Elizabeth Massie - Wire Mesh Mothers

East Texas. One-light towns of Fords Corner and Melrose. Tony complained that this didn’t look like Texas, it looked like fucking Louisiana and fucking Mississippi and fucking Alabama. “Texas is a big state,” Kate reminded her. “Give it time. There were cattle ranges farther west.”

Mistie was between Kate and Tony. Both legs were draped over beside Tony’s because Kate refused to let the girl straddle the shift. She was still rather lethargic, but Kate sensed she was coming around, that she’d suffered from some 24-hour bug that children often got to the terror of their parents and the blessed assurances of their pediatricians. But something to help the fever was still in order. And Kate was ready to offer her right eye for something to bring down the aching in her calf. And a real night’s sleep.

Tony had the knife out and was playing flip-the-blade by the passenger window. Kate wondered if it might blow out in a gust of Texas wind. But it didn’t.

They rolled on another twenty minutes, Kate’s leg and stomach growling. They’d eaten nothing since yesterday morning. And they had not one cent with which to buy food. Kate had turned on the radio to get her mind off the clammy filth of her body and the tedious drive, but Tony hadn’t liked her choice of music and made her turn it off.

Traffic picked up on the two-lane, and then the road widened to four lanes. Houses were closer together here, and there were apartment complexes and strip malls. Streetlights were wound with all-weather holly and big red bows. Decorations in these lawns were more tasteful than those seen in the country. No bobbing head Josephs or Granny Fannies in poinsettia britches. A city limits sign reading “Nacogdoches” rushed by on the right. A city this size would have drug stores. If Kate could tidy up her hair and clean up her face, she might make a relatively benign shoplifter.

“Tony,” she said. “I want a dare.”

Tony stopped flipping the knife. “That ain’t how it works. I gotta give truth or dare.”

“Then let me tell you what to dare me.”

Tony rubbed her chin and scratched her head. “What?”

“Dare me to go into a Rite Aid or CVS and get some things we need.”

“What the hell we need? Got lots of gas in the tank. Don’t seem to be burning any oil.”

“Aren’t you hungry? I could slip a few things into my pocket, see how big overall pockets are? And I want to get something for Mistie’s temperature. And for my leg. And for your hair.”

“My hair?”

“You have lice, Tony. Haven’t you felt them?”

Tony smacked at her head, then pulled the rearview mirror around and stared agape at her reflection. “No, I don’t! I ain’t got the cooties.”

“Whatever you call them, I’ve seen them crawling behind your ears. There’s shampoo for that, you know….”

“Goddamn Darlene!”

“Who’s Darlene?”

“You want my whole life history? Just find a fucking store and get the damn shampoo!”

The first store that looked like it didn’t have high-tech anti-theft doors was Carlton’s Food and Drug, an establishment on a smaller side road in town that seemed to have been built some time back in the ‘forties. The bricks were sand-colored, the edges of the building rounded. Side windows were made of a mosaic of glass bricks. There were grocery carts crammed together outside the front, likely borrowed from some neighboring grocery store.

“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.