Then he studied the Barbie arm for a while, pressing a thumb into the plastic flesh.
'I got a secret,” he finally said.
'What is it?'
'If I say you can’t tell, okay? If Dell knows she’ll wallop me good and then I’m in trouble forever.”
'I got a secret too.”
He looked at me.
'Give me your secret and I’ll give you mine, okay?”
'Okay.”
We both sat up on the cliff, crossing our legs like Indian chiefs. Then I shut Cut ’N Style in a fist so she couldn’t hear. And I whispered my secret, saying that he was my boyfriend, that I was Mrs. Captain -- and that I liked silly kissing his lips.
'Oh,” he said, 'mine is different -- mine is that I got dynamite in my room and that’s bad news for me.”
Dynamite. Two sticks. He found them at the new boom hole, he said.
'I forget everything,' he said, 'and stealing is what gets me in trouble. That’s what happens, that’s why it’s a secret.”
'I’d like to see,” I said.
He sighed, drawing his mouth into a tight circle.
'I don’t know, maybe tomorrow when Dell drives to town. I don’t know. When she drives to town I’m in charge, so I can take care of myself if I want.”
'If you show me I’ll believe you,' I said. 'If you show me, you can keep the arm as my birthday present.”
He was supposed to smile, but his face revealed nothing. He glanced at the arm.
'WIhat’s its name?'
'Army,' I said.
'Is it a boy or a girl? A girl is nice, I think.'
'It’s a boy.”
'How can you tell?”
I took the arm and held it between my legs, aiming the diminutive appendage outward as if it were a boy thingy.
'That doesn’t mean it’s a boy,' he said.
'Yes it does. It’s a thingy. You got a thingy, I know.'
'No.”
'I can see it after we peck. I can see it bigger.'
'No you can’t. That’s wrong. I don’t have that.”
He rocked forward, folding his forearms over the front of his trunks. A soft breeze pushed around us, stirring the dust in the wig, powdering us with rock flour.
I set the arm on his left knee.
'Dickens, I’d like to see your dynamite.”
'Maybe tomorrow,” he said, 'when Dell goes to town. I don’t know.”
'But you’re my boyfriend,' I said.
'I don’t understand that,” he replied, removing the wig, dumping it in my lap. 'I better get home, I think.'
I love you, I thought. You are my dear sweet captain.
And on the cliff high above the Hundred Year Ocean we kissed for a moment in the late afternoon, then we wandered away, silently, listening as we went, hoping for another boom that never came.
20
Cut ’N Style wouldn’t shut up.
'Dickens has a girlfriend,” she teased. 'He’s your boyfriend.'
'He’s my husband,” I told her. 'I’m his wife.'
'He’s a dreamboat. He’s a sunny cloud.”
It was morning, hours before noon. And even though Dickens always brought my meal after lunchtime, I waited on the porch steps for his arrival.
'Kiss me,” Cut ’N Style said.
'That’s gross. You’re a girl.'
'Please. Kiss me and I’ll be a boy.'
'Girls don’t kiss girls that way.”
'Please-'
I kissed her, but it wasn”t the same as kissing Dickens; there wasn’t any tingling in my belly. Then I consumed her with my mouth, sucking her from my finger, pretending that she was a trout and I was a whale. Her skin tasted like soap, her hair like licorice. She made me gag. So I spit her into my palm.
'You’re disgusting,” I said.
And she was supposed to cry or complain. Instead she started laughing.
'That was fun,” she said. 'That was great.'
You’re nuts, I thought. You're crazier than the wind.
Then we were both laughing.
'You’re my best friend,” I told her.
'And you’re mine too.”
'And I love Dickens.”
'He’s the sweet prince. He’s the great king.”
'He’s apple juice and jerky.”
'We’re a happy family.'
'That’s what we are.”
And Dell would take care of us all. Soon she’d watch our babies while we explored the Hundred Year Ocean. She’d marry my father and become my mother. Then she and Dickens and Cut ’N Style and I would build a castle from mesquite branches and flattened pennies. We’d eat meat and pound cake at every meal. We’d drink juice from gold-plated Dixie cups.
'It’s a dream come true,” I said.
'It’s Christmas,” Cut ’N Style said.
My belly tingled. I poked my stomach, imagining a baby squirming within, a Barbie baby with real rooted eyelashes and blue goggles and a real brain. I saw it on TV -- if a boyfriend silly kissed a girlfriend enough times, something was bound to happen.
'Tell Dickens,” Cut ’N Style was saying. 'Tell him about the castle and the babies. And then you’ll see his dynamite. Maybe Dell is driving to town already and he’s there alone thinking he’d like you to visit and see his dynamite.'
'But maybe she’s still there-'
'And she’ll invite us for a tea party or picnic because she loves Daddy and she’s our friend too. That’s why she won’t drink our blood. Anyway, she doesn’t do that anymore, Dickens said so.'
My stomach grumbled; the baby was kicking around. That’s why my belly always tingled while Dickens and I squished our lips together -- every peck caused the baby to grow a little more. I should have known.
'Better tell Dickens,' I said. 'I think a baby is in me from kissing. I think it’s Classique, I think. She's coming back.'
'Let’s go tell,” Cut ’N Style said. 'Let’s touch the dynamite.”
And as we drifted from the steps, a shiver shot through me, beginning at the base of my neck and rippling down my spine. I pictured Dell and Dickens' dark house -- the windows locked, the shades shutting out the daylight -- their bee-stung mother dozing somewhere inside.
A castle is safer than a home or a farmhouse, I thought. A castle keeps bees and ants from attacking
