Goddamned little bitch!
On a whim the girl had turned Kate’s dream around, smashed it, and threw it back in her face. She had nearly killed them both in the lake, and then pulled them back from the brink so she could have something with which to play. Something to entertain her on this trip to Texas.
Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong.
Little shit.
Kate’s fists clenched. She bore down with her whole body, lifting her legs to her chest and pulling. The rod bent a little but did not give.
Fucking little shit. Who the hell does she think she is? How dare she do this to me!
She yanked on the rod; she put her feet on the tiled rear wall and drew herself up, but the rod did not fall.
I’m a teacher! I’m Kate McDolen! I will not let the little bitch control me!
She fought the shower curtain rod, twisting, jerking, slipping on the wet tub and regaining her balance. The rod held tightly. She stopped and waited, gathered her wits and her strength. She pulled again, gritting her teeth into the terry gag as if that would fortify the whole of her body and soul.
The rod bent a bit more, but did not break free of the walls.
Okay. Stop a minute.
Her breathing was wild and irregular, but her resolve was not.
Stop and wait.
Outside in the bedroom, it sounded as if Mistie was laughing.
I’ll wait, thought Kate. I’ll be here. I’ll play her game. But I’ll use my sharper wit and my better breeding. I’ll kill her if I have to, but she will not win.
Okay.
Oh, yes.
The warm water began to grow cooler on Kate’s neck and shoulder. She shivered, but grit her teeth. Her lip went up in a sneer around the soaked and heavy gag. Oh, when the girl got back they’d have a talk. Oh, yes they would.
Okay.
37
The waterfront was not far from the Mobile South Motor Lodge, down a dark and narrow paved road and past a brightly-lit seafood restaurant and its parking lot crammed with patrons’ automobiles. From inside the restaurant came waves of sound — hoots and hollering and country music from a juke box. Outside in the lot a young couple leaned against each other and their car, giggling, snuggling.
The sign on top of the restaurant’s roof read, “Catfish Delite, Tasty Gulf Treats Since 1962.” It blinked as if there was a short in it somewhere.
Tony could smell the fried fish as she passed on the road, and her tongue watered. She slowed her walking to savor the smell. She’d had catfish once in her life, but that had been many years ago, when she was eight.
She remembered.
Burton had taken her fishing on the Nottoway River in Southampton County. He didn’t take Darlene because Darlene had whined that she didn’t like hooks and didn’t like worms and especially didn’t like sitting in the mud and getting her clothes all messed up. But Burton and Tony went that one time, dressed in jeans and boots and packing rods and two lunches in a brown paper grocery bag. What they did was illegal, Burton had told Tony in the truck on the way, because the best fishing spot was on the edge of the McDolen property where the river slowed and deep pools gathered.
“Screw the McDolens,” Burton had said as he’d lit his cigar and blew the smoke out the open truck window. It was June, and the day was overcast and hot. “They can kiss my lily white ass they find us here. They think they own a river? Hell no, they don’t.”
Burton had driven off the road to a grassy, hidden spot on McDolen property where clusters of weeping willow trees were punctuated with “No Trespassing” signs. Tony sat beside her father on the riverbank and dug with her fingers into the soil until she came up with a few grubs, some pill bugs, and one long, red-brown earthworm that crapped black dirt in her hand. Burton showed her how to drive the hook through the body of the grubs. The grubs twisted on the sharp probe, and when Tony asked Burton if it hurt them, he said, “Hell, yeah, it hurts ‘em. It’s supposed to hurt ‘em. But that’s why God made ‘em.”
He’d laughed. She’d laughed. She put the hook through the earthworm, then through it again, so it was impaled in a loop. They’d caught several catfish that afternoon, and took them home where Burton scraped them clean in an aluminum tub in the backyard while Lorilynn complained from the deck that she’d heard somebody up river was dumping shit in the Nottoway Rive and so she wasn’t going to eat any of that smelly, diseased catch.
Burton had rolled his eyes as the fish scales flew, and said to Tony, “Got a joke for you. What smells worse that a dead, slimy fish? A live, slimy pussy!” He laughed. Tony laughed, though she thought she knew what the joke meant and it didn’t seem funny at the time.
She remembered.
Tony ambled up the graveled lot behind the restaurant where she paused at the Dumpsters. Light from the rear windows of the restaurant pooled across the lot in a yellow wave and splashed up to the barrels, making it easy to see in the little square side doors. There were some fairly good scrapings there — whole pieces of breaded trout, shrimps glistening with smears of tartar sauce, frog legs deep fried in cornmeal, rolls barely nibbled on. Back at the motel there were some canned foods in the duffel bag, but none of them had the allure that these odorous bits did. Tony reached in, then pulled her hand back out. She’d reward herself after she found the Gulf. She’d pocket as much as she could on her return trip. She’d eat it all in front of the teacher.
The air was warmer and stickier in Alabama than in Virginia. Tony pushed up the sleeves of the WWJD sweatshirt and felt the heavy air stroking her skin. In the darkness on the other side of the street where a street light had burned out something fell over, rolled, then stopped. A dog, Tony guessed, sniffing around for cats. Let it come near her, and she’d take care of it like she did the animals on Rainbow Lane. That would be fun. She hadn’t taken a dog apart in weeks.
There was a phone booth on the corner of the “Catfish Delite” parking lot. Tony pushed through the folding glass door and stepped inside. There was no phone book hanging on the chain, and the light in the ceiling didn’t work. The phone itself, a clunky silver apparatus, was tacky with bits of chewed gum and other crusted substances. Tony gingerly lifted the receiver, tapped zero, and Leroy’s number. After speaking her name on request to the computer-operator, she waited, one foot shaking on the floor, one hand scratching the top of her head. Come one come on.
The line was busy. Tony slammed the receiver down.
That’s okay, I know Buddy’s number. Nobody talks on the phone at Buddy’s house. Nobody likes Buddy or his family and nobody ever calls ‘em.
After three rings, a gruff male voice answered. “Low?” It wasn’t Buddy but some other man, one of the uncles, cousins, or in-laws who crashed at Buddy’s house on an ongoing, rotating schedule.
“Hey!” Tony tried to interject before anything else was spoken. “Say yes!”
But the man couldn’t hear Tony’s words or didn’t care that he did, he grumbled at the request to accept charges and the line went dead.
“Screw it,” Tony swore. She tried to remember Little Joe’s number, but couldn’t. It had a nine and five and two and something else. Whitey’s phone had been disconnected last month because Whitey’s mom was mad about a $300 900-number bill Whitey had racked up on a Tarot-reading line and refused to pay the bill.
Tony leaned against the phone booth wall and watched as a car pulled out of the restaurant lot, and another pulled in. She licked the flavor of salty air off her lips and let out a long breath. She dialed Leroy again. Again, busy. She slammed the receiver down and leaned against the booth wall, arms crossed. Where the hell did Leroy’s family have to go? Maybe Leroy was in jail and they were visiting him. They’d be sitting behind a clear plastic window talking into a single phone and Leroy would be on the other side, beat up from the other inmates who thought he was sweet-pants. Leroy’s mom would cry, of course. Maybe even Leroy would cry. Tony wondered what Leroy crying would sound like.