Made in the U.S.A. (33 page)

“Back to Vegas?” Fate’s voice was beginning to flatten out.

“Yeah.”

Her response brought him to a stop in the road.

“Lutie, I don’t want to go back there.”

“Listen, Fate, we’ll do it differently this time.”

“No. I won’t go back.”

Lutie was far more stunned by the firmness she heard in his voice than she had been during the abbreviated tiger attack minutes earlier. Still, she thought she could persuade him.

“I’ve been writing down some ideas, making a list of ways to make it easier on us this go-round.”

“I don’t care about your list.”

“I think—”

“Lutie, you don’t seem to be able to see what we have here. Something we’ve never had before. A family!”

“What?! We had a family,” she said defensively.

“Not really. Oh, you did, but only until you were six. When Mom died. I never did because I can’t even remember her. Here’s what I do remember: you and me and Daddy living with any woman who’d put up with a drunk and two kids. But they didn’t make us a family.”

“You had me.”

“And you had me. But we needed more. A family who went on picnics, argued over who was next in the bathroom, hugged, told lies, laughed. Even if we’d just had a dad who—”

“You
had
a dad!”

“Did I, Lutie? Did you? Did he ever come to see you in a tournament? I was there. Where was he? Did he ever come to school for parents’ night or to see one of us in a Christmas play?

“He never took me fishing; we never played catch, not that I would’ve been any good at it. He took me to a hockey game once, but he got drunk, got in a fight, and we were thrown out.

“He didn’t have a clue about our birthdays. We always had to tell him, hoping for some special gift, something other than a last minute stop at the IGA for a box of Cracker Jack, or a key ring. I was a seven-year-old who didn’t own a key. One year, I think I was nine, he gave me a Gideon Bible from a Days Inn where he’d passed out the night before.”

“The way you tell it, he was
always
drunk.”

“Come to think of it, sis, I can’t recall that you ever had any friends stay over except for that girl who’d been in juvenile detention for trying to steal her stepmother’s car.”

“You’re making this sound as bad as you can, aren’t you?”

“Can you make it sound any better?”

Lutie wheeled and stomped away. Before she reached the cattle guard at the entrance to the winter quarters, Fate caught her, grabbed her elbow, and turned her toward him.

“But here, Lutie,” he said, making a sweeping gesture to include not only the circus grounds, but the whole town, “I feel like I’m part of a family. And get this: They care about me. And they care about you even if you have acted like an asshole.”

Lutie’s eyes flared with anger. “Fate, you talk like you’re living in some fairy-tale world where everyone is just so
nice
.” She pulled at the word
nice
, twisting it with her lips and tongue, trying to make it seem ridiculous.

“Hey, I like that. Fairy-tale world. It is, you know, ’cause I don’t just have a family, I have a friend, too. A real friend. A
best
friend. He can throw better than me, but I can run faster than him. We both have the same favorite color—purple, because Donatello was the Ninja Turtle we both liked best. Johnny’s someone I can talk to about anything. He keeps my secrets, I keep his.”

Her face showing her impatience, Lutie said, “Are you finished? Or do you plan to go on with this bullshit until I fall down at your feet crying, asking your forgiveness for not seeing things the way you do?”

“Yeah.” Fate ran his hand through his hair. “I guess I’ve said all I have to say.”

“Finally! Now, I’ve listened to your story. You listen to mine.

“Forget what happened in Vegas before and think about how different it’ll be this time. We won’t have a car, for one thing, so we won’t have to worry about the cops picking us up or some thugs coming after us ’cause we’ll be living in a nice place. Not like the Gold Digger.

“See, I’ll check the newspaper every day, and those free apartment guides, too, and I’ll answer the ads where someone is looking for roommates to share a house. Or an apartment. Whatever. Then we—”

“What a great idea. Unless we end up with a pervert child molester. Or a serial killer. Or maybe that nutcase you picked up in Wyoming. The hitchhiker who intended to choke you to death and wanted me to—”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic.”

“When we move in with this cannibal or slasher or ax murderer, what do we do for money? Or is he going to let us live there free if we like being sodomized and having our flesh burned?”

“I’m going to ignore that.”

“Thought you would.”

