Anything but Red
We stood in the ticket line at the movie theater. The lights were blinking on and off, casting a ghoulish pallor. If our parents knew we were about to see Juno, they’d probably kill us. I noticed swollen bulges, frost heaves in the uneven pavement. I poked at one with my toes.
“I remember when Sandy Pope got pregnant,” Donna smirked.
It was so typically Donna, out of thin air. “You do?”
“Least I think it was the night we double-dated those Templeton twins. She got the wrong one.” She winked.
I shuddered, it was a cool evening. But the twins grossed me out. Anything with a penis did. “I didn’t even know Sandy was pregnant,” I said. “I knew she’d dropped out of school- ”
“Oh, she was preggers all right,” Donna interrupted.
“Well, we probably shouldn’t talk about her.” I looked over my shoulder to make sure there weren’t any folks behind us that I knew.
Donna looked disgusted, like I’d farted. Hand on her outstretched hip. “Oh, aren’t you all high and mighty.”
There was a part of Donna I wasn’t so crazy about. I could tolerate gossip, even indulged her sometimes. So I relented. “When we were in third grade, Sandy stayed at my house for a week.”
“Really? You never told me before.”
“Never came up. Her parents were on some churchy field trip to Nicaragua. A Christian sort-of Habitat for Humanity thing.”
“Wow. What was she like then? Sandy?”
“I don’t really remember.” I wasn’t about to tell Donna what Sandy claimed my brother did. How Sandy and I never hung out after that. “She read a lot.”
We bought our tickets and went into the theater, sat in our usual seats in the back row, just like on the bus.
Donna opened her box of Dots, popped an orange one in her mouth. “I’m sorry I said those things about Sandy.”
I smiled. “You wouldn’t be Donna if you didn’t.” I held out my hand.
“Any color but red,” she said.
