Rubyfruit Jungle Read Online Free Page B

That’s gonna happen to me someday, too? No, not me. I ain’t dying. I don’t care what they say, I ain’t dying. I’m not lying on my back under the ground in everlasting darkness. Not me. I’m not closing my eyes. If I close my eyes, I might not open them. Carrie was asleep so I crawled out of bed and crept down the hall covered with peeling green wallpaper with white gardenias on it. I was planning to hotfoot it out on the porch and watch the stars but I never made it because Ep and Carl were in the living room and Carl was holding Ep. He had both arms around him and every now and then he’d smooth down Ep’s hair or put his cheek next to his head. Ep was crying just like Leroy. I couldn’t make out what they were saying to each other. A couple times I could hear Carl telling Ep he had to hang on, that’s all anybody can do is hang on. I was afraid they were going to get up and see me so I hurried back to my room. I’d never seen men hold each other. I thought the only things they were allowed to do was shake hands or fight. But if Carl was holding Ep maybe it wasn’t against the rules. Since I wasn’t sure, I thought I’d keep it to myself and never tell. I was glad they could touch each other. Maybe all men did that after everyone went to bed so no one would know the toughness was for show. Or maybe they only did it when someone died. I wasn’t sure at all and it bothered me.
    The next morning the sky was black with thunderclouds, and we had to spend the whole day in the house. The rain poured down and the leak by the kitchen table opened up again so Tedwent out with shingles to patch it. After the storm the sky stayed dark but across the horizon was a brilliant rainbow. We all stared in silence for a long time, then went back inside. Ep stayed on the porch to look at the rainbow. Leroy bet me I couldn’t find a pot of gold at the end, and I told him that was a stupid bet because the rainbow was enough.

Cheryl Spiegelglass lived on the other side of the woods. Her daddy was a used car salesman and they had more money than the rest of us in the Hollow. Cheryl wore a dress, even when she didn’t have to. I hated her for that, plus she was always sucking up to the adults. Carrie loved her and said she looked exactly like Shirley Temple and why didn’t I look like that instead of roaming around the fields in torn pants and dirty teeshirts. Cheryl and I had been friends of a sort since first grade so sometimes we played together. Carrie squirmed like a dog with a new bone every time I’d go off to the Spiegelglass’s place, partly because she thought I was moving into polite society and partly because she hoped Cheryl would influence me for the better. Leroy usually tagged along. Neither Leroy nor I could stand it when Cheryl carted out her dolls, so when she had doll days we steered clear.
    One time Cheryl decided to play nurse and we put napkins on our heads. Leroy was the patient and we painted him with iodine so he’d look wounded. A nurse, I wasn’t gonna be no nurse. If I was gonna be something I was gonna be the doctor and give orders. I tore off my napkin, and told Cheryl I was the new doctor in town. Her face corroded. “You can’t be a doctor. Only boys can be doctors. Leroy’s got to be the doctor.”
    “You’re full of shit, Spiegelglass, Leroy’s dumber than I am. I got to be the doctor because I’m the smart one and being a girl don’t matter.”
    “You’ll see. You think you can do what boys do but you’re going to be a nurse, no two ways about it. It doesn’t matter about brains, brains don’t count. What counts is whether you’re a boy or a girl.”
    I hauled off and belted her one. Shirley Temple Spiegelglass wasn’t gonna tell me I couldn’t be a doctor, nor nobody else. Course I didn’t want to be a doctor. I was going to be president only I kept it a secret. But if I wanted to be a doctor I’d go be one and ain’t nobody gonna tell me otherwise. So I got in