Tully

‘Nothing personal,’ he said grumpily.

‘What is it?’

‘Don’t hound me,’ he snapped.

‘Go to hell,’ she snapped back, and walked out of the room.

Tully remained in the bathroom, with a long line of footballers lining up outside the door, knocking and muttering obscenities. To complement the black skirt, she put on black high-heeled pumps and a white short-sleeved T-shirt – plain, thin, no bra.

That’s me, thought Tully. That’s what I am. And when I die, that’s what will be on my tombstone. Plain, thin, no bra. The T-shirt was cut off at the navel, showing her young stomach. Some more red lipstick, some more black eyeliner, and she was set.

She strolled out of the bathroom, looked bemusedly at the herd of guys scrambling past her, and then stood against a wall. Lighting a cigarette, she scratched the inside of her bare thigh and smoked. A guy walked by and ogled. Another guy also ogled, until the girl with him pinched him hard; he walked on. A couple was walking up the stairs. The male gave Tully an appraising up-down. The female’s glare was less appraising, more abrasive. That girl didn’t even notice me before, thought Tully. I wasn’t properly dressed before. She smiled.

Tully must have looked good, judging by the reaction of the females; always, but always, she told herself, judge your appearance by the reaction of the females. The more derisive the look, the better Tully was attired. And I haven’t even danced yet, Tully thought gleefully.

She stubbed out her cigarette on her shoe and got out a piece of gum. Satisfied with herself, Tully was about to go downstairs in search of Jennifer when Julie stormed out of Jen’s bedroom with Tom behind her. Tully sighed.

Julie stopped near Tully and smiled. ‘Well, Tull,’ she said. ‘I’ll be damned. I shouldn’t be surprised, really.’

‘Surprised at what?’ asked Tully, ignoring Tom’s expression at the sight of her. He looked at her as if she were not the same person he had just insulted. Finally, she smiled an obnoxious smile at him and cracked her gum. ‘Mary Poppins bag to the rescue once again,’ she said to Julie. ‘Remind me to take my clothes out of Jen’s hamper before I go.’ She pulled out another Marlboro. ‘Julie, every day in school you see me metamorphose myself. Why are you looking at me as if I’m from Mars?’

‘Tully,’ said Julie, touching her friend’s upper arm, ‘like I said, I shouldn’t be surprised, but you never cease to amaze me.’ She rubbed some blush off Tully’s cheek. ‘Not too much metamorphosis, eh?’ she said.

‘Thank you, Julie,’ said Tully, moving ever so slightly away from Julie’s hand. ‘Earth to Tom, Earth to Tom,’ she said. He stood dumbfounded and deep red, obviously embarrassed by his own inability to stop staring at Tully’s breasts poking through the T-shirt.

Departing for the bathroom, Julie left Tom red-faced, self-conscious, and alone with Tully.

To talk at all seemed impossible – the music was loud and they would have to come close to each other. Tom would have to bend his head down to her mouth, and Tom looked as if the thought of coming closer to Tully were already rendering him insensible. But just to stand there and not talk seemed equally unpleasant, so Tully moved away from the wall and closer to him. He backed away, was stopped short by some guy right behind him. He looked to her as if he would burst. She stood on tiptoe until her mouth was an inch away from his ear and said, ‘I think you should grow up and not hold it against me anymore.’

Tom didn’t look at her. ‘I don’t hold anything against you,’ he said. ‘So when are you going to be eighteen?’ In January, she told him, and he said, ‘That’s nice!’

He didn’t hear me, thought Tully. He is not even listening. He has not stopped staring at my tits, and this really pisses him off.

Tully stopped trying. A misunderstanding between them – when any conversation was already so undesirable – was too much to take, so when Julie emerged from the bathroom, Tom rushed straight to her, and Tully slipped out of sight and down the stairs.

Watching Tully disappear, Julie poked Tom in the chest. ‘You’ve obviously frightened her. I’ve never seen her go down the stairs so quickly. Why, I think she took them two at a time!’ Tom wiped his sweating forehead and apologized to Julie for his earlier behavior.

Tully found Jennifer loading up on apple strudel in the kitchen.

‘What a loser,’ she muttered.

‘Ease up, will ya?’ snapped Jennifer. ‘I want to eat it, it’s my birthday, so ease up!’

Tully looked at Jennifer as if she were from outer space. She came close, broke off a piece of the strudel, shoved it into her mouth, and said, ‘Hello, Mars. Not you, you nut, Tom.’

‘Oh.’ Jennifer looked relieved. ‘Him. I thought you were gonna bug me about my weight. Forget him. He doesn’t like us. He thinks we are a bad influence on Julie.’

‘He’s an idiot,’ said Tully. ‘I think he is a bad influence on Julie.’

Tully wanted to change the subject and ask Jennifer, who seemed absentminded and listless, about the brown-haired boy, but Mrs Mandolini came in with a clutter of people wanting more ice, more strudel, more Jennifer.

Jennifer left Tully in the kitchen peacefully stuffing her face and smoking.

‘You shouldn’t smoke, Tully,’ said Mrs Mandolini from behind her. ‘It’s bad for you. And your mother would kill you if she found out.’

How right you are, thought Tully, taking a deep drag and moving toward the living room.

