AFTER MY DAD, smoking is Mom’s second true love. Dad died eleven years ago, so Kools are all she has left. She practices her skills every night, blowing rings or letting smoke trickle out her nostrils so slowly it hurts to watch. Sometimes I think she smokes so she won’t have to talk to us. Can’t really blame her when Aunt Libby is around, which is always, because her trailer sits on the edge of our property.
“You’re out of milk here, Sarah.” Libby sticks her head into our Frigidaire so that her rear end blocks my way, like she didn’t know I needed to get by. I have to climb over a chair to get back out to the porch. “This orange juice is expired. You know that?” She holds up the carton and sloshes it around to get Mom’s attention. “You’re gonna need bread. I’ll make French bread, how about that?” She searches the cupboard and sighs, flopping her arms down. “You’re out of flour.”
Mags and I trade looks and go back to our game of Hearts with Nell. We play cards on the porch all the time, betting change while Mom sits in a wicker chair with her feet propped on the railing, puffing and staring down to where Old County Road connects with 15. Tonight, us girls all have wet hair from showering, and moan and groan about our aching muscles whenever we shift around on the big faded area rug. Still, it’s worth it: by the end of harvest, I should have enough money saved for new school clothes and one of those clunkers down to Gary’s Salvage, which is where Mags bought her car last fall. You won’t catch me tossing coins for shotgun again.
Nell is eating pretzels. She considers each one before she puts it in her mouth, like she’s expecting to come across one shaped like Abe Lincoln or the Blessed Virgin. “I liked the movie on Saturday, but it wasn’t my favorite.” She’s been saying that since we got back from the Sasanoa Drive-In last weekend. The first movie of the double feature is always a Hollywood classic, and Nell lives for it.
Mags rolls her eyes behind her dark-framed glasses. “Go on, tell us what you thought of the kiss.” She picks up the first trick and leads with spades.
“Wellll”—Nell flops back on her elbows and walks her toes up the railing—“the boy was attractive. . . .” That’s her new thing: guys aren’t hot, they’re attractive. Marlon Brando’s all I remember from the movie, too, because I was half-gone on rum and Cherry Coke that my friend Kat brought in a thermos. “And he kissed like he meant it”—she makes a big smooching sound, and Mags and I crack up—“but he was too rough with that girl. Kisses are supposed to be soft. That’s how every kiss should be.”
Mom speaks in her low smoker’s voice, holding her cigarette out to smolder in the muggy air. “And who’re you planning on kissing?” When you look at Mom, you can see what Mags and I will look like in twenty years or so: sandy blond hair, wide-spaced blue eyes that tilt up at the corners like a cat’s, short nose, pointed chin.
My gaze slides to Nell, but she doesn’t miss a beat. “None of those blueberry rakers, that’s for sure. They’re not gentlemanly.” We crack up again. “Well, they’re not.”
“What’re you talking about, Nellie Rose?” Libby leans in the doorway. She thinks Nell gets this stuff from The Young and the Restless. “You better watch yourself.”
“How can I watch myself? I don’t have eyes in the back of my head.” Nell laughs and laughs like it’s the best joke ever, which gets Mags and me going again.
Libby puts her hands in the pockets of her denim jumper. That’s how she dresses, like a Pentecostal, even though we’re all lapsed Catholics: long hems and long braids and granny specs perched on the end of her nose. “Somebody mind telling me how I’m supposed to fix a celebration supper if I got nothing to work with?” She gives us a sly look as we turn to stare at her.
Mom grinds out her cigarette in a coffee cup. “You finally going to tell them?”
“What? Who?” Nell sits up. “Me?”
“You made it, baby.” Libby smiles. “Got the call today. You’re gonna be a Princess.”
Nell shoots up off the floor, shrieking and hugging her mom, jumping around to bring the porch down, which wouldn’t take much. I scoop up the cards and shuffle, since you can’t play Hearts with two people and Nell’s going to be over the moon for the rest of the night. She’s only wanted to be a Bay Festival Princess since forever, and here’s one thing I haven’t told you yet about Nell: she’s beautiful. Not beautiful like a Victoria’s Secret model, but pure, untouched gorgeous, the kind that scares most guys away. Skin like china, wavy Black Irish hair she got from her dad (wherever he is), dark blue eyes all starry and full of little-kid innocence.
