by Julie Frayn
August laughed. “Yeah, I guess. But I won’t be meeting my Prince Charming anytime soon.”
*****
August set her alarm for five and climbed into her small brass bed. She dug into the underwear drawer in the nightstand and pulled a worn Cosmopolitan magazine out from under her panties. She flipped it open to her favorite article about the secrets to happiness. She’d read the ‘you gotta have adventures’ part at least twenty times. Visions of shopping in the city, seeing shows, even living in a little downtown apartment filled her fantasies. An adventure, any adventure, is just what she needed. Anything to break away from the farm, from Randy. From her mother. But that would never happen. How could it?
The door opened and her mother stood at the threshold, a laundry basket balanced on one hip.
August shoved the magazine under the covers. “Jesus, Mother. Can’t you knock? I could have been naked or something. Can’t I have any privacy?”
“I’ve seen you naked before. What are you reading?” Her mother crossed the floor and set the basket on the end of the bed.
“That’s private too.”
Her mother pulled down the covers and grabbed the magazine. “Cosmo? Really, August. Where did you get this?”
August crossed her arms. “Sara.”
“Of course, the worldly Miss Tugman. None of these people in here are real, you know that, right? All airbrushed and made up.”
“Looks pretty good to me. Beautiful clothes, nice hair, jewelry, tall buildings. No pigs. No cornfields.”
“That’s not what the city is like. It’s just glossy crap to sell magazines.”
“How would you know what it’s like? The furthest you ever go is Hubble Falls, population two and a half.”
“I’ve been places.”
“Not like Adaleen. Don’t you want to go to Paris? New York? Stockholm? Somewhere wonderful? Hell, anywhere but here?”
“Don’t be disrespectful. She’s your aunt, not your friend. And don’t cuss.”
“It must kill you that your sister gets to go to all those places. Has a rich husband.”
Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “No, it doesn’t. I married for love. She just found a meal ticket.”
“Yeah, well at least she’s travelling the world.” August crossed her arms and smirked. “Not making biscuits and threshing corn.”
“Be careful what you wish for, child. The grass always looks greener on the other side. Until you get there and find out it’s just Astroturf.”
August rolled her eyes and snatched the magazine back. “I’m not a child.”
“You’re my child.” Her mother tucked clean clothes into the drawers of the antique dresser that used to belong to August’s grandmother, then stopped in the doorway. “Lights out, please. Chores at five.”
Chapter 2
“August!” Her mother’s voice echoed up the stairwell. “Get down here for breakfast. The bus will be here in fifteen minutes.”
“I’m not hungry!” she called back.
She rummaged through the bottom drawer of her dresser and tossed pair after pair of other people’s second-hand jeans onto the hardwood.
“Too big. Too short. Too hideous for words.”
She settled on her favorites, with the softest denim and the most holes. Her mother hated when she wore them to school. She slid them on and struggled to button them. She’d grown, but the jeans hadn’t. She sucked in her stomach and forced the zipper shut.
She caught sight of herself in the antique mirror and turned around, craning her neck to look at her ass.
Couldn’t be too bad, Randy always grabbed it – and the rest of her for that matter. Boys at school seemed to appreciate how she looked if the whistles and comments in the hall were any indication.
She reached inside her shirt and lifted her breasts in her bra, trying to accentuate her small cleavage, then heaved a deep sigh. It was her own face in the mirror, but the stick thin body was her mother’s doing. Between skinny genes, hours of chores every day and the torture of high school gym class, she just couldn’t grow curves.
She leaned over the old dresser, her face just inches from her reflection, and performed her morning ritual – microscopic examination of every imperfection. Turning her head side to side, her face shifted and mutated with the ripples in the antique glass. Freckles spattered across the bridge of her nose, spilled down the sides and dotted her sun-kissed cheeks. She rubbed them as if, by magic, they would disappear.
“Oh my God, I hate you!”
She inspected her arms then pulled open the collar of her plaid shirt to examine her chest. The top three snaps of her blouse popped open exposing the lace of her white cotton bra. So far, those hated spots were confined to her face, but at this rate she’d be as flecked and flawed as her mother before she ever hit adulthood.
