Always, Winona by Hannah Richardson

Her name was Winona. Winona on damp, drizzly school days when she raised her hand fearless of appearing callous or insufferable. Winnie on wine-dark nights she downed canned gin cocktails and let her nose go runny under porch lights. Nona inside her honey-sulked home where windows overlooked fields of magnolias whose petals sunk under the weight of thunderstorms.

But she was always Winona to me.

She always had something tantalizingly near to her mouth. Lollipops and lip glosses. Mints clinking against her teeth. Soda-pops she swished and swallowed. Bubbles she popped pink and coy. When the flavor washed up and the gum resembled little more than a piece of plaster, she would gently maneuver the chalky chunk to the roof of her mouth, lean back with arms crossed like a child, and just when you thought she was about to swallow it down, twist the piece around her finger and yank.

Teachers called her petulant. They wrinkled their noses at her perfume. The girls claimed she’d stolen it from a party they attended. She’d been surrounded by her fellow youth tennis stars in a little black dress with seams splitting out around the armpits. She’d tediously tapped her heels the totality of the evening. To make something out of a wasted night, she’d snuck upstairs to the bathroom, stuck an oriental perfume bottle in her bra, and slunk out the screen door before anyone could utter a word.

When Winona spoke, she did it slowly, a burgeoning smirk prowling at the corners of her lips. Her voice, a thick velvet cord that swung alongside a half-open window. She oftentimes placed her hands on her chin, fingertips itching up and down her cheeks as a show of interest.

She wet her lips, slick and pomegranate. What were they like to touch? Did they burn cold and minty like the altoids that jingled in her purse? Did they explode over you sweet and lush like popped cherries? Soft and opalescent like jelly. Thin and fleshy like the skin of an unripe peach. I imagined her sooty-lashed, cruel shade of auburn. A black cat who tip-toed until she was upon you. Who rendered you helpless. How you would give her your hands, your hair, your heart. Anything and everything she wanted. I wondered what it would be like to produce goosebumps that trilled down her spine. To pluck the right notes until she grew warm.

Some days, I sensed her lingering eyes on me. Itching. Hungering. But her eyes were like dragonflies. They darted to and fro. Swerved unpredictably. Hid away in unsuspecting corners. Most often, one could count on them to flit to cupcake-fingered peers and tormented prodigies who shared her inside jokes. Whose mouths similarly twisted into smiles when the teacher failed to remember the homework was due.

But ever-so-occasionally, I would feel them sliding up and down. I wouldn’t look. I held this thought like a chasm. But…I demanded too much from myself. The prickles were unbearable. The blush blossoming on my neck. The heart palpitations. The ever-increasing aroma of that perfume. She stopped my train of thought in its tracks. She consumed me. She pervaded my mind. Did she hunger or did she disdain? Did she long for me as I longed for her? I must turn. I must defeat her with a frigid look of feigned detachment. So I would. But her gaze, which before I had been so certain scrutinized me, now counted ceiling tiles or blinked at her feet. I cursed her darting dragonfly wings. I wished they would stick in the glitter of the shadow that encased them.

Winona.

I wrote her name in red ink and the harsh, lined “W” transformed into a flowing, waved cursive deserving of her velvet sweater. I bit into my paperback novels with red ribboned lips and sucked on the words until they whet my appetite. I wrote her name in the margins and imagined that, one day, we would share the words together. I fantasized about a book I’d graffitied with her name on every other page falling open before her. I envisioned her shyly smiling. Smiling because somebody saw her.

On late nights, I would watch her. She would nestle between Cornelia and Main, slinking into the brick wall in front of the local thrift shop. The boy, whoever he was, would always come a few minutes late. He would walk to her brazenly and she would smile, auburn hair burning underneath the Mission Theater marquee. He would think he was the first to grab her hand as they walked a few feet over to the diner. But I knew, just as Winona did, he was the same as the others. The boy and Winona always took the same spot by the window. I could see them. The boy would sit on the same side of the booth as her, coating her lips in a greasy leftover layer of salt from french fries. He would pull her with clumsy hands, put his palms on the back of her neck, and plant his lips on hers.

