A Place at the Table by Susan Rebecca White Page B

casually, not to flick a piece of lint off his shirt or to slap him on the back or anything. While Hunter, who is a running back on the football team just like Daddy was, will come barreling down the hall at school and tackle one of his teammates to the ground. Straddle him and pretend to hawk a loogie in his face.
    When “Songbird” comes on, Christine McVie’s declaration of love so clear and true, I pretend I have to pee just so I can leave the room.
    •  •  •
    Besides me, Pete’s other friend at Decatur High is a girl named Shawna Pringle. Shawna has always been weird. She is not like the other white girls at Decatur High, with their curling-iron bangs and their bright blue eyeliner. Shawna has long dark hair, so dark it is almost black, which she wears in a single braid down her back. Her preferred outfit is a Fruit of the Loom V-neck undershirt worn with a faded pair of Levi’s jeans. Occasionally she switches things up and wears overalls. And she always wears Birkenstocks, which we call her Jesus sandals. She bought them at some hippie store in Little Five Points.
    Shawna can get to places like Little Five Points because she has a car or, rather, a pickup truck, powder blue with an open bed. It belongs to her granddaddy, but he can no longer drive. His diabetesgot so bad he had to have his legs removed. He gave the truck to Shawna on the condition that she keep it in pristine condition, requiring her not only to wash it once a week, but also not to remove the Confederate flag bumper sticker that reads, “I Don’t Care How You Do It Up North!”
    Shawna and I weren’t friends before Pete, but now we are. We didn’t really have a choice; it was just part of the deal of getting to hang out with Pete. Anyway, it’s fine. We like each other. Last weekend Shawna drove Pete and me to Midtown Atlanta. We rented roller skates from some place on 10th Street, then made our way inside Piedmont Park. I was a wobbly skater. Pete was okay, but Shawna was really good. She could leap down stairs and over trash cans and do twists in the air. At one point she even had a small crowd gathered around her. Pete and I just looked at each other and shook our heads, like proud but confused parents, wondering How did we have this child?
    Later we waited for her outside the public restrooms. She had already been in there ten minutes, but Pete said that was nothing, she had kept him waiting for over half an hour before. “She’ll tell you all about her blockages if you really want to hear,” he said.
    “I don’t,” I said,
    A trim man with a thin mustache walked up to us. He wore flip-flops, tight jeans, and a sleeveless shirt with armholes so loose I could spy his smooth chest through it. His exposed feet looked tender and new, each toenail filed into a perfect half-moon. His feet looked like they belonged to an overgrown baby.
    “Waiting for someone?” he asked, placing his manicured hand against the stone façade of the restroom.
    “Yep,” said Pete, not exactly unfriendly but certainly not inviting.
    “Why don’t you and your friend come wait at my apartment? We could smoke a joint.”
    “I doubt my girlfriend would be into that,” Pete said.
    As if on cue Shawna walked out of the bathroom, slapping her hands together vigorously, as if she just completed some difficult task.
    “Maybe next time,” the man said archly, walking away as fast as he had appeared.
    “Oh my God, which one of you did that fairy try to pick up?” asked Shawna.
    “Why, he just wanted to show us his apartment, sugah,” said Pete, all mock innocence with his fake Gone with the Wind accent.
    “Sick!” said Shawna.
    “I know,” I said. “It really is.”
    •  •  •
    During homeroom, Shawna announces that we are going to go to the Laser Show Extravaganza tonight.
    “The Granite Rock laser show? Are you kidding me?” asks Pete. “I saw an ad for it on TV. It looks awful.”
    “Shut up; it’s awesome,” says Shawna.