A gentle breeze carried the jumbled smells of her life in through the open window, disturbing the lilac ruffles of her homemade drapes. Dust and hay, diesel fuel and fresh baked bread, cow shit and cherry blossoms. Jack barkedhis morning eff you to the rooster and hens and the distant snorts of pigs rutting in the muck reminded her she hadn’t bothered to slop them this morning.
“And I hate you too, pigs.”
She squished her freshly glossed, pink passion lips together and dropped the gloss into her cosmetics bag.
“August, get down here now!”
She rolled her eyes, tucked her father’s old black comb in her back pocket and emerged from her room.
“Mom, I can’t find my compact, have you seen it? I’m all shiny and I need to hide these ugly freckles.”
“Damn it, August, that’s the third time this week you’ve ignored your chores.” Her mother ran a hand through her short blonde hair and emptied her lungs in one giant exhale, her morning coffee breath souring the air. “Do your shirt up.” She stood arms akimbo. “I need the eggs brought in, you hear me? And the pigs slopped every morning. Your father should never have let you wear makeup. That’s all that seems important to you anymore.”
August cocked her head to one side and snapped her snaps while her mother played a variation of the same broken-record tune she had to listen to most days. Do your chores. Don’t wear makeup. No boys allowed. No life for you.
“All my friends wear makeup, Mother. What’s the big deal? I am an adult.”
“Adults are responsible. Adults do their chores. Adults don’t miss the bus because they’re too busy primping in the mirror.” Her mother crossed her arms. “And adults don’t roll their eyes at their parents.”
“Hah! You do it to Grandma all the time.”
“Look, sweetheart. I don’t want to fight with you today. Your father and I work damn hard and we expect you to do your share. You have no respect lately.”
“Respect? What is there to respect? We never get to go anywhere. There’s never enough money.”
“August, stop.” Her mother’s voice cracked.
“You can’t even name your daughters right. Had to name them after the months they were born in. April, June and August. How bloody original, Mother. What would you have done if one of us had dared to be born in February?”
“August, please.” Tears welled in her mother’s eyes.
“And this farm? Who the hell wants to live on this stupid farm? We can’t even get cable TV. You won’t let us have a computer. We’re just a bunch of loser hicks.”
Tears streamed down her mother’s face.
August raised her voice even louder. “All we do is work. Work, work, work, work every damn day, sun up to sun down. What kind of life is that? Why can’t we live in the city? Why can’t Dad have a real job? I fucking hate that we’re dumb-ass farmers.”
Her mother’s cheeks blazed red. She slapped August’s face.
August stared, open-mouthed, and then began to cry. Through all the arguments, the push-pull of them vying for power over her life, her mother had never hit her before.
“August,” her mother whispered. “Oh, Aug
ust, I’m so sorry.” Her mother reached out to her.
She pushed her mother away. “Don’t touch me.” August ran up the stairs, slammed the bedroom door and threw herself onto her bed. She sat up, the aging bed frame creaking in protest, and tucked her knees under her chin, rocking back and forth. She wiped her eyes with the corner of her quilt, staining the thinning patchwork with black lash marks.
She wiped snot from her dripping nose with the back of her hand and cleaned it on her jeans then stood and paced the room, arms crossed, chewing on one thumbnail. Her mother treated her like cattle in a pen – poked and prodded into submission, pushed in only one direction. No free will.
She turned and leaned her hands on the dresser, staring at herself in the mirror. A red welt in the shape of her mother’s hand blossomed on her cheek. Dark smears of mascara marred her skin.
There had to be more than this. She just wasn’t meant to have this life. She pounded her fist on the peeling white paint.
“Screw this.”
She grabbed her backpack from the closet and dumped a year’s worth of books and homework on the floor. She shoved them far under the bed and out of sight. She crammed whatever t-shirts and underwear laid nearby into the bag then yanked open the door to the bathroom that separated her room from her sisters’.
June stood in front of the sink on her step stool. She looked up in surprise.
