The Shortest Distance Between Two Women (42 page)

“That is about as dumbass as it gets,” Bo agreed, leaning out so far it looked as if his face would scrape the sidewalk if Mr. Antique Bus Driver turned too fast, which was more than entirely possible.

“But come on, you guys,” Chloe shouted into the wind. “What do you think our friends are doing tonight while we are riding around in this bus, picking up strangers, and on our way to watch awesome Stephie kick ass in this butt-fucking town?”

“Don’t say
fuck
so loud,” Kendall cautioned as they took a corner on what seemed to be two wheels and Robert spotted more potential bus riders. “All the moms are sober tonight and someone will hear us and then, well, shit, we’ll get a lecture.”

“Don’t say
shit
,” Riley said, laughing in a way that sounded like an old car horn, which made everyone laugh with him.

“You know,” Bo said after a few minutes, “Stephie would love
this shit. She’d be out there pulling people into the bus and jumping up and down and singing or whatever she needed to do to get them inside of the bus. It’s kinda cool. You have to admit, dudes. Really. I cannot wait to see what Stephie does at this beauty-fucking-thing.”

This trashy teenage conversation ground to a halt as the bus came to another standstill while Robert leapt from the doorway and cornered a crowd of more than five innocent bystanders, which would be over the capacity limit, and the entire Gilford-filled bus held its breath. What would happen next? Who would get on? Would someone have to get off?

Robert bounced back into the bus and leaned over to talk into the ear of the bus driver. There was laughter. The Gilford crowd turned in every possible direction to look into the eyes of another Gilford or a Janet or a Susie Dell. Robert slapped the old fart of a driver on the shoulder and then they embraced.

They embraced. Imagine that.

Robert hopped off the bus and Emma suddenly knew, more than ever, why her mother loves her bold and beautiful man. She knows that he makes her laugh and that he does things that are as expected as they are unexpected and that he can handle a herd of Gilford jackasses as if they are new spring lambs. This man has what it takes.

Everyone on the sidewalk got into the bus, all eight of them, and the geriatric bus driver put his hands up to his face as if he was adhering blinders and did not even look as the capacity of the senior citizens’ bus exceeded its legal limit. And what a limit it was.

The new passengers had been on their way anywhere but to an antiquated beauty pageant. Two of them, adorable middle-aged gay men, were walking aimlessly after having argued about who should have paid the phone bill. Another couple had just come
from an AA meeting and one of them would turn out, within weeks, to be Joy’s first ever sponsor. The fifth was a woman who had heard about the pageant, had always wanted to go but was sick and tired of not going to events, restaurants and just about everywhere else because her husband was addicted to the almighty television set and who had, for the first time in thirty-eight years of marriage, decided to go someplace alone.

Marty jumped up to meet them as if she had just sold them a ticket and wanted to make certain they would all be happy.

“Hi there, hello, come on in, have a seat.”

None of this bothered or startled Emma who was watching the nieces and nephews, the new father, the new sister-in-law, the smitten cousin, the old sisters, two brothers-in-law, and her boss as if she had just picked up her own seldom-used television clicker and stumbled across an Oscar-nominated movie that had moments before been released on DVD.

Amazing, Emma thought. Every single person on this bus on their way to a small city beauty pageant is absolutely amazing. And that’s when she started to laugh and no one noticed. She was sitting next to Debra, who was totally engrossed in a conversation with the long-married and terribly lonely woman sitting behind them who was excitedly telling her that this bus was the miracle of experience she had been waiting for and that she would never ever again say no to herself, but she would pretty much be willing to say it to everyone else.

Behind her there were two rows of nieces and nephews who were talking about the eventual demise of rap music, how advanced placement classes suck, and how they all wanted to get a tattoo before the sun set so they could belong to what they were calling The Tribe of Stephie.

Marty had switched places with Robert and was talking to the
gay men about how South Carolina needed more alternative power sources and how she thought that anti-gay-marriage amendments, and the people who sponsored them, were scared of their own shadows because more than half of them had been divorced.

Everywhere she looked, it seemed like a small circus was breaking out. Emma would not have been surprised to turn around and see someone juggling shoes, someone else blowing fire out of his nostrils, a sword thrower nailing Joy to her vinyl seat and six people forming a human pyramid in the aisle.

