Glimpse by Carol Lynch Williams

Author:Carol Lynch Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books
Published: 2010-06-22T00:00:00+00:00

And true to her word,

Mari comes driving up

in an antique,

light blue

Chevrolet,

with her ancient,

wrinkled granny sitting

behind the wheel.

That little old woman

can just see over

the steering wheel

and she’s sitting on

the Orlando phone book

to boot.

Her voice, though, can rattle leaves

loose from their trees.

Shake a leg, Hope,

she hollers at me.

The lights on this old thing

have been giving me fits.

I run

to the car with

dollar bills

and a few quarters

and dimes

stuck in the pocket of

my shorts.

Thanks for taking us,

I say.

Mari’s grandmother doesn’t answer.

She never does.

Mari says it’s

’cause the old lady can’t hear

a thing and knows it,

so why and try and say anything?

Sunset oranges up the sky

with streaks of turquoise.

At the store

we hunt the dye/bleach aisle over,

trying to find something

that might work.

I decide to go darker

than my natural blond color.

Mari decides she is

going to go two-tone.

Her grandmother buys us

each a banana split

from Dairy Queen

and we start for home.

Things are fine for a while.

By now it’s dark

and the streetlights flicker on

and brighten up the

gray-colored road.

For sure,

nighttime in Florida

can feel darker than it is.

Maybe it’s the humidity,

or the trees stretching

over the road,

or maybe

it is just the thoughts

sitting in the back of my head

about my sister.

I’m squished in the front,

with Mari

between me and

her grandmother.

The thirty-minute ride takes

us an hour and a half

because the car lights

keep flashing off and on.

Every time the lights go out,

the old woman weaves

over the dotted line

into the wrong lane,

to the side of the road,

scaring even the ditch,

I’m sure.

Grandmother,

Mari yells,

you are gonna kill us dead.

Pull over.

Her grandmother parks on the side

of the road, and we wait

for the car lights to brighten up some

and send out a weak bit of light so

we can get on home.

It’s hot outside

and there’s no breeze

coming in through the open

windows.

The mosquitoes eat us alive.

They must be attracted

by my pounding heart.

Almost losing your life

several times over can

really make the blood flow.

I’ll get out here,

I say,

a mile from home.

I can’t die

with my hair looking like this.

Chicken,

Mari says.

But I laugh at her and climb out

of the car, slamming

the door shut.

I jog,

taking shortcuts through

empty fields,

passing houses,

keeping to the edge

of our dirt road.

Once I get to the trailer

I set to work

putting my hair back to normal.

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