by Billie Letts
Neither she nor Fate moved as minutes ticked by, not even when an old pickup honked as it passed them. With their gaze fixed on each other, they waited to see who would strike next.
Finally, Lutie crumpled. “How did you know?”
“I found your script in the glove compartment of Floy’s car. Did you do all those things, Lutie?” He was into it now, zeroing in on her humiliation. “Did you really let a man—”
“Don’t.” She closed her eyes, stepped back, and crossed her arms over her chest. Defense.
Breaking a sweat now, even though the day was cool, Lutie felt a weakness in her legs that made her think they might not hold her up. She staggered once as she turned, then walked away from Fate without looking back.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
WHEN SHE GOT back to Mama Sim’s house, Lutie was surprised to find it quiet, even in the kitchen, where the family always seemed to gather. Nevertheless, she hurriedly checked all the rooms to make sure she was alone. For what she was about to do, she didn’t want anyone trying to talk her into changing her mind.
She made a quick trip to the shed behind the house, where she found a ratty-looking suitcase covered with dust, cobwebs, and a sticker that said, “Omnibus de Mexico.” Not much, but a step up from the black plastic garbage sacks she’d traveled with from Spearfish.
After wiping down the suitcase, she carried it to her bedroom. Inside, she found an empty tube of toothpaste, two dead spiders, a man’s sock, and an old studio portrait, color tinted by hand, which resulted in faces that didn’t look quite real. The focus of the picture was an unsmiling but beautiful girl holding a baby with two children beside her. Lutie guessed the woman to be Juan’s mother, Gabriela, and the infant in her lap to be Juan.
When Lutie cleaned out the suitcase, she tossed the sock, toothpaste, and spiders in the trash but took the photograph to the kitchen and left it on the table.
The foul odor coming from inside the suitcase made Lutie suspect it hadn’t been opened since the time Juan ran away from Mexico and showed up at Mama Sim’s years ago. Hoping to overpower the smell, Lutie upended a container of talcum powder Essie had given her, then started packing. She wanted to get away before anyone discovered she was leaving.
When she’d left Floy’s, packing had been easy; she’d simply thrown all she owned into garbage bags. But this time was proving to be more complicated. Since she would be hitchhiking, she intended to travel with only the suitcase and her purse. That meant not only putting aside the clothes Essie and Mama Sim had given her, but leaving behind more than half of what she’d brought from Spearfish.
Finally, she decided she was taking too much time deliberating, so she threw in what the suitcase would hold; then at the last minute she put in a snapshot Dub had taken of Fate holding his first fish.
Finished, she sat cross-legged on the bed with a notebook and pen to write a short letter.
Fate,
By the time you read this, I will be gone. I didn’t know untill today that you knew about some of the things I did when we were in Vegas. I’m so ashamed of being in that movie most of all. But I feel even worse that you know. My only excuse is that I wanted you to go to that special school out there, Paradice. I probably could have made the money another way, but I didn’t know how.
We will probably never see each other again so I want you to know that I understand why you hate me. I’ve given you plenty of reasons to feel that way. But the worse thing I’ve ever done, you don’t even know about. I’ve never told anyone.
What you said about staying here with a nice family and haveing a best friend is a good plan. Staying with people who will take care of you and give you a good life is something I couldn’t do. I’m sorry.
Lutie
“Lutie?” Mama Sim called when she and Essie got back to the house. “Lutie, you here?”
Essie, carrying a sack of groceries, said, “Guess she’s gone for one of her walks.”
“Oh, it feels good to get out of those shoes,” Mama said.
“Your feet aren’t swelling again, are they?”
“No. And I don’t need another lecture about using too much salt. I hate that salt substitute. It tastes like a salt lick.”
“Now, how would you know about a salt lick?”
“You forget that I was raised on a farm before I ever saw a circus. Any kid spent time around cows has tasted a salt lick.”
“I’d better get some of this stuff in the fridge,” Essie said as she headed for the kitchen.
