Odette hooked an arm under Barbara Jean’s elbow and said, “If you’re gonna walk, you might as well walk with us. You can meet the latest victim Clarice’s boyfriend has dragged over from the college to distract me while he tries to get down her pants.”
“Odette!” Clarice screamed.
Odette said, “It’s true and you know it.” Then she tugged Barbara Jean in the direction of the All-You-Can-Eat. “Oh, and Barbara Jean, whatever you do, don’t eat any of my mama’s chicken.”
When her mother and her cousin later asked Clarice why she had become friendly with Barbara Jean that summer, she would say that it was because she got to know and appreciate Barbara Jean’s sweetness and sense of humor and because she had felt a welling up of Christian sympathy after gaining a deeper understanding of the difficulties of Barbara Jean’s life—her dead mother, her dreadful neighborhood, her sad little hole of a bedroom, that man Vondell. And those things would one day be true. Within months, Clarice’s mother and cousin would learn that any petty criticism or harsh judgment of Barbara Jean would be met with icy silence or an uncharacteristically blunt rebuke from Clarice. And Clarice would eventually confess to Odette that she felt tremendous guilt about having been the source of many of the rumors about Barbara Jean. Her cousin might have started the rumor about the roach in Barbara Jean’s hair, but Clarice had been the main one spreading it around.
But at the time, even as she listed in her mind the more noble reasons for making this new friend, she knew that there was more to it. At seventeen, Clarice was unable to see the true extent to which she was ruled by a slavish devotion to her own self-interest, but she understood that her primary reason for becoming friends with Barbara Jean was that it had benefited her. On the night she and Odette dropped off that putrid-smelling chicken, Clarice discovered that Barbara Jean’s presence was surprisingly convenient.
When Clarice, Odette, and Barbara Jean walked into the All-You-Can-Eat, Little Earl ushered them to the coveted window table for the first time. A group of his pals was sitting there, but he chased them off, saying, “Make way. This table is reserved for the Supremes.” After that, every boy in the place, even those who Clarice knew had told some of the most outlandish lies about Barbara Jean and what she’d supposedly done with them, came to the window table to stutter and stammer through their best adolescent pickup lines.
Richmond showed up with James Henry in tow a few minutes after the girls had been seated. Clarice made a mental note to give Richmond hell later for bringing him. James was the worst of all the regular guys Richmond had scrounged up for Odette. He was nice enough, and he’d had a fondness for Odette ever since she’d beaten two teenage boys bloody when she was ten after they’d called him “Frankenstein” because of that ugly knife scar on his face. But he was, Clarice thought, the most boring boy on the face of the earth. He barely made conversation at all. And when he did, it was pathetic.
The only topic James talked with Odette about at any length was her mother’s garden. He worked for Lester Maxberry’s lawn care business and he came to their dates armed with helpful hints for Odette to pass along to Mrs. Jackson. James was the only boy Clarice knew who could sit in the back of a car parked on the side of a dark road with a girl and talk to her about nothing but composted manure.
Worst of all, James was always exhausted. He had to be at work early in the mornings, and he took classes at the university in the afternoons. So just when the evening got going, James would start nodding off. Odette would see his head droop and she would announce, “My date’s asleep. Time to go home.” It was intolerable.
Odette had a slightly different view of James Henry. He might have been the worst double-date choice for Clarice’s purposes, but Odette was content with him. She thought it was kind of sweet how he dropped off to sleep during their dates. How many other boys would let themselves be that vulnerable in front of a girl—mouth open and snoring? And he had excellent manners. James had become a frequent visitor, never failing to come by