Read Online Leaving Eden by Anne Leclaire - Free Book Online Page B

this picture in my mind of the first time I sat in his car: I’d be wearing a skirt and blouse—store new—and smelling of the strawberry shampoo I’d bought especially at Winn-Dixie four months before so I’d be prepared.
    “Be no trouble.”
    I knocked back the kickstand and straddled the bike. My head was so full of things I wanted to tell him that I turned dizzy with the weight of them.
    “You could leave your bike here and pick it up later.”
    “Can’t,” I said. “I got to build my legs up for swim team.”
    He took a long look at me, staring directly at my legs. “You sure are building them something fierce,” he said.
    I didn’t know how to take that. Could he mean my legs were getting too big? “See ya,” I said and left him standing there, pump nozzle in hand.
    At quarter past five by the kitchen clock, I prepared the chops for pan-frying and cooked up some potatoes the way Mama used to, with plenty of bacon grease and onions. I set the table and waited, passing time by practicing my
Glamour Day
poses in front of the bathroom mirror, using a dish towel for the feather boa.
    By six it was clear as clean glass Daddy wasn’t coming home. Sometimes I thought he forgot he even had a daughter. I finished cooking the chops, opened a beer, sat down, and ate. Occasionally, when I was alone like this, I pretended Mama was there with me. I imagined her sitting right across the table in the place I’d set for Daddy.
    “Mama,” I said, “the
Glamour Day
people are coming pretty soon.”
    I told her how everybody’d signed up. Even old Miss Tilly Pettijohn. I told her how I’d saved up more than three dollars and had it in the silver pitcher. I told her how Martha Lee was going to give me my first driving lesson on Monday. Then I told her a little about Spy. I asked her what she thought Spy meant when he’d said my legs looked fierce. It didn’t sound exactly like a compliment.
    Finally I stopped. Having a one-way conversation with an empty plate was about the loneliest thing in the world. Lonelier than silence. Worse than not talking at all. That was when I decided to become a wild girl. Shit, I thought, I might as well have some fun before I die.
    Tallie’s Book
    Never marry a man who wears more
jewelry than you do.
    A woman can be pretty and strong.
    Everyone has a need to feel needed.
    Beetles signify change.

four
    I woke up with the Christmas feeling—that unexpected happy way you feel when you know something good is about to happen but you can’t recall exactly what—then I remembered it was finally Monday. I didn’t stop for breakfast, just grabbed the last doughnut from the box on the counter and pedaled over to Martha Lee’s, not even bothering to brush my hair. Sometimes it was a good thing Martha Lee didn’t care a lick about a person’s appearance.
    Although it wasn’t yet eight, it was already hotter than Satan on his best day, and by the time I reached High Tower Road I was sweat-sticky and slightly nauseated from the heat. Mama would have cautioned me about heatstroke. She would have seen to it that I’d had breakfast and took water with me. But then if Mama’d been there, I wouldn’t be needing to have Martha Lee teach me to drive. I’d have had Mama. I could actually picture it. She’d make an occasion of it. She’d switch on the radio while I settled myself behind the steering wheel of her Dodge and we’d start off, her sitting next to me, telling me not to worry I’d get the hang of it, just have fun. And she wouldn’t press her foot against the floorboards to signal I needed to brake. Or reach out to correct my steering if I veered close to the centerline. She’d be singing in her off-key voice, belting it out with Buddy Holly or Sam Cooke.
You-oo-oo-oo send me.
    But Mama wasn’t there, so Martha Lee would have to do. Which was a damn sight better than taking driver’s ed with Mr. Harold-goddamn-Nelson who carried a squirt bottle of breath freshener in his pocket