When the front door slammed, Morrell came busting into the living room. “Where’s Mom?” he asked.
“In the kitchen putting my groceries away.”
“Mom,” he yelled. “Did you remember to get some jelly beans?” As he disappeared down the hall to the kitchen, Mama settled on the couch with a pillow behind her back.
“Mama,” Essie called, “you’d better come here.”
“I’m awful comfortable right here where I am, Essie.”
“Okay, but there’s something here you ought to see.”
Mama Sim heard something in Essie’s voice that seemed a bit odd, so she pulled herself up and went to the kitchen.
“Now, what is it I should see?”
Essie held out the photograph of Gabriela and the children. “You have any idea where this came from?”
“Where’d you get it?”
“Someone left it there. On the table.”
Mama turned over the photo to find stamped on the back, badly faded and stained, this copyright: Ciudad Madero Fotografía.
“My mom,” Essie said as she pointed to each person in the picture. “That’s Armondo, that’s me. The baby is Juan.”
“Do you suppose he put it here?”
“Could be.”
“I’m going to see if Lutie talked to him.”
Mama found Lutie’s door closed; she tapped, then opened the door a crack. “Lutie, you asleep?” When no sound came from inside, Mama pushed open the door and went in. The bed was made, but a folded stack of clothes lay near the headboard, causing a dark look to cross Mama’s face. She opened the drawers in the chest. Nothing. In the closet, she found empty hangers. “Dios santo!” she whispered.
She hurried to Fate’s room. The door was open, but clearly he wasn’t there. Just as she turned to leave, she saw the note on his bed. Her lips moved as she read it, her expression turning to one of anxiety. Bad news. Now and then she spoke, though she was unaware of the sound. “Paradise,” she said. Then, near the end, “I’m sorry.”
Unseen, Mama slipped on her shoes, grabbed her keys, and tiptoed outside. After she’d gone quietly down the porch steps, she hurried to her old GMC pickup, cranked it up, and was flying down the road toward town.
At the Good Old Days Antique Shop, Mama made a quick stop. Cash Abernathy, the owner, sat out front in a patched red leather recliner beneath an awning shading the building.
“Howdy, Mama,” Cash said.
“You see a girl pass by, sixteen, small, brown hair?”
“No, Mama, don’t believe I seen her.”
“Think hard, Cash. She’s wearing low-rise jeans that barely cover her hipbones and a red T-shirt that’s way too short, so she’s showing lots of skin. From here to here.” Mama used her hands to illustrate how low the jeans were, how short the tee. “And her belly button’s pierced. She’s got a silver ring through it.”
“Oh, her. Yeah, I saw a girl like that. She was carryin’ a suitcase.”
“Which way’d she go?”
“Down there to the bus station.”
“Thanks, Cash.”
The bus station smelled of dirty feet, onions, and Old Spice. A fat woman was sleeping on one of the benches, her dress pulled up to reveal several pounds of cellulite around her upper thighs. Mama, in a gesture of kindness, pulled the dress down to cover the unpleasant view, a slight disturbance that caused the woman to say “Bird shot,” or “Bird shit,” in her sleep. Mama didn’t know for sure what she’d
heard.
A family of Mexicans she didn’t recognize sat wedged together on another bench. Mother, father, and seven children, all awake, silently watching the door as if they feared a lynch mob or the law would burst through at any minute.
At the counter, a lone agent was looking at pictures in Hustler magazine.
“Where to?” he said without looking up.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Mama said.
“Then why are you here?” he said, his eyes never straying from the Hustler women.
“I’m looking for a girl.”
“Yeah? So am I.”
“She was here. Sixteen, low-rise jeans, belly button—”
“Was pierced. Had a silver ring in it. No hooters to speak of, but good-looking ass for a short girl.”
“Where’d she go?”
“Out the door.”
“I mean did she go north or south? East? West?”
