Mary Jane by Jessica Blau (best motivational books .txt) 📕

On TV, Sheba had long black hair that hung like a curtain almost to her waist. Her eyes were giant circles with lashes thathit her eyebrows. And her smile flashed like a cube on a camera. As she sat in the Cones’ banquette, I could see that Sheba’shair was just as long and beautiful. Her eyes were just as big. But her lashes were missing. She was wearing cutoff shortsand a tank top, no bra. Her feet were bare and tucked under her bottom. Her golden skin was as shiny and smooth as a pieceof wet suede.

I couldn’t speak.

Sheba glanced up and saw me. “You must be Mary Jane,” she said. “Izzy’s been talking about you.”

I nodded.

“I like your cutoffs.” She smiled and I felt my knees wobble.

“I made them last night. Maybe they’re too long.”

“Well, hell, we can fix that, can’t we?” Sheba scooted out from the banquette and started rummaging around the counter. “Howdo they find anything in this house?”

“Izzy can usually find things. What are you looking for?”

“Scissors!”

I opened the drawer I’d sorted through one day last week when I had been looking for a vegetable peeler. Scissors had been there, nestled among bottles of nail polish, toenail clippers, a AAA map of Maryland, paper-wrapped (and ripped) chopsticks, sticky loose coins, Wrigley’s gum, rubber bands, and other odds and ends. Magically, the scissors were still there. I pulled them out and handed them to Sheba.

“Go stand on the bench,” Sheba said.

I went to the banquette and climbed up. My hands were shaking. I hoped my legs weren’t shaking.

“Let’s unroll them first.” Sheba unrolled one leg of my shorts. Her hands felt cool and gentle. I unrolled the other.

She laughed. “Were you drunk?!”

“What?”

“When you cut these? Looks like you were drinking!”

“No. I don’t drink.”

“I’m teasing.” Sheba winked at me, then inserted the scissors into the edge of one leg and started cutting upward. “Turn slowly.”

I rotated and Sheba glided the scissors, cold against my skin, around my thighs until I was facing front again. The shortsleg was barely longer than my underpants. My mother would die.

“Good?”

I nodded. Sheba dug the scissors into the other leg. I turned slowly. When I came back around, the Cone family had enteredthe room with a man who looked familiar but whose name I didn’t know. The addict, I presumed. He held a heavy hardcover bookin one giant hand.

“We’re fixing her shorts,” Sheba said.

“Hurrah!” Mrs. Cone said, and she winked at me.

“Mary Jane!” Izzy shouted. “Sheba lives here now but we can’t tell anyone!”

Everyone laughed, even the rock star whose identity was coming back to me. I remembered reading about Sheba marrying him shortly after Family First! was canceled. Her brothers disapproved and her family disowned her. He was the lead singer of a band called Running Water.The cool girls at school loved Running Water, but I couldn’t name a single song of theirs.

“I’m Jimmy,” the rock star said, and he stuck out his hand. I put out mine, as I assumed he wanted to shake as Dr. Cone haddone that first day. Instead Jimmy just held on. I paused, unsure as to why he was grasping my shaky hand, and then realizedhe was helping me down from the bench. I took a quick breath and stepped down, my eyes on the floor so no one could see myred face.

“I’m Mary Jane,” I almost whispered. I glanced up and then away again. Jimmy didn’t look like an addict. But he did look likea guy in a band. His dyed-white hair was spiked up all over his head. His shirt was open to his navel, revealing a flat surfaceof curly black hair with two nipples popping out like tiny pig snouts from a bramble. He wore a leather cord around his neck,three blue feathers hanging off it. He, too, was barefoot and wearing cutoff shorts.

“You know what we need,” Sheba said. Everyone looked at her expectantly.

“Popsicles?” Izzy asked.

“Well, those, too. But look at us. We’re a six-pack and only three of us have on cutoffs.”

“We all need cutoffs!” Izzy shrieked, and ran out of the room. Normally, I would have followed her—being with Izzy was myjob, after all. But I was disoriented by Sheba in the room and the fact that I was now wearing shorts so small, it felt likethere was wind blowing on my bottom. I went silent and still, as if that might make me invisible, and listened to the grown-upstalking. They were smiley, energetic, and happy. No one seemed insane or addict-y.

Mrs. Cone went to the freezer, pushed stuff around, and pulled out a single half Popsicle. The white paper looked like it had been ripped open with teeth; the Popsicle itself had the white acne of frost over it. “Mary Jane,” she said. “Maybe you and Izzy can walk up to Eddie’s and get some Popsicles.”

“Sure,” I said. Izzy and I had walked up to Eddie’s every afternoon last week except the first day, when we’d gone to theLittle Tavern. It turned out that no one in the Cone family cooked. At the deli counter of Eddie’s, Izzy and I had pickedout dinner, to be served after I went home to have dinner with my parents. I picked out pasta salads, bean salads, roastedchicken and fried chicken, steamed corn and peas, and cheesy twice-baked potatoes. Also, because Izzy loved them, we alwaysgot bags of Utz barbeque potato chips. Dr. Cone had given me the number to their account, and told me I could get whateversnacks and foods I wanted too. So far, I had been too scared to use it for food for myself.

Izzy tumbled into the kitchen, holding a heap of jeans. “Cutoffs!” she shouted. “One for me, one for Mommy, one for Dad.”

Sheba began singing a made-up song about cutoff jeans. “Cut them off, little Izzy, cut them off. . . .” She picked up Mrs. Cone’s jeans and held them out to Mrs. Cone. Mrs. Cone slipped them on