She's hard and quick with him sometimes, making things awkward when they don't have to be, letting silences hang when she could fill them. At these times he looks at her almost suspiciously, as though she were doing it on purpose. Her reluctant mouth and shifting eyes say nothing at all. She wishes she was a lady. Lila Slater is a lady-she could talk her way out of anything, from getting caught fucking the principal on his desk by the entire school board to meeting her fiancee's non-English-speaking parents. Hypothetical and unlikely situations, but Peyton holds to it blindly that should they ever happen, Lila would handle them perfectly, sashaying right back on out of that black hole.
She strikes a match, lighting a Parliament, sitting on her back porch in rolled up shorts and a trashy shirt her father must've picked up at some truck stop (Jesus is Coming, (then on the back) Look Busy!). The sleeves are torn off. He glances quickly at her side, his eyes skimming those huge ripped holes, catching a glance of creamy skin, the edge of a stiff pink brassiere descending into soft curve. She's well aware. Her long legs sprawl out over the porch steps, toes bent inward in that old childish habit that always makes her look sullen and vulnerable, bony knees clamped together. She rests her chin in her hand, tapping the cigarette ash by his foot.
"I'm serious. I want you to come to dinner," he tells her, aware of her caustic mood. She burns holes of toxicity in the air around her. The suggestion has brought on this bristling change, like the short, harsh summer storms roiling up from the coast. He understands it's just fear. Her sharp elbows clamp down by her side, hunching, blocking that gleaming gratuitous glimpse of skin. He looks away.
"Lucas, I don't have any home training. I might eat my shrimp with the salad fork, used the ice tea spoon for the soup and refer to your mom as Mrs. Scott."
He considers this for a moment.
"You don't have to be scared. I want to …..show you my room and my cheesy Chapel Hill Ball posters and my crappy seventies orange couch and have my mom embarrass me or whatever. I just do."
"What are you a masochist? I'm just bad at it, ok? End of story."
He pauses, staring at her. Her knuckles are white on the cigarette, like the paper; her hair is hiding her face.
"Why are you being so difficult?"
She freezes a little, surprised at the frankness of his tone. There is no anger in it. She feels an swell of irritation, but then realizes the irrationality of her own actions grudgingly. I don't want to make you go away, she tries to tell him telepathically, but he's still listening for an answer. She sighs, slumping a little like a pouting child.
"I'll come, ok? Just expect it to be painful."
He grins.
"It doesn't have to be."
She drags on the cigarette and stomps it out with her cheap plastic flip flop, swiping it to the side. He looks at her in half contemplation, half admiration, half disgust.
"You shouldn't go to all this trouble to get so pretty before I come. I like a little grit."
She rolls her eyes.
"Good, cause I didn't brush my teeth yet," she replies, a little defensively. She knows she's still fuckin' fine. "I'm still fuckin' fine anyway," she tells him. Asks him. "Yeah you are," he answers, sensing it, and is rewarded by the first smile, a rather small, afraid one.
"So what, this dinner ritual thing, is it like the pinning thing? The nice girl Lila Slater lady thing? Mom this is my girlfriend, would you two like to go shopping thing?" He watches her in bewilderment as her face scrunches up a little. "The 'bestow your approval upon her' thing? Because she won't like me-they never really do. Nathan's parents only had me to dinner once or twice, and only demanded it so that they'd at least get used enough to my face so that it wouldn't scare them if I walked out of their shower."
He winces visibly, and two spots of color appear on her otherwise pale cheeks. He doesn't reply.
She pulls out another cigarette. Her eyes feel hot and itchy. No, no, she thinks. Later. Her mouth opens without her consent. "Do you have a…..an approved outfit description for me? Because he told me what to wear-he said he didn't want me to show up looking skanky cause then his dad would think I was too trashy for their family and their country club. I have some beige-is beige ok?"
Her words spill out, nervous, defiant, bitchy. Each bit into him like a succession of blows.
He stands up, rather pale.
"Fuck it then. You don't have to come. Forget I asked. Maybe this was a bad idea."
She stands up too, rapidly, her eyes welling up, wishing she had kept her stupid mouth shut. Stupid Peyton, the echo refrains in her head. Goddamn!
And then, rather subdued, head hung miserably, she makes some kind of motion with her hand towards him, a leaning of the awkward, half askance shoulder, maybe a tilt of body, and he understands she's trying to touch him but does not say so. Instead he just takes her into his arms, a fierce clamp hold of possession, brute forgiveness, briefly and violently.
"I don't care if you come in bondage wear or a gothic wedding dress. Sunday night at six I'll be here to pick you up. I don't want to hear anymore shit about your inferior manners either."
He vaults down those few steps, that easy, lithe way he has of moving with that boy-grace she always envied and coveted. Pausing, he turns back to look at her.
"And Peyton," he finishes, "Lila Slater is not a lady."
She watches him slam the door to the truck, hearing the engine start. She lifts a hand, nervously, frustratedly, and then promptly puts it back down again because it feels so corny. She feels like crying now, a little from anger, a little from relief.
