NATURAL ENEMIES By Jeremy Gordon March [NOTE: This is fan fiction. It is protected by the First Amendment and the Fair Use Doctrine. This story has not been written or posted for profit. It has not been reviewed or approved by anyone connected with the film “The Mist” or the novella of the same name.] I. Amanda Dumfries and Mattie Lee Allen hated each other almost on first sight. Mattie regarded Amanda, her daughter Wanda Lee’s third-grade teacher, as an empty-headed rich girl who was trying to fill Wanda’s head with radical ideas and turn her against her mother. Amanda saw Mattie as an irrational, nearly unfit parent who lived in a fantasy world that seemed to be built around the Old Confederacy. They might have killed each other had the town of Castle Rock not first been overrun with mist and monsters. Mattie threw the first punch by writing a long and nasty E-mail to Earl Blaise, principal of Castle Rock Elementary, accusing Amanda of “indoctrinating” her young charges and trying to prejudice them against people like Mattie. She demanded that Wanda Lee be transferred to another classroom, and suggested that Amanda herself go back to elementary school for another few years until she learned something useful to pass on to her students. Blaise wasn’t sure how seriously to take her complaint. Much of it seemed to be a tirade against Amanda herself, not against her teaching methods. And Mattie Lee herself had a bad reputation among the locals. She was a young single mother who lived with her two children in a tiny house on the outskirts of town. She constantly argued with her neighbors, her coworkers at the library where she held a low-paying job, even with the police – and she could not argue for very long without shouting or even screaming. Sometimes she broke down crying for no reason at all. She was hard to understand in more ways than one; even though she’d lived in Maine for at least seven years, everything she said still came out in a thick Southern drawl. She nearly always dressed funny – either entirely in black or in curiously old-fashioned schoolmarmish clothes which contrasted with her nearly-shaved head and the tattoos on her arms. And Blaise’s neighbor David King, the proprietor of King’s Pharmacy, had once confided that Mattie was hooked on painkillers (“my best customer for the Vicodin,” as he put it). But he couldn’t ignore her. Mattie Lee, Blaise reminded himself, was Wanda’s mom, one of the people the school was there to serve. And Amanda, who had moved to town just eight months earlier with her husband Steve, was a new teacher, and new teachers sometimes made mistakes. Also, he knew that Amanda, a passionate Democrat, wore her politics on her sleeve. This didn’t bother Blaise and wouldn’t bother most of the other residents of liberal Castle Rock. But Mattie, who proudly hailed from the Bible Belt, might see the young teacher as an enemy soldier in what some conservatives called the “culture wars.” And so, just before 3:00 on a Friday afternoon, Blaise went to Amanda’s classroom and told her that Mattie had just declared war. He found Amanda – a statuesque, graceful young blonde who could have passed for a model - giving her kids a lesson about science. “NATURAL ENEMIES” was written across the top of the chalkboard in block letters. Underneath it was a blow-up of the famous cartoon showing a food chain consisting of a large fish, a medium-sized fish, and a small fish. “Life is always fair,” the large fish was thinking as it prepared to eat the medium-sized fish. “Life is sometimes fair,” thought the middle fish as it swam away from its pursuer and prepared to eat the small fish. “Life is never fair,” thought the smallest fish as he prepared for the end. “Imagine this,” Amanda was saying. “A little black beetle scurries across the desert.” She bent over slightly, running in place and dog-paddling with her hands for a moment before continuing. “And then he meets up with a scorpion.” A small boy with unkempt blond hair raised his hand. “What’s a scorpion?” Amanda smiled, a bit sheepishly. “I’m sorry, honey. A scorpion is a kind of big insect. He has eight legs, claws like a Maine lobster, and a long curved tail with a stinger.” She drew a crude scorpion on the chalkboard. “Pretty gross, if you ask me.” The kids laughed briefly. “The scorpion is the beetle’s natural enemy,” Amanda explained. “He doesn’t hate the beetle; he isn’t even mad at the beetle. In fact, he likes the beetle – a little bit too much for the beetle’s own good. Beetles are their food supply. “So, what does Mr. Scorpion do? He eats the beetle, maybe burps after his good meal, and continues on his way. But then, he runs into a field mouse. The field mouse in the scorpion’s…what?“ she paused. “Natural enemy,” the students repeated in a ragged chorus. “Very good! And the field mouse eats the scorpion. That’s how he survives. And then he runs across the desert, probably looking for a few more scorpions for lunch. But then, a shadow crosses over him. He looks up, and he sees a big old hawk-“ Amanda spread her arms and flapped them for a second. As she did so, she saw Mr. Blaise standing in the doorway. “And here’s our principal, Mr. Hawk –“ Amanda broke off and blanched. “Let’s try that again. Here’s our principal, Mr. Blaise-“ “And I’m not your teacher’s natural enemy – or yours,” Mr. Blaise assured Amanda’s students, getting a few laughs. “Just a little lesson about nature,” Amanda explained. “Maybe I can learn something,” Blaise nodded. “Please. Go on.” “Where was I-? The hawk is the scorpion’s natural enemy. So he swoops down, grabs Mr. Scorpion, and carries him off for dinner. “And for better or worse, that’s how it is in the wild,” Amanda summed up. “Almost every living thing has a natural enemy; and is something else’s natural enemy besides.” She looked at her watch, then glanced again at Mr. Blaise. “I think we’re almost out of time for today. Does anyone have any questions?” A girl with strawberry curls raised her hand. “Do people have natural enemies? And who are they?” Amanda nodded. “Good question. I don’t want to scare any of you, but yes, we do. It depends where in the world you live. There are some big animals – alligators in the swamp, bears in the forests – that’ll go after people who don’t treat them with respect.” She paused. “But you know who our biggest natural enemies are?” “Who?” the girl asked. Amanda’s expression turned solemn. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but people’s biggest natural enemies are…other people. People who don’t respect the lives of other people. People who pollute our air with the exhaust from their cars; who pollute our water with the chemicals from their factories. People in the government, who will sometimes send other people off to war-“ A bell rang in the hallway and most of the students sprang to their feet. “I guess that’s all for today. Have a good weekend; tell your folks I said hello; and we’ll see you Monday morning.” After the kids had filed out – charged out was more like it – Amanda turned to Earl Blaise. “You did good,” he said. Amanda smiled, showing white, nearly perfect teeth. “I think I heard a ‘but’ coming after that, Mr. Blaise.” “Not as far as I’m concerned,” he assured her. “The kids like you – believe me, I could tell if they didn’t - and so do the other teachers. But…but I wanted to give you the heads-up on something.” For the first time, Amanda looked a bit apprehensive. “Yes?” “Wanda Lee Allen’s mother. Mattie Lee. That lady who works at the library, in the children’s section. You know, the one with all the jewelry-” Amanda looked confused for a moment, then nodded. “Oh, yeah. The one with the very short hair and those old-fashioned outfits-“ “-and the accent to match,” Blaise finished for her. “That’s the one. Well, I got this…kind of a weird E-mail from her the other night. What she said didn’t make a whole lot of sense. But she seemed very upset about some things, and she wants to come in and talk to us about it.” “What’s wrong?” Earl Blaise paused, tried to say it in a way that would put his new teacher at ease. “She said Wanda’s learning how to be a good liberal.” Amanda laughed, looked at Blaise with mock innocence. “Learning that from me? I can’t imagine what she’s talking about.” Blaise smiled. “Well, it looks like – Mattie, that is – doesn’t like it. She used the word ‘indoctrinating.’” Amanda shook her head. “Mr. Blaise,” she began, “in this community, we have a very strong sense of right and wrong-“ Blaise held up his palm. “Look, I agree with you on that one, Amanda. The problem is that Mattie doesn’t seem to fully share our sense of right and wrong. She’s not from around here-“ “Where is she from, anyway?” “She mentioned the South in her letter. From some of the other things in there - from the way she writes, even - I’d say she’s probably from some very small working-class town, maybe from a military family, maybe religious too. Very provincial.” Amanda rolled her bright blue eyes. “A real red-stater. I just looove people like that.” “Well…maybe that’s not quite the right attitude to take in this situation. Miss Allen isn’t just some hillbilly-“ “Isn’t…just?” Amanda smiled mischievously again. Blaise smiled back, a little guiltily. “Remind me to watch my tongue when I’m around her. As I was saying, she’s a taxpayer. One of our neighbors. The mother of one of your students.” “One of my best students. I call Wanda my ‘walking encyclopedia.’ She excels at math, history, everything. And she knows way more about Greek mythology than I do. I told my kids to pick one of the Greek Gods and write a paper about them. Wanda took Hades, the lord of the dead. She compared him to Hel, keeper of the underworld in Norse mythology.” “That’s pretty good for a third-grader.” “Especially when you consider that I hadn’t even told them anything about Norse mythology.” “Well, her brains had to come from somewhere. Judging by her E-mail, I’d say Mattie’s pretty bright herself. Just a little…” he hunted for a word that wasn’t an insult, “…different.” “Am I in any trouble?” “No, of course not. But I’ve invited Mattie to come by the school Monday morning, before class starts, and talk things over with you and me. I talked to her on the phone this morning. She sounded surprised that I called – and maybe just a little bit embarrassed over the way she went off in that E-mail of hers. But she’s still threatening to pull Wanda out of school – also her little boy Victor, who’s in the first grade with Irene Reppler – and send them to school over in Bridgport.” “But that’s so far – ten miles at least, right?” Amanda, a native of Los Angeles, was still learning about the area. “And frankly, if she’s got a problem with my politics, I don’t think she’d like Bridgport Elementary much better. I’ve met the principal there – Miss Liebman.” Blaise smiled and nodded. “Ah, yes. Sandy Liebman, the ‘New Age Lady’.” Sandra Liebman drove a hybrid electrical car with a 1970’s-style green ecology flag on the back window, a bumper sticker than said WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER, and a license plate frame saying MY NEXT LICENSE PLATE / WILL BE MADE BY BUSH AND CHENEY. “Right. Some of the things she says are too way out – even for me.” “Exactly. So let’s help out Mattie – Miss Allen, I mean – don’t use her first name unless she lets you – by showing her we understand she’s concerned about her daughter, but that you’re not teaching Wanda Lee anything that’s bad for her. We don’t have to tell her she’s not down South anymore; she knows that well enough. We have to show her that she’s welcome here.” “And maybe,” Amanda paused, “maybe we can show her that…our way is better, you know?” II. “Hey, Blue Eyes,” Steve Dumfries said to his wife as they lay on their living room couch together, “what’s the matter with you?” Amanda, lying on top of him and using his chest as a pillow as they watched TV, shrugged. “I’m…tense.” He laughed softly. “I can see that. For the last hour I’ve been trying to lure you into making love,” he gestured to the open bottle of white wine on the table next to them (untouched except for the glass he’d had and the tiny sip she’d taken), and to the slice of chocolate cake that was normally a powerful aphrodisiac for both of them, “and you aren’t going for it. What’s wrong?” “Nothing,” she began. “I- all right. I got a complaint against me at the school. One of the parents.” “What’d you do wrong now?” “Mr. Blaise talked to me about it after school today. Some woman – she’s a very weird woman, believe me – wrote a letter to him saying I was trying to brainwash her eight-year-old daughter.” Steve’s eyebrows went up. “Brainwash?” “Yeah. Using the classroom as a political soapbox. Trying to turn her against her mother by teaching her all my elitist liberal values. People shouldn’t fight with each other. People should learn to live within their means. Don’t tear down all the forests and turn Maine into New York City. That sort of thing.” Amanda sat up, felt Steve shift uncomfortably beneath her as she bent his knees backwards into the couch. Steve, she knew, loved her full figure, but it was a fact that she was getting heavier. “Those’re basic values, honey. Teddy Roosevelt would have said the same things.” “I think her ideas were formed before Teddy Roosevelt,” she countered. “About five hundred years earlier. I wouldn’t be surprised if she objects to my telling the kids about Charles Darwin.” “Wait,” Steve, now out from under his wife, sat up beside her. “You’re not talking about that crazy woman – the one with the dead animals mounted in her store window? Mrs…” He thought for a moment. “Carmody? The one who got everyone in her church to sign that petition protesting the teaching of evolution at Castle Rock High?” “No,” Amanda laughed. “No one’s as bad as her. This woman’s probably harmless. This is Melanie – sorry, Mattie Lee - Allen. Wanda Lee Allen’s mother.” “Your star student.” “None other. But you wouldn’t know it. Wanda’s such an angel, not only smart but well-behaved. Mattie’s one of the nastiest people I’ve met here so far.” “Did she come to the school and read you the riot act?” Amanda winced as she realized that on Monday morning, Mattie would likely be doing just that. “No. But I’ve seen her around town. She works at the library – in the children’s section, if you can believe it, where I go to get books to read to my students - and she’s not pleasant.” “What’s she like?” “She’s weird. She wears her hair in this – like a crew cut but much shorter, like they do in the Army-“ “A ‘high and tight,’” Steve supplied. “Actually, that describes her perfectly,” Amanda laughed. “Maybe she was in the military, I don’t know. From her accent – it’s really strong, by the way - I’d say she’s from the South. Lots of soldiers are, I guess. She always wears these really old outfits – like women in those old tintype photographs from the 1890’s – and these old-fashioned glasses, the kind that clip onto her nose?” “A pince-nez.” Amanda looked at him, confused. He told her it meant “pinched nose.” “That describes her, too. She snaps at people, shushes the kids all the time. She never smiles.” “Sounds like a real old-maid librarian.” “Apart from the getup and the shushing, she’s nothing like a librarian. Whenever I see her anyplace else, she’s arguing with someone, shouting more often than not.” She put her face close to Steve’s, contorted her beautiful features into a scowl. “’Let me alone! D’ya hear!?’” she snapped in imitation of Mattie. “And she’s not that old. I’d say mid- twenties, younger than me.” Amanda was thirty-two. “Is she married?” “I don’t think so. I’ve seen her at the market, around town, with her two kids – Wanda Lee and a little boy. Never with a man. Never with anyone who even looked like a friend. Except…” She paused, fidgeted a bit. Steve, who had been married to Amanda for three years, knew that meant his wife wanted to say something but was afraid of offending him. “Go on,” he encouraged her. “Well, maybe this is tales out of school, but I was in the market once and there she was, ahead of me in one of the aisles, with this other woman. This kind of butch-looking woman, with the exact same haircut as her but taller, broad shoulders, muscles in her arms, that kind of thing. You know how I said Mattie always wears these old-fashioned getups? Well that day, she was dressed all in black. Tight jeans, a tank top, and these big lace-up boots, like a biker chick or a skinhead. And this other woman was dressed the same way. And I remember-“ she giggled at the memory “-they both had the exact same tattoos on their arms. These black bands, like chains or barbed wire, that reached all the way around. But the other woman had the words ‘U.S. ARMY’ tattooed on