Molly, pt. 6
“It was gonna be over sooner or later.”
First, Molly, pt. 1: “Just paint, guys, this is a Fun Day. Just paint.” Previously, Molly, pt. 5: “Molly’s voice was like the creak of an old door.”
Molly got accepted to Stanford, which no one could believe, but which also no one would admit to caring about in the first place. Except Caprice. Why did Caprice even give a—
“Because, you know white people just buy their kids everything, shoot,” she slapped the nearest locker as the three of the paced down the hallway. “She ain’t even that smart. She just got all them extracurriculars and whatnot. Because she flaky as fuck.”
“She’s not flaky,” Corey objected looking over toward the opposite row of lockers, knowing well enough to not bother defending Molly to Caprice’s face, “She’s just different.”
Tyler stayed out of this. Tyler was used to laying low between the two of them at this point. Tyler just walked with his hands stuffed in his pockets, and feigning a whistle through bored puckered lips.
Caprice whined, “Why you gotta be defending her anyway? That rich white bitch. Shoot. Dank ass.”
“Because everybody’s always giving her shit,” the rejoinder spilled thick from Corey’s teeth, long-bided, ripping trill as a Lex Lugar beat. “She’s just doing her.”
Caprice sucked her teeth and shoved off from Corey’s arm, pointing snappy accusation. “Shoot. Just because you wanna lick that dirty white girl booty hole.”
Corey did not want to lick Molly’s booty hole, but in a deep and unspeakable sense, he knew what Caprice was getting at. That in any given second between the hours of nine and four, Molly’s tits and outfits and outbursts were the most intriguing facts of life at Tyson High.
Corey sighed, “Man, whatever.”
Why were they still talking about Molly? Molly didn’t even come to school that much anymore. Off with her band, or whatever she was up to these days. Off doing her.
One day just before school let out Molly texted Corey:
want to come to a show tonight?
Corey drove. The Mayweather on East Broad at seven o’clock. He showed up early hoping to spot her prepping the stage or warming up, he’d give her a hug. But she was nowhere to be seen. A couple other sets performed, and then Molly stepped out from the back curtain as her bandmates darted back and forth across the stage, thumping their mics and squealing the speakers. Corey stayed for The Why Axes’ whole set, swaying awkward on a stool at the back of the venue, feeling miles apart from the girl on stage who looked quite lovely in black jeans and the tight wifebeater that framed her tits foremost. Molly, shiny by sweat, singing wild with a voice that Corey recognized for sure, but whose high hollow pitch had taken on a quivering cataclysmic gravity, a heaven-bound collapse that sounded like crying while fighting.
Like a girl haunting a boy over the phone well past midnight.
Caprice broke up with Corey by not calling him anymore and not answering his texts and stomping straight over his backpack in the aisle to get to her desk in Mr. Tuggs’ class.
It was April anyway. It was gonna be over sooner or later.
Tyler didn’t even notice until later, and then he just sucked his teeth and shrugged.
Here’s the finale, Molly, pt. 7.
