Hidden Driveway by Margo August Woods

     “I wish you hadn’t talked me into this, I have a art history test tomorrow,” Christine said, clasping her fists at ten and two on the steering wheel.

     “It’ll help you study.” Tweeky steadied himself in the passenger seat.

     “Still, I didn’t know it was so far out in the country.”

     “But this guy has the best stuff, he has his own stove top: you’ll be up for days.”

     “Well…”

     “Hey, look, nobody forced you to come out today. Make a right onto this dogleg here.”

     Over the air conditioner, Christine listened to the beat of rocks kicked up from the tires.

     “I hope this doesn’t dent the car, my parents just bought it.”

     “Well, they can always buy you a new one: they have the money for it.”

     The road was without houses, or evidence of people living nearby, until a pitted sign appeared that read hidden driveway.

     “This is it,” Tweeky said.

     As they edged up the drive, past a puddle in which brackish water glinted, a gaunt house with plastic sheets hung in its windows loomed before them. They drove to a trailer behind it, which looked new where the rain had snaked vines of white down its sides.

     In the trailer’s shadow, a toddler sat barefoot in the dirt. His eyes moved like oiled pebbles to look at the car’s grille.

     The screen door opened and a woman stuck a foot out on the cement apron and propped the door open with a knee. She held a cigarette in one hand and knotted her hair to the top of her head with the other.

     Tweeky climbed out of the car. “Is Hank around?”

     “Up at the house,” she said as the door swung shut. She wore a pink tank top and cut offs, baring the white, moist skin of her legs.

     Christine unglued herself from the car’s leather seat. “Hi.”

     “Here to see the baby?” the woman stubbed her cigarette in the dirt.

     “Sure.”

     “Let the men do business and we’ll talk, right?”

     White lines radiated from the corners of her eyes when she stopped smiling, but she was pretty, with sharp cheekbones and a full, fleshy mouth despite where she had picked at its corners.

     “Good to see a girl around here. Everyone’s always coming to see Hank, but I never have anyone to visit me. My name’s Tammi.”

     “Christine.”

     The women shook hands. Tammi’s fingers jittered like an injured bird, her nails painted with a chipped green polish.

     “Say hello, Donnie Ray,” Tammi said to the boy.

     “How old is he?”

     “Two years, one month.” Tammi swept his hair from his forehead and kissed him.

     “He’s pretty big for his age.”

     “Yup. Named after my dad, died right before he was born. He’s stubborn just like him, always wants attention. But he’s going to grow up real strong and smart, I just know it.” She took his face in her hand. “Isn’t that the look of an angel?”

     The boy squirmed out of her grip. Christine looked from the woman’s dirty soles to her eyes that shone with an artificial brightness and saw how rawboned Tammi was when she swayed to her feet.

     “He’s adorable.”

     “Go on, play with him if you want. He’s real friendly.”

     Christine sat in front of the child, and he grabbed her fingers with his sticky hands. His eyes were blue, with bright green filaments.

     “He has such pretty eyes.”

     “Yeah, definitely has his Daddy’s eyes. When I first saw them, I couldn’t believe that something beautiful came outta me.”

     Tammi reached inside the trailer for a cigarette. From where she was squatting, Christine saw the room was papered with a black arabesque floating on yellow. The wall clock was the one advertised on TV that announced each hour with a different birdcall.

     What would it be like to live like this? She wondered what was hidden in the night table drawers and under the bed, what was taped to the refrigerator door. Christine thought there might be a fan or at least relief in its dark interior; in any case, she wanted to know what was inside.

     “I’ve never seen a baby sweat before.” Droplets of moisture collected on Donnie Ray’s forehead, and he blinked them out when they fell into his eyes. “Maybe he should go in for a bit,” she said, standing.

     “No, it’s just as hot in there.”

     “He would be out of the sun though.”

     “He likes it outside better anyway, don’t you?” Tammi nudged the boy so he looked up at her with a vague, gummy grin. “Baby’s an outdoorsman, like his daddy. He can’t stand to be indoors. Me neither, most of the time. I’m part Indian too you know. I have it in my blood.”

     She leaned against the trailer, revealing semicircles of wetness under her arms.

