Valentine(51)

*

Alice is already walking when they decide to take the truck out on the highway, open up the engine, and see what it can do. Potter calls his father-in-law and asks if he will take the baby for the night. He has heard good things about the mountains up near Salt Flat, he tells Corrine. There is some camping up that way, but they ought to go now before spring comes and it’s too hot.

Potter airs his old army tent out in the backyard and checks the seams while Alice wobbles in and out of the heavy canvas flap, singing her only complete sentence. What about me? What about me?

Corrine fills the camp icebox with beer, cold fried chicken, and potato salad and then loads three jugs of water into the back of the truck. Potter packs a fifth of bourbon, a flashlight, two emergency flares, and his service revolver in the truck’s glove box. Corrine adds her pocket pistol. Potter tucks a couple of rubbers into his wallet. Corrine shoves her diaphragm, some spermicidal cream, and a wad of tissues into her purse.

While Potter feeds Alice, Corrine stands at the foot of their bed and considers a little black chiffon negligee she used to wear before the baby. It might fit, but it seems ridiculous to bring such a garment on a camping trip. After dressing in a cardigan and a swingy red A-line skirt that falls just below her knees—Potter loves this skirt—she digs around in the closet for her black heels, which she can at least wear for the drive. She sets her boots next to her overnight bag. At the last moment Corrine removes her panties, choosing instead to wear beneath her skirt only a pair of black stockings and garter belt. In nearly thirty years of living, Corrine has not once left the house without her underwear. It is delicious. She puts on her new eyeglasses, takes them off, and squints at the mirror on the dresser. She puts them back on and steps into the living room. Ta-da! She throws one arm in the air.

Potter’s eyes widen. He laughs a little and holds his arms out to her. Whoa! Baby, you look just like a librarian.

Corrine’s arm falls to her side. Thank you very much.

No, Corrie! Honey, I meant—

But Alice begins to wail, toddling toward her mother and holding her arms up like a tiny robber caught in the sheriff’s headlights. As his wife shoves past him, Potter touches the sleeve of her sweater lightly. Soft, he says, but she doesn’t hear him. Instead she goes to work soothing the baby while he stands in the doorway, one hand still reaching for his wife.

They kiss the baby and pat her and speak to her as if they are leaving on a freighter bound for Cameroon, then hand her off to her granddaddy with a page of instructions. Prestige glances at the list, folds it in half, and slides it into his shirt pocket. All-righty, then, he says. Have a great time. Don’t hurry back.

They take the new highway north toward Notrees, driving past the man camps that have sprung up in the coliseum parking lot while people wait for more houses to be built. At the family camps, which are spread out on dirt lots behind the coliseum, skinny, dust-smeared kids play and fight and sprawl in the dust. Corrine watches them and chews on her thumbnail. Most of them probably aren’t even enrolled in school. That’s a scandal, she says. Shameful.

How come? Potter is fiddling with his new headlights, turning them on, turning them off, then back on. People have to make a living.

It’s shameful that we’ve got people living in tents in the middle of dirt lots, Potter. Those companies ought to be doing better by them.

I think they’re probably doing the best they can, under the circumstances. There are a lot of people coming here, real fast.

Oh, bullshit. Those oil companies don’t care about these people, and you’re kidding yourself if you think different. Besides—she digs around in her purse for a lipstick and compact—doesn’t it bother you what they’re doing to the land out here?

Potter punches the gas pedal. It would bother me a lot more if I couldn’t put food on the table for you and Alice, if I couldn’t put a little something away in case our daughter wants to go to college, like her mama did.

Corrine swipes a rich red lipstick across her bottom lip then checks her teeth in the mirror. She thinks about the panties she is not wearing. The leather seat is delightful against the backs of her knees. Be careful, she says. We do not want to get into an accident.

All right, Corrine. Potter turns on the radio and they light cigarettes. Wisps of smoke drift out their windows as they pass pickup trucks with their beds stuffed full of men. Some will look you right in the eye. Others avert their gaze, as if they might be on the run from something—the law, the mob, wives and babies back home in Gulf Shores or Jackson or some other dismal little town with scarce work and few prospects.

They drive past rolls of barbed wire and piles of steel beams lying next to the road. A quarter mile ahead, a truck pulls over and two women jump out the back. They stand on the shoulder waving madly for a minute or two, and when another truck pulls over, they climb in. The men cheer. Corrine frowns and tucks her hands behind her knees. The lining of her skirt is sticking to her ass cheeks, and her thighs are sweaty. What is Alice doing right now? she wonders. Probably jumping up and down on her grandfather’s stomach. He’ll be sore for days.

By the time they reach Mentone, the sun burns at the edge of the earth. They pull over at a picnic table on an escarpment just above the shallow, sluggish Pecos. It’s been a dry year, and you couldn’t drown in there if you tried. Diffuse sunlight turns the water the color of mesquite bark and cirrus clouds blush overhead. They take turns stomping out into the brush to pee, Corrine tottering through the scrub, high heels sinking in the sand, as she claps loudly to scare off snakes. She knows it is foolish not to have already changed into her boots, but then, when she staggers out from behind a copse of mesquites, skirt swinging around her knees, Potter whistles.