Free The Source of All Things by Tracy Ross Page A

for the meet tomorrow,” said Mom, plugging her blow-comb into a wall socket. “Can you do it? I always mess it up.”
    Dad looked from me to my mom in a way that made the hairs on my arms stand up like the quills on a porcupine. My whole body tensed, which had the negative effect of making my nipples poke out. I was ashamed, and tried to make myself smaller, folding away again like a piece of origami. But folding only made the towel slip.
    â€œI think I can handle that,” said Dad. “Let’s have a look-see, Trace.”
    Dad turned on the faucet, filling the sink with hot water to warm his can of Old Spice. He took a razor from his shaving kit, attached a shiny new blade, and dunked a washcloth in the water. He liked to heat the washcloth up, he said, because it would make the follicles soften. From that point forward, every time I’d hear the word “follicles” my stomach would clench.
    With the washcloth steaming, Dad knelt in front of the toilet, taking my arm in his hand and raising it over my head. He laid the cloth in the hollow of my armpit, then sprayed a wad of cream into the center of his palm. The dollop was as big as a popover and pointed at the apex like meringue. Dad was humming as he smeared the cream across my prickly flesh, moving slower than a snail in a heat wave.
    â€œHow’s that feel?” he asked my left breast.

    Don’t land on me, don’t land on me, don’t land on me! No!
    Ten of my schoolmates and I watched the green bottle spinning on the concrete floor of Maureen Neville’s garden shed. One bare lightbulb hung from the ceiling; the ground below it buzzed with flies. The bottle slowed, teetering on the concrete pebbles. When it came to a stop it was pointing at me.
    Bart Vies looked up and cracked a smile through beer-can braces. He walked to the door and I followed him, stifling a laugh. The wind kicked up, blowing small pieces of garbage through the azaleas in the yard. A metal trash can clanged onto the patio.
    â€œSo,” said Bart, once we were outside the shed. “Are we like obligated to kiss?”
    â€œYou and me? Hell no. No way,” I laughed.
    â€œI mean, we probably should, because those are the rules,” said Bart. “But I don’t know. I’m not feeling it. Not right now. At least not with you.”
    That last part stung just a little bit, but I let it float away. I wasn’t Bart Vies’s kind of girl, and he wasn’t my kind of guy. He was smart, and popular, but he was also a suck-up and naturally tanned. I could deal with the suck-up-ness; it got you scholarships to college and things. But I couldn’t stand the tan part. Outside of Mexicans and Mormon ranchers, tan people signified an elite. They tanned so effortlessly; they were never forced, like I was, to drench themselves in Wesson oil and lie out in the driveway on a sheet of tinfoil while the dog tried to lick their arms. But the main reason I didn’t like those who tanned was because they included my dad.
    By 1984, he and I were growing apart. An eighth-grade cheerleader of the most self-absorbed order, I was too cool to gohunting, which made him feel hurt and mad. New friends and boyfriends competed for my attention, along with drama class, poetry contests, and track. When Dad heard me say “I love you” on the phone to one of my girlfriends, he flew off the handle, muttering, “Why do you tell people that? You sound like an idiot.”
    I did have one secret that I’d been able to keep from Dad. Earlier that summer, I met a new boy named Reed at a Christ on Parade concert at the Odd Fellows Hall in Twin Falls. We met through a haze of beer fumes and cigarette smoke—and an introduction from my friend Stacy’s brother, Darren. Reed had red-blond hair, yellow-green eyes, and eyeteeth that looked as sharp as a vampire’s. He belonged to a nonviolent gang called The Antichrists. The second I saw