Buddy poked the deflated balloon out through the slats. Angela would not pick it up. The teacher did. “I see clearly now,” she said, turning it over, “Look. Rob’s got his name on it.”
“Huh!” said Angela.
“Ooh, Angela, stealin’ a little boy’s balloon,” taunted Buddy.
Angela looked at the balloon. In small, black marker was written “Rob Forrester.” She shrugged.
“So? He lost it,” said Angela. “Finder’s keepers.”
“I din’ lose it,” whined Rob. “You took it!”
The teacher pushed a strand of her hair behind her ear and put her hands on her hips. Angela put her hands on her hips. “Don’t mock me,” said the teacher.
“Don’t mock me,” said Angela. “’Cause I didn’t steal nothin’.”
“You did!” wailed Rob.
“Bullshit!” said Angela.
The teacher looked as shocked as if she’d stepped into a pile of that very stuff.
Five minutes later, Angela was sitting on the bench in the office. Ten minutes later, she was in the office with the principal, listening to him talk about respect for peer and adults and then to him tell her she would sit in detention all day Monday.
Angela gave the bitch Mrs. McDolen the hairy eyeball for the remainder of the school year, all six days of it. And then she went on to Gabriel Archer Middle School and never had to look at her again.
Until now.
She remembered.
This was the teacher. Sitting at the wheel of her rich-ass white car in her rich-ass shoes, looking surprised that there was a little girl hiding under a quilt in her back seat. This would be good.
“I see now,” Tony said.
The teacher’s mouth opened and closed. Her eyes were wide and twitching.
“What you into, teacher? Little girls? Got a little girl in the back of your car for when you get an urge?”
“How dare you!”
Tony slapped the teacher soundly across the mouth. The teacher sobbed, once, then bared her teeth like a dog. It was hysterical and Tony laughed aloud.
Then she studied the girl in the back seat. She was about seven or so, a mess, all snotty and sweaty and wearing some kind of trash. She was covered in brown goo, what Tony hoped was candy and not something else.
“What are you doing in here?” Tony asked.
The little girl rubbed her crotch.
“Oh, yeah, I see,” said Tony. She turned back around and put both feet on the dashboard. She tapped the teacher on the arm with the pistol. “You got a little secret there, huh, teacher-woman?”
The teacher was scrambling for something to say. It crawled all over her face, and then, “I was taking her home for the afternoon. Her mother gave me permission to….”
“Yeah,” said Tony. “Whatever. You can tell me later, we’ll save that up, how about that? Good bed time story.”
“No,” said the teacher. “No, listen to me now.”
“I don’t have to. You know how to get to Texas?”
“I. Well, of course, but….”
“Drive.”
The teacher backed the car around, and then maneuvered through the thick of pines back to Route 58. On the road, the teacher didn’t even have to ask which way to turn. She went right, and drove in silence to the turn off onto Route 35 a mile outside Courtland. She put on her blinker and turned south. Eight miles to North Carolina. A couple thousand at least to Texas.
Burton was in Texas. He had moved there long ago when Lorilynn Petinske had sent him away without his pistol or his sofa.
Texas. Where the real Tony had stood tall and unmoving beneath the elms.
Tony leaned against the passenger’s door and studied her two traveling mates. Two fucked-up females.
And Tony in charge, completely, for the first time in her life.
This was going to be the most excitement she’d ever had. This was going to be a ride to remember.
22
Real life.
This is real life. It is happening.
Kate checked the rearview mirror, then glanced over at the teenager leaning on the passenger’s door. They had crossed into North Carolina several minutes ago. The girl had been silent all those many, few minutes. On both sides of the road, pines held sentinel, oblivious to the insanity passing them by. It was after five, and the gray sky was darkening with the nearing of dusk. Kate turned on the headlights, but the girl shook her head and Kate turned them back off. The sleet on the road was slush now.
If ever there was a time that things shouldn’t be real life, this would be it. If ever there was a time for a quick and amazing rescue out of the wild blue yonder, by Arnold or Bruce or even one of those motorcycle guys from CHiPS, it was now.
In the back seat, Mistie was playing with a wrapper from several Tootsie Rolls. The girl had tossed them to her, and had laughed when Mistie had unwrapped all three and put all three in her mouth at once. Mistie didn’t seem bothered by the laughter. She didn’t look startled anymore by the presence of the teenager. She only seemed intent on consuming the rolls of chocolate.
In the fields between the forests, little houses had prepared for evening. Porch lights dotted doorways; shades had been drawn. Many of the homes were outlined in Christmas lights. Some small bushes were likewise decorated, and there were the expected plastic Nativities, and shiny reindeer loping motionlessly across lawns. Smoke curled from chimneys and stacks, rising just above the roofs and holding there in swirls of tainted ribbon, awaiting the next sleet or snow. In side-yard pens and corrals, horses and cows, coats sugar-coated in sleet, nosed through the remnants of hay bales and melting salt blocks, snuffling up the last before morning. Inside the doorway of one well-lit garage, two young men in heavy coats tinkered on a truck while a toddler stared out at the cold and at the white Volvo hissing by.
It was all real life.
None less so than the rest.
None less so than the gun in the girl’s lap, the gun that was trained on Kate’s ribs, the gun that had made a torment of the side of her jaw. No less than the stinging cut between her legs or the dried blood or the panty hose that had been slit apart and now hung around her knees.
There was no rescue. There would be no rescue, though Kate deserved rescue. She had done the right thing. She had captured a butterfly and had meant to set it free. She had put herself on the line for the child in the back. Surely such things were meant to be rewarded. Kate was a good person. She wasn’t some stupid, dim-witted woman. She wasn’t some trashy trailer park bimbo.
Rescue in this case was well-deserved.
And yet any rescue would just be another pit.
Another few minutes, driven in silence, due south. Then the girl said, “How much money you got on you?”
How much do I have? Kate wondered. How much? Did I cash a check yesterday? I was going to, I don’t know. “I’m not sure,” she said.
“You said enough for a bus ticket. Get out your wallet. Pass it over.”
Kate glanced about for her purse. Where was it? There, on the floor under the girl’s legs. She snatched it from the floor and put it beside her. The car wobbled a bit with the lack of attention, then straightened. She knew her purse by heart. Without looking she unzipped the outer zipper then the zipper of the center compartment. Inside was her kid-skin wallet. She pulled it out and flung it at the girl.
“Don’t ever throw anything at me. You aren’t my fucking mother. You want me to throw something at you? You wanna know what I might throw at you?”
“No,” said Kate.
Silence as the girl pawed through the contents of the wallet. From the corner of her eye, Kate could see the photos of Donald and Donald, Jr. scattering. Receipts from her credit card that she’d not yet filed, coupons she’d clipped for her grocery trip to Emporia — Swiffers, Bic disposable razors, 409 spray cleanser — loose stamps, MasterCard, Emporia library card, Food Lion MVP card, some dried four leaf clovers she’d found in her yard last summer. “Got a lot of shit,” said the girl. “Fucking pack rat.”