{"id":334,"date":"2021-03-16T13:14:37","date_gmt":"2021-03-16T20:14:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/?p=334"},"modified":"2024-11-21T11:57:55","modified_gmt":"2024-11-21T19:57:55","slug":"lookers-by-a-d-nauman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/lookers-by-a-d-nauman\/","title":{"rendered":"“Lookers” by A. D. Nauman"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Found in\u00a0Willow Springs 67<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to Author Profile<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

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“Lookers” by A. D. Nauman<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

JENNA SAT IN THE BACK ROW like she used to in high school and eyeballed her: Luanne, the original WRNL Good Looker, up front sitting straight-as-a-board with her glossy flowy mahogany hair down to her waist; Luuu-anne, all swishes and smiles, snug in a pink blazer, turning to grin encouragingly at the girls behind her. Born-to-be-pleasant Luanne, with no history of schizophrenia or alcoholism in her family. This was the kind of girl guys liked: beautiful but not too intense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenna must have been chosen for a contrast. Jenna\u2019s hair swelled in loose curls and her lips took up too much room on her face, her jawbone so steep it cast black shadows on her skinny neck. Yet everyone said she was gorgeous. The other Good Lookers were all blondes, with dumb slow-blinking Bambi eyes and teeny noses planted in the center of valentine faces. Luanne and Jenna were the only brunettes, which was probably why they got paired up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Big D sat on a metal desk up front and talked at them in his radio voice. The job was to ride around town in the WRNL Winner Wagon and give away free money. It was Big D\u2019s idea to hire luscious young girls and call them Good Lookers. They were to search for cars with men in them, as the Good Looker concept did not seem to apply to women, pick a car, then radio in a description and the license plate number, which Big D would broadcast between oldies. Big D paused to ask if anyone knew how to work a CB. Only Jenna raised her hand, but it was the others\u2019 ignorance that delighted him. He continued: if the Lucky Driver was listening to WRNL, he\u2019d know to pull over and get a free fifty bucks. The girls were to jump enthusiastically out of the Winner Wagon and run in their high heels to the Lucky Car. Big D demonstrated how they were to run\u2014holding their arms out from their sides like ladies, not balling up their fists and jogging like guys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Big D did not look like his radio voice. He was old and had that wormy kind of fat on him, with splotches on his face that went all the way up over the top of his cue ball head. When one of the blondes asked a question, Big D gripped his chest like her beauty was giving him a heart attack and pretended to faint. Then he hopped up and yelled, \u201cAsk anyone, girls, and they\u2019ll tell ya\u2014I am one crazy dude\u2014\u201d He never did answer the question. Jenna would have liked to get a long piece of cord like a clothesline and twist it around Big D\u2019s neck and pull it until his fat spotted head popped off. Probably it wouldn\u2019t pop so much as squish off, and splutter down his chest, with veins and other stringy stuff trailing down the nubby fabric of his shirt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of orientation Big D left the room walking backwards and bowing and wiping pretend tears from his eyes, and a secretary with lumpy legs brought in their schedules. No one got to work full-time\u2014Big D had hired too many girls. The pay would be dirt\u2014staying at the Pizza Hut would\u2019ve been better. But working here, Jenna would get to wear nice clothes and hear her name on the radio, feel more real. Luanne slipped into the chair beside hers and murmured, \u201cListen. I say we walk to the Lucky Winner car and hold our arms however we like.\u201d Jenna squinted her face in a fake smile: Luanne was one of those girls who\u2019s assertive on the sly. Jenna would have liked to pluck the Bic pen out of Luanne\u2019s hand and jab it into her eye socket and watch the blood gush out of her dumb surprised face. Luanne leaned closer, peering at Jenna\u2019s copy of the schedule even though she had one of her own, and Jenna got a close-up of Luanne\u2019s faultless bronze Greek-looking profile. Luke would have called her stunning. Jenna tilted away from the flawless, flowery presence. Stunning, he would\u2019ve said, not because he was a flirt, but because he always found a compliment for people. His image flickered in her mind, smiling and nodding, hair flopping forward, perched on his car hood with his guitar, fingers stretched along the fret. Happy-go-lucky Luke, a guy who liked everyone and everything. I\u2019m sorry, his voice said again in her head: the break-up was on instant replay, sometimes whispering, sometimes loud. I have to move on. You\u2019re beautiful, but\u2014too intense. Even someone who liked everything couldn\u2019t like her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THEIR FIRST DAY OUT in the Winner Wagon, Luanne drove. It was Fifties Friday, which meant every third song Big D played was extra stupid. The Winner Wagon was practically new\u2014a \u201977 Chevy with an AM\/FM radio\u2014but the radio had to stay on WRNL AM all the time, and Big D was always on, telling dumb blonde jokes, selling discount furniture. \u201cWRNL,\u201d sang a chorus of Black-sounding white women, followed by the babbling Big D, \u201cYour oldeeees station innnnnnn Newport News, Virgin-ya.