She was destined for something great, she could feel it in her blood.
Tony’s head was itching. She dug her stubby nails into the scalp and raked until it felt better. She wondered if Darlene and her old nitty head had gone back to school today. She wondered if Mam was curious as to where her oldest daughter had gone to.
Over in the car, the teacher was looking at her through the window glass. Maybe wondering when Tony was going for the firewood. No, probably wondering how long she would have to travel with Tony. How much longer she would be tormented.
“I bet you are wondering,” said Tony. “Hell, I’ll set you straight on that right now.” She hopped from the picnic table, trotted to the car, and pulled the front door open.
29
The girl ran toward the car, a bizarre and elated expression on her face. She looked as though a spirit had whispered something quite amazing into her ear and she couldn’t wait to share the message. She tugged open the driver’s door and rolled the window down halfway. Then she reached across Kate, clicked the key backward one turn, and shoved the gearshift into neutral.
What? God, not this…!
Kate bucked in her seat, and drove her face forward, catching her teeth in the girl’s upper arm and biting down through the shirt.
“Bitch!” cried the girl, and she bit Kate back on the face. Kate wailed as the skin parted, but her teeth held tightly. I will not let you do this you can’t kill us this way!
The girl stood straight and struck Kate around the ears with her free fist, then jabbed at Kate’s eyes with her thumb. Stars split Kate’s vision, followed immediately by searing heat. She opened her mouth and let go of the arm. Her head whipped down and away.
God no!
The girl had her hands on the car door now and was pushing it shut. Kate rolled to the left, trying to fall out before the door clicked in place.
“Mistie!” she screamed. “We have to get out!”
The door struck her with force and drove her back inside. The girl grinned through the partially opened window. Kate shoved herself against the door again, and twisted about, trying to catch her elbow against the door handle.
It’s not locked, I can get it open!
The girl laughed, then opened the back door long enough to roll the window down part ways. She slammed the door shut and then went to the back of the car.
“Bye-bye, kids!” she said. “It’s been fun, but not fun enough!” In the rearview, Kate could see the girl leaning against the trunk and pushing. The car inched forward, then stopped. The girl shouted, “Yeah!” and pushed again. The car hesitated, the moved. It dipped its nose toward the lake, and slowly crept down the slope.
“Mistie!” screamed Kate. In the back, the girl was staring out the window, eyes huge. “Mistie, oh, my God! I’m so sorry!”
Kate lay on the seat and kicked at the window. Her Easy Spirit heels slipped on the glass; she shook them off and kicked again with her bare feet. Her bare feet had no strength in them, and they only squeaked and streaked on the surface of the glass.
The car picked up speed. Kate could see the lake looming up, dark blue, immense, like a tidal wave ready to take them down.
“No!” Kate screamed again, kicking, kicking, kicking. She flopped over and tried to shove her head through the half-opened window, but the girl had been careful. It was not wide enough for Kate’s shoulders. She looked over the back. Mistie had drawn up her knees and had buried her face in her lap.
Outside, back up the slope, the girl clapped her hands and stomping her feet.
The car struck the water, not hard, but enough to send a spray across the side windows. The Volvo paused, bobbed, then drifted out until it was away from the bank, floating. Sinking.
“Mistie, I’m so sorry! I wanted to save you! God, help us!” Kate kicked the window again. Again. Her ankle twisted but she kicked again. She held her breath as she did. How long could she hold her breath? How long would she be under the water until she couldn’t hold it anymore? How long until she would take a breath of lake water, and then another?
What did it feel like to drown?
Kate screamed. Mistie whimpered. Above it all, the cheering of the girl on the land behind them.
The front of the car dipped forward. Kate closed her eyes, catching her breath, holding it, then opening them again to find the window and to stomp it.
Water seeped in under the dashboard, dripping furiously onto the floor mats. The car dipped farther forward like a deer taking a drink. The drips became a steady flow.
I’m going to drown first. Me, then Mistie. God, will I go to hell? Is the road to hell really paved in good intentions?
