Mama’ll have Daddy drive us back over to get her. And I hate riding around town in the back of that police cruiser. It’s embarrassing.”
“Your daddy’s a cop, huh?”
“Yes, sir. In Louisville,” Odette said.
Clarice couldn’t stop her jaw from dropping open at the sound of Odette lying with such conviction.
The man thought for a few seconds and had a change of heart. He rose from his chair, staggered badly, and stood just behind Barbara Jean. He leaned forward and squeezed her upper arms with his large hands. Then he rested his chin on the top of her head. He said, “No need to put your daddy through the trouble of comin’ by. Your mama’s right. My little girl should be around women tonight. Jus’ don’t stay out too late. I don’t like to worry.”
He stood there for a while holding on to Barbara Jean’s arms and swaying while she looked straight ahead. Finally, she said, “I’ve got to change,” and she slid sideways out of his grasp. The man was thrown off balance and had to grip the chair to keep from toppling forward onto the table.
Barbara Jean walked just a few steps away and opened a door off the kitchen. She went into the smallest bedroom Clarice had ever seen. It was really just a pantry with a bed and a battered old dresser in it. And the bed was a child’s bed, far too small for a teenager. Clarice watched through the partially opened door as Barbara Jean pulled off her tacky black blouse. Then she picked up a bottle of perfume from the dresser and repeatedly squeezed the bulb, spraying her arms where the man had touched her as if she were applying an antiseptic. When she caught Clarice’s reflection in the mirror above her dresser, she slammed shut the door.
The man straightened up and said, “Y’all scuse me. I gotta take a leak.” He shuffled away, but stopped at the kitchen door and turned back to Clarice and Odette. He winked and said, “Be good and don’t drink up all my whiskey while I’m gone.” Then he continued out of the room. A few seconds later, they heard him relieving himself and humming from down the hallway.
When they were alone, Clarice took the opportunity to kick Odette again. This time Odette said, “Ouch, quit it.”
“Why did you do that? We could’ve been out of here and gone.”
Odette said, “We can’t just leave her here with him.”
“Yes, we can. This is her house.”
“Maybe, but we’re not leaving her alone with him right after she buried her mother.”
There was no use arguing with Odette once she got a notion stuck in her head, so Clarice said nothing more. It was clear to her that Odette had looked at this cat-eyed, stray girl and set her mind on adoption.
When Barbara Jean emerged from her cramped cell, she was wearing a glittery red blouse and the same black skirt. Her hair, which had been pulled back and pinned up, now fell around her shoulders in waves, and she had applied lipstick to match her blouse. She may have stunk of cheap perfume, but she looked like a movie star.
The man came back into the room. He said, “You look just like your sweet mama,” and Barbara Jean looked at him with a hatred so strong that Clarice and Odette felt it like a hot wind sweeping through the room.
As the man fell into his chair and reached for the bottle, Barbara Jean said, “Bye, Vondell.” She was out of the kitchen and headed down the hallway before Clarice and Odette had begun their farewells to the bleary-eyed man at the table.
Outside, they stood in front of the house looking at each other. Clarice couldn’t stand the silence. She lied the way she’d been taught to do after meeting someone’s unpleasant relative. “Your stepfather seems nice.”
Odette rolled her eyes.
Barbara Jean said, “He’s not my stepfather. He’s my mother’s … He’s nothing is what he is.”
They walked about a half a block together, quiet again. Barbara Jean spoke after a while. “Listen, I appreciate you getting me out of the house. I really do. But you don’t have to take me anywhere. I can just walk around for a while.” She looked at her watch, a dime-store accessory with yellow rhinestones surrounding its face and a cracked, white patent leather band. “Vondell’s likely to be asleep in another couple hours. I can go back then.” To Odette she said, “Thank your mother