Valentine(67)

Yesterday, Jesse earned the last of the money he needs to get his truck back, and D. A. told him that all they needed was the right moment. Now she looks out Aimee’s kitchen window and wonders what he’s doing right this second, if he’s thinking what she’s thinking. Lauralee calls home and listens for a minute or two while her mother yells. There will be a whipping waiting for me when this is over, she tells the other girls. Casey calls the bowling alley to let her mother know where she is, and D. A. calls the guard at the front gate of the olefin plant where her dad has just taken a job. It’ll be a little less money, she knows, but he’ll be home earlier and he’ll get Saturdays off, mostly. Maybe that will make things better, she tells the girls, and they nod their heads. Maybe so.

They huddle in Aimee’s kitchen peering out the window, watching for funnel clouds, and eating everything they can find. When the phone rings, Aimee’s mother rushes into the kitchen and grabs the receiver. It is the middle of the day, but she is still in her nightgown. She grips the phone in her hand and listens, wrapping the cord around one finger and watching it turn dark red. It’s over, she says tonelessly. Why are you still calling me? She places the receiver gently on the hook.

At the other end of the house, the baby begins to fuss, but Mrs. Whitehead makes no move to go to him. Instead, she pulls a cigarette from the pocket of her nightgown and lights it. The girls, including her own daughter, might be strangers, Debra Ann thinks, for the way Mrs. Whitehead is looking at them. D. A. checks the clock on the stove. Just past one o’clock.

Mama, Aimee says, why didn’t you yell for me? It’s a bad storm. Maybe even a tornado.

Mrs. Whitehead walks to the kitchen sink, pulls the curtain back, and gazes out the small window. So it is, she says and tugs the curtain firmly closed. So it is. She studies her cigarette for a few seconds and flicks the ash in the sink. She picks up a glass and pours some iced tea from a pitcher on the counter.

Are you sick? Casey asks, swaying from side to side, her long skirt nearly brushing the kitchen floor.

Nope, Mrs. Whitehead says. She takes a sip of her tea and stands looking at the glass. Her hair is lank and close to her head, her eyes luminous and ringed with shadows. It is not unlike the way Debra Ann’s mother sometimes looked when she was having a bad week, when Debra Ann would follow her from room to room, asking questions. Do you want to hear a joke? Do you want to watch some TV or sit in the backyard, or lie down in your bed while I read a book to you? If it was a bad enough week, Ginny might stop talking altogether. She might spend hours in the bathtub, turning the tap back on to keep the water hot, slowly turning the pages of her National Geographic, sighing loud enough that D. A. could hear her through the closed door. Today, Aimee’s mother looks like a reed in a windstorm, Debra Ann thinks, hanging on, hoping she can bend enough to survive.

Maybe I am sick. Mrs. Whitehead lets out a short, barking laugh. Maybe I am just bone-tired.

Aimee looks at the other girls and they lift their hands, palms up. What’s wrong, Mama?

She tells the girls that Judge Rice handed down the sentence yesterday afternoon. A year’s probation, she says, and five thousand dollars to that girl’s family.

The girls all gasp. Five thousand dollars? D. A. says. That’s a fortune.

Yeah, Casey says, he’ll feel that in his pocketbook.

Girls, Mrs. Whitehead says, stop it right now. Y’all don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.

Justice is served, Debra Ann calls out. Ha! Lauralee laughs, and they all high-five each other.

Oh, shut up. All of you girls shut up.

One year of probation, she says, and her voice is a rupture. Five thousand dollars. Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

If a diamondback had just slithered out from under the kitchen table, the girls could not look more shocked. Aimee takes two steps back with her hands in the air, as if her mother might shoot her. Mama, that’s heresy.

Oh honey, it is not. It’s blasphemy. And really, who the fuck cares?

She hurls her glass of iced tea across the kitchen where it slams against the wall and shatters spectacularly. Rivulets of iced tea roll down the flowered wallpaper and gather on the linoleum. The baby begins to scream from the other end of the house, and she slides to the floor as if somebody stole her backbone. I don’t know what to do with myself, she says.

D. A. doesn’t know what to do either, none of them do, but they are old enough to know it isn’t right to stare. So they turn away, four girls pivoting almost in unison to face the wall. They wait, and when some minutes have passed and Mrs. Whitehead still has not moved from her place on the kitchen floor, Debra Ann picks up the phone to call Mrs. Shepard. She listens and then taps the receiver a few times. Phone’s dead, she says. Wind must have knocked out the line.

You’re wrong, Aimee’s mama says. It was just working.

No, ma’am. It’s out now.

Aimee’s blue eyes are huge and her cheeks are white as a sheet of paper. What are we going to do?

The baby’s scream pierces the air and disintegrates into a steady, mournful wail that makes D. A. want to clamp her hands over her ears. I’m going across the street to get Mrs. Shepard, she says. She walks over to Aimee and hugs her tightly. I’m going to Penwell with my friend, but I’ll be back soon.

After Debra Ann has gone, Aimee kneels next to her mother. Can you get up off the floor, Mama? Maybe have something to drink? But Mary Rose keeps her hands pressed stiffly against her thighs. I don’t think so, honey.