The agent sighed and closed the magazine. “She wanted to know if I’d give her a ticket for some cheap ring she was wearin’. Hell, it wasn’t worth five bucks.”
“Did you see which way she went when she left here?”
“Look, lady. I sell bus tickets. I ain’t a damn detective.”
At the four-way stop at the end of Main, Mama saw Dub’s pickup coming from the opposite direction. She stopped her truck in the middle of the intersection and flagged him down.
When he saw the expression on her face, he knew there was trouble. “What’s up?” he asked.
“Lutie’s run away. I’m afraid she’ll hitch a ride.”
“I just came from Idabel. She’s not out that way.”
“Then she either took 70 toward Durant or the Indian Nation.”
“I’ll take the turnpike; you take 70.”
“Let’s go.”
Just west of town at the entrance to a deserted drive-in, Mama spotted Lutie getting into a vintage car with Texas plates. She sped around the car and slid to a stop only inches from the fancy front grille. Then she got out of her truck and hurried to the driver’s side, where she found a boy who looked to be in his late teens behind the wheel.
Rolling down his window, he yelled, “You idiot! What the hell is wrong with you? You almost hit my car.”
“Get out of this car, Lutie.”
“Do you have any idea what kind of car this is?” the boy said. “It’s a perfectly restored 1969 Pontiac GTO.”
Mama pointed to the suitcase on Lutie’s lap. “Know what she’s got in there? Snakes—rattlers, copperheads, cottonmouths—”
“What?!”
“She’s taking them to her daddy. He’s a preacher at one of those churches where they handle snakes to prove that God will protect them.”
“She’s lying,” Lutie said. “This is filled with clothes. Here. I’ll show you.” When she put her thumbs on the flimsy locks, the boy slapped one hand on top of the suitcase, holding it closed; with the other, he opened the passenger door. He shoved the suitcase out of the car first, Lutie next.
As he backed up, then burned rubber speeding away, Lutie picked up her suitcase, shot a vicious look at Mama Sim, and said, “I’m leaving here, and no matter what you do, you won’t be able to stop me.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
Mama said, “Storm’s headed this way.”
When Lutie saw streaks of lightning in the west, she became agitated, crawled into Mama’s truck, and yelled, “Come on!”
As soon as they were inside the old GMC, Mama said, “I read your note.”
“I don’t suppose it mattered to you that the note I wrote was for Fate, not you.”
“When I went to your room, saw that you were gone, I was in a panic. Looked all over the place. Went to Fate’s room, where you left the note.”
“So you were in a panic because I’d gone. You know how much I believe that? Not . . . one . . . bit.” She drew out the words in order to make an impression. “He had a choice. He could go with me or stay with you. I really wasn’t much surprised when he chose you.”
“Why?”
“He hates me.”
“Fate? He doesn’t hate you, Lutie. He loves you. Adores you. No, Fate’s not your problem.”
“And I suppose you know what my problem is?”
“I think I do. I’m no mind reader, but I believe I know what’s tearing you up.”
“That’s so lame.”
“Might be. But I can tell when something’s gone bad.”
“You mean like me.”
“That’s right.”
“And how can you tell?”
“Because of how you treat people. Seems the nicer to you they are, the meaner you are to them. Oh, you let them see another side of you, but then you push them away. Never let anyone get too close to you.”
Another bolt of lightning, closer this time, produced a soft, rolling sound of thunder. Lutie scooted a bit closer to Mama.
“Look, Lutie, you act like everyone hates you. But that can’t be true, can it? That all of us hate you all the time? I mean, we’ve got our own troubles, lots of problems in our own lives every day, so we don’t give much time or thought to hating you.”
“Maybe not everyone at the same time, but—”
“Yeah, I think you’re right. There’s only one person who hates you all the time.”
“And who would that be, Miss Know-It-All?”
“You.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you’re your own problem. You hate yourself so much that you hate everybody else.”
A blazing lightning strike that seemed to electrify the heavens created a thunderclap that rolled across the earth, making the old pickup shudder, causing Lutie to let Mama wrap her in her arms and pull her even closer.