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They drove. Luanne began singing along with the radio, \u201cOoh baby baby it\u2019s a wild world\u2014\u201d Jenna had never heard worse singing. Her eyes landed on Luanne\u2019s hands gripping the wheel responsibly at ten and two, her nails sensibly short and coral. Jenna and Luanne had not been actual friends in high school, but Jenna knew all about her: Luanne lived in Riverside, in a huge brick Colonial with a second garage for her dad\u2019s boat. Jenna lived across Warwick Boulevard, behind the Burger King, where the homes were clumped up together like little green Monopoly houses. Luanne was an honor student and the president of the Keyettes. Her older brother was one of the guys killed in the car crash on graduation night, but the brave Luanne had come through it\u2014knew how to do that\u2014went around talking to adults, went to family counseling\u2014with her parents; then went off to college and came back talking smart, with a boyfriend in pre-law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have to find someone,\u201d Luanne said, flashing a smile, her bangs like a wood block on her forehead. \u201cHow about him?\u201d They approached a Cadillac. \u201cNo,\u201d Luanne answered herself. \u201cAlready rich.\u201d She only wanted to give money to appreciative poor people. \u201cHim? Hm, no.\u201d Jenna watched the ruffly yellow sleeve flap over Luanne\u2019s shoulder and was reminded that now she had to go buy fluffy dresses like Luanne\u2019s. Big D had not liked the black miniskirt and sequined high-heeled sandals she had on today. His eyes went up and down her front and his throat gurgled, but then he frowned, declaring she was yummy enough for an afternoon snack, but they were after a more innocent look\u2014feminine and cheerful\u2014like Luanne\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luanne was Big D\u2019s favorite. She\u2019d stood next to him after the meeting and spoke softly in his ear, which caused him to cock his head and pant like a dog. Luanne giggled, apparently taking this as flattery, and now Jenna had to be more like her\u2014a proper little virgin type. Not a real virgin, of course, but the type who only sleeps with a long-term steady boyfriend instead of a series of three-week boyfriends, though Luke had stayed with her for six months. Time to move on, his cool voice cracked in her head. Big-hearted Luke, such an eager listener, nodding and spurting out sympathetic noises that encouraged Jenna to talk until she\u2019d told him the whole entire story of Joe McKenzie, which she\u2019d never told anyone, not even a part of it. It\u2019s okay, Luke kept saying, stroking her hair. Go ahead and cry, it\u2019s okay. But it wasn\u2019t okay. He\u2019d gotten tired of her. Who wouldn\u2019t?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luanne began calling in descriptions of cars. Jenna had to show her how to use the CB and tell her the models and makes of the cars; all Luanne could figure out was what color they were. It took a while to find a fool listening to WRNL, but they got one\u2014a guy in an ancient Chrysler. Jenna made Luanne award the prize money, not wanting the bother of getting out of the van and walking in the weeds by the roadside. Luanne came flouncing back all pink with excitement: their first Lucky Winner was a fireman whose wife just had a baby! God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THAT EVENING JENNA WALKED into her house and found no phone message from Luke. Luke was not going to call. She stood at the kitchen counter with a rusty screwdriver shoved up inside her chest and made herself a sandwich out of cheese slices. She carried it into the living room, where her mother was staring at M*A*S*H reruns, and tried sitting beside her on the couch. Her mother didn\u2019t drink anymore, but she was called an alcoholic anyway. \u201cI should embroider a big red \u2018A\u2019 on all my blouses,\u201d she\u2019d said after her first AA meeting. It was over a year ago but she wasn\u2019t any better as far as Jenna could tell, just mean in a different way. Marla the Party Girl stripped off the front, now she was like a wall without wallpaper, the rough underneath part, pale and bumpy with old glue. Usually she only spoke to Jenna to accuse her of stealing change out of the flowerpot, but Jenna attempted a conversation. \u201cDo you remember Luanne, that girl I went to high school with?