her shoulder in big black letters.” “Ah-hah.” Steve nodded. “Maybe that’s why she feels a bit uptight here? Not all the folks here are as modern as you and me. I can just imagine what people like Mrs. Carmody would say.” “I’d thought of that,” Amanda nodded. “It could be that she’s running from herself. If she’s gay and she grew up in Dixie…” Amanda shook her head sadly. “Truman Capote was from Alabama,” mused Steve, “and he turned out all right. Well, almost.” “But after reading her letter, I’m not sure she is gay. They’re usually good progressives. This woman’s a reactionary.” “What did she say?” “She said she’s upset because Wanda told her I’d said bad things about President Bush.” She smiled bitterly. “As if I could find something good to say about him. As if I was supposed to. One of the kids asked me something about elections, and while I was answering I told them Gore had really won back in 2000 because he got more votes and because the recounting in Florida was handled by people in Bush’s family.” “Well, honey, that’s-“ “You know what I mean.” For the first time Amanda sounded hurt. “I give a two-second answer to a one-second question, and she thinks it’s her duty to report me. And that’s not the worst of it. She…twisted things that I said. I told the kids I thought we shouldn’t be in Iraq. That’s what most people think now, by the way. I also told them many of the Iraqis don’t even want us there. So she tells my boss I said bad things about American soldiers.” She pulled another face. “What a liar.” “Well, it sounds to me like her partner, friend, whatever-she-is is a soldier herself, if she had that Army tattoo. She might have been in the Army herself, like you said. And she probably comes from someplace where everyone goes into the military right after high school. She wants to believe her friends and neighbors are fighting a good fight over there.” “But I can’t tell my kids something I believe is wrong. Hasn’t she ever heard of academic freedom? The First Amendment?” “Maybe not. She doesn’t sound too bright. And I think I’ve seen her once, last Spring, when I was coming back from a remediation job over on Pleasant Mountain. A skinny woman with a shaved head, tattoos, sitting with a couple of little kids on the dock by the edge of the lake. They were fishing. And behind them, behind the dock, was this rotten little car, covered with dents, and with a cracked windshield. It looked like it was about a hundred years old. She’s poor, honey.” “Poor white trash,” Amanda nodded. “That’s not very nice,” Steve said gently, “but I think it fits the bill in her case. That’s someone to feel sorry for, not someone to be angry with.” “But I am angry with her. I’m angry because she’s trying to get me into trouble at work. And I’m angry because of the other stuff she said in the letter. She wants to shoot herself, and people like her, in the foot. She’s poor; but she objects to my saying bad things about a President who wants to keep her poor. How much did he help people like her who lost their homes in Hurricane Katrina? How many people like her, maybe from her home town, did he get killed in Iraq looking for those WMD’s that didn’t even exist? She’s probably gay; but she doesn’t think I have the right to criticize a military that wouldn’t let her serve. And if she’s one of those evangelicals they have down South, her own faith would damn her to hell for being gay and for having those two little kids but no husband.” Steve didn’t want to take this much further. “Obviously, the wine and cake thing isn’t working. I think you need something stronger.” He got up and went into their bedroom, returning a moment later with a small metal pipe, a Zippo lighter, and a little plastic jar. “Now forget about this woman, honey, and concentrate on us.” The marijuana succeeded where the wine and chocolates had failed. Two hits and fifteen minutes later, Amanda was relaxed again, nuzzled against her husband on the couch, giggling over a cold medicine commercial featuring a gigantic kitten. And then she found herself in the mood. Steve carried her into the bedroom (Amanda always got a little dizzy when she was stoned; Steve didn’t want her to stumble) and laid her down on top of the covers. After they were finished and Steve had gone to sleep, Amanda gazed thoughtfully into the darkness. The pot was wearing off and she remembered, with distaste, her upcoming conference with Mattie. What, she wondered, did this strange young woman want from her? What was she really like? As Amanda drifted towards sleep, she envisioned Mattie on the day that Steve had seen her, fishing on the dock with Wanda Lee and Victor Lee. But she never imagined how much Mattie’s little family had enjoyed themselves that Spring afternoon as the young mother taught her children how to fish. III. That Sunday night, Mattie Lee sat in the small living room of their modest house on Cross Creek Road, watching a DVD of Revenge of the Sith. Mattie’s son Victor Lee, five years old, liked anything with loud noise and was thrilled by all the battle scenes and bombastic music. His half- sister Wanda, perhaps the most thoughtful of the three, was interested in seeing the protagonist gradually turn from good to evil. And Mattie had always loved science fiction. She’d seen the original three Star Wars movies – or were they calling them the last three these days? – as a kid; had seen the fourth while in juvenile prison (one of her few pleasant memories of that place); and had caught the fifth film with her best friend Rose while Rose was on leave from active duty in Afghanistan and Mattie was pregnant with Victor. The kids’ bedtime was normally nine o’clock (Mattie’s was at ten) but none of them wanted to go to sleep until they saw how the film came out. It was nearly ten thirty by the time the credits rolled. For a few minutes after, they sat together on the couch, finishing the popcorn Mattie had made, while Victor enthused about his new hero, Darth Vader. “Time to go to bed, you guys,” Mattie said softly, regretfully. They’d had fun together that weekend and she was sorry it was over. She owed her children so much. They had no fathers to play with them or teach them things or take them places on weekends. Wanda’s father had abandoned Mattie as soon as he learned she was pregnant; and Mattie would never know for sure who Victor’s father was. Mattie tried to make it up to them by taking them to the movies (or bringing the movies home, as she’d done tonight) and teaching them how to fish and cook and garden as her parents had shown her. But so often, she couldn’t do even those simple things for her babies. Even with Mattie’s job at the library, the Allens had little money and their third-hand car had long since died. She felt like asking their forgiveness whenever she realized she couldn’t take them someplace they wanted to go or buy them something nice that they deserved. But there were other problems as well. Mattie herself was often too upset to play with her children. The constant pain in her back and her left knee. The run-ins with her neighbors and coworkers and sometimes even the police. Above all, her own memories of a happier time and of the terrible way that time in her life had ended. Some mornings she would wake up sad or angry or anxious spend the entire day trying to hide her tears from her kids and the people at the library. Some nights she would scare Wanda and Victor by talking in her sleep, pleading with people who were long dead to forgive her and not to leave her. And other nights she would wake up crying or screaming and not stop until she realized that she wasn’t back in jail or dead in a car wreck or in Hell. Her children, especially Wanda, would try to comfort her, often crying themselves because they realized they couldn’t help Mattie. And then, there were the drugs, more every year. She tried not to think of them as simply her medicine – after all, she had had a knee replacement, and she used only painkillers prescribed by her doctor (albeit a third-rate doctor in a seedy home office at the edge of town, one who would write her a prescription for Vicodin in return for a hundred dollars in cash; and a prescription for OxyContin for three hundred in cash when Mattie could afford it). Even the “extras” she bought online or from local dealers were just the same as the ones the doctor gave her. Sometimes, particularly