Painted Boots excerpt, chapter 1

Painted Boots excerpt:  chapter 1

1

WHEN DAD PULLS alongside the parking lot curb I have two things on my mind: it’s warm for the first day of school and my armpits are sticky.  I open the door as a few girls draw near, chatting and swishing their hair in the morning light.  They smell like Vogue perfume ads—Chloé or Jimmy Choo—and remind me of the friends I left behind in Portland.  One girl glances at me so I shrug.  “Hey,” I say.  “I’m Aspen.”

Another girl, with wavy blonde hair and sparkling earrings, says, “What, like the tree?”  Everybody laughs.

Dad pats my back and I twist round to face him, feeling stupid that he heard the whole thing.  I’m not used to his new look: white shirts and khaki pants, wire-rimmed glasses and short-cut hair.  After taking a long slurp from his coffee he says, “Don’t let stuff like that bug you.”

Over my shoulder, I watch the girls walk toward the school.

I don’t know anyone at Tower County High—or in the whole of Gillette, Wyoming.  Today could be rough, but I guess it doesn’t matter.  Everything is rough just now.  Since moving here Dad has spent his time settling into his office on the other side of town while I unpacked: dishes and books and shoes, laundry stuff, bathroom stuff, clothes.  When I finished with the house I thought we’d talk or something, but Dad only said, “You should get out.  Maybe hang at the mall?” as he gave me money and access to the car.

But Gillette has no mall.  And as for the rest of it, well, Dad should know.  Even here, in the middle of nowhere, Mom would have insisted I get ready for the school year the way I always got ready.  So like I used to do when she was alive, I combed every estate sale and yard sale and consignment store I could find and put myself together—though it was a challenge.  I’ve never had to do it all alone.

Dad asks, “Do you want me to walk you in?” and I roll my eyes.  I’d shave my head before I’d let him walk me into class like a kindergartner.  I mean, I’m seventeen.

“I’ve got it,” I say, and climb from the Jeep, hitching my over-sized bag to my shoulder.  Then I walk away, moving in a long diagonal across a parking lot filling with more beater farm trucks than should legally exist.  My new used cowboy boots sound good against the asphalt.  Bold, even.  Like they’ve been here before, and know the way.

These boots are my favorite find, ever.  I left the leather scuffed and natural, beaten soft by some other girl’s adventures.  But I painted the heels and soles a silvery sage-brush green.  Freshen things in a way that makes them yours, Mom used to say.  And so I did.

To go with the boots I found a layered short skirt sewn from sheer lengths of muted, floral fabric.  The hem taps the back of my thighs as I walk, airy and comfortable.  My sweater is tight-fitting, a grayed-green cashmere.  It’s too warm for this weather, but I don’t care.  I love this sweater.  It came from an estate sale run by three chain-smoking grannies who clung to me like shadows, begging to buy my mother’s necklace.

Reaching up, I adjust the beaded strands.  Mom always wore this necklace.  Just four months ago she was wearing it, still.  It’s easy to picture her, standing in front of our big hallway mirror, fastening the looped clasp behind her neck.

It’s painful, too.

When I pass the flagpole, where two guys in western-style plaid shirts make a ceremony of hooking the stars and stripes to a rope pulley, I feel like I’m the only one walking solo.  So I hesitate before the plate-glass entrance, my reflection waiting while I check my hair and the fit of my clothes.  Then I grab the handle, pull the door open wide, and step into the building.

Linoleum floors and painted cinder block walls stretch away in all directions.  I’m not sure where to go so for a moment I stand in the lobby, listening.  The first bell rings and everyone hurries: guys in jeans and tee shirts, a lot of the girls wearing miniskirts similar to mine.  People wave to each other, shouting, “Hey.”  Some laugh.  A few glance at me and smile.

I hope all they see, from the outside looking in, is a girl who’ll fit in with this place.