Pigs in Heaven - Barbara Kingsolver [130]
“I know, Turtle. I used to get made fun of in school too. Mama cleaned people’s houses, and they’d give her their kids’ outgrown stuff for me to wear. They thought they were doing us a favor, but I ended up going to school looking like a clown.”
Turtle slides her eyes sideways and suppresses a grin. “With a big red nose?”
“I should have worn a big red nose. I copped an attitude instead.”
“What’s that?”
Taylor notices that the rain is changing from a major to a minor key, maybe letting up a little.
“Copping an attitude? Oh, it just means I acted real tough. Like I wanted to look like that, and everybody else was ridiculous for wearing their little matching sweaters and skirts.”
Turtle thinks this over. “I don’t think I can cop an attitude,” she says.
“You shouldn’t have to! Kids your age should not even like the idea of clothing. You should still be trying to throw everything off and roll in the mud.”
Turtle looks attentively skeptical.
“I’m telling you, this Lisa Crocker character is a social deviant.”
“She’s just like the other girls, Mom.”
“Good grief, they’re all going to grow up to be like Barbie! Can you imagine what that means for the future of our planet?”
“I want them to be my friends.”
Taylor sighs and strokes Turtle’s hair. “I think it’s harder to be an underprivileged kid than it used to be.”
“One time I wore the school’s pants,” Turtle says. “Those gray sweater pants with letters on them. When I had that accident.”
“Well, that’s true. That wasn’t much fun, though, was it?”
“No.”
“I’m glad your stomach’s feeling better these days.”
Turtle is quiet.
“Aren’t you feeling better?”
“No,” Turtle says faintly.
“No?” Taylor feels a wave of panic.
“It hurts mostly.”
“Oh, Turtle. This doesn’t make any sense. You’ve never been sick before.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. I just get the stomach cramps. I can’t help it.”
“Oh, Turtle.”
“Mom, it stopped raining. Look.”
It’s true, the noisy assault is over, but the windshield is still blurred with a serious drizzle. “You poor kid, you’ve forgotten what good weather is. You think a sunny day is when you only need a raincoat instead of an umbrella.”
“No, I don’t. I remember sun.”
“Remember Tucson?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you remember best?”
Turtle closes her eyes for a long time. “There isn’t any best,” she says, finally. “I liked it all.”
“But we didn’t have much money then, either. I think you only had one or two pairs of pants even in Tucson.”
“We had Jax, though. And Lou Ann and Dwayne Ray, and Mattie, down at your store.”
“That’s true. We had them.”
“Will they let us come back?”
“We don’t have enough money for gas. And we can’t tell anybody where we are.”
“But if we did have gas, I mean. Does Jax and everybody still want us to live there?”
“I think he does.”
“He’s not mad because we went away from home?”
Taylor rolls down the window and closes her eyes and lets the hissing night lick her face like a cat. “That’s what home means, Turtle,” she says. “Even if they get mad, they always have to take you back.”
Alice answers the phone at last.
“Mama, I’ve been trying to call you all different times today. Where were you?”
“Law, Taylor, I couldn’t even tell you. Someplace called Lip Flint Crick, or Flint Chip Lick, something. On a picnic.”
“A picnic? I thought you were supposed to be arguing with the Fourkiller woman.”
“I did. But then we went on a picnic.”
“You argued, and then you went on a picnic?”
“No, not with her. I’ve got me a boyfriend.”
“Mama, I swear, I can’t turn my back on you for one minute!” Taylor hears a bitterness in her voice like green potato skins, but she can’t stop up the place it’s growing from.
Alice is quiet.
“I’m happy for you, Mama. Really. What’s his name?”
A flat answer: “Cash.”
“Oh, that sounds good. Is he rich?”
Alice laughs, finally. “Believe me, Taylor, this is not the place to come if you’re looking to find you a millionaire typhoon.”
“Tycoon, Mama. A typhoon is a hurricane, I think. Or maybe it’s that kind of snake that strangles