The Blue-Haired Boy by Courtney C. Stevens Page B

before a girl getting off the bus catches my eye. I’m not sure girl is the right word. She’s older than me, but not by too much. I don’t know whether to stare at her hair (green) or her feet (motorcycle boots) or one of the many silver chains that connect this to that on her jacket. Instead, I stare at her mouth, which is open in a yawn followed by a smile, and is perhaps the largest mouth I’ve ever seen. But beautiful. Because the size of her mouth is the size of her smile.
    She face-plants off the top step of the bus.
    I’m beside her before she hits the ground. Well, almost. Unlike everyone else in the station. Nothing fazes these people.You do a hit of cocaine, steal a baby, or get run over by the bus itself, and they wouldn’t leave the bathroom line.
    “Are you okay?” I ask, squatting beside her and touching her arm.
    I expect her to shrug me off, but instead, she comes up laughing. Deep. Rich. That mouth open wide enough to stuff an entire pack of cigarettes in at the same time.
    “Holy hell,” she says, and lets me help her up.
    I repeat the question.
    She dusts her knees, still laughing, and says, “Nothing a Mountain Dew won’t cure.”
    I’m the one who puts a dollar twenty-five into the vending machine. She sits on my bench and I sit beside her, handing over the Mountain Dew. As if the cure for falling off a bus is green sugar the exact color of her hair.
    I mention this and then feel stupid.
    “You like it?” she asks, spiking the front into a faux hawk, which doesn’t stay, but limps down over her forehead.
    I nod. And I’m not lying.
    While she inhales her drink, she says more about nothing than I’ve said in my entire life. Where do all those words come from? It’s as if she’s got them stored in her boots or something. And how can she share so freely? We’ve been together for maybe five minutes, and I feel like I know more about her than anyone at school. I can’t help but be drawn in by her, and so I scoot closer, as if osmosis might make this chatty-happy-being-comfortable trait rub off on me.
    “You don’t talk much,” she says after I have answered every question with a nod.
    I search for something to say. “Where’re you going?” I ask, expecting one of the next dozen bus stops. Huntsville. Birmingham. Montgomery. Or, if she’s going north, Bowling Green. Louisville. Indianapolis. Even Chicago.
    “Don’t know yet. You want to come?” she asks playfully.
    Her accent is hard to place. Want to sounds like a southern wanna , but come sounds like California or somewhere west.
    I nod again, mesmerized by the way she moves her hands and animates her face. She’s . . . she’s . . . a magnetic force of a girl. Not the kind of girl I want to date; the kind of girl I would want to do something crazy with. Something brave.
    “Well, if you’re coming with me, you better know how to use the mouth God gave you. Guy-Who-Only-Nods, I’m Gerry.” She’s joking about me coming along, but there’s clearly an expectation that the guy who peeled her off the concrete and bought her caffeine can actually talk.
    “I . . . sorry.” I crack my knuckles and take a deep breath.
    Why is this so hard? When for once, in a very long time, I feel like I want to talk.
    Gerry extends her hand toward mine and rescues me. “And you are?”
    “Bodee Lennox,” I say, and her hand is in mine.
    This moment happens slowly and with eye contact. Blue on brown. Head to head. Green on blond. Talking alien to silent alien.
    “No shit,” she whispers.
    Her sweaty hand slides away from mine and into her back pocket. She opens up a man’s trifold wallet, which doesn’t exactly go with her skinny jeans, and flashes me her license.
    I read. Geraldine Lennox. Eighteen. Fresno, California. And note she does not look punk-gypsy in her picture. She looks entirely different.
    Which I tell her.
    She laughs. Not quite as big as when she fell off the bus, but close. “You can say that again.”
    “You look