in the mornings or late at night, they calmed her down, put her problems in perspective, and helped her enjoy her time with her babies. But they also kept her awake at night, often leaving her to stumble through the next day in an irritable daze; they were expensive (the dealers now wanted six dollars for a single Vicodin tablet, if you could believe it; and OxyContin was forty- five dollars a pop); she had to take more and more of the pills to get the desired effects; and if she ran out, the anxiety, depression, and nausea from withdrawal were unbearable. But this weekend, none of those many things had gone wrong. She’d picked up her check from the library on Friday afternoon; had a visit from “Merlin,” the long-haired young dealer from Bridgton on Friday evening; and she’d had enough money and stamina to take her kids swimming in the lake on Saturday and to barbecue hotdogs and watch films with them on Sunday. In a way, she dreaded going back to work tomorrow, to the library where everyone argued with her or overloaded her with work or insulted her behind her back (her short haircut, her friendship with Rose, and her lack of a boyfriend gave rise to endless speculation that she was lesbian). And before she could go to work, she just remembered, she had to meet with Wanda Lee’s principal about that silly teacher – Amanda Dumbass or whatever her name was. After tucking Victor Lee into his bed and kissing him goodnight, Mattie asked Wanda to stay up a few minutes more and have a soda with her mama in the kitchen. Once there (Wanda had a Coke and Mattie washed down four Vicodin tablets with a can of Red Bull), Mattie explained that she’d asked to talk to Wanda’s principal, Mr. Blaise, about “Miss Dimbulb.” “I just want to make sure she’s teaching you all the things you’ll need to know when you’re grown up,” Mattie was saying, “and I don’t want her telling you a whole big bunch of lies.” Mattie, already a bit self- conscious about intentionally mangling Amanda’s last name and then accusing her of lying to Wanda, tried to choose the rest of her words carefully. She knew Wanda liked her teacher and she didn’t want her daughter to feel that Mattie was trying to deprive her of a new friend. “I just don’t want her…trying to make you feel bad about Aunt Rose, and what she and her friends are doing down there in Iraq. And I really don’t want her trying to make you feel bad about me, or our family, or where we come from.” “Oh, mama, I don’t feel bad about any of that.” “Of course you don’t, baby,” Mattie reached across the table and gently squeezed her daughter’s hand. “But it sounds to me like Mrs. Dumfries is saying bad things about all of us.” “I don’t think she’s doing that.” “Well, you told me she said our soldiers shouldn’t be in Iraq, right? And that the Iraqis don’t want them to be there, and that they’re really just fighting for Bush and Cheney?” “That’s what she said. But why’s that saying something bad about Aunt Rose? She doesn’t even know about Aunt Rose.” Well,” Mattie moved Wanda’s hand up and down as she talked, “Aunt Rose is one of those soldiers in Iraq. She even re-enlisted in the Army, twice, so she could keep fighting in Iraq. So if Mrs. Dumfries says ‘our soldiers’ this and ‘our soldiers’ that, she means Aunt Rose, right? “So: She’s saying Aunt Rose is someplace she doesn’t belong; someplace where she’s not wanted; and that she’s really just fighting for some politicians. Basically, she’s saying Aunt Rose is helping to do a bad thing. And she probably thinks Aunt Rose – and all those soldiers like her – are bad, or at least dumb, for doing it. Or that they go along with it because they can’t get any other job. “And didn’t you tell me she said our soldiers were beating up prisoners?” “Yeah. She said that. In a place called Abu…Abu-“ “Abu Ghraib.” Mattie carefully pronounced the last word. “That’s a prison in Iraq. Three or four soldiers, who I’m pretty sure were bad people, beat up some prisoners there. They did other bad things to the prisoners too. The Army found out about it and it punished them. Most of ‘em went to jail. But did Mrs. Dumfries say ‘four soldiers beat up some prisoners,’ or did she say ‘our soldiers beat up prisoners’?” “She said, ‘our soldiers.’” “Then,” Mattie shrugged. “She must mean Aunt Rose. After all, she’s one of ‘our soldiers.’ But Aunt Rose would never do that. Remember those pictures she sent us of her and her soldier friends escorting those Iraqi women so they could vote in an election without people shooting at them? Or those ones of her playing soccer with those Iraqi kids? That’s what she’s really like. And I bet you Mrs. Dumfries doesn’t have a friend who’s in the Army. Or a relative. ‘Cause if she did, she wouldn’t say bad things about ‘our soldiers’ beating people up. “And she’s not just saying those things about Aunt Rose. When she says ‘our soldiers,’ or the ‘Army,’ or the “U.S.,’ she also means your grandpa. He died in the first Iraq war, the one they called Desert Storm.” Mattie’s heart had begun to pound, and she closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. “Let me tell you what that was like. Something Mrs. Dumfries wouldn’t know about.” Mattie had been only nine years old when that war began. Within days, her father Jim’s Army Reserve unit was called up and he was deployed to Saudi Arabia. He was sent there along with his best friend and next-door neighbor Tom, who was Rose’s dad; and at least a dozen other men in their hometown of Rubidoux, Missouri. Besides her father and Tom, Mattie knew four of these men, their neighbors in the Rubidoux Trailer Park on the edge of town. The day before Jim and the others left, they marched in a procession through the town center and past the old Civil War cannon, as the residents symbolically sent them off to war. The spectators, Mattie and Rose and their mothers among them, cheered and waved American and Confederate flags as a high school band played the national anthem followed by “God Save the South.” Father Hurley, the parish priest who was perhaps the most respected man in their overwhelmingly Irish-Catholic town, asked for the Lord’s blessing on their soldiers and prayed they would all get home safely. For the next six months Mattie and Rose spent every evening, along with their mothers, watching the news, and both hoping and not hoping to get a glimpse of Jim Allen or Tom Sullivan. Mattie could still remember how, around two o’clock on the afternoon of February 26, 1991, both Mattie and her mother Sue found themselves inexplicably anxious and depressed (nowadays, that was practically Mattie’s normal state; but back then she had been mostly happy and easygoing.] “Mama, is daddy all right?” Mattie had asked, at the very same moment that Sue said to her, “I’m worried about your daddy.” A minute or so later, Rose’s mom, who lived in the trailer next to theirs, called to say she’d gotten a “funny feeling.” She wanted to know if everything was all right. It wasn’t. At eight o’clock the following morning, February 27, Sue got up from breakfast with her daughter to answer a knock at their door. Two soldiers had come in and, after confirming that they were talking with Suzanne Allen, informed her that her husband had been killed at twenty-two hundred hours the previous day outside of Baghdad. He had, they said, died a hero; he had seized a live hand grenade that had been thrown into a building being used as a temporary barracks by over twenty U.S. soldiers, most of whom were then inside. He ran outside to dispose of the grenade and it had exploded in his hands. Sue, after listening silently, had thanked the soldiers for telling her, assured them she knew it had been difficult for them as well, and saw them out. Mattie would always remember the great dignity her mother had shown during that visit. When the soldiers were gone, and Mattie and Sue could see them disappearing down the path from the Allens’ trailer, they had cried in each others’ arms. But they weren’t alone. Sue’s friend Joan Sullivan, who had seen the soldiers on their way out and understood what their visit likely meant, literally came running to comfort them. Within an hour, she was followed by the wives of several of the other reservists. Father Hurley came next, praying with Sue and Mattie (who was at still at least somewhat religious in those days). Sue’s boss, the owner of the consumer-electronics plant in town, a man who had lost a son in the Vietnam War – called to express his condolences and told her to take the next few days off with pay. He later gave her a raise and let her work a second shift to help make ends meet. Joan and Rose – and later Tom, after he returned from Iraq two months later – were around Mattie and Sue almost constantly, helping them to adjust. And for months, wherever Mattie and her mom went in town, people – neighbors, storeowners, even strangers and people who weren’t normally nice – consoled them, spoke highly of Jim, and asked how they could help the Allens. “And you know why they did all that for us?” Mattie asked her daughter. “Because so many of those people had been in the Army themselves. Or their parents or children or brothers were. And most people in town even had grandfathers in the Army who’d fought against Hitler – you know who that was, right? - and great-grandfathers who fought in World War One, and so on, all the way back to the War Between the States. And some of them - like Mr. Sawyer, my mama’s boss – had lost people they loved in a war. People who died fighting for our country.” She paused and sighed. “’Our soldiers.’ I just want to make sure Mrs. Dumfries understands that.” “But why wouldn’t she?” “Because, little one, this is a different kind of place than back home. A lot less folks here were in the service. Sure, there’s those nice young soldiers from the Arrowhead base who come into town sometimes – two of those boys gave me a lift home one night – but they’re not who I mean. I mean the natives, the folks who’re here year after year. Most of ‘em never served. They don’t want to do it themselves and they don’t understand why anyone else would. They-“ Mattie knew she was talking faster and faster, a sign she was getting upset. After pausing for a few moments, she picked up again. “Some of ‘em don’t even seem to know why we have a military. I swear, they’re afraid of their own Army. I’ve heard some of the older folks here brag about how they stayed out of the Vietnam War by going to Canada or pretending to be crazy. I want to tell them my grandfather was in that war. He was shot, in Cambodia back in 1970. He recovered in a field hospital, and then he went right back to fighting. What makes the folks here, the ones that ran to Canada, better than my grandpa? Do they think they’re better ‘cause they broke the law?” “No, mama. Miss Dumfries talked about that a little. She said that whole war was bad, that it wasn’t even fair to the soldiers who-” “Is that what she thinks? You ask your Miss Dumfries to tell you what happened in Cambodia – how many people were killed – after the Americans left, after people like her pulled us out of that war. Ask her if she’s ever heard about the killing fields. “But I’m sure Miss Dumfries already knows about that. But it doesn’t matter to her. All she wants to do is stay out of a war herself. Like all those hippie friends of hers back in the sixties who burned their draft cards while my grandpa was risking his life over there. I mean, why should they leave their big comfortable homes and their nice easy jobs to fight in a war? After all, if there’s any trouble, they can get people like my grandpa and my dad and Aunt Rose – all those poor people from down South, who they think of as stupid - to fight for them. But they don’t want to admit that. They’d have to tell everyone they’re afraid to fight, tell everyone what they really think of people like us. So instead, they talk about ‘peace,’ or ‘non-violence,’ or now they say, ‘what do France and Germany think of us?’ They say things that make them sound like the good guys. So don’t you believe anything your Mrs. Dumfries says about that war, or about the Army.” Mattie was aware that her voice had been rising steadily, and that Wanda was looking down at her hands, no longer looking at her mother. but she was too angry to stop. “After all, war’s not her problem -- it’s ours!” “Mama,” Wanda said, laying her small hands on top of Mattie’s larger, rougher, scarred ones. “Please don’t get so upset. She-she never said any of those things. She just said she didn’t like war.” Wanda spoke quietly enough, but Mattie could hear a note of panic in her daughter’s voice. She knew kids were afraid of her, if only a little, when she lost her temper. And she didn’t want to frighten Wanda, not after they’d had such a wonderful weekend together. Mattie forced herself to stay silent, drawing a few deep breaths, until she had calmed down a bit. “I’m sorry, little one. I can’t help it. I think there’s more to it than just what she says. It’s not only what they think of Aunt Rose and the other people I grew up with, it’s what they think of me.” She drew another breath. “They…” Mattie fought to keep from sounding too upset, too distressed. “You know why they make fun of the way I talk? It’s not just because I’m from someplace else. It’s because I’m from someplace they…don’t…like. Remember when you said she told you about the Ku Klux Klan? Imagine telling a bunch of eight-year-old kids about something like that! But that’s what most of these people here think of when they think of the South. Or they think of poor people who never went to school and don’t know nothing about science and who marry their sisters.” Mattie paused. “You probably don’t remember this – you were too young – but when you were just a baby, we lived with Aunt Rose and her folks.” The memory brought a mixture of happiness and pain for Mattie. Rose’s parents had taken her into their home, treating her – and later her baby daughter Wanda Lee – as members of their own family. But they had done so because Mattie’s own mother had disowned her, refusing to allow her back into her own home after she returned from the juvenile prison. “Anyway, Rose’s mom and I always used to cook dinner for the whole family. We were always good cooks; Rosie wouldn’t even try in those days.” Mattie laughed, faintly, at the memory. Wanda joined her, relieved at the change in subject and in her mother’s tone of voice. “And then, when we finished cooking dinner – chicken, fish Rose’s dad or one of our neighbors had caught, whatever – everyone’d sit around the table and eat it together. Mr. Sullivan – I mean, Rose’s dad – would always thank us, and he’d eat whatever we gave him. The first few times I burned things, or didn’t cook them all the way through – but he didn’t want to hurt my feelings so he’d clean his plate anyway. And I loved him, because I’d known him all my life, and he was my best friend’s dad, and he’d taken me in when no one else would. “And in the Spring and Summer, because it was hot, Rose’s dad would always be sitting at the table, night after night, in these white undershirts he had with no sleeves. They were kinda like the tank tops I wear when Aunt Rose is here – but about twice as big. They both laughed again, louder this time. “And I always thought those looked good on men, if they were in good shape. Mr. Sullivan worked at a rail yard, so he had big strong arms – even stronger than Aunt Rose’s. And he had this tattoo on his left arm, of a wolf, all gray and black and white, that I like to look at. “So that became part of our ritual every night, us bringing him the food and him loving it and thanking us for it – always wearing those white sleeveless undershirts. And I can remember my dad wearing one of those shirts too, when I was very young, before he went off to Iraq and didn’t come back.” “But you know what the people here call a shirt like that?” Mattie was suddenly frowning again. “They call it a ‘wife beater.’ That’s what they think of us. Never mind that my dad would never hit my mama; or that Mr. Sullivan would never lay a hand on his wife either. The folks here think Southern men, like your grandpa and Mr. Sullivan – beat Southern women; and they probably think Southern women put up with it.” Mattie threw up her hands and shrugged. “They won’t even let us wear our underwear.” “That’s not what Miss Dumfries thinks, mama. She’s never said anything like that.” “Maybe it isn’t what she says, little one, at least not to you or maybe not to me when I meet her tomorrow. But I’m afraid it’s what she thinks. And I think that’s why they don’t accept us here. The real reason.” Mattie glanced, then stared, at her watch. It was now eleven o’clock, two whole hours past Wanda’s bedtime. “I’m sorry, baby. I was gonna keep us up all night long.” She smiled wanly at her daughter. Wanda smiled back, but said nothing, not wanting to keep the conversation going. “You’re so dear to me,” Mattie said as she came around the table and hugged her daughter. “I just want to…shield you from some of the bad things out there. And I don’t…I don’t want someone like Miss Dumfries telling you that my folks, and the people back home I loved so much, are bad people, or stupid people. Or that I’m that way. I don’t want her to turn you against me. And I don’t want you to be ashamed of who you are.” Mother and daughter walked together into the bedroom where Victor Lee was already asleep, an old stuffed Garfield clutched in his arms. Mattie wished she could still pick up Wanda and carry her to bed, but Wanda had gotten too heavy for that long ago. “She’s nice, mama,” Wanda said as Mattie tucked her in. “You’ll see. Please don’t yell at her tomorrow. Don’t hurt her.” “I won’t little one,” Mattie kissed her daughter goodnight. All that night, as Mattie slept alone in her small bed, she went back and forth between guilt at judging Amanda – who probably didn’t know any better and meant Wanda no harm – and anger at the way she had been treated, again and again, by people like Miss Dumfries in this gloomy, frozen place so far from her real home. IV. Mattie awoke, restless, at 5:30 the next morning – an hour earlier than she had to. Her babies were still asleep in the next room and she didn’t want to disturb them by running the shower or turning on lights. She lay still, watching the sky outside her small window turn from black to dark gray and finally to the pearly white that she knew the sun would cook off around noon, rehearsing what she would say to Amanda and the principal. Everything she thought of, everything she whispered to herself, was from an imagined confrontation or screaming argument. The more she thought about it, the more the hostile images and words spun around in her head, the angrier she became. Of course, she knew it wouldn’t really be like that; and she’d learned from painful experience that if she started acting like that, said any of those things out loud, she’d confirm their worst impressions of her. Mattie knew, of course, that a few Vicodin tablets – especially if washed down with Red Bull, if she had any left in her small refrigerator - would help calm her down. However, she told herself not to take them now. This certainly wasn’t a matter of principle; and it was not even because she wanted to be clear-headed when she met with Amanda and Mr. Blaise. It was because the meeting would not start until eight o’clock, two and a half hours from now. She knew the pills worked their strongest magic when she first took them in the morning, putting her in a reasonably good mood for an hour or so before wearing off. The ones she took in the mid-morning and throughout the afternoon were less effective; and she generally had to wait until the evening to get the full effect again. Mattie wanted to be near the beginning of her first, and most powerful, run when she got to the school. With luck, the feeling would stay with her throughout the conference. For now, she settled for a cup of black coffee and a few cigarettes (clove-flavored; they were expensive and harder and harder to find, but they were also the same kind she and Rose had smoked since they were thirteen years old. Their scent, even the sweet taste of the black cigarette paper, always took her back in time, to endless evenings spent laughing with Rose in their rooms or on their porches, to drunken midnight rides across the Salem Plateau). Yes, that had once been Mattie Lee, in the happiest time of her life. Now all that was left was a scrawny, destitute young woman with a crippled knee and a drug problem, a young woman who always seemed to be in over her head. As Mattie sat at the kitchen table, sipping her coffee and chain smoking, she tried again to figure out what to say. Amanda Dumfries might think the South was crawling with fiery backwoods bigots, but it wasn’t Mattie’s job to give her a history lesson or set her straight. She’d simply say that she didn’t want Wanda Lee to grow up ashamed of her heritage. (Mattie wondered, though, whether either she or Amanda would really be able to avoid arguing about the South. She vaguely remembered a television comedy about an English hotel owner who had instructed a waiter not to mention World War II to a German couple dining there. The waiter, despite his best efforts, ended up mentioning nothing but the war.) She decided she would address her comments about the political indoctrination to Mr. Blaise. Amanda, no doubt, thought of her own viewpoint as the plain truth, and would not believe that any decent person would object to her teaching it to little kids. Mattie would – without trembling hands, a dry mouth, or any of her other signs of nervousness – explain the difference between a fact and a point of view and then ask her to stick to teaching facts. Those were reasonable things to say to a teacher, weren’t they? At length, Mattie realized she would get nowhere by imagining the confrontation ahead of her. She needed to calm herself. She briefly considered jumping the gun and taking her morning Vicodin (four of them at once, actually) early, but she reminded herself that it would then likely wear off just before the meeting; and it would be too early for another dose to do any good. Instead, she padded down the hallway until she reached Wanda’s and Victor’s room and she stood, silent, in the doorway, watching her babies sleep. The kitchen, like nearly all the others in her house, held bad memories for her. Mattie had come to this little house seven years earlier, when she was nineteen, to care for her dying Aunt Judy. Wanda Lee, only one year old, had come with her. (Mattie smiled, a little sadly, as she remembered how her little girl had loved to grab her mama’s finger, smiling and cooing as she did so.) Judy hadn’t liked Wanda, though, and she had despised Mattie Lee. The abuse – mostly verbal, but sometimes physical - had begun only two nights after she and Wanda had arrived by taxi. Mattie had overcooked the chicken pot pie that she’d bought earlier that day for Judy’s dinner. One moment, aunt, niece, and grand-niece were seated peacefully at the old Broyhill dining room table (little Wanda, at Mattie’s side, was propped up in a high chair). Mattie and Judy were making small talk, something about a TV movie they’d seen the night before. A moment later, Judy had dropped her fork and fallen silent. Mattie assumed it was something to do with her lung cancer. She was about to ask if she should bring Judy her medicine. A moment later, Judy had picked up the pie, still in its little cardboard dish and still fairly hot, and thrown it in Mattie’s face. Mattie yelped in surprise and pain and toppled over backwards in her chair. Wanda immediately began to cry. When Mattie struggled to her feet, and had wiped most of the mess away from her eyes, she saw her daughter’s little face, hair, and bib covered with splotches of warm gravy and little fragments of crust. She went to her knees, put her arms around Wanda, kissing her and whispering to her that everything was all right. As soon as Wanda had quieted down a bit, Mattie had reached, with her napkin and her glass of water, to clean off her little girl’s face. Aunt Judy, by now out of her seat, pulled the glass out of Mattie’s hand, spilling it across the tablecloth. Then Judy told her – in a loud, shrill tone of voice that Mattie had never heard her use before but would hear more and more in the months to come - she was just like her daughter – “a little crying bastard.” Wanda began crying again. Judy had screamed at her – actually screamed at the one-year-old child – to shut up. Mattie, heart pounding and her hands shaking with adrenaline, lost her temper. Perhaps forgetting, momentarily, how frightened her little girl already was, she stood up, faced Judy across the table, and shouted back at her, telling her never to do anything like that in Wanda’s presence again. By now, Wanda, unaccustomed to the loud voices (and, as Mattie later saw, slightly burned from the few drops of hot gravy that had splattered on her) was wailing steadily. Judy, slowly but steadily walking closer to them, demanded that Mattie “shut her