Beautiful Girls by Beth Ann Bauman

Author:Beth Ann Bauman [Bauman, Beth Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-59692-914-2
Publisher: M P Publishing Limited
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

J.D.’s mom dropped him off at the Allards’ at seven o’clock. The house was small and bright with a yellow living room, a little yellow kitchen and a short yellow hallway, sprouting two bedrooms and a bathroom, which were probably yellow as well, J.D. thought. “John Dewey, how are you?” Mrs. Allard smiled. She was cheerful and dumpy, wearing pink lipstick.

The kitchen table had been moved into the living room and a rickety card table was pushed up next to it. Both tables were covered with a paper tablecloth. Six assorted chairs were gathered around the tables, and each place was set with a bowl, a spoon, and a napkin. Mr. Allard in his coat and boots carefully placed a dish of melting butter to the right of the bread basket, then the left. “Where do you think, Johnny?” Mr. Allard asked, when he saw J.D. watching him. J.D. shrugged.

“Girls, girls, John Dewey is here,” Mrs. Allard called.

Shy at first, Annabel and Sophia clung together and whispered into each other’s hair. They wore flannel nightgowns and plaid slippers. Annabel was eight and could be a chatterbox. J.D. remembered her once standing on his shoes and holding his hands, discussing nimbostratus clouds; she and J.D. had dazzled each other with the weather report. Sophia was younger and quieter and had dark, dark eyes. Both girls had chin-length hair and mild cases of static electricity. A couple strands rose, almost elegantly, toward the ceiling.

“We’re having a progressive dinner, J.D. We’ll come back here for stew.” The Allards grabbed their coats, kissed the girls and left. For the first half-hour, the girls colored quietly on the floor, looking up at him shyly, then looking away. “It’s been a long time since we saw you, John Dewey,” Annabel said after a while.

“J.D.,” he said.

“Oh.”

“Do you want a snack?” he asked.

“We had our snack,” Annabel said.

J.D. settled on the couch, opened Waiting for Godot and studied his lines. He’d finally agreed to it because he wanted the class to notice him, notice that he was breathing the same air as they were in the same overheated classroom; he hoped the scene would be funny, and he found he liked yelling insults at Dawn Martinelli. Earlier in the week, though, when they were supposed to be rehearsing their scene, Dawn Martinelli had stared out the window and wouldn’t cooperate.

“What’s the matter with you?” he asked.

“I decided to stop talking so much. I’m trying to cultivate a sense of mystery.”

“Well, you’ll still be weird and boring.”

“I’m not boring,” she said mildly.

“No,” he agreed. Boring wasn’t one of her flaws. “But this is required talking.”

Dawn pointed to one of the groups. “They’re doing The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds.”

“Who?”

“You don’t know a thing about art, do you?” she said, leaning her fat head close to him and scowling.

“Get out of my face,” he said, inching his desk away.

“You are so blah,” she said, lightly, almost musically. “There’s not one thing about you that’s memorable. You could disintegrate right now and not one person in this room would notice.

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