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, yeah,\u201d replied the faraway voice, \u201cthat girl who took the Sears class with you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, Mama, that was Di-anne. Di-anne. I\u2019m talking about Lu-anne.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI said Lu-anne.\u201d Jenna snorted at the thought of Lu-anne bothering with the Sears modeling class, where you learned things like never wear mascara just on your top lashes or you will look off-balance. Girls like Luanne did not need to be told such things\u2014they were naturally balanced. It was only girls like Jenna, saving up their Pizza Hut money to pay for the class themselves, who had to trot after someone like Miss Judi, a real former Miss Virginia, and suck in every word she said because otherwise they would know nothing at all. After her year as Miss Virginia, Miss Judi married into old Tidewater money and had a son, and now she taught modeling part-time to teenage girls at Sears, cheering as the girls came down the runway outside the main entrance in the mall, \u201cLook at you!\u201d\u2014her eyes jacked open wide for an imaginary camera\u2014\u201cMiss America!\u201d Even when they were only rehearsing, a crowd gathered to watch them teeter up the runway. \u201cLook at you! Miss America! Jenna honey, smile! Smile, Jenna, smile!\u201d Fuck you, Miss Judi, fuck you! Jenna hated her. But she had to go every Wednesday to learn the tips and feel the crowd look at her and feel visible again after Joe McKenzie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She finished her sandwich except for the crust. \u201cLu-anne, Mama, I\u2019m talkin\u2019 about Lu-anne.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell how am I supposed to know?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someday, Jenna realized, Luanne would be Miss Judi, prinking around in tan pumps, married to an up-and-coming Virginia politician, attending important luncheons. Who would Jenna be? She got up and crossed the dining room toward her bedroom. At the table sat her father reading fishing magazines, which he did every night, though he never went fishing. His eyes snapped onto her as she passed but she didn\u2019t bother speaking. The schizophrenia was on his side\u2014in a sister and a girl cousin, who\u2019d seemed fine until their late teens\u2014and now that Jenna was almost twenty, her father regarded her as a source of imminent problems. She was getting older, more female; she had to be scrutinized for bizarre behavior, delusions, hallucinations. \u201cDon\u2019t be oversensitive,\u201d he\u2019d bark. \u201cDon\u2019t overreact.\u201d The day she came home crying after her first time with Joe McKenzie, November of her ninth-grade year, her father was furious because she couldn\u2019t say what was wrong. \u201cPull yourself together!\u201d he\u2019d commanded and she\u2019d tried. She\u2019d pressed her legs tight together and her arms hard against her sides and stood lifeless, thinking of their Thanksgiving bird, trussed and muscled into the oven, roasting with a muffled squeal as people peered in at it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Safe in her room, she shook her Fleetwood Mac album out of its cover, dropped it onto her turntable, set the needle, shut off the lights, and lay on her bed. Across the short patch of brown grass was Joe McKenzie\u2019s former house, and in the room that used to be his, a single lamp was lit. She imagined suddenly seeing him there, his rugged face gazing back at her. A hard breath caught in her chest and made her skin hot. Hadn\u2019t he been her true love? For two whole years she thought so. \u201cYou were my true love,\u201d she said to the house and smiled at how it would hurt Luke to know she\u2019d said it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE FOLLOWING WEEK Luanne drove again, up and down the peninsula. Jenna sat watching the smooth blue stripe of river, the green stripe of lawn, broad white sidewalks, blacktop parking lots: the flatness of the Tidewater terrain made her mind fold up on itself. Her brain had nothing to do but make lists of everyone she hated: Luanne, Big D, her father, her mother, all the blonde Good Lookers, and especially the Lucky Winners. Why did they get to be so lucky? She pictured herself in a frilly dress flouncing up to the next Lucky Winner\u2019s car, whirling a shotgun round and blowing off his Lucky Winner head. The head like an exploded melon on the hot car seat. \u201cHave a nice day! From Double-You-Are-in-Hell!\u201d Over and over she saw this, her eyes squinting through the windshield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre you okay?\u201d asked Luanne. Considerate, caring, well-tuned Luanne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenna croaked, \u201cI have to pee.