Mamma had tied off a thread, then reached for her smoke, balanced it between her needle-fingers. She took such a long drag, her chest rattled.
“Be reasonable,” she’d said, squinting, exhaling clouds. “This ain’t but another whim. Ain’t it. When’s the last time you picked up a pencil? Or played that keyboard of yours? This ain’t no different. You ain’t no singer, Bets. It’s just a phase.”
“But,” Bets had begun. Stopping as the phone rang.
“Get that,” Mamma had said, getting up. Heading off to the john. “I’ve had so much tea tonight my back teeth are floating.”
“Got it,” Bets had replied. Reaching over to the side table, she’d laid her hand on the receiver. Didn’t pick up.
She isn’t asking much. Not some round-the-world cruise on a ship bigger than Napanee County. Not a million dollar lotto win. Not to be fawned over in fancy-girl dress shops like those snobby ladies did Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman—a film Bets had adored, immediately and profoundly, and was foolish enough to say so. While the credits rolled on their TV, she’d sighed happily, hand fluttering up to her heart. “That was so good.”
“Bets is found herself a new calling,” Daddy had said from the recliner, loud so’s Mamma could hear it from the kitchen. “Fancies she’s gonna be a hoor.”
She can still feel the heat of that flush. The lump jagging in her throat. The teary anger at being so misunderstood.
“It’s just a movie,” Daddy had said, laughing, clicking those damn silver teeth of his. “And you ain’t got the figure to make that kind of money.”
All Bets wants is to live a while in the city. Downtown. In an apartment. A sleek one with granite countertops and stainless steel fittings, picture windows without curtains, and halogen bulbs inset in white ceilings, beaming down like alien spotlights. She wants a place with no yard.
She thinks about the type of someone she’d have to become to match those upmarket joints. A catalogue model. A regular guest at the Grand Ole Opry. A rich man’s wife.
Nope, Bets thinks, digging, digging. Scratch that last one.
If she can’t find her own shine, she might as well stay home.
Shunt, spill. One little dig after another, accumulating, really gets her pulse going. She braces herself against the mound as the ground shifts beneath her feet. The crest is rising up fast in front of her; if anyone looked out the kitchen window right about now, they’d glimpse her blond bangs over the ridge, her hair teased up in a wave that’s beginning to droop. They’d see the cool arcs of brows she’s spent hours upon hours plucking. Pale green eyes that blink too much, fluttering to shut out a world that doesn’t yet match the one hidden behind her lids.
Although this third grave’s much smaller than the one Nanna Tee’s in, it’s still big enough to swallow a heavy duty Silverado whole. From chassis to skylight, quadruple headlights to a tray that can haul over three thousand pounds, the pickup’s well and truly covered. No sense burying nothing useful, nothing valuable, Mamma insisted. Sink rustbuckets instead of good timber.
Always was so practical, her Mamma. Never did nothing without a solid reason. Never acted on a whim.
Bets straightens up, cuffs the sweat from her brow. Pauses to take in the familiar view one last time. The flag jutting out from the house’s back gable, parachute fabric snapping in the breeze. All those red and white lines pointing nowheres, those jagged stars fading to nothing. At the end of the driveway, the rickety toolshed. She won’t miss its oil stink, its spiders, its stubborn door. By the stoop, there’s the swan-shaped planters Mamma bought at a flea market, cracked from too many cold snaps. The bleeding-heart bushes have grown wild around them, weird flowers bobbing in grass that was overgrown long before winter, and has now sickened into a yard of pukey yellow-green. Phlegmatic. That’s another word Bets once looked up: means apathetic, unflappable. Literally, she thinks, looking at that useless lawn. So heavy and dull, even the wind can’t budge it.
Nothing shiny round here, Bets knows, but what’s underground.
Singing low, she keeps digging until she hits some.
Soon as Bets strikes metal, she tosses the shovel and starts using her hands instead. She’s not worried about damaging the truck—the thing was a piece of shit long before it was buried—only, she wants to reach the cab without having the whole damn thing cave in. Between each scoop, she packs the dirt walls around and above her, suddenly grateful for the ground-freeze keeping the mound’s earthen lid stiffly in place. The sloping tunnel is now twice her width and half again as tall. Cursing Mamma’s stubbornness—it’d be so much easier if the pickup had been parked inside a cavern, the way Winston’s jalopy and Nanna Tee’s Buick were—Bets crouch-claws down to the bottom. Does her best terrier impression. Sprays soil up and out the hole behind her.
Luckily, her aim isn’t too far off target. A window’s topmost edge is poking up from the ground in front of her: not the windshield she’d expected, but the driver’s side door. Scraping her fingers raw, she cleans the glass bit by bit, wiping away grime and the fog of her breath, until the pane is mostly clear. A ragged circle of light filters in over Bets’ shoulder, reflecting grey on the panel’s upper right corner. In blue shadows inside the truck’s cab, a slight figure is buckled behind the wheel, dressed in her Thorsday best. Lace-gloved hands folded in her lap. Permed head bowed as though praying. Refusing to look up.
“Open up, Mamma,” Bets says, knuckles rapping on the glass. “Don’t make me break in.”
Mamma’s gaze flicks to the door, then back to her knees. Slowly, she bunches the lengths of her black skirt up onto her thighs, twisting the fabric around a glint of silver. Patting it in place, she straightens her shoulders. Rearranges her tarnished necklace, nestling the cross between ruffles on her blouse. Tilts the rearview mirror and fusses a minute with her hair. Acts like she’s alone. As ever.
“Come on,” Bets snipes, knocking harder. “Mamma.”
The ghost rolls her eyes, unrolls the window. Soon as it’s cracked an inch, a dank gust of air whooshes out, reeking of smoke and tar and hospital-grade antiseptic. All the stinks of life that led her into death, clinging for eternity. It wasn’t dramatic, Mamma’s end. It was efficient. Expected. Not trusting anyone else to get the details right, she’d made all the arrangements herself. Hedging bets, she’d asked Reverend to send her off, ashes to ashes and all that jazz, then invited the Lady’s diner sect to drive her into the ground.
That’s my girl, Daddy had said proudly, before Mamma went and stole his smile for good. Keeping it for herself.
“Got my license,” Bets says, talking fast so Mamma won’t interrupt. “And a spot on the bookmobile’s roster. From next week, I’ll be driving the Napanee—Athabaska route. It’s not much, but…”
Bets stops, swallows. Keeping her gaze down—if the gods are watching, they’re watching, whether she’s under wide skies or close earth—she wriggles onto one elbow, reaches back with her free hand. Paper crackles as she drags the map from her pocket, then smooths it between filthy palms. Scrawled on a scrap torn from an old sketchbook, the road-lines are messes of crayon, the landmarks smudges of multicolored chalk, the street names and compass arrows scribbled in illegible marker. No matter which way it’s held, the thing’s damn near impossible to read. A kindergarten kid could’ve done better, no doubt about that.