A Place Called Wiregrass (25 page)

She was standing with Laurel and three other girls behind the chain-link fence in the back corner of the pool.
Probably talking about how her no-count daddy can get them all a supply of pot
. I pounded the black asphalt parking lot with my lace-up work shoes.

Laurel was the first to spot me. Her mouth dropped, and she tapped Cher on the arm. When Cher looked at me and rolled her eyes, I wanted to run up to the fence, stick my fingers through the metal gaps, and yank a handful of her brown hair. She put her hand on her hip and said something to the girls. Waiting for her to walk through the side gate, I folded my arms and tapped my finger.

She moaned like I was an inconvenience to her sun-filled day. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to park by the baseball field.”

“Get your stuff and get in the car.”

“Uh, I still got another hour…” Cher lifted her hands up in the air.

“I said now.”

She looked over her shoulder at Laurel and the others standing behind her. Casually she walked over to the gate, and Laurel handed her the plastic shopping bag containing a sunflower sundress and towel. She draped the towel over her shoulders and placed the black sunglasses, another car-wash revenue, on her face.

“What’s up with you?” she asked in a whiny tone.

With her lagging behind me, I stomped towards the car.

“Just get in the car.”

She never made it past the hood. “I don’t feel comfortable with this, you know. You come down here and embarrass me. And won’t even tell me what this is about.”

The car door squeaked when I opened it. I stood behind the door glaring at her. “Get your butt in this car, young lady. And I mean
now
.”

“No. Not until you tell me what your problem is.” She tilted her head back towards the baking sun.

I slammed the car door and bolted towards her so fast, she took a step backwards. “Let me just show you what my problem is.” I pulled the joint out of my jeans pocket and held it in front of her peeling nose. Before she could reach up and take the offering, I closed my hand and hid it back in my pocket.

She stared at me with her mouth open. “I just…we just found it.”

“You just found it, huh? Try another one on me.”

“Laurel’s boyfriend…”

“Can’t you even take responsibility? I told you. But, no ma’am, you wouldn’t listen to dumb ol’ me.” I raised my hands in the air and turned my back to her. “I told you he
was trouble. And now he’s got you all strung out on drugs, just like your sorry mama.”

Cher opened her arms like a defensive tackle ready to launch. Her mouth was gaping open. “How did you…”

“Don’t stand there acting like you pulled one over on me neither.” I turned to face her, so mad her image made me feel heat behind my eyes. “You don’t think I’ve seen you with him. Those nights riding around town smoking God knows what in that white van.”

“This has nothing to do with my daddy. Laurel’s boyfriend gave it…And why do you care if I see my daddy?”

“Because he’s trouble, girl.” I put my hands on my hips and leaned down towards her face. “He ain’t nothing but a cokehead and never will be nothing more.”

“You’re not telling anything, you know. He already told me about all that. He’s changed now.”

“Huh. He’ll change the day his toes turn up and the undertaker puts him in the ground.”

She grimaced at me and squeezed her hands into two fists. “Oh, you make me so mad,” she screamed and stomped her foot. “He said you’d do this. He said you’d come between us. Just like you’re doing.”

My scrunched up eyes reflected back at me in her fancy sunglasses. “I saw what he did to your mama. The man’s poison, Cher.”

She leaned towards me and screamed, “You’re nothing but a sorry liar.”

The cracking sound from my hand meeting her face echoed down the parking lot and towards her friends. For an instant there was no splashing water or laughter from the pool area. Just an uneasy stillness that made me hope the situation was a nightmare and that I’d soon awake to hit the snooze button.

Her prized sunglasses, first scouted out in
Seventeen
magazine, landed on the pavement. She looked up at me, and the red indentation on her cheek outlined the spot where my long fingers had settled.

Before I could open my mouth, she ran in between parked cars and towards the dense trees behind the swimming pool. Her white plastic bag rattled in the wind, and with each stride plastic flip-flops slapped at her feet.

“Get back here,” I yelled over the splash and squeals of innocent kids. Normal kids enjoying their carefree summer day. Once she had disappeared beyond the shrubs and trees, I picked up the designer sunglasses and noticed a crack on the front of one lens.

