If I Should Fall: The Second Book of Geshichte Falls

SHOWDOWN AT SOUBIROUS

CONCLUSION 

“So you don’t really have to know that much about cheerleading,” Miss Marsh was telling Anigel. “That’s my job. You know what you really need to know, the girls. You’re their age. They’ll trust you. You need to cheer these girls on.”

They were walking across the field now. Anigel pulled a hand through her long black hair and nodded. There was a slight hot wind picking up. The skies were cloudy in the late August afternoon.

“Now those girls doing the pyramid? They’re permanent. I want you to meet them. Those others are trying out. You’ll meet them later.

“This is Binh Pham... She’s good for jumps. She’s light and cute. Everybody likes her. This is Cameron. Don’t be shy. Cameron Dwyer...”

    

“Dude,” someone said to Niall who was standing beside Russell and Gilead, “You’re sister’s fucking hot.”

Niall smiled shallowly at the admirer and said, “I’ll be sure to convey the sentiments.”

“Is that?” Gilead started, pointing across the field.

“An--EE-gell!!!”  Bobby hooted, cupping his hands.

“Ani! Work it, Sister! Work that shit!”

Anigel swung around, presumably to say something vicious from the toss of her head and the flame in her dark eyes, but she caught sight of Russell and Gilead and ran toward them.

As she jogged around the fence and past her brother, she slapped him in the back of the head and called, “Come on around!” to Gilead and Russell.

There were some murmurs of, “Go get some of that!” as Gilead and Russell followed Anigel and joined her with the cheer squad.

“This is—” Anigel started.

“Russell,” Cameron interrupted Anigel. “He’s my next door neighbor. He and an equally handsome stranger were my knights in dinted armor when my bake chain was screwed up.”

“And this is Binh,” Anigel said.

“Do you know Jeremy Bentham,” she asked.

“Unfortunately,” Gilead answered.

Binh laughed and slapped Gilead on the shoulder. “He’s my boyfriend!”

“Well, when you’re done with him, I got a cousin you’ll love.”

“You’re kind of terrible,” Binh said, grinning at him,

Gilead nodded.

“So I’ve been told.”

“You know who he reminds me of?” Aida Ballard said.

“This is never good,” Gilead turned to Russell, who nodded in agreement.

“No, it is good,” Aida said. “Only… I can’t place—yes!”

Gilead titled his head.

“Even that! No, you don’t look like him, but you’re like him. You run track?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Okay, well, then you’re almost like him. Even the way you talk. My God.”

“Aida, what the fuck?” Binh said. “Out with it.”

“Mark! My cousin.”

“Mark Young?” Russell chanced.

“Yes!” Aida clapped her hands and Russell thought Gilead would have gone red if he could have.

Anigel asked them. “Are you all coming to Soubirous tonight?”

“Why?” Gil said.

“Nehru and Brad’s band is playing. I think it should be fun. Just wondered if you all were going?”

Russell looked at Gil who said, “I guess we are.”

 

 

“Where’s Chayne?” Gilead asked as he and Russell sat down across from Rob at the Noble Red.

“With Faye and Shannon and the Blue Jewell.”

“Um,” Russell remarked. “How are you enjoying Faye?”

“I’ll enjoy her more when she leaves,” Rob said, honestly.

“And I will say nothing at all,” said Anigel.

“So, what’s everyone up to?”

“I went shopping for underwear—” Cody said.

“And I don’t know if that’s what I meant.”

“Well, hold on. I saw thong underwear. For men. Who wears that stuff?”

Rob put up a hand.

“You wear thong underwear?” Cody said.

“Yeah. You hardly know you have it on, and... It advertises the merchandise.”

Cody raised a dark eyebrow toward Rob.

“See?” Rob stood up in his white trousers, and bent over.

“I can see your ass,” Jill stated.

“That’s the point,” Rob uprighted himself and sat down. “So you’ll be at a party and someone’ll be like, ‘Um, he looks really cute.’ But what he or she means is, ‘He has a nice ass.’ And that’s everything.”

“It’s good to know,” said Jill in a flat voice, pulling a hand through her reddish hair, “that you feel comfortable enough with us to share that.”

“Oh, I always feel comfortable around you guys,” Rob said, smoothing down his trouser legs as he sat back down, and if he had heard the irony in Jill’s voice and simply chosen to ignore it, no one could tell.

“Well,” Anigel Reyes noted, “for what it’s worth, you have a very nice ass, Robert.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“What about my ass?” Gilead asked.

“Well that just goes without saying.” Anigel took out her cigarettes.