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luanne pulled into the Hardee\u2019s and waited in the van while Jenna stood at the restroom mirror brush-brush-brushing her hair, adding more lipstick, powder, lipstick. She never looked right. She went into a stall and sat. Two weeks and one day since Luke had moved on and no word and where was he now? Holding the car door for some other girl, looking interested in some other girl\u2019s problems. She thought how \u201cLuke\u201d and \u201cLuanne\u201d both started with L-U and imagined him meeting her at a party and falling in love, because who wouldn\u2019t fall for the lovely untroublesome Luanne? Luke and Luanne riding in his Mustang, Winner Wagons pulling them over to give them money. The Mustang driving off a cliff, their bodies like crash test dummies hitting the windshield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And wouldn\u2019t Joe McKenzie laugh if he could see her now, hiding in a bathroom stall, her fingers creeping up the sides of her face and squeezing her skull. You\u2019re nuts, his voice said again in her head: Crazy bitch. God, you and Cindy. Women\u2014you\u2019re all nuts. In the woods, her skin ripping, bits of earth rubbing in, his weight crushing. His face smiling over the chain-link fence, Whoa!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She started to cry: Luke had been a kind of levee, standing shocked and righteous between her and these memories of Joe McKenzie, and now Luke was gone and Joe McKenzie was coursing through her mind like flood water, filthy, overflowing the creases in her brain. Brain chemicals. \u201cThe females have bad brain chemicals,\u201d her father\u2019s voice informed. Then came the sound of her mother\u2019s harsh laugh: \u201cThank goodness for bad brain chemicals! No one to blame!\u201d Her mother had looked directly at her, uncharacteristically, and said: \u201cAll anyone wants is to not be bothered and not be blamed. You remember that.\u201d Jenna hadn\u2019t remembered it. She\u2019d been a bother to Luke; she\u2019d blamed Joe McKenzie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suddenly Luanne\u2019s voice was in the bathroom: \u201cHello hello?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust a minute!\u201d Jenna hollered, and sat in the stall for another five minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When she climbed back into the Winner Wagon, Luanne had an announcement: \u201cI feel we need to talk. I feel angry having to sit here and wait for so long.\u201d She must have learned to speak like this in family counseling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenna stared at her, unblinking, wishing she could send laser beams out of her eyes and explode Luanne\u2019s brain right inside her skull so that bloody brain slime oozed out of her eye sockets and nostrils. Then Jenna proclaimed, with a dramatic little catch in her voice, \u201cOh, Luanne! I\u2019m sorry! Things are really awful at home\u2014my mom\u2019s an alcoholic and my aunt\u2019s in the mental hospital!\u201d Luanne\u2019s eyebrows flew up into her bangs. \u201cAnd my boyfriend\u2014last week he just went nuts! He thought I was with this other guy who used to live next door to me and he\u2019s been coming round every night with a shotgun!\u201d Luanne gasped. \u201cHis name is Luke Freeman. If you ever meet him at a party don\u2019t go out with him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh no, I never would! Oh, Jenna\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenna. The sound of it reverberated in her head\u2014her name on Luanne\u2019s lips, elongated, oval. Luanne made it sound like something with substance that was connected to a person who was real. Luanne made it sound as though she cared about Jenna. \u201cIs there anything I can do?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, now she had to do something. Jenna looked into the stupid pretty face\u2014so trusting, undisturbed, the eyes like comic book character circles. What could Luanne do? What possibly could this girl do? Bake brownies? Jenna managed, in her best sweet Luanne voice, \u201cIt\u2019s good to know you\u2019re . . . here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, I am!\u201d Luanne exclaimed, \u201cYou can count on me!\u201d ecstatic at this apparent breakthrough between them. But Jenna liked hating Luanne. Jenna smirked with hidden teeth: she\u2019d get her, she\u2019d get them all\u2014Big D, all the Good Lookers, the Lucky Winners\u2014everyone, somehow, and in the end the Winner Wagon would blow up in a column of red and orange flames.