, and everybody decided to leave him there and went to class. Mr. Franklin walked past a few minutes ago, and I imagine he’ll say a lot of understanding things that end in “buddy” for a while until he can coax Park up off the floor.

  Miss Hendricks wasn’t quite sure what to do because she isn’t equipped to offer support to Park, and not forceful enough to make us stop talking about it. So instead of discussing Crime and Punishment—which Alex is calmly sitting in her seat reading—we’re talking about the fact that Park was dick-punched.

  The guys are laughing their asses off. They keep reenacting it and attempting to fist-bump Alex, but she couldn’t be less interested. The girls are split into two camps: the ones who have on very straight faces and keep saying that Park could be seriously injured, and those who find it genuinely amusing every time one of the boys involved in the instant replay pretends to reinflate their balls by blowing on their thumbs.