16

MAROONED

“SEX-MAD MOM, FIFTY-FIVE, elopes with daughter’s prom date,” Alice reports.

Barbie, who has already been laughing to the point of makeup damage, collapses in the backseat. Turtle asks,

“What’s a prongdate?”

“Mama, don’t even get started on that one,” Taylor warns.

Alice turns to the inner pages of her tabloid. “Here you go, an educational story from nature. The cassowary of Australia is a bird that has been known to kill humans. Eight feet tall, it attacks by leaping in the air and slashing its victim with razor-sharp toenails.”

“Mama, that’s not exactly educational,” Taylor says, frowning into the freeway glare.

Alice reads on, carefully pronouncing all the syllables.

“They are kept as pets and form a part of the economy of certain aboriginal cultures as payment for brides.”

“What a deal,” Taylor says. “I’ll trade you my daughter for an eight-foot bird with razor-sharp toenails.” Instantly the words “trade you my daughter” seize up in her stomach.

She moves the rearview mirror to find Turtle, who has grown dangerously silent in her nest of stuffed toys and dog-eared books. Taylor has been having panic-stricken dreams of misplacing Turtle.

“I want to hear about the sex-mad mom,” Barbie whines.

“Practically that exact same thing happened to me when I was in eighth grade. My mom flirted with my boyfriend Ryan till he was like, ‘Excuse me, I don’t even want to come to your house.’ I was so depressed I stopped using hair spray for three weeks.”

Taylor snaps the mirror back into driving position. “Okay, read the sex-mad mom,” she concedes, since it may be the only hope of fending off another Barbie story. This morning they have already heard about the new ecological Animal Lovin’ Barbie, and the mystery of the transvestite Ken, who turned up factory-sealed in a Tampa toy store wearing a lace apron and miniskirt. They have also learned that a Barbie doll’s measurements translated to the human figure are 36-18-33, which are Barbie’s own measurements except she’s still a few inches away from the 18. Taylor asked if Eco-Barbie was biodegradable.

“Here we go,” Alice pipes up cheerfully, doing her best to keep the peace. She has been reading tabloids aloud since Tonopah. “What an adventure. Three men were marooned on their overturned charter boat off the coast of Florida and drifted without food for thirty-seven days before rescue.”

Taylor shivers. “They must have been ready to eat each other.”

“Oh, gag me,” from the backseat.

“Taylor, hush,” Alice says. “They probably played alphabet games.”

“Right.”

She reads ahead silently, and a worried expression clots her forehead. “Well, they didn’t eat each other. But it’s not very nice. They kind of ganged up on the one they didn’t like. Oh, dear. They used him for bait.”

The air in the car becomes quiet. The only sound is the sticky hiss of tires on the road, coming in through the vents.

The women take in this sound as if their lives depended on it.

Alice says abruptly, “Francis the runaway pig on the lam in Canada. Francis the pig broke out of a slaughterhouse in Red Deer, Ottawa, jumped a yard-high fence, sneaked through a sausage factory and pushed open the back door with his snout. The butcher chased but lost him.” She skims ahead for the good parts. “…took up residence in a large park. Was once seen fighting off coyotes. Case became na-tionally known when Francis, grown lean and powerful, evaded professional trackers for six weeks. Finally he was hit with a tranquilizer dart, but ran for miles and escaped into the bush. Schoolchildren across the nation contributed money to the butcher, asking that his life be spared. Psycho-logists explain the support for Francis by comparing him to Jesse James or Pretty Boy Floyd.”

“Way to go, Francis,” Taylor says.

“Who’s for lunch?” asks Barbie.

“Francis the pig.”

“Oh, gross, Taylor. Who wants lunch, I mean.”

Taylor has the eerie feeling that the cracked brown desert moonscape outside the car will go on forever. That only the four of them are alive. She checks her watch and informs Barbie that it’s only eleven o’clock.

“Well, tell that to my tummy It’s like, ‘Feed me, okay, I’m starved.’ ”

Alice gives Taylor a meaningful glance over her newspaper.

Taylor asks, “Turtle, do you have to pee?”

Turtle nods.

“Okay. Next exit we’ll stop.”