“Overexposed?” she said. “That’s why we went back home.”
“To Guin.”
“We live in Gu-Win.”
“That’s not what the sign said.”
“Gu-Win is between Guin and Winfield,” she said. “Wasn’t a bad little town before they built the interstate and made us a drive-by community. We’ve still got a Walmart and a drive-in movie theater called the Blue Moon. My momma ran a vegetable stand right off the highway for nearly fifty years selling tomatoes, corn, cantaloupes, and hot-boiled peanuts. Fifty years, can you imagine?”
“I hate to say it, but your mother treats you like a trained monkey. I think she went back home because she couldn’t cut it. Back to a forsaken state like Alabama? Does Big Nadine drink? She looks like a drinker, with her face all big and pink. Someone who’d down three or four lemondrop martinis a night.”
“Momma’s a Baptist,” Cassie Lyn said, her little hands folded in her lap, bubblegum nail polish starting to chip. “Sometimes she’ll slip and have one margarita at Los Amigos over in Hamilton. We like that place lots better than La Casa Fiesta. Big Nadine says they make the best taco salad in the whole state.”
The man didn’t answer, just drove with his mouth shut. Cassie Lyn grew quiet too, as they took a wide turn on the overpass right through Birmingham, headed toward the tall hills, and she looked over the city to see if she could spot the Vulcan statue. If the eyes were red, that would tell Cassie Lyn something, a sign from Jesus that she needed to go ahead with what she’d planned. She knew what she was doing walking out of that trailer with her pink backpack slung across her shoulder, seeing that black van parked out by the roadside. Everything she owned in the world in the backpack: two changes of clothes, her special teddy bear Reuben, sixty-two dollars, and her MacBook Pro.
“Can I at least ask your name?”
The man didn’t answer.
“Can I call you Daryl?” she said.
“Why?”
“’Cause first minute I laid eyes on you, when you hopped out of that van, I said to myself, That looks like a Daryl. Also, you had what Momma called crazy eyes. I could see it when you took off your sunglasses, playing that loud music from your car stereo. What was that song anyway?”
“‘I Want to Know What Love Is.’”
“That some kind of praise music?”
“It’s Foreigner.”
“Hmm,” said Cassie Lyn. “Sounded like they were speaking English to me.”
The man reached down, knocked an old tape into the radio, the praise music going away, a heavy guitar chord vibrating the insides of the car. “How about this?” he said. “Journey. You like to rock, sweet baby? I’ll play you some real music from back in my day.”
“Where the hell we goin’, Daryl?”
“I can’t say.”
“Why not?”
“You might run off.”
“Run off?” Cassie Lyn said. “Why on earth would I do that? This is the best goddamn day of my life.”
“Me kidnapping you?”
“Yes sir,” she said. “But you better stop off for a six-pack and Marlboros soon. I don’t travel on no fumes.”
“Don’t you see what I brought?” Daryl said, wiping his eyes, nearly in tears. “Look in the back. I brought duct tape for your pretty little mouth. Ropes to bind your sweet, delicate limbs. And you know what? If you’d fought me, I even brought a gun. Doesn’t that scare you? Doesn’t that just chill you down to the bone, thinking on what I might do?”
“There’s an exit coming up,” she said. “I think they got a Stuckey’s. You mind getting me a pecan log? Sweet baby’s getting hungry.”
PICTURE UP, B ROLL OF TODDLER CONTESTANTS TAKE THE STAGE... BIG SMILES. SPARKLY DRESSES. BLING PERSONIFIED.
CUT TO:
INT: EMBASSY SUITES, NASHVILLE.
Big Nadine rushes around the motel room in a frenzy. Her assistant, Rosalita, runs into the bathroom and closes the door to the camera crew, sobbing.
BIG NADINE: The hair didn’t curl, we was running late on time, my dumb-ass boyfriend didn’t find the right ho-tel. We are standing around at the lobby, waiting for him to show up with Cassie Lyn’s wardrobe. I don’t think any of this could go anywhere. This is the big time. This isn’t just any competition. This is gosh-darn Little Miss Sassy Nashville. This is the damn Daytona 500 and the Super Bowl rolled into one. My people have messed up. And Cassie Lyn knows it. Look at her in tears, that little girl. I hate to disappoint her. This is all about her. All about her.
Close: Cassie Lyn in full makeup and pajamas, playing with an iPhone, looking up at Bugs Bunny on the motel television.
BIG NADINE: If that little girl ain’t happy, Momma ain’t happy. I think we better just pull this thing. Stop it. I can’t put my little girl onstage like this. It just tears the guts out of me to send her on not pampered and prepared. How in the world could Rosalita be so almighty stupid as to mess up that wig? There ain’t nothing to it. It’s just some basic bouncy curls, made stiff with rollers and some hair spray. I swear to Jesus Christ Himself that woman didn’t have but one job to do. I’m gonna send her on back with my boyfriend. That dumb bastard got himself drunk last night at an Applebee’s in Chattanooga calling me like I’m supposed to come get him and make things right. He has all Cassie Lyn’s things. How damn hard is that to remember?
INT: EMBASSY SUITES LOBBY.
Cassie Lyn, six, in a blue-velvet tracksuit, hair and makeup done, as they wait for a ride to the convention center.
INTERVIEWER: Are you nervous?
CASSIE LYN: Nope.
INTERVIEWER: Do you hope you’ll win?
CASSIE LYN: I guess so. I hadn’t really given it much thought. I’m really hungry. After the competition, Momma says she’ll buy me some Popeyes fried chicken. I haven’t eaten since breakfast yesterday. My stomach is making weird sounds like it’s mad at me.
INT: HOTEL VAN — DAY.
Big Nadine stares out the window, hand touching her temple, crying.
BIG NADINE: Well, it’s all about her and for her. If Cassie Lyn ain’t happy, I’m not happy. This is all about her. All about her.
Daryl looked tired, rolling into the Stuckey’s off the Hope Hull exit at nearly three o’clock in the morning, only to see it was closed down for the night. Cassie Lyn turned to him, giving him that real pouty look with her bottom lip poked out. “Sure had my heart set on a pecan log, Big Daddy.”
“Pecan log?” Daryl said. “I thought you had to pee-pee. Damn it. Just get on back in the van and we’ll go across to that Love’s. I need to get some gas anyway.”
“Why won’t you tell me where we’re going?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“You said somewhere real special and real warm,” she said. “Is that true?”
“Maybe.”
“Are you gonna kill me?”
Daryl didn’t answer, stroking his mustache, knocking the black van back in gear, driving slow and careful, blinker flashing to make a right turn. His face still half-covered in shadow.