That Kind of Fun

Abstract

That Kind of Fun Marvin Shackelford (bio) After lunch—Bobby, her ex-husband, stopped by again to take her out, smiling and shaking his head as she talked about wanting to drop face-down in her soup and call it quits—the headache got bad enough that Delta started to cry. Little Jim came through the showroom, whistling and tipping his cowboy hat to customers, and spotted her. She had taken a call and was [End Page 68] handling it beautifully, despite the tears creeping down her cheeks. She transferred to the service department and pressed a button on the side of her wiry headset, then slumped to the desk and buried her face in her arms. Little Jim told her she looked like hell. "I quit smoking," she said. "Third day." "Oh Law, sugarplum. That'll make your teeth awful pretty." Delta brought her head up and stared at him. He said they couldn't have a girl pretty as her looking so awful right there in the front door and suggested she go home a few hours early. They'd bring a girl up from accounts to cover. Little Jim was actually the older Jim, owner of the car lot and father of a huge and hulking football-playing son, and she had never heard him refer to a woman as anything other than girl. He'd given her this job right at the interview because her nails were a pleasant, lengthy red. She decided not to be offended and pulled her purse from under the desk. "Get some beauty sleep. You'll feel better Monday." "Thanks," she said. "You, too." She didn't want to spend the rest of the day watching people test-drive cars, anyway. Delta tore a stick of gum from her purse, shoved it into her mouth and chewed for all she was worth. The gum had no nicotine in it. She was going cold-turkey, and all the supplements were ridiculously overpriced. Things hadn't been bad, aside from the constant cravings and headaches and blurred vision and overeating and crankiness. And the constant cravings. Like coming off drugs, she thought. Everyone promised that things got better at the end of the first week. She got on her way but caught Friday rush-hour traffic. Usually she worked until closing, at dark, and the unexpected stop-and-go made her head swim, left her brain rocking every time she hit the brake. Still, she pulled up to the curb in front of their house long before the sun set and [End Page 69] carried herself inside. The lack of nicotine had left her feeling chilly, colder and colder the longer she went without a smoke, but she headed straight for the kitchen and took a Diet Coke from the refrigerator. Unless Alisha felt like cooking they'd just order out. She felt up to nothing. The living room lay dark behind pulled shades, and Delta wondered if her daughter had gone somewhere. She saw no sign of a note, wandered back through the kitchen to check again before crawling onto the couch to sleep. Nothing. Upstairs everything was similarly mute and dim. She walked to her daughter's room and peeked in, thinking maybe she was napping. Alisha sat at the desk in front of the computer without a shirt on, hands pressed over her breasts. She smiled at the screen and right into the face of a bare-chested boy with a goatee struggling to grow in. Delta's brain lagged a moment before registering what she was seeing. The girl's eyes cut to the doorway and widened in alarm just as the scene fully clicked together. "Alisha Gail Abernathy." She yelled her daughter's name and closed the distance, jerked her by the arm and spun her half-naked frame out of the room and into the hall. The boy's surprised face still stared out of the computer monitor, headlamp eyes watching Delta as she leaned down to slap at the front of the monitor. The power switch finally fell under her fingers, and she made him disappear in a square and sudden flash of decency. She felt...