“Hey Marley?”
“Yeah, Frances?”484Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSFUi8IFtuD
“Why d’you think cicadas sound like that?”
Marley shrugged, “Maybe they scream cuz they scared?”
Frances picked up a speckled pebble, turning it in her dirt encrusted fingernails. “What’d they be scared of?”
“The world can be scary sometimes.”
Both girls sat on Frances’ front porch steps waiting for her father to fix the above ground pool. At only 11, Marley and Frances planned on having the best summer ever, starting with Frances’ new pool. No other kid had a pool on their block and the girls were excited to have a pool to themselves in the oppressive heat of Mulberry, Mississippi.
Mulberry was a small town. Very small, and very poor. It was hot all year round and there was only one public pool that would be full of sweaty, desperate bodies hoping to find a cheap way to cool off. This pool was like striking gold. Gold that smelled like chlorine and dirt.
Frances’ backyard was either dusty or muddy. You could always tell what the weather was going to be like by looking at her front or back yard. Patches of wild grass and weeds grew about and around the rusted trucks parked in the back with no wheels, the broken- and stripped-down tractor Frances said would cause tetanus if you touched it, and old playground equipment meant for toddlers and younger kids that Frances and Marley played on when they were younger. There was a large magnolia tree that they would climb to get some shade. They’d eat mandarins and throw the peelings down onto the dirt for the tree, a way of saying thanks.
Marley looked up, shading her russet eyes from the sun. “Frances, when’ll your dad finish the pool? The sun’ll go down before he’s done.”
“Shuddup! He’ll finish and then we can play with the new pool noodles Mama bought us!”
“Well, I’m shit thirsty. You got any Mountain Dew?” Marley was trying out the new curse word she heard from her parents, sprinkling it here and there to show off to Frances and the other kids in their grade. That made her the grown up one out of all of them.
Frances only shrugged, too focused on squishing ants as they lazily passed by on the wooden railing with her new pebble. Marley got up, wiping away the old watermelon seeds they had spit out earlier and went inside, the torn screen door bounced and slammed shut. Frances always hated that old thing. It never kept the flies out and would sometimes scare her at night when her parents were gone and all Frances had was her own heartbeat and the sounds of the cicadas’ screams.
Marley came back from inside the trailer home with two brown glass bottles in hand.
Frances frowned, “Put those back Marley, they ain’t for us.”
“We ain’t gonna get caught fer sippin’ a little.”
“Yes, we will Marley!” Frances grabbed one of the bottles but from the condensation the bottle slipped and smashed onto the wooden steps; she jumped up wanting to avoid the glass bits. The smell of alcohol strengthened as the beer seeped into the wooden steps.
"Shit,” they both whispered.
“Frances! What was that?” her father bellowed from around back.
“We dropped somethin’ Daddy! Don’t worry, I’ll clean it!” Frances shot Marley a frown before heading back inside for a broom.
Frances’ father had finally put the pool together before the sun was high above the ground. Both girls were sticky and ogled the pool as if it were the last piece of cherry pie on earth, and they were the last girls standing.
“Now, both of y’all gotta fill the pool up. If it leaks that’s it. I ain’t buyin’ anotha one fo’ ya and that’s that fo’ yer summer fun.” Frances’s father was tall and bushy, like a lumberjack with a beer gut.
They thanked him and began throwing their pool noodles into the pool and turned on the hose. Marley began stripping away her outer layer. Frances looked at her unhelpful friend. The gushing of the water hitting the plastic almost drowned out the orchestra of cicadas. Marley’s bikini loosely hung on her awkward frame. Her belly stuck out like Frances’ father’s.
“Marley, are you gonna help?” Frances nodded towards the hose, “The pool’s fillin’ up.”
Marley stood near the porch folding her clothes, “It’s almost full you got it.”
“Yeah, but you’re my friend, you gotta help me. That’s what friends do.”
Marley rolled her eyes and yanked the hose from Frances’ chubby hands. Marley had been acting different for a while. Frances and Marley were friends for so long, but something was off about Marley. She didn’t want to play with Frances’ as much or hang out and eat oranges and clementines in the tree. She would come to school in skirts and sparkle pink nail polish; shiny lip gloss and hair clips. By the end of fifth grade she would hang with the girls that wore too much make up. When Frances asked Marley to come play in her pool it was like the old Marley was back, if only for the moment.
Once the pool was full and their floaties were floating, Frances took off her father’s large t shirt she wore as a cover up. Underneath was a pink Hello Kitty one piece. It was a little tight for her chubby frame, but she didn’t complain. Hello Kitty was her favorite.
Once in, both girls waded around, getting used to the feel of a pool to call their own. Frances hung out on the ledge and stared off into the forest behind her home. Behind the scraggle of trees turning from a custard yellow to creamsicle orange.
“Marley?”
“Yeah, Frances?”
“How can cicadas fear the world?”
“I didn’t say the world stupid. I meant that there’re lots of things cicadas could be afraid of. Like birds and shit.”
“Shit?”
“Not shit, shit…like…I dunno. Us. We can kill’em.”
“But I don’t wanna kill’em. They let me know when school is gonna end and it’s time for summer.
Marley scoffed as she wiped the water from her reddening eyes, “You needa pay more attention in class.”
“My grades are better than yours though!”
Marley removed her new purple cat eye sunglasses to look down at Frances. She lay lavishly on a purple pool floatie in the shape of a flip flop.
“But Mason likes me so, ha! I win.”
“Mason? He picks his nose and calls me a fat cow. He don’t matter none.”
Marley smirked, “And? We kissed at my place and he touched my chest.”
Frances placed her hands on her chest. She could feel her heartbeat heavy through her swimsuit. “Why does that matter? Doctor’s use those stethscopes to touch your chest. Why does it matter if a boy touches it?”
