Julie don\u2019t wanna be sweet no more, she says Pastor Jeff\u2019s eyes haunt her, followin\u2019 her around, burning pinholes in her dress. She dreams of giving birth to those eyes, big round eye-babies of rheumy blue and once-white, now yellow as his teeth. She says it hurts bad when the eye-babies are pulled from her and they\u2019re like stiff jelly, their coating clogs the pores of her skin.<\/p>\n
Julie said she don\u2019t wanna marry Pastor Jeff, but Papa presents her like the Christmas goose, all trussed up in Mama\u2019s ribbons as a gift, and Mama is no help at all, just tells her to smile more. Julie hates smiling at Pastor Jeff \u2018cause when he smiles back, the tip of his tongue pokes through his teeth, all pink and shiny with thick spit and then he licks his lips all slow and meaningful, makin\u2019 the skin on her legs shake.<\/p>\n
Julie don\u2019t wanna be married, she don\u2019t wanna be Jennie, or Clara, or Susan or Maribel, their skin crumblin\u2019 loose and bellies hard and full \u2018til they\u2019re 30. Julie don\u2019t wanna be devoured by Pastor Jeff like all his other wives were.<\/p>\n
Julie\u2019s runnin\u2019 away tonight to a house with a picket fence she saw in one of Ada\u2019s hidden papers, she says it\u2019s just past the red barn. She says there she\u2019ll feel the weight of her hair on her spine and wear cut-off shorts in the summer. She might even ride a bicycle. She says I can go too, if I want, but although I\u2019ll miss Julie and my chores will take longer to do, I\u2019m gonna stay sweet, pray and obey like Pastor Jeff and Papa says, \u2018cause I\u2019m only eleven and not for marryin\u2019 yet.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Julie don\u2019t wanna run away no more, she says there\u2019s no picket fence just past the red barn, only a Circle K. On the night she ran away, Papa found her in the forecourt, cryin\u2019 over a bright blue slushie that cost more than my shoes. The blue stayed on her lips for days, makin\u2019 her look dead as Grammy on the night her heart stopped and I listened close to Julie sleepin\u2019, afraid the excitement had done her in.<\/p>\n
Mama won\u2019t look at Julie, even when they\u2019re folding sheets together, just lets out sighs that come from deep in her legs and Papa is cross. He says Pastor Jeff has some prayin\u2019 to do, thinkin\u2019 and praying\u2019 and I can\u2019t help but pray too.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Pastor Jeff don\u2019t wanna marry Julie no more, says she\u2019s too wild and Papa is hurtin\u2019 with what he calls “the shame.” Mama has taken back all her ribbons, they\u2019re in the bedroom drawer makin\u2019 the shadows pretty and Julie should be happy but she\u2019s not. She says there\u2019ll always be another Pastor Jeff, another Papa and no white picket fence. So, I\u2019m plannin\u2019 on runnin\u2019 away, far past the Circle K to find a place where Julie and I can live together, ridin\u2019 bicycles and keepin\u2019 everything sweet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Julie don’t wanna be sweet no more, she says Pastor Jeff’s eyes haunt her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19768,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-marie-louise-mcguinness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19167"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19769,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19167\/revisions\/19769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}