Big Fat Disaster (13 page)

We follow the dirt path—it’s just tire tracks worn into the grass—to the mobile home, which looks kind of like a peanut butter sandwich, with its tan-colored siding between pale trim on the top and bottom. There’s one large square aluminum window to the left of the off-white plastic front door, and three narrow horizontal windows spread out evenly along the length of the trailer.

“Once you said you wanted to live here, I opened the windows to air it out.” Leah leads us up rotting wooden steps to the front door of the trailer. “I can get my friend Buzz to build some new steps. I just didn’t have time before you—”

Mom cuts her off. “It’s fine. We’re grateful to have a place to stay.”

Leah holds the door open for us to walk in ahead of her. Black wasps swoop at our heads; Drew shrieks and swats at them madly. Leah says calmly, “They’re just mud daubers, hon. They don’t sting. There’s a can of bug spray under the kitchen sink. I sure thought I’d killed them all.”

A mud dauber lands on the doorjamb by Leah’s head, and she smacks it with her hand. She wipes her palm on her shorts and leads us into the living area. “The trailer’s twenty-two years old. I know it doesn’t look like much, but it’s in pretty good shape to be that age. Mark and I bought it used when we got married. The Victorian that I live in is part of a mansion built in 1895 in Gladewater. It belonged to a doctor, and when he died, his family couldn’t agree who’d get the house, so they broke it into four pieces and sold it off at auction. We bought one part and had it moved to the spot it is now, and we lived in the trailer while we remodeled the house. My tenant moved out last month, and I was about to advertise it for rent when Dale told me about Reese being a selfish prick.”

Mom freezes. At first I think she’s going to go off on Aunt Leah for her language, but she doesn’t even seem to hear that part. “I didn’t realize that it’s rental property, Leah. The movers are taking just about all the money I’ve got left. I’ve got to find a job, and…” She shakes her head and fixes her gaze on the kitchen counter.

“Aw, hon, don’t you worry about that. Let’s get you on your feet first; then we’ll figure it out. I mean, it would be good if you can at least cover your own utilities, but I’m not worrying about a thing.” She puts a hand on Mom’s shoulder. “I
know
what it’s like to have your life blown apart. Makes it hard to get out of bed in the morning when you’re trying to figure out why the sun’s bothering to rise.”

I remember how the Fourth of July picnic ended, and I’m amazed that Leah can be so nice to us. I guess she’s forgotten about it.

Mom’s eyes fill with tears and she nods, but says nothing.

Drew calls from the far end of the trailer, “I want this room!”

We move single file down the hall and stand in the doorway of a bedroom that takes up the entire end of the trailer. Leah laughs, “Well, honey, this is the master bedroom, but that’s between you and your mama.”

There are two other bedrooms—a tiny one next to the master, and a nearly-as-tiny one at the opposite end of the trailer. I get that one.

Sure enough, the movers can’t fit all our furniture into the trailer. My new room is so much smaller than the one in Northside that I have to walk sideways between my dresser and bed. The window blinds are bent and broken off in places, but Leah assures me that the only creatures who might see in are the deer and wildlife that live in the woods surrounding us.

We push the dining room table against a wall in the kitchen so that we have room to turn around. The den—which is really just an open space on the other side of the long bar in the kitchen—will only hold the TV, sofa, and one armchair. We leave our end tables, coffee table, two of the kitchen chairs, Dad’s recliner, and the other armchair in Leah’s front yard.

Mom pays the driver and he slowly zigzags the truck up the driveway. The rest of us practically collapse on our furniture under the pounding rays of the midday sun. Mom trudges over and hands us each a cold water bottle, then perches on an armrest.

Leah throws an arm over her eyes. “Whew! Sure would have been nice if Ryan had been here to help, too—but I needed him to hold down the fort at Sugar’s.”

“What’s Sugar’s?” I ask.

“That’s my bakery. It’s grown into a café now, too. Started out making birthday and wedding cakes, but now we’ve added breakfast and lunch service, too. I’m looking for part-time help, Colby, if you’re interested.”

Drew leans forward with her elbows on her knees. “I’m hungry…and hot! Could we go to Sugar’s and get some food?”

Mom sounds tired. “Drew…Aunt Leah’s already done so much for us.” She takes a long drink of water. “We’ll fend for ourselves. Thanks, though.”

Leah rolls the icy bottle over her neck, unscrews the lid, and dribbles water on her forehead. “No, Drew has a great idea. You’ve got to get the grand tour of Piney Creek sometime. It’ll take maybe five minutes to see our booming metropolis; then we’ll head to Sugar’s and you can eat. Let’s go!”

Aunt Leah’s not joking. Piney Creek is so tiny that kindergarten through twelfth grades are in the same building. Besides the school, there’s a post office, pharmacy, gas station, grocery store, and four churches that are all on the same street. One of the churches, First Baptist Piney Creek, has a giant steeple that casts a shadow over the other buildings.

Leah barely slows down for us to read the signs. “That’s Church Street, for obvious reasons. I don’t attend; I’ve had enough holier-than-thou bullshit crammed down my throat to last a lifetime, but feel free to partake in what they’re selling, if that’s what you want to do.”