“I’m not done,” she said through a mouthful of foamy toothpaste, then spat into the sink.
“I see that. Can you hurry up? I need to do something.”
June glowered at her and kept brushing. “I need to brush for three minutes. The timer didn’t ding yet.”
The bell of the ticking timer went off and June spat again. She stuck her head under the running water, filled her mouth right from the tap, and rinsed before spitting one more time.
“There.” She inspected her teeth in the mirror then turned to August, her mouth frozen in an exaggerated, maniacal smile. “Are they clean?” she asked through grit teeth.
“Perfect. Now scoot, I’m going to miss the bus.” August patted her sister’s hair then bent down and kissed her forehead.
“What was that for?”
“No reason. I just love you.”
June beamed at her.
When her sister closed the door on the other side of the bathroom, August snatched her toothbrush and the paste. In her room she dumped out her piggybank, the one her mother had given her on her tenth birthday. She hated that stupid bank. Pigs aren’t smooth and cute. They’re bristly and smell like shit. A quick count revealed she had a little more than ninety dollars. It took almost six years to save ninety bloody dollars. She stuffed the cash into the small side pouch of the backpack.
She slipped on her shoes without tying the laces and crammed her favorite ball cap, the pink ‘princess’ one her father bought her last year, onto her head. She cracked the door and peered out. The hallway was empty and dishes clattered in the kitchen. She ran down the stairs and out of the house, the wood of the screen door cracking closed against the jamb.
At the end of the drive, the school bus pulled away. She chased after it, dust and fumes catching in her throat, and banged on the side with an open palm. The bus stopped fast, gravel crunching under its balding tires. The door opened and Betty, the same driver she’d had since first grade, glared at her, one overgrown grey eyebrow raised.
“Gonna get yourself killed doin’ that. You be on time tomorrow.” A lit cigarette hung from Betty’s chapped lower lip.
“Yeah, whatever. You’re not supposed to smoke on the bus you know.”
“Mind your business, Missy. Now sit your ass down before you fall on it.” Betty looked at her through a haze of blue smoke then exhaled right in her face.
She waved the smoke away then made her way up the aisle, grabbing the backs of empty seats for balance when the bus lurched forward. April sat with the other fifth grade students, arms crossed, a steely glare fixed on August. She mussed up April’s hair with an open palm. “Morning, squirt.”
“You nearly missed the bus again.”
“I know. Don’t worry, it won’t happen tomorrow.”
Sara sat in their usual seat at the back. August dropped down next to her best friend, tossed her backpack on the floor and pushed it under the seat in front of her with one foot, her hand-me-down purple Keds clashing against the lime green canvas.
“What’s wrong with you?” Sara whispered. “And what happened to your face?”
“My mother happened to my face. I guess I didn’t do enough slave labor for her this week.” She poked her red cheek with one finger.
Sara dug into another new purse and handed her a compact. August patted powder onto her cheek, then tried to cover her hated freckles.
“Christ,” Sara said. “If my mother ever hit me, well I don’t know what I’d do. I’m used to Dad smacking me around, but Mom?”
August leaned her head close to Sara’s and whispered, “I’m leaving. Not even going to school. I’m going to Charlesworth.”
“Are you nuts?” Sara blurted, then looked around the bus. “That’s crazy. You can’t skip school, there’s only three days left. We have math finals today. You’ll fail!”
“I don’t care. I’ve had it with my mother, and that stupid farm. I want to be a city girl, like Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”
“August! She was a prostitute! God, can’t your folks let you watch something from this century?”
“Please don’t tell anyone where I’m going. Tell Mr. McDonald I’m sick today. I’ll make up the final later, he’ll let me. If I even come back to this stupid place.”
“Don’t say that! You have to come back.”
“Will you tell him?”
“I don’t know. What if he calls your house?”
“Have you got a pen and paper?” August scrawled a hasty excuse note and signed it with her mother’s name. “Here, give this to Mr. McD. By the time they figure it out I’ll be long gone and they won’t know where to find me.”
