Dumplin' Read Free

with her blond hair piled high on top of her head, watching the news on her portable TV. For as long as I can remember, she’s always watched her shows in here because Lucy was almost always on the couch in the living room. But it’s been six months now since Lucy’s funeral, and she’s still watching her shows in the kitchen on her portable television.
    Mom’s shaking her head at the news anchors when she says, “Hey, Dumplin’. Dinner’s in the fridge.”
    I drop my purse on the table and grab the plastic-wrapped plate. The last few days of school mark the start of pageant prep season, which means my mom is on a diet. And when my mom is on a diet, so is everyone else. Which means dinner is grilled chicken salad.
    It could be worse. It has been worse.
    She clicks her tongue. “You’ve got a little breakout there on your forehead. You’re not eatin’ that greasy food you’re selling, are you?”
    â€œYou know I don’t even like burgers and hot dogs.” I don’t sigh. I want to, but my mom will hear. It doesn’t matter how loud the TV is. It could be two years from now and I could be away at college in some other town, hundreds of miles away, and my mom would hear me sigh all the way from home and call me to say, “Now, Dumplin’, you know I hate when you sigh. There is nothing less attractive than a discontent young woman.”
    There are, I think, lots of things wrong with that sentiment.
    I sit down to eat and liberally spread salad dressing across my plate, because on the eighth day God created ranch dressing.
    My mom crosses her legs and points her toes, examining her chipped pedicure. “How was work?”
    â€œIt was fine. There was some old guy catcallin’ from the drive-thru. Called me sweetcheeks.”
    â€œAwww,” she says. “Well, that’s kind of flattering if you think about it.”
    â€œMama, come on. No, that’s gross.”
    She flips the dial on her TV, turning it off. “Baby, trust me when I say that the man market narrows as you age. No matter how well maintained you are.”
    This is not a conversation I want to have. “Ron was out sick.”
    â€œBless his heart.” She laughs. “You know he had the biggest crush on me in high school.”
    At least once a week since I took the job, she brings this up. When I first applied during Thanksgiving break, Lucy told me she always suspected that it had been the other way around. But the way my mom tells it, every guy in town had a thing for her. “Everyone wanted a piece of Clover City’s Miss Teen Blue Bonnet,” she slurred one night after a few glasses of wine.
    The pageant is my mother’s single greatest accomplishment. She still fits into her dress—a fact she won’t let anyone forget, which is why as head of the pageant committee and the official hostess, she takes it upon herself to squeeze into the dress as a yearly encore for all of her adoring fans.
    I feel the weight of Lucy’s cat, Riot, settle in on top of my feet. I tap my toes and he purrs. “I saw a bunch of girls doing some kind of pageant boot camp after school.”
    She grins. “I tell you what. The competition gets stiffer every year.”
    â€œWhat about you? How was the home?”
    â€œOh, you know, just one of those days.” She flips through her checkbook and massages her temples. “We lost Eunice today.”
    â€œOh no,” I say. “I’m so sorry, Mom.”
    Once a year, like Cinderella, my mom’s life is glamorous. It’s the life she expected to live. But for the rest of the year, she works as an orderly at the Buena Vista Ranch Retirement Home, where she does exotic things like dole out daily prescriptions, feed the elderly, and wipe theirasses. Eunice was one of my mom’s favorites. She always confused her for one of her sisters and whispered childhood secrets in her ear every