I would sit in my car, windshield wipers flicking away at splotches of rain as Winona tolerated the entrails and leftover bits of ketchup that smeared all over her face. On warm nights, she glided out of the diner with jean shorts and a gold anklet. I imagined her legs were sweaty from those plastic booth seats. I bet the boys’ were too. The boy would open his car door for her, assured he was the first to offer this small show of chivalry, and drive her to some secluded parking lot devoid of streetlights. It was here I would turn the key in my ignition and take my leave. As I drove home, I couldn’t help but let my imagination run wild. What did she and this boy talk about? Did she take off the anklet with these football boys she fumbled with in the backseats of cars? Did they devour her with their eyes before they plunged? Did the anklet jingle?

With every ensuing week, the vein in my neck would pulse more and more as the boys who strolled with their arrogant gaits and took Winona under their arms thought she was their own. Their letterman jackets and brassy booming voices. Her false simper that twinkled like a thin, tin rattle. They didn’t know that a baby-belly laugh resided deep in her stomach. They didn’t know that she was a masterpiece. Art. Not art that looked nice but art that made you feel something. How could they?

Occasionally, the boy would walk Winona a few extra blocks over to a house party as opposed to the diner. On such nights, I would park somewhere within sight of the house. The partygoers were imitations of their parents, dressed in virgin white. Their lips were slightly parted, cheeks flaming like the fourth of July. Winona was discoloration in a sea of black and white. She wandered through these crowds like a ghost. Sometimes, I would catch her eyes widen as the boys she’d arrived with drunkenly wrapped their arms around other girls on the tennis team and got sticky-fingered from beers they weren’t legally of age to consume. I hypothesized this was why she stopped eating meals.

“I fast,” she’d once corrected a girl who accused her of starving herself at lunch. “There’s fasting and there’s starving. There’s a difference.” As she said this, she popped another piece of gum and blew it up like a balloon. She laughed that deep, sanguine laugh I knew she had before flipping her glossy ponytail to the side.

How very right of Winona with her mature mind yet still pervasively childlike mannerisms to observe the distinction. When you fast, you exercise self-control. You keep yourself from slurping down chocolate lasagna and slurping up the salt on the sides of margarita glasses for a greater cause. And when your cheeks inevitably hollow and your hair inevitably thins, you tell people it’s because of your love of God. Or your passion for the resistance. Starving, alternatively, is something that someone does to you. It is a result of poor pockets or poor breeding. In one, you have control. In the other you don’t.

On the Friday that changed it all, Winona was out with one of the B’s. He pulled up to the street corner as always, but this time he didn’t park. He slammed on the brakes, stopping just in front of where she stood, and hopped out of the car. As he did so. he stumbled.

“You’re already sloshed,” I heard her say angrily.

“So what?” he said. “What’s it to you, Winnie?”

She looked at him for a moment. “I’m leaving.”

He grabbed her arm. “Where you goin’?”

“Home,” she said. She yanked her arm.

He didn’t let go.

“You’re not goin’ anywhere,” he said. “You’re comin’ with me,”

He made way to force her towards the passenger side of his truck.

“You!” I said, hopping instinctively out of my car. I was across the street, but my voice was commanding. In this moment, I realized this would be the last Friday night I could watch Winona. I’d blown my cover. She would know my car now.

The boy stumbled back. “Mr.–”

“Do I detect a sliver of alcohol in your voice, Briggs?”

“I–”

“I think you best get on home now. Take the bus.”

“Yes–”

“And I think you’d better let Winona out.”

“Yes!”

He reached for Winona’s arm. The one he’d just so pathetically clutched. She looked at him in disgust.

We all stood.

“I’ll be gettin’ on,” Briggs said. “Sorry.” He went down the street without another word.

“Well,” Winona said awkwardly. “Thanks.” She turned to go towards the bus stop.

“Winona,” I said.

She stopped.

“You live near Gables, right? It’s on my way. Wouldn’t be any trouble.”

She hesitated. “I can take the bus.”

“At this time of night?”

She knew I was right. “Well, I could walk.”

“Walk.” I repeated. “It must be ten miles to where you live.”

“Well…” she brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “I guess if it’s really not any trouble–”

“No trouble at all,” I said.

