American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,49

is, he or she isn’t giving up.

Mona expects it to be the same jerk who called earlier. So she picks it up and barks, “Who the fuck is this?”

There’s an “Ah” of surprise on the other end, followed by an “Uh…”

“Yeah?” says Mona. “Go on. Talk.”

Silence.

Then: “You need to go home.”

“What?” says Mona. “What the hell do you mean?”

“You need to go home, Miss Bright.” The speaker is talking through what sounds like a sock pressed against the phone, but this cannot disguise the fact that the speaker is obviously very young.

“I am at home,” says Mona.

“No. The home you came from. You need to leave this town.”

“Okay, or—you could just mind your own fucking business.”

“They’re watching you,” says the voice. There is a note of genuine terror in it. “They’re talking about you.”

“Who?”

“All of them. Don’t you know what they are?”

“ ‘What’?” says Mona. “What do you mean, ‘what’?”

“Go as soon as you can,” says the voice. “If they’ll let you.” Then there is a click, and the line goes dead.

Mona looks at the receiver, thinking, then slowly puts it down.

She knows that voice. She’s sure of it.

She is back in bed, just on the verge of slumber, when it comes to her: didn’t she hear that voice recommend the biscuits and gravy to her once? But then she returns to sleep, and the thought is gone, and forgotten.

Mrs. Benjamin’s luncheon is held in her backyard. It is a cool seventy-two degrees outside, and her cottonwood trees have been carefully pruned so that they form a light canopy that shields the yard from the noon sun. Her gardens are nothing short of astonishing: huge clumps of flowering vines sprawl along its iron fence, and blades of sprouting bulbs droop along the pink granite borders. It looks like something out of Southern Living, and, unfortunately for Mona, the same goes for the rest of the attendees: everyone here is wearing a sundress with matching jewelry, heeled sandals, and sleek sunglasses. Mona, who was raised in the oil flats with nothing but an unsociable ex–Army Ranger for company, has always felt profoundly insecure about her lack of femininity, and she feels incredibly out of place here, where she just can’t compete with this level of estrogen. It doesn’t help that she is quite short, dresses like she is planning for a hike, and is obviously Latina, unlike everyone else here.

Yet it is odd: the question of race never pokes its head above the waves. This is unusual for Mona, who has been all over Texas and worked in some of the whitest communities out there and has witnessed a vast array of reactions to her race. Since Wink is about 98 percent white, she expects at least something, especially from these socialites: maybe they would ask her, somewhat tentatively, where she was from, or clumsily inquire if she was bilingual (to which the answer is a sort of no—the only Spanish Mona knows is what she picked up on the force in Houston, which is limited to commands, threats, and thoroughly indecent questions). But these questions never come. In fact, now that she thinks about it, no one in Wink has ever said anything about her race: both it and her general appearance have gone mostly without comment or reaction. It feels as if the citizens of Wink have gotten used to people different from them.

Still, her insecurity intensifies as the luncheon goes along. These are a type of woman Mona has never encountered: they drink cocktails at noon and smoke cigarettes in slender little holders, and they discuss almost nothing but housekeeping and the states of their husbands and children. Perhaps they are what Carmen was fifteen years ago. They seem a cheery, bubbly lot, with their hair perfectly coiffed and their eyes bright and smiling behind their sunglasses, and they greet Mona with an enthusiasm she finds downright intimidating. None of them seem to be employed. The mortgage rate around here must be great for everyone to live so well on a single income. She manages to briefly redirect the course of conversation to her reason for being in Wink, and pop in a few questions about her mother—but of course they, like everyone else so far, know nothing: they laugh at their own ignorance, and bounce gaily to the next subject. Though Mona feels contempt for them—so privileged, so sheltered—she also cannot help but wish to be one of them.

For the most part they are all too happy