The water through the front, faster now.
Does it hurt to drown? Did Susan Smith’s little boys suffer a long time?
Mistie’s breath hitched, and then the whimpering, louder now. Kate gasped, swallowed, gasped again, as the water outside climbed to window level. She could see the green muck of the lake, bits of algae, bits of grass and tiny sticks and other moving things, creatures too tiny to distinguish, patting against the glass, impatient for company.
“No!”
Kate kicked. The water rose to just below the window opening and suddenly she knew what it was like not to breathe. She couldn’t catch her breath. It was too hot, too closed in, the air squeezed too tightly inside the car.
She sobbed, throwing her shoulder against the window. Maybe glass was more fragile under water. Maybe it would break once the car was filled.
I won’t be able to see!
The car leaned forward, more sharply now, and Kate struggled to get her heels against the floor to stay upright. Water poured in through the front of the window into her lap. She slammed her head into the window, sending sparks into her brain, driving dark splinters into her consciousness.
In the back seat a quivering voice, louder than Kate would have ever expected.
“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”
Kate had prayed that with Donnie when he was little.
“If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”
“Mistie, I’m so sorry!”
The floor in the front was flooded now, the water coming up over Kate’s legs and to her waist. There was a slice of daylight over the rear of her window, the rest submerged.
Breathe breathe breathe then hold your breath. Breathe breathe breathe breathe!
The front tires of the car struck lake-bottom. It was clearly no deeper than five feet here. But that couldn’t matter, it wouldn’t matter, for children drown in five inches of water and bound women drown in five feet.
The back of the car started to settle. Water poured in through Mistie’s window, and Kate turned to see the girl’s face squeezed up, and her teeth grit against the horror.
The water reached Kate’s shoulders, chin, and nose. She tilted her head back and gulped air. Then it covered her and she thought, How long until I’m dead?
There was a thump, a muffled rush. In the blur of lake water Kate turned to see the back door opening and arms reaching in. The arms took Mistie by the chin and pulled her out through the door as the back was completely submerged. The girl’s legs trailed, kicking weakly. Kate twisted herself about and tried to hoist herself over the seat and into the back. The door was still open, flapping lazily as the car found its place of final rest on the soft lake floor.
Her eyes stinging, her lungs throbbing, Kate wriggled into the back.
Help me help me help me!
She tucked her body, and snapped it outward, trying to move as a fish, an eel, to swim up and away. Her feet slipped on the floor, the seat, seeking purchase. The pressure in her lungs won out; she gulped water and gagged.
No!
A hand then, catching her by the hair and steering her out through the door, up into the light and the crest of the water and the air!
Kate’s head broke the surface and she opened her mouth to drink the air and it hurt and
it was incredibly pure and whole.
Air!
She was dragged on her back, bobbing, until her heels caught in a tangle of water grasses. She arched, bringing her legs down and her body upright. The lake bottom was slick, soft. She stumbled, fell forward into the water, and the hand grabbed her hair again and turned her over again. She coughed and spat.
“Guess you forgot about those scarves, huh?” The girl’s voice was close to Kate’s ear. Matter-of-fact. Kate was dragged through the water plants, the mud, up, up.
Up.
And the world swelled, ebbed, folded, and went black.
30
The campfire was pretty decent. The picnic table was old wood, and seasoned better than a lot of the stuff Mam bought to burn in their wood stove. There was nothing with which to break the table into smaller pieces, so she’d put dried pine needles underneath, with sticks collected by the teacher and Baby Doll on top of that. She’d picked up a pack of matches from the lot by the pumps back at the Texaco, a half-pack with most of the red tips washed away in some past rain. But several were still potent, and the needles caught fire with little urging.
Tony had instructed the teacher to light and tend the fire, Girl Scout that she was. She’d done so without hesitation or argument, kneeling on the ground in her soaking wet clothes and fanning the little blaze with the palm of her hand. The flame had grown steadily until the underside of the table had given up the ghost and had accepted its fate. Now, there was quite a bonfire, and the three sat as close as they could without scorching themselves, cross-legged.
