Jodene
Has a BF
Marc S. Cohen
And now everyone's upset. WTF??
texts Dakota. OMFG!!! texts Mercede. :O#@!%!!!! texts Serenity. Worst to take
it is Serenity. Everyone just assumed she was going to be the first. It was
Serenity whose Middle School classmates voted most likely to grow up to be a
centerfold. She was the first to get braces, and the first to graduate to a
B-cup. Is it her fault the boys are all intimidated by her? Even the high
school boys?
It's not like anyone saw it coming. Jodene never let on. She always
acted like nothing was going on. Even after the news broke, it was hard to
tell. She wore the same look of boredom, the same whythehellwasIeverborn
expression on her face as she ever did. Her hair, her clothes, her shoes,
nothing looked any different. So is it any wonder everyone was all, CUL8R, Bitch!
when they found out?
Looking back, we should've expected
it, though. There was always something odd about that Jodene. When all the
other girls were giving each other Barbie makeovers, Jodene was bitching about
Ken's missing boy parts. When her friends were badgering their moms for a
flat-iron, she was all about keratin. Even her armpits smelled of peroxide. Bet
she isn't bitching about Ken now. But FCOL, everyone knows Serenity's the Queen
of the Tube Tops, that Mercede's the girl with the ass crack of an angel. FCOL!
It's Tuesday after school, and the
girls are hanging out by the flagpole, their bottoms nesting on the low wall
between tedium and indifference, when up saunters you-know-who. Well look who's
deigned to join us, derides Dakota. What, you get dumped already, mumbles
Mercede. Serenity says nothing, just scowls solipsistic. Jodene's eyes go
electric; her jaws unhinge; she asks them in no uncertain terms: What's going
on. So clueless, texts Mercede. Totally uptight, texts Dakota. LMAO! texts
Serenity. Jodene wants to see what they're texting. Oh, nothing you'd be
interested in, says Serenity, and they all laugh, except for Jodene, of course,
who's all, OMG, you guys are such assholes!
And I guess in hindsight, they
probably were, but who could've blamed them? I mean, they were fourteen, for
fuck's sake, and who expects a fourteen-year-old to handle the news that one of
them is pulling ahead in her life's journey, leaving the rest of them to suck
on her tailpipe, without getting all indignant on her ass? Is it any wonder
they felt totally (<>..<>) from
her? The news was like 8-# to them, they were so #:-o, so %-(.
And yet they probably should've gone
easier on her, too. Hell, if it was her own funeral, they wouldn't have invited
her.
Mercede is the first to leave,
scampering off through the alley between the sign shop and the tattoo parlor,
past Roadkill Cleaners, the liquor store and the car wash, till she reaches her
mom's front door. Climbs up the stairs to the apartment in the back,
overlooking the rear parking lot behind Grover's Shoe Repairs. She throws her
shit down and tromps off to her room. Her brother steps out of the can just as
she reaches her room.
Hey.
Hey.
You hear about Jodene?
What? Course, who hasn't.
I mean, how can this be? She's no
beauty queen. Who suddenly elected her Miss Florida?
Are you kidding? her brother cracks.
She's hot.
Are you serious???
Smirking, her brother brushes by and
heads into the kitchen. Opens the fridge and pulls out a corndog. Mercede
stomps in after him. Answer me, she shrieks, as he calmly denudes the dog of
its wrapper. She glares at him while he chews, until at last, mouth full of
crumbs, he mumbles:
Oh yeah. All the guys wanna bang
her, once she fills out a little.
Mercede is dumbstruck. She normally
worships the ground her brother walks on. She was the first to defend him when
he got his girlfriend pregnant last summer. It was all Bristol's fault, she
cried, he couldn't help it that slut seduced him! What was he supposed to do
when she agreed to go camping all alone in the Ocala with him?
Now here he is, telling her the
worst thing she ever wanted to hear. The worst thing! He might as well have
announced Charlotte Russe is shutting down.
It goes no better at Dakota's. Her
mom's tits are all in a knot over her stepdad's Oxycontin conviction, and her
little sister's talking dope about some teacher who's been sneaking into the
girls room at school and peaking under the stalls. No one wants to talk about
Jodene. Why doesn't anyone ever listen to me in this house? Dakota protests,
until her little sister corrects her, reminding her that they live in a trailer.
It's down to Serenity to be the
voice of reason, and wouldn't you know it but the next day, she's all smiles
and 8-D when she announces, in no uncertain terms: You know, like, it's not
like anyone's ever seen her with him.
And it's true! No one has seen her with him. No one even knows
who he is. Does he have a name? Does he have a face? For all they know, he
might be a figment of Jodene's imagination! Or a figment of theirs!
Or he might be a dog, digs Dakota.
Or a chimp! mocks Mercede.
Or a pock-faced dork! sneers
Serenity.
No, I mean it, says Dakota. It may
really be her dog! Maybe she was just going on about Rufus. They're very
attached, you know.
This makes them feel better, because
everyone knows that Jodene goes practically ape shit over Rufus, her little
Pit-bull Pomeranian mix, which her grandma gave her after the hurricane trashed
their cabana last month. Fuck, yeah! It had to be that cur she was talking
about. A dog may be man's best friend, but what's to stop one from being a
little teenage whore's BF?
So they decide to forgive and
forget. They pick up a gift card at the local TJ maxx and catch a bus over to
the Motel 8 where Jodene and her peeps have been staying while waiting for the word
from the insurance adjustors. A small dog can be heard barking inside room
#24B, and Dakota shares a knowing wink with Serenity, who winks at Mercede, who
winks back at Dakota. All suppressed giggles, they knock on the door, the dog
barks wildly, and an old woman with a face crumpled like a used tampon opens
the door.
It's Jodene's grandma.
She ain't here, she informs them.
The sad truth is if they'd come to apologize, they were too late. Jodene's had
a nervous breakdown, you see, and was sent off last night to the Vines in Ocala
for an emergency admission. She's a total mess, they wanna keep her under
observation indefinitely, hopefully the insurance will cover her treatment,
otherwise the good Lord knows how they's gonna be able to fix both a house and a teenage girl, and does any of them
by chance know someone who wants a used Pit-bull Pomeranian mix, the goddamned
motel says they can't keep him there if he don't stop shitting on the
furniture, and at this rate they won't be leaving till Jesus comes back and crosses
the Okeechobee on foot....
She shuts the door. Solemnly, the
girls descend the stairwell and sink onto a bench outside the pool area. Nobody
pays much attention to the sounds of cannonballs and belly flops crashing all
around. Or the seagulls waddling over, snatching at all those discarded fries
whose burnt ends make them look like beige-colored butts. In the lot, an SUV
with Delaware plates pulls away while another from Tennessee pulls in. As the
driver heads over to the front desk to check in, two small faces in the back
window stare covetously at the explosions in the water.
Christ, who takes a family vacation in
the middle of a school year, anyway?
Several minutes pass, until Serenity
lifts up her phone, squinting agonizingly beneath the sun's devilish glare, and
texts: Can U believe the bitch thought we
wanted to apologize?! >-<
Marc Cohen is a writer, artist and musician born in the United States and residing in Toronto, Ontario. He writes little existential pieces about people grappling with the indeterminacies of life, language, and love. His stylistic forebears include Donald Barthelme, Sheila Heti, and Joel and Ethan Coen.
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