“We tell
her
, our nineteen-year-old roommate who is a college freshman from Vermont, that if she’ll pay the first three months’ rent, then we’ll pay the next three. That’ll give us ninety days to put the money together. You can go to school, work in the afternoons and on weekends. I’ll work full-time. Believe me, Fate, this can happen. I just know it.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because I learned a lot about how to survive when we were there.”

“But you didn’t learn the most important lesson.”

“Which is?”

“We can’t take care of ourselves without help.”

Lutie’s demeanor changed with the anger that seemed to burn from inside her. “I could have taken care of me,” she said, her words clipped with indignation.

“Oh, here we go again with that ‘You should have stayed in Spearfish’ speech.”

“Well, there’s the question. Why didn’t you?”

“I wanted us to stay together. Still do. Why? Because I love you.”

“Here’s some news. I don’t know how I feel about you right now.”

She’d hurt him then, she could tell by the look on his face, the look of a whipped dog. Of course, she’d wanted to injure him, but she hadn’t intended the wound to cut so deep. She turned and started toward the house.

“Lutie, what’s pushing you to leave here, to go back to Vegas? What was so wonderful there?”

“I told you before, Fate. I’m not going to settle for what most girls do—marriage to some jerk and a bunch of squalling kids. That’s not what I want. I want to be the girl people notice, the girl people talk about.”

“Yeah, you want to be popular. No, famous.” Fate grinned, but something in his smile suggested it was coming from a darker place. “I remember how you used to pose in front of Floy’s long mirror. Said you were going to be a model. But from what I can tell, you started at the bottom.”

She stopped, caught her breath as her skin paled. “What are you talking about?” she asked.

“This.” Fate pulled the porn page from his pocket, the page he’d torn from Johnny’s sex magazine with Lutie’s naked photo. He unfolded the paper and held it up for her to see. “And how about your movie debut? The movie you made in Vegas. Let’s see, what was the name of that film? Wasn’t it
Charlotte the Harlot
? Not a very imaginative title, but it rhymes.”

Neither she nor Fate moved as minutes ticked by, not even when an old pickup honked as it passed them. With their gaze fixed on each other, they waited to see who would strike next.

Finally, Lutie crumpled. “How did you know?”

“I found your script in the glove compartment of Floy’s car. Did you do all those things, Lutie?” He was into it now, zeroing in on her humiliation. “Did you really let a man—”

“Don’t.” She closed her eyes, stepped back, and crossed her arms over her chest. Defense.

Breaking a sweat now, even though the day was cool, Lutie felt a weakness in her legs that made her think they might not hold her up. She staggered once as she turned, then walked away from Fate without looking back.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

W
HEN SHE GOT
back to Mama Sim’s house, Lutie was surprised to find it quiet, even in the kitchen, where the family always seemed to gather. Nevertheless, she hurriedly checked all the rooms to make sure she was alone. For what she was about to do, she didn’t want anyone trying to talk her into changing her mind.

She made a quick trip to the shed behind the house, where she found a ratty-looking suitcase covered with dust, cobwebs, and a sticker that said, “
Omnibus de Mexico
.” Not much, but a step up from the black plastic garbage sacks she’d traveled with from Spearfish.

After wiping down the suitcase, she carried it to her bedroom. Inside, she found an empty tube of toothpaste, two dead spiders, a man’s sock, and an old studio portrait, color tinted by hand, which resulted in faces that didn’t look quite real. The focus of the picture was an unsmiling but beautiful girl holding a baby with two children beside her. Lutie guessed the woman to be Juan’s mother, Gabriela, and the infant in her lap to be Juan.

When Lutie cleaned out the suitcase, she tossed the sock, toothpaste, and spiders in the trash but took the photograph to the kitchen and left it on the table.

The foul odor coming from inside the suitcase made Lutie suspect it hadn’t been opened since the time Juan ran away from Mexico and showed up at Mama Sim’s years ago. Hoping to overpower the smell, Lutie upended a container of talcum powder Essie had given her, then started packing. She wanted to get away before anyone discovered she was leaving.

When she’d left Floy’s, packing had been easy; she’d simply thrown all she owned into garbage bags. But this time was proving to be more complicated. Since she would be hitchhiking, she intended to travel with only the suitcase and her purse. That meant not only putting aside the clothes Essie and Mama Sim had given her, but leaving behind more than half of what she’d brought from Spearfish.

