A Place Called Wiregrass Read Free

would’ve still been mad at her for lying to me, but the poor old thing had gained a pile of weight, and those nails were back to the half-chewed-up mess I remembered. Before those shiny fake things, it always hurt me to look at Lucille’s nails, bitten off near the quick. Standing at the door of her ice-cold apartment, I scored her as being worse off than me and decided not to ask if we could stay. My Aunt Stella used to say everything happens for a reason. So I guess I have to give Lucille credit for directing me to the Westgate Trailer Park.
    Miss Trellis, the trailer-park owner, was a seventy-five-year-old widow who said she ran a clean place with forty-two trailers and wouldn’t take a single one more. She moved around the one-room office under the sway of a polyesterhousedress. “No loud music, no speeding, and no gossiping about neighbors. What they do in their castles is their business,” Miss Trellis told me before handing over the leasing agreement. She tacked on an extra hundred dollars for letting me use her hand-me-down furniture.
    Cher settled in for the last semester of school and seemed to be doing good. She was always a whiz with numbers. The friends would come soon enough, I assured myself, and tried to concentrate on finding us some grocery money. Along with the job demand in Wiregrass, one of the only truthful things Lucille reported, also came stiff competition. My odds weren’t increased on account of me quitting high school just shy of my senior year. Having secretly wanted to be a nurse when I was a kid, I even tried to get on at the big hospital in town. After dead ends, I finally found a job in the food industry.
    The cafeteria at Barton Elementary seemed perfect for the time being. I was able to be home soon after Cher’s middle school let out, a luxury I never had with my own two children, and the manager, Sammy, seemed to like me. Not that he felt sorry for me or anything. I think he had a natural affection for me since he was raised by his grandmother and respected the way I was bringing up Cher. “Foxy Grandma,” he’d call me. “You sure don’t look like any grandma I know.”
    The upcoming spring break was the only thing that made me real nervous. Up to that point, we were managing just fine. But since I asked for all my pay up front and didn’t slot any out for holidays and summertime, I knew financial trouble was around the bend again. Two weeks before school let out for Easter break, Sammy told me Mrs. Murray wanted to see me.
    This is it for sure, I thought as I walked down the brick walkway towards the principal’s office. If she lays me off, so be it. Under no circumstances will I go back to Cross City with my tail between my legs begging for my old job back.
    “Sammy says the best things about you, Erma Lee,” Mrs. Murray said. She was a full-figured woman and had a singsong voice that made me think she was either stupid or stuck up. Judging by the string of degrees on her wall, I put my money on the latter. Her light brown hair was teased as big as a basketball, with tuffs of bangs over her right eye. She wore so much makeup, I couldn’t help but think she must’ve gotten in the way of somebody painting a fence red.
    “I appreciate it.” I pulled at the bottom my white polyester top. As much as I hated that uniform, I hated the black hairnet I had to wear even more. All I could think the first time I caught a glance of my reflection in the gigantic mixing bowl was the skit Ruth Buzzi used to do on Laugh In. The one about a bent-over old woman. I’m forty-eight, I wanted to scream each time the frumpy, twisted shape stared back at me.
    “You crop that hair like I told you to, you wouldn’t be wearing that thing,” I imagined Mama saying. I quickly tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
    “I’m real happy here, Mrs. Murray.”
    She waved a hand at me. “Now, you call me Patricia. And we appreciate you, just so much.” Patricia’s wide smile revealed a