A
fter searching the woods behind the pool, I walked over to Laurel and the girls Cher had been talking with.

“You seen Cher?” I asked Laurel.

Laurel bit her paint-chipped fingernail, shook her head, and looked at the other girls. They stared back at me with the same blank look Cher had given me after I slapped her. “Laurel, stay here. I’ll be back in a minute,” I said and walked to my car.

I drove around the side road of the swimming pool, looking deep within the pine trees and oaks that filled the woods. The area was as long as a city block. A convenience store sat at the end of the street. I asked a young woman pumping gas if she had seen a fourteen-year-old in a green bathing suit. “I sure haven’t,” she said with her hand planted on the car trunk as if there was not a worry in the world.

If LaRue had not been in town, I wouldn’t have gripped the steering wheel as tightly as I did. His high-cheek-boned face was the first thing that popped into my mind. I just hoped Cher had not thought of him too.

“You mean that good-looking feller that drove the van with the ladder on top?” the Garland Motel clerk said. “He’s done checked out.”

“Do you remember what time?”

“Baby, I reckon it was about two hours ago,” she said, adjusting the big square glasses on her nose. “Why? He ain’t in no trouble I hope.”

“I hope not either,” I said and heard the silver bell at the top of the office door ring when I left.

Riding around the streets of Wiregrass, searching for my biggest asset, I felt trapped. Roped in my own frustration and torment, I drove down Elm Drive and passed Miss Claudia’s big brick home twice before convincing myself to stop.

Walking up the side porch to the kitchen, I could see Miss Claudia through the tall windows. She was at the stove heating up the pot of field peas I had cooked for lunch. Richard sat at the table reading the newspaper. They looked content and safe. Just when I turned to leave, Miss Claudia saw me on her porch and held up her hand.

“Erma Lee, what in the world,” Miss Claudia said at the screened kitchen door.

“Cher and me got in a fight. I thought she might be here.” Not wanting her to see my hands tremble, I tucked them in the back pockets of my jeans.

Miss Claudia wiped her hands on a dish towel with little red cherries. “I’ll be watching for her,” Miss Claudia said and patted my arm. “It’s difficult at her age, don’t you know.”

I halfway smiled and turned to go.

“Let me hear as soon as you find her,” Miss Claudia said. Even though it was hours before dusk, she turned the porch light on when I turned to go.

At five I returned to the swimming pool to pick up Laurel and hopefully Cher. “She hasn’t come back?” Laurel shook her head no to that question and every one I asked about Cher on the drive back to the trailer. Had Cher said anything out of the ordinary? Did she mention anything today about her real daddy? Was there a place she knew of where Cher might be? Laurel would simply stare straight ahead and sniff her nose.

“You remember how it was when we was girls,” Kasi said, standing at her trailer door. Laurel slipped under Kasi’s arm and disappeared. “I bet before you get supper fixed, she’s at your door acting like nothing’s the matter.”

Kasi took a drag of her cigarette and blew smoke over my head. I postponed telling her about the joint I found under Cher’s bed and how Laurel’s name was tossed into the conspiracy. For all I knew, maybe it was Laurel’s marijuana cigarette. Maybe LaRue had nothing to do with it at all. Maybe Cher was right and he had changed.

“That boy ain’t nothing but the worst kind of trash,” I remembered Mama saying the first time she met LaRue. It was the part of her I was glad I inherited, the commonsense part. And the common sense I had always respected would not play a game of make-believe on Kasi’s wrought-iron trailer steps.

Before the toilet had flushed the joint down to the septic tank, Gerald was knocking at my door. He was expecting chicken-fried steak, and all he would find would be my brain dipped in a batter of worry and fried in a grease of regret.

I dished him the highlights of Cher running through the woods and never mentioned LaRue. “A misunderstanding,” I explained to Gerald. He would think trouble was my middle name if I told him all the details. And besides, the motel clerk said LaRue had already checked out. Probably already in Montgomery, riding the streets searching for drugs or a fresh widow he could con into a paint job. At least that’s what I walked around the trailer silently praying.

“You checked down at the skating rink?” Gerald asked with his brow wrinkled.

