She was small for her age in all ways\u2014fifteen, flat-chested, and five feet tall.\u00a0 Worse than that, though, was her name: Doris.\u00a0 Doris Agatha Denby.\u00a0 Her parents were assholes.<\/p>\n
After school and on weekends she worked at Cinema Three out on the highway.\u00a0 Mostly she stayed behind the concession stand, but on Sunday nights it was also her job to scrape up the week\u2019s accumulation of spilt soda and melted candy.\u00a0 It covered the floor like a coat of shellac, and with a palette knife duct-taped to a broom handle she harvested it in long, caramel-colored strips. It was gross, but she got to watch movies for free.\u00a0 They didn’t have a TV at home, not anymore, not since the old one broke and that must have been five years ago.<\/p>\n
Her parents didn’t believe in things like television.\u00a0 They were old.\u00a0 No television, no candy, meat or processed flour, no fashion magazines, and no dates until she was sixteen.\u00a0 Not that Doris ever had the occasion or desire to go on a date.\u00a0 She was just glad that her school required uniforms; at least she could disappear into the crowd, mostly.\u00a0 A few years back she’d gained some unwanted notoriety when Josh Tearney pointed out to the class that she smelled like an old lady.<\/p>\n
“Like library books and mothballs,” he said.<\/p>\n
Hopefully everyone had forgotten about that by now, though Doris thought probably not.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
It was Friday, double feature night at Cinema Three.\u00a0 Unlike everyone else, Doris usually didn’t mind working Fridays.\u00a0 The other kids bitched.\u00a0 They couldn’t shut up about missing the football game, the party, but for Doris it was a relief.\u00a0 Friday evenings meant B horror movies and high school comedies from the eighties, half-price tickets and college students.\u00a0\u00a0 Usually Doris looked forward to Friday, but not tonight.<\/p>\n
That morning, her biology teacher, Mrs. Fleming, had announced she would be taking maternity leave.\u00a0 She had grown noticeably chubby over the last couple of months, and that wasn\u2019t the only change. Last year, she\u2019d been Miss Oliver, young, blonde, and new-minted from the state college.\u00a0 She’d come back to school in the fall with a new name and, presumably, a new husband, though no one had ever seen him, and Mrs. Fleming never talked about him.\u00a0 Doris decided that with a name like “Fleming” he couldn’t be worthy of Miss Oliver.\u00a0 In her head she still called her that, Miss Oliver.\u00a0 In class she called her nothing at all.<\/p>\n
When she announced the pregnancy the class erupted–girls awwing, boys shuffling, coughing lewd words.\u00a0 Doris turned to stone.\u00a0 A cold dread dripped into the pit of her stomach.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 She knew it was a strange reaction.\u00a0 Babies were supposed to be good things, everyone else thought so.\u00a0 But babies meant sex, Miss Oliver having sex, Miss Oliver having sex with her husband, who, in Doris’s mind, was alternately fat and hairy or pale and skinny with flesh-colored eyebrows, never handsome, never worthy.<\/p>\n
At the bell Doris stayed in her seat while the rest of the tenth graders squeezed through the classroom door to join the herd in the hall.<\/p>\n
“Doris?” Miss Oliver\/Mrs. Fleming said.\u00a0 Doris got to her feet and shoved her notebook in her bag.<\/p>\n
“Um, congratulations,” she said, gesturing vaguely to her teacher’s midsection.\u00a0 Doris did this. She talked with her hands.\u00a0 They seemed to act independently, especially at times like these when her insides turned into a hive of bees, rumbling, stinging, nervous.\u00a0 “What about the science fair?”<\/p>\n
“Maybe I was a little hard on you.\u00a0 Hormones.”\u00a0 When Miss Oliver smiled, the corners of he eyes crinkled, almost like an epicanthic fold, the blue of her irises translated to a glint.\u00a0 “If you haven’t started your project yet, you could just give me a detailed drawing of a pig’s physiology. I think that’s fair, considering the rest of your class did more organ throwing than learning.”\u00a0 This was what she loved about Miss Oliver, how she talked to her like she was an adult, like she was in some way special, separate, a friend.<\/p>\n