"Neither am I," she says to no one in particular, and this makes her eyes well up again, which makes her even madder and she slams the screen door on her way back in. She stomps across the living room gracelessly, flinging her closet door open and rifling through the stacks of clothes-tartan minis, tight jeans, that crappy leather jacket, JC Penney shit, that ludicrous leopard print top from Brooke, Ramones tee, Distillers tee, Jane's Addiction tee, three cheerleading uniforms, a bulky church dress, her black party/funeral dress, more skirts that she deems too short. She shoves them all to the side, hangers screeching against the wood pole. More t-shirts, shorts, some netting, safety pins, shitty tube tops from the Brooke collection, spaghetti straps (Lila Slater's parents won't let her wear them in public-they say they're too slutty for a good Southern lady), spaghetti strap dresses.
The energy drains out of her all of a sudden, and she sits on the bed rather limply. She has one ugly beige sheath her aunt bought her from Profitt's. It's what she wore to Nathan's both times. No one noticed, since his mom wasn't there the second time anyway.
Then the tears finally come. Just one or two, nothing messy really, childish tantrum tears.
"Neither am I!" she yells to the empty house. "Neither am I!".
A few minutes later, feeling dumb and tired, she calls Brooke.
"I need a dress."
"Ooh, like a fuck-me dress?"
She sighs tiredly. It's the only kind Brooke owns.
"No, I need a marry me dress."
Silence.
"I don't think I own one of those."
"Me either."
More silence.
"Guess we're going shopping. Either that or we call Lila."
A pause.
They both burst into snorting laughter.
"Yeah right."
"So, nothing salvageable?" asks Brooke an hour later as they wander through the half-empty shopping mall. Vapid, tinny mall music plays through the invisible speakers, echoing off the unimpressive walls and glass windows of stores. There's nothing decent in that shithole-three departments stores, a bunch of china and specialty stores, a movie theater, a Bible bookstore, antiques, an ugly trendazoid teen shop, an understocked Abercrombie and Fitch where most of the "popular" kids try to shop, a million middle aged women's stores-Chico's, Petite Sophisticate, Talbot's, April Cornell (here they both paused and burst into another snorting fit of laughter), Laura Ashley (repeat), Bass, Eddie Bauer. The few seemingly obvious choices are out of their price range-Limited, Cache. That's it. They stop and stare numbly at the food court before them, the end of the mall. Brooke groans.
"Nothing, except some really ugly ass stuff. Think…..Junior League matron department."
"This is the end of the mall. It's time to refuel and do some serious brainstorming."
They guzzle diet Cokes and chomp their way through two acres of tasteless lettuce, ending with chocolate cones from Dairy Queen. It's their classic lunch.
"Parisian and Profitt's? Dillards?"
"Unspeakably ugly," she replies morosely. "My legs are too long for any of the dresses in the Junior's-the ones that fit me up on top end up being too short, and there were no calf length options. I won't even think about the women's selection."
Brooke pauses, slurping her Coke.
"We just have to think smart. For example, where would Lila Slater shop?"
They both pause, staring into space, and then simultaneously look at each other.
"Where does every decent debutante in a conservative southern state shop?"
They stand up, eyeballs rolling (again) simultaneously, chairs scraping back, and toss their cones.
Two minutes later in Ann Taylor's sale section, she stands there before the mirror in her big chunky foam flip-flips with rhinestones on them, looking at herself.
She's transformed.
A light peach sheath dress with a boatneck and no sleeves clings to her decently, reaching just above the knee, hiding her sharp collarbones but showing off her shoulders nicely. It's not too tight, not too beige, just snotty enough.
From behind her, Brooke strings some fake pearls around her neck and fluffs up her hair. She looks at the frozen Peyton in the mirror and frowns.
"Lose the shoes," Brooke commands, and she does, kicking them back into the stall. She moves a little awkwardly in the dress, not used to being….unsexy….but nice. Just nice. Not too glamorous or Jackie Kennedy either, just……nice.
Even Brooke doesn't heap on any Audrey Hepburn comments or anything.
"You look nice and decent," she tells her, shoving her arms into a white cardigan which miraculously, looks ok. "80 dollars total but what the hell. Marriageability isn't cheap, not as cheap as whoredom."
They both stare at it for a little while longer, and she's still unsure. Brooke nibbles on a fingernail and shrugs her shoulders.
"Kinda makes you look like a stork though," the redhead says miserably, and it's then that Peyton realizes it must be really good.
"I'll take it," she says, and tosses in the pearls for good measure. "Storks have never been accused of whoredom."
Brooke feigns disinterest, but while Peyton pays, she grabs a similar dress off the rack in a different color and a string of black pearls; half defiant, half blasé. She doesn't look at Peyton while she pays, but she doesn't need to say anything really.
They both kind of wish they were storks, so they're not going to call each other out anyway. Peyton knows this. She watches the other girl pay with her head sort of bent down, focused blindly on signing the receipt with a little flourish. Brooke sweeps past her, flashing a smile.
"Obviously, you'll need some boring shoes now," the girl calls, and she follows with a brave little smile.
Maybe she'll even get a purse, a real one.
Or maybe she'll get Brooke to get one for herself, and then borrow it.
She was never beyond using her anyway. She knew Brooke damn well knew she was less of a stork than Peyton.
But she knew Brooke would soon best her at that too if she chose.
Brooke always bested.