By mid-October, the season had changed almost overnight from constant unbearable heat to a pleasant cool, with occasional rains that scrubbed and crisped the air. At about six months pregnant, Kit was changing, too. Her wooden face softened, her breasts filled out even more, and the roundness of her belly where the baby was now beginning to kick and squirm was impossible to conceal. As Eleanor had warned, people in town started to talk. At first, there were the long stares from the women in line at the store, or the codgers playing cards with palsied hands in front of the diner. She could feel them assessing and theorizing. When she had been so accustomed to invisibility, being the subject of scrutiny embarrassed her, made her feel like she was living someone else’s life.
Sugar Fay, having recently announced her own pregnancy, came by regularly with gifts of food and women’s magazines and fresh gossip. Despite Kit’s hasty exit from the makeup party, Sugar was determined to stay friends. Kit tolerated her presence as an unavoidable fact of life. She thanked Sugar for the gifts, but she did not stick around for the company.
Eleanor sprang to action with the preparations for the baby. She went to town and raised eyebrows with the volume of groceries she bought. She cooked for hours, freezing casseroles, roasting chickens in threes and using the bones for stock that she had Kit drink like tea. Collards and turnips, black-eyed peas, Virginia ham with biscuits, sticky pecan pie on Sundays. She knew just what to do for Kit’s aches and pains, for food aversions and reflux and cramps.
One chilly Saturday, Kit went to fetch the mail and check the newspaper. At the little post office in town, she opened a small locked box and found the day’s mail—a Sears catalog, some bills, and a Reader’s Digest. Then she crossed the old railroad track that cut through town to the diner with its curved glass fa?ade and shark fin awning. There were two newspaper vending machines out front. One for the Houston Chronicle, its plastic window yellowed and cloudy, stacked to the brim. The smaller machine next to it, which held the Weekly Holler, was empty. Kit had learned from Eleanor that the Weekly Holler was basically a circular with ads from local businesses and a forum where people posted birth announcements, death announcements, garage sales, rodeos, lost animals, and even, from time to time, love letters. People weren’t so concerned about national or international news. Even the big-city news from Houston was a little too fast-paced and scintillating. The good stuff was homegrown. Everyone got the Holler.
She pushed her dime through the slot and pulled out the Houston Chronicle, which was triple the size of the local rag. She flipped to the crime section, something she had done every couple of weeks, hoping and dreading she would find news of Manny. The front page was covered with examples of people acting badly. A man shot in a dispute between his teenage daughters; a six-year-old drowned in the Buffalo Bayou by her stepfather; a woman missing seven years found stuffed in a basement freezer. Heinous crimes she could not imagine committing. Whatever wrong she had done, it was nothing by comparison. But, she thought, that’s exactly the kind of justification Manny would come up with. She’d heard a million of them over the years: They’re lucky we only robbed them. Nobody got hurt. It’s just money, Kitty Cat. Government steals people’s money every damn day. Not my fault I figured out an easy way to get rich. Only difference between me and everybody else is I’m willing to take the risk. She already felt bad about what she’d done, but now that she was straight, she was just as ashamed of how she had let herself believe that their version of stealing wasn’t wrong.
Then, as if he had heard her thoughts, his face appeared on the next page. There was Manny in cuffs, looking directly into the camera, being escorted down a stairwell. The photo was small, maybe two inches by three, next to a brief article below the fold, but there was no mistaking him. Even in black and white, she could see the blue in his eyes. Just above it, a headline in small font: one of texaco twosome convicted. Her legs weakened.
Kit spread the Houston Chronicle over the flat top of the vending machine and read the article. It was a small piece, perhaps an update on others written before.
Manuel Romero, self-described mastermind of the Texaco Twosome robbery duo, was convicted on all counts, including robbery and unlawful restraint, following his July 4 arrest. He had held a woman at gunpoint while robbing her barbecue stand, the famed Stoker’s BBQ, then took her, briefly, as hostage. Her husband and several customers disarmed and restrained him while his accomplice fled the scene.
The arrest follows a string of robberies mainly at filling stations in remote areas. Mr. Romero’s signature style gained some notoriety as Austin County police coined the term “Texaco Twosome” to drum up interest in the case. Police are still searching for his female partner, though an accurate description eludes them. One witness stated she had short, buzzed hair and a dark complexion. Another, the owners’ daughter, insisted her hair was long. Mr. Romero has declined to provide information on her appearance or whereabouts, stating only that she was “the love of [his] life.”
Kit’s eyes stung and her face felt hot. This was her first glimpse of what had happened after she drove away, and though she’d wondered what had become of Manny these last three and a half months, this dose of information left her wildly confused. On the one hand she was relieved to know he would be in prison. There had always been the chance that he was hunting her down. The part of her that still loved him was moved, even remorseful, to see that he didn’t begrudge her, that even though she had bailed on him he would not betray her. But when she reread the article, she detected something almost theatrical about his quote, like he had known she would be reading it. How was she supposed to take this? Manny was rarely straightforward and sincere. Did he think she would be in his debt?
Just then Beulah Baker passed by, following her husband, who was carrying a stack of packages. Kit slapped the paper shut, then nodded at them, tense and barely breathing, afraid she’d been caught.
“Didn’t mean to give you a fright!” Beulah said with a child’s laugh.
Kit tried to wave her on, pleasantly enough but without any invitation to stay and chat. They made it to their Wagoneer without stopping and her husband unloaded the packages. Beulah waved again as she climbed up into the car and called out, “You have a blessed day, now!”
Once they were good and gone, Kit looked around as if she were being watched. She knew the police would be looking for her, but the witness description of her buzz cut made her furious. Manny had cut her hair to throw people off the scent, but it had only made her more recognizable. Everyone had seen her roll into town, the freak newcomer with no hair. Someone would only have to read the article and give it a moment’s thought. They were already so goddamn suspicious of her, it wouldn’t take much imagination.
She pumped another dime in the slot, took the whole stack of papers, including the one in the window, and rushed back to Eleanor’s truck.