Doris had already started her project: The Mating Habits of the California Land Snail (Helix aspersa<\/em>). She’d started the night Miss Oliver assigned it, the night after pig day.<\/p>\n Doris had known that pig day was coming.\u00a0 Everyone knew. \u00a0In tenth grade you have to dissect a pig.\u00a0 It was a rite of passage.\u00a0 Doris knew, but she wasn’t ready for the actuality of it–the three ten gallon buckets full of floating pig fetuses, the formaldehyde smell of death, the way you could see blue veins through the translucent skin of the pig’s tiny, perfectly formed snout, the rigid length of umbilical cord.\u00a0 It didn’t make her sick at her stomach, which was what she’d feared, but instead it made her chest ache, her eyes water.\u00a0 I can’t<\/em>, she’d said, looking Miss Oliver in the eye, pleading, hoping she would understand.\u00a0 Instead there was Mrs. Fleming: don’t give me a hard time<\/em>.\u00a0 She told Doris to sit in the hall and read the next two chapters of the textbook.\u00a0 She tried, but she couldn’t see the diagrams for the tears, which inexplicably welled though she willed herself to stop.\u00a0 After class Miss Oliver\/Mrs. Fleming handed her a flyer–Regional Science Fair January 17th!–make-up work. <\/em><\/p>\n She started the project that night.\u00a0 She ordered the snails, filled out the USDA snail-shipping permits. She cleaned out the old aquariums her father kept in the garage.<\/p>\n When the snails arrived in their over-large LIVE ANIMALS carton, she divided them into two groups: Ideal Mating Conditions and Control.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t matter which snails she put together. They were neither male nor female, but could choose which to be when the time came. She watched her snails ooze up the aquarium glass, intertwine on mossy braches, all the while dreaming of the science fair.\u00a0 She imagined standing in the community college gym, a blue ribbon tacked to her foam-core project board, Miss Oliver walking across the room, parting the crowd, coming to stand before her.\u00a0 She would put a hand on Doris’s shoulder, crinkle her eyes and whisper so only Doris could hear, I’m proud of you<\/em>.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Tonight’s films were Dead Alive!<\/em> and Dawn of the Dead. <\/em>Usually Doris and Shannon, the other concession girl, took turns sneaking into the back of the theater after the shows started.\u00a0 Shannon always seemed to know someone in the audience, and sat with them.\u00a0 Doris typically stood at the back of the theater next to the door.\u00a0 She would never commit to a seat. It seemed wrong to sit down when she was supposed to be working, to sit alone surrounded by so many people.\u00a0 Doris didn’t plan on going into the theater at all today, though.\u00a0 She liked scary movies but she hated gore.<\/p>\n “There’s this scene with intestines!” Shannon said.\u00a0 Lately she’d been very interested in horror movies, probably because of the guy she’d been sitting with the last couple of Friday double features.\u00a0 “Could you cover for me during the second movie, Denby?”<\/p>\n Doris liked that Shannon called her Denby.\u00a0 It was like they were old friends, but they weren’t.\u00a0 Shannon was seventeen and on the yearbook staff, blonde with huge breasts, a C cup at least.\u00a0 Every time she spoke to Doris, Doris wondered if she was somehow making fun of her.<\/p>\n “What should I tell Wylie?” Mr. Wylie was the manager; he hardly ever came out of the office, so he wasn’t much of a threat.<\/p>\n “Tell him I’m in the bathroom or something, but he won’t ask.\u00a0 He’s too busy with Internet porn.”\u00a0 Doris felt her ears burn, and turned away so Shannon wouldn’t see her blush.\u00a0 “We’re out of nacho cheese.\u00a0 I’ll take out the bathroom trash if you refill the machine?”<\/p>\n “Okay.”<\/p>\n Doris hated refilling the cheese machine.\u00a0 The cheese came in ten pound bladders that were stored two to a box in the basement. She lugged a bladder up the stairs and dropped it on the concession counter where the contents slowly spread out and puddled, turgid against clear plastic.\u00a0 It looked like a giant yellow mound of silly putty.\u00a0 There was a trick to it, putty the cheese in the machine.