Earthly Possessions - Anne Tyler [51]
Mindy didn’t answer. She set her jaw, frowned straight ahead, and went into reverse. We hit a car parked a full space behind us. Jake removed his arm. “All right, you’re doing just fine there,” he said. “Now you want to go forward, I believe. Give this guy here a signal to let him know you’re coming.”
Mindy unrolled her window and trailed one hand out like a limp, used ribbon. The car drifted into the street, went through a yellow light, proceeded several blocks in an aimless, haphazard manner. Jake shifted his weight. “Uh, Mindy—” he said.
We arrived at a striped sawhorse, set square across the street. Two policemen guarded it with their arms folded, their backs to us. They had a beefy, stubborn way of standing. Holsters and radios and official-looking cases dangled from their belts, all the same grainy black leather. “Lord God,” said Jake. At the last minute, Mindy stopped the car. “Go around,” Jake told her. “Back up. Run them down. Make a U-turn.”
“Huh?” said Mindy.
“You can’t do that,” I said to Jake, “it’s a one-way street. Sit still and enjoy the parade.”
“Parade?”
A white-and-gold drum major pranced across our windshield, pronging the air with his silver baton. Brassy music bleated behind him. “Oh, parade,” said Jake.
Mindy started crying. The two of us looked over at her.
“Mindy?” Jake said.
“It’s all arranged against me!” she wailed. “Nothing will ever come out like I have dreamed! We’ll never get to Florida!”
She bent her head to the steering wheel, both arms circling it. She cried out loud, like a child. But we could only hear her during pauses in “King of the Road,” which was bearing down on us from someplace to the west. “Mindy, what is it?” Jake asked her. “You feel all right?”
She shook her head.
“You don’t have pains or nothing.”
“I have pains all over,” she said. Her voice was muffled, hollow as a bell. “I’m only young! I can’t do this all by myself!”
Jake reached over and cut off the ignition. The car shuddered and died. “King of the Road” had won, it seemed. It sailed above everything. The band strutted by us, high school kids, skinny little Adam’s-appled boys and sweaty girls. But Mindy’s head was still on the steering wheel, and Jake was turned in my direction as if he expected something from me. He said, “Charlotte, can’t you help me here?”
I never know what’s needed. I gave him a Kleenex from my purse.
“Well, thanks a lot,” he said.
I said, “Or maybe a … do you want me to go get some water?”
He looked at Mindy, who only went on crying. I don’t know how I could have brought water anyway; the street was packed by now. Cars had drawn up all around us and behind us. People were getting out and sitting on their fenders in their shirtsleeves. A man came by with a whole fat tree of balloons. “Would you like a balloon?” I asked Mindy.
“Charlotte, for mercy’s sake,” Jake said. “Can’t you do no better than that?”
“Well, I was only … Selinda would have,” I said. But that wasn’t the truth. Selinda wouldn’t have liked a balloon either. The truth was that I was grieving for Jake and Mindy both, and I didn’t know who I felt sadder for. I hate a situation where you can’t say clearly that one person’s right and one is wrong. I was cowardly; I chose to watch the parade. A team of Clydesdales clopped past with a beer wagon, and my eyes followed their billowing feet in a long restful journey of their own. The Clydesdales left great beehives of manure. I enjoyed noticing that. There are times when these little details can draw you on like spirals up a mountain, leading you miles.
Next came a flank of majorettes, and a flowered lady who tripped alongside them with a vanity case. “Watch those feet, girls!” she kept calling. “Turd ahead!” The majorettes might have been eyeless under their visored hats, but they sidestepped neatly when necessary. The soldiers were