Posing With A Purple Ninja
Saturday, July 12, 1969 – 12:03pm.
Lacy glares at the phone, daring the dial to rotate any slower, until finally the call is connected and Josie answers on the fifth ring.
"What?"
"Joce, it's me. You need to drag your lazy ass outta bed an' get it over to my house."
"Why? Did somebody die or something?"
"Of course not!"
"Oh, okay." Josie yawns sleepily. "Then how come you're callin' me so damn early?"
"It ain't early, it's noon. And I'm callin' you 'cause the Barefoot Ninja came this morning."
"She did, huh? So lemme guess, your pathetic whimpers woke up Peggy again, didn't they?"
It takes a second to process, but when Josie's implication becomes clear Lacy feels herself flush clear down to the neon-green polish on her toes.
"That ain't what I meant, so hush. And for your information, Miss Pervette, I do not whimper."
"Yeah, hon, you do. But never mind that. How come you need me to come over?"
"Just get here, okay? I'll show you. An' Joce?"
"Yeah?"
"Dress skimpy an' bring your fancy new camera."
"Oh, man," Lisa cries, bailing out of the Camaro almost before Josie brings it to a stop behind Lacy's new truck, "who do I hafta beat up to get me one of those?"
"Dewey," Josie tells her, affectionately ruffling the younger girl's messy blonde hair. "I hear he bought Buddy Stark's rust-bucket Ford."
Lisa wrinkles her nose. "That ugly old thing? No thanks." She grins. "But I'll still kick his ass if Lacy wants me to."
The El Camino gleams in the sunlight as Lacy – already sopping wet herself – hears her friends approach.
"Kick whose ass?" she asks, turning the hose on them without warning.
Their squeals and laughter draw Peggy onto the front porch, barefoot and braless in faded cut-offs and a cropped gray tank, and still overdressed compared to the three sopping-wet girls she sees before her.
They seem so happy, she thinks, even as Lacy spots her and a wicked gleam comes into her eyes.
Too late Peg sees the hose, and by then it is much too late.
"We should do some topless ones," Lacy suggests a bit later as Peggy snaps another shot of her and Josie posing next to the purple El Camino, each with one bare foot on the running board and the other on the wet gravel, both girls grinning from behind a sodden tangle of hair. "I promised Riley I'd send him a picture to remember me by."
"Over my dead body," Peg says, pulling the latest photo from Josie's camera and handing it to Lisa, who stands next to her innylon shorts and a white blouse knotted loosely into a halter.
"That coulda been arranged," Lacy says, taking the camera from her sister, who turns and heads back toward the house. "Lucky for you we quit feudin' like two kittens in a sack."
"Love you too," Peg calls over her shoulder, then disappears inside.
Lacy holds the camera out in Lisa's direction. "You know how to use this thing?"
"I will if y'all show me," Lisa retorts, and Lacy and Josie exchange a look of silent agreement.
Then, to Lisa's total surprise, they peel out of their wet tops.
Some time later, Lacy and Josie – now back in their tops – sit on the porch steps brushing out each other's damp, tangled hair while Lisa glares at them from the Camaro as she fiddles with the radio.
"She's cute when she pouts," Lacy says, wincing as Josie attacks a particularly stubborn blonde knot. "But how come she's mad?"
Josie shrugs. ""Hell if I know. Maybe she's still riled 'cause I wouldn't let her do a nudie shot with us."
"You ain't Ma," Lisa mutters from inside the car, then tilts her head to listen as a song she's never heard before comes on the radio.
"And you," she adds, shifting her ire to Lacy, "you never told me Marty Robbins had a new song out."
"'Cause it ain't new," Lacy retorts, then looks at Josie.
"You've heard Feleena before, right?"
Josie nods. "Same story as El Paso, 'cept from the Mexican girl's point of view."
"Y'all need to hush," Lisa calls out. "I'm tryin' to hear this."
Lacy and Josie hush, and the three girls listen quietly as the mournful ballad plays through to its sad conclusion.
A conclusion Josie and Lisa are not happy with.
"That sucked!" Lisa cries. "How could he just have her die like that?"
"Yeah," Josie chimes in. "Least he coulda let her take a few bad guys with her."
Lacy grins, amused by their reaction. "I take it y'all didn't care for that Romeo and Juliet ending, huh?"
"I didn't like the Romeo and Juliet ending when it happened to Romeo an' Juliet," Josie shoots back, and Lisa nods in agreement.
"Me neither," she says, just as Rebel Creek's mail truck pulls up at the end of the driveway and old Mr. Marsh gets out with a small stack of mail in his arthritic hand.
"Anything for me?" Lacy hollers out to him, not daring to hope, but Mr. Marsh surprises her.
"I reckon that depends, Lacy Ann. You 'spectin' a letter from some Army base in California?"
With a squeal of utter joy Lacy flies off the porch and runs toward him, not feeling the wet gravel under her bare feet.