\u00a0 You had to open the valve and connect this hose really quickly before it leaked out everywhere.\u00a0 Doris had to do all this on a stepladder.\u00a0 It was a dubious operation.<\/p>\n She upended the bladder and unscrewed the plastic valve cap.\u00a0 A cheese bubble squeezed out and popped.\u00a0 She held the bladder in both hands and started to climb the ladder.<\/p>\n “Oh my god!\u00a0 Guess what I found in the tampon dispenser!”\u00a0 Shannon shouted as she sprinted into the empty lobby.\u00a0 Startled, Doris fell backwards off the ladder and the cheese landed full weight on her chest.\u00a0 The bladder burst.\u00a0 Processed cheese food suddenly covered every surface. It was all over the floor, all over Doris–in her hair, soaking through her Cinema Three polo shirt.\u00a0 She could feel it oozing into her underwear.<\/p>\n “Shit, Denby!\u00a0 You okay?\u201d\u00a0 Shannon rushed over and pulled Doris to her feet.\u00a0 A stream of cheese sluiced onto her right boob.<\/p>\n “Sorry!\u00a0 Sorry!” Doris muttered and tried vainly to scoop handfuls of the goo off of her own non-existent chest.<\/p>\n “I should have helped you.”<\/p>\n “Can you hand me a napkin?”\u00a0 Doris asked.<\/p>\n “You need more than a napkin.\u00a0 Can I run you home?\u00a0 For a shower? We still have an hour before the doors open.”<\/p>\n “I live like fifteen miles away,” Doris said miserably.\u00a0 Her eyes burned.\u00a0 She may have gotten cheese in them.<\/p>\n “We\u2019ll go to my house then.\u201d<\/p>\n Doris went down to the basement to take off her shirt.\u00a0 She mopped up as much of the cheese as she could and was just about to put on her school uniform (she didn’t want to get cheese all over Shannon’s car) when she heard someone on the stairs.<\/p>\n “Denby?” Shannon called, keys in hand.\u00a0 Doris was standing there, basically naked to the waist, wearing only a cheese-soaked training bra.\u00a0 She frantically crossed her arms to cover herself.\u00a0 “Hey. It’s cool.\u00a0 I have boobs too,”<\/p>\n But Doris didn’t have boobs. Couldn’t Shannon see that.\u00a0 She was just being nice.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Shannon’s car smelled like cigarettes and magazine perfume samples.\u00a0 It would probably also smell like nacho cheese from now on.\u00a0 There was a dolphin swinging from the rear-view mirror.<\/p>\n “God, I’m really sorry,” Doris said for the hundredth time.<\/p>\n “You need to stop saying that,” Shannon said. “You want one?\u00a0 Take the edge off?”\u00a0 She offered a pack of cigarettes.<\/p>\n “No thanks.”<\/p>\n “You’re a good girl, aren’t you, Denby.\u00a0 You probably don’t drink either.” Shannon lit her cigarette, inhaled deeply and blew the smoke through the window before starting the car.<\/p>\n “I drink.”<\/p>\n “Oh?\u00a0 What do you drink?”<\/p>\n “Wine mostly, and my dad gave me a bottle of whiskey he got for Christmas because he has ulcers.”<\/p>\n “Really?”<\/p>\n “Really.”\u00a0 It was sort of true.\u00a0 Actually her father had said stay out of the liquor cabinet<\/em>.\u00a0 That was what parents were supposed to say.\u00a0 Then he said if you have to take something, take the whiskey<\/em>. <\/em>Her father was a realist.\u00a0 “I like to mix it with root beer.” She’d only ever tried it once.\u00a0 It tasted like stomach acid and made her feel like a shadow.<\/p>\n “Hey, you should go out with us tonight.”\u00a0 Shannon said this as if she’d just thought of it.\u00a0 “Yeah!\u00a0 You can tell you parents that you\u2019re staying at my house, which would sort of be the truth, because you can.\u00a0 My mom’s going on a date and my sister is at her dad’s for the weekend, so we don’t actually have to come home, but it’ll be fun.\u00a0 Say yes.”<\/p>\n “Um.”<\/p>\n “You know that guy, Paul?\u00a0 The one who’s been coming to the double feature?\u00a0 He’s bringing a friend tonight.\u00a0 Double date!”<\/p>\n “Um.”<\/p>\n “Oh come on, Denby.\u00a0 You’re totally not living into the Catholic school girl clich\u00e9.\u00a0 It’s your duty to be bad sometimes.”<\/p>\n “Okay.”<\/p>\n Shannon smiled and threw her cigarette butt out the window.<\/p>\n At Shannon’s no one was home.\u00a0 Doris used the phone in the kitchen to call her mom.<\/p>\n “Mama, can I spend the night at a friend’s?”<\/p>\n “Have I met this friend?”<\/p>\n “Dad has,” (which wasn’t exactly true.