I stood in the kitchen with my arms folded, shaking my head no. As much as I wanted to look at him, my eyes froze on the torn piece of gold linoleum around the edge of the pantry. The strip had long been ripped away from its base and flapped carelessly towards the pantry door.

“Let’s ride up there. Maybe she decided to mess around with some of her friends.” Gerald fingered the metal clump of keys on his belt loop.

The jingle from the keys sounded like the first note of a telephone ring, and I looked up at him. “Uh, no, you go on. I better stay here. You know, in case she calls,” I said and glanced over at the phone.

My arms were still folded against my chest when he engulfed me in a hug. I could smell exhaust fumes on his plaid shirt. I wanted to release my arms and wrap them around the thick back and lovingly squeeze him. I wanted to tell him that I was glad he was here and that I needed him more than ever. But I stood still and held my breath under the weight of his gentle touch. Just when I thought my lungs might explode from the lack of oxygen, he let go.

“I’ll be back directly,” he said, jingling his keys once more before closing the trailer door.

The sun descended beyond the tops of the pine trees. I watched from my kitchen window and prayed for a sign that Cher was safe. The silence of the room weighed heavy on my heart.

My faithful bed, which had been my altar a few weeks back, became my resting place once again. I knelt down and placed my elbows on the frayed white blanket. “Lord, you know this situation. You know where Cher is at this very minute. Please bring her back to me. I just can’t stand this,” I cried out in a loud voice. I opened my eyes and looked up at the brown stain on my ceiling. I pictured my words reaching the top of the thin ceiling and bouncing back down on me.

The slamming car doors outside made me trip over my feet. I practiced what I would say to Cher, nothing heavy but enough to let her know she created a stir:
Girl, do you know how worried sick I’ve been? I’d just die if something happened to you.

But peeking from my bedroom miniblinds, I saw only Miss
Claudia and Richard slowly making their way towards my door against an orange light from the setting sun.

“I didn’t want to tie up the phone line in case she called,” Miss Claudia said as I helped pull her up the last step to my trailer. “I beg apologies for just showing up, but I’ve been worried to death.”

“Just all to pieces,” Richard said in a loud whisper. A line I’m sure he had memorized from the numerous times it had been delivered about his own mental state.

Updating them on Gerald’s search, I was too upset to be uncomfortable about them seeing my humble home for the first time. My home that would fit inside the space of Miss Claudia’s formal living room.

“What about that other little girl she’s friends with?” Miss Claudia asked. She tucked the coffee-stained pillow between her back and the couch.

“You mean Laurel? I’ve asked her. She just sat there like an idiot staring out the car window.”

“If Gerald comes up empty-handed, we should call the authorities,” Richard said. The authoritative tone was a hint of the lawyer Miss Claudia said he once was.

I twirled the ends of my ponytail and felt my eyes grow wider. The very idea of having the law involved would make it a real emergency. It was not that way at all.
Cher will call from McDonald’s,
I kept telling myself.
Probably when she goes to buy something to eat and realizes all her car-wash money is still in the red coffee can on her bedroom dresser
.

“Well, let’s not call the road patrol just yet,” Miss Claudia said, staring at my frozen expression. “I imagine Gerald’ll find her down at that roller rink.”

I twirled my hair into a knot and fought off the evil images that flashed through my mind.
She’s not in a muddy ditch dead somewhere, she’s just skating in circles—thinking things through
. I closed my eyes and repeated the assuring words.

When Gerald opened the door, I saw the darkness of the night and heard the crickets chirping outside. He looked down at the grease-spotted cap he held in his hand. “They ain’t seen her.”

I wasn’t sure if the ringing in my ears was from the blood rush that his words produced or from the crickets outside the tin walls. “Call the law,” I mumbled.

When I opened the door, the old man next door was standing at his kitchen window with the blinds yanked wide open. The sight of two patrol cars at Westgate created a minicrisis. Kasi was standing on her steps with the door wide open. A peaceful glow radiated from her TV.

I was thankful the officers had not pulled up with their sirens blowing and blue lights spinning. If Miss Trellis was in the office watching one of her home-shopping channels, she would’ve surely seen the officers drive in her trailer park and would appear at my doorstep any minute.

