The Animators(66)

Finally she lets me go. “Well, you don’t look too crooked.” She rocks back on her heels. Says to Mel, “When my uncle had his stroke, Sharon’s great-uncle Zeke, I swear, half his face just went limp.” Mom pokes my jaw, grabs a bit of cheek flesh. “Stayed like that for the longest time. Like that old-fashioned disease. What do you call it. Bell’s palsy. Know what I’m talking about? Like that. They had an open casket for the visitation and all anyone could see was that half of face, like someone let the air out of it.” Mom smooths my cheeks down hard with her thumbs. “Wife of his was a goddamned idiot, leavin it open like that.”

I manage to duck out of her way. “Mom, you gonna be around tomorrow?”

She sighs. “Gotta pull day shift. Other girl’s out sick with the flu.”

“So at night?”

“Yeah.” She looks to me, evasive. “Now, don’t get pissy cause I gotta work. Sometimes you just got to.”

“I’m not getting pissy. Who’s getting pissy?”

Mel is staring at the family portrait again. Her lips are pressed together. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other.

Mom doesn’t notice. “I’m going to bed,” she grumbles. “I’ve had enough of y’all’s bullshit. You and Shauna together just wear me out. Good night, Mel.”

“Good night, Mrs. Kisses.”

Mom flicks a hand at her. “Oh, I changed back to my maiden name,” she says. “I ain’t been Mrs. Kisses in years.”

“What?” I say.

She shuts the door.

—

I snap on the lamp. It is my childhood room, not a sign of me left. Underneath the bed, I find a stack of yearbooks and choose a paperbound elementary school volume from the bottom of the pile. Flip past Mrs. Monroe’s class where my photo should be, going right for Mrs. Harrison, fourth grade 1993. I find Teddy in the second row.

I pull my sketchpad from my bag. The photo’s a poor shot, overexposed against a smoky-blue backdrop. The photographer clearly issued orders: body turned in one direction, chin tilted down to the other, a pose which has made Teddy slump forward, discomfort crimping his mouth. I work hard on the nose, the chin’s delicate turn. A lot of tight, intense pencil work. Light-touch shadowing. Teddy would have made a beautiful girl. My hands are steadier than they’ve been in weeks.

Mel comes in damp and flushed from the shower. She rubs her head with a towel and looks over my shoulder. “Dude, look at pretty boy.”

“I was just thinking the same thing.”

She tilts her head to one side and cranks her pinky finger in her ear. “You know what? We should go find him. See the man Teddy Caudill in the flesh.”

“I dunno,” I say. “How did you get your information on him, anyway?”

She hangs her towel around her neck. “Jesus, Kisses, why haven’t you learned to exploit Google like everyone else?” She shakes her head, smacking her palm against her ear, then rubs her hands on her shorts and disappears. Returns with a notebook she flips open. “Owns an art-movie rental place in Louisville called Weirdo Video.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“No. They had a film festival there, and he was namechecked as the coordinator.” She gives me the notebook. The address is scrawled across, barely legible. “The weird thing’s that, of everyone you grew up with, he’s probably the one who comes the closest to having seen anything we’ve done. Distribution sells us specifically to places like that. Art house, B-list, indie, whatever. How far is Louisville from here?”

I take the paper from her. “Three hours. Little more.”

She shrugs and goes to town on her other ear, hopping up and down. “Well. Can you think of anything better to do tomorrow?”





THE GIRL WHO SHOWED


THE JURY HER TEETH


I wake at noon dizzy, aching from knees to neck. Mel is on the back deck with coffee and a cigarette, a years-old copy of the Faulkner Gazette in her hands. I get a look at the front page. It is my senior portrait—she’s rereading the story written when I won the Ballister scholarship.

She snaps the paper and sniffs. “You’ll be gratified to know,” she says, “that hog prices have risen two dollars per pound since your high school graduation. However, poultry rates have remained steady.”

“Mom and Kent gone?”

“Yeah. Kent made us coffee before he left. Said there are biscuits in the freezer. Nice guy.”

“I agree. Shame Shauna gives him so much shit.”

“I’m guessing your sister doesn’t change her opinions so easily.”

“That’s a kind way of putting it.”

“She loves you.” Mel hides behind the Gazette.

I shift. “Dude. This chair is really fucking hard.”

“She wouldn’t get so freaked out about the Honus Caudill thing if she didn’t. She was genuinely disturbed by that. That’s what you all were talking about while I was in Walmart. Right?”

“Was it that obvious?”

“Yep.” She rattles the front page. “Get dressed. We got places to go.”

—

I’m not supposed to drive yet, but I offer to take the car down the mountain. Mel stares straight ahead, lips pressed together as I crane my neck and steer us in reverse down the hill to the main road. “Okay,” she says. “Switch back.”