Surfacing

A Short Story by AnneMarie Buhl

Copyright 2011, AnneMarie Buhl

All rights reserved. Published by Doomed Muse Press.

These stories are a work of fiction. All characters, places, and incidents described in this publication are used fictitiously, or are entirely fictional.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, except by an authorized retailer, or with written permission of the publisher. Inquiries may be addressed via email to doomedmuse.press@gmail.com.

Cover designed by Greg Jensen with image from Galina Barskaya - Fotolia.com

Electronic edition, 2011

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Surfacing

“So everyone finish up the last section of Yellow Raft on Blue Water over the weekend. We’re going to talk about it on Monday,” Mrs. Steinger called out over the shuffle of notebooks being shoved into bags.

JJ had hardly noticed the bell. She was too fixated on the whirl of fine dark hairs on the back of Rozalie’s neck. She liked that spot best and wondered if it were as soft as it looked.

“You finished with staring, or should I wait more?” Rozalie twisted in her chair and pinned JJ with her dark eyes.

“I, uh, your earrings are shiny.” Lame. She wanted to melt down into the plastic chair under her. Rozalie’s earrings were shiny and secretly she longed to touch the rings climbing those ears, six in each. JJ turned away, face burning, and jammed her notebook into her backpack.

“Tonight what are you doing?” Rozalie asked.

Homework. She stopped that before it came out. Jeez, no need to sound even lamer. “Nothing much. I mean, yet.”

“There is this band, Zipper Trouble. At The O downtown. Ten o’clock. You want to come?” Rozalie shrugged as though it was no big deal, but, glancing up warily from her backpack, JJ noticed that the other girl was twisting her rainbow wrist-bands and plucking at the thin silver bangles coating her forearms.

“Okay,” JJ said. She tugged on her ponytail and did some mental math. Her dad would be gone by eight forty-five. Enough time to slip out and catch the bus into downtown.

“Good. See you there, foxy.” Rozalie grinned, showing the cute, slight gap in her front teeth. She said foxy with her weird accent, making it sound almost like a dirty word.

“Foxy?” JJ stayed half in her chair, dizzy with this whole strange conversation. Rozalie never talked to her. Rozalie didn’t talk to anybody. She didn’t even respond to the meanie jocks that threw wrappers at her and called her a lesbo and worse.

“Your hair. It’s red like a fox.” She shrugged, making the metal rings sewn into her book-bag jingle. “See you tonight.”

“Wait, uh,” JJ called after her as she reached the door. “Is this like a date?”

Betsy and Gina, two of the cheerleaders that JJ had once been friends with in middle school, turned and looked at her and then Rozalie with wide eyes. They started to whisper and giggle as they slid out the door. JJ didn’t just want to melt, she wanted to catch on fire and vaporize.

Then Rozalie lit a different sort of burn as she laughed, her head back, her thick blue and black curls dancing around her face. “Yes. A date.”

JJ floated an inch above the ground the whole walk home.

* * *

“I’ll be home around seven,” her dad called out.

JJ hung out at the entrance to her room and listened for the sound of the front door locking behind him. She let out her breath and pulled off her pink bathrobe. She’d taken a shower and then pretended to dress in her jammies, opening biology homework on her laptop so that if he checked in on her he’d see just a girl ready for a boring night in.

Not that it mattered. She kept staring into the narrow closet, hoping that a new personality on a hanger or maybe just some instant cool would show up. No luck there. JJ wasn’t sure what to wear on a date with a girl. She’d been on one date ever and after he’d groped her breast and kissed her with a wet mouth that tasted like kitty litter, she’d been pretty much done with all that.

It was that date that had started her thinking about how maybe she wasn’t normal. Carl had been nice, pretty hawt as her former friends would say. JJ had wanted him to grope her breast, wanted to feel something, had waited for it. She’d been almost as disappointed as Carl, later.