“No,” said Jake. “You must have another word wrong.”
Mrs. Matthis would not admit the mistake. She lurched away, nearly falling again, but clung to the mirror of a farm truck. She backed up against the truck and slid along the door and over the wheel well. She sidestepped cautiously, her back filthy with dust, until she reached the bumper. She collapsed to sitting, her weight causing the farm truck to creak.
“Grace!” He shouted this at Mrs. Matthis. She looked back at him, and like all really drunk people, was determined to demonstrate that she was okay, she was just fine. She stood up from the bumper and tripped down another row of cars.
“The answer is Grace!” Jake was standing now. Of course he knew the late princess of Monaco.
Mrs. Matthis stumbled onto the hood of Black Mabel’s Subaru Brat. She lay on her back for a moment, slowly sat up, and shook her fist at Jake.
“Grace!” Jake was screaming now. “GRACE, GRACE, GRACE!”
“I’M DOING THE BEST I CAN, YOU LITTLE FUCKER!” The townspeople were shocked by her outburst, and Mrs. Matthis pretended to regain her composure, as she slunk out of sight behind Black Mabel’s car.
Jake thought it was appropriate that the John Birch Society float came next, squishing the horseshit with their wheels. Their float was also Western themed, fat men with rifles slung across their backs, the straps too tight and straining down the middle of their shirts. It seemed like they possessed enormous breasts. They threw pamphlets that warned about Communist threats.
Behind them, four trucks of Little Leaguers, all in uniform. And Klemp. Finally, she had been promoted from T-ball, and Jake could swear she tucked a wad of chewing tobacco in her lower lip. She spit something reddish, but she was such a terrifying little girl that it might have been the blood of her enemies.
Up next, a flatbed truck rumbled down the street. The football players and the girls of the basketball team waved, surrounded by actual, store-bought crepe paper. There was no shortage of money when it came to high school sports. The school mascot sat on the tailgate, in a matted costume topped off with a ridiculously large knight’s head. Although he couldn’t see, the mascot remained steady and waved a large piece of butcher paper inscribed with fighting words. Sixty-Four glared at Jake, side-armed a Jolly Rancher. It bounced from Jake’s knee, and Buley caught it without pause, threw it back with incredible velocity. It struck Sixty-Four on the cheek, a welt forming instantly. Apparently, Diane had inherited her softball skills.
Next came the zombie march of disenchanted cheerleaders, to the hoots and hollers from the crowd. Pleated skirts swung as they trudged, the only sign of life. At least the girls revealed some leg.
But there was a din: a low, rumbling noise, traveling from up ahead. For there was a float following behind the cheerleaders, a float he still couldn’t quite see, it was obviously making quite an impression on those who could.
He knew for certain it was his float.
Apparently, the townspeople grasped the irony. The crowd shouted, laughed, and applauded. They approved.
Krystal gasped when she saw it.
“Did you do that?”
“Yep,” he said, and his chest grew tight as the float pulled near.
The flatbed glimmered in the sun. Diane’s boom box played “Devil Inside” by INXS, the song recorded again and again on a blank cassette. Yards of chiffon caught in the light breeze and trembled in giant waves. Bucky winked at Jake as they pulled past, but the Flood Girls remained perfectly still, arranged just as he had instructed, palms together, eyes upward at the sky.
The napkins were painted sky blue, and attached to the backdrop, the cotton batting had been shredded, resembling perfect clouds. The framework was hung with the chiffon, floating out in great sparkly sheets.
The Flood Girls were dressed as angels. Coat hanger halos wrapped with gold garland, bedsheets making long white dresses, wings made out of white feathers stretched out across their back.
Red Mabel sat above them all, pretended to play the harp, reclined on a raised platform, the ugliest angel in heaven.
Jake’s throat closed up as he witnessed the glory of it all. Buley hugged him tightly.
The baby cooed and reached out toward the sparkle, as the citizens of Quinn continued to roar.
* * *