Liss,” he shouted up from the ground. “Let’s go into town.”
I hopped onto the pallet and Shawn dropped the boom to the
ground. “You drive,” he said, then he leaned his seat back and closed
his eyes. I headed for Stokes.
I remember strange details about the moment we pulled into the
parking lot—the smell of oil floating up from our leather gloves, the
sandpaper feel of dust on my fingertips. And Shawn, grinning at me
from the passenger seat. Through the city of cars I spy one, a red jeep.
Charles. I pass through the main lot and turn into the open asphalt on
the north side of the store, where employees park. I pull down the visor
to evaluate myself, noting the tangle the windy roof has made of my
hair, and the grease from the tin that has lodged in my pores, making
them fat and brown. My clothes are heavy with dirt.
Shawn sees the red jeep. He watches me lick my thumb and scrub
dirt from my face, and he becomes excited. “Let’s go!” he says.
“I’ll wait in the car.”
“You’re coming in,” Shawn says.
Shawn can smell shame. He knows that Charles has never seen me
like this—that every day all last summer, I rushed home and removed
every stain, every smudge, hiding cuts and calluses beneath new
clothes and makeup. A hundred times Shawn has seen me emerge
from the bathroom unrecognizable, having washed the junkyard down
the shower drain.
“You’re coming in,” Shawn says again. He walks around the car and
opens my door. The movement is old-fashioned, vaguely chivalrous.
“I don’t want to,” I say.
“Don’t want your boyfriend to see you looking so glamorous?” He
smiles and jabs me with his finger. He is looking at me strangely, as if
to say, This is who you are. You’ve been pretending that you’re
someone else. Someone better. But you are just this.
He begins to laugh, loudly, wildly, as if something funny has
happened but nothing has. Still laughing, he grabs my arm and draws
it upward, as if he’s going to throw me over his back and carry me in
fireman-style. I don’t want Charles to see that so I end the game. I say,
flatly, “Don’t touch me.”