“Frances, you’re neva gonna grow up thinkin’ that way.”
“Thinkin’ what way?”
“Like a child. You gotta grow up so you can be a woman.”
“What if I don’t want to?”
Marley stared at Frances before putting her sunglasses on. “Then you can’t be a grown woman like me. You’ll be stuck behind in fifth grade while I go on to Junior High and High School and have boyfriends and go to adult parties.”
“What’s wrong with being young? It’s fun being young. Being grown sounds boring. Boys sound boring.”
Marley didn’t respond after that. She lay on her back again glasses on and her small hands behind her red hair. Frances waded around listening to the cicadas scream. One lone cloud above slowly floated by.
“Marley, that cloud looks like a hot dawg.”
Marley only grunted.
“Marley, look! Are you lookin’? It’s the only cloud in the—”
Marley sat up in the floatie and faced directly at Frances and removed her sunglasses, staring at her with a mean scowl. “I don’t give a shit about your cloud, Frances! I just want to relax and wade in the pool before you pee in it!”
Frances blinked, then pointed at Marley’s thighs, “Marley, your bathing suit has a red spot on it.”
Marley looked down at the bottom half of her bathing suit. The purple bathing suit had a deep mulberry spot surrounded by the dark violet of her bathing suit that bled into her pool floatie that gathered beneath her. She screamed.
Frances heard the screen door open as her mother and father rushed to the pool.
“Frances, Marley, what happened?!” Frances’ mom came out with curlers in her beach blonde hair and a pink robe with fuzzy pink slippers.
“Mama, Daddy, Marley is bleedin’!”
Marley brought her knees to her chest while one hand tried to steady herself on her floatie. With tears in her eyes she glared at Frances.
Frances’s mother and father looked at each other, Frances’ mother, Caroline, whispered to her father, Beau. Beau sighs and trudges over to the pool, once there he sticks his hand out.
“Come on Marley. Caroline’s gonna help you change.”
Frances watched as her parents both handled Marley like the porcelain doll they would always see in the antique shop. She was just as pretty, and ever so graceful. Handled with care and lead into the trailer. Frances was alone again.
Frances grew bored of beinig alone in the pool and climbed out. Her father came out as well and stood beside the pool.
“You done with the pool, Bumble Bee?”
Frances nodded and stood beside him, both facing the pool. Beau scratched his beard trying to figure out the best way to drain the pool. He held his lucky switchblade in his hand. It was lucky for the fact that he had it in his hand when he won the jackpot and took him and Caroline to France for their honeymoon they couldn’t afford years ago.
“Daddy, do you think Marley is gunna be OK?”
“Don’t worry bout her Frances, she just has her friend visiting.”
“What friend? I’m right here.”
Her father sighed, “Damn. I’ll jus have to cut the damn thing. Uh, you should ask your mother ‘bout it. I’m not good enough for this.”
“Whaddya mean? You’re good at stuff, Daddy.”
Her father smiled and pat Frances’ damp head. “Don’t grow up, Frances.”
He stuck the switchblade into the side of the pool and made a jagged square. “We’ll jus use duct tape to close it. No worries.” The pool water gushed out of the side of the plastic blue pool, like a dam that's finally cracked, letting the chlorine coated water flow free. The water gathered in one spot to make a pool of mud. Frances thought about the cicadas and how they come up from the ground to scream.
Frances grabbed Beau’s arm after he put his switchblade away, “Can you tell me now? I won tell nobody.”
Her father scratched his beard a bit. Deep in thought as the water slowed as it drained out into the dry grass changing the colors from hay yellow to a deeper brown. The ground was soft and brown, meanwhile the sky changed shades again, now the sun is setting the sky ablaze in orange hues.
“You know why those cicadas scream, Bumble Bee?”
“Marley said it’s cuz they afraid.”
He chuckled, “That ain’t it. I can see why, but no, they scream to attract females.”
“So, the screamin’ ones are all male?”
Beau nodded, “Then they meet up, have a nice date, get married, and have lots and lots o damn babies so they can come up from the ground again and scream some more next year.”
Frances looked back out at the forest. Deep within was dark, but Frances imagined thousands of cicada weddings happening all at once. “I like the sound of cicadas, Daddy.”
“You and your mother.”
“I don’t think they’re screamin’ either. I think they’re singin’ love songs.”
Beau chuckled and patted Frances’ head once more. Marley finally came back out with a towel wrapped around her waist with Caroline guiding her down the steps, holding her shoulders. She sat her down on the steps and whispered something to her. Marley nodded and tugged the towel’s edges some more.
“Frannie, doll, Marley’s mother is gonna pick her up and take her home. Is that ok?”
“Why? Is she sick? Did she break something?”
Her mom looked at her father and he shook his head grumbling some more.
“Frannie, you and Marley can hang out on the porch until she has to go home. No more pool for now, alright?”
Frances nodded and sat next to Marley. She was looking at her chipped nail polish. The color was “French Kiss”.
“My Mamma named me Frances cuz when she and Daddy went to France she fell in love with it and said, ‘I want my baby to be just like this place. All bright, cultured and lovely’. Whatever that meant.” Frances was the first to break the silence.
“OK,” was all Marley said.
“And my Daddy said he’d take all three of us back one day. I’m hoping I learn French before then because all I know is oui and cross-aunt.”
Marley didn’t say anything. She still had her purple 484Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBQrWoOglHC
cat eye sunglasses on, covering her eyes, but Frances saw the tear stains on her cheeks.
“We can try havin’ a beer again. I won’t snitch this time.”
Marley whispered, “It don’ matter.”
Frances looked out into the darkened forest. The shadows all blended together to form one black mass, but the cicadas’ songs pierced right through it.484Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ37ciNnU25v