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IN THE DARK SHE LAY, her knees to her chest, Fleetwood Mac droning, images and sounds washing up on high tide in her brain. Whoa! He stood at the chain-link fence between their backyards, shirtless, a spray of black hair down his chest to the waistband of his shorts. Whoa! I just moved next door to Miss America! She was out in her backyard to get a tan so she wouldn\u2019t be such a pale-white ghost starting high school. Her bikini top had gotten way too tight, and his eyeballs could not keep still. You could use a Coke, he\u2019d said, and she thought he meant he\u2019d bring her one; then she saw he expected her to come inside his house. She hesitated. Her parents were home, but they never watched out the windows. Come on in! He was so eager, and she wasn\u2019t sure what to do, so she went into his house and sat at the table in his kitchen which was so hot and crowded with sealed-up boxes. He handed her a bottle of Coke, small and voluptuous and frosty-cold. She rolled it against the insides of her sunburned arms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next day and the day after, every day all summer, she had a Coke in his kitchen. He taught evening classes at Christopher Newport College; he was the smartest man she\u2019d ever met. He had a master\u2019s degree in geology and a rock collection: Look at this one, he said, a deep pink shard held loose between his thumb and forefinger. Isn\u2019t it gorgeous? She nodded, because he expected her to. It\u2019s not a gem stone. It\u2019s quartz. It\u2019s gorgeous, but it has no value at all. Isn\u2019t that remarkable? Yes, she agreed, quartz, and the word took on a weight and sank to the bottom of her stomach. He wanted to pin up her gorgeous long curly hair like Miss America\u2019s, so he got some of Cindy\u2019s bobby pins. Then he got a pair of Cindy\u2019s high-heel shoes and they nearly fit Jenna, and he posed her in front of a full-length mirror and she saw how he looked at her, every inch of him enthralled. She realized: he was in love with her. Their reflections stood together, his no taller than hers, his face ready to explode from the sight of her. You are so lovely, he couldn\u2019t help but say, and he couldn\u2019t help but put his thick lips on her bare shoulder. She was so beautiful, she had this power\u2014she\u2019d made him love her\u2014made this smart man love her\u2014more than he loved his own wife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LUANNE WAS SINGING AGAIN, \u201cShe said look, what\u2019s your game?\u201d Tone-deaf. Jenna imagined stabbing Luanne with a butcher knife at a traffic light, gobs of blood splattering around the dashboard and ceiling and Luanne\u2019s pink blouse. Luanne\u2019s lifeless body draped over the steering wheel and Jenna calling in, \u201cBig D! Big D! Good-Looker Luanne don\u2019t look so good no more!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They started to follow a Ford Monarch with a \u201cJesus Is Coming\u201d bumper sticker. Luanne called it in. Over the radio Big D\u2019s voice bellowed, \u201cMr. Blue Ford Monarch, the Good Lookers are looking for you! Are you tuned in?\u201d He was. His back started to bounce and the car pulled over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy don\u2019t you go this time?\u201d said Luanne, smiling all her right-sized teeth. \u201cIt\u2019ll cheer you up!\u201d Jenna hesitated. Then she grinned, climbed out, and hurried toward the car like Luanne, waving and flouncing. The guy\u2019s long dumb face was eager behind the glass, his window going down in jerks, \u201cAh won! Ah won!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes sir you did!\u201d Jenna burbled, sounding as idiotic as she could. \u201cYou won fifty dollars! And, specially for you\u2014a blow job from Good-Looker Luanne!\u201d He kept smiling and nodding, smiling and nodding, then: \u201cPardon?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenna passed him the check. \u201cHave a great day!\u201d and sprinted back to the car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLook at you!\u201d Luanne exclaimed. \u201cYou\u2019re beaming!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLook at me!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cListen. You give away the money from now on. It makes me happy to see you happy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenna heard herself laugh, high-pitched, staccato, far away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE NEXT DAY she climbed into the Winner Wagon with a brown lunch bag: \u201cI hope you don\u2019t mind. I\u2019m taking this salami to my aunt in the mental hospital after work. It\u2019s kinda smelly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh I don\u2019t mind,\u201d Luanne replied. \u201cGee, it smells like dog doo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All afternoon it smelled like dog doo, made the whole car smell like dog doo, baking in the sun on the back seat, until they found another Lucky Winner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCongratulations!\u201d Jenna said to a laughing chinless man. \u201cYou won fifty dollars and this lovely complimentary salami!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThank you!\u201d blathered the idiot, reaching out a piggy hand for the check and the bag. Back in the car Luanne asked, \u201cDid I see you give your aunt\u2019s salami to that guy?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHuh? No.