Read Online A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty by Joshilyn Jackson - Free Book Online
Authors: Joshilyn Jackson
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the arms of some boy. Then my vision widened, and I realized that nobody could know. Mosey wasn’t ours, and if Rick Warfield figured that out, the state would take her. No one is al owed to keep a child they kidnapped, no matter how many years have passed. They would come and take Mosey.
With that thought, two louder words came in, burying every other living thought. Beautiful came first, as I looked at Mosey’s damp, dark lashes.
She’d been crying, and her mouth had scrunched into a worried wad. Then I thought, Mine .
They were the only two words that mattered.
CHAPTER THREE
Liza
THERE IS A true thing that Liza never let go, even in the black, when there was no hum, no breath, no light, no self. This is what she knew: The baby is under the ground, the baby is safe, the baby is safe underground.
It’s changed, though. Big is cal ing for her to come and fight and fix it. “Liza? Liza, is that you?” Big sounds desperate.
The tide rol s Liza back and forth, trying to take her anywhere but now. She spins, so caught in her past that she can’t tel where Big’s voice is coming from. There is no sandy bed defining the bottom, and she’s too deep for light to get down. There is no up. There is nothing but the tide that turns and spins her through the dark. Sometimes in her sleep she sees pale white fish go by, sleek and muscular. They make their own glow, and they have mouths ful of needle teeth and bumps where their eyes should be. She isn’t afraid of them. Why should she be? She is like them; she belongs here. She deserves it.
She feels a hand that is Big’s hand petting her hair. She wishes she could send a message in a bottle, float it up. Liza can imagine herself writing the message with a yel ow thing, black point on one tip, the other end squared off and rubbery pink. She has no word for it. She has no word for paper or bottle or message either, no word for under, no word for ocean or fishes or up. Liza knows things and needs things anyway, without the words. Most of al she knows that the baby is no longer safe and she needs to get a message out.
“…the pioneers made terry-cloth rattle ducks,” Mosey says, from very far away, and Liza tries to ask Mosey what the ever-lovin’ fuck they are teaching her at that Baptist school. She can’t find the words for this either, but Mosey’s voice is up. Mosey is the real true now; Liza struggles and heaves herself toward Mosey, but when she surfaces, the only face she sees is Big’s.
“You sleep now, Little,” Big says, hands on Liza’s shoulders, lowering her backward into the water. The water closes over her, and the tides catch her, rol ing her backward through time, tumbling her through her own memories. Hands are pul ing her up now, and they belong to Pastor John at Calvary. She knows these hands, this place, this time; she is thirteen years old, and this is the day she pretended to get saved.
Liza comes up sputtering, waist-deep in pale blue water that smel s of chlorine. Pastor John turns her to face forward and drapes one arm across her shoulder, grinning down from the baptismal pool to the church below. Liza scrubs at her eyes. Most of the pews are empty, but the middle rows are ful of Calvary Baptist youth-group kids and their chaperones. The kids are hooting, and everyone is clapping for her.
Liza aims a wide smile at Melissa’s mother, the only person frowning, the only one whose hands are resting quietly in her lap. A shame she’s not enjoying this more , Liza thinks. It’s for her, after all. Mrs. Richardson told Melissa no more hanging out with Liza. There’s a Scripture, something about not being yoked up with non-Baptists. So here is Liza, getting dunked at Youth Ral y Weekend, and Melissa gets points for the save. Liza’s only prayer is that Big won’t find out. She doesn’t know what would make Big madder, the thought of Liza going Baptist for real or Liza being dishonest enough to go Baptist in name only.
Melissa stands by
With that thought, two louder words came in, burying every other living thought. Beautiful came first, as I looked at Mosey’s damp, dark lashes.
She’d been crying, and her mouth had scrunched into a worried wad. Then I thought, Mine .
They were the only two words that mattered.
CHAPTER THREE
Liza
THERE IS A true thing that Liza never let go, even in the black, when there was no hum, no breath, no light, no self. This is what she knew: The baby is under the ground, the baby is safe, the baby is safe underground.
It’s changed, though. Big is cal ing for her to come and fight and fix it. “Liza? Liza, is that you?” Big sounds desperate.
The tide rol s Liza back and forth, trying to take her anywhere but now. She spins, so caught in her past that she can’t tel where Big’s voice is coming from. There is no sandy bed defining the bottom, and she’s too deep for light to get down. There is no up. There is nothing but the tide that turns and spins her through the dark. Sometimes in her sleep she sees pale white fish go by, sleek and muscular. They make their own glow, and they have mouths ful of needle teeth and bumps where their eyes should be. She isn’t afraid of them. Why should she be? She is like them; she belongs here. She deserves it.
She feels a hand that is Big’s hand petting her hair. She wishes she could send a message in a bottle, float it up. Liza can imagine herself writing the message with a yel ow thing, black point on one tip, the other end squared off and rubbery pink. She has no word for it. She has no word for paper or bottle or message either, no word for under, no word for ocean or fishes or up. Liza knows things and needs things anyway, without the words. Most of al she knows that the baby is no longer safe and she needs to get a message out.
“…the pioneers made terry-cloth rattle ducks,” Mosey says, from very far away, and Liza tries to ask Mosey what the ever-lovin’ fuck they are teaching her at that Baptist school. She can’t find the words for this either, but Mosey’s voice is up. Mosey is the real true now; Liza struggles and heaves herself toward Mosey, but when she surfaces, the only face she sees is Big’s.
“You sleep now, Little,” Big says, hands on Liza’s shoulders, lowering her backward into the water. The water closes over her, and the tides catch her, rol ing her backward through time, tumbling her through her own memories. Hands are pul ing her up now, and they belong to Pastor John at Calvary. She knows these hands, this place, this time; she is thirteen years old, and this is the day she pretended to get saved.
Liza comes up sputtering, waist-deep in pale blue water that smel s of chlorine. Pastor John turns her to face forward and drapes one arm across her shoulder, grinning down from the baptismal pool to the church below. Liza scrubs at her eyes. Most of the pews are empty, but the middle rows are ful of Calvary Baptist youth-group kids and their chaperones. The kids are hooting, and everyone is clapping for her.
Liza aims a wide smile at Melissa’s mother, the only person frowning, the only one whose hands are resting quietly in her lap. A shame she’s not enjoying this more , Liza thinks. It’s for her, after all. Mrs. Richardson told Melissa no more hanging out with Liza. There’s a Scripture, something about not being yoked up with non-Baptists. So here is Liza, getting dunked at Youth Ral y Weekend, and Melissa gets points for the save. Liza’s only prayer is that Big won’t find out. She doesn’t know what would make Big madder, the thought of Liza going Baptist for real or Liza being dishonest enough to go Baptist in name only.
Melissa stands by
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