Stephie, she knew, would be proud. And as the bus wound its way along the most interesting route through Higgins, because the bus driver still had no clue about direction unless he was taking a group for some flu shots just around the corner, Emma also hoped Stephie was staying calm and was not letting the hairspray and red lipstick in the dressing room get to her.

That’s when Rick sidled up next to her and wanted to know if everything was okay with Joy.

“Do you mean has she been drinking today?” Emma asked him quietly.

“Well, yes, that’s what I mean,” he admitted.

“The coast is clear, from what I know,” she reported. “Janet went over there this afternoon and kept her busy. No one looked in her purse though.”

“Great,” her brother-in-law said through his clenched teeth as he pushed in so that Debra was jammed backward against the window and still gabbing with the people behind her.

“Look—I am thinking that she knows what a big deal this is for Stephie,” Emma told him. “If she does start drinking, I am also thinking it might be after the pageant. Janet is going to keep an eye on her. Don’t worry, Rick. Focus on Stephie.”

“That’s over already,” he said, dropping his head.

“What?”

“She dumped me. I told her about the intervention. And who in the hell wants to help someone finish raising a mess of teenagers who will always hate you for the rest of your life anyway?”

“I do,” Emma answered, gently putting her hand over the top of Rick’s. “I love your kids. We’ll get through this. We will.”

But first, she told him, this is Stephie’s night. Let’s do this one hour at a time. Let’s go to the pageant, support her, celebrate her—no matter what happens—and then the hour after the pageant, we’ll just see where we are.

“She doesn’t really think she is going to
win
, does she?” Rick asked, astounded.

Rick had no clue. He did not know why his spunky, independent, brilliant daughter had entered the traditional and very fluffy Miss Higgins pageant.

“Get a grip, Rick,” she said in much the same way that Stephie herself would talk to her father. “She’s proving a point. She’s
making a statement. She’s being herself. And she’s looking for a little redemption from you-know-what.”

Rick looked like he wanted to drop over and fall into Emma’s lap and when she sensed that, she put her arm around his neck, grabbed his shoulder so that he was as close to her as he could possibly get, and she simply held him.

“You are doing all you can,” she assured him. “Let it go now and let’s just have fun for the rest of the night. I set up my backyard and the gazebo so we can all go over there afterward and celebrate.”

“The Gilfords are pretty good at celebrating,” he agreed. “After the family reunion, and the wedding, I feel as if I’ve been at one long party for about a week.”

By the time the bus stopped, the
Little Miss Sunshine
pilgrims had worked themselves into a mild pageant frenzy and even Rick was smiling.

That’s what Emma saw as she turned to run through the crowd and find her Stephie. The would-be queen of the South. The poetry princess. The lime green Gilford goddess.

Stephie was not hard to find at all. There she was standing with her neck and head bent around the side curtain of the community center stage with her newly pinked hair blazing like a wad of cotton candy under a crooked stage light.

And the old lime green prom dress waved under the curtain at Emma as if to say, “It’s never too late to resurrect a good thing.”

Three months ago Emma might not have stopped. Maybe not even two weeks ago. But now she cannot help it. Now it is impossible for her not to stop. She has to.

“Excuse me,” she says, backing up so that she is standing right
in front of the man who, Emma knows, almost for certain, is probably the father of one of the foofie contestants who all look as if they have been dipped into vats of something liquid so not one ounce or inch of them will move out of place. “Did you say something about the girl in the lime green dress?”

“Yeah, lady, I did. Did you see her, too?”

Emma steps so close to the man she can see the hair in his nostrils. And she loves the fact that when she looks up, and into his eyes, he looks startled.

“That goofy chick is my niece and she has a four point three grade point average, is at the top of her class, speaks fluent Spanish, volunteers at a hospice center, and she is kind, generous, loving and is not the slightest bit afraid of taking risks.”

“Hey, lady, I’m sorry, come on,” the man says, backing up and looking around for some help. “She just, um, she doesn’t look like the other girls.”

“And thank God for that!” Emma hears Marty say from directly behind her. “She’s the only one up there who looks like an individual. Everyone else came out of the same batch of premixed beauty queens.”

Marty doesn’t give the poor guy a chance to say anything else but spins Emma around by the elbow, whispers proudly in her ear, “You kicked his ass, darling,” and then escorts her to the rows of relatives, new friends, and, of course, the bus driver who have all been watching the contestants walk back and forth across the stage while everyone is seated.