Dumplin - Julie Murphy Page 0,69

out foolin’ around. We should head home.”

She wishes us a good night.

We’re halfway down the driveway before we hear the kid yell, “Hey! Hey! Wait up!” Pirate Boy is sprinting toward us with a plastic pumpkin dangling from his fingers. He skids to a stop in front of us and holds out a piece of candy for each of us. “I like your costume,” he says to Mitch.

“Thanks, little man. Your pirate costume is pretty cool.” Mitch doesn’t talk to him like he’s some little kid. Because to Mitch, he’s not. To Mitch, everyone’s somebody.

The kid runs back inside to where his mom is waiting at the doorway.

We sit on the curb with our candy at our feet. It’s the first night this year that feels like fall might actually be on its way, and each breeze sinks into my southern bones.

“I told you Halloween was awesome,” he says.

I lie back on a patch of rich people grass (real Texas grass is crunchy and brown) between the road and the sidewalk. “It was okay.”

“When that kid saw me, he saw Indiana Jones. Not some guy who botched play after play in last night’s game. Or some dude who plays video games all day. To him, I was someone else.” He lies down next to me.

“But doesn’t it kind of feel like you’re hiding from yourself?” I turn to him; the grass tickles my cheek. “I get not wanting to be yourself. But isn’t it almost sadder to pretend otherwise?”

“I don’t know. I think you gotta be who you want to be until you feel like you are whoever it is you’re trying to become. Sometimes half of doing something is pretending that you can.” He turns on his side and props himself up with his elbow. “Like, that first time I talked to you, you terrified me. You kind of still do. But the more I act like you don’t, the less you actually do.” He pauses. “Terrify me, I mean.”

I get what he means, because I think I’ve played pretend my whole life. I don’t know when, but a really long time ago, I decided who I wanted to be. And I’ve been acting like her—whoever she is—since. But I think the act is fading, and I don’t know if I like the person I am beneath it all. I wish there were some kind of magic words that could bridge the gap between the person I am and the one I wish I could be. Because the whole fake it till you make it thing? It’s not working for me.

“What?” he asks.

I shake my head and clap my hands over my mouth, smiling against my fingertips. “I terrify you?” The thought of it makes me feel bad, but it’s kind of nice, too. To not feel like the one who’s about to jump out of their skin all the time.

Mitch pulls my hands down, away from my face. His palms are sweaty, and I’m realizing how close he is. I can see the pores in his nose. “I think the good stuff is always supposed to be a little bit scary,” he says.

His lips brush mine. I stay very still as he curls his arm around my waist. We don’t kiss with our tongues, just with our mouths open. I can feel the terror and exhilaration in his trembling touch.

But I am not terrified. Not at all. And it’s then that I know this moment is a lie. I know what I should be feeling and it’s not there.

FORTY-THREE

The next day is like someone has dropped an atomic bomb in our house. It starts when my mom gets home from church and decides to try her pageant dress on.

“Dumplin’?” she calls from her bedroom. “Baby, my zipper’s stuck.”

I trudge up the stairs. My mother has fit in her old pageant dress every year since she was crowned. Including the year she gave birth to me. From the way Lucy told it, the house was a Jazzercise fun house, and it was a close call, but she did it.

I’ve seen this dress—a sea-foam-green sequined bodice with a chiffon skirt—so many times that it’s not even pretty anymore.

Since the house is so old, there’s no actual master bedroom upstairs. Just a shared bathroom at the end of the hallway. It’s weird to think that my mom’s and Lucy’s rooms are the same rooms they grew up in their whole lives. I imagine them as teenagers slamming doors in each other’s