Free Gone With a Handsomer Man by Michael Lee West Page A

cars for rich people. He took out a loan to buy a ’55 Ford Country Squire wagon. Mama said it was just like the one Jimmy Stewart drove in Vertigo. Me and her were major Hitchcock fans. She kind of looked like a brown-eyed Grace Kelly in Rear Window, with her thick blond hair and her graceful ways. You’d never know she was country-born, with an eighth-grade education.
    Now that we had our own kitchen, Mama started cooking for real, pairing lip-smacking recipes with music and Bible verses, the way she had before.
    “Why Bible verses?” Donnie asked her.
    “So you can say grace in style,” she told him.
    Mama was right big on style. She went to the organic farmer’s market and paid a fortune for fresh sage leaves.
    “Always wash the leaves real good, Teeny,” she’d say.
    “’Cause they’re dirty?” I asked.
    “Kinda. But you don’t want to accidentally fry a bug.”
    “Have you ever done that?”
    “A time or two,” she said. “But I sure hated it.”
    One night, Mama picked yellow squash from the vine, then brought it into the kitchen to fry. As she was laying the golden crisps onto a plate, she saw a deep-fried baby grasshopper. Her eyes filled. She hadn’t meant to kill an innocent little grasshopper—she’d always had a great fondness for living creatures—but there it was, resting on a fried squash round. Before she could remove it, Donnie passed by, stuck out his hand, and gobbled up the insect.
    Every Monday she filled his kitchen with homemade bread, the pans all lined up on the counter, the dough pushing up against red tea towels. She saved the stale loaves for me, and I’d crumble them in the yard to feed Donnie’s chickens. Then I’d twirl in circles until I collapsed in the grass. Sometimes Mama would stop cooking and twirl with me. We’d clasp our hands and close our eyes and spin through great drifts of smell: bread, zucchini soup, and stew, the sauce fragrant with Chianti. Then we’d fall down together and I’d clap my hands.
    “I love you more than beans and rice,” I’d say.
    “I love you more than anything,” she’d say back.
    When she got agitated, I tried to pull her into the kitchen and make her cook like Aunt Bluette had done, but my efforts were less successful. She had to be in the mood to bake. Sometimes I’d inadvertently make the situation worse by showing Mama food pictures in cooking catalogs. She’d reach for the phone and order exotic ingredients like saffron, curry, and truffle oil. Donnie got sick of hauling off the empty shipping cartons, which were filled with Styrofoam peanuts. He told her to buy local.
    One day he came home and found a three-foot-tall plastic orchid sitting on the coffee table. I cringed, waiting for the explosion. Mama had bought that flower at Mrs. O’Malley’s swanky shop for twenty-five dollars, but it was a good buy because it had been marked down from $99.99.
    “You bitches been out spending my money?” he cried.
    “I got it on sale for practically nothing,” Mama said.
    Donnie pulled me up by my arm. “How much did it cost, Teeny?”
    “A dollar,” I said, adding another lie to my tally.
    Then one evening, it all fell apart, and it had nothing to do with Mama’s buying habits—it was due to Donnie’s temper and my clumsiness. Mama and I sat on the porch, sipping milkshakes from the Dairy Queen, watching him clean the engine. “You can eat off this carburetor,” he said.
    “Like I’d want to.” Mama laughed.
    Donnie threw down his rag and started toward her. I leaped out of the way, but he grabbed my arm. “Don’t you shy away from me, you little bastard.” I pulled back and my paper cup went flying. The milkshake hit the engine and exploded.
    He blacked Mama’s eyes and stomped her in the kidneys. I crouched behind the car, trying not to have an asthma attack. This was my fault, every bit of it. After the flying fur settled, he told her to get inside and fix him something cool to drink. I found her in the