into Merinac, when she knew she was almost home. She’d taken this same highway home from Dallas and SMU all through college, and then, later, from the airport in Joplin. And every time, when she saw the exit, it sank in: Here we go again.
Here we go with that girl of Barbara’s has always been trouble and thinks she’s too good for this town. Here we go with people who thought they had her pegged when she was in grade school and hadn’t rethought it (or anything else) since. Mae had armor she wore in this town, and she didn’t even think of it as a metaphor.
Once past the truck stop, every turn meant something. The exit, past the QuikTrip. The shortcut to the dam, the stoplight at the intersection by the high school, the turn-off for Kenneth’s house, the new road that had replaced the dirt cut-through to the strip mall with the Albertsons. As she turned down Main Street toward Mimi’s, Ryder started to stir.
“I go potty,” Ryder said.
“No problem, sweetie. We’re almost there.”
“No, I go potty now, now, Mommy, now—”
“One minute.” They were turning into Mimi’s. “One minute, really, less, I’m parking.”
“Now!” Ryder was squirming, trying to get to his own seat belt while Madison leaned over from her booster seat and pushed his hands away. “Now, now, now,” he roared, and then, “Oh.”
“Ryder!” Madison screamed. “Ryder, that stinks! Ryder, eww.”
Plane travel had not agreed with Ryder. Mae acted fast, without exactly knowing what she planned to do next, slamming the car into park and undoing her own seat belt as she opened her door, “It’s okay, Ryder. Hold still. Ryder! No!”
Ryder had put a hand under his bottom and pulled it out, obviously wet and dark, then slid from the seat, frantic, and wiped it on the back of the driver’s seat.
“Mommy! I’m dirty, get it off, get it off, Mommy!”
As she tried to pull him from the rental car while touching him as little as possible, he plunged his hand into her hair, trying to hang on. She swung him around into her body to get his hand away and found the front of her skirt and the bottom of her shirt in nearly as bad shape as everything Ryder was wearing. “Ryder! No! Hold still!” She put him down, fast, on his feet.
“I’m dirty! Mommy, clean me. I need new pants, Mommy. New pants. Not these pants. I don’t like these pants.”
“He’s going to need a new car seat, too,” Madison said sadly.
Or something. Damn. She had clothes—with her one clean hand, she carefully lifted the smaller of their two suitcases out of the hatchback—but she couldn’t clean this up without water, and lots of it. This was how she’d be making her return entrance to Mimi’s, then. Covered in shit and with a kid in even worse shape, and another kid hopping along helpfully narrating the whole thing.
“Mommy! How will we clean the car, Mommy? Will Grandma help? I’m going to tell Grandma Ryder pooped in the car.” Slowly, because Mae couldn’t put a hand on Madison and move her along, they made their way around the back of the restaurant, skirting the patio area and walking around behind the fence that separated it from the parking lot. Even with her attention on the kids, Mae could see that things looked worse than she had expected. A lot worse. The grass hadn’t been mowed, and clearly more than one patron had chosen to dump trash back here rather than in the trash cans on the side of the patio. Her optimism about this whole plan was disappearing fast. At least the door to the kitchen was propped open.
She gestured to Madison to stay behind her and leaned her head into the door, carefully holding both of Ryder’s hands so that he wouldn’t touch anything.
“Mom?”
The guy at the fryer was easily six three, as tall as Jay but with twice his bulk. He wore a black T-shirt, shorts with a white apron tied around his waist, and Mario Batali–style orange clogs. There was no sign of her mother. Instead, clearly framed by the pass-through window into the serving area, she saw the last person she wanted to see at this moment: Sabrina Skelly, Food Wars host. The convertible and the fancy van in the crowded parking lot suddenly made sense; how had she not realized they would beat her here? She’d turned back toward her car when Madison started to push past her.