Idle chitchat and clips of static from the officers’ walkie-talkies drifted around my living room. The photo they had requested stuck to the plastic protective cover, and I noticed my hand shaking when I tried to pry the celluloid away from my wallet.

“Y’all do a fine job. Just fine,” Richard said. “I have one of those new trunk police scanners so I know everything that’s taking…”

The door knock made Richard shut up and the rest of us flinch. Gerald moved to open the door, and I pulled hard, freeing Cher’s face from the plastic photo cover. Just as I was handing Cher’s photo to the black officer, Kasi entered with her hands on Laurel’s shoulder.

Laurel looked down at the floor, and Kasi glanced nervously around the room. “Hey,” she whispered. “Laurel
knows maybe what happened. She got all scared when the cops came.” Kasi smacked her chewing gum and played with the tag inside Laurel’s orange T-shirt.

The static grew louder, and the officer adjusted a knob on the walkie-talkie attached to his hip.

“Well, go on,” Kasi said with a slight push of her hand.

“Umm. Well, you know Cher wants to see her daddy and all,” Laurel said. Her hands and words flew in circles. “And since you didn’t want her to and everything, she planned to anyway.”

I held my breath, dreading what her next words would be. I felt the heartbeat of fear make a path up my neck.

“Tell them what she said this morning,” Kasi said, pushing Laurel’s shoulder again.

“Well, okay. Okay,” Laurel said, closing her eyes as if now she wanted to remember all the details. “She was gonna meet her daddy again today. You know, leave the pool and see him and stuff. Then come back in time for you to pick us up. Okay.” Laurel cut her blue eyes up at me and quickly looked back at the floor.

“Meet him where? I looked everywhere,” I said, fighting the urge to knock a knot on her blonde head.

“Down at the store,” Laurel whispered.

I thought of the convenience store that sat on the edge of the woods behind the pool. My version of events played out in my mind like a horror movie. In the time I spent walking around those woods calling for Cher like she was a lost dog, she made it to the store and rode off in a white van with a lost tag.

“Who’s the father?” the deputy asked.

“LaRue LaRouche. I got custody of her.”

“Man,” the other officer said. His exhaustive tone said it all. A lost cause. A waste of his time to hunt down a man who fathered the girl.

“He’s been in prison.” My voice was beginning to shake with fright. “For drugs and child abandonment. He’s just, dangerous. Plain dangerous,” I said loudly.

“Oh, God,” Kasi said. She hit Laurel on the back of the head. “How come you didn’t say nothing before now?”

Laurel rubbed her head and sank her shoulders lower. “Cher made me swear not to.”

The flurry of details swarmed around me. Where was the last address for LaRue? How did Cher get in contact with him? Where was the last known phone number for LaRue? I provided as much information as I could to the officers. My mind was in a million places, thinking where Cher might be and what trouble she was already in with that no-good driving her.

“I should’ve forced her to stop calling him,” I said, handing the latest phone bill to the officer.

“You can’t worry about that now,” Miss Claudia said. “Just dismiss it from your mind.”

While I jockeyed questions from the two officers in the living room, Miss Claudia, Richard, and Gerald congregated at my dinette table. I could hear their muffled whispers and the creaking chairs when they leaned forward in conference. Miss Claudia asked Gerald if he knew LaRue had been in town. Gerald reminded her how private I was. I wanted to get up from the sofa and storm the twenty steps to the dinette table and tell them I didn’t appreciate being talked about in my own home. But I remained on my rented sofa and offered “I don’t know” to more questions from the officers.

The plastic clock on top of the TV read eight thirty-nine when the officers left. They assured us an All Points Bulletin would be released from Wiregrass to Shreveport. Soon Miss
Claudia, Richard, and Gerald would leave too, and the emptiness of the trailer would wrap around me and try to suffocate me with despair. Looking into Miss Claudia’s sunken hazel eyes, I cussed myself for being selfish.

I lightly touched Miss Claudia’s cream silk blouse. “You ought to go get some rest.”

“You don’t mind me,” she said and tapped her cane on the floor. “Gerald has a good idea.”

“I hate it. But I know how the cops are. Even if they send that notice out, other towns will sit on it less somebody’s there to push them.” He pushed up the brim of his cap. “You reckon we need to head on to Shreveport?”