Molly, pt. 2
“Molly was kinda cute, you had to admit.”
Previously, Molly, pt. 1: “Just paint, guys, this is a Fun Day. Just paint.”
Everybody grew up, but not really.
Maw transferred to a white people school across town a couple years back, in middle school, at her parent’s insistence and considerable expense. No heads up. No send-off. No goodbyes. It just sort of happened, and no one ever bothered to figure out why. Tyler guessed it was because her parents were racist or something, and Freeman Middle and Tyson High had too many black kids. Corey and Caprice nodded limp concurrence like, Yeah, yeah, why not, that’s probably it.
So now there was only one Molly.
Just one of Tenth Grade Molly’s tits was the size of Fourth Grade Molly’s head. By the typical frump of her t-shirts, Molly’s chest rattled like a sack of planets strapped to the bed of a pickup truck that was plowing through intergalactic turbulence.
Caprice was not so fortunate.
Caprice’s chest was a Euclidean plane, basically.
Between fourth grade and high school, somehow Caprice had gotten thinner, barely any taller, like her body had sunken into itself. Her cheeks were craters, hollow and dark. Caprice had filled out like the stem of a lamp, mahogany whittled by wind and sand. Caprice played intramural soccer, so this wasn’t the worst thing in the world. She ran faster than any other girl in school, even the twelfth grade girls. Could’ve ran track if she wanted. In fact briefly she’d considered this sophomore year, but the girls on the squad that year were the worst. White bitches who only ate grapes and little carrot chunks rationed all day from the frowning Ziploc snack bags in their lockers. White bitches who were just hungry and horny all the time, trying to figure out when J.C. and Michael Sexton (Sex, Ton, hehe) would be at lunch today, and why even go if the cutest boys in school wouldn’t be there to peep them fluttering their eyelashes and sipping Gatorade Zero.
Sophomores at Tyson High, Corey, Caprice and Tyler remained, all friends. And sometimes classmates, though it was mostly Corey and Caprice who were in classes together, since Corey and Caprice were grinding through the early APs while Tyler was sparring a rematch with Algebra I.
Corey’s favorite president was Obama.
Caprice’s favorite president was Jackson.
Andrew Jackson was a salty motherfucker who wrote cocky mean letters to his haters, and Caprice much admired this about him, even though Andrew Jackson killed a whole bunch of brown people and was pretty racist.
Tyler didn’t really give a shit about any of this.
Corey and Tyler preferred hanging out with Caprice, obviously, but then they otherwise enjoyed staring at Molly’s tits volleying beneath the taut drape of her gym shirt tucked to the lasso waist of her shorts whenever Mr. Green made them do stretches or any sort of running.
So long as Caprice wasn’t around.
Caprice did, however, catch Corey and Tyler’s eyes trailing Molly’s hydraulics through other common locales around campus, like in the cafeteria whenever Molly wobbled by their table at lunch, carting her tray beyond the last row of seats and into a black hole, where she presumably ate, alone.
“Man, y’all are gross,” Caprice leaned in and snapped her fingers at the tip of Corey’s nose, “Seriously.”
“What?” one of them squeaked, as both of them shrugged.
“Y’all need to stop tripping over that dirty-ass white girl.”
Corey sucked his teeth, “Why you tripping though? Shit, ain’t nobody worried about her.”
Tyler sucked his teeth, “Molly’s crusty ass.”
Corey didn’t really agree with the ‘crusty ass’ comment, but he kept this to himself, now inconspicuously tight-lipped.
“What you mean, crusty ass?” Caprice sat back, folding her arms and looking off somewhere beyond them, somewhere less offensive than their faces right now, “She ain’t even got no ass.”
This was true. But then neither did Caprice. Okay, Molly sometimes smelled like a wet dog. But then Caprice often reeked of her dad’s menthols, a musk seeped faint and eternal in the ratty stitch of her one denim jacket.
Naw, that’s all Corey, see. Watch. I bet Molly gon let him smash one day, just wait.
Molly also had acne, and kinda hairy forearms, and ghastly pale skin, but none of this was her fault, really. Also her cheeks were fuzzy blonde, like a peach, and splotchy, like a peach, but none of this was—
She gon be all on the floor like a dog, son, like ‘woof-woof’!
—her fault, really. And her face really was so ripe, and she always smiled, was always laughing, had really nice teeth and mysterious bangs.
Bout to let you hit it from the back, Corey. Bout to let you bust that cherry wide open.
Molly was kinda cute, you had to admit.
Corey admitted.
Thinking about the pasty winking backs of her knees.