“Neither will I.” Sara’s eyes filled with tears, red splotches broke out on the girl’s ivory face.
“Oh crap, don’t cry! I’ll call you as soon as I’m settled. Honest.” August held out her pinky finger. “Do you promise not to tell?”
“But you don’t even have a cell phone, how are you going to call?”
“Uh, hello? Pretty sure there’s still pay phones in the city.”
“What about Randy? He’s going to be pissed.”
“Screw Randy. Actually, I won’t screw him, so he’s pissed with me already. I broke up with him. He’s a total asshole.”
“What is with your mouth today?”
August stared at her friend and held her pinky up again. “What’s the deal? Do you promise?”
Sara hesitated and then held up a pinky. They hooked fingers and said “Pinky swear,” at the same time.
The bus stopped with a jerk in front of the school. August grabbed her backpack and followed the other kids.
Sara turned back and held her hand up to the side of her face, thumb and baby finger splayed like a mock telephone and mouthed ‘call me.’
She nodded at Sara and waved, then kneeled down to tie her laces. When the bus pulled away and everyone had gone into the school, she ducked behind the huge oak tree. Among dozens of initials carved into its trunk was ‘AB + RR’ inside a lopsided heart. If she had the time, she’d scrape that right off. She didn’t heart Randy any more.
She looked every direction, then ran the three blocks to the bus station without looking back.
*****
August eyed the rate board. The Greyhound to Charlesworth didn’t leave for another two hours. She was alone in the terminal except for the old lady in the ticket booth. The adrenaline that fueled her three-block run subsided and her stomach unclenched.
“Could I get a ticket to Charlesworth, please?”
The woman didn’t even look up, just shifted her h
ead from the book she was absorbed in to the cash register.
“Twenty-nine fifty.”
August counted out thirty dollars in small bills and shoved them through the bars. The woman slid two quarters and a ticket back to her.
“Aren’t you Caraleen and Don’s oldest?”
Sweat beaded on August’s brow. “Uh, yeah. How do you know my parents?”
“My husband runs the Feed and Seed. Your dad is in there every Saturday. I seen you with him sometimes. Why you going to the city, dear?”
“Visiting my aunt.”
“Well isn’t that nice. I didn’t know school was out already.”
“Yup, sure is. Going to be a fun summer.”
“Well I sure think so. You have a nice time. I’ll tell your dad on the weekend that I sent you off safely.”
August laughed, a strange choked giggle she’d never heard before. “Uh, okay. Thanks.” She spun around and plunked down in a hard plastic seat in the waiting room.
She checked her watch. Time crawled by. She glanced at the woman in the ticket booth. The woman smiled at August and then picked up the phone.
Her heart leapt. Was that old lady calling her father? The police? No, that made no sense. The woman had bought the lie about Aunt Adaleen. Just breathe. And quit fidgeting.
She twisted in her chair and scanned the street that ran in front of the station. A lone pickup truck, its muffler dragging on the asphalt, thundered past. She slumped in the seat and sighed, one knee bouncing, her arms crossed.
Almost two hours later, after August had paced the room a dozen times, fed the quarters into a vending machine, and chewed her thumbnail to the quick, a loud rumble reverberated through the picture window. The swish of airbrakes announced the arrival of the bus – her magic carpet ride to escape her stupid life.
August pulled the brim of her hat down and boarded the bus, sliding into a window seat near the middle. When the steady hum of tires on asphalt signaled they were on the highway, she peered at her fellow passengers.
Somebody’s grandmother sat in front of her, the woman’s, long, grey hair pulled back into a braid. Across the aisle, a tired-looking woman with a young child who appeared to have boundless energy and zero attention span rubbed her temples. The kid looked bored with the book his mother was reading him and had thrown the wrappers from two packs of cookies into the aisle. He stood on his seat and bounced, holding the back of the seat in front of him, making it bounce along with him. His mother urged him to sit down, one gentle hand pressing on his shoulder. She scolded him for bothering the man in the business suit in front of them. The kid just screamed. Without a word, the man took his briefcase and moved to one of many empty seats at the front.