     “Hank says we can’t afford an air conditioner, and the fan hardly works unless it’s aimed at you and even then it’s too loud I can’t even think, buzzing in my head like that song with the thing that jumps out of the box. What’s it called?”

     “’Pop Goes the Weasel?’”

     “Right, once I get it in my head, I can’t get it out. It speeds up until I’m hypnotized. Makes me feel like my brain’s all swoll up and ready to burst and stream out of my ears. Hank gave the kid that toy once, and I threw it out the first chance I could.”

     “He should have some water, then?”

     “Oh, he’s okay, hon. It’ll just make him wet himself.”

     “Are you sure? I could get him something.”

     “Naw.” She crouched to wipe his forehead with the bottom of his shirt. “I just gave him some juice.”

     “Some ice, maybe?”

     “Don’t worry about it. Besides, I haven’t cleaned the place for company. This trailer might look good from the outside…”

     “A wet washcloth?”

     “The worst thing about it is the kitchen floor. Donnie Ray throws his food so it dries to the floor. Once I scrubbed it for five hours straight, and it still wasn’t clean. Whatever’s left is rotting and makes the place smell queer. Do you have pets?”

     “Just a cat.”

     “Hank has a boa constrictor and a ferret he keeps in glass cages right next to each other. The ferret’s scared to death and gives off a fear stink that gets into the air. You can’t help but breathe it and get scared too. It’s easy to be afraid out here. At night, people creep around the trailer. I can hear their footfalls.”

     “People live in the woods?”

     “Uh, huh. But I tell you, as awful as the trailer is, it’s better than that old house. Hank got ringy once and made me sleep there, I couldn’t see, and there were nails sticking up, boards missing, buckets of chemicals everywhere. I wound up sleeping outside and the glass from the busted windows cut me—”

     “But he’s getting a rash,” Christine pointed to the baby’s arm. “You should wash it before it gets worse, it’s prickly heat.”

     “Are you here to see my baby?”

     “He’s really cute.”

     “Are you here to see my baby?”

     “Sure.”

     “You’re not the one that made trouble for us, are you?”

     “No, what do you mean?”

     “The one that called Services?”

     “No, I’ve—”

     “Got child welfare to come snooping?”

     “I’ve never seen you or your baby before.”

     “Trying to take him away from me?”

     “I don’t know what you’re talking about: I just thought he was hot. It’s a hot day.”

     Tammi’s eyes were fierce and glittering, below thinly plucked eyebrows.

     “You know, you can’t tell people what to do, don’t you? Don’t you think that a mother knows best?”

     “Of course.”

     “He’s a lot of work but I can take care of him. He wasn’t an accident like Hank thinks. He was a surprise, something I didn’t know I wanted until I got him. I love my baby.”

     “I know you do, Tammi—”

     “He spoiled my fun, though, I can’t run around anymore and my body’s not the same after being so fat and slow. Everyone told me to get it taken care of, but there’s no way I could get rid of something so helpless.”

     Tammi leaned closer to Christine, so she could smell her hot, ragged breath.

     “When girls like you get in trouble, you get an abortion and think everyone else should too. But I wasn’t anything until I was a mother. No one is going to take him away from me. Not some doctor or his dad, not some agency, not you. You could never have a baby as good as mine. He loves me, he doesn’t judge me, and I’m perfect in his eyes.”

     “Look, Tammi, no one’s taking your kid away from you. My friend and I are just here to—.”

     “Your friend, he’s still at the house. Did he do something to Hank? Distracting him while you’re poking around my trailer?”

     “You don’t understand. We’re not doing—.”

     “Get out,” she shoved Christine in the collarbone with her knuckles. “Get out now or I’ll get the gun!”

     Christine backed towards her car ad turned on the engine with trembling fingers. Tammi flung open the screen door with her son slung on her hip.

     “What’s going on?” Tweeky loped towards the car as Christine made a drunken, three-point turn. She reached over and pushed open the passenger door.

     “Let’s go!”

     “Don’t you wanna do a line first?”

     Christine goaded the car over the rutted path. At the driveway’s end, she glanced at the back view mirror and spotted a long-haired man, bare-chested, in a second story window in the house, watching them as they turned onto the long country road, spitting gravel in their wake.