\u00a0 Her father had seen Shannon a few times when he picked up Doris from work.) “It’s Shannon from work”<\/p>\n “Will there be boys?”<\/p>\n “Of course not.\u00a0 Shannon doesn’t even have a brother.\u00a0 It’s a girls’ night.” (And there it was, the first time she’d really lied to her mother.)<\/p>\n “Well.\u00a0 I’m glad you’re making friends, honey.\u00a0 Should I call her mom?”<\/p>\n “Mother.\u00a0 I’m fifteen years old.”<\/p>\n Doris showered in the guest bathroom.\u00a0 Everything was done up in pink tile.<\/p>\n “We call this the Pepto Bismol room,” Shannon said.\u00a0 Doris had just gotten all the cheese out of her hair when Shannon burst into the bathroom.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I picked out some clothes for you.\u201d\u00a0 There was no way Shannon\u2019s clothes would fit Doris.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t just the boobs; Shannon was at minimum six inches taller.\u00a0 \u201cThey\u2019re my little sister\u2019s,\u201d she said as if reading Doris\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n \u201cHow old is you little sister?\u201d Doris asked, back to Shannon while she pretended to re-shampoo her hair.\u00a0 The shower curtain was clear plastic.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s eleven. But she\u2019s really big for her age.\u201d<\/p>\n Doris thought Shannon\u2019s sister must be a very mature eleven.\u00a0 The sweater had a plunging neckline and the skirt barely covered her ass.\u00a0 She took off the clothes and put them in her backpack.\u00a0 Shannon loaned her a spare Cinema Three polo.\u00a0 It hung off of Doris like a tunic.<\/p>\n \u201cThe guys are picking us up from the theater.\u00a0 We\u2019ll change in the basement,\u201d Shannon said.<\/p>\n \u201cThese guys are from school?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur <\/em>school?\u00a0 No way.\u00a0 All the guys at St. Francis are total fags.\u00a0 They wear sweater vests for god\u2019s sake.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the uniform.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTotally beside the point, Paul and his friend are college men.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIsn\u2019t that illegal?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOnly if you have sex with them.\u00a0 Just tell them you\u2019re a senior.\u00a0 They\u2019ll believe you.\u00a0 The waif look is totally in now.\u201d<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Back at work they mopped up the congealed cheese.\u00a0 It had developed a skin in their absence and was refusing to go peacefully.\u00a0 Then the theater opened and they were busy\u2014scooping popcorn, watering down cokes, waiting for eight year olds to decide which kind of candy.<\/p>\n Finally the lobby emptied.<\/p>\n \u201cYou mind if I just slip into the theater for a minute?\u00a0 You could probably come too.\u00a0 If they don\u2019t have their popcorn by now they don\u2019t deserve any.\u201d\u00a0 Shannon said.<\/p>\n \u201cNah, that\u2019s okay.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t like scary movies?\u201d\u00a0 Shannon poked out her lip like a baby, but then smiled and punched Doris in the arm.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t like gory movies.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut it looks so fake, it\u2019s hysterical.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cStill gross.\u201d<\/p>\n Doris wiped down the counter with a wet rag.\u00a0 Usually she brought a book to read, but today she only packed a bunch of scientific journal articles on snails she\u2019d gotten through inter-library loan.\u00a0 It seemed pointless to read them now; Miss Oliver was leaving.<\/p>\n Once when she\u2019d first started working at Cinema Three, Miss Oliver had come to a show.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t stop at the concession stand.\u00a0 She walked through the lobby purposefully, the whole time carrying on a conversation with a woman Doris had never seen before.\u00a0 For a second she thought about calling out Miss Oliver<\/em>!\u00a0 But then she remembered that it wasn\u2019t her name anymore and the moment had passed.<\/p>\n Now, in the empty lobby, after such a horrible day, Doris wished that she\u2019d said something, that she\u2019d called out no matter how embarrassing it would have been.