June Bug by Chris Fabry Page A

smelled like summer to me, and now I was drenched in it.
    Sheila came back in and hung a pretty cotton dress with red flowers all over it on the towel rack. I’d seen that exact dress while looking for headbands at Walmart, and though I am not a dress-wearing person, I liked the way it looked. She got out a fresh towel that was bigger than I was and soft and thick and smelled almost as good as the lilac scent of the water.
    “Wash your hair, and when you get done, try this on,” Sheila said. “I’ve got some white sandals I want you to try on too. And we’re going to do your nails and trim your hair.”
    I sat back in the water, my arms behind my head, and relaxed. Surely this is what a queen feels like. People handing you things and putting out clothes and changing the sheets on your bed. I could get used to this in a minute.
    I dried off and put the dress on, my hair shedding little drops of water.
    Sheila walked in, put her hands on her hips, and shook her head. “If you don’t look just like a picture, I don’t know what does.”
    She stood me in front of the mirror and began brushing my hair, which is not an easy thing to do because my hair has always been the knottiest. It’s like trying to straighten out an animal’s nest. I usually give up on it and let it go wherever it wants. Sheila draped a dry towel around me and got out the scissors. What was supposed to be just a trim around the edges became a major cut because of all the tangles and knots, but I loved the way it looked and couldn’t wait for Dad to see it.
    “Let’s do one more thing,” Sheila said.
    She sat me on the bed and put my feet on a folding chair and clipped my nails. Then she got out the prettiest pink nail polish I’d ever seen and went to work on my toenails. She put cotton balls in between my toes until the polish dried. She did my fingernails too, then put a little blush on my cheeks. To top it off, she’d bought a necklace that had a red flower in the middle just like the ones on the dress.
    I was in front of the mirror looking at myself with her putting on the necklace when the engine of the RV cranked once or twice and then fired to life. Dad let out a whoop that we heard from the open window, and Sheila’s face scrunched up like she’d just heard a car crash.
    She fluffed out my new hairdo and smiled. “Let’s go start dinner.”
    Dad changed clothes and looked as happy as I’d seen him in months. Men must feel like they accomplish something when they get a machine working. He took one look at me and his mouth dropped.
    “Do you like it?” I said, twirling around and then holding out my fingernails and showing him my sandals.
    “Where’d you get all that?” he said.
    “Just a few things I picked out at work yesterday,” Sheila said. “Every girl needs a new outfit and shoes.”
    He reached out to touch my hair. I think he’d become so used to seeing all the tangles that he couldn’t believe it was so soft and silky. “You sure do clean up good, don’t you?”
    Sheila handed him a plate of ground beef, and he went to work. He’d bought onions and peppers and mushrooms and a couple kinds of cheese. He looked almost as happy making the burgers as he did fixing the RV but not quite.
    An old truck rumbled up and Mr. Taylor climbed out. Walter ran over to him, wagging his tail and sniffing at his coveralls. Dad says a dog’s nose is so sensitive it can smell things we can only dream about smelling, and it looked to me that Walter was in dog heaven. Mr. Taylor’s clothes were like a full buffet at the Golden Corral. He walked behind the house where the smoke was coming from the grill and talked with Dad awhile. Mostly about what was wrong with the RV and how he fixed the burgers.
    When Mr. Taylor saw me standing inside the screen door, he cocked his head like he was meeting a stranger and took off his John Deere hat. “Don’t know that I’ve had the pleasure of making your acquaintance, ma’am.”
    I had to