the army, someone saw fit to put her father in charge of a busload of civilians careening down the highway at fifty miles an hour.
Now, an hour and a half into the trip, the passengers were scattered throughout the baking bus, dozing against the windows or reading newspapers; across the aisle, a stout woman was crocheting something in pink acrylic. Even with the windows lowered, the air blowing through was hot and dry, and Frances was worried about the state of her hair, which she’d tied up in rags last night. She lifted the limp curls off her sweaty neck and shifted in her seat and tried to concentrate on Tess of the D’Urbervilles. The frieze upholstery was scratchy through the cotton lawn of her new dress.
Frances was sixteen years old and twitchy with impatience. If Frances’s life was to be a novel—as Frances fully intended—then finally, finally, something might happen at the Fiestas that could constitute the first page.
She’d spend the weekend with her aunt and cousin in their little stucco house on Marcy Street. Tonight they’d watch the burning of Zozobra, the enormous gape-mouthed effigy of Old Man Gloom, and then walk back to the Plaza for music and dancing that would last all night. And Saturday there’d be the Hysterical Parade and night dances at the La Fonda and the Legion Hall with mariachis imported all the way from Mexico. “We’ll be out until morning,” her cousin Nancy had assured her on the telephone. “We might not even go home then.” Frances believed it. A widow dying to remarry, her aunt Lillian was fun-loving and young-dressing, lax and indulgent of her teenage daughter, which was exactly why it had been such a feat for Frances to convince her mother to let her go.
“Lillian’s got absolute feathers for brains,” her mother had said again last night of her sister-in-law. “If having your husband drop dead before your eyes doesn’t pull you up short, I don’t know what will. Man crazy, the two of them. That girl’s going to end up in trouble, and Lillian will be too busy batting her own eyelashes to notice.”
“Mother,” Frances had said with superhuman forbearance, which was the only way she could bring herself to speak to her mother now. “Nancy’s not going to end up in trouble.” But Frances didn’t actually believe this, which was why Nancy was so appealing to be around, even if she was a year younger and made Frances feel dull and wholesome, an actual country cousin.
Frances was also hoping to see some beatniks and artists, who, Nancy had told her, lived in such unimaginable filth it would make you sick, and they actually liked it, didn’t even try to better themselves. “Ugh,” said Nancy. “A painter rents the shed behind my friend Sally’s neighbor’s house, and he’s so poor he trades his paintings for dog food. Sally says he eats the dog food right alongside the dog.”
Frances had somehow missed these characters in previous visits to the state capital, but apparently they came out in droves for the Fiestas, high on their drugs and flouting conventions left and right. Maybe one of these artists would take her back to his dingy house with the mattress on the floor and ask to paint her. Frances considered herself, like Tess, a vessel of emotion untinctured by experience, and Frances very much wanted to be tinctured.
So in preparation, she’d spent her carefully hoarded babysitting money on a new pink lipstick at Rexler’s and, at Barton’s, this emerald-green dress, with its low, square neck and matching belt. Frances was sorry that she hadn’t been able to afford a discreet weekend valise, too, powder-blue leather stamped to resemble alligator skin, like she’d seen in an ad for face cream in one of her mother’s magazines. Instead, she’d had to pack her clothes in her orange sun-patterned swimming bag, embarrassing and childish and completely inappropriate for this weekend.
“Fancy-Francy, I ever tell you about the time a lady left a
Now, an hour and a half into the trip, the passengers were scattered throughout the baking bus, dozing against the windows or reading newspapers; across the aisle, a stout woman was crocheting something in pink acrylic. Even with the windows lowered, the air blowing through was hot and dry, and Frances was worried about the state of her hair, which she’d tied up in rags last night. She lifted the limp curls off her sweaty neck and shifted in her seat and tried to concentrate on Tess of the D’Urbervilles. The frieze upholstery was scratchy through the cotton lawn of her new dress.
Frances was sixteen years old and twitchy with impatience. If Frances’s life was to be a novel—as Frances fully intended—then finally, finally, something might happen at the Fiestas that could constitute the first page.
She’d spend the weekend with her aunt and cousin in their little stucco house on Marcy Street. Tonight they’d watch the burning of Zozobra, the enormous gape-mouthed effigy of Old Man Gloom, and then walk back to the Plaza for music and dancing that would last all night. And Saturday there’d be the Hysterical Parade and night dances at the La Fonda and the Legion Hall with mariachis imported all the way from Mexico. “We’ll be out until morning,” her cousin Nancy had assured her on the telephone. “We might not even go home then.” Frances believed it. A widow dying to remarry, her aunt Lillian was fun-loving and young-dressing, lax and indulgent of her teenage daughter, which was exactly why it had been such a feat for Frances to convince her mother to let her go.
“Lillian’s got absolute feathers for brains,” her mother had said again last night of her sister-in-law. “If having your husband drop dead before your eyes doesn’t pull you up short, I don’t know what will. Man crazy, the two of them. That girl’s going to end up in trouble, and Lillian will be too busy batting her own eyelashes to notice.”
“Mother,” Frances had said with superhuman forbearance, which was the only way she could bring herself to speak to her mother now. “Nancy’s not going to end up in trouble.” But Frances didn’t actually believe this, which was why Nancy was so appealing to be around, even if she was a year younger and made Frances feel dull and wholesome, an actual country cousin.
Frances was also hoping to see some beatniks and artists, who, Nancy had told her, lived in such unimaginable filth it would make you sick, and they actually liked it, didn’t even try to better themselves. “Ugh,” said Nancy. “A painter rents the shed behind my friend Sally’s neighbor’s house, and he’s so poor he trades his paintings for dog food. Sally says he eats the dog food right alongside the dog.”
Frances had somehow missed these characters in previous visits to the state capital, but apparently they came out in droves for the Fiestas, high on their drugs and flouting conventions left and right. Maybe one of these artists would take her back to his dingy house with the mattress on the floor and ask to paint her. Frances considered herself, like Tess, a vessel of emotion untinctured by experience, and Frances very much wanted to be tinctured.
So in preparation, she’d spent her carefully hoarded babysitting money on a new pink lipstick at Rexler’s and, at Barton’s, this emerald-green dress, with its low, square neck and matching belt. Frances was sorry that she hadn’t been able to afford a discreet weekend valise, too, powder-blue leather stamped to resemble alligator skin, like she’d seen in an ad for face cream in one of her mother’s magazines. Instead, she’d had to pack her clothes in her orange sun-patterned swimming bag, embarrassing and childish and completely inappropriate for this weekend.
“Fancy-Francy, I ever tell you about the time a lady left a
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