“You quit that handicap job?” Alice asks, when it sinks in, what Taylor has just told her. “After you got trained in artificial retrucidation and everything?”
“Yeah, I had to, because Barbie left. There was nobody to take care of Turtle during my shift. I asked if I could take the week off, just till school started, but I was still on probation so they said they had to let me go.”
“Well, that don’t seem right.”
“I know. It’s okay. I just got hired as a cashier at Penney’s.
At least now after school Turtle can come here and hang out in Ladies’ Wear till I get off work.” Taylor laughs. “Until somebody gets wise and figures out that Turtle isn’t going to buy any designer jeans.”
A tall, thin girl with very long hair tromps through the front door and shouts, “Grandma!”
Sugar comes running. “What in the world?”
“Mama says you’re not supposed to dance if you’re on your period. I think that’s an old wives’ tale.”
“Well, honey, it’s all old wives’ tales, if you think about it. I don’t have your shackles done yet, anyway. Come here, I’ll show you how far I’ve got.”
The girl slumps on the couch. Alice is having a hard time concentrating. “Well,” she tells Taylor, “you’ve been wanting to get shed of that Barbie since the day we run into her.”
“I know. But I kind of needed her.”
Sugar comes back carrying what looks like two masses of terrapin shells. They rattle heavily when she sits down with them on the couch next to her granddaughter.
“What’s your new job like?” Alice asks.
“Above minimum wage, at least. Barely. It will come to around six hundred a month, I think, after what they take out. That’s going to pay our rent and buy about three jars of peanut butter, but it’s not going to get the utilities turned back on. I’ve got to figure out something else pretty soon.
But at least I got a discount on school clothes for Turtle.
She’s starting first grade, Mama. Can you believe it?”
“You bought school clothes for Turtle instead of paying the electric bill?”
“Mama, I had to. I didn’t want kids making fun of her.
She looked like something off the streets.”
“So I guess it’s better to be out in the street than to look like something off the streets.”
Taylor is quiet, and Alice feels terrible, understanding that what she just said is no joke. It’s the truth. They are both stunned. A good deal of quiet static washes over the line before either one of them is willing to talk again.
“We’re not living in the streets,” Taylor finally says. “Yet.
Mama, I feel bad enough, you don’t have to tell me I’ve messed up.”
“I’m sorry, Taylor. I hate to see you like this. Why don’t you just come on down here and get it over with?”
“Mama, we don’t even have gas money. And I’m not asking you to send any, either, because I know you left me all you had.”
“What happened to that? The twelve hundred?”
“It’s hard to explain. It’s gone. It took most of it to get us moved into an apartment, because you have to pay a deposit and everything.”
Alice senses that what Taylor just told her isn’t completely true. But she lets it go. Trust only grows out of trusting.
“Have you met with that Annawake Fourkiller yet?” Taylor asks, her voice changed.
“I’m seeing her tomorrow. I’m so nervous I’m chasing my tail.” Alice glances at Sugar and the girl, who are hunched together on the couch with the bright Oklahoma morning blazing in the window over their heads. Alice lowers her voice. “I didn’t tell anybody yet, you know, what this is all about. I thought they’d make me spill the beans right off, but seems like people are willing to bide their time down here. They’re all talking about me, seems like. Maybe they’ve all got their own explanations so they don’t need mine.”
“How’d you track down Miss Fourkiller?”
“There wasn’t nothing to it. She just lives over here at Tahlequah, a little bit down the road. Everybody here knows everybody. I just called her up.”
“What did she say?”
“Nothing. Just thanks for coming. She wants to buy me lunch and talk things over. She said she’s been real worried about you and Turtle.”
“I’ll bet.”
The girl gets up from the couch and goes. “Bye, Grandma,” she calls, over the shriek of the screen-door hinge.