Tyler ribbed on, elbowing Corey’s slouched belly under the table, “Yeah, I could see Corey tapping that. My man Chub-Rock over here!”
Since freshman year Corey had gotten kind of fat. Chubby. Hence Chub-Rock. His chin was not so flattering, and his man boobs were pretty undeniable at this point. At the park on Bledsoe Road every few weekends Caprice would clown Corey on the basketball court in games of 2-on-1, which typically ended about fifteen minutes in with Corey hunched over and panting and waving his hand meek in the air, like, Stop stop I’m sixteen and having a heart attack. Worst look of all was Corey in his marching band uniform, all white from cap to toe. In the stands during the halftime show, from so many yards afar, even from the bleachers you could see it: Whenever Corey flanked and swung his trumpet, his gut pitched along with it.
Caprice never called Corey Chub-Rock, though. Caprice thought Corey was kinda cute, especially his glossy exotic curls, which looked maybe Cuban or something and made Caprice think of a palm tree struck by summer rays. Corey’s face was always turned toward you and open, like he was always listening to you even when you weren’t saying anything.
“Corey, I swear to God,” Caprice rocked back in her chair and flexed palm to God, her braids clacking like rosary beads as they whipped the plastic back of the seat, “If you mess with that crusty ass white girl, we can’t ever speak again. I’m sorry, but—”
Molly was in band, too. Saxophone. Alto. Back in middle school when she first started playing, she was pretty much the Robespierre of kids with instruments: honking and squealing absolute terror to anyone within earshot, including Ms. Glenn’s screeching parrot in the bio lab across the hall. Only note Molly could play was that screech from old horror film soundtracks. That parrot was not a fan.
By eighth grade, though, Molly had honed her pitch and made second chair of the altos. Now she was first chair. For whatever it was worth, though, the rest of the altos couldn’t even tune properly; and Molly’s first order of business this year was working to rectify her section’s woeful buzzing.
Caprice and Tyler showed up to one of the jazz band’s after-school spring concerts to cheer for Corey from the back row of the auditorium. Corey soloed to a swampy ‘Caravan’, stuffing mute to bell of his strangled brass and just trying to live through to the last breath. It was a mushy forty seconds, he had to admit. But good try, good try. Applause nonetheless.
Molly had a solo that night, too. ‘25 or 6 to 4’, which was all bass and smoky tenor. Except for the solo, which was Molly writhing at the mic stand and mashing the alto buttons with exceeding gusto as if she might crush the sax in her hands all together, ball it up, pitch it to the back of the auditorium and then explode into a puff of smoke. Way too much histrionics on Molly’s part, swinging like Lisa Simpson up there. Cloying as fuck. But she killed it music-wise. As she trailed her last G, everybody clapped and looked at each other, nodding. Corey clapped for a hot sec before it was his turn to blow again. Caprice and Tyler did not clap.
Out in the auditorium hallway after the show there was a swarm of kids and parents, including Molly and Molly’s mom and dad. Balanced on his outstretched forearms Molly’s dad presented to Molly a wide black leather case with silver trimming along the edges. Molly flicked the latches and opened it right there, and lifted a brand-new alto sparkling harsh under the hallway lights: ebony brass adorned with thin gold rails and butter pearl keys.
Corey thought, damn, it’s like a pretty-ass gun almost. Like, a Bond villain would shoot up a casino with that shit.
All Caprice and Tyler could think was, damn, Molly’s parents must be loaded.
Whoa, wow, Molly was loaded.
Caprice wondered aloud, “Why she always dress like she homeless then?”
Corey shushed her and swerved himself between Caprice and Tyler, and Molly and her parents a few steps away. “Come on, yo, her parents are here. Leave her alone, alright?”
Out front on the curb it was dark. On the sidewalk kids passed, said what’s up, patted Corey on the back. Molly was taking off from the auditorium now. Up the ramp. Down the sidewalk. Across the parking lot. Hopped into the back seat of her parents’ fresh white SUV.
Eyes tracking the glint of her sax case through the dark, Corey noticed that no one patted Molly on the back, no one other than her folks. At Tyson High, no one commended Molly Welsh’s bravado, not ever. Teachers rolled their eyes and rushed to call on anyone else, hell, even kids who were face-planted to tablet-arms and dozing. Girls sneered at her serial crimes against color-coordination, and her often reeking, for some reason, of cabbage. Boys wouldn’t even flatter Molly Welsh’s formidable rack, at least not if any other kids were around to catch them peeking.
Shit is sad, Corey thought, with Molly’s tits haunting foremost.
Here’s the next installment, Molly, pt. 3.
