Merritt sat with his shoulders hunched, head down. I didn’t need to see his face to know his opinion. Shut up, Jessie.
“I make hundreds of dollars a night doing this”—and Daddy waved the ten dollars—“while I only make forty dollars a week being a mechanic. It don’t take much ciphering to know what’s what. I pay bills on time, and have had that job for twenty years.”
He was right. Unlike Uncle Virgil, Daddy handled finances carefully. We had electricity that didn’t get shut off, that TV he was still so proud of, and a bathroom with running water, sink, tub, and a toilet. While our house was old and dilapidated on the outside, and needed a paint job, that was for appearances only. He had money to do anything, but he let it set ramshackle and run-down on purpose. While everything was nice inside, he made sure we came off as dirt poor to anyone coming up the drive, meaning if there was a raid, we sure didn’t look the part of successful bootleggers. Junk was piled up in the yard. Tires, parts to tractors long gone, an old lawn mower, the rusty fender off of one of them running cars, other odds and ends.
He drove a beat-up Ford truck about town and it was what he let me and Merritt drive too. He didn’t care if it got accidentally backed into a tree, which Merritt had done a few times when he was about eight and could barely see over the back seat. Sally Sue was a whole other matter. That was a hulking tank of a car and in good shape. It was so fast, he was a blur going down the back roads of Wilkes County. He kept her out of sight behind the house in an old shed.
“Can’t you ask for a raise?”
He gave a short laugh. “That forty bucks is with the raise I got earlier this year. It ain’t nothing to be ashamed of, Jessie, what we do. Our family’s been doing it a long time.”
“If there’s nothing wrong with it, why’re we always sneaking around?”
I glared at him, and it was like one of them old Westerns, locked in a standoff, one or the other about to pull the trigger. He was about sick of me and my constant rub, like a pair of shoes that didn’t fit. He stuffed the bill back in his pocket and walked back outside. A few minutes later his truck went down the drive, on his way to the job in Wilkesboro, and we had to get to school.
I said, “Maybe I’ll just quit eating then.”
Merritt got up, a disgusted look pulling his face down. “You ain’t never gonna stop.”
He went to get his books while I started thinking about me sitting at the table with my empty plate in protest. Food I would have surely cooked passed right under my nose. Mashed potatoes the way I liked, creamy with little pools of warm butter. Fried chicken on a platter, crispy and hot, and beside it, another bowl filled with rich, brown gravy. Fresh corn. Tomatoes. Warm biscuits and pear preserves. My stomach growled. There happened to be a chocolate pie sitting on the lower shelf in the refrigerator. I opened the door and bent down to swipe my finger through the whipped cream.
From behind me came, “I told you so.”
Embarrassed, I straightened up and said, “It ought not to matter to you what I do or don’t do.”
“It don’t.”
Merritt went outside, and I stared at the pie a second longer before I shut the refrigerator door. I picked up my books and followed him. He was already at the end of the drive, and when I approached, he kept his back to me like I wasn’t there. It was April, and still cool with the sun not giving much warmth, but suddenly, I was hot. I ain’t embarrassed, I told myself, while knowing very well my own brother was ashamed of me because I was fat. The bus pulled up, and the doors swooshed open. He bounded up the steps and had a choice of sitting with Curt Miller, or Abel Massey, his best friends. I searched for Aubrey Whitaker, and when I saw her she slid over, patting the spot next to her. Relieved, I dropped into it, and didn’t speak.
She said, “What is it?”
She had large brown eyes like a fawn, silky black hair cut in a bob and always perfectly rolled in a pageboy. She was thin as a vine. Aubrey had been my friend since we were seven years old. They’d moved here from Charlotte, when her daddy accepted a position as the minister at the Shine Mountain Episcopalian church. As we’d grown older, I began to see how different it was in her family, how they led a respectable life, with her father steering his congregation to Jesus, and her mama, sweet and kind, if a little strange. I’d sometimes wished I was Aubrey for all them reasons, but mostly because she didn’t look like me. To her question, I shook my head.
She insisted, like I knew she would. “What?”
“Just the usual.”
“You want to talk about it?”
She reminded me of the school counselor sometimes.
“Not really.”
She huffed loudly and flipped her hand. When I got grumpy, she got impatient. We gazed out the window, neither of us speaking. While I usually told Aubrey everything, I’d never before talked about how I was unhappy with myself. I was afraid she’d get to thinking maybe I was right. That her time ought not be spent with the likes of me, and then she wouldn’t want to be my friend, and where would I be? Trying to find a seat on the bus, and eating my lunch at a table by myself, like scary Darlene Wilson with eyes black as night, who spent most of the time hissing and talking to herself and whose mama was said to be off her rocker.
The bus finished with stops and picked up speed as it went along Highway 18 toward Piney Tops High School. Other girls seated toward the front laughed without a care. There they sat with their brilliant white bobby socks rolled down to show slim strips of legs tanned from helping with family crops and gardens. Their crisp ironed skirts and dresses made them look cool, and clean. They laughed and twirled gleaming pieces of curled hair, as carefree as leaves on the wind. I couldn’t imagine any one of them doing filthy work like stirring sour mash.
My mood darkened.
Aubrey pointed at Cora McCaskill and said, “Gosh, she’s got on enough makeup today.”
Cora had turned around in her seat to talk to the girl behind her, and from where we sat, it was easy to see the blue eye shadow clear up to her eyebrows. She was very popular, and could get away with it. She wore new penny loafers, the copper coins glinting like she’d spent a few hours polishing them. Her daddy was one of the richest people in North Wilkesboro. He owned a car dealership and his commercials played on the TV all the time.
Aubrey stared at her intently. “Whore of Babylon.”
She would think that. She wished she could wear makeup, but her strict religious daddy wouldn’t allow it, and she resented anyone who could.
She repeated herself, and when I didn’t respond she said, “I bet I know why she’s popular.”
I still didn’t reply and we rode for a while with me watching Aubrey watch Cora.
I finally said, “I might go on a diet.”
Her attention shifted back to me. “Huh? Why?”
Exasperated, I said, “Ain’t it obvious?”
She leaned toward me, and in a hushed voice like she didn’t want anyone to hear she said, “Daddy doesn’t eat for days at a time on occasion, usually when he’s seeking knowledge and enlightenment.”
“Enlightenment.”
“Yeah, you know, insight to a problem. It’s called fasting.”
Aubrey and her family were different, mainly because her mama came from California and was a bit of a nut ball in my opinion. She practiced something called yoga. I didn’t know a soul who’d ever thought of twisting themselves into such a tangle, but her mama did and I’d watched her a time or two. Said she was exercising. She ate peculiar stuff too. I’d once seen her crack open a couple eggs and swallow them raw. As soon as I’d said it, I began to rethink my declaration. Aubrey’s enthusiasm would only lock me into something I’d blurted out to get her attention.