The Little Friend

Edie took a deep breath, through her nostrils. Because of taking Harriet to camp, she was already good and tired of driving; because of Libby (who’d had to go back twice to make sure she’d turned off everything) and Adelaide (who’d made them wait in the car while she finished ironing a dress she’d decided to bring at the last minute) and Tat (who’d allowed them to get halfway out of town before she realized she’d left her wristwatch on the sink): because of disorganization sufficient to drive the devil out of a saint they were already two hours late in getting on the road and now—before they were even out of town—Adelaide was demanding detours to another state.

“Oh, we won’t miss Virginia, we’ll be seeing so much,” said Tat—rouged, fresh, redolent of lavender soap and Aqua Net and Souvenez-vous? toilet water. She was hunting through her yellow pocketbook for her asthma inhaler. “Though