South of Elfrida by Holley Rubinsky Page B

she thinks she’d like to volunteer somewhere, but the problem, from Al’s point of view, is that Mexicans are everywhere, people who can’t keep their fingernails or a toilet bowl clean unless they’re paid to do it. She’s been to the barrio, looked around. In Tucson these days it’s hard to get out of the barrio; it’s like the downtown has been taken over by aliens, that’s Al’s word for them, and white people—the people who founded the country—are pushed farther out, left sitting inside gates and fences in the middle of nowhere, just waiting for sunset. And something cold to drink, she can face that fact; you need something to drink out here with nothing to see but sky and the wind blowing dirt so hard she thinks the mountains will be smaller in the morning. Whatever’s in the wind makes her nose tickle, her throat hurt. Allergies. Everybody in Pima County has allergies.
    â€œGo get that box of tissues,” he says. “I can feel you revving up.” Him speaking that way makes her feel fond.
    â€œAbout to have a sneezing fit,” she says.
    â€œCan count on that with this wind. You take that pill the doctor gave you?”
    â€œOh, it just makes me . . . oh, I don’t want to say.”
    â€œPee, woman, that’s the word you’re searching for.”
    â€œOh, you,” she says, batting his arm, stepping inside for that new box of extra soft, extra strong.
    Through the screen door, Al says, “How about that meatloaf tonight.”
    Sally opens the fridge. “I thought pork chops.”
    â€œGot my heart set on meatloaf. Betcha there’s a store up the road.”
    â€œBetcha you’re right.” She’s used to his little demands. She has nothing else to do, not really. She plucks the car keys from their hook.
    She drives up Kolb Road to Fry’s. As soon as she’s inside the glossy store, under the fluorescent lights, she sighs. The store is like a sanctum, the church she doesn’t attend. She loves the privacy and peace. She pushes her cart to the meat aisle and meditates in front of the wrapped packages of ground beef.
    Al was away at military training when she had the abortion. She couldn’t have got it past him; the child would have been part black. She understands that, genetically, the child could have been very white or very black or something in between, but she couldn’t take the chance. She wonders, dawdling in front of the meats, what that child would have been like—smart, maybe, different.
    She had it done at a private clinic, away from the base. She’d asked that the tiny little thing be cremated; she keeps some of the ashes in a powder compact, the lid decorated with enamelled butterflies, jewels in their wings. A soft, pink powder puff covers the ashes. She keeps it in a drawer along with her many cosmetics, the lipsticks, foundations, eyeliners, and other women’s necessities. Al never looks in this drawer; he’d rather not think about the effort she puts in, to look groomed and pretty.
    Waiting at the checkout, she notices so many young people with all shades of skin colour. They’re pretty, the girls with olive skin, long faces, dark hair, a little slant to the eye. God may never forgive her that sin. The price you pay—she paid—for a moment of freedom.
    After fixing the meatloaf, Sally returns to her canvas chair with a second glass of wine, though Al doesn’t need to know it’s her second. Here comes a Class C Adventurer, passing carefully over the speed bumps. “A 2001,” Al says. She pats his hand. He’s always right on the money about the models. They look pretty much the same to her, but Al says that’s because she’s a woman.
    Now here’s something that causes them to share eye contact—two women together in the cab. Both of them have short brown hair, and Sally knows at first glance they ain’t