The Rotary Club was next. The float was intended to resemble a covered wagon. Jake grimaced at the bedsheets draped over a splintery frame of two-by-fours, and the cardboard horse heads duct-taped to the grille of a brand-new truck. If Jake could have the bears, he would also insist on Ronda, shooting real arrows at these ersatz cowpokes. Underneath the bedsheets, the grand marshal sat on a bale of hay, surrounded by mustachioed businessmen in ill-fitting cowboy attire. The grand marshal was Peggy the librarian, and she didn’t even bother waving.
“Why is she the grand marshal?” Rocky didn’t know her; he got all of his Louis L’Amour books at the thrift store.
“I heard she’s retiring,” offered Krystal.
“Overdue,” said Jake, but only Buley got the joke.
Here came the high school pep club’s float, students dressed as knights, in homemade tinfoil costumes, engaging in mock swordfights. Jake groaned aloud.
Behind them, the high school band marched, playing the school fight song. A clarinet squeaked as they passed, and the band sweated profusely in their street clothes, hardly in a tight formation. At least the music drowned out the church singers, still audible, two blocks ahead.
Mrs. Matthis suddenly materialized beside Jake, clutching at her puzzle book and one arm of his lawn chair. She crouched down, weaving side to side. Jake was afraid she would topple them both. He uncrossed his leg and planted both of his feet firmly on the pavement.
She whispered, top lip sweaty, and he fought back the nausea as he leaned closer. She never asked for anything, always too proud, no matter if her breath smelled like vomit. He would help, because the horses arrived, marching behind the Rotary Club. Again, he didn’t understand why they got a spot in the parade—people in Quinn rode horses all the time. The only thing interesting about them was the giant shits they took, and the way the floats behind had to maneuver around the steaming piles.
“Five letters,” whispered Mrs. Matthis. “Princess of Monaco.”
“Get out of here,” commanded Buley. She snapped her fan open and waved away the smell of vomit.
“First letter is ‘K,’ ” she whispered. A horse reared up and snorted, and Mrs. Matthis was so frightened that she toppled over, crushing her crossword puzzle book. She seemed surprised to be lying in the hot parking lot, and looked around sheepishly, as she struggled to stand.
“No,” said Jake. “You must have another word wrong.”
Mrs. Matthis would not admit the mistake. She lurched away, nearly falling again, but clung to the mirror of a farm truck. She backed up against the truck and slid along the door and over the wheel well. She sidestepped cautiously, her back filthy with dust, until she reached the bumper. She collapsed to sitting, her weight causing the farm truck to creak.
“Grace!” He shouted this at Mrs. Matthis. She looked back at him, and like all really drunk people, was determined to demonstrate that she was okay, she was just fine. She stood up from the bumper and tripped down another row of cars.
“The answer is Grace!” Jake was standing now. Of course he knew the late princess of Monaco.
Mrs. Matthis stumbled onto the hood of Black Mabel’s Subaru Brat. She lay on her back for a moment, slowly sat up, and shook her fist at Jake.
“Grace!” Jake was screaming now. “GRACE, GRACE, GRACE!”
“I’M DOING THE BEST I CAN, YOU LITTLE FUCKER!” The townspeople were shocked by her outburst, and Mrs. Matthis pretended to regain her composure, as she slunk out of sight behind Black Mabel’s car.
Jake thought it was appropriate that the John Birch Society float came next, squishing the horseshit with their wheels. Their float was also Western themed, fat men with rifles slung across their backs, the straps too tight and straining down the middle of their shirts. It seemed like they possessed enormous breasts. They threw pamphlets that warned about Communist threats.
Behind them, four trucks of Little Leaguers, all in uniform. And Klemp. Finally, she had been promoted from T-ball, and Jake could swear she tucked a wad of chewing tobacco in her lower lip. She spit something reddish, but she was such a terrifying little girl that it might have been the blood of her enemies.
