Deliver Us from Evie Read Free

one of the little kids next to Bella Hanna and she blossomed, talking baby talk to him, cutting his meat for him, and announcing she wanted a big family. She said there were five in her family, and that she was from Vermont, and she’d come all the way to Missouri to study journalism.
    “Oh, I wanted to be a newspaperwoman too,” said my mother.
    “What happened?” Bella asked her.
    “Mr. Burrman,” my mother answered.
    “So you sold out for love,” said Bella.
    “I wouldn’t put it that way, myself,” my mother said.
    Bella Hanna said, “Women always used to give up their dreams for men. It’s time men gave up theirs for women.”
    I could see Doug’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard, and he pushed a lock of blond hair out of his face.
    “Besides,” Bella Hanna continued, “you can’t make any money farming anymore. That’s what I heard.”
    Evie spoke up then, said, “You can still make a small fortune in farming. Trouble is you have to start with a large one.”
    My father burst out laughing at that. Then everyone did.
    After dinner we were all stuffed, and my father said we should walk out back and see the sky. It was filled with lakes of fire, and everybody was looking up and exclaiming. Pete and Gracie, our yellow Labs, were dancing off toward the fields that were lying fallow now.
    Off in the distance a car was coming down our road, a fancy one: You could see the sinking sun making it glisten, and it had the roar of a good motor that ran better fast than slow.
    We all began watching its approach … all but Evie.
    Evie was like a horse that way. A horse never reacts to anything new coming. A cow will throw up its head and stare, and maybe moo and shuffle its feet, but all you see a horse do is prick its ears forward.
    I wondered why Evie didn’t even look in the direction of the car. I’d never seen a car that color: black cherry it was—a sleek, sexy Porsche.
    Mom said, “ Who is this?”
    The only strange cars that ever came our way belonged to Jehovah’s Witnesses, chimney sweeps, and land assessors.
    When it got closer, I recognized the long blond hair.
    She had on dark glasses, and she gave everyone a wave.
    “Patsy Duff!” my mother said. “What’s she doing here?”
    Then Evie turned around and said, “She’s here to interview me.”
    “Who’s Patsy Duff?” Bella Hanna said, and you could see she was real impressed … with the car, and with the girl getting out of it.
    Doug told Bella she was just a friend, as though Patsy Duff came over to our place any old time.
    Mom looked at Evie and asked her, “What are you talking about?”
    “I forgot to tell you. She called last night to see if she could interview me for her school paper. She wants to do an article about a farmwoman.”
    “You mean a farm person ,” my father said.
    He was straightening his tie as Patsy slammed the car door and started toward us. She had that effect on you: She looked so good you started worrying about how you looked.
    I wished I hadn’t been stubborn and refused to wear a tie, or my best jacket. I was in a seedy old brown suit because I hadn’t wanted to go out of my way for Doug’s Tri Delt.
    Neither had Evie bothered to dress up. But her white shirt, open at the collar, was clean, and she had on a good belt with a big silver buckle. Jeans and the boots she called her shitkickers.
    “Hi, everybody!” Patsy called out. She was wearing a leather skirt and a suede jacket, carrying a notebook, and grinning. “Ready, Evie?”
    “Sure thing,” Evie called back.

5
    B Y DECEMBER WE STILL didn’t know any details of Patsy Duff’s interview with Evie. She taped it in Evie’s room, and we didn’t even see Patsy leave because our relatives were still there, and so was Bella Hanna.
    We heard the Porsche start up, heard two little honks of good-bye; then Evie took a flashlight out into the fields to bring in the hand-powered posthole digger she’d been using to fix a fence.
    We were