Read Online Zigzagging Down a Wild Trail by Bobbie Ann Mason - Free Book Online Page B

had never really liked her. Daisy always told Liz she had no style. Liz meant to find her style one day. It was one of her recent resolutions. Squinting at the sun, Liz blinked the image of Daisy from her mind.
    â€œI thought up a poem for you while I was watching you this morning,” Peyton said.
    â€œWhen I count up the stuff I really like,
    The first thing for sure is my Harley bike
    But I guess that isn’t really true
    â€™Cause the thing I really like best is you.”
    She held up two fingers. “When I married you, I was about two poker chips short of insanely happy,” she said.
    â€œThe trouble with you is, you want people to be perfect.”
    â€œWhat do
you
want?” she asked him.
    â€œI want you to stop acting so ill towards me. It makes you ugly.”
    â€œWell, leave me alone. Why don’t you go over to the Hollywood or Harrah’s and leave me here? This is
my
casino.” She wadded up her sandwich wrapper. “Hey, what do you mean ugly—looks or acts?”
    â€œI meant your frame of mind makes you act ugly, but I can see it in your face, too. It makes all them little blond hairs stand out and your freckles act like they’re on speed.” His face lit up in a sort of Bruce Willis sneer, and she knew he was teasing. She had missed that.
    She rubbed at her cheek, as if to calm down her freckles. “Are you ashamed of me?”
    â€œFor how ugly you act?”
    â€œOh, shut up.” She punched his arm.
    â€œI can’t help my mama, but maybe I can help you.”
    â€œNo, you’d go off and leave me if I was sick. I can’t depend on you.”
    â€œThe reason people stay married is so they can help each other,” he said.
    â€œBullshit,” she said.
    â€œI’ll help you fix your hair.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong with my hair?”
    He tousled the top of her head. “It needs a more natural look,” he said.
    â€œWatch out—you’ll pull my stitches!”
    â€œI hate it that you went and had that operation and I couldn’t go with you.”
    â€œI don’t like you following me around. A girl at work told me I should get a restraining order to stop you from bugging me.”
    He kicked at the bench. “I’ve been stupid. If I could roll time back, I wouldn’t do a lot of what I done. But it’s like that split second when there’s a car wreck, and tragedy happens—just like that.” He clicked his fingers. “And you can never undo it to save your life. Now Mama might go to her grave with her last picture of me in her mind—Peyton the Jailbird.”
    His self-pity infuriated her. No tragedy had happened in a split second, she thought.
    â€œTo undo the past would be like rolling the Mississippi River backwards,” she said.
    The little lily-studded brook was sashaying past, but she had a momentary impression that she was moving, not the water.
    During the afternoon she spotted Peyton at a blackjack table. In the past, he typically played till he lost everything; then he always came to her. She’d have five-dollar bills hidden in her clothes in several places—in her inner pockets, in her bra, in a secret pocket fashioned from a drawstring tobacco pouch that she pinned inside her jeans. But he would come after her.
    Vaguely aware that he was still parked at the blackjack table, she breezed down the row of slot machines like someone driving a car while mentally miles away. She wasn’t focusing on her strategy. She was feeding the machines and drinking rum Cokes. She won ten dollars’ worth of quarters on the Triple Diamond and let it ride. It used to be fun to come with Peyton to Tunica. He got her a fake I.D., and they drove down and played until they couldn’t stay awake; then they slept in the car at a roadside rest stop, daring criminals and perverts from Highway 61 to kill them—or kidnap them. But that seemed long ago now. She