Up next, a flatbed truck rumbled down the street. The football players and the girls of the basketball team waved, surrounded by actual, store-bought crepe paper. There was no shortage of money when it came to high school sports. The school mascot sat on the tailgate, in a matted costume topped off with a ridiculously large knight’s head. Although he couldn’t see, the mascot remained steady and waved a large piece of butcher paper inscribed with fighting words. Sixty-Four glared at Jake, side-armed a Jolly Rancher. It bounced from Jake’s knee, and Buley caught it without pause, threw it back with incredible velocity. It struck Sixty-Four on the cheek, a welt forming instantly. Apparently, Diane had inherited her softball skills.
Next came the zombie march of disenchanted cheerleaders, to the hoots and hollers from the crowd. Pleated skirts swung as they trudged, the only sign of life. At least the girls revealed some leg.
But there was a din: a low, rumbling noise, traveling from up ahead. For there was a float following behind the cheerleaders, a float he still couldn’t quite see, it was obviously making quite an impression on those who could.
He knew for certain it was his float.
Apparently, the townspeople grasped the irony. The crowd shouted, laughed, and applauded. They approved.
Krystal gasped when she saw it.
“Did you do that?”
“Yep,” he said, and his chest grew tight as the float pulled near.
The flatbed glimmered in the sun. Diane’s boom box played “Devil Inside” by INXS, the song recorded again and again on a blank cassette. Yards of chiffon caught in the light breeze and trembled in giant waves. Bucky winked at Jake as they pulled past, but the Flood Girls remained perfectly still, arranged just as he had instructed, palms together, eyes upward at the sky.
The napkins were painted sky blue, and attached to the backdrop, the cotton batting had been shredded, resembling perfect clouds. The framework was hung with the chiffon, floating out in great sparkly sheets.
The Flood Girls were dressed as angels. Coat hanger halos wrapped with gold garland, bedsheets making long white dresses, wings made out of white feathers stretched out across their back.
Red Mabel sat above them all, pretended to play the harp, reclined on a raised platform, the ugliest angel in heaven.
Jake’s throat closed up as he witnessed the glory of it all. Buley hugged him tightly.
The baby cooed and reached out toward the sparkle, as the citizens of Quinn continued to roar.
* * *
After dinner, Jake and Rachel walked to the football field, passed the gutters riddled with the red waxed paper of a week’s worth of firecrackers, paper cones that had once been fountains, burned at one end, spent. Jake knew that the storm drains would soon be choked with the thin wires of sparklers, blackened and bent. The streets were littered with the carcasses of family packs of Bumble Bees, pyrotechnic insects that lit up and flew in circles toward the sky. The Bumble Bees left burn marks on the asphalt.
People were already gathered at the football field, even though the firemen’s show wouldn’t start for hours. Jake and Rachel paced around the track, and it sounded like Beirut. Jake’s mouth tasted like metal, the acrid smoke of sparklers.
They found Laverna in the beer garden. She sat with Red Mabel, and they were surrounded by empty plastic cups. Laverna frowned as they approached.
“Bastards,” Laverna said, and Jake knew immediately.
“Pig fuckers,” added Red Mabel.
“Second place,” said Jake. “I kind of figured that would happen.”
“The Rotary Club won again,” said Laverna. “We should’ve kidnapped that goddamned Peggy and put her on our float.”
“It’s okay,” said Jake. “It was totally worth it.”
“Yes,” said Laverna. “You did me proud, kid. It was worth every penny.�
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“Thank you,” said Jake. “It all seems like a dream.”
Rachel and Jake navigated the cacophony of the north end of the track, where ten-year-olds shot bottle rockets at one another, launched out of empty pop bottles. The parents just sat in lawn chairs and watched their children form small armies and use garbage cans as bunkers, engaging in ground warfare.
Soon it was ten o’clock, but the sky wasn’t black, not with the constant explosions. The volunteer firemen had not mounted their own expensive display; these were airborne flowers from the fireworks-obsessed denizens of Quinn, who weren’t celebrating America’s independence as much as celebrating other countries—their close proximity to legal firework stands in Canada, and cheap explosives manufactured in China.
Jake and Rachel rounded the bleachers and cut behind the dugouts.