Finally, she decided she was taking too much time deliberating, so she threw in what the suitcase would hold; then at the last minute she put in a snapshot Dub had taken of Fate holding his first fish.

Finished, she sat cross-legged on the bed with a notebook and pen to write a short letter.

Fate,

By the time you read this, I will be gone. I didn’t know untill today that you knew about some of the things I did when we were in Vegas. I’m so ashamed of being in that movie most of all. But I feel even worse that you know. My only excuse is that I wanted you to go to that special school out there, Paradice. I probably could have made the money another way, but I didn’t know how.

We will probably never see each other again so I want you to know that I understand why you hate me. I’ve given you plenty of reasons to feel that way. But the worse thing I’ve ever done, you don’t even know about. I’ve never told anyone.

What you said about staying here with a nice family and haveing a best friend is a good plan. Staying with people who will take care of you and give you a good life is something I couldn’t do. I’m sorry.

Lutie

“Lutie?” Mama Sim called when she and Essie got back to the house. “Lutie, you here?”

Essie, carrying a sack of groceries, said, “Guess she’s gone for one of her walks.”

“Oh, it feels good to get out of those shoes,” Mama said.

“Your feet aren’t swelling again, are they?”

“No. And I don’t need another lecture about using too much salt. I hate that salt substitute. It tastes like a salt lick.”

“Now, how would you know about a salt lick?”

“You forget that I was raised on a farm before I ever saw a circus. Any kid spent time around cows has tasted a salt lick.”

“I’d better get some of this stuff in the fridge,” Essie said as she headed for the kitchen.

When the front door slammed, Morrell came busting into the living room. “Where’s Mom?” he asked.

“In the kitchen putting my groceries away.”

“Mom,” he yelled. “Did you remember to get some jelly beans?” As he disappeared down the hall to the kitchen, Mama settled on the couch with a pillow behind her back.

“Mama,” Essie called, “you’d better come here.”

“I’m awful comfortable right here where I am, Essie.”

“Okay, but there’s something here you ought to see.”

Mama Sim heard something in Essie’s voice that seemed a bit odd, so she pulled herself up and went to the kitchen.

“Now, what is it I should see?”

Essie held out the photograph of Gabriela and the children. “You have any idea where this came from?”

“Where’d you get it?”

“Someone left it there. On the table.”

Mama turned over the photo to find stamped on the back, badly faded and stained, this copyright:
Ciudad Madero Fotografía.

“My mom,” Essie said as she pointed to each person in the picture. “That’s Armondo, that’s me. The baby is Juan.”

“Do you suppose he put it here?”

“Could be.”

“I’m going to see if Lutie talked to him.”

Mama found Lutie’s door closed; she tapped, then opened the door a crack. “Lutie, you asleep?” When no sound came from inside, Mama pushed open the door and went in. The bed was made, but a folded stack of clothes lay near the headboard, causing a dark look to cross Mama’s face. She opened the drawers in the chest. Nothing. In the closet, she found empty hangers.
“Dios santo!”
she whispered.

She hurried to Fate’s room. The door was open, but clearly he wasn’t there. Just as she turned to leave, she saw the note on his bed. Her lips moved as she read it, her expression turning to one of anxiety. Bad news. Now and then she spoke, though she was unaware of the sound. “Paradise,” she said. Then, near the end, “I’m sorry.”

Unseen, Mama slipped on her shoes, grabbed her keys, and tiptoed outside. After she’d gone quietly down the porch steps, she hurried to her old GMC pickup, cranked it up, and was flying down the road toward town.

At the Good Old Days Antique Shop, Mama made a quick stop. Cash Abernathy, the owner, sat out front in a patched red leather recliner beneath an awning shading the building.

“Howdy, Mama,” Cash said.

“You see a girl pass by, sixteen, small, brown hair?”

“No, Mama, don’t believe I seen her.”

“Think hard, Cash. She’s wearing low-rise jeans that barely cover her hipbones and a red T-shirt that’s way too short, so she’s showing lots of skin. From here to here.” Mama used her hands to illustrate how low the jeans were, how short the tee. “And her belly button’s pierced. She’s got a silver ring through it.”