Throw Like A Girl by Jean Thompson Page A

father, who was old school about women in the military. Her girlfriends acted like they thought it was a great idea but she could tell it was the last thing on earth they’d do themselves. Their lives were boyfriends and the drama that went along with the boyfriends, and watching the same television shows so they could talk about them, and wishing the world was more like television. They weren’t anxious to try any other way of life. Jack’s parents went along with it, as they went along with everything, even when it bewildered them. “We sure would miss you, Kelly girl, but you do what you feel is best.”
    Jack said, “If you end up getting shot or something, everybody’s gonna say it was my fault for not making you stay home.”
    â€œUnless you shoot me yourself, I wouldn’t worry about it.” She listened to the click and hum of the long-distance line.
    â€œSince when did you get so willful? I never knew you to have such a hard head.”
    â€œI guess it’s come on by degrees.”
    At the end of August, Sergeant Crissy came out to the high school and watched her do the two miles around the track. Then she stretched out her stomach muscles and started in on sit-ups. She did the push-ups last, and by then it was like walking through a wall of fire. Sweat ran into her eyes and blinded her. Her legs were cramping and she was afraid she would throw up. When she finished she rolled over on her side and tried to get breath back in her ragged lungs. Sparks of red light exploded behind her closed eyes.
    â€œAll right,” the sergeant said. “All right, you proved your point. Welcome to the Armed Forces.”
    She was set to report on October first, the week after her nineteenth birthday. The summer heat stayed all through September without letup, a yellow furnace that scorched the crops and turned even the shadows hot. One afternoon Kelly Ann drove the small grid of Leota’s streets, the baby strapped into her carrier in the back seat. She was trying to imagine missing anything here: the IGA and its window banners advertising lettuce and store-brand cola, the post office, the Farm Service, the beauty parlor where they still did wash and sets, the tavern that opened at 5 a.m. to serve coffee and sweet rolls.
    She drove a little distance down the highway to the Sonic, where she could order from the car and not have to carry the sleeping baby inside. She was waiting for them to bring her food out when someone in the next parking space tapped the horn. Kelly Ann looked over and saw it was Mrs. Jones, Jonesy, her old English teacher, waving away to beat the band.
    Jonesy looked like she wasn’t going to quit on her own, so Kelly Ann turned the air conditioner on for Tara and got out to stand next to Jonesy’s open window. “Kelly Ann, I declare, I was just thinking of you the other day.”
    â€œHow are you, Mrs. Jones?” Kelly Ann asked politely. Jonesy had been teaching English at the high school for a hundred years. She dyed her hair black and teased it into a puff, and she wore a lot of peasant-style wooden jewelry. She had made them memorize “The Man Without a Country,” and “In Flanders Fields.” There were so many people, Kelly Ann thought, that she never wanted to be like.
    Jonesy was dressed up for school, and she had a large-sized paper cup of something. “I can’t believe this heat. I drove straight over here for a root beer float, I had a taste for one. Is that your little girl? Oh, she’s just beautiful.”
    â€œThank you. She’s mine and Jack’s. Her name’s Tara.”
    Jonesy asked how Jack was, and Kelly Ann said he was pretty good so far, and you just had to hope for the best. Jonesy took a pull at her root beer float and the straw rattled in the bottom of the cup. She’d heard about Kelly Ann going into the Army; everyone had heard of it. She said, “I hope it works out for you,