“No, Ms. Ladonna. It’s just … your poetry. That was beautiful. Was it Faulkner?”
She blinks a few times, my question lost in translation, apparently. Bubba would’ve understood it. Hell, Bubba would’ve been the one asking the question, and now, I’m stuck with a very kind woman who doesn’t understand me at all, and her crackpot son with his shiftable sexuality. It’s all too much, and I want to go home.
“It’s just something Bubba and I joke about,” I finally say, breaking the silence. “I miss him. I miss them both.” I squeeze her wrist, pleading with my eyes. “Please, Ms. Ladonna. Please, just let me call him. He’s got to be worried sick.”
She cranes her neck and looks out the window like she’s trying to be incognito, fuck knows why. After a pause, she shakes her head. “We ain’t made it far enough yet.”
“Far enough for what?” I ask, but I’m not sure I want to know the answer.
“Far enough that he can’t catch up.”
I swallow. Though nothing about the truck’s structure has changed, it feels like the walls are closing in around me. Is that a threat? Why wouldn’t she want him to catch up? I thought she said they would be following us here. What the fuck does she plan on doing to me in the meantime, exactly? It’s a question I don’t have the courage to ask, because she’s hill folk, and God knows what hill folk do to those they deem unfit to date their son. I mean, that has to be what this is about, right? She has to be lying about them coming after me. Why else would she take me away from the only home I’ve ever felt at home in?
“You don’t want him to find us?”
“Not until we get home. I imagine he’s probably already on his way. At least, I hope he is. I’d hate for you to be stuck in Dunsberry without a shoulder to lean on.” She lifts her hand and pats her shoulder. “But if worst comes to worst and it takes them a while to get there, I’ve got a shoulder too, and you’re welcome to lean on it whenever you need.”
I don’t want her fucking shoulder. I don’t want anything from her. I just want to go home.
The other door opens, and I look back in time to spot Pete pointing another syringe at me. I’m not fast enough, and he jabs it into my calf, making me squeal out in pain.
Ladonna gives her son a death glare. “If you do that again, you’re walking home. I was trying to chit-chat. I had hoped we could bond on the drive back, because Lord knows you’re not one for idle conversation.” She turns her focus back to me, still cupping my cheek, still staring fondly. It’s a bit creepy, but, somehow, for some strange reason, I don’t hate it. “Get some sleep, sweetheart. When we’re an hour or two outside town, I’ll call them.”
I don’t know how she plans to call them, because she doesn’t have a phone, and I doubt she has his number memorized like I do, even though there’s absolutely zero reason for me to memorize someone’s phone number in this day and age. I know it by heart, so I should be able to just blurt it out, but my lips are too heavy to make them move. I guess we’re shit out of luck. My eyelids draw closer and closer together until the only sight I see is her smiling face through the narrowest of slits. It’s a big smile, though. A warm one. It’s a smile that feels true. I can only hope it’s as true as it seems.
I need them.
Like the air I breathe, I need them all the time, but they still haven't come.
I want my Daddies.
I swear to God, if I see one more cornhusk doll, I’m going to lose my fucking mind. I don’t know why the hell Pete’s little hellhound daughter insists on leaving them at my doorstep, but I’ve had enough. It’sbordering on harassment.
This morning’s offering, as with yestermorning's—and the other thirteen mornings I’ve spent stuck in this stupid shithole of a village—is decorated in a dress made of festive leaves. Reds and oranges and beautiful shades of brown. For hair, the little girl must have cut another tuft of fur from her pet calico, Kitty the Cat, and used tree sap to secure it. If I get one single smidge of sap on my fingers, I’ll struggle for days. It’s happened a few times, and it’s a real pain in my ass each time. Ladonna claims her homemade soap is strong enough to stop sap dead in its tracks, but she’s clearly missed the mark.
The child, whose name escapes me, is sweet enough, probably, but she scares the ever-loving shit out of me. The first night I was here, I woke to the sound of a creak. When I opened my eyes, she was standing directly over me, holding her damn cornhusk doll with what I’m assuming was meant to be the doll’s neck in her fist. She held the doll inches from my face, clenched her fist so tightly the skin on her knuckles went white, and she growled out, “You’re my boyfriend now,” before shoving the doll directly into my chest. “I like the wildflowers that grow down by the creek. I really like red, but I don’t like yellow too much. The purple ones are pretty.” She pushed down harder on the doll. “And there better be some orange ones too.” Then she whirled on her heel, marched out, and let the door slam shut behind her. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt more unsafe in my life, but I must admit, I admire her gumption. Luckily, there will be no mid-morning flower hunt today, as I picked a bunch for her yesterday.
