Wire Mesh Mothers by Elizabeth Massie Page B

him without any unnecessary attention.
    In the back was a soft sound of wrapping paper shredding. “Hang in there Mistie, you having fun?” said Kate softly. “I’m having fun, are you? This really is great, an adventure for both of us….”
    And then she heard shouts. She looked back to see three of the gypsy-dressed kids stumbling across the gravel toward the Dumpsters, arms flailing. Kate’s heart stopped. She gripped the wheel. They know what I’ve done! They know!
    God God God God !
    Kate grabbed for the gearshift, hand shaking madly. She jammed the stick into reverse to pull back from the Dumpsters. God God God !
    The kids ran around the Dumpsters and fell into a rusty car on the other side. Kate’s dry mouth opened with a click. She held her foot on the brake, watching. What? The rusted car revved, bucked, and lurched forward from its hiding place and sped to the road. Black smoke trailed. The car nearly struck the tractor’s flatbed, swerved around it and scraped the back door on the corner, then vanished beyond the trees.
    Kate looked back at the gas station the back to the road. What was that about?  
    Mistie sneezed, another one clearly not covered with a hand or handkerchief. Kate would buy some upholstery cleaner in Ontario; give that back seat the good, solid once-over. “Well, that farmer won’t think twice about a white car passing him now,” she said. “I think those kids were giving Mrs. Martin a hard time in there, I’m afraid. I’d go back, but we have to get.”
    Kate took a Pepsi from the seat beside her and cranked off the top, hand still shaking. “I need a drink,” she chuckled. She drew on the bottle several times, then sighed, recapped the bottle and said, “That’s it, nothing else is delaying us. Promise. You’ve been under that blasted blanket too long and it won’t be long before….”
    The passenger door was wrenched open. Kate flailed about to see a red-striped face with steel gray eyes shadowed beneath a flattened fedora. The mouth of a gun was inches from her face.
    “Bitch!” said the striped face as the rest of the body slid in to the car. “Don’t say a fucking word! Drive!”

17
     
    T he Crunch Bar tasted good. It was warm and mushy beneath Mistie’s fingers and sweet on her tongue. There was quilt lint in the chocolate, but it didn’t matter because the chocolate was good on her hands and on her tongue. She liked being under the blanket because she liked to hide. It was fun to hide. She liked to hide at home in the metal shed behind the trailer or in the big potato bin in the kitchen when it was empty of potatoes.
    The teacher talked a lot. She had a voice that went up and down like those flutes the fourth graders tried to play at the assembly last week.
    There was a drink on the floor, a plastic bottle with a white top. The teacher said not to drink it yet. Mistie didn’t mind, she had chocolate to play with. She patted her tongue with the stick and sucked on it, then rubbed it on her palms. Warm, soft.
    Then there was another voice up front. Mistie paused and listened. It was a girl. The girl got into the car, said the “fuck” word and then “Drive.”
    The teacher did.

18
     
    T he woman at the wheel stared at Tony until Tony cocked the trigger, then she eased the car to the edge of the lot and turned on her left blinker.
    “Go right,” said Tony.
    “Right?” The woman said the word as if she’d never heard it before. But then she steered right without another word. Tony rolled her upper lip in between her teeth and bit until it hurt. Right. They’d turned right, driving on Route 58. So where was she going to go now? She went right only because the woman wanted to go left.
    Where the hell do I go?
    “Where am I going?” the woman asked without looking away from the road. It sounded as if there was a roach in her throat and she was trying to talk around it. “I saw your buddies leaving without you. They sure were in a hurry, weren’t they?