I took the map out of my hip pocket, tore off a strip, and scribbled my Jodie telephone number on it. Then I added another five-dollar bill. I held them out to her. She looked but didn’t take.

“What I want your telephone number for? I ain’t got no goddam phone. That there ain’t no DFW ’shange, anyway. That’s goddam long distance.”

“Call me when you get ready to move out. That’s all I want. You call me and say, ‘Mister, this is Rosette’s mama, and we’re moving.’ That’s all it is.” I could see her calculating. It didn’t take her long. Ten dollars was more than her husband would make working all day in the hot Texas sun. Because Manpower knew from nothing about time-and-a-half on holidays. And this would be ten dollars he knew from nothing about.

“Gimme another semny-fi cent,” she said. “For the long distance.”

“Here, take a buck. Live a little. And don’t forget.”

“I won’t.”

“No, you don’t want to. Because if you forgot, I might just be apt to find my way to your husband and tattle. This is important business, Missus. To me it is. What’s your name, anyway?”

“Ivy Templeton.”

I stood there in the dirt and the weeds, smelling shit, half-cooked oil, and the big farty aroma of natural gas.

“Mister? What’s wrong with you? You come over all funny.”

“Nothing,” I said. And maybe it was nothing. Templeton is far from an uncommon name. Of course a man can talk himself into anything, if he tries hard enough. I’m walking, talking proof of that.

“What’s your name?”

“Puddentane,” I said. “Ask me again and I’ll tell you the same.” At this touch of grammar school raillery, she finally cracked a smile.

“You call me, Missus.”

“Yeah, okay. Go on now. You was to run over that little hell-bitch of mine on your way out, you’d prolly be doin me a favor.”

I drove back to Jodie and found a note thumbtacked to my door: George—

Would you call me? I need a favor.

Sadie (and that’s the trouble!!)

Which meant exactly what? I went inside to call her and find out.

4

Coach Borman’s mother, who lived in an Abilene nursing home, had broken her hip, and this coming Saturday was the DCHS Sadie Hawkins Dance.

“Coach talked me into chaperoning the dance with him! He said, and I quote, ‘How can you resist going to a dance that’s practically named after you?’ Just last week, this was. And like a fool I agreed. Now he’s going down to Abilene, and where does that leave me? Chaperoning two hundred sex-crazed sixteen-year-olds doing the Twist and the Philly? I don’t think so! What if some of the boys bring beer?”

I thought it would be amazing if they didn’t, but felt it best not to say so.

“Or what if there’s a fight in the parking lot? Ellie Dockerty said a bunch of boys from Henderson crashed the dance last year and two of their kids and two of ours had to go to the hospital! George, can you help me out here? Please? ”

“Have I just been Sadie Hawkinsed by Sadie Dunhill?” I was grinning. The idea of going to the dance with her did not exactly fill me with gloom.

“Don’t joke! It’s not funny!”

“Sadie, I’d be happy to go with you. Are you going to bring me a corsage?”

“I’d bring you a bottle of champagne, if that’s what it took.” She considered this. “Well, no.

Not on my salary. A bottle of Cold Duck, though.”

“Doors open at seven-thirty?” Actually I knew they did. The posters were up all over the school.

“Right.”

“And it’s just a record-hop. No band. That’s good.”

“Why?”

“Live bands can cause problems. I shapped a dance once where the drummer sold home brew beer at intermission. That was a pleasant experience.”

“Were there fights?” She sounded horrified. Also fascinated.

“Nope, but there was a whole lot of puking. The stuff was spunky.”

“This was in Florida?”

It had been at Lisbon High, in 2009, so I told her yes, in Florida. I also told her I’d be happy to co-chaperone the hop.

“Thank you so much, George.”

“My pleasure, ma’am.”

And it absolutely was.

5

The Pep Club was in charge of the Sadie Hawkins, and they’d done a bang-up job: lots of crepe streamers wafting down from the gymnasium rafters (silver and gold, of course), lots of ginger ale punch, lemon-snap cookies, and red velvet cupcakes provided by the Future Homemakers of America. The Art Department—small but dedicated—contributed a cartoon mural that showed the immortal Miss Hawkins herself, chasing after the eligible bachelors of Dogpatch. Mattie Shaw and Mike’s girlfriend, Bobbi Jill, did most of the work, and they were justifiably proud. I wondered if they still would be seven or eight years from now, when the first wave of women’s libbers started burning their bras and demonstrating for full reproductive rights. Not to mention wearing tee-shirts that said things like I AM NOT PROPERTY and A WOMAN NEEDS A MAN LIKE A FISH

NEEDS A BICYCLE.

The night’s DJ and master of ceremonies was Donald Bellingham, a sophomore. He arrived with a totally ginchy record collection in not one but two Samsonite suitcases. With my permission (Sadie just looked bewildered), he hooked up his Webcor phonograph and his dad’s preamp to the school’s PA system. The gym was big enough to provide natural reverb, and after a few preliminary feedback shrieks, he got a booming sound that was awesome. Although born in Jodie, Donald was a permanent resident of Rockville, in the state of Daddy Cool. He wore pink-rimmed specs with thick lenses, belt-in-the-back slacks, and saddle shoes so grotesquely square they were authentically crazy, man. His face was an exploding zit-factory below a Brylcreem-loaded Bobby Rydell duck’s ass. He looked like he might get his first kiss from a real live girl around the age of forty-two, but he was fast and funny with the mike, and his record collection (which he called “the stack-o-wax” and

“Donny B.’s round mound of sound”) was, as previously noted, the ginchiest.

“Let’s kick-start this party with a blast from the past, a rock n roll relic from the grooveyard of cool, a golden gasser, a platter that matters, move your feet to the real gone beat of Danny . . .

and the JOOONIERS! ”

“At the Hop” nuked the gym. The dance started as most of them do in the early sixties, just the girls jitterbugging with the girls. Feet in penny loafers flew. Petticoats swirled. After awhile, though, the floor started to fill up with boy-girl couples . . . for the fast dances, at least, more current stuff like “Hit the Road Jack” and “Quarter to Three.”