“This is good,” said Kate. Tony nodded, and Kate pulled into the drive. A few other customer cars were squatting there in the lot. One was occupied by a girl of about five and a yapping Pomeranian.
Kate put the truck in park. It idled smoothly. The owner of this would be putting out a bulletin on it, for certain.
Tony flicked the knife and held it toward Mistie. “Don’t forget who’s out here.”
“I won’t,” said Kate.
“You tell on us in there, if anybody even looks out here like they think something’s going on, I’ll bring us all down.”
“I’m not going to do that, Tony.”
“It’s weird when you say my name. Teachers call me Angela.”
“You want me to call you that?”
“Hell, no. Tony.”
“Okay, then, Tony.”
“You got ten minutes, exactly.”
“Ten minutes,” said Kate. She didn’t point out that there wasn’t a clock in the truck.
It was difficult to walk without a limp, but she tightened her jaws and did the best she could. She’d been able to smile through parent conferences, and some were almost as painful as a bullet to the leg. That’s a good one, she thought. Ought to call Deidra and tell her about my latest adventure. A wave a fatigue swept through her body, and she held onto the door’s hand, regaining herself, before pushing all the way inside.
The store was alive with an overly warm heat blasting its breath from a ceiling vent and a Zamfir Christmas tape playing on the intercom. A man with a gray beard stood at a candy display, filling a rack up with bags of Christmas-colored Hersheyets and red and green foil-wrapped Kisses. At the front counter, a middle-aged woman was straightening a stack of coupons by the register. The woman glanced up and smiled, “Merry Christmas!”
Kate nodded. “And to you.”
Slowly, she moved up the first aisle, glancing back at the bowed ceiling mirror at the front corner near the door. Facing away from the mirror, she scooped several packs of Lance crackers into the front pocket of her overalls. Then she meandered to the health and beauty aisle. It felt as though her leg was beginning to seep. She hoped not. She opened her pocket to flick in a tube of Suave powder fresh deodorant, a small box of children’s chewable Tylenol, and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. There was a sharp pain in her calf, and she stopped, caught her breath, and moved on.
As nonchalantly as she could, she rounded the corner and walked up through the hair products. Rid, for lice. That was what the school kept on hand for outbreaks. She didn’t see any. She looked back up the aisle from where she came. She thought it had a stop sign on it, but wasn’t certain. She looked again. No Rid. Nothing for Tony’s cooties.
“Can I help you find something?” called the woman from the front counter.
“Oh, no,” said Kate. Her voice was surprisingly pleasant and cheerful. “Actually, I’m just taking a break from driving. I needed to stretch my legs a bit. I hope you don’t mind if I just look around?”
“No, honey, that’s fine,” said the woman. “Where you driving to?”
“El Paso,” said Kate smoothly. “I’m a teacher from North Carolina. Heading over to see my sister.”
“Teacher, huh?” said the woman. “Off for the holidays already? Our kids got another week before school lets out.”
There was a small hanging display beside the shampoos, a plastic, toothed rack with folded American Traveler maps tucked in. United States. Southern United States. Texas. Kate tugged a Texas out of its slot, folded it an extra time and slipped it in the overall pocket. “Oh, well, I teach in a private school. A Christian academy. Our schedule is somewhat different from the schedules of the public schools in our area.”
The card and wrapping paper section was past the hair care. Kate stopped in front of a standing display and idly spun the rack about, glancing at the colorful images and flowing script. There was a narrow mirror dividing each section of the rack and it winked at Kate as it revolved by her, over and over. She caught the rack and held it still to see herself in the sliver of silvered glass.
My God, she thought. She stared at the reflection. The thin woman with the straight auburn hair. The face without makeup, the baggy overalls and simple undershirt. Eyes, a bit dark and set. Fingernails rough and unpolished.
There’s Alice. Kate ran her hand over her cheeks, over her neck and down the length of one leg. Donald wouldn’t recognize me. I look like Alice.
She stared. She knew. She realized what she had done had been for herself at first. She had rescued Mistie to rescue herself. To get away from the tedium and the headaches and loneliness. To take Mistie and drop her off at a commune for other castoffs and be done with it.
But not now, she thought. The mouth in the mirror had no lipstick, no lip liner, and the small wrinkles at the corners were clearly visible. I am not going to take Mistie to Canada. Mexico is closer. I’ll care for her. I’ll mother her. Me.
I’ll be the Alice in me.
Yes.
Then something wet slid down the back of her leg to her shoe. There was blood on the floor. Damn, she thought. She rubbed the bottom of the shoe through the little drops on the floor, smudging them out of focus. She limped to the front door.
“Safe trip!” called the woman.
“God bless,” said Kate.
The truck was empty, though the engine was still humming. The car with the girl and the dog were gone; the patron had probably been next door at the dry cleaners. Kate glanced around, more blood drips trickling down to her shoe; the wound was hot and aching.
She saw Mistie and Tony at the outdoor phone by the sidewalk. Tony waved Kate over, the receiver in her hand, the knife in the other. Mistie was sitting cross-legged on the concrete slab under the phone box. The little yellow shift was bunched up, showing no panties. Kate stood between Mistie and the street, blocking her from the view of passers-by.
“Called my friend Leroy,” said Tony. Her voice was stony. Not a good sign. “One eight-hundred collect. It works, you know, even though those commercials are pussy.”
“That’s good, him getting caught,” said Kate. “Right?”
“Hot Heads made the news.”
“What are hot heads?”
“Whitey’s got arrested last night.”
“Whitey?”
Tony cleared her throat and spit on the ground. “One that killed the gasoline man with my gun. He’s on TV. They say he’s get charged as an adult. He hasn’t confessed but Leroy says it’s just time.”
Kate knelt beside Mistie and rubbed her head. She reached in her pocket for the box of Tylenol, ripped it open, and took out three pink tablets. “Mistie, can you chew these?” Mistie nodded and put the tablets in her mouth, held them there. “Chew, hon.” Mistie chewed.
“Is that what you wanted?” asked Kate, looking up at Tony. “You wanted him to get caught?”
Tony banged the receiver on the steel side of the phone box. Her toe of her right boot patted the gravel rapidly. “Yeah. No, not exactly. Asshole!”
“Why?”
“We was supposed to be talked about, wondered about. We was supposed to be worried about, all over the county. We was supposed to be the gang everybody was scared of but nobody knew our names. Like the big gangs in the big places, ones that shoot up stuff and people and write ‘don’t fuck with us’ on walls but nobody knows exactly who did the shoot-ups ‘cause they’re quick, man, they’re smart and they don’t get caught. But Whitey shot that bastard and now he’s arrested. He’s gonna talk you can bet. Bark like a dog. All the Hot Heads going down, except me, ‘cause I’m here in fucking Texas.”