The Dry Grass of August(42)

A thin forest of scraggly pine trees passed by, behind a wide black-water ditch, its surface still and shiny as wet tar.

Puddin opened her eyes. “I need to use the bathroom.”

“Tee-tee,” said Davie.

Mama said, “We’ll stop when we find a decent place.”

That meant Esso, because they cleaned their restrooms every day. Texaco was next best because it put opera on the radio every Saturday.

“Mama, I really have to.”

“Ye gods! If I pulled over now, you’d have to pee in the swamp.”

“Pee,” said Davie.

Puddin bounced in her seat, then scrunched her fists in her lap, rocking.

Davie laughed. “Tinkle.”

A sign appeared in the distance on the right.

“Red star at one o’clock!” I called out.

Mama pulled into the Texaco. “One o’clock, my fanny.”

Puddin jumped out and ran. “I see the restroom,” she called over her shoulder.

The heat wrapped itself around me when we left the car. Mary smoothed my shorts in back, pulling the legs down. “Your whole self is wrinkled. I reckon I’m not much better.” But she was. Except for wet circles under her arms, she looked like she’d just gotten dressed and fixed her hair, not like she’d been stuck for hours in the backseat of a car with three kids.

Mama gave me a five-dollar bill and told me to go to the grill next to the gas station. “Lunch. French fries. Hot dogs, no onions for Puddin and Davie.”

I walked up to the order window and hollered through the screen, “Hello?” The whole world smelled like onion rings.

A teenaged girl came from a back room, wiping her hands on a towel. “Yeah?”

She got to work before I finished the order, putting buns in a steamer, lowering a basket of slivered potatoes into boiling oil, dropping wieners onto a sizzling griddle.

Her pink peasant blouse was cut so low the tops of her bosoms showed, and her white shorts had ketchup on the pocket. She looked past me. “Where y’all from?”

“Charlotte, North Carolina.”

“Where you going to?” Her yellow hair was tied back with an orange ribbon. Stell would have said the ribbon was a mistake because you shouldn’t mix clashing colors, and orange is tacky like purple.

“Pawleys Island, South Carolina.”

“Someday I’m going to see the ocean.” She put a grilled wiener in the middle of each bun.

“You work here all the time?”

“Except for school. I’ll go full-time soon’s I’m married.” She ladled chili.

“You’re getting married?”

“Next summer. My boyfriend drives army tanks in Berlin, Germany.”

“Golly. How old are you?”

“Turned fifteen last week.” She sprinkled chopped onions.

To show I wasn’t shocked, I said, “Your hair’s great.”

“It’s the same color as Jane Powell’s.” There was lipstick on her teeth. “Y’all gonna eat here?” She pointed to a picnic table, under trees behind the Texaco.

“To go, please.”

She wrapped everything in newspaper and put it in a grocery bag. “The two without onions is on top. That’s three dollars.”

Mama walked up behind me. “C’mon, Jubie, we’re losing time. What’d you get?”

“Six orders of French fries and eight hot dogs.”

“Eight?”

“Anybody who’s still hungry can—”

“Anybody like you?”

“Yes.”

“Better watch for when you stop growing up and start growing out.” As we walked back to the car, Mama said, “That girl ought to cover herself and wash her face.”

“Her hair is the same color as Jane Powell’s.”

“Jane Powell would shave her head if she had such hair.”

“She’s getting married next summer.”

“She’ll have three kids before she’s twenty.”

“But she’s engaged to a soldier who—”

“June, don’t admire such a life!”

We got back in the car. Even with lunch to look forward to, I dreaded more time scrunched in the backseat. Mama had put the key in the ignition when I shouted, “Puddin!”

Mama turned. “Ye gods, where’s she gone now?”

I ran to the filling station. Puddin wasn’t in the restroom, not in the tiny office, not in the empty service bays. Mama stood by the gas pump hollering, “Carolina Wendy Watts! Come here right now!”

I ran around back. She was sitting in the weeds, leaning against the block wall of the station, crying.

“Puddin-tane! What’s wrong?”

“Mama wouldn’t stop. I wet myself.” She howled.

Mama came around the other side of the building. “What’s going on?”

I helped Puddin up. “Puddin damped her panties.”

Mama’s face was a mix of I’m really mad and oh, well. “C’mon, Puddin, let’s get fresh undies from the trunk.” The oh, well won.





Mary picked the onions off her hot dog, a look on her face that said for me not to notice. She took a bite and I remembered her indigestion.