\u00a0 She couldn\u2019t escape the feeling that she\u2019d never see Miss Oliver again.\u00a0 It was like Miss Oliver had announced today that she had a terminal disease and would be dying over Christmas break.\u00a0 Really, to Doris, it amounted to the same thing.\u00a0 What was the point of the Science Fair without Miss Oliver?<\/p>\n \u201cHey, quit daydreaming!\u201d It was Shannon and with her were the college men.\u00a0 Doris hadn\u2019t noticed them walking across the lobby.\u00a0 She jumped when Shannon spoke.<\/p>\n \u201cWhoa, Denby.\u201d\u00a0 She introduced the guys.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t look much different from high school boys, skinny, acne scarred, except one of them had a mustache. \u201cThis is Paul. You\u2019ve seen him,\u201d Shannon said.\u00a0 Her arm was around Paul\u2019s waist.\u00a0 He was playing with her hair.\u00a0 \u201cAnd this is Linus,\u201d she indicated the mustachioed one.<\/p>\n \u201cHey, Doris,\u201d Linus said offering his hand to shake.\u00a0 Doris awkwardly took it.\u00a0 She couldn\u2019t remember ever shaking someone\u2019s hand, maybe an old man in church, but certainly not anyone her own age.\u00a0 Then she remembered that Linus was not her own age.\u00a0 \u201cAren\u2019t you going to ask me where my blanket is?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d said Doris.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know, Linus.\u00a0 Charlie Brown.\u00a0 The blanket?\u201d<\/p>\n Doris had no idea what he was talking about.<\/p>\n \u201cMy parents were watching the Christmas special in the hospital room after I was born.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOooh.\u00a0 I love that one,\u201d Shannon gushed and clung to Paul tighter.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have a television,\u201d Doris said.\u00a0 It was a dumb thing to say.\u00a0 \u201cMy parents are crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo.\u00a0 That\u2019s cool,\u201d Linus said, and then the guys went off on a rant about corn syrup blood versus real pig\u2019s blood.\u00a0 Doris started making more popcorn for the between feature rush, but Shannon listen to them with rapt attention, laughing at the appropriate pauses.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n It was a little after midnight by the time Doris and Shannon met the guys in the parking lot.\u00a0 They were sitting in a door-less old ice cream truck drinking beers from paper bags.<\/p>\n \u201cWhose truck?\u201d Shannon asked.<\/p>\n \u201cLinus\u2019s,\u201d said Paul.\u00a0 The truck was gray and on the side where the ice cream menu should have been someone had painted a giant face with a mustache.\u00a0 Mister Mustache and the Grapenuts!<\/em> It said underneath.\u00a0 It looked like a blind five year old had done the lettering.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s our band,\u201d Linus said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have a band?\u00a0 They have a band, Denby!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNeat,\u201d Doris said.<\/p>\n \u201cI play the drums,\u201d Linus said leaning in and tentatively touching the small of Doris\u2019s back.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere are we going anyway?\u201d asked Doris.<\/p>\n \u201cDead Baby Bridge!\u201d the three of them said.\u00a0 Only Doris was left out of the joke.\u00a0 She shrugged.<\/p>\n \u201cIt used to be called Piss Road, but then they found that baby skeleton a few years back, so Dead Baby Bridge.\u00a0 I thought all you high school girls knew about it.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that where you go to dispose of your unwanted fetuses?\u201d\u00a0 Paul laughed.<\/p>\n \u201cUm,\u201d Doris said, making eye contact with Shannon.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s okay.\u00a0 Don\u2019t be scared, Denby.\u00a0 They\u2019re just being funny.\u00a0 Let\u2019s get you a beer.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the ice cream freezers still worked.\u00a0 The beer had stayed in too long and was a little slushy and it tasted like dog food smells, but Doris drank it fast, and then she had another.