What would the neighbors think

Growing up in small town Arkansas, I ran those streets. My parents didn't pay attention, or care where I went or what I did. Momma was too busy socializing over at the neighbors As long as I kept my doings quiet and stayed out of the town gossip, I was pretty much free to do as I pleased. Like any self-righteous teenage girl, I had my habits. I'd go down to the stores on the main strip figure out just how to get what I wanted. How I went about that just depending on what kind of day I was having. There was a lot of don't ask don't tell. Especially from the dirty old store owners who would give anything to see a young girl's ta-tas. It never matters that I didn't have money, always ended up with what I wanted. Just so long as it didn’t get back to Momma or her friends.

Momma and her friends used to sit at an old card table in Ms. Betsy’s trailer drinking their coffee and telling the town gossip. I got to hear it all over dinner. Seems my friend Jenny was caught sneaking out with some boy and now the whole town was sure she was pregnant. The whole town didn’t know that boy was her cover when she wanted to see her girlfriend. They’d really flip if they knew she was a lesbian. “what would the neighbors say?” Momma asked me that almost every day for one reason or another. It’s like right or wrong didn’t matter. The only thing that did was the gossip table. Everyone in town wanted to be at the gossip table. That was the one time you knew you weren’t the subject.

One day I was coming out of Old. Mr. Jimmy’s shop with my ill-gotten goods and MS. Betsy herself strolled on my. Her Sunday style hat was flopped to the side on her head swayed with her hips, side to side, until she saw me. Then she just stopped and stared. With the little bag of goodies clutched in my hand, I looked up at her. “Hey, Ms. Betsy.” My feet water to run, but I felt stuck all at the same time. Like the sidewalk was full of wet cement.

“Now Lacy, you know Jimmy’s shop isn’t an appropriate place for a young girl to be! “Her brows pinced ugly and her lips picked like saying the words tasted like sour milk. Well, nobody asked her to say them. “What sort of things would a girl like you even need in there?” Yeah, that was her church voice to go with her Sunday hat.

“Nothing big, Ms. Betsy. Just some incense and stuff. I like to make my room smell pretty.” Maybe that would call her off. Smelling good is something good for girls to do, right? Not like she had to know about the other things I got, or that Old Man Jimmy had given them to me for letting him look at my breast. Ms. Betty and Momma would never let that go. Momma might even send me off for being the talk of the town!

Ms. Betsy looks like she was going to say something else. That pucker was back. I could hear my momma’s words in my head. “What would the neighbors say?”

I almost stuttered, but I’m a proper belle. “Well Ms. Betsy, it was nice to run into you. I’ll for sure tell momma hi. Got to go help her with supper. Bye”

I took off. I know she stared down my back, but she had nothing to go on and I wasn’t about to give it to her. I ran down the back roads all the way to the house. I knew Momma and Ms. Betsy would talk. I just had to talk first.

I ran in and gave momma a peck on the check before dashing to my room to stash my goods. She smile and patted her check like always. The smell of coffee and cigarettes clung to her every move. She tried perfumes, but then she just smelled like perfumed cigarettes and coffee. “I saw Ms. Betsy in town. She says hi.”

“That’s nice, dear. Did you have a good day running with your friends?”

“Sure thing momma. I picked up some incense for my room.” Incense are cheap. She won’t ask how l, even though I didn’t have any money.

“That’s nice dear. Go ahead and start washing those potatoes, will you?”

I walked over to the sink and began running some cool water with just a bit of vinegar to get them clean.

The phone rang.

Momma answered with her normal cheer. My stomach dropped all the same. What if Ms. Betsy said something? I listened like a fly on the wall and washed my potatoes until Momma hing up the phone.

“Ok. Let’s boil some water for these bad boys.”

I’d done it again. Another day free. All I could think of is what I’d do tomorrow. Tomorrow I had to help Jenny. She wanted to get out and see Sam but she had been caught with Zach so I knew her momma wouldn’t let her out alone. If they knew Sam was really her girlfriend they might lay off on this whole “I bet Jenny’s pregnant” rumor that was going about. Although, the “Jenny’s a lesbian so she must have had parents” rumors would have started.

The only thing Jenny’s parents didn’t have to give her was money and none of our parents gave us that. Her parents were even nicer than mine. Still, when I went over to help spring her, Jenny looked like a kicked puppy. “The neighbors are talking about me and Zack. My momma is talking about having to send me off if I don’t straighten up “ the sardonic look on her face using the term “straighten up” made me want to both laugh and scream. Jenny couldn’t tell them either way about any of it or she would be forced to go live with her grandma in the country.

We would have to fix this. I just didn’t know how. All the gossip table wanted was gossip. It didn’tmatter what or on who. It was like their cocaine. All the thoughts started running through my mind. I knew we could get the light off Jenny and she could see Sam. I just had to figure out how.

