Trailer Park Noir

Fifteen

Anna Dunfy climbed the steps and entered her trailer. She found Kendra stretched out on the floor watching a game show on the Game show Network and coloring in a coloring book with felt-tip pens. Anna dropped her purse to the floor and spread her arms wide. “Congratulate me!” she said.

Kendra beamed up at her. “Congratulations, Mommy!” Then, a moment later: “For what?”

“They want me to come back.”

“They do? Who does?”

“The people at the place where I worked today.” Anna went to couch and sat down, took her shoes off and rubbed her feet. “Redding Tractor and Lawn Mower. I worked in their office today. Apparently, the woman I filled in for is always out. She knows how to work the system, see. She comes in only as many days as she absolutely has to. The rest of the time, she’s sick. Says she’s depressed and can’t work. They’re getting fed up with her, though, and the way they talk, she won’t be there much longer. They want me to start working there nine-to-five. Starting tomorrow.”

“A full-time job?” Kendra said.

“A full-time job,” Anna said, nodding. “Starting tomorrow.”

“That’s great, Mommy!”

“Yes, it is great. That means you’ll have to get up early so I can take you over to Aunt Rose’s before I go to – “

”Huh? No! No way!” Kendra got to her feet and faced Anna. “You haven’t even asked me how my day went. It went just fine. Nothing went wrong, I’m okay, nothing bad happened. I even walked down with Dexter and got the mail and nothing bad happened. Now, if I can do that one day, why can’t I do it every day? And it’ll only be for the summer, until school starts.”

Anna leaned back on the couch and thought about it. Kendra had handled herself well this afternoon. Anna had no reason to think she couldn’t take care of herself while Anna was at work.

“You’ll miss the rest of Vacation Bible School,” Anna said.

“No, I won’t. Not if Calista Hoffman’s mother comes and picks me up and I go to Vacation Bible School with Calista. Then they can drop me off on their way home. They drive right down Stingy on their way to the church and back.”

Kendra clearly had put some thought into it. She was determined to have her way in this, determined to have her independence for the summer. Anna saw no good reason to deny her of it.

“All right,” Anna said. “I’ll call Mrs. Hoffman and see if she won’t mind picking you up.”

Kendra’s eyes widened. “Then I can?”

“I don’t see why not.”

Kendra slapped a hand over her yawning mouth. Then she slapped her hands together and bobbed up and down on the balls of her feet. She bent down and hugged Anna, who laughed at the joy in Kendra’s reaction.

“Thank you, Mommy, thank you!”

“You’re welcome. How was your day, by the way?”

“It was nice. Just me an’ Dexter. He had a couple accidents on the kitchen floor, but I cleaned them up. Just little puddles. He lets me know when he needs to go out, though.”

“He does? Already?”

“Yes.”

Anna frowned. “Then why did he pee in the kitchen?”

“Uh… “

”You didn’t leave him alone for awhile, did you, Kendra?”

“Uh… “

”Kendra? Are you blushing?”

“I, uh, I was playing with him,” Kendra said. “And he got so excited, he piddled.”

Anna still frowned. She felt strangely suspicious of her daughter – strangely because it was something that had never happened before. She’d never before had any reason to be suspicious of Kendra. But the stammering and the bright pink flush of her face was vaguely suspicious.

“That’s all,” Kendra said.

“You were playing with him.”

“Yes. On the kitchen floor. He was chasing my hand in circles. He got dizzy, and – “ She giggled. “ – oh, you should’ve seen him, Mommy, he was wobbling all over the place, and all of a sudden, he just squatted and peed. It was my fault, I shouldn’t have done that to him.”

There seemed to be nothing suspicious about Kendra’s story. Anna did not know if Kendra was even capable of lying to her. Kendra had never, to Anna’s knowledge, lied to her. Why should she start now?

“Just don’t get him so worked up indoors, okay?” Anna said. She looked down at the little dog, who was looking up at her, impatiently awaiting some attention from her. Anna patted the cushion beside her, and Dexter hopped up on the couch. She petted him, and he wagged his whole body. She rolled him on his side, then onto his back and rubbed his tummy. “You like that, you little devil?”

Dexter made a playful sound in his throat.

Anna lifted her hand and the dog struggled to get back on his feet. She petted him some more.

“Dexter seems to have made himself at home here,” Anna said.

“Oh, he has,” Kendra said. “He’s made himself right at home. Haven’t you, Dexter?”

The dog immediately flew from the couch and ran to Kendra. She bent down and picked him up, held him to her chest like a baby. The dog furiously licked her face.

“Are you going to keep dancing?” Kendra said.

“Good question.” Anna thought about it. The job was still temporary, even though she’d be working nine-to-five for a while. She couldn’t rely on it. So she would have to keep dancing. “Yeah, I guess I will. This job won’t last long.”

“What if they get rid of the woman and they want you to come work for them for real?” Kendra said.