<\/p>\n Dead Baby Bridge was out in the middle of nowhere, more out in the middle of nowhere that even Doris\u2019s house.\u00a0 It seemed generous to call it a bridge.\u00a0 It was just a dirt road that ran over a ditch between two fallow fields.\u00a0 Dozens of cars were parked all along the road and someone had built a fire. Kids drank and smoked.\u00a0 Someone had a guitar.<\/p>\n For a long time they sat around the fire, drinking.\u00a0 Doris felt warm and fuzzy from the beer.\u00a0 It was like she was swaddled in a layer of cotton batting.\u00a0 She wasn\u2019t nervous anymore.\u00a0 After a while Shannon and Paul drifted away, melded into the dark.\u00a0 Doris imagined they were having sex.\u00a0 She laughed.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d asked Linus, too enthusiastic.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never been drunk before,\u201d said Doris.\u00a0 \u201cI mean, I\u2019ve had alcohol before, but this is different.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s great, right?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSort of, sure.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou like kittens?\u201d Linus asked.\u00a0 \u201cI have two kittens.\u00a0 You want to see their picture?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOkay.\u201d<\/p>\n He pulled out his wallet and flipped through the little plastic picture pages, then he handed it to her.\u00a0 There was a photograph of two yellow kittens fighting on a couch.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir names are Meat and Chainsaw.\u201d<\/p>\n Doris smiled.<\/p>\n \u201cYou wanna see where they found the dead baby?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot really.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPlease.\u00a0 It\u2019s so creepy!\u201d\u00a0 He grabbed her hand.\u00a0 His hand was moist and warm.\u00a0 He\u2019d been sweating.\u00a0 She followed him out of the circle of firelight.\u00a0 Here she was, Doris Agatha Denby, following a stranger into the dark.<\/p>\n They climbed down the embankment to the ditch.\u00a0 He guided her down even though it wasn\u2019t that steep, squeezing her hand a little too tightly.\u00a0 They stood there listening to the trickle of ditch water while their eyes adjusted to the darkness.\u00a0 Linus squatted down and pulled out a cigarette lighter.\u00a0 He struck the flint and held the tiny flame out to the drainage pipe that ran beneath the road.\u00a0 It was clogged with rotted leaves and garbage.<\/p>\n Linus reached up and tugged the hem of Doris\u2019s skirt.\u00a0 His cold hand brushed against her thigh and she flinched, a liquid chill running up her spine.<\/p>\n \u201cSorry,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cCome down here,\u201d he whispered, and she knelt down beside him.\u00a0 \u201cIt was in there.\u00a0 No one knows how long, but for a while.\u00a0 It was only a skeleton when it finally washed out.\u201d<\/p>\n Doris imagined the baby, rigid like a fetal pig, bobbing down stream.<\/p>\n \u201cProbably the rats got to it,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cOn of my brother\u2019s friends saw it.\u00a0 He said the finger bones were missing but there were still little strips of meat\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s okay,\u201d Doris said, stopping him.\u00a0 Her stomach felt untethered, like it might float up into her throat.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t mean to scare you,\u201d he said, but he was smiling, his face too close.\u00a0 She could smell his breath, sweet like a rotting banana. He pushed her back, almost gently, onto the grass.<\/p>\n So this is kissing, she thought.\u00a0 She had expected to feel something, something other than stubble and saliva.\u00a0 She expected to feel something in her soul, or at least in her stomach or somewhere lower, deeper.\u00a0 Something.\u00a0 But all Doris felt was a sort of solemnity.\u00a0 She imagined that somewhere out there (up there?) someone, a great, disembodied hand, made a check mark next to this experience–her first kiss, done.\u00a0 Tomorrow she would feel guilt and then, later, relief.\u00a0 This was proof that she was a normal girl, just like everyone else.\u00a0 She’d kissed a boy.