In the restroom of the diner where we stopped for breakfast, Mindy had me put her hair into ponytails. "I was scared to do it myself," she said, "and my roommate was asleep."
"What were you scared of?" I asked.
"Why, you know I shouldn't raise my arms that high. I might strangle the baby on its cord."
"But-"
"How do I look?" she asked me.
She looked about twelve years old, younger than my daughter even, with her two perky ponytails and her blue, trusting gaze. In the mirror beside her I was suddenly dimmed: an older woman, flat-haired, wearing a raincoat that had clearly been slept in. "Don't you have no lipstick?" Mindy said.
"Lipstick? No."
"Well, maybe you'd like to borrow mine." She handed it to me, already unrolled-something pink and fruity-smelling. I handed it back.
"Thanks anyway," I told her.
"Come on, you could use a little color."
"No, really, I-"
"You want me to do it?"
"No. Please."
"But listen, at the Home I made up everybody. I mean a lot of those girls just never had learned what to do with theirselves, you know? Keep still a minute."
"Stop!" I said.
She looked startled. She took a step backward, still holding the lipstick.
"Oh, I'm sorry," I told her.
"That's all right," she said. She rolled and capped the lipstick in silence, and dropped it into her purse.
"Well!" she said. But when she looked up again I saw that her face was white and stricken, smaller somehow than before.
"Please don't feel bad," I told her. "It's just that I didn't want to be put in someone else's looks. I mean," I said, trying to make a joke of it, "what if I got stuck that way? Like crossing your eyes; didn't your mother ever warn you about that?" Mindy said, "Oh, Charlotte, do you think he's at all glad to see me?"
"Of course he is," I said.
Driving was slower now because we had to stop so often. First of all, the cat kept getting carsick. From time to time he would give this low moan, and then Jake would curse and brake and swerve to the side of the road. The trouble was, the cat wouldn't come out of the car then. We'd all be calling, "Plymouth?
Here, Plymouth;" but he only crouched down beneath the seat, and we'd have to sit helpless and listen to his little choking sounds. This is therapeutic?" Jake asked.
Then Mindy had so many foot cramps. Every time one hit her, we'd have to stop and let her walk it off. We stood leaning against the car, watching her hobble through some field littered with flowers and beer bottles. It was truly warm now, and so bright I had to squint. Mindy looked like a little sunlit robot.
"It's easing!" she would call back. "I feel it starting to ease up some!"
"Now's the kind of time I wish I smoked," Jake said.
"I can feel those muscles slacking!" Jake's jacket ballooned in the wind. He slouched beside me. Our elbows touched. We were like two parents exercising a child in the park. "You had children," he said suddenly, as if reading my mind.
I nodded.
"Ever get foot cramps?"
"Well, no."
"It's all in her head," he told me.
"Oh, I doubt that." I could feel him watching me. I looked away. Then he asked, "How many?"
"What?"
"How many children."
"Two," I said.
"Your husband like kids?"
"Well, of course."
"What's he do?"
"Do?"
"Do for a living, Charlotte, Where's your mind at?"
"Oh. He's a… well, he's a preacher,"
I said.
Jake whistled.
"You're putting me on," he told me.
"No." Mindy wandered back to us, trailing strands of flowers. "They're gone now," she said. But Jake only looked at her blankly, as if wondering what it was that was supposed to have gone.
Along about noontime, we passed a billboard showing a clump of plastic oranges, welcoming us to Florida. "Whoopee!" Mindy said. "Now, how much further?"
"Forever," Jake told her. "Ain't you ever seen a U. S. map? We are driving down its great old long big toe."
"But I'm tired of riding. Can't we stop at a motel or something? Miss Bohannon says long drives aren't good for us."
"Who's Miss Bohannon?"
"She's a nurse, she teaches Child Care." Jake frowned and speeded up. "Well, another thing," he said. "I don't understand why they have this Child Care business."
"To tell how to care for a child, silly."
"Seems kind of pointless if you ask me," Jake said. "You know most of them girls will just put their kids out for adoption."
"Sure, but they're not the ones that take the course," said Mindy. They take Good Grooming."
"Ah," Jake said. He drove along a while. Some thought worked through his forehead. He took his foot off the gas pedal. "Wait," he said.
"Are you telling me you're going to keep this kid?"
"Well, naturally."
"Now, listen. I don't think that's such a very good idea."
"Why… Jake? You're not saying we should just…" Mindy turned and looked at me. I stared hard at a passing Shell station.
"What you getting at, Mindy?" Jake asked. "Are you trying to plan on us marrying, or something?"
"Of course I plan on it," Mindy said. "Otherwise what did you drive all this way for? You must have cared a little bit, to come so far."
"Well, Fm only human," said Jake. "I mean, even when they hijack a plane, they let the kids go free. Even when they're fighting for lifeboats, they put the kids in first."
"Lifeboats? What? What're you talking about?"
"I come to get a baby out of prison," Jake said. "Hal Some prison. Seems you told me a bald-faced lie,"
"It wasn't a lie! How can you say that? Now listen here, Jake Simms," Mindy said. "You're not backing out of this. You come all this way, take me out of the Home, transport me to another state-and now you're going to change your mind? No sir. We're going to get married and have a little baby, and the prettiest home you ever heard of."
"Not ever in a million, billion years," said Jake.
"Why, we could stay right here in Florida, if you like. Get a little place near Oliver, wouldn't that be nice? Really the climate would be better for the children," she said, turning to me. I mean, they won't get so many colds and all, we won't have to buy all those snowsuits. It's cheaper. And I've always been a warm-weather person. make the house real summery, lots of bright colors, straw chairs, those ruffly white curtains with the tie-backs, you know the kind, what do you call them?"
"Priscillas," I said.
"Priscillas. That's what well have. Priscillas. Everywhere but the living room; I think there we'll have fiberglass drapes of some type. Gold, you know, or maybe avocado. Which would you rather, Jake. Gold?" Jake stared straight ahead of him.
"Avocado?" The scenery slid past us; used boat lots, real estate offices, praline shops. Everything looked untidy. If this was Florida I didn't like it at all. I didn't even like the way the sun shone here, so flat and white, burdening the tinny roofs of the roadside stands.
"Jake, I got this cramp again," Mindy said in a small voice.
Jake didn't so much as change expression. He just pulled over and stopped the car. From beneath the back seat, the cat gave a yowl. Jake got out and the two of us slid after him. We were on the edge of a shambling little town called Pariesto, according to the signs. Mindy had nowhere to walk but the littered gravel at the side of the road-white-hot, mica-laden, dazzling to the eyes. She stalked off anyway, very fast, with her hands joined under her stomach.
"Now, don't you dare say I should go after her," Jake told me.
I was surprised. "Me?" I said.
"Isn't that what women do? 'Oh, go after her, Jake. Go see if you can help.'"
"But-I haven't opened my mouth," I said.
"You were about to."