What was this rampage? Because she hadn’t wanted to work today? Had he heard her vomiting this morning and put it together? It was all spinning so wildly out of control. People were getting hurt, and if she wasn’t careful someone could get killed.
Just then an older man with a swirly scar at his throat came up to the order window. Kit’s stomach fell. Maya’s mother had crumpled to the floor. Manny tossed the rib aside, wiped his hands and mouth, and appeared in the window.
“Pound of fatty brisket, side of slaw, side of pinto, extra sauce please and thank you,” the man said.
“We’ll have that right up for you,” Manny said, side-eyeing the menu. “That’ll be three seventy-five please.”
“Where’s Miz Stoker?” the man said, suspicious. “She always takes my order.”
“Run off to the potty, sir. I’m just here to help.”
The man with the scar cocked his head and looked at Manny. He made a visor of his hand and peered into the room. Kit couldn’t tell if the cooks were visible from the window. She had to get Manny out of there before Maya came back with the police or worse, a bunch of men with guns.
“Say,” the man said and pointed at the fry station. “Your hush puppies is burnin’.” Manny smiled and went over to the smoking fryer. Kit tensed. For a moment she thought he might fling the boiling oil at the man. At this point, anything seemed possible. But he just lifted the basket out of the oil and dumped the blackened fritters into a nearby garbage can. The man with the scar shook his head and laid a five-dollar bill on the counter. Manny made change from the coins in the register and dropped them in the man’s hand.
“Bone appa-teet!” he said. When the man with the scar had moved on to the pickup window, Kit grabbed Manny by the shirt.
“Listen to me now, I’m—”
He swiped at her with an open hand, but she ducked out of reach. “Quit distracting me,” he said, so loud Kit worried people on the outside could hear him. “I’m trying to get us some scratch, okay? Here, watch the lady while I empty the till.”
She gestured at her mouth that he should keep his voice down. Manny turned his back, gun lowered, and began filling a brown take-out bag with money.
“How long do you think before he realizes his food isn’t coming, huh?” she said, gesturing toward the man at the pickup window. “I’m getting the car.”
“Fine, okay, I’m done, get the fuckin’ car,” Manny said. He aimed his gun at the woman, who cowered and winced, then took another rib from the basket.
Kit looked out the order window to see if people knew what was happening. In the dining area, all was calm. People ate, talked. She lifted herself up, swung her legs through the window, and jogged to the Mustang. She started the car and drove, calmly as she could, down the dirt path that led to the back of the building. She stopped just short, then reached across and swung the door open for Manny, like always. If she carried on straight, there was a clear exit route that would put her right back on the freeway without having to drive past all the customers.
She pressed her forehead to the steering wheel. A month ago, she would have gone to jail for him without a second thought. That was when she was the one who just wanted someone to tell her what to do. Manny always said being scared was how we knew we were alive, but she was sick of being scared all the time. Why would she want to live like this, nothing earned, nothing granted, always bringing danger near?
As if searching for comfort, she held the little bump at her waist, tucked her fingers under her shirt and felt the warmth and the fullness. Her heart threatened to crack her ribs and she breathed again with purpose. Her nausea gone, she felt an electric surge of something she did not recognize. Strong and alert, a brilliant warmth flowed through her, and as she noticed the tears skating her jawline, she knew what to call it. It was love, elemental and transcendent.
Someone screamed and she looked above the dash. On the other side of the lot, Maya stood by the smoker with baby Ray in her arms, weeping. The pitmaster, her father, was gone. Maya must have told him. Kit’s heart pounded; she scanned the area for him. There was a pickup truck under a tree a ways off from the pit, and the pitmaster was running from it, a long, black gun in his hand. A half dozen men leapt to their feet and ran for the smokehouse. She could not see inside for how dark it was, but she could hear a struggle.
“Get out here!” she hollered.
A shot fired off. She whipped around and saw the pitmaster, gun locked into his shoulder, aimed right at her. She ducked below the seat. Then Manny appeared in the doorway to her right, one arm locked around Mrs. Stoker’s neck. In his other hand he held a pistol to her temple. The woman’s mouth gaped as if she wanted to scream but couldn’t. The pitmaster swung his gun and pointed it at Manny. He called out to his wife in a voice both desperate and enraged.
Whatever frayed ligaments had held Kit to Manny snapped, and before they could knit back together, she shifted the Mustang into gear. She looked back once, a glance in the rearview, the last thing she’d remember about Manny. The hate in his eyes when the woman slipped out of his grasp as four men tackled him to the ground.
She gunned it, her wheels churning up a blinding cloud of dust. She turned up the radio to block out the sound of Manny calling after her as she fishtailed out of the alley and onto the interstate. And when she hit the open road she said a prayer that was more a promise to herself, that no one would ever hurt her baby as long as she could spit and scratch.
Chapter Sixteen
It must have taken an hour or so of blind, aimless driving before Kit’s heart slowed and her hands stopped shaking, before she could think clearly enough to make a plan. The scene she had fled came back to her in bright flashes. Stoker pumping his legs to get to his wife; baby Ray grasping at the fringe on his mama’s shorts; the barrel of a gun pointed straight at Kit. She exited the highway and found a hidden side street at the bottom of a double silo to get her bearings. She leaned across the seat, rummaged for a map of Texas in the glove box, and spread it on the dash. Her heart raced anew as she remembered the day Manny had nearly left her in Pecan Hollow, had pulled the Mustang to the side of the road, found the little town on the map, and promised he would take her there. She had visited the brink of freedom, sensed its promise and its ambiguities, and when he held her close and called her special, she had chosen him instead.