Mom clears her throat. “That ain’t all the news, Lib.” Libby hugs Nell to her and lifts her chin stubbornly, saying nothing. Mom looks at me, and I stop in mid-cut. “Lady from the Festival Committee left you a message, too, Darce. You were nominated.”
Mags’s mouth drops open, and then she falls over laughing. I stare at Mom, waiting for her to crack up, but when I see how sour Libby looks, I know it’s no joke. I burst out, “By who?”
Mom shrugs. “You know that’s kept secret. Guess you got a fan.” And that’s all I’ll get out of her tonight.
Nell screams again and pulls me into a hug that makes my spine pop, jerking me up and down. Meanwhile, my darling sister gasps and takes her glasses off to wipe her eyes. “Oh my God . . . wow . . .”
For supper, we eat spaghetti and a pound cake Mom’s been hiding in the freezer behind last summer’s zucchini. I stab my fork into my plate harder than I need to, refusing to look at anyone, waiting for the world to come back into focus. Every time Nell shakes my arm and says, “Isn’t it awesome? We get to do it together!” Libby adds something like, “Lots of girls make the first round, you know,” or “Winning Queen is about more than just looks,” until I spill my iced tea accidentally-on-purpose to give her something else to bitch about.
I look at Mom as Libby fusses with paper towels. “Can I go?”
Mom waves her hand. I go upstairs, touching the framed picture of Dad hanging on the wall above the newel post; there could be bombs dropping on the house and I’d still remember to do that every night. In the picture, I’m two years old and Mags is three and a half. He’s holding us in each arm like we weigh nothing, a grin on his face, leaning back against whatever hot rod he was tinkering with at the time.
The night air is thick, still waiting for the rain that’s been promised since this afternoon. Mags, Nell, and I sit where the roof flattens outside Mags’s bedroom window. We have to be careful because the shingles are crumbling, like the rest of the house. If we knock chunks down onto the porch, we could wake up Mom. Nobody knows we come out here at night, and we like it that way.
“You know what got you the vote.” Mags grins at me. “Those Daisy Dukes of yours. They scream Sasanoa’s Finest.” She leans back against her window. “I can see you up onstage now. Tiara, sash, and a bottle of Colt 45.”
I tug at my cutoffs. “They’re not Daisy Dukes. If the hem’s longer than the pockets, they’re not Daisy Dukes.”
“That’s the rule, huh?”
I want to whomp the hell out of her, but ever since we were kids, we’ve tried to go easy on each other when Nell’s around; she hates fighting. Nell holds her second piece of pound cake in a napkin and picks at it, watching me close. “Are you mad about the pageant?” The way she sounds, you’d think I wanted to cancel Christmas.
How can I explain to her that this is somebody’s screwed-up idea of a joke? Darcy Prentiss, White Trash Princess. Whoever they are, they must be laughing their asses off. I just don’t know who’d go to all this trouble. I’ve heard Libby say plenty of times that to make it onto the ballot, it takes one nomination from somebody in the community and then a Festival Committee member to second it. She nominated Nell herself. Doesn’t matter; no way am I making a fool of myself up on that stage come August 19.
“She’s just trying to decide what color corsage to wear, that’s all,” Mags says, patting Nell’s knee.
“Oh, Darcy, you can’t know that until you find your dress.”
I start to say something I’ll regret, but then the rain comes down, taking our breath away. Nell scrambles for the edge of the roof, feeling for the living room window casing with her toes before using it as a step to drop into the flower bed. If Libby ever did any weeding—she grows the flowers, Mom grows the veggies—she’d find bare footprints sunk deep into the soil. Waving to us, Nell runs for the trailer, taking bites of cake as she goes.
“One of these days she’s going to Pollyanna herself right off this roof,” Mags says, once we’ve crawled back inside her dim bedroom.
“And land on her feet.” I wipe rain off my face. “Nell’s got luck like most people got zits.” I catch Mags studying me and stop. “What?”
“I didn’t forget about Shea.” She sits on her bed. “What happened between you two?”
I turn away, touching the ballerina jewelry box that she’s had as long as I can remember. The porcelain dancer’s arm is so thin I could snap it between my fingers. “Nothing special.”
“Was it him, on the Fourth? Was that why you were acting so weird that night?” She waits. “Really, Darcy? Shea Gaines?”
At once I’m so tired I can barely stand it. I point to the open window. “Rain’s getting in,” and leave her sitting there in the dark.