The kid’s shoes and socks were off and drying near the blaze. So were Tony’s Granddad’s shoes and her pairs of socks. The teacher’s winter scarves hung from the forked twigs of a green stick planted in the ground near the fire. Tony had suggested the teacher take off her coat at least, to let it dry, but the teacher hadn’t seemed to understand the suggestion, or really didn’t care, so Tony let it go.
The sun was out, and there was no wind, which was a small favor. The geese were gone from the lake, replaced by a flock of mallards, brown-headed ones and green-headed ones. Tony wasn’t sure of the time, because the clock was in the lake with the car. Maybe one, maybe two in the afternoon. She was hungry, and the smell of the wood smoke made her think of barbecue sandwiches and beer. Followed by some doughnut sticks.
“Truth or dare,” Tony said to the teacher.
The teacher was watching the fire, little twin tongues of flame dancing on the shiny surface of her eyes. Her hair was flattened against her face, framing the bones and making her look even older than she was. Her shoes were missing, lost somewhere amid the fish and the snapping turtles of Lake Marion. She didn’t look like a teacher anymore. She looked like a whore who’d seen the bad end of her pimp. Tony grinned at the idea.
“I said truth or dare,” Tony repeated.
The teacher did not say anything to Tony. She did not even look her way.
Tony lifted the gun from her knee and waved it at the teacher. “Hey, you forget how this works? Did your little baptism erase your mind?”
The teacher’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. It shut again.
Beside the teacher, the kid played with a batch of dried grasses she’d picked. She was intent on the chore of wrapping the stems about the seedpods, yanking the stem, and watching the pod snap off and fly into the air.
“Mama had a baby,” she said dully, “and its head popped off.” After each popped pod, she reached down to rub herself between her legs. Tony cringed.
“Truth. Or. Dare,” Tony said, her attention back on the teacher, each word punctuated as if speaking to a foreigner.
The teacher’s mouth opened, closed, opened. “Truth.” It was more a mouthing than an actual word.
“Okay, then,” said Tony. “Tell me. What was it like in the car? What did it feel like to think you were going to die?”
The teacher’s hands came slowly from her lap, sliding up her arms to latch on to her elbows. One eye closed, then the other, then they both opened. The woman looked like a fucking, brain-dead monkey. One good scare and she was reduced to nothing more than a sack of wet clothes by a burning picnic table.
Tony cocked the pistol and pointed it at the teacher’s foot. “I could also blow your big toe away if I wanted. Maybe all your toes if I wanted. And I’m starting to want.”
The teacher’s hands began rubbing the elbows. “Was hell.”
“Yeah? Cool. Hell like how?”
A silent breath. A shiver. Eyes closing and opening. “Like…hell.”
“Did it hurt?”
The eyebrows furrowed as if she wasn’t sure what the word hurt meant. Her lip hitched. She shrugged, one shoulder lifting then dropping more in a spasm than a conscious move.
Tony slammed her fist against the teacher’s jaw, knocking her to her side in the pine needles. The woman lay panting, stirring crumbs of dead leaves with her breath. “Hurt,” she said. “Yes.”
Satisfied, Tony sat straight and crossed her legs again. “I didn’t know if I was going to let you drown or not until that last minute,” she said. “Oh, I rolled the windows down to let the water in faster, not to save you or anything. ‘Cause what do I need with you two? I can drive a car if I want to. I know how.”
The teacher remained on her side, staring into the fire. Her face was pinkening with the heat. She was going to have a sunburn.
“But I’m a fugitive,” Tony continued. “Wanted for armed robbery and murder. It’s a good cover having a teacher and kid along for the ride. So, I decided pull ‘em out of the car. I’m a good swimmer, if you didn’t notice. And I wasn’t even a Girl Scout.”