\u00a0 For a second, before she realized it was impossible and weird, she imagined telling Miss Oliver about it next Monday, the desk between them, that’s right, boys like me too.<\/em><\/p>\n The kissing lasted for maybe ten minutes.\u00a0 When Linus finally stopped, Doris scooted away from him a little, put some distance between them so that he wouldn’t start again.\u00a0 The skin around her lips felt raw, scrubbed.\u00a0 Her chin was sticky with foreign spit.\u00a0 She didn’t want to wipe it, she knew that would be rude.<\/p>\n “Sorry, I…” Linus said.<\/p>\n “No, No, it was good.\u00a0 Thank you,” Doris said, stumbling over her words, smiling but not meeting his eyes.\u00a0 “It’s just…getting so late,” she looked at her wrist–no watch.<\/p>\n “Sun comes up in a couple of hours,” he said.\u00a0 Then he sprang, mock-playfully throwing his arm around her.\u00a0 She let it rest, dead weight on her stooping shoulders.\u00a0 It stayed there for a long minute.\u00a0 Then she could feel him leaning in.<\/p>\n “I need another beer.\u00a0 You?”\u00a0 She delicately extricated herself and went to find Shannon.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n The boys dropped them off at Shannon’s just as the sky was beginning to turn gray.\u00a0 Shannon’s mom was still out.\u00a0 In Shannon’s room they changed into pajamas.\u00a0 Doris put on a pair of flannel pants that were so long they covered her feet and dragged along behind.<\/p>\n “God, I’m so drunk,” Shannon giggled.\u00a0 She pulled back the covers and fell into bed.\u00a0 Doris stood there dumbly, thinking maybe she was supposed to sleep on the floor or out in the living room on the couch.\u00a0 “Come on, silly,” Shannon patted the bed “you’ve got to be tired.\u00a0 This was like the biggest night of your life.”<\/p>\n Doris climbed into bed on top of the comforter.\u00a0 She hadn’t slept in the same bed with another person since second grade.\u00a0 She lay down on her back and made herself as small as possible.<\/p>\n “Jesus, get under the covers already.\u00a0 You’re like trapping me under here,” Doris awkwardly wiggled between the sheets.\u00a0 Shannon rolled over and pulled the blanket up to Doris’s chin, tucking her in like a child. “It was your first kiss, wasn’t it?\u201d<\/p>\n Doris shrugged, the covers slipped down a little.<\/p>\n “Uh-huh.”<\/p>\n “Oh, Denby,” Shannon laughed and then did a strange thing: she leaned over and kissed Doris on the forehead, a quick peck, but Doris felt the warmth of it spread through her body.\u00a0 “You’re so weird.”<\/p>\n Later, Shannon was snoring, soft, but unmistakable.\u00a0 Doris had never heard a real person snore before.\u00a0 She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep, but it was sort of nice, this strange bed, the night sounds of another person.\u00a0 She thought about Miss Oliver, Mrs. Fleming–she would call her Mrs. Fleming from now on.\u00a0 She thought of Mrs. Fleming curled beside her husband.\u00a0 She thought of the baby.\u00a0 She might have slept, but not for long.<\/p>\n At some point Shannon rolled over, her head on Doris’s pillow, and breathed her humid boozy-sweet breath into the hollow of Doris’s neck.\u00a0 She thought of the snails, how she put a heating pad under their terrarium and sprayed them down with water to simulate mating season.\u00a0 It occurred to her that she should probably push Shannon away or roll over herself, but she didn’t.\u00a0 Instead she fell asleep, hard, like a coma.\u00a0 And when she woke at noon, she was alone.<\/p>\n She was small for her age in all ways\u2014fifteen, flat-chested, and five feet tall.\u00a0 Worse than that, though, was her name: Doris.\u00a0 Doris Agatha Denby.\u00a0 Her parents were assholes. After school and on weekends she worked at Cinema Three out on the highway.\u00a0 Mostly she stayed behind the concession stand, but on Sunday nights it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[16],"tags":[20],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-1JR","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6687"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6687"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10366,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6687\/revisions\/10366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Kilby Allen<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"