Pigs in Heaven - Barbara Kingsolver [145]
“I can’t believe I ever got mixed up with a family that names babies after TV shows!” Alice cries, just as loudly. “Kitty Carlisle in the kitchen. You can keep your Kitty Carlisle. I already had me one husband that was in love with his television set. Not again, no thanks!”
“Who was asking?”
“Well, I just didn’t want you to waste your time.”
As angry and heartbroken as she is, Alice feels something hard break loose down inside of her. She feels deeply gratified to yell at someone who is paying enough attention, at least, to yell back.
The Tribal Offices sit just off the highway in a simple modern arrangement of red brick and concrete slabs, with shrubs hugging the sidewalks. Taylor expected something more tribal, though she doesn’t know what that might be.
Turtle holds tightly to her hand as they make their way around the long sidewalk, looking for the right entrance.
“You remember your grandpa, do you?” Taylor asks, talking to fend off approaching terror.
Turtle shrugs. “I dunno.”
“It’s okay if you do. You can say.”
“Yeah.”
“What else do you remember?”
“Nothing.”
“Your first mother?”
Turtle shrugs again. “He’s the good one. Pop-pop. He’s not the bad one.”
“You remember a man that hurt you?”
“I think I do.”
“Turtle, that’s good. I want you to remember. Remember him so you can throw him away.”
Their shoes make soft, sticky sounds on the warm sidewalk. Turtle steps long to avoid the cracks. This building must be half a mile long, with entrances for every possible category of human problem. Health Care. Economic Development. Taylor can’t believe the way life turns out. She has been waiting years for the revelation that just came to Turtle, and now it has happened, while they were walking along half distracted between a row of juniper hedges and the Muskogee Highway.
At last they find Child Welfare. Inside, the building is carpeted and seems more friendly. Receptionists sit at circular desks in the wide corridors, and pictures on the wall show the Tribal Council members, some in cowboy hats. When Taylor asks for directions to Andy Rainbelt’s office, the receptionist gets up and leads the way. She wears low heels and has the disposition of a friendly housewife.
“This is his office here. If he was expecting you then I imagine he’ll be on in here in a minute. He might be hung up with another appointment.”
“Okay, thanks. We’ll just wait.”
But before they’ve sat down, they hear the receptionist greet Andy in the hall. He ducks in the doorway, smiling, huge, pony-tailed, dressed like a cleaned-up rodeo man in jeans and boots. Which is fine with Taylor. She prefers bull riding to social-worker interviews any day of the week.
“I’m Andy. Glad to meet you, Miz Greer. Turtle.” His handshake is punctuated by a large turquoise ring on his index finger. When they sit, Turtle finds her way into Taylor’s lap. Taylor hugs Turtle to her, trying not to look as off-center as she feels.
He leans forward on his elbows and just looks at Turtle for quite a while, smiling, until she has finished examining the floor, the doorknob, and the ceiling, and looks at Andy Rainbelt. He has kind, deep-set eyes under arched eyebrows. “So tell me about your family, Turtle.”
“I don’t have one.”
Taylor earnestly wishes she were not alive.
“Well, who do you live with, then?”
“I live with my mom. And I have a grandma. I used to have Jax, too, hack when we lived in a good house.”
“Sounds like a family to me.”
“And Barbie. She used to live with us. Barbie and all her clothes.”
“Now, is she a real person or a doll?”
Turtle glances up at Taylor, who nearly laughs in spite of the dire circumstances. “She’s both,” Taylor answers for her. “She was a friend. Kind of clothes-oriented.”
“What kind of things do you do for fun at your house?” he asks.
“Barbie played with me sometimes when Mom was at work,” Turtle explains. “We made stuff. And clothes. She always ate Cheese Doritos and then went and throwed up in the bathroom.”
“What? She did that?” Taylor feels ambushed. “I