up.” By then, Mattie had actually been afraid for Wanda’s safety. She told Judy, in a voice breaking with fear, not to come any closer to the girl. And then she stepped directly in Judy’s path, trying to shield Wanda from the angry old woman. Judy took a step back – fine with Mattie – and then kicked Mattie, hard, in her bad knee. Mattie screamed, going down on her hands and her good knee. She could still hear Wanda crying, but she was too paralyzed with the pain – and with the dizziness and nausea that came with it - to get up off the floor. Instead, she began to cry herself. Judy had marched out of the dining room, warning Mattie not to go to bed until she cleaned up the mess. Even over Wanda’s cries, Mattie could hear the sound of Judy’s bedroom door slamming shut. It was several more minutes before she could get up off the floor, grasping one of the chairs for support, her knee protesting all the way. She looked at her daughter and at the ruins of the dinner she’d cooked. Leaning against the table, still trying not to fall back down or to vomit, she was overcome with rage, not only at Aunt Judy, but also at herself for bringing Wanda Lee to this terrible place. For putting her in danger. Just like she’d unknowingly put her boyfriend Kyle – the only man she had ever loved - in terrible danger three years before. Mattie Lee, shaking with sadness and rage at the seven-year-old memory, could feel tears streaming down her face and a lump rising in her throat. “Mattie, that’s-“ she broke off, realizing she was about to break into sobs, perhaps loud enough, that would wake her little Wanda and Victor. “That’s enough, Mattie Lee,” she whispered softly to herself. She stroked the back of her left hand with the fingers of her right, as her own mother had done to quiet her down as a child, speaking the words her mother would have used. “You hush now, honey. Hush. Hush.” And for several minutes, she sat in her chair, rocking gently back and forth in her chair, holding her own hand and trying to calm herself down. When she had regained a little of her composure, she wiped her eyes and got up from the table to do something her mother never would have taught her or approved of. Mattie went over to the refrigerator; fished out an unopened can of Red Bull (careful not to knock over any of the six or so half-empties that had been in there for who knew how long); and used it to chase down the first four of what would surely be a great many Vicodin tablets that day. True, the sense of well-being would be gone before her meeting with Blaise and Amanda (taking more than one increased the effect but didn’t really make it last longer). But now it was a simple question of either functioning that day - getting the kids ready for school, having the meeting, getting to her job – or sitting at the table all day long as she drowned in unhappy memories. At least, she reflected, she’d feel better in a few minutes. It worked as well as it always did. By the time the alarm clock in the kids’ room went off – an hour earlier than usual, Mattie had showered and dressed and was fixing their breakfast (cornflakes and milk, as always; she wished she could do better by them but she couldn’t afford to buy anything fancier). “You look nice, Mommy,” Victor said as Mattie gently shook him out of his sleep (Wanda, unless she was sick, got up immediately upon hearing the alarm and began to get ready for the day; Victor - more like Mattie herself – usually stayed asleep and under the covers for as long he could get away with it.) “Oh, thank you, little one,” Mattie said as she hugged him, lifting him up out of the bed. She was dressed in khakis and gray suede boots, topped with an old-fashioned ruffled blouse and a brown cardigan sweater pinned in front with a cameo brooch. These were the most normal of her clothes that she could find but that still gave her a comforting link to her private world. “Mama wants to make a good impression on the…on Mrs. Dumfries and the principal.” She silently congratulated herself for not saying, “on the stupid teacher.” At the moment, the meeting didn’t really trouble Mattie. She was on the crest of her Vicodin high. Nothing like the day-long or night-long euphoria she’d felt when she first started taking the stuff as a teenager, but enough to give her a sense of optimism and well-being. She now saw the clash with Amanda as simply unfortunate, something that had to be addressed, and hoped there was some way she could reach an understanding with Wanda’s teacher. Maybe Amanda would turn out not to be so bad after all. As she sat down with her kids at the breakfast table, Mattie wished she could be in this frame of mind all the time. It was, after all, the way she’d seen things as a teenager, right up to the accident that had taken Kyle. But after half a lifetime of using and abusing the painkillers, she could rarely achieve that state anymore without their help. Her good mood lasted all the way to Wanda’s school. As always, the little family left the house together, Mattie and Wanda first walking Victor to kindergarten on Mandeville Canyon Road. Their junk car, no longer running, now rested in peace on their front lawn; but they all welcomed the opportunity to spend some more time together and talk about pleasant things as they walked through the chilly mornings. (And Mattie noted, with some satisfaction, that since they started taking the walks, Victor cried far less often than he had, even a month ago, when they dropped him off at the school.) And then she and Wanda turned onto Kansas Road and walked a quarter-mile to Castle Rock Elementary. Wanda haltingly asked Mattie if she thought there would be a fight with Mrs. Dumfries. “I’ll make sure there isn’t, sugar pie.” Mattie raised her right arm and held out her palm. “Scout’s honor.” “Were you even in the Girl Scouts, mama?” Wanda asked, sounding just the Slightest bit skeptical. Mattie smiled (a faint, closed-mouthed smile, but the best she could do; she rarely smiled broadly these days), and drew a deep breath, and recited: “’On my honor, I will try: To serve God and my country; to help people at all times; and to live by the Girl Scout Law.’” She hadn’t spoken or thought of the oath in at least ten years, and was frankly surprised that she remembered the whole thing. Wanda looked at her, impressed. “Yes I was, little one. Me and your Aunt Rose, ages ago.” The little smile stayed on her face as she went back to the happy years, before the accident and the prison and the exile. “Let’s see, we were Brownies ‘till we were eleven. Then we were Cadettes ‘till we were thirteen or so. “And then,” she reflected, “well, I guess we grew up and kinda lost interest in the whole thing.” Yes, she reflected, but did not tell Wanda, she and her best friend had left the scouts – and many other benign pastimes of their early youth - to pursue more meaningful things in their adolescence: Boys, drinking, hooliganism, sex, and pot - with the endless painkillers just around the corner. Mattie doubted that she had truly grown up. “That’s where I learned to handle people like your Mrs. Dumfries...” Mattie cut herself off. She had wanted to make a crack about handling snakes, but that morning she would not allow herself to become angry or sarcastic in front of her daughter. Wanda, last night, had expressed concern about the whole idea of a meeting; and Mattie, remembering her early morning reverie, suspected that if she let her temper go now, she would be hysterical by the time they reached the school, more than enough so to upset her daughter for hours and also to confirm whatever bad things Amanda had been saying about her. “I’m sorry, little one; I know I shouldn’t say that.” She squeezed Wanda’s hand; and felt Wanda’s little fingers wriggle against her palm in reply. All was forgiven. “Mama?” Mattie could see her little girl’s eyes widen, the way she did whenever she got an idea about something. “What?” “When you see her, can you say something to her about a movie?” Mattie looked confused. “What do you mean?” “She loves the movies. She loves to talk about them. You like them too. Maybe if, when you first come in, you talk to her a little about the movies, you and she’ll start a good…” Wanda paused as she tried to think of the phrase. “-Start off on a good foot,” Mattie finished for her. She found herself, as she did more and more often, marveling