She climbed into the front-seat. I heard her anklet jingle.

We sat in silence as I put the key in the ignition and began to drive. “You oughta be careful out there,” I said. “You coulda been in hot water.”

She snorted. “I would’ve been just fine. I know how to handle myself.”

“That’s not what it looked like.”

“You know,” she said. “You can’t win with girls or guys. Have you noticed that? Any woman worth a damn? Cut.” She made a scissors gesture with her hand. “Cut her down to size.”

I didn’t say a word. We were out of the small downtown area now. It was completely dark. On both sides of the road, there were only corn fields and the occasional farmhouse. And the headlights on my car illuminating the country road.

After a time, she shifted in her seat. She pulled out a red lipstick, and adjusted the rear-view mirror. “I don’t mean to take anything out on you. I’m sorry. You helped a girl out.”

“No trouble…gives us a chance to talk about the book.”

“Oh yeah!” she said. “It was great.”

“Elaborate. Why’d you like it?”

She rustled her hair. “I guess I like a character who takes the brunt of it. Fights the stoop and the slump. The rot. The twist and turn. The ache. All that stuff.”

“It sounds like you found it…relatable?

“Doesn’t everybody find that stuff relatable?”

“I don’t imagine Briggs would.”

“Aw,” she let out a bit of a sigh. “Nah, he probably wouldn’t.”

“You know, I don’t mean to overstep, but…why do you go out with boys like that? Seems to me you could find someone…someone–”

“Someone like me?” she said with a sliver of a smile. Like a sliced tangerine.

“Well,” I said. “I mean you’re…you’re smart. You have depth. And you’re…you’re…”

I turned to look at her. Her gaze had widened. Her shoulders had pushed into the seat. She had slithered down. “…I’m what?” Her voice had gotten soft.

“You’re…” I couldn’t speak. I shifted my eyes back to the road. “You’re just lovely.”

I saw her straighten up out of the corner of my eye. “Well, it’s like you said, Mr. Dunning, it’s hard for a smart girl with depth. And I don’t have much in the way of girlfriends either. I wanna go to the movies with someone, you know?”

“But don’t you–” I cleared my throat “Do you know the world is bigger than your classmates?”

“Oh sure!” she said. “And I graduate this spring. I’m not staying here.”

“What’ll you do?”

“Well,” she said. Her face lit up. “I have no idea!” she laughed with mirth. “Maybe I’ll be like you and teach, huh?”

Nobody would ever have to know. My mind was working at a rapid-fire pace. A quick drink. Sure thing. I could say I’d forgotten something and needed to pick it up from my place. Apologize. Offer her a good cup of coffee. Invite her in for just a few minutes. I could say we could talk over the book more. Sure thing. She wouldn’t object, If anything, she’d be grateful to postpone going home to what I knew was nothing particularly nice. What did she have? Her alcoholic pops. Her meek and mild-mannered mother whose voice shook when she mouthed “I’m sorry” hundreds of times a day?

I couldn’t stop. My mind was moving so fast it was as though it was independent of myself. Who would Winona be once I made her mine? Once I covered her body in prints and turned her pupils overlarge and foggy. Once I made her limbs jumpy and hair wired and shirt buttoned up wrong so that one side was longer than the other. If I presented myself like bloodied shards of steak and I said eat, eat and I hand fed every morsel until my blood ran down her lips and sunk down inside her gums and now there were pieces that lay in a pit above her stomach. Undigested and beating. Ripped, swollen, hell bent on pumping this hot coursing blood that isn’t hers. Her blood isn’t hateful.

Who would I make Winona? How would I unmake Winona? What would she be when I turned the key to my front door? As she took her last sip of coffee and I offered to take her on home and instead she stayed put, bathed in refrigerator light? When she slowly approached me and wrapped her arms around my neck and asked to stay? When she whispered to take her anklet off? When I unclasped it and let it fall to the floor? Would it jingle? When I slowly rose up to meet her and twisted my hands in her auburn hair. Fed on her red lips. Feasted on her dragonfly eyes that were finally caught in my net. Mine. Forever and always.

Hannah Richardson

Image: A pair of red painted lips against a monochrome background from Pixabay.com