“You smoke Reds,” Cody exclaimed, and at the same time he took his out so did Russell and they both smiled at each other.

“Must be a sign,” murmured Jill, and Anigel smirked.

“I’m such a crabby bitch,” Jill reflected.          

The last notes of the song were playing.

 

There's a little black spot on the sun today
It's the same old thing as yesterday
There's a black hat caught in the high tree top
There's a flag pole rag and the wind won't stop
I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain.

 

They applauded for the band and Cody turned to his sister saying, “You don’t have to be a crabby bitch.”

“No,” said Jill. “I think I do. Oh, shit, there’s Leon Dixon. And there’s Shane.”

    Gilead Story did a double take from Shane Meriwether in his jeans and tee shirt to Rob before Russell said, “Separated at birth, right?”

“Damn, right.”

“Hey guys,” Shane said. Then, turning to Jill as if he were not surprised to see her, “How are you?”

“Good.” she nodded. “And you, Shane?”

“Great.”

“You sounded great up there, despite your little friend, Leon.”

“Oh,” Shane nodded. “He told me you all had... met.”

He tried to sound politic, but Jill’s hazel eyes lit on the last word and she said. “He told you what?”

“You all went out on a date,” said Shane.

“Like hell we did. He brought me home in his ratty ass Impala and tried to score.”

“He what?”

“Shane Meriwether, are you deaf?” Then she said. “What did he tell you?”

“Nothing,” Shane lied.

Jill got up and threaded her way through the coffee house to the stage. She climbed up the steps to stare at Brad Long who smiled half nervous and half happy to see her again and said, “Hey, Jill?”

“What did this thing,” she, gestured to Leon, “say about me?”

Nehru Alexander, who had been talking to Anigel, suddenly broke off and looked to the stage. Leon’s eyes widened.

Nobody answered Jill.

“Did he say he fucked me?” she asked.

“Well, did he?” This time she looked at Brad and Brad looked at Nehru and Nehru looked away so Brad didn’t dare to lie. He just nodded dumbly.

“Oh,” said Jill, and smiled. And now Jill did one of those… Cody would call them Jill Things. She took the microphone that was begging to be used and turned around to address the crowd.

“Boys and girls of Soubirous College—”

With a bit of startled stirring and staring, the audience turned to look up at her.

“Hello,” Jill said to them. “Welcome to Jill Barnard’s one woman show, featuring the dumber drummer over here—Leon Dixon.”

“Oh, shit,” Anigel murmured.

In unison, Cody, Anigel and Russell crushed out their cigarettes to give full attention to whatever Jill was about to do.

“Here is the story of a girl bored and tired of life who gets drunk at a party and sees a guy who—well—he’s good looking, I’ll give him that. And he asks if he can take her home. She’s twenty-one and feeling almost adventurous, and so she says yes and hops into his old Ford. She listens to his lame jokes.”

There was laughter, but Jill noted the laughter was uncomfortable. She turned to Leon, and she couldn’t read the expression on his face. No, she realized, nothing like this had ever happened to him.

She should stop. She should not humiliate a man like this, like… he had humiliated her. She shouldn’t do this…

She went on.

“And then we get to my house. We get to that old elm tree. Cody, you know it. And we sit there listening to his bad music and suddenly he says I’m the right package. I’m the perfect girl, and who doesn’t want to hear that? And then he says: you know what would make this the perfect night?”

Now Anigel can’t help herself. She shouts: “A kiss?”

“You’d think,” Jill says. “But no. He asks can he can fuck me. In his car. To top off his night.”

The startled noises, Jill thinks, must be from hearing her tell the story, not from the story itself. She isn’t old, but she is old enough to know Leon Dixon isn’t the first tactless man or the only low life fuck in this audience.

She continued: “And I said NOOOO!”

Jill grew quiet before turning to him.

“Didn’t I? Leon?”

“Well—”

“Didn’t I?”

At last, as if the truth was being pulled out of his stomach: “Yes.”

Jill smiled. “And so here’s the story of a girl in a car with a guy who—because he couldn’t get any, gave himself some. and jacked off in front of her—”

Hale looked witheringly at Leon. Leon turned red and tried to space out.

“The only thing I provided was a wet nap.”

“Aren’t you leaving out a part?” Leon asked.

She was about to deny it, but then thought, What the hell?

“Actually, he jacked himself off because he asked me to... And I wasn’t good enough. That’s the part I’m leaving out. He preferred himself.”

Jill got off the stage, and was two steps back into the crowd, before she turned around, took the microphone from Brad Long and added:

“And... by the way, ladies and gentlemen.... He was smaaaallll.”