Anna smiled – for real made her smile. “Then maybe I’ll think about not dancing. But for now, it’s not a secure job. I have to keep dancing. It’s good money. I can’t let that go.”

“Mommy, when am I gonna get to come see you dance?”

“I’ve told you, they sell liquor there, so it’s adults only.”

“Then when are you gonna dance for me? I never seen you dance.”

“It’s nothin’, honey. Believe me. You’re not missin’ a thing.” She stood. “But you know what? I’m not gonna dance tonight. I’m gonna call in sick. I’ll tell ‘em I twisted my ankle, or something.”

“Wouldn’t that be a lie, Mommy?”

Anna went to the door and got her purse from the floor, took out her pack of cigarettes. She went to the kitchen table, put down her purse, and flipped up the lid on the cigarette box, took out a cigarette, and lit it. She went to the refrigerator and took out a beer. She cracked it open and sat down at the kitchen table.

“It’s a white lie, honey,” Anna said.

“A… white lie?”

“Yep. That’s something they’ll never teach you about in school, or in Sunday school, or at Vacation Bible School. So don’t bother asking your teachers about white lies.”

“Then… will you tell me what a white lie is?”

“Sure, that’s what I’m gonna do. White lies are the harmless little lies you have to tell people to get through life. They don’t hurt anyone. Sometimes, they even make people feel better, help them have a better day. For example, if your boss asks you if you like her new dress, and you think it’s ugly, are you going to tell your boss you think her dress is ugly? No. You’re going to tell her it’s lovely. That is a white lie. Nobody’s hurt, and the boss has been complimented, which is what she was expecting, anyway. A white lie isn’t a sin. God understands white lies. He lets us slide on those. They’re harmless. Understand?”

Kendra frowned the whole time she listened, concentrating intensely on her mother’s words. “So… that’s why they’re white? ‘Cause they’re not sins?”

“That’s right,” Anna said, nodding. “So, I’m going to call my boss and tell him I hurt my foot and can’t come in tonight. That’s gonna be a white lie. I’m gonna do that so I can stay home and you and I can go to the store and get some hamburger and some hot dogs and buns and come home and have a barbecue.”

“Oh, goody!” Kendra said, clapping her hands.

“I’m gonna call Aunt Rose and see if she wants to bring the kids over. We’ll make a family feast of it. Maybe we can even coax our neighbor, Mr. Reznick, to come join us, wouldn’t that be nice?”

“Yeah, that would be nice,” Kendra said, her voice lowering with each word until she was whispering.

Anna saw her daughter blush again.

“You’re blushing,” Anna said.

“Am not.” Kendra turned away, then bent down and put Dexter on the floor.

“Uh-oh,” Anna said, smoke billowing from her smiling mouth and nostrils. “Does my little girl have a crush?”

“Do not.”

Anna laughed. She sipped her beer. “It’s all right, you know. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I do not have a crush.” She went to the couch, sat down, and leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and watched television.

It was clear to Anna that she did – a crush on their neighbor, Marcus Reznick. She could see it. He was ruggedly handsome and had a rather craggy face with intense, deep-set eyes, and he was very interesting – a private investigator with probably a million fascinating stories to tell.

Sure, she would always have the intellect of an eleven- or twelve-year-old girl, but she had the body of a sixteen-year-old, and a crush on a handsome, much-older man was perfectly natural.

Her only concern was Mr. Reznick – how would he handle it? He would be exposed to it sooner or later. Would he try to take advantage of it? If he did, Anna decided she would kill him. She wasn’t sure how, but she would. And no jury in the world would convict her. No woman would, anyway. No mother.

Anna stamped her cigarette out in the ashtray that had a picture of Reno on the bottom – she’d gotten it on a trip to Reno with her sister before Kendra was born – and finished her beer. Then she stood and said, “I’m going to change my clothes, then let’s go to the store and do some grocery shopping, okay?”

“Okay.”

“If you want to wear that bikini bra, that’s fine, but there’s no way you’re wearing that shirt unbuttoned, do you hear me? Button that shirt up right now. Have you been walking around this trailer park with that shirt unbuttoned?”

Kendra bowed her head and watched her hands as she buttoned up her shirt. She did not reply.

“Did you? Because if you did, it’s going to be the last time. I’ll ask around. I will. And if I find out you’re wandering around this park half-naked, you’ll never be allowed to stay here by yourself, do you understand?” Anna was very firm, and even sounded a little angry. She wanted Kendra to take her seriously. She was being very serious. With Kendra’s body, she couldn’t afford to be going around scantily-clad like that. She was too innocent, too trusting of people. It was a good way to get herself raped. The very thought of Kendra walking down to the mailbox with that shirt unbuttoned and that bikini top on underneath – it made Anna’s stomach twist into knots.

She went to her bedroom and changed into jeans, a red tank top, and red sneakers.

“Ready to go?” she said, back in the living room. She got her purse from the table.

“Yeah.”

They got in the car and Anna drove them out of the trailer park.