Smith Henderson - Fourth of July Creek

She dances, and Pete is not the only one watching.

“Looks great on the outside, but under the hood. Another story.”

She touches her stomach with a palm and closes her eyes and sets her hips in a pendular swing as though her pelvis depended from a point somewhere near her heart.

The system knows this girl.

Which is to say that you know this girl.

All her homes are group homes and all her sisters and brothers are fosters in placements, her fathers and mothers are social workers, and when she ages out of care, she ages into the job. Your job. Only she gets inappropriate and benched, or no one trusts her with any real cases and she sits in the break room rearranging packets of Sweet ’n Low.

She is proof that there is nothing that cannot happen to someone. That the world doesn’t need permission, that there is no novel evil it won’t embrace.

And so you’re in a mood now, watching Mary dance and taking shotguns of beer and then riding in a car with her and people from the party and you’re both too drunk to notice the other is too drunk and you’re kissing in the flicker of a dying neon sign, hiccupping, kissing hard and sloppily, teeth clacking together, inexpert, tyro.

Innocent, be untroubled a while longer.

He hurt all over, the sunlight frying him through Mary’s window.

He thought he should just quit. The job or drinking or both.

Her note said she had drawn a Saturday shift and so he quaked alone in his hangover among her spider plants and wicker, staring for some time at the phone or the number Beth had scribbled on a scrap of envelope. He’d memorized it by the time he folded the scrap into his shirt pocket and went to Al’s and Vic’s. He took the beer the bartender pulled for him and watched him clean glasses and left when his head quit pounding.

He went to the Army Navy store for a new pair of bootlaces, to the bookstore, and for lunch. Didn’t speak to a soul. It was two o’clock when he finally returned to the Wilma. He lay down on Mary’s couch, couldn’t fall asleep.

It was five when he woke.

He pulled the phone onto the coffee table and regarded it, muttering. Then he dialed and it rang twice and he was about to hang up when she answered.

“Hey, Applesauce, it’s Daddy.”

“Why don’t you have a phone at your house?”

There was music in the background and people talking and Beth too, he thought. Her laughter.

“It’s Dad,” she said to her mother.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“Mom says to tell you to send some money.”

“Okay. I will. How are you?”

“Sucky. I hate it here.”

“You’ll meet some kids your age. It’ll get better.”

“I don’t like kids my age.”

“What does that mean?”

Beth was talking to her.

“Mom wants to know if you’re going to send at least two hundred dollars.”

“Tell her I’ll talk to her in a minute.”

His daughter covered the mouthpiece, and then it flooded with sound again.

“Pete?”

“Damnit, Beth. Put her back on.”

“I need that money right away. At least a couple hundred.”

“Yes. Put Rachel back on.”

“Your daughter needs things. Shoes. School clothes. Notebooks and shit.”

“Beth. Put Rachel back on.”

“You don’t have any right to talk to her if you aren’t gonna support her.”

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

A hand cupped the receiver and it sounded full of ocean, full of Texas. Thirty seconds he watched the clock. A minute. He wanted to pitch the phone at the window, but it was Mary’s window, Mary’s phone.

“Mom says I only have a minute because of the long distance.”

“I’m the one who called, Rach. It’s my bill.”

“Daddy?”

“What?”

“Can I come live with you?” she whispered. “I won’t need a lot of room and I’ll be good, I promise. I hate it here. It’s hot. It’s fall and it’s still hot. Hot hot. Like a thousand degrees.”

“It’ll cool off.”

“I miss you.”

“Honey, I miss you too—”

“I hate it here! There’s all these people over and I don’t like any of them—”

“What people?”

“I want to come home!”

“Rachel, listen to me. I’ll make you a deal. Just try it out for a couple months.”

“A couple whole months?!”

“I want you to try. We all need to try. And then if you still don’t like it, we can talk about you coming back up here.”

“You hate me! Why don’t you just say it? You hate me and Mom.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“You hate Mom.”

“I don’t hate your mother.”

“This is so fucked.”

“Come on, Applesauce—”

The line clicked.

“Rachel.”

The line clicked again. Then the doleful dial tone.

What the hell happened? Wasn’t she starting to make friends?

She made a lot of friends. The older kids in the woods. But she made enemies too.

Who?

Goody girls. Cheerleaders and bitches like that. Teachers asking was everything all right at home.

Was everything all right at home?

What home? Jimmy’s trailer? That wasn’t their home.

Is that why she wanted to go back to Montana?

She didn’t want to go back to Montana.

Then why did she ask to live with her father?

Because her mother was letting her have friends over and of course the kids wanted to drink beer and her mother would be having people over too and there was this one perfect night when her mother didn’t stop any of them from getting beers from the cooler and nobody got in trouble or called the cops or anything, but the next day she was being such a bitch and said they couldn’t do that again.

Because it was inappropriate. Because she was her mother, not her friend.

Because she was hungover. Because she was jealous, to be honest.

Of the attention Rachel was getting?

Rose.

What kind of attention?

Just looking at her. Not looking at her mother. Talking to her. Jimmy always finding an excuse to lean over her just to get something from the shelf, rub against her in the narrow hall. One time fetching her a beer even though she didn’t really drink that much, she didn’t like being drunk and sick, she could nurse a beer for hours or pour it half out when no one was looking she was drunk enough on the attention the attention the attention like a drug.

So she liked Jimmy?

Ick.

The attention then.

Yes. The older guys in the woods, car stereos blasting. She knew the girls didn’t like her that much, but she didn’t care, she just talked to the guys, her mother’s friends, a suntanned blond saying they should go to his boat. Guys her dad’s age. Her whole life became more interesting. Every minute charged with her new participation in it.

But her mother, she hated this.

Jealous.

Surely it was more complicated than that.

They’d shared cigarettes and talked about men. They’d cried when they talked about Pete and Jimmy and what were they gonna do now, they couldn’t live here. Waco was terrible. They were broke. They were friends. Her mother didn’t know how to navigate backward to motherhood.

Or Rachel wouldn’t return to being a daughter.

She ran away. Two days.

Where did she go?

None of your business.

The Waco cops spotted her after curfew smoking at a Dairy Queen picnic table? She didn’t run?