heard one frown line on an old person’s face is caused by one hundred thousand frowns all added up. If the same’s true for smiles, then Miss Mary’s been a happy person all her life ‘cause she has a ton of lines around the corners of each of her eyes.
“Just say,” Emma says. “Is it alive or dead?”
“I just do not know,” Miss Mary says. She’s at the blinking yellow light that keeps you from getting hit by an eighteen-wheeler racing fast as can be through Toast and on to bigger and better places. Not one today, though, so Miss Mary pulls out slow and onto the highway toward Lowgap.
“I bet it’s a head cut off of someone’s body,” Emma says.
“I bet it’s a pig’s tongue,” I say. “You know, Daddy used to eat tongue—did you know that?”
“I bet it’s blood,” Emma says, not paying any attention to this tidbit of Daddy information I parcel out to her. Too bad for her.
“That’s not all that scary,” I tell her. “I mean, who hasn’t seen blood before? No one’d hightail it out of the room over a box full of blood.”
“I’m telling you, it’s boogers,” Emma says, crossing her arms and sitting up straighter so she can see the road we’re driving on. I don’t know why she’d care about that, though, since there ain’t a thing on it to see.
“What if Ike won’t let us see the Box?” This is what I’ve been most worried about. “What if he says we’re not old enough?”
“He let you through,” Miss Mary says.
“How big is it again?” Emma asks.
“She already told you.” I roll my eyes just like Momma says not to. “It’s about the size of a shoe box. Jeez.”
Miss Mary says, “Y’all start that bickering an’ this drive gits longer an’ longer so quit it.”
This, of course, makes no sense a-tall since bickering cain’t make the distance between two places any farther. But I’m not about to point this out to Miss Mary. We’re so lucky her friend lives near Lowgap.
Soon we’re slowing down in the middle of the main road in Lowgap. “The City on the Rise!” it says on a signpost right before the stores start lining up. It doesn’t feel like it’s on the rise, though, since not many of the places are open. Some have windows so dusty they look like they’ve been locked up for a thousand years. Miss Mary pulls up to the curb outside a glass window with a sign: Dot’s Kountry Kafaye.
“Reckon you as hungry as I am,” she says, fishing in her purse on the seat next to her. She finds her lipstick and shimmies up to the rearview mirror so she can reapply. She doesn’t have those tiny smoker’s cracks outlining her mouth, like Momma does, so the lipstick stays where it’s supposed to. On Sundays Momma’s lips look like they’re bleeding. Miss Mary pops the cap back on and throws the lipstick back into her bag and turns to face us.
“We better get some food in your stomach ‘fore it gets too tied up in knots over this ole Box.”
I was hungry up until now, but once Miss Mary says the word Box I lose my appetite all over again. I couldn’t eat dinner last night, even though Momma made biscuits and gravy—my favorite.
Dot’s Kountry Kafaye looks just like Mickey’s Country Kitchen in Toast. There’s a counter where you can watch them make your food or there are booths if you want to be surprised. I like the counter and lucky for me that’s where we go. The seats at Dot’s swivel all the way around! At Mickey’s they only make a half a circle.
Miss Mary says we can order one thing and split it on account of the fact that she’s paying and we aren’t so we decide on a hot dog.
“All the way?” the waitress asks.
“Yes, please,” I say. The bell on the top of the glass door jingles as Miss Mary turns to back out through it.
“Y’all going over to Ike’s after this?” the waitress asks me and Emma after she clips our order slip onto a metal tree that sits on an island between the kitchen and the restaurant.
“Yes, ma’am,” we say at the same time.
“I expected you would.” She nods, all serious like Mr. White was. “Good luck,” she says, and the way she says it I know I won’t be doing any more than picking at my share of the hot dog.
“I’ll tell you what,” the waitress says, trying to sound cheerful, “I’ll bring you a Coke with a side of peanuts, on the house since y’all ain’t never seen the Box ‘fore.”
We both sit up straight and swivel. Peanuts and Coke! It’s the best thing in the universe.
“I call I get to drop the first one in,” Emma practically shouts.
“Let’s shoot for it,” I say. And I lose.
The first peanut into the Coke causes the most bubbles, and this time when Emma drops it in is no different. It’s like a science experiment, the foam gets high up to the edge of the glass and then, just as quick-like, drops back down. The rest of the peanuts just plop in. But they make the Coke taste even better than when it’s on its own.
“Aw-right, here you go.” The waitress pushes the sloppy hot dog in front of the both of us. There’s a pickle on the side for good measure.
I eat my share but then my stomach lurches and it occurs to me I might throw up so I ask if I can visit the washroom before we go.
“Sure, sugar,” the waitress says. “Lemme unlock it for you.” She takes a wooden mallet with a little chain and key attached from behind the register and flicks her head to the side, which means I’m to follow her. We go past the kitchen and the smell makes me swallow hard. Uh-oh. She unlocks the door just in time for me to run in and lean over the toilet to throw up hot dog and Coke. I hear the door click closed behind me, and before I can reach for the toilet paper to clean myself up I hear a tap on the door and Miss Mary’s voice. “You okay, chile?”
I cain’t answer her ‘cause I’m still gulping air, but she doesn’t wait for my answer, she’s through the door and stroking my back and then I feel her cool hands smoothing my forehead and pulling my hair back from my face and up from my neck. It feels so good that I stay leaning over even though I don’t have to anymore.
“I went too far’d with the talk of this Box,” she says. She’s talking soft, like you’d talk to a baby bird. “Don’t you worry anymore about it. We go on back home if you like. We just stop by my friend’s house to say howdy and then we hit the road—”
“No! Please, no,” I say, whipping around to face her. She dabs my chin with tissue from out of her purse that has the same Miss Mary smell of flowers mixed with cleaner fluid. “I feel fine now, for real. Please? I have to see the Box. I just have to.”
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