Dumplin - Julie Murphy Page 0,52
And I feel responsible for them, ya know?”
Mitch stands up behind me and gently pushes me every time I swing back. “Maybe if you worry about figuring your own stuff out, you can help them with their stuff.”
He pushes me back and forth a few times while I let that thought simmer.
“Hey, Mitch?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re really good at football, right?”
“That’s what people tell me.”
“I bet you’ll get a scholarship out of here.”
For the first time, Mitch doesn’t respond.
“What?” I ask. “You don’t think you will?”
“I don’t know. I guess I will.” He stops pushing me and sits down again in the swing beside me facing the opposite direction. “I never really like doing the things I’m supposed to like. I’m good at playing football. But the whole season feels like something I have to get through.”
It’s a hard thing for me to grasp. The idea that you can be so good at something and still not enjoy it.
“Being a guy in a town like this people expect things from you. You’re supposed to play football and hunt and fish. Growing up, I didn’t have a lot of friends, but I had Patrick. We’d go hunting on the weekends with our dads.”
“You hunt?” I ask. I shouldn’t be surprised. Tons of people hunt here. It’s disgusting, but it’s not like I’ve sworn off meat, so I’m not one to talk.
“Well, sort of,” he says. “I’ve been hunting since I was a kid. I’d go out with my dad and he’d let me have half a beer while we waited for whatever animal was in season to show itself. But whenever it came time to shoot, I always missed. For a while, I blamed it on me being a bad shot. My dad would get so mad at me. I’d miss the mark. Just barely. Then he started to realize that it was on purpose.”
I feel this prickle of warmth in my chest for him. I think maybe it’s the things we don’t want to talk about that are the things people most want to hear.
“We were in seventh grade, and my dad was harping on me real bad. Patrick and his dad were there. It was deer season. I hit one.” His voice trails off. “It was an accident. He was a big proud buck. My dad slapped me on the back. I remember feeling like I was choking.”
“I’m sorry.” The words sound so lame. Like they did when people said they were sorry about Lucy.
He stands and pulls my swing back by its chains. I feel him let out a long breath against my neck. “I know guys aren’t supposed to cry, but I cried a bunch that night. And I guess that’s when I decided being good at something didn’t mean you had to do it. Just ’cause something’s easy doesn’t make it right.” He lets the chain go and I kick my feet out into the stars.
That night, I dream that I am inside Mitch’s video game, wearing the tiny shorts and a shredded shirt. My body isn’t some Photoshopped dream version of itself. My thighs are thick with cellulite and my love handles hang over the waistband of my shorts. My golden waves are done up big and high in an old-school Dolly perm. Like the girl in Mitch’s game, there are guns, ammo, and knives strapped to my back and thighs with a bazooka resting on my shoulder. I am a total badass. A fat badass.
I run into an abandoned civic center. The revolving door pushes against months of debris as I enter the building. They come slowly at first, but then they multiply. Zombie beauty queens. Everywhere.
I wait until they’re almost too close before I fire the bazooka. Gone. Particles fly. I duck. They’re dead. Like, really dead this time.
But there’s still one left. One graying zombie, dressed for the best day of her life in a torn red gown. Her crown is bent and broken and her sash is too faded to read. She walks toward me, one foot dragging as it scrapes against the marble floor.
I reload my bazooka.
THIRTY-FOUR
There are a few things—like the swimsuit segment—I didn’t consider before signing up for the pageant. But what I really didn’t prepare myself for was the group dance number.
Me, Millie, Amanda, and Hannah sit in a row against the back wall of Dance Locomotive, the only dance studio in Clover City. I know this doesn’t look easy, but it can’t be much harder than walking in choreographed