“What happened to you, Lutie? What happened to make you hate yourself so?”
“I don’t hate myself.” Lutie tried to act as strong and sound as furious as she had earlier. She even tried halfheartedly to pull back, but Mama held her firmly in her arms. “I do not hate myself,” she said again, hoping to sound confident and secure. But she sounded more like a frightened child.
“Tell me what happened, darling.”
At first, Lutie said nothing, holding her resistance as long as she could; but finally, she said, “I don’t know.”
“You probably do, but you’ve pushed those memories and those pictures that made you feel so bad, you’ve pushed those way back here.” Mama tapped the back of Lutie’s head. “Or maybe you wrapped them up in an ugly little pouch and put it behind your heart. But either way, you’ve tried to bury it. So maybe now’s the time to let it out. Because if you don’t love yourself, you won’t be able to love the ones who love you.”
Mama held Lutie so close that she could feel her heart pounding, the resistance still holding her back. Then, in the blink of an eye, she felt Lutie’s body go limp as she let down the years of barriers she’d worked so hard to build up.
“I let her die,” Lutie said, her voice so soft and broken that Mama wasn’t sure what she’d heard.
“What did you say?”
“My mother. I let her die.”
“Why don’t you tell me how that happened,” Mama Sim said, trying to sound as natural as she could.
“She had that disease. A phobia, terrified of storms. She had seizures sometimes. Once, she lost consciousness. So my daddy told me that when a storm came, I was supposed to get in the closet where Mama hid so I could hold her, talk to her. Try to keep her calm.
“That worked, too. It always worked until that day. The day she died.”
“And you think it was your fault?”
“Yeah. I was in my room playing and I didn’t go to the closet as fast as I should have. But I went. Closed the door, put my arms around Mama, and said the kinds of things that I always said before.” Lutie was struggling now, trying to talk despite the weeping that distorted her words. “Then there was a tremendous crack of lightning a
nd the thunder just exploded. Like a bomb. The light in the closet went out.”
Lutie was sobbing now, trembling violently, causing Mama to hold her even tighter.
“I felt my mother stiffen for a few seconds, heard her gasp for breath once or twice, then she went limp in my arms. I was only six, but I knew then she was dead. And I knew it was my fault.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
FATE SENSED SOMETHING was wrong when he rounded the corner and saw Mama Sim’s house. Too many vehicles were parked in her driveway and yard: Dub’s pickup; Katy’s VW van; Juan’s Continental; even Essie’s Dodge Neon, which she always parked next door in her own driveway. And near the front porch steps, Fate saw Johnny’s bicycle. But nowhere did he see Mama’s GMC.
He tried to make himself believe they were all at Mama’s because of the storm that had passed over nearly an hour ago. The rain had been accompanied by lightning and thunder, which might have caused Lutie a few rough minutes, but this storm—fast moving—was nothing like the fierce one that had struck a couple of nights ago.
And even if it was Lutie’s phobia about thunder, Essie and some of the others knew what to do. No, something else was going on, something that caused a burning sensation in the pit of Fate’s belly.
Morrell, who was never still, was sitting on the porch swing with Tiki, neither of them talking as they watched him coming toward the house. And when Johnny saw him, he didn’t run to meet him as usual, but bent to adjust a spoke on his bike, an easy excuse not to look into Fate’s eyes.
“What’s going on?” Fate asked.
To add to his discomfort, nobody spoke.
“You all just hanging out?”
After several minutes of silence, Johnny said, “Maybe you ought to go in and talk to Juan or Essie.”
When he stepped inside the front door, Fate knew without a doubt that he was going to be hit with bad news. Any movement and conversation that had been going on came to a sudden halt, as if everyone in the room were frozen in a photograph. Dub was caught sipping lemonade; Katy stopped as she was about to turn a page in a magazine. Only Juan met Fate’s searching eyes.