“Baby. You got to go and see.”
“Leave off.”
She’d spoken sharply and whatever was out there had heard, went quiet now. Karl sat up, holding a pillow in front of him like a shield, but went no further.
“There, it’s gone,” Tildy said.
But the hush squeezed and squeezed like a tourniquet. It was the sensation of veins backing up, of tendons approaching rupture that made Tildy dash out and yank on the door. There came, in sequence, her own instinctive yowl, a metallic crash, one short syllable jerked out of Karl. Her hand slapped the light switch.
By the stove in a long raincoat, pots still rolling at her naked feet, Flora was transfixed.
“Dammit it to hell!”
“I didn’t … Please. I needed a glass of water. An aspirin. I needed a glass of water for an aspirin. I was feeling my way.”
“There’s a hose outside.”
“How could I know? I’m sorry….”
“Here, have a glass.” Tildy opened the refrigerator. “Have a carton of milk. Go on.”
Flora looked grateful as a starving child, hugged the coat around herself and slunk away. Tildy watched from the front window. The domelight flashed on in the car and M.J. reared up in the sleeping bag, asking questions with her hands.
Tomorrow, Tildy promised herself. I’ll get rid of them tomorrow.
But by morning, stupor had come in with the cloud cover. Maybe it would rain, maybe it would not. Things would have to take care of themselves.
“Honey?” Flora gestured with a toasted half of hot dog bun.
“Try jam.”
“Where?”
“Cupboard.”
Tildy was busy with a load of what they called shrimper’s coffee in Ville Platte — coarse grounds boiled hard with salt, eggshells and a few drops of Tabasco. Karl slumped over the table, flirting with sleep. He did not look up when M.J. came in from calisthenics, coughing deeply.
“How about a beer?” she said.
“Go on then.” Flora cranked open the window, tapped with her bun on the screen. “What’s that little colored boy I see up the way?”
“They live here.” Tildy was filling the cups now, holding the grounds in the pot with a big spoon. “You’ve got the milk in the car,” she told Flora.
“Oh. Well.”
“I’ll sure have a fucking beer.” Karl swung the refrigerator door into M.J.’s back, said, “Chicken-n-n-shit,” when he didn’t find what he wanted, stomped outside and flopped on his stomach in the grass.
“He’s not usually so cranky,” Tildy said.
“Men are very insecure these days.” Flora looked at her coffee, black as swamp water, and tasted some on the end of her finger. “Mmm. Yeah, I’ll get that milk.”
Tildy lit a cigarette at the gas ring and singed her hair.
“You’re wrecking yourself with those things,” M.J. said after Flora left the room.
“Not me, just my lungs.”
Alone, the two of them, and it felt prickly. Their eyes went all over the room, finally stopped, and the way they looked at one another was a little much for this hour of the day. Neighborhood rivals behind the stadium.
“So I don’t get no beer, huh?”
“We can make a run later.”
M.J. hefted her left breast like a machine part. “You ought to cut yourself loose from that beat-up hound,” pointing outside with her chin. “He can’t do you no good.”
“Hidden qualities,” Tildy said, moving her finger through warm grounds. “Below the surface.”
“I’ll just bet.”
Flora came flapping in, milkless, with a hornet sting puffing up behind her wrist. She whimpered and swore, gyrated as M.J. attempted an exam.
“Watch it, watch it. That’s my good hand.”
“Don’t baby it up.”
Too much noise. Tildy opened the freezer. “Ice,” she said, and drifted out to the yard where Karl was pulling grass like it was hair on his head. She knelt beside him, put a calming hand on his back.
“Nice day for weeding,” she said.
“Mmm.” Painstakingly, he tied a long green strand around her ring finger, clipped off the dangling ends with his thumbnail. “Too tight?”
“No, perfect. You have good taste in jewelry.”
“I should open a store.” He frowned and let go of her hand. “So what’s all that moanin’ I heard in there?”
“Nature taking its course. Pay no mind.”
“Couple of sickos if you want my view, but go on back and babysit ’em if you want. Don’t worry ’bout me, I’ll just doze off in my hammock.”
“It’s not exactly what I want.”
“Then you shouldn’ta invited ’em in the first place.”
“I didn’t.”
“Shit.” Karl pawed the air. “I naturally figured … They just showed up like strays you mean?”
“Strays.” Tildy pondered that one. “Maybe not.”
“Point is, you didn’t ask ’em and that’s a different-colored horse. I don’t like their sniffin’ around. Not one bit.” He stood purposefully, mopped his face, made for the hammock. “What you should do is help ’em decide to clear off.”
“I already had that idea. But today, I don’t know, I can’t seem to wake up.”
Later on, though, Tildy roused herself to take the girls for a drive. She had mad notions of abandoning them out in the piney woods to starve away like a couple of unwanted puppies. Wheeling up the gravel road, past where mailboxes gave out, she saw their rag-wound apparitions ducking from tree to tree. A monotonous hissing in the air out here; earth that would soon disguise anything you dumped. But the endless chatter in the car drubbed her back to reality. A couple of plain Janes who wanted to run a gas station.
Tildy doubled back to R.C.’s; it was all delusion, another byproduct of the day’s stupor. Motion rather than action. Anyway, M.J. and Flora were no worse than reminders of past lapses, past injuries. Still, the vision of swallowing woods pursued her. She parked with a lurch and pressed her forehead to the steering wheel, taking shallow breaths. Flora asked if something was bothering her.
“Nothing new.”
Inside the store, you could hear the coolers humming. No signs of life. But Tildy remembered seeing a car outside, an army surplus Jeep. She called out.
“Back here,” a childlike voice came back.
She was clicking away with a price gun in the beverage section. Pleated brown wattles hung from her neck and pebbled growths ran down the flanks of her huge nose and across her cheekbones. Her chin seemed boneless, a slack bag like the dress she wore. She had frozen orange juice cans in her hair for curlers.
“Liddie.” Tildy waved. “I’m just gonna grab a couple six-packs of Gatortail and leave them up front while I get my other stuff together.”
“Call when you need me.”
M.J. stole a backward look, spoke furtively, as though her teeth had locked. “You know that beast?”
“Lydia Estes,” Tildy said at normal volume. “Used to be Rhino Girl at the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum in St. Pete. She’s retired now.”
“Yeah, right. There’s a call I have to make.” Flora retreated, fluffing her hair. “I’ll meet you out by the booth.”
Tildy grabbed a red plastic basket from the stack and started filling it at random with the first can or box her hand would fall on. Plums in heavy syrup. Instant spaghetti sauce.
“Here. We don’t look to freeload.” M.J. palmed her a greasy twenty. “I’ll be outside.”
Tildy nodded expressionlessly and picked up a carton of cigarettes for herself. They’re afraid of Lydia, she thought; couldn’t bear standing near her while she rang everything up. Flora wasn’t really calling anyone.
But they were both coming out of the phone booth when Tildy looked through the window. And as she started the car, revved it to keep from stalling, backed out, there wasn’t the slightest chatter from either one. Sunlight glared on the tin Bunny Bread sign over R.C.’s door.