Winsome Shankley clutched the chain link, barely hung on, vomited, and swung from the fencing with one hand. It was an impressive trick, doing this at the same time. Winsome was so vain and so well practiced that he did not vomit on himself, the regurgitated alcohol spewed through the fence and onto the away team’s bench.
“I can’t believe I had sex with him,” said Rachel as they walked away.
“He had a hot tub,” said Jake. “I’ve heard that chlorine kills sperm and diseases.”
“That’s comforting,” said Rachel.
The firemen began their show, and housewives clapped at each explosion in the sky, screamed as the booms flowered into tails of color, fire powder transformed into bloom. The wives called out the names of their husbands, the brave volunteer firemen who tended to the tar barrels and shot paper cartridges shaped like pigeons into the sky. The volunteer firemen carefully monitored the makeshift cannons, set up the firing line in the long jump pit. Through all the smoke, they were barely visible as they scrambled around the sandy graveyard and sought protection behind the piles of hurdles, stacked and put away for the year.
Rachel and Jake watched all this from the far end of the football field, sitting on a picnic table and looking up at the sky. Rachel lit a cigarette and smoked it silently. Jake knew she was thinking about Winsome.
Rachel threw her cigarette toward the goal post, not caring that children leaped out of the way.
Above them, the sky over the football field glowed with the colors of a summer storm, trembled with the reverberations of the fireworks.
The Flood Girls versus the Ellis Talc Miners
The final game of their regular season play was against their stiffest competition, the best team in the county league.
The Ellis Talc Miners were rough and raucous on and off the field. Like the Flood Girls, they had a reputation. On top of all that, Shyanne was done for the year. Her ankle was still severely injured, and Ginger would not let up about it.
In the dugout, she harangued Laverna: “Do you know how much college costs?”
“Of course not,” said Laverna.
“Do you realize how much her scholarships will be worth?”
“Right now is not the time to run your menopausal mouth,” said Laverna. “I’m sick of hearing about it.”
Laverna walked away and brought her roster to Jake, who sat in the bleachers, Frank leashed and lying beside him. She didn’t say a word to Jake, because she was nervous. This game meant more to Laverna than she was willing to let on.
Laverna returned to the dugout and clipped the lineup to the chain link. She watched Rachel, warming up with Della for the first time. This also made Laverna nervous so she eavesdropped as they threw the ball back and forth in front of the dugout, and Della chewed on her giant wad.
“I heard you fucked Winsome,” said Della.
“It’s none of your business,” Rachel said, and threw the ball at Della as hard as she could.
“He gets around,” Della said, and caught the ball with ease. Laverna was proud that they had both improved.
“You don’t have any eyebrows,” said Rachel. “Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Not really,” Della shrugged, and threw Rachel a grounder.
The Winsome thing was new information to Laverna, but she had bigger things to worry about.
Bucky called for the coaches. After the coin toss, the game began.
Not surprisingly, the Ellis Talc Miners were sluggers, and smashed each pitch thrown their way. This made up for their clumsy fielding. They moved like burly teenaged boys, sloppy and muscle-bound. They also behaved like teenaged boys, leering at Rachel’s exposed bra straps and tan legs. Laverna was thankful that Shyanne wasn’t there. Rachel could handle this sexual harassment, as she was a bartender.
The Flood Girls held their own. Tabby somehow managed a triple and made her way around the bases with surprising speed, despite the two packs of cigarettes she smoked each and every day. She caught her breath and fanned herself on third. This was Tabby’s first triple, and she was so preoccupied that she almost forgot to run to home after a soaring hit from the taller Sinclair, deep into left field.
The run tied the game up. Laverna knew the importance of this game, as it was her job to keep track of such things, but didn’t say anything to her team. She didn’t want to jinx it. She looked up at the bleachers, and Jake was grinning. He had done the math.
The miners then inched ahead by one, a line drive that passed right through Ronda’s legs, and Rachel surprised them all by running, galloping, to scoop it up and throw it. She actually threw it to Tabby at the cutoff, but not before the miners scored.