She gestures to the right as she turns left. “When people talk about going to town, they mean Cedar Points, which is on the other side of the lake. You just follow this road to get there.” She waves at a lady who passes us, then gestures at a metal building. “Piney Creek’s police and fire department are there, and that red truck under the carport is supposed to be the fire chief’s, but he quit last month. He got a job pumping out septic tanks. Pays better.”

She slows as she comes up on a little yellow house with blue and white checked curtains in a large window and a bench by the front door. The gravel parking lot is nearly full, and there’s a steady stream of people in and out.

“This is Sugar’s. The house was built in the 1920s. I converted it to a bakery with a dining area.”

We park and go in. Ryan’s laughing and talking to a customer, but when he looks up and sees us, a curtain falls. He turns away.

Leah pulls a couple of cardboard menus off the wall and presses them at us. “I’m going to help Ryan with the end of the lunch rush; when you’re ready to order, just come on up. It’s on the house.”

Mom starts to protest, but Leah’s not listening. She’s already pulling an apron over her head and joining Ryan at the front counter.

There’s a three-tier wedding cake on a rolling cart near the kitchen entrance. I notice Mom staring at the bride and groom figurines. Her chin is quivering. Drew thumbs through a photo album of birthday cakes. The whole place smells like cake icing; I think about my dad and our tradition of baking and decorating our family birthday cakes together. He never asked Rachel or Drew for help. Just me.

The air is heavy, and even though an oscillating fan in the corner is set on high, it’s no match for the heat from the kitchen. The electric breeze coats our sweaty bodies in sweetness.

A glass display case next to us holds fudge slabs and cake ball lollipops. I run my hand over my mouth, surprised the drool isn’t running off my chin. If nobody else was here, I know I could eat it all without thinking twice.

I tap the photo album in Drew’s hands. “I thought you were starving.”

She’s preoccupied. “Oh, yeah…I forgot.”

I snap, “How on earth do you
forget
being hungry?” I don’t know why, but her lack of interest in eating makes me furious.

The crowd clears out, and we approach the counter in front of the kitchen.

“What can I get you?” Ryan’s voice is flat. He doesn’t acknowledge that he knows us.

“Hi, Ryan, how are you?” Mom’s got her smile in place, but Ryan’s not buying it.

“We’re out of chicken salad. If that’s what you want…we’re out.” He drags his pen down the center of his notepad repeatedly until it tears the paper.

“Oh…okay…” Mom turns the cardboard menu over and over, as if the items have changed since she studied it when we were seated at the table by the front door.

“Your face doesn’t look as weird anymore.” Drew’s on her tiptoes, trying to get a better look at Ryan over the display case.

“Don’t lean on the glass,” he snaps. He abruptly turns, nearly bumping into the pregnant woman behind him. “I’m taking my break.”

She steps up to take his place, eases herself onto a stool, and exclaims, “Whew! It’s a scorcher!”

Mom fans herself with a menu. “You’ve got that right. Hi…I’m Sonya, Leah’s sister-in-law.”

The lady grunts as she leans over the counter and shakes Mom’s hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m Dulcie. Leah told me y’all were moving into her trailer.”

“Yes, we’ve got everything moved in that’s going to fit. Just a matter of unpacking, now. When’s your baby due? My first child was born in the summer. It was eighteen years ago, but I still remember how miserable I was.”

“He’s due any minute. I’m a little worried because Leah hasn’t found anybody to take my place yet, and I’m going to be staying home after I have him.” She picks up a water bottle, takes a sip, and runs her eyes over Drew and me. “Did y’all decide what you want to eat?”

Mom grabs my arm and pulls me forward. “Colby can help out. Leah already told her about the job. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Colby?”

My mind is screaming,
“No! There’s no way I can be around this stuff; I’ll eat every second that I’m here!”
But I can’t say that because nobody knows how much I fear and crave sweets at the same time. It’s like the two people inside of me are fighting to control what I eat, and the one thing they have in common is hatred for me—for what I look like and how it feels to be in my body; for my inability to stop once I start.

But how can I refuse to help out when Aunt Leah gave us a place to live when we had nowhere else to go? Mom says we owe her big time.

I nod. “Yeah, that’d be great. I’ve always wanted to work in a bakery.”

Mom, Drew, and I spend Saturday unpacking and settling in. We move Rachel’s belongings and our boxes of fancy dishes, books, photos, and winter clothes to the Victorian’s screened-in back porch. We’re able to move most of our extra furniture from the front yard into Leah’s small barn, but there’s no room for Dad’s oversized recliner.

“It’ll just have to stay where it is for now,” Mom says. “It’s not supposed to rain for a while anyway.” Just then, Leah’s dog, Charley—sopping wet and covered in sand—leaps onto the recliner, flips onto her back, and suns her belly.

I expect Mom to leave the shade of the screened-in porch to shoo the dog out of Dad’s chair, but instead she smirks at the sight. “Hmm. Well, if your dad ever comes down here to get his chair, at least it’ll be well-seasoned for him.”

The screened door slams behind Drew. “Daddy’s coming to see us?”