In the morning, Ella Mae announced, “We going to church,” to which I replied. “Oh Lord!” and slightly tortured laughter erupted from my throat; and then the hook:
“I’monna let you drive.” My eyes and my smile grew wide and I figured the disgrace of going to church would be worth the stories I could tell Jamella, about driving a truck all over Starkville.
I dressed in the awkward skirt and sweater and sat on the bed while I waited for Ella Mae to get dressed. I wouldn’t be able to wait until Monday to tell Jamella, so I opened my note-book journal and wrote a surrogate conversation with my big brother.
Dear LaMont,
School started a week ago. I have a new friend Jamella Nudley who says her brother is at Mississippi playing football. Do you know any Nudley’s? Other people call Jamella, Fats because she is so skinny, and I went the first week of school responding to my new nick-name, “Ham” until Jamella told me that it’s because I came to school smelling like a smoke house. Ella Mae uses wood in the morning to warm the house. Long story. Anyway, guess what I’m about to do? Drive! Big benefit of being in the country, fourteen is old enough to drink moonshine if I want to, till a whole field if you’re told to, and drive the family truck.
Ella Mae walked past my curtain, looking like a giant in a moo-moo she’d found at the dump and fixed up by taking in the waist. It made a pink and white silky shroud for a square framed six-foot woman with thick muscled calves that stood firm in the men’s shoes. I looked up and shook my head in disapproval, then pulled my curtain closed and back to my letter.
Your school started almost a month ago. When are you coming to see me?
I shut my notebook, shutting out the feelings that were buoying to the top. I tucked the pages between the mattress and plywood frame, where the truth of my wants was near, but could not take over the “me” who had since bucked-up. Ella Mae moved my curtain aside. She was in a clean work shirt and jeans.
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