at her daughter. Wanda was simply the smartest child she’d ever known. And she understood so many things that she couldn’t possibly have gotten from the books she read or the TV programs she watched. And she certainly couldn’t have learned from her mother – her highly-strung, almost perpetually angry mother - how to put somebody at ease. “Very good idea,” she said, with real admiration. “But what movie? What’s she like?” Mattie smirked as an image rose in her mind of Amanda and her husband sitting on their couch, watching a video of themselves performing in bed. It was followed by an image – only slightly less personal – of the young teacher struggling to follow an episode of Sesame Street, a thin line of saliva running down her chin as she did so. And then she pictured Amanda, of course, she saw Amanda laughing her head off at a DVD of Porky’s, a sex comedy which had seemed to her and Rose to be the height of sophisticated humor when they were twelve years old. “Why are you laughing, Mama?” “Oh…nothing.” Mattie decided some things were best left unsaid. “But what movies does she--?” And Mattie began to laugh again. “Mama?!” Wanda cried in mock annoyance and a slight measure of real concern. When Mattie went “up” like that, she all too often - and all too soon - came “down,” with a bad mood to cancel out her earlier good one. She suspected it was the Vicodin – but she didn’t want to put her mother on the defensive by asking her. “I’m sorry.” Mattie sniffed, wiped her eyes (a common gesture for her, but this time she was wiping away tears of mirth for once) and forced herself to calm down. “I should be thinking about the meeting. So: Which films?” “Well, she says she likes Woody Allen. She always says him and me are related, ‘cause we have the same last name and we’re both smart. But who is that, really?” Wanda found to her dismay that she had triggered another fit of giggles from Mattie, who also smacked her forehead with her palm. “Yeah, she would like him.” Wanda could tell by her mother’s voice that she was disapproving and a little contemptuous, but not at all angry. “Well, he’s an actor, but he also makes his own films, and…well, some folks think they’re real funny.” “What kind of people?” Folks who spent too many years in school, Mattie thought, the kind who write stuff, or maybe just talk their heads off, for a living; rich folks who think I should be cleaning up their homes or serving them their food. But instead she just said, “intellectuals.” “What’re they?” “Oh…just folks who love to use lots of big words.” Mattie knew that if she kept thinking about those folks, she’d soon become angry, becoming a green-eyed monster in more ways than one. And besides, she couldn’t possibly hold up her end of a conversation with Amanda about Woody Allen. “What else? Anything your mama might’ve seen?” “How about the Star Trek movies? You said you liked those, don’t you?” “Maybe.” When Mattie and Rose were about ten, they used to watch reruns of the TV series and of the five Star Trek films that had then been released. True, they did so mainly to make fun of everything that Mr. Spock said and did, sometimes even making up plots of their own where he went violently insane or his “logic” proved faulty and got him and his shipmates killed. But at least she knew something about the series. Maybe she could work it into the conversation. With her luck, though Amanda would be one of those folks who talked endlessly about every scene in every episode, and who had memorized the name of every actor and cameraman and writer in every episode and film. Instead of a lecture on political correctness from Amanda – which would be bad enough – she’d get a half-hour sermon on the Guardian of the Edge of Forever or whatever the hell that big stone thing was called. “I’ll see what I can do, okay? And…and if she likes Star Trek, maybe she also likes Star Wars? That one, I can talk about. Nobody – not even your Aunt Rose - knows as much as me about those films.” Even though the Vicodin was beginning to wear off, Mattie found that Wanda’s suggestions had given her a measure of confidence. Although Wanda sometimes argued with her, Mattie loved talking with her daughter. With Victor, too, but she could learn things from Wanda. Victor was like Mattie – warm and dreamy, leading with his instincts and his heart. Wanda was organized, rational, thought before she acted. Like her father, who had carefully manipulated Mattie – then just out of prison, recently thrown out of her own home, and still grieving for Kyle – into thinking that he loved her, systematically lying to her in great detail about his background and interests and intentions. But she knew Wanda Lee wasn’t her father. She was decent, loved Mattie, had never lied to her. She might have gotten her intelligence from him – not that it took much intelligence to fool someone like Mattie – but she used it for entirely different things. And it was good that someone in the Allen family could keep her head and stay focused. As a child, Mattie had ridiculed Mr. Spock because they ridiculed the whole idea of logic. Years later – perhaps years too late – she realized how important it could be. By now Mattie and Wanda were a block away from the school, and they could hear shouts of children on the front lawn and a shrill whistle blowing. Mattie looked at her watch. “We’re almost forty-five minutes early, little one.” Maybe Wanda was having an effect on her after all. She’d actually thought to get up and get going earlier than usual to be able to make the early meeting. That kind of planning was normally beyond her. “Do you want to go in, or stay here a spell with your mama?” “Oh, Mama…” Wanda sounded a little guilty and sad. Mattie hoped Wanda would stay with her, and she knew Wanda would never intentionally hurt her mother’s feelings – but she didn’t think Wanda found her quite as interesting or fun to be around as her schoolmates or the books in the school’s small library. Their little house, the shabby couch where the family would sit and watch Sesame Street, her bed piled high with all of the little stuffed animals Mattie could afford to buy her – those things no longer made up Wanda Lee’s entire world. “Don’t you feel bad. I’ll walk you up to the entrance – and then you go in there and have yourself a good time today, you hear?” Holding hands, they went through the crosswalk and then across the lawn towards the old, 1950’s-style main building. As they reached the arch-shaped entrance, Mattie’s eyes filled with tears –this time, tears of nostalgia and longing – and knelt down and hugged her daughter hard. She yearned to pick her up, to carry her around like she’d done when Wanda was a baby. but knew she was simply too big and too heavy for that anymore. Only Rose – who could also bench press a hundred and fifty pounds – could still manage that. “My little baby…” Mattie fought to stop crying, then fished around in her large handbag for a tissue. She didn’t want everyone on the front lawn to see her in tears. “I love you, Mama. Please don’t get mad at Mrs. Dumfries.” “I won’t, sugar. I’ll be calm. I’ll do it for you. I Promise.” After a last parting kiss on the lips, Wanda went inside, no doubt up toward the library on the second floor. As it happened, Mattie kept her promise for just over thirty seconds. Most of her good feelings, her confidence, had disappeared with her daughter. The effects of the Vicodin, too, were gone; she had the full bottle in her handbag, of course, but she knew that for at least the next two hours, she could take all she wanted – waste the entire bottle, even – without getting the effects she needed. So she sat down on a stone bench to one side of the entrance and dug through her purse for the next- best substitute: The clove cigarettes that so reminded her of Rose and the happy time in Rubidoux. She had lit the cigarette and taken two drags when she became aware of rapid footsteps and of a shadow on the pavement in front of her. Mattie looked up, and was not terribly surprised to see the smiling face of Amanda Dumfries. And she looked guiltily and defensively at the controlled fire burning between the fingers of her left hand, and instantly knew what the perky young teacher was about to say. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she began in a polite, but pitying tone, “they won’t let you smoke that here.”