Gone With a Handsomer Man by Michael Lee West Page B

Bing.
    I flattened the note with the heel of my hand. His handwriting looked odd: the g in Bing wasn’t curled up like a watch spring. Had he written the note or dictated it to Natalie? He’d sworn up and down he hadn’t known about the sign, and I’d believed him.
    I ripped up the note. As I threw the pieces at the sign, I remembered an old Gullah recipe called Bye-Bye Bitch. It calls for pepper, gunpowder, and spit from your victim. If throwing fruit is a crime, how in the world would you collect saliva without ending up in the pokey? Why, you’d have to be a dentist—or quick on the draw with a turkey baster.

nine
    I went straight to bed but I couldn’t sleep. Seeing Coop again had brought back feelings that I’d worked hard to repress. He’d been a year ahead of me at Bonaventure High, but he’d always teased me in a brotherly way. His daddy, Dr. O’Malley, had taken care of the town’s ills, including my asthma, and his mama beautified local homes with a gift shop on the town square.
    Since the O’Malleys attended First Baptist, I got to see Coop every Sunday, and at the Pack-a-Pew parties. Aunt Bluette said Coop was an Irish Baptist—Dr. O’Malley had been Catholic until he’d met Coop’s mama, a Baptist preacher’s daughter. I was grateful they’d picked my church because that meant I got to see Coop every day except Saturday. Because I was short and puny, he’d sneak up behind me and set me on his shoulders.
    “Put me down, O’Malley,” I’d say, full of mock indignation.
    Every afternoon, I saw him at football practice. I was in the band, the worst clarinet player in Bonaventure High, and I was evermore marching out of step. Coop would hang around to watch the head majorette, Barb Browning, but I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
    Not that it did me any good, because Coop and Barb had gone steady since junior high. They were voted “Cutest Couple” their senior year. Everyone assumed they’d get married, but the day after graduation, Coop and Barb broke up.
    A week later, he walked up to me after church and said, “Hey, you ready for summer?”
    I glanced over my shoulder, thinking he was speaking to someone else. He laughed and breezed on by. I was so discombobulated, I had to go home and put an ice pack on my head. Aunt Bluette kept asking what was wrong. I couldn’t tell her the truth, that I’d been infatuated with Cooper O’Malley for years, and when he’d finally acknowledged my existence, I’d acted awful, what Mama used to call Teenified.
    Aunt Bluette bought me a tennis racquet at a garage sale and dropped me off at the community center. “But I don’t know how to play,” I told her.
    “Watch,” she said. “And learn.” Then she drove off and left my ass.
    I walked down to the tennis court and sat on a bench. Coop was playing on the first court with a tall, thin girl—not Barb. He cut a striking figure in his white shirt and shorts. After the game, he walked over to my bench.
    “What you doing here, Templeton?” he said.
    “It’s a free country, O’Malley,” I said.
    “No really.” He laughed. “Are you waiting for a court?”
    “Aunt Bluette said I needed to get out of the house. She dropped me off.”
    He glanced at the parking lot. “Where is she?”
    “Gone.”
    “Need a ride home?” He zipped the cover over his racquet.
    “The farm’s out of your way,” I said.
    “It’ll give us time to talk.”
    About what? I managed to control my breathing as we walked toward his car. The whole time, he tapped his racquet against mine. Finally he said, “Hey, Templeton, you doing anything next Saturday?”
    I shook my head. I never did anything.
    “The youth class is having a cookout at Lake Bonaventure,” he said. “Would you go?”
    I stumbled, and he caught my arm. “Go with the class, you mean,” I said.
    “Yeah.” He shrugged. “With me, too.”
    Aunt Bluette went to a garage sale and bought me a red polka dot swimsuit, just this side of a