I want to call Bubba. I’d do anything to hear his voice. When we got here, Johnny’s other brother, Barrett, met us in the dirt driveway. Before I even stepped out of the pickup, she was whispering something into his ear, and the next thing I knew, Barrett opened my door, placed me on the ground, then sped away in the dead of night. I haven’t seen him since.
It’s the only vehicle these hillbillies own, so it makes the possibility of escape by grand theft auto impossible. Ladonna said Barrett was on a mission, and he’d be back soon, and assured me he'll take me into town to call Bubba when he returns. Sure. She also said Bubba and Johnny would be right behind us when we left, but here we are, and here they’re not.
The cabin they’re keeping me in isn’t bad for what it is. A prison cell. A small room, devoid of life and love, filled instead with a wall that’s covered in drawings, all done by my not-so-secret admirer. Walking onto the Boyd’s property is like walking onto the set of Green Acres, all modestly dressed ladies and men in overalls chewing on sour dock stems. It’s not that I don’t like the place or people, I just miss my boyfriends terribly, and I need to see them.
Outside, a cock crows or meows or barks, doing whatever the hell roosters do, and I know if I don’t go outside to socialize, one of the backwoods versions of The Osmonds, sans charm and Mormonism, will send the little she-beast my way again. The little one terrifies me. It’s kind of awesome.
Sighing, I rise from my terribly uncomfortable mattress and stand, raising my arms well above my head, stretching and yawning loudly, reaching up-up-up until I’m standing on my tiptoes. Holding a breath, I center myself, trying to blink open my mind’s eye the way my online psychic buddy, Brendon, used to instruct.
It’s no use. Barbara won’t fucking talk to me, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t tap into my psychic sight. Not having Barbara here to guide me—and having no Bubba or Johnny here to love me—I finally understand whatReal Housewives of New York Cityalum Kelly Killoren Bensimon meant when she sobbed that she was alone on Scary Island with no friends. Dunsberry may not be an island, but itmight as well be, entrance difficult, escape impossible, and I have no friends either.
As I leave my shack, I pause long enough to grab the stupid fucking wildflowers the wild child demanded of me, and I open the front door, which I don’t even think is a real door. It doesn’t reach all the way to the ground, so there’s a big crack at the bottom, big enough that an adult could stick their whole arm through. It’s made masturbating to the memory of Bubba and Johnny virtually impossible, because the little demon spawn tends to peek in when I least expect it. She’s not there right now, thank God, but who knows how long it will be before her disturbing eye peeks in through the gap again? When will enough be enough?
Opening the door, I’m visually accosted by the unrepentant sunlight, scorching my retinas, probably. Without Bubba, I have neither health, dental, or vision insurance, so if my eyes go bad, I won’t even be able to have them treated. I bet there isn’t even an optometrist within a fifty-mile radius.
I miss my boyfriends terribly, and if they just come find me, I’ll be the best version of me possible. I won’t hurt Johnny’s feelings on purpose again. I won’t ever talk back to Bubba, because he knows what’s best for me, even when I’m not ready to see it myself.
Johnny’s family is working the farm in clothing farmers would wear, so I look like an absolute slut in my neon-purple crop top, booty shorts, and thigh-high boots. The shirt and shorts were in the hamper at home, before we left. Apparently, Pete took the time to grab the whole hamper so I would have clothes once we got here. Ladonna was kind enough not to wash Johnny or Bubba’s shirts, so at least I have those, but they’re starting to lose their scent. The boots I’m wearing don’t belong to me, and I only found them after I went snooping through Ladonna’s house yesterday, bored out of my fucking mind,hoping she would have something that piqued my interest. Mission accomplished, and I bet she’s gonna be really mad about me stealing them, but if she starts crying about how much she loves her boots and wants them back, I’m going to remind her that I love my boyfriends, and I want them back too. I’ll inform her we can’t always get what we want, and that the law of the land isfinders keepers, losers weepers.
Ladonna is sitting on the porch swing as I slowly shuffle across the field. She has Satan’s Minion beside her, and both she and the child are shelling peas. I didn’t even know that was a thing before getting stuck here. I just assumed they were like little beans that grew under dirt. Of course, I’ve never seen a bean being harvested either, so maybe it’s not a root vegetable either. Either way, there they are, cracking pea pods, Ladonna singing some dumb-ass song, lamenting, “Rye whiskey, rye whiskey, rye whiskey, I cry,” like a lunatic before adding that if I don’t give her rye whiskey, she’ll live ‘til she dies.
