Valentine(40)

They watch the little boy fuss and stomp across the parking lot, and then the woman holds out one hand. I’m sorry about that, he gets it from his daddy’s side of the family. Glory shoves her hands in her pockets. I don’t really care.

I’m Tina Allen from Lake Charles, Louisiana, and those two little wretches are T. J. and Tammy. My husband works on a rig near Ozona.

Glory looks at her without saying anything until Tina sighs and walks back to her lounge chair. She digs around in her purse for a few seconds. I’m going to get myself an ice-cold drink. Can I get you something?

No, thank you.

C’mon, sugar. Let me buy you a Dr Pepper. It’ll make me feel better. Tina’s laugh is horsey and rough, and it reminds Glory of a teacher she had hated, before, when she was a C student who dreamed of learning to play the guitar and earning her own money and calling her own shots, when the teacher called the Mexican kids her little brown refugees, when Glory and her friend Sylvia stole a box cutter from the woodshop and slashed two of the woman’s tires. I wish we knew how to cut the bitch’s brake lines, Sylvia said and held out her hands as if she were clutching a steering wheel. Save me, you little brown refugees! It still makes Glory laugh out loud, and miss her friend terribly.

Can I have a cigarette? she asks Tina.

Pardon me, but you don’t look old enough to smoke.

Well, I am. These are the most words Glory has exchanged with anyone other than her mother or uncle since she left the hospital. She’d really love to have a cigarette, it occurs to her, and maybe sit with her feet in the water while she smokes it.

Yeah, I guess you’re right. Tina walks over and holds out a slim and pretty Benson & Hedges. Can I sit down for a second?

They sit and look across the parking lot. It is past noon and the full force of the sun is unleashed on their bodies. The air conditioners have not come back on, and the courtyard is quieter than usual, but across the road, flatbed trucks pull in and out of pipe yards and bearing-supply companies. Behind the motel lies a field, fawn-colored and scattered with broken glass that catches the light and shines green, red, blue. Behind that, lay small wooden houses with dirt yards and thin curtains that smell of noxious fumes from the plant.

Tina sucks deeply on her cigarette and then turns her face upward and blows the smoke toward the sun. I miss Lake Charles, and it weren’t exactly paradise on earth. You can’t throw a rock without hitting some good old boy with a bad attitude, and the bayou is full of gators and ’skeeters and rats as big as a dog, nutria, they’re called—she ashes on the deck and rubs it with her big toe—but the fishing’s good and some people are nice. And there’s trees. Dogwood and sugarberry, cypress. I miss trees, and I miss sucking the heads off crawdaddies. Me and Terry are just here to make enough money to buy a shrimp boat. That’s all I want, a fishing boat for Terry to earn a living, and for my kids to go back to school. That don’t seem like too much to ask.

She smiles at Glory. How about you? You been here very long?

Glory has been listening intently to the other woman, and it occurs to her now that she is expected to say something, tell the woman something about her life, participate in the give and take. I’m here with my uncle, she says. He works in Big Lake, hauling water and mucking tanks. I’m recovering from—an accident.

Pauvre ti bête, Tina says, and when Glory looks at her, Poor little thing. Is that what happened to your feet?

Glory looks down. Dozens of thin scars cover her feet and ankles—from cactus thorns and stray pieces of steel, broken glass and bent nails, a mess of stickers and a stray piece of barbed wire, all the things she stepped on when she walked away from his truck—and her throat closes on itself.

It’s okay, hon, Tina says.

Glory opens her mouth, closes it. She shakes her head and looks at her cigarette. I was attacked by a man out in the oil patch.

God damn it all, Tina says, and after a long pause, I’m sorry.

I got in his truck and went with him.

Well hell, sugar, Tina says. That don’t mean jack. That evil belongs to him, it’s got nothing to do with you.

They sit quietly for a few minutes and then Tina starts talking about the trees back home, the knobby-kneed bald cypress that loses its needles in the winter and can live for a thousand years, the tupelo with its scarlet Ogeechee limes. They ain’t worth a damn for eating, she says, but the tree gives good honey. Tina tosses her cigarette butt toward the fence and immediately lights another. But it isn’t all greenery and good fishing, she says and holds the box out to Glory. You want to hear a joke?

I guess so. Glory plucks a smoke from the box and puts it between her lips.

What’s the definition of a Lake Charles virgin? Tina inhales deeply and blows three perfect smoke rings toward the sun. For a few seconds, they hang in the hot air like rain clouds.

I don’t know. What is the definition of a Lake Charles virgin?

Tina snorts. An ugly twelve-year-old who can run real fast. She pauses and stares into the swimming pool for a few seconds. Guess I weren’t ugly enough, or quick enough.

Ha, Glory says. Ha, ha. And then they are both laughing. Sitting under the hot sun and smoking their cigarettes, laughing their asses off.

Well, it is hot as a well digger’s balls out here, Tina says. I’m going for a swim. She stands up and tamps a half-smoked cigarette against the pool deck, then walks over and sets it on the table for later. She eases her large body into the water, her bathing suit hugging her large breasts and arms. You want to come in, Glory? It feels pretty good.