A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty by Joshilyn Jackson Page A

brightened and she said, “Hey, there’s Roger!” before she darted right and wriggled off through the crowd, gone as fast as a skinny minnow. I went over to meet the new teacher. After ten minutes with him, I was confident the fel ow knew his way around a microscope and also that he wasn’t a pedophile; he told me how the sophomores would be making their own plant-cel slides while sneaking a subtle peek at my age-appropriate breasts. He was cute, and he made a point of saying something about his “late wife,” but I’d never date one of Mosey’s teachers.
    I left him and started looking for Liza again. I was back up near the stage when I felt a light touch on my arm. I turned to see one of the cheerleaders standing there with a tray ful of those white drinks.
    “Virgin colada?” she asked.
    “Good Lord, child, what are you wearing?” It just popped out.
    She bridled up and said, “I’m a hula girl. Mrs. Richardson got us these costumes.” She had on a grass skirt and a coconut-bra top over a flesh-colored leotard that made her body look naked but strangely wrinkled, like she was a slim, peachy-pink elephant.
    Sharla Dartner, another cheerleader, came up on my other side and handed me a large wicker tote bag ful of papers and sample-size fruit snacks and hand sanitizer, saying, “Here’s your gift pack!” Claire Richardson had put Sharla in a peach-colored leotard, too, as if getting her one that actual y matched her flesh might lead folks to realize she was black.
    I thanked Sharla, and as I turned away, I found Mrs. Doats blocking my path, staring at me down her knife-thin nose. She bobbled her plastic hump of hair at me and said, “I checked my log, Ms. Slocumb, and I see I have yet to get that instal ment on Mosey’s tuition?”
    I busied myself tucking my clutch purse down in the big wicker tote so I’d only have one thing to carry, saying, “I told you, Mrs. Doats, you’re going to have to take that up with Liza.”
    “She seems a little busy just this now,” Mrs. Doats said in a prim voice, and she cut her eyes in a tel ing glance to my right.
    I fol owed her gaze and saw Liza near the wal talking with Steve Mason, a big barrel-chested fel ow with a sweep of brown hair and two kids at Cal. I frowned. Steve certainly had enough money to pay a few extra tuitions. He also had a wife. Liza was leaning toward him, very close. Too close. She put one hand on his chest, and her shiny lips parted. She stil held her cup with the last sips of her slushy colada in her other hand, and it was like she’d forgotten that it existed. The cup tipped sideways as she leaned in. She looked as if she was about to take a lick off Steve’s neck, see if he tasted like ice cream. Steve craned his head away from her and twitched his eyes back and forth, seeking help.
    Something was very wrong. Liza, who could read men easier than the morning paper, didn’t seem to realize how uncomfortable he was. I left Mrs.
    Doats without a single word and hurried toward them.
    Steve stepped back, and Liza fol owed, letting her cup fal out of her hand so that the remains of her white drink splashed onto some woman’s metal ic sandals and up the backs of her bare legs. The woman wheeled around, gasping, and more people turned to see what was going on. Liza cackled like a drunk hyena and splayed both her hands across Steve’s broad chest. I caught sight of Steve’s wife, off to port. Her eyebrows were up so high they’d nearly hit scalp territory, and she began fast-winding her way through the crowd. I sped up, pushing through and saying excuse me, hurrying to beat her to my daughter.
    Claire Richardson was handing a wad of Kleenex to the woman with the splashed shoes, her mouth pursed up tight as a cat’s butt, pushing her lipstick into humps. She started to kneel down, more Kleenex in her hand, but I bent and snatched the cup before she could. I sniffed at it, trying to tel if Liza had brought a flask and turned those virgin