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Long pause. \u201cThen where is it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHuh? Oh. I threw it out. It musta been rotten. It smelled like dog shit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But she couldn\u2019t just keep doing dog shit. That evening she left her room and walked to the woods at the end of her street, hesitating at the edge: she hadn\u2019t been inside since her second summer with Joe McKenzie, when finally she\u2019d complained, \u201cCan\u2019t we just use the house?\u201d Cindy was never home until 5:30. In the woods, with his weight on her, twigs and thorns and other debris tore at her skin and dirt rubbed in. She didn\u2019t want to go anymore. He smirked, in surprise maybe that she\u2019d made a demand: What are you, a prude? \u201cI am not a prude,\u201d she replied, because that was a thing he didn\u2019t like. He smiled: Prove it. She smiled, too: this was the game, this was her power\u2014her willingness to please him, because Cindy never did. Cindy was not daring; Cindy only wanted to do it in the bed with the lights out at night. Jenna had figured out that doing what he told her to do made him love her. So she bent over his kitchen counter, her face pressed into cracking Formica layered with crumbs, and a pain like a butcher knife up her butt sliced her in half. She wailed. The whole room wailed. He let out an incredulous laugh and she screamed, stop stop stop, which made his fingers dig deep into her hair and his voice overflow with contempt: Shut up, Miss America. You\u2019re beautiful, shut up. She tried, but she couldn\u2019t stop the sounds that shuddered from her chest. So he cupped his hand over her mouth and nose and she gasped in the last of the air. She was suffocating, she would die, she was sure, and her brain went black.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barefoot, Jenna stomped into the woods. The familiar puncturing of her skin propelled her on. There was plenty of disgusting rot for people like Luanne and her Lucky Winners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DAY AFTER DAY, JENNA CLIMBED into the Winner Wagon with another lunch bag\u2014a dead sparrow, a squashed squirrel, a chipmunk butt. Weeks passed. Luanne smiled and said nothing. Jenna kept expecting Big D\u2019s voice to come over the phone: \u201cHey, girls? I just got a weird call from one of our Lucky Winners . . .\u201d but it never came. No one called to report her. Nothing happened. She had no effect. Why? She was powerless, invisible, nonexistent. Stop, stop, stop, don\u2019t leave me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Composed and pristine at the wheel, Luanne examined her. \u201cAre you all right?\u201d That voice\u2014that Luanne voice\u2014sugary sweet and oozing down like slow syrup. \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong, Jenna? Jenna?\u201d\u2014oozing down Jenna\u2019s forehead and eyes and nose and mouth until she couldn\u2019t breathe\u2014\u201cStop!\u201d Jenna gasped. \u201cStop the van, I\u2019m gonna be sick.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luanne swerved onto the roadside and Jenna flung open her door, plopped out, and dry-heaved. She tried wrapping her arms around herself in a hug but it was no use: without Luke\u2019s soothing, her thoughts would burn up her brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, Jenna,\u201d Luanne\u2019s disappointed voice dropped down from above. \u201cAre you hung over? Come on, I\u2019ll take you home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luanne maneuvered the van through the streets of Jenna\u2019s neighborhood, flustered by the potholes. \u201cThey ought to repair these streets!\u201d she complained like an adult. Jenna was delivered back to the pit where her parents were, and she entered her house, unexpected. Her father was in the dining room with his fishing magazines. \u201cWhat\u2019s the matter with you?\u201d he snapped. She pushed through the airless rooms and into her own, shut the door tight, lay down, and covered her ears with a pillow: it didn\u2019t help. She still heard the whoosh of the toxic chemicals filling up her head, drowning her. See, you\u2019re nuts. You and Cindy\u2014he hissed her name\u2014you\u2019re just nuts and you blame me\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t mean to blame you,\u201d she said out loud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019d complained to Jenna, \u201cCindy\u2019s a jealous person. She doesn\u2019t trust me. She wants to know where did I go, who did I see. She always thinks I\u2019m going to cheat on her.\u201d By then Jenna was nearly eighteen and didn\u2019t stop herself from saying, \u201cYou are cheating on her.