“Come on Jenny, let’s go down the strip. We will figure something out and the rest of the crew wants to meet up. What do ya say? Some window shopping?”

“Psh. Lacy, like you EVER just window shop. You know Ms. Betsy saw you coming out of old Man Jimmy’s.”

I felt my face heat up and my whole body dance like popcorn on the stove top. “There is no way they really know how I get that stuff. They would have sent me off well before now. Ugh people stress me out. I bet we can get some booze today in stead. Old man Bobby has been throwing me the eyes. Let me borrow your crop top and jacket.”

I went straight for Jenny’s closet and dug around until I found her hot pink belly shirt and bedazzled denim jacket. I changed and buttoned the jacket half up to slip out of the house. “I got us. What are you feeling today? A little beer or whiskey?”

“You really think old Bobby is gonna let you pull of whiskey?”

“You bet my sweet tits I do.”

“Whatever, I’ll go bit I’m not walking in. I don’t want that sneeze thinking he is getting a two-for”

We snuck out Jenny’s creaky old back door and down the side roads to Old Bobby’s liquor store. That was where I always got all my liquor up to that point. Sometimes I’d show the girls and sometimes we’d use the five finger discount method. Today, I was just gonna show a bit. Not like I cared. I didn’t understand why mend would give so much just to see them. I saw them every day. They weren’t much.

Undoing the jacket, I slipped I’m the store while Jenny stood lookout. He’d never do it of there were any other customers inside. “Hey, Mr. Bobby. Wanna make a trade today?” I put my hands behind back and pushed my perky girls high and to the front.

“Oh now Lacy, come on up to the counter, sugar.” He leaned forward and folded his hands on the counter top. “You are looking awfully nice today.” He licked his lips and traced the outline of my right breast without actually touching me. I felt a little shiver course through me but I stuffed it down. Man, I wanted that whiskey today.

“I’m just hoping to score a bottle of good whiskey. You up for a trade?”

“Good whiskey, huh? Let me make you a little different deal. You come on back to this room and take that tiny top off. Let me get an extra…good look and I’ll get you an extra good bottle. But don’t you go telling nobody. I can’t do this for all your little friends.”

The spit in my throat was thick but I swallowed it anyway and nodded before I followed him to that back room. He stood looking down on me as I took my shirt off. His hand shifted quickly to the bottom of my bra. “A real good look now, Lacy.” His voice rumbled as he cupped my breast and slid my bra out of the way.

I tried to move back but he put one hand behind my back to keep me still. The cement settled in my stomach and my feet. When he pulled his hand back , I fixed my bra and pulled my short back on as fast as I could. He just turned and grabbed the whiskey. He handed it to me without another word and I ran out the door, grabbed Jenny by the arm, and just kept moving.

We didn’t say a word until we came to the car graveyard. Then I just screamed out my frustrations in a growl and opened the heavy glass bottle of amber liquor. I pressed the bottle toy lips and swallowed hard before I handed it over to Jenny to do the same. I shuddered with the burn and growled again.

“That old bastard touched me this time.” The first words I actually spoke since walking out that door.

“You let him?”

“Didn’t get much choice.”

Jenny just watched her feet as she kicked a rock around the dirt. I snagged the bottle back and took another swig.

“We could make him pay, ya know? You didn’t tell him to touch you. I could, like, I dunno, write ‘pedo' on his door ‘while everyone is sleeping.”

I kicked a rock over by one of the old cars. It clinked against the wheel.

Jenny took the bottle and tipped it up again. She shivered and grunted with a big gulp of fire.

“How would we get our liquor? What would the neighbors say?”

“Nothing about us if we do this right. And they will have new things to talk about, instead of me being ‘pregnant'.” Jenny squished her face and stuck out her tongue.

I felt the knot in my gut release a smidge and I laughed at her crazy face before I took the bottle back again.

Our plan set, we hid out until dark to do our deed, fueled by liquid fire. We were going to get the light off Jenny and Mr. Bob wouldn’t touch anyone else. That wasn’t the deal.

I woke the next morning to the noise of the gossip table. Momma and her friends were extra loud.

Seems someone vandalized Bob’s liquor. People said they saw two kids, but nobody could tell who they were in the dark. They had worn hoodies too. They said the kids spray painted bad things on the doors and windows. Now, the gossip table wanted to know why. Had Mr. Bob been doing shady things? Of course he had but they didn’t know the extent of it. Now they sat here guessing.

At time passed the neighbors kept hounding Mr. Bob. Seems I wasn’t the first girl to get the good liquor. Jenny got out of trouble when nobody caught her and Zach anymore and her belly never got any bigger. She did start having more sleepovers though. It’s amazing what the gossip table could miss while they were looking at others.

I guess those were the days when I could do anything. All I had to keep in mind was “what would the neighbors think?” and then make sure they never did.