Ugly Girls: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

lighter to the palm frond, which took to the fire like that was all it was waiting for to look alive again. Bright orange rib cage of a thing, quickly turning black. “Shit!” Baby Girl hissed, and ran back to the car.
    Perry watched the tiny curls of flame for as long as she could as they drove off. Myra was always talking about itches, how people were either scratchers or ignorers. The scratchers poke and poke at it, even though it makes it itch more. The scratchers love the itch and they love the poking. It could go on forever but for the blood, and even then, it’s a small price to pay. That’s how nights with Baby Girl had gotten. None of it seemed to matter. The sun always came up.
    They ditched the Mazda on the side of the highway, near the exit headed back to where they’d left Baby Girl’s car on a quiet street. Cars rushed by them as they walked along the shoulder, some honked, people on their way to work or home from work, probably none of them on the way back from an all-night bender like they had been on. Baby Girl made a visor of her hands to protect her face. She was so pale that even ten minutes in the sun could do her in. Even a weak sun like this one, set back behind a screen of gray. Even this sun would turn her red as a fire ant. “See you at school,” she said.
    Perry nodded, turned down the road leading to her house. She was too tired to say anything back. She had to walk while Baby Girl got to drive home because she couldn’t risk Myra hearing the car, or worse, Jim seeing it on his way back from work.
    Baby Girl honked as she rode past. Trying to get a rise. Perry ignored her, concentrating on how hard the asphalt felt under her feet. Every step a pounding. She walked through a few neighborhoods on her way to the trailer park, each dingier than the last, until she got to one of the nicer ones, brick homes with actual grass in the yards, no cars parked on the street, a man in a suit taking a mug of coffee to his car. Next would come the cul de sac of duplexes and apartments, pretty yellow siding and flower boxes, though the parking lot out front had cracks and potholes, and there weren’t any BMWs or Lexuses, just Nissans and Hyundais and maybe a Buick or two. Then there was the neighborhood of short, squat houses, skinny driveways, no sidewalks, shrubs and grass looking like they’d gone months without seeing to. Mostly old trucks parked out front, sometimes rickety-looking motorcycles. And finally her own neighborhood, if it could be called that, short rows of trailers leading up a small hill. Hers was three rows back. Perry knew what people thought when they heard the words trailer park . Dirty kids in dirty diapers, car parts, people drinking or hollering. But that wasn’t so true for where she lived. They had all those things, but never all at once, it seemed. And if you had a double-wide, like Myra and Jim did, it almost felt like a normal-size house. Perry didn’t love it, but it was home.
    It was nearly seven thirty when she got there. Myra was still in bed, either because she had a day off or because she didn’t wake up when her alarm went off. Perry knew it was probably the second option, what with her having a beer last night. No telling how many came after.
    The trailer was quiet and still; it felt to Perry like the preserved remains of a family long gone. Myra collected things, little colonies of shit, and displayed them all over the trailer. Along the windowsill behind the couch she had her group of vintage glass jars; dust had coated them long ago, so instead of reflecting light they just distilled it, held it like a glaze. The couch had its own grouping of pillows, embroidered with dog heads or sayings like COFFEE MADE ME DO IT and IT’S 5 O’CLOCK SOMEWHERE. Mostly pillows Myra picked up from the truck stop. They helped hide how worn the couch was, all its rips and tears, same went for the doilies Myra collected. The walls of the trailer were faux wood paneled, so cheap