\u201d He sprang off the bed and glowered, stood with his whole body hating her. You\u2019re saying it\u2019s my fault? You\u2019re blaming me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then he left. After two years, he just left. He was moving to Pennsylvania, he said, with Cindy\u2014he emphasized, taunting her with the name. He and Cindy were buying a house, he and Cindy were starting a family. Jenna watched the moving truck pull up and the movers load boxes and chairs and the bed and she thought she would die. She wanted to die. Why wasn\u2019t she dead? The truck drove off and she did not just want to die. She wanted to chop open her wrists, blow off her head, crash her face through a windshield\u2014anything to escape her boiling body. Month after month, trying to live in the scalded body, trying to walk down the street, sit in a chair. Enrolling in that stupid modeling class so she could feel visible again\u2014and Miss Judi, that stupid bitch, telling her to smile. \u201cIt\u2019s important to be cheerful,\u201d Miss Judi admonished and Jenna started to cry\u2014the other girls waiting in a fluffy bunch at the head of the runway\u2014while Jenna cried and said her boyfriend left and Miss Judi clucked, \u201cOh, come on. Pretty girl like you will have a new boyfriend next week just as good as the last one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE NEXT DAY Jenna was late to work. Luanne was already in the Winner Wagon, window cranked down, singing along with the radio, \u201cAnd I think to myself, what a wonderful wer-er-erld,\u201d soft and sappy, grateful and sincere. Jenna pulled open the driver\u2019s side door and blurted, \u201cI want to drive today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh! Sure!\u201d Luanne was pleased, thinking\u2014what? She\u2019d been a good influence? She slid across the bench seat, folded her hands demurely, turned amicably. Jenna climbed in, wrenched the key in the ignition, and punched the accelerator to the floor. The Winner Wagon leaped forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, hey! Kinda fast!\u201d Luanne said, her voice in a singsong as though she was trying to be helpful. Jenna accelerated across the parking lot and bumped out into traffic without looking. \u201cWhat are you doing? What\u2019s wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, what\u2019s wrong, what\u2019s wrong.\u201d Jenna mocked, then shot her a dark look. \u201cWhat\u2019s the worst thing you can imagine?\u201d Jenna spun the van onto Warwick Boulevard and pretended to aim at the anchor on the Mariner\u2019s Museum lawn. Luanne screamed, helpless and yippy; Jenna couldn\u2019t help but laugh. Here was the power at last\u2014in her hands. The steering wheel, laced up in a cushioned leather cover, whirled to the left. \u201cWheeeee!\u201d Jenna sang out happily\u2014and she was happy: finally she would be free of herself. She would crash and die and take this insufferable Luanne with her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJenna, Jenna,\u201d Luanne was repeating like a parrot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, Luanne Luanne?\u201d Jenna smiled at her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going way too fast, you\u2019re going to, to\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKill us both? That\u2019s right, Good-Looker Luanne! I\u2019m gonna flip this fuckin\u2019 Winner Wagon over five hundred times and you and I are going up in flames!\u201d Jenna laughed loud and maniacal, a little like Big D.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luanne said, \u201cOh my god I\u2019m going to die in a car accident,\u201d and Jenna was momentarily sorry for her, remembering the brother killed in the graduation night crash. Unconsciously, her foot eased off the accelerator. Then Big D started another tune\u2014a desperate female voice singing, \u201cMy world is empty without you, babe\u201d\u2014and Jenna\u2019s foot jammed the pedal down again. She caught glimpses of Luanne, sitting very still, very quiet, and by degrees realized that Luanne\u2019s hand was crawling across the seat toward the CB receiver. Jenna grabbed for it but too late: Luanne got it first. \u201cBig D!\u201d she cried into it, \u201cHelp me! Big D!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Big D\u2019s voice came back singing, \u201cOh help me Lu-anne, help help me, Lu-anne.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHa!\u201d Jenna grabbed Luanne\u2019s wrist to twist the receiver out of her hand and the van weaved across lanes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWatch out!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGive me that.\u201d Jenna snatched a handful of Luanne\u2019s hair, dragged her over, and wrenched the receiver from her grip. \u201cBig D!\u201d she yelped into it. \u201cGood-Looker Luanne is racing back to the station to suck your dick!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luanne screeched, \u201cThat is so foul!\u201d and flailed around for the receiver. Jenna yelled, \u201cOh my god she\u2019s so horny she wants to suck off the CB!\u201d The Winner Wagon veered across the center line into the oncoming traffic, drifted back again. Big D\u2019s voice could be heard sounding almost normal. \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luanne gouged the receiver out of Jenna\u2019s hand, yanked its cord from the console, and flung it into the back seat. Jenna seized her wrist and screamed, \u201cYou know what? You are the stupidest girl I ever knew!