At the bottom of the sixth inning, Laverna was distracted. Krystal stood outside the dugout, waiting quietly for Laverna to notice her. Laverna supposed that Krystal had come to the softball game for the first time this year to show her support for her son. Laverna was wrong. When she finally turned around to acknowledge Krystal, a folded-up piece of paper was shoved through the chain link. Krystal said nothing. Laverna plucked the paper, as Krystal had left it to dangle there. It was a check for one thousand dollars.
“I’m trying to make things right,” said Krystal. “It’s been eating at me for years.”
Laverna shoved the check into her pocket and turned back to the game, refusing to acknowledge Krystal’s explanation. Laverna knew; she had always known.
Instead, Laverna listened to Krystal walk away. Secretly satisfied, she shouted for the benefit of the fans in the bleachers. “WHY DOES EVERYBODY KEEP FUCKING WITH ME?”
She glanced over her shoulder, and Krystal had reentered the bleachers, her head hung down as she took a seat beside her son.
The Flood Girls had the last at bat. Diane made it to second base, thanks to the slothful infield, and Martha Man Hands struck out.
Laverna placed an arm on Ronda’s giant shoulder, as her cook warmed up by swinging two bats at the same time, always a bruiser.
“You’ve got this,” said Laverna. Ronda, expressionless as usual, just handed Laverna the extra bat and marched grimly to home plate. Laverna was on the verge of needing an antianxiety pill, but Ronda entered the batter’s box stoically, no fear registering on her face. Laverna watched the outfield back up toward the fence—when Ronda beat her bat on home plate, they backed up even farther.
Ronda stepped into the batter’s box and swung with all her considerable might, the ball sailed over the fence, and the game was over.
The Flood Girls won, nine to eight.
Jake came running into the dugout, and as expected, he had done the math. He jumped up and down as the Flood Girls gathered around Laverna. Math had never been their strong suit, but they knew something was different.
“We’ve made it!” Laverna put an arm around Ginger, kissed Tabby on the cheek. “The Flood Girls are headed for the tournament!”
The old men in the bleachers continued to applaud, even as the crowd dispersed. Bucky threw his cap into the air. The Flood Girls were shocked, but hoisted their coach up in the air, Red Mabel doing all of the heavy lifting.
Lucky
Jake’s thirteenth birthday was o
n the second day of August. School was still out, and he was thrilled to finally, officially, be a teenager, although he wasn’t expecting much.
It took him almost an hour to dress and prepare himself for this auspicious day. He knew there was no party planned. Unlike his classmates, there would be no roller rink rented for an afternoon, or a trip to the water slides in Spokane.
Jake decided on white linen. He had the pants, and a short-sleeved button-down. It was not muddy, and this was one of the five months of the year that didn’t seem like winter. White linen would be safe, because the sun had finally come out to stay in Quinn.
After rummaging around, he discovered that he did not own any white shoes, and this came as a surprise to him. He chose a pair of light brown loafers, soft leather, and a straw fedora with a dark brown leather band.
Krystal made his favorite breakfast—cold spaghetti. It was an odd choice for a favorite breakfast, but Jake grew up with a single mom, and he always loved leftover spaghetti in the morning. Krystal obliged, prepared it the night before, mixed the sauce and the noodles together, put the entire pot into the refrigerator.
They sat together at the kitchen table, and Krystal watched him eat.
“Do you feel any different?” Krystal handed him the salt and pepper shakers, which had actually been a birthday gift to her, found at Buley’s when he was nine years old. The shakers were pewter candles, in matching pewter holders, with orange glass flames perforated by tiny holes.
“Laverna always says that age is just a number,” Jake said, and carefully wiped the corners of his mouth with a cloth napkin.
“Do you have any big plans?” Krystal waited for Jake to respond, but he kept eating spaghetti. “I’m going to make you a cake this afternoon,” she said. “Do you want to invite Rachel over?”
“Sure,” said Jake. He knew that Krystal had to work at seven, so there would be no party, just the cake and the presents, and then she would put on her scrubs and drive to Ellis for yet another night shift.
The Flood Girls Page 27