she said. “How does this look to you? As a composition.”
Mr. Fleming rotated a lamp a fraction of an inch. He looked at the Stassos family with awestruck myopia.
“Right,” he said. “Perfect. Just about perfect. Susan, move a little to the left of your father. Right. There. That's perfect.”
Zoe shifted on the sofa cushion. She repositioned her arms in an effort to conceal the red bow at her waist.
“Zoe, don't fidget,” Momma said. She leaned toward Billy, adjusted the handkerchief in his pocket. She whispered to him, and he put out a helpless spasm of laughter. Zoe glanced back at Poppa and Susan standing behind the sofa. Briefly, she thought Susan was wearing a wedding dress, all sheen and lace. Susan stood next to Poppa. She was calm and beautiful.
“Fine,” Mr. Fleming said. “You look aces, all of you. Now you're all going to smile for me. Right?”
Zoe saw that she was not in the picture. She shifted her weight, moved closer toward the center. She still wasn't in the picture.
“Hey, Zoe,” Mr. Fleming said. “Are you going to smile? For me?”
She nodded. She started to smile. The room exploded with light.
1968/ It was too late not to have done it. The kisses had become something Susan did and now there was no language to say no in. Now it was only possible to let it happen. Not saying anything gave it no shape, no beginning or end; it was only possible to not say anything.
If she hadn't started it, if she was innocent, she might have been somebody who could say no. An innocent girl could have done that.
As herself, with no one else to be, she let it happen. She wanted it. She didn't not want it. And it was only kisses and hugs. It only happened when he drank. She was like a little girl and she was like a nurse. He kissed her with romance, playfully. He was careful about his hands.
He wasn't, to blame, not really. She had started it and now it existed, a secret they shared. Saying no would have given it a name.
It was two minutes to halftime. The band waited in formation under the bleachers, quick glimmers of gold glancing off their trumpets and trombones. As Susan and Rosemary led the victory cheer, they smiled at one another. Two minutes. All four cheerleaders turned cartwheels, and Dottie Wiggins, popular in spite of her looks, mugged for the crowd, wiping her brow as if it had been a strenuous effort. Laughter rose up into the chill air. Someone threw a streamer, a liquid ribbon of dark red against the black sky.
“Victory victory is our cry, V-I-C-T-O-R-Y.”
When play started up again, Susan and Rosemary stood close together, watching the field. “Are you nervous?” Rosemary whispered.
“No. A little. Are you?”
“No. You're going to win.”
“No, you are.”
The ball was snapped. Maroon jerseys collided with orange. Susan heard the grunts and cries, the musical click of one helmet striking another. The ball sailed, spiraling, in a graceful arc, and Rosemary whispered, “Have you seen Marcia? She looks like she's ready for Halloween.”
Susan nodded, grimacing. Marcia Rosselini was a tough, beautiful girl who did everything. When the nominations were announced, Rosemary had said to Susan, “Marcia just got all the boys she's slept with to vote for her.” Although Susan didn't despise her the way Rosemary did, she understood about Marcia's unsuitability. No one could question her lavish, cocoa-colored hair and hazel eyes, the buoyant languor of her body. She was the most beautiful girl in school. But she drifted from boy to boy, went all the way. She squandered her beauty like an heiress spending her whole fortune in a few crazy, glittering years. Boys gathered around her like hungry dogs, growling and snapping, and for all her good fortune Marcia was, finally, a pathetic case. Because she fed herself to the dogs. Because she laughed too knowingly and wore tight skirts and would end in an apartment in Elmont or Uniondale, married to the fiercest, sexiest boy, who'd carve the years straight into her skin with his tempers and habits. You could see the Marcia Rosselinis of ten and twenty years ago, working as waitresses or cashiers or shouting from front porches at their own wild children. They'd lived a life of desire and desire had burned to ash in their perfect, practiced hands.
Being queen didn't mean anything so simple and doomed as desirability. The homecoming queen was destined. She had grace. She was someone