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHey! I am not! I\u2019m a National Merit Scholar!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenna shook Luanne\u2019s hand around. \u201cYou think Big D doesn\u2019t go home every night and wank himself off thinking about you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat is so disgusting! Are you nuts?\u201d Luanne gasped, wiggled out of Jenna\u2019s grip and flew back across the seat. \u201cYou are nuts. Like your aunt in the mental hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s right chicky! Just ask anyone and they\u2019ll tell ya\u2014I am one crazy gal!\u201d The van careened into a subdivision. Jenna jerked down her window and whooted at a fat man watering his grass. They tore round and round and flew back out onto the main road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cListen,\u201d said Luanne. \u201cI know a very excellent family counselor. I can give you the number right now\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suddenly calm, \u201cOh, can you Luanne? You\u2019d do that\u2014for me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luanne stared, suspicious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOkay,\u201d Jenna said, making her voice sound calm. \u201cI\u2019ll try counseling, but only if you promise at our next meeting you\u2019ll suck off Big D.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGod, what is wrong with you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenna eased off the accelerator, slowed to the speed limit, and looked at Luanne. \u201cNo, Luanne. What is wrong with you? What is it you don\u2019t see?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exasperated, \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenna set her eyes on the road ahead and said, \u201cI hate you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy!\u201d Luanne shook her head around, hair flying everywhere. \u201cI\u2019m a nice person!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenna didn\u2019t speak. What people want is to not be bothered and not be blamed. She pictured a silent semi-circle of people\u2014Luanne and Luke, Joe McKenzie and Big D, her mother and father, all the Lookers and all the Lucky Winners\u2014peering at her with mean hard eyes. She was a pile of dirt. She was a clump of earth breaking apart and sliding down the side of a cliff. She was dust settling in the grass, waiting to be stepped on. She just wanted to die. She sped up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They flew down J. Clyde Morris Boulevard toward the overpass where the road curved. Jenna tightened her hands on the wheel. Luanne was dead silent. When the road curved, Jenna kept the wheel straight, shut her eyes, and heard Luanne scream one more time. The Winner Wagon bumped over the shoulder and down the plush slope. It did not roll over a hundred times and burst into flames. The terrain was too flat. But they went crunching into a large bush, and Luanne bonked her head: \u201cOw. Damn.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The engine stalled but the radio kept playing. Big D\u2019s prerecorded voice was going extra fast, doing a disclaimer. Jenna pitched forward and changed the station, and for a moment they sat listening. The DJ on this station called himself Tony Z, and in his contest, you had to call when he said the magic \u201cZ\u201d word, and if you were the nineteenth caller and could name the last nine songs he\u2019d played, your name was entered in a drawing for ninety-nine dollars. Luanne turned off the radio. \u201cAre you all right?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tears oozed into Jenna\u2019s eyes. \u201cI don\u2019t know what I\u2019m going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luanne sighed. \u201cWell, maybe you could get your job back at Pizza Hut.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenna clutched the wheel, kept the tears contained in closed-tight eyes. \u201cYou still don\u2019t understand. There\u2019s no love in this. We\u2019re trapped.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat are you talking about? No we aren\u2019t.\u201d Luanne popped open her door. Footsteps crunched around the back of the van, and Jenna\u2019s door squealed open. Luanne\u2019s voice was impatient and restrained: \u201cCan you get out? Do you need help?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenna released the wheel and gave Luanne her hand\u2014there was nothing else to do\u2014and Luanne led her through the tall scratchy grasses up the incline toward the road, where people had already gathered to get a look.<\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":9298,"featured_media":5,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpo365_audiences":[],"wpo365_private":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9298"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36967,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions\/36967"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}