down so I can see out?”
“I can’t do that, sugar,” Mason said soothingly, “but just as soon as we get your tummy better, I’m gonna take you all the way to the beach in the fun car. Just you and me.”
“And Annajane,” Sophie added. “Annajane loves the fun car, too.”
Mason exchanged a look with his ex. Her cheeks colored and she looked away. He wondered if she remembered.
* * *
He’d been driving the Chevelle the second time he remembered an important encounter with Annajane Hudgens. She was what? Maybe nineteen? Which would have made him twenty-three.
It was summertime, and he’d somehow allowed himself to be roped into driving the convertible in the Passcoe Fourth of July parade, chauffeuring a local beauty queen, Tamelah Dorman, who’d actually been crowned Miss Passcoe, although it should have been Miss Spray-Tan, because she was surely the most artificially overbronzed girl he’d ever encountered.
Anyway, he and Tamelah were having a pretty good time that day. She, perched on the back of the Chevelle, decked out in a short, low-cut spangly firecracker-red dress that definitely showed off her best assets, and he in shorts and a white Quixie Soda polo shirt. He’d filled a flask full of crushed ice, Captain Morgan rum, and Quixie, and he and good old Tamelah had emptied and refilled it before they got a quarter of the way down the Main Street parade route that morning.
The Fourth of July parade was always a major deal in Passcoe, and that year, the hundredth anniversary of the town’s incorporation, made it an even bigger deal than usual. Thousands of people lined Main Street, seated on lawn chairs, standing in the shade of storefronts, or crouched on the curbs.
He’d hoped for a spot either at the very beginning or the very end of the parade lineup, but no such luck. They’d slotted him slap in the middle, between Patti-Jean’s Twirling Tykes—three dozen tap-dancing, baton-twirling preschoolers, and the El-Shazaam Masonic Lodge’s Shriner Klown Korps, which consisted of ten middle-aged men in white face, baggy pants, and red fright wigs, perched atop souped-up lawn-mower chassis.
Their progress was agonizingly slow. The Tykes’ twirling routines were limited to two songs—playing over and over again—which blared out from a huge boom box mounted on a wagon pulled by Patti-Jean herself, a Sousa march and I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy . Behind him, the Klown Korps guys zigzagged crazily across the pavement, popping wheelies and running a dizzying series of figure eights that left an acrid cloud of gasoline fumes hanging overhead.
The sun was blazing down, and Mason worried that their snail’s pace would cause the Chevelle’s supercharged engine to overheat.
What with the heat and all, he and Tamelah had slain one whole bottle of the Captain and were shaking hands with another, and they still had half a mile to go before they would reach Memorial Park, where the parade ended and a huge citywide picnic and carnival was set up. If his memory served, Tamelah was so trashed that she’d given up her regal, queenly wave, and begun flipping off the good citizens of Passcoe seated on folding chairs along Main Street. Twice, when male admirers ran up alongside the car to snap photos of her, Tamelah had obliged by flashing them her boobs. She and Mason had already discussed a postparade meet-up back at his apartment later that evening.
At some point along the route, he’d glanced to the right and noticed that his wasn’t the only Quixie soft drink unit participating in the parade.
There, pushing a hand cart and handing out complimentary cans of Quixie and fifty-cent coupons, was the company mascot, Dixie, the Quixie Pixie herself.
Somehow, somebody in the company had conned some poor sap into climbing into the pixie costume. Whoever it was, he thought, was probably ready to spontaneously combust in the outfit, which consisted of a long-sleeved green felt tunic, bright red
“I can’t do that, sugar,” Mason said soothingly, “but just as soon as we get your tummy better, I’m gonna take you all the way to the beach in the fun car. Just you and me.”
“And Annajane,” Sophie added. “Annajane loves the fun car, too.”
Mason exchanged a look with his ex. Her cheeks colored and she looked away. He wondered if she remembered.
* * *
He’d been driving the Chevelle the second time he remembered an important encounter with Annajane Hudgens. She was what? Maybe nineteen? Which would have made him twenty-three.
It was summertime, and he’d somehow allowed himself to be roped into driving the convertible in the Passcoe Fourth of July parade, chauffeuring a local beauty queen, Tamelah Dorman, who’d actually been crowned Miss Passcoe, although it should have been Miss Spray-Tan, because she was surely the most artificially overbronzed girl he’d ever encountered.
Anyway, he and Tamelah were having a pretty good time that day. She, perched on the back of the Chevelle, decked out in a short, low-cut spangly firecracker-red dress that definitely showed off her best assets, and he in shorts and a white Quixie Soda polo shirt. He’d filled a flask full of crushed ice, Captain Morgan rum, and Quixie, and he and good old Tamelah had emptied and refilled it before they got a quarter of the way down the Main Street parade route that morning.
The Fourth of July parade was always a major deal in Passcoe, and that year, the hundredth anniversary of the town’s incorporation, made it an even bigger deal than usual. Thousands of people lined Main Street, seated on lawn chairs, standing in the shade of storefronts, or crouched on the curbs.
He’d hoped for a spot either at the very beginning or the very end of the parade lineup, but no such luck. They’d slotted him slap in the middle, between Patti-Jean’s Twirling Tykes—three dozen tap-dancing, baton-twirling preschoolers, and the El-Shazaam Masonic Lodge’s Shriner Klown Korps, which consisted of ten middle-aged men in white face, baggy pants, and red fright wigs, perched atop souped-up lawn-mower chassis.
Their progress was agonizingly slow. The Tykes’ twirling routines were limited to two songs—playing over and over again—which blared out from a huge boom box mounted on a wagon pulled by Patti-Jean herself, a Sousa march and I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy . Behind him, the Klown Korps guys zigzagged crazily across the pavement, popping wheelies and running a dizzying series of figure eights that left an acrid cloud of gasoline fumes hanging overhead.
The sun was blazing down, and Mason worried that their snail’s pace would cause the Chevelle’s supercharged engine to overheat.
What with the heat and all, he and Tamelah had slain one whole bottle of the Captain and were shaking hands with another, and they still had half a mile to go before they would reach Memorial Park, where the parade ended and a huge citywide picnic and carnival was set up. If his memory served, Tamelah was so trashed that she’d given up her regal, queenly wave, and begun flipping off the good citizens of Passcoe seated on folding chairs along Main Street. Twice, when male admirers ran up alongside the car to snap photos of her, Tamelah had obliged by flashing them her boobs. She and Mason had already discussed a postparade meet-up back at his apartment later that evening.
At some point along the route, he’d glanced to the right and noticed that his wasn’t the only Quixie soft drink unit participating in the parade.
There, pushing a hand cart and handing out complimentary cans of Quixie and fifty-cent coupons, was the company mascot, Dixie, the Quixie Pixie herself.
Somehow, somebody in the company had conned some poor sap into climbing into the pixie costume. Whoever it was, he thought, was probably ready to spontaneously combust in the outfit, which consisted of a long-sleeved green felt tunic, bright red
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