Tully stood against the wall in the living room and watched Jennifer offer a beer to a blond guy. In the way Jennifer handed it to him and looked up at him and minutes later danced to ‘Wild Horses’ with him, Tully took a shot in the dark and guessed it was the guy. He sort of looked like the guy at the lockers. It was dark and Tully couldn’t be sure. He wasn’t wearing a football jersey.

Look at her, Tully thought, amused. Jennifer was stumbling over her own feet, looking at them instead of at him. She looked awkward, especially when compared to the boy’s tall, fluid grace.

Tully lit another cigarette and sighed. She wanted to dance, too.

Dancing. Tully had learned when she was young how to dance; with a God-given talent and a love for music, both classical and rock, she had learned at twelve how to move, dancing naked in her room late at night in front of the mirror. Tully had spent endless solitary hours in her room, banned from the living room or the dining room, or avoiding sleep – dancing. She had learned to make good use of that mirror, of her naked body in front of that mirror, of music and her naked body, breastless, hipless in front of the mirror; and then, when she began to bud and grow, Tully had already worked out her own private, emotive, erotic act. She started to dance at the spin-the-bottle parties, at first with others and then tentatively by herself in the corner, and soon in the middle of the room. She danced fast and she danced slow, the boys clapped, the girls joined in or just watched; in any case, it became quickly known around Robinson Middle School that Tully Makker was a fine dancer.

But it was at fourteen, when Tully volunteered to dance at a special talent show one Friday night, that the whole faculty was made aware of her ‘gift’ as she danced with her eyes closed to Beethoven’s Emperor. The principal, labeling Tully’s dancing morally reprehensible, called Hedda, who had missed her daughter’s performance. Where had a fourteen-year-old learned to dance like that? the principal asked Hedda. Mrs Makker wrung her big, clammy hands and cried, but Tully was suspended for a week anyway.

The full-length mirror was taken away and Tully was never locked in her room anymore, but it was too late. Tully had grown to love the reaction of her peers and her elders. Feeling that she had a true talent, Tully, in the next three years, proved to the enchanted and drunk patrons of Topeka’s nightclubs and bars, to the students and the rugby players and the farmers, just how prodigious and how wasted her talent was. Tully was sure the punishment Hedda meted out when she found the condoms in Tully’s room would have been a lot harsher had she been aware of the hundreds of dance contests that Tully had won, of the money her daughter had made, of the boys and men Tully had danced with, and more.

And tonight, Tully stood alone and smoked only briefly, barely managing to finish her cigarette before three guys from school came over to her and asked her to dance, all at once; and she smiled and did. She was so breathless afterwards that she even danced with Julie. Cheek to cheek, Tully danced with her friend, knocking into people and bouncing off. And then she grabbed on to Jennifer, but there were now too many guys around Tully who, having recognized her, would not let her alone, and Tully, still wanting to have a word with Jennifer, managed only a quick whirl with the birthday girl to part of Neil Young’s ‘Hey, Hey, My, My.’

Afterwards, Julie got Tully alone for a moment.

‘Tully,’ Julie said, ‘I’m sorry about Tom.’

Tully waved her off. ‘But Jule, how could you have told him anything at all about me?’

Julie looked embarrassed. ‘Tull, I’m sorry. He is my boyfriend. I thought I could trust him.’

‘Oh,’ panted Tully. ‘Don’t you get it? It’s not yours to trust him with.’

Julie lowered her head. ‘I’m sorry, okay?’

‘Okay,’ said Tully, and went back to dance.

After an hour of frenetic dancing, a sweaty and exhausted Tully sat down on the sofa in the living room, soaking up the lights, the music, the smoke, the booze, the guys.

I spy with my little eye something beginning with – ah, but I don’t know his name. She spied the brown-haired guy, dancing with his girl, though dancing was a strong word for what she was doing. Tully did not pay attention to his dancing; she was much more forgiving when it came to the male sex.

Jennifer was talking to her blond footballer in the corner. As Tully studied him, she had to grudgingly admit that with the lights off, strobes blinking, music blaring, cigarette smoke fogging up the room, he did not look bad. In fact, he almost looked kind of…okay. He was tall and broad-shouldered. It impressed upon Tully in some visual, non-specific way that he held his head high, impossibly high, even when he was bending down to hear Jennifer.

The Stones were ‘Waiting for a Friend’, and the brown-haired boy and his girl, deciding to sit this slow one out, snuggled on the couch next to Tully. She watched them out of the corner of her eye. Eventually he got up – to get a drink, apparently. His girl sat still, not turning her head to look at Tully. She sat there with her little skinny doe-like legs uncrossed and close together.

The boy came back with the drinks and sat down, not between Tully and his girl, but rather at the very end of the couch. Well, that’s all right, thought Tully. Now I can see his face.

After a few moments, he looked away from his date and stared calmly at Tully, then politely smiled and once again faced his girl.

He is even better looking than I first thought, Tully mused, sipping her beer, but older than most guys I know. She appraised his groomed slick look, his southern European, round, clean-shaven face. When he talked to his girl he tilted his head and smiled, showing perfect white teeth. When he laughed, his eyes lit up. Tully noticed his Levi’s were ironed (what kind of a man irons his Levi’s!) and even his pink Izod shirt looked freshly pressed. He doesn’t look very tall, thought Tully, but in every other way – Tully smiled inwardly – well, let’s just say I wouldn’t climb over him to get to his date. But it was obvious that the little mouse was not about to let him out of her sight and in fact kept turning around and shooting lethal glances at Tully.