The teacher looked like she was going to go to sleep or pass out.
“Hey!” Tony kicked the woman in the side. “Hey, don’t you dare!”
The teacher opened her eyes.
“Sit up. We’ve got things to do. Places to go and people to meet, my Dad used to say. You hear me? Hey!” She kicked the woman again.
The teacher nodded, imperceptibly, into the leaf dust.
“All right, then!” said Tony. She held her hand close to the fire, and felt the sizzle on her palm. “All right, then.”
31
Her new clothes were funny and big. She felt like she was playing dress up. She used to play dress up when she lived back in Kentucky, climbing inside her mother’s petticoat and walking around in front of the mirror until Daddy said, “Get out of here, you Mama and I got stuff to do. Watch the television!”
Mistie didn’t remember much about Kentucky, but she did remember dress-up. She did remember T.V. There were good shows on all day, and she didn’t go to school because she was too young so she got to watch all the time except when Daddy got home. Cartoons, game shows, talk shows. The Hendersons didn’t get cable like some of the other people in the apartment building, but Mistie knew how to move the wire antenna around on top of the set to get rid of most of the lines and the fuzz on the screen.
When the family moved to MeadowView, they got cable. Daddy hooked up something he said he wasn’t supposed to do, but damn it, he swore, communication was supposed to be free, the Constitution said so, so cable was supposed to be free, too. Mama said Daddy probably was right. Mistie liked T.V. even better in Pippins than in Kentucky. Fifty-five channels, not counting the ones where they sold jewelry all the time and where the guys just stood in front of a bunch of people and talked about books.
She missed T.V. She wanted to go home and watch “Princess Silverlace” and “Cat Dog” and “Sesame Street” and “Power Puff Girls.”
The girl and teacher had used a rock to break a window out of one of the cabins. The girl had said, “This is the Camp Director’s cabin, it’s gotta have something we can use in there!” And wham! She threw a rock in the window and the teacher threw a rock in the window. Then the girl had said to Mistie, “Climb in there and unlock the door, Baby Doll.”
Baby Doll. The mean girl called her Baby Doll. That was a nice
name. Mistie climbed inside with help from the teacher and found a light switch. She turned it on and looked around. There was a bed, a dresser, a closet, a television. She turned the television on but there was nothing but squiggley lines.
“Hey!” The shout came from outside, through the broken window glass. “Open the goddamned door!”
Mistie looked at the window glass on the floor. It was sharp but pretty, like gems on a crown. She looked at the bed. It looked a lot like Mama and Daddy’s bed except the cover was smoothed out and made up. Daddy and Mama slept together in a bed back in the trailer. Mistie slept in a room by herself. Sometimes when Mama was out of the trailer and Mistie was home, Daddy would come to Mistie’s room and put her on her bed and say, “C’mon, honey, give me some sugar ‘cause your Mama don’t love me no more.” He would rub her between her legs and kiss her on the mouth. He tasted like tobacco juice. One time when she gagged he got mad and spit into her mouth and made her swallow it down.
“Now!” said the girl outside the window. “Or I’ll crawl in there after you, don’t think I can’t squeeze through this little hole!”
Mistie rubbed herself and looked at the bed. Little hole. Sometimes Daddy said something like that; when Mama was gone he liked to pull Mistie into his own bedroom and put her on the bed. He’d pull up her nightie and say, “I can get in that little, sweet hole! It’s much better than your Mama’s. She’s a frigid old bat.” If Mistie was good and let him stick her and kiss her, then Daddy would let her watch whatever she wanted on T.V. for the rest of the night. He wouldn’t even cuss over Princess Silverlace.
The girl had her head in the window hole, and her shoulders were nearly through. She was grunting. Mistie went out of the bedroom and into a dark, pine-paneled living room. There was a front door with a latch. She stared at the latch, not sure what to do with it. She pawed it, and tugged it. Then she turned the steel button and heard a clack. A second later, the door was thrown open by the girl. Mistie stumbled back several steps.
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