Pigs in Heaven - Barbara Kingsolver [81]
Taylor nods.
“What’s her problem?”
“She found out you were leaving. She hates when anybody leaves her. I just went in there and found all our shoes and Barbie’s slippers in the toilet. Now she’s lying in the tub.”
“I’ll talk to her,” Alice says. “I’ll tell her it’s just so I can try and make them let you and her stay together.”
“I already told her that. It doesn’t matter if you have a logical reason.”
“Well, then, try Rocky Hornbuckle,” Alice tells the operator. She whispers to Taylor, “Has she got her flashlight in there? I don’t mean to worry you, but Harland’s sister got killed listening to ‘Jesus Loves You This Morning’ on the radio in her bathtub.”
“Oh, don’t worry, there’s no water. She just gets in with her clothes on and pulls a blanket over her head and says she’s buried.”
Alice says in a louder voice, “No? Okay, listen. Just give me every Hornbuckle you’ve got in Heaven, Oklahoma.”
Taylor gets up to examine Barbie’s slippers, which are drying out badly in front of the air-conditioner unit. “Boy, is she going to be pissed off when she sees these. They look like drowned guinea pigs.”
“Where’d she go?”
“Who, Barbie? Out to get more Cheese Doritos, I think.”
Alice begins writing hurriedly, trying to keep up. She hangs up and waves her list at Taylor. “Eight Hornbuckles with telephones. One of them’s got to be Sugar, right? Maybe she remarried.”
“Well, then, her name wouldn’t be Hornbuckle anymore,” Taylor points out.
“Isn’t that the dumbest thing, how the wife ends up getting filed under the husband? The husband is not the most reliable thing for your friends to try and keep track of.”
“Nobody holds a gun to your head, Mama,” Taylor says. “Even if I married Jax, which I’m not going to, but what would I want with his stupid name? Just learning how to spell it is a big commitment.”
“I’m going to call this whole list. One of them’s got to know her, at least.” Alice takes a deep breath and dials.
“I don’t think he even ever spells it the same way twice.”
Alice holds up her hand. “Ringing,” she says. They both wait. After a moment they wait less breathlessly. Alice finally disconnects, then dials the next number on her list. “You’ve been picking on that boy all day long, Taylor,” she says in a quiet voice, as if the ringing phone might otherwise hear her. “Either he’s your boyfriend or he isn’t, but don’t just sit on the fence and run him down.”
Taylor slumps in the swivel chair by the window and falls silent, twisting the chair slightly back and forth, while Alice tries two more numbers.
“I think they done dropped the bomb on Heaven, Oklahoma,” she announces after getting no answer on number four. She scrutinizes her list, then glances up at Taylor, who is looking out the window with tears in her eyes.
“Hon, what is it? What I said about Jax?”
“I don’t know if he is or he isn’t. How can I have a boyfriend if I’m sleeping in motels and living in a car? No wonder Turtle wants to have a funeral for herself in the bathtub.”
“This is going to pass,” Alice says, beginning to dial again. “I know it’s hard. But you and Turtle have a home back there waiting for you.”
“Not waiting too hard,” Taylor says without looking at Alice. “When I called last night he told me he’d gone to bed with the woman that collects our rent.”
Alice’s mouth falls open. She closes it, staring at Taylor, then suddenly blinks and says, “Hello? I’m a cousin of Sugar Hornbuckle’s calling long distance, looking for her. She is? Good Lord. Yes, please.”
Taylor looks up, her eyes still watery but changed, self-contained and inquiring.
“Don’t give up the ship yet,” Alice says. “We’ve found Sugar. It sounds like they’re having a big old party in Heaven.”
Sugar Hornbuckle hangs up the phone and goes cold at the sight of blue-lipped children, a host of them, running like a crowd of small ghosts stealing from the pantry. Letty shoos them off the peach pies and out of her kitchen, and Sugar blinks away what seemed like a bad omen.
“Who was that on the phone?” Letty asks.
Sugar backs up several stitches through her quilted thoughts.