Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia (year 2 reading books .txt) 📕

“I was wondering…” Jeanette chewed her bottom lip and looked toward the shop door. A laminate tacked to the glass read EMPLOYEES DO NOT HAVE ACCESS TO SAFE.

“Me and my friend”—she motioned toward Sasha with her chin—“we want to buy cigarettes but we forgot our IDs. If I give you the money, would you buy us a pack of Marlboro menthols? The green pack?” She held out a crumpled twenty, gave her best smile again.

Johnson squinted. “How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

He frowned and cocked his head, softened into a smile. “What if I don’t want your money? What if I do it as a favor?”

The night was sticky and Johnson’s hand left a moist imprint on his wallet. His eyes were on Jeanette’s chest and she knew she had him. She brought her arms closer together. The cross of her gold chain disappeared between mounds of flesh.

“You don’t have to do that,” she said.

It was uncomfortable enough to ask for cigarettes; Jeanette didn’t know how to accept additional favors. She glanced toward Sasha but Sasha chewed a fingernail, not paying attention.

“It’d be my pleasure,” Johnson said. “Maybe you can pay me some other way.”

Jeanette wasn’t stupid. She got it right away. Oh, went a flick in her head. She knew when wanting her became wanting her. Usually it scared her a little, men’s comments. She’d walk down Kendall Drive by Sasha’s house, a street that felt more like a congested highway, and men would honk at her, would follow them, would stop to gawk and shout. She liked it. She hated it. Thought it was a fact of life, like waiting for the light to change or taking an umbrella just in case.

But she pictured the men following through on their promises, shoving her into their cars, to fuck her, to fuck that juicy ass. That’s what those cooler, harder girls did, wasn’t it? They got fucked. But she couldn’t picture the popular boys at school, boys like Chris and Raul and Marcelo, talking to their girlfriends like that, expressing such raw desire. She was amazed she could inspire such want, such need. She was baffled that these same men who shouted at her and Sasha did things that, say, her mother and father did. She could not picture her father fucking her mother. She thought, These men must want me more than anyone wants my mother, more than anyone wants the coolest girl in school. Then she felt good.

So she smiled some more at Johnson. Pretended she didn’t understand. “What kind of favor?” she said.

Johnson laughed. He looked around. He was the kind of guy who couldn’t stop looking around as if his next words were on cue cards scattered in the distance.

“What are you girls doing tonight? You know, after you smoke your cigarettes?”

Jeanette wondered what he wanted. She wondered if men who wanted to fuck her would accept a night driving around the city. She saw dirt under Johnson’s fingernails and wondered if he was the kind of man who built things or tore them apart, who knew about machines in a way her own father did not.

“We don’t have any plans,” Jeanette said.

The man nodded. “I see.”

Johnson looked at a cue card on the left, a cue card on the right, then opened his door to grab something from the passenger side seat. He handed her a flyer.

On the flyer was a woman in a silver metallic bikini, oil-shiny, hair cascading around her shoulders. The woman’s lips were slightly parted. The woman was so happy to be on the front of a flyer. She wanted to get fucked.

TMS Productionz presents Wet n Wild, the flyer read.

“What is this?” Jeanette said.

Johnson watched Jeanette watch the flyer. “You ever been to a foam party, sweetie?” he said. “This one starts in an hour. Lasts all night.”

All night, all ages, read the flyer. No Cover for Ladies. Little cutout faces of five men surrounded the woman in the bikini whose hard breasts shone like apples the size of their heads. They were the faces of various DJs—DJ Ztar Ztruck, DJ Taz, DJ Juicy J. Bubbles floated like halos around their heads.

“Let me ask my friend,” Jeanette said.

Sasha and Jeanette had their first fight. Sasha said no, absolutely not, she would not go anywhere with a man she didn’t know. This had angered Jeanette. Something was finally happening to them. Something besides getting high at the car wash and eating pancakes. Something was happening to Jeanette besides her father naked and sweaty passed out on the couch and her mother carefully reapplying mascara after crying and dabbing vanilla-scented lotion between her breasts because, she said, every woman should have a “signature scent.” Something was finally happening that didn’t feature a predictable ending. Jeanette didn’t understand how someone like Sasha, who went skydiving once and drove high without her seat belt, had never considered testing what lay on the other side of men in cars who wanted them.

“I’m going whether or not you go with me,” Jeanette said to her, and knew in that instant that Sasha was pretending even more than she was, that Jeanette was harder and floating closer to the girls they both thought they were.

“I’m not bailing you out if you get stuck in South Beach or something,” Sasha said to her. Jeanette heard the door jingle. Johnson walked out of the 7-Eleven and waved a pack of Marlboros at them, smiling. “And you can keep the stupid cigarettes.”

“Fine, go home, and I’ll tell you all about the party tomorrow,” said Jeanette. “I thought you were supposed to be my best friend.”

“This is so stupid,” Sasha said, already walking toward the IHOP parking lot. Jeanette let herself wonder for a moment how bad Sasha would feel if they found Jeanette’s body the next day, maybe at the bottom of some lake or worse. She couldn’t let herself think of worse. Excitement rippled through her, and fear. Two emotions