Wire Mesh Mothers (17 page)

Claustrophobia,
she thought.
I never knew what it was like.
She tried to work her wrists, but there was no flex room at all.

The girl locked the back doors, then placed wooden pallets upright against each door. “I’m a light sleeper,” she said. “If for some reason you get out of those ties, which I don’t think you will, I’ll hear those pallets hit the ground and your
brain’ll
be in sights of my gun before you can count to one-half.”

Mistie drew up her knees, twisted and wiggled against her bound arms, and looked at Kate. She said, “
Ow
.”

“I know, Mistie,” said Kate. “I’m so sorry. This won’t go on forever.”

“I can make it go on long as I want to,” said the girl. She slipped into the driver’s seat and put one foot up on either side of the steering wheel. “Truth or dare.”

“I’m exhausted.” Kate stretched her legs out to the other side of the floor, underneath Mistie. “If you want me to drive tomorrow, I need sleep.”

“One more,” said the girl. “Then I’ll think about letting you alone. Truth
or dare?”

Truth, she thought, you can’t handle the truth.
A small portion of her brain thought that was funny, but the rest was too numbed to know why. “Truth.”

“Good!” The girl scratched her head. “Okay. When did you first get fucked?”

Kate felt the hairs on her neck bristle. “We’ve got a child in the car.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Please don’t say that, and don’t ask me that.”

The girl shook her head. “Women are such pussies, aren’t you? God! Truth, or I got a dare for you.”

“Please,” said Kate. Breath, another breath. “Okay, my husband. Our wedding night.”

The girl struck Kate across the forehead with the pistol, tearing a strip of skin away. “I think you’re lying to me! I think you was horny as a rabbit.”

“I was raised Catholic,” said Kate
. Don’t cry, oh, please don’t cry.
Her head blazed and she could feel the blood oozing into her eyelashes. “I don’t believe in sex outside of marriage.”

“Huh,” said the girl, but she considered this. “Maybe so. Maybe not. But you were itching for him to get in your pants, I bet. New niggers like dicks in their pants. Maybe ‘cause they wish they had one, themselves. You wish you had a dong?”

The car felt as if it were swaying, as if it were on a ferry, moving out to sea. Kate let her mind flow with it, and for a moment she saw the waves and could smell the brine, and see the stars sparkling on the water. She had a blanket around her shoulders to keep off the sea chill, and it was soft and white and drawing her to sleep.

“Hey!” The voice was right outside her mind. She opened her eyes to see the girl’s face in her own, inches away.

“You going to sleep?”

“I think so. I can’t help it.”

“Fucker,” said the girl. “Go to sleep, then. We’ll get started really early tomorrow.” The girl pulled away, back to the front, but made sure Kate could see the pistol in her hand.

And then Kate shut her eyes again and slumped against the seat and she was on the boat under the stars. The blanket was comforting and peaceful and she looked out at the water and thought,
I will float on forever. Away, away, and forever.

M
istie wanted to go home. Yesterday at school the teacher had said they were going to do something fun, but the girl with the gun had gotten in the car and made them do other things. Nothing had been fun.

The girl was really mean, meaner than Daddy sometimes. She hit the teacher and hurt her. She hadn’t hurt Mistie yet but maybe she would. Mistie wanted to go home and watch television. She wanted to watch Princess
Silverlace
. She wanted to watch Sesame Street and count with the Count. She wanted to sit behind the trailer and play with the seed pods and repeat the little saying her sister Valerie thought was so funny, “Mama had a baby and its head popped off.” She wanted to sleep on her bed. She wanted to see Tessa Kessler and sit beside her on the bus.

Last night the girl had tied Mistie’s hands behind her back. She couldn’t sleep like that, and whined until the girl woke up and said, “You little brat, you’re keeping me awake!” But she untied Mistie’s hands from the back and tied them in the front. That was better, but Mistie still could hardly sleep.

In the morning she told the teacher to drive into a town and go through the Burger King drive-in. That was okay. The girl didn’t ask the teacher what she wanted but she did ask Mistie. Mistie said, “I don’t know,” and the girl laughed and said, “You got vocal cords after all!” and she got Mistie a biscuit with sausage and egg on top. Mistie hated egg, and let the yellow, greasy bits drop to the floor, but she ate the biscuit and the sausage and drank the cup of Coke, too.

Then the teacher drove to a bank and this time the teacher got some money out of a machine and the girl said, “We set for Texas! Yee-hah!”

Mistie didn’t know where Texas was, but hoped it was near MeadowView Trailer Park so she could go home and watch TV.

T
hey found a Texaco in Bloomville, South Carolina, another tiny town on another back road the girl insisted they take. She had said, “Get gas there. It’s a Texaco. Bet they named it for Texas!”

Kate pulled up to the gas tank and turned off the engine. Immediately the girl took the keys from the ignition and stuck her thumb through the key ring.

“Make it quick,” she said to Kate. Kate nodded; got out. Her feet were cold inside the Easy Spirits. What she wouldn’t give for a pair of socks, a pair of Dockers, a sweatshirt instead of this silly teacher’s outfit. The peach sweater was scratchy now, and the gray skirt wrinkled and binding.

In the back, Mistie entertained herself by pulling yarn threads out of one of Kate’s scarves, a green and white striped one, and wrapping them around her fingers until they turned white. There was a growing tangle of yarn on the floor of the back seat. She’d wet herself again last night.

The girl opened her own door, but sat in place with the gun in her lap. Her feet were up on the dash, and they wiggled back and forth, making squeaking sounds.
 

As she brushed her shirt back into some semblance of its former self, Kate checked herself in the reflection of the driver’s window. She looked as though she’d been through war. The side of her face was bruised, her forehead crossed with a long, tacky gouge that was slowly evolving into a scab. There were streaks of mud on her cheeks and chin. Her ear still stung where the girl had tried to twist it off. Her legs, unshaven for two days, were prickly. Her armpits, gone without deodorant for two days, were rank. Her hair was crusted with dried sweat.

There were a few natives outside the Texaco, two men in mechanics-blue with knit caps and gloves, a young woman in a faux-fur parka with a toddler on her hip, and old man in a heavy coat and pair of rubber boots sitting atop a plastic Coke crate in front of the double garage doors. Over the closed garage doors hung a sign, “Martin’s Auto Repairs. We use only Fisher Auto Parts.” On the other side of the garage doors, by the corner of the building, was a Coke machine.

The wind had picked up since dawn, and the temperature was down to what felt like freezing. Kate had to alternate hands to hold the cold pump handle long enough to fill the Volvo’s tank. She watched her breaths puff on the air, little exclamation points crying out impotently.

Think, she told herself sternly. Think it out. Concentrate on the idea you had last night.

My story made sense. It made sense I was taking her home to give her some clothes. That was good, that was really a good one. The girl believed me. Others will, too.

The girl got out of the car and leaned against the back door. Her arms were crossed over her chest. How she could keep from shivering in the pants and striped shirt was beyond Kate. The girl watched Kate steadily. The gun, Kate knew, was in her trouser pocket, the knife on her ankle.

I will tell them Mistie missed the bus. I saw her wandering the halls, saw her in that nightgown and thought it was terribly sad. “Mr. Byron, I had some old clothes I was going to give her. Yes, agreed, it was wrong not to call someone and let them know she’d missed the bus. I was on my way home and planned on calling as soon as I got there. Mea culpa, Mr. Byron. Yes, well, that means, ‘my fault.’ No, it’s not English. I had no idea we would be car-jacked. Thank God for everyone who assisted in our rescue. You’ll have to come over to the house for an appreciation party.”

All she needed was a moment. All she needed was one person to hear her and believe her.

Kate glanced at the South Carolinians by the garage doors. She looked at the meter on the pump. Half full, already up to fifteen dollars. The two hundred dollar withdrawal she’d made at a bank this morning - ridiculous bank; it wasn’t her bank so the maximum withdrawal was two hundred - wasn’t going to last long.

The girl’s what, fourteen, fifteen, maybe sixteen? I will get out of this. I will get out of this. She thinks like a child. I think like an adult.

“I need caffeine,” Kate said. Her voice sounded steady, calm.

The girl raised one brow. “You had coffee at Burger King.”

“That’s not enough,” said Kate, trying to bring levity into her words. With dismay, she saw the mechanics and the mother go inside the store. But the old man on the drink crate remained. He reached down slowly to tuck his pants leg back inside the rubber boot. He would help. He had to help. “Teachers drink coffee like water,” she continued. “I suppose it’s an addiction of sorts. I sure could use a drink, a Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, whatever.”

“I could use a million bucks, so what?”

“You’ve got some quarters. I’ll just get one quickly, and come back. I’ll get you one, too.”

The girl glanced inside the car where Mistie was busy unraveling the scarf. “She’s so weird,” she said in disgusted amazement. “She plays with everything. Her food, her crotch. Makes me sick. She’s nothing but a typical new nigger in training, huh?”

Kate said nothing. She waited. Waited. Her heart picked up speed, but she didn’t let it show on her face. Then the girls said, “Okay, and get one of them newspapers from the machine there on the porch. I wanna see something.”

A few more squeezes and the nozzle clicked off, the gas tank full at $23.93. Kate waited like a child with her hand out as the girl fished quarters from her shirt pocket. Kate imagined herself leaping upward in a Tae Bo kick. She’d seen those women on T.V. and knew they would have been out of this situation in a second. She imagined herself slamming the girl’s chest with a sudden and well-aimed foot, knocking the girl’s breath from her lungs and legs from under her body with one move.
 

Just like you did with Willie Harrold.

Willie.

She immediately forgot about the girl squalling on the ground, and remembered Willie.

Willie’s Daddy was probably at the school this very moment, insisting the Mr. Byron and Joe Angelone find out why the hell that coward Mrs. McDolen didn’t show up for school. The phone would be ringing back at the McDolen house, unless Donald had read the note and had given the school the heads-up on his wife’s sudden absence. Donald, what are you thinking now? Kate’s stomach fluttered.
 

No, stop it, you can do this. Deep breath. Yes. Okay.

She trembled fiercely; dread and hope. She rubbed her arms to cover the tremors and said, “
Brr
, it’s incredibly cold out here. Nearly forgotten it’s almost Christmas.”

“You watch your ass,” said the girl, pressing six quarters into Kate’s palm. “Cause I’m sure
keepin
’ an eye on it, ugly as it is.”

Kate nodded. She strode to the newspaper box and casually dropped in the quarters, took the paper and rolled it up under her arm, collected the dime change. She looked at the old man on the crate. He was picking his teeth with a little stick.

Okay, now. Okay.
 

She walked to the drink machine. Her whole body shook; her calves knotted and twitched. She tucked one hand inside the other to keep from dropping the coins.

Here’s your chance. Now. God help me.
 

The old man on the drink crate, a mere two yards away, looked in her direction, smiled and nodded. Kate put in one quarter, and listened as it fell through the machine works with a soft little
clink.

Without turning to the man, she whispered, “Listen to me, please. I’m being kidnapped.”

A second quarter into the machine.
Clink.
A taste of blood at the back of her mouth. Maybe she’d bitten her tongue, she couldn’t tell.

“Call the Virginia State Police after we leave.” Each word painfully dry. “Get my license plate number. Please. I’m in danger. I need your help.”

She pressed the Pepsi button, and a can dropped into the retrieve slot. She bent pick it up and put it into her coat pocket. Next quarter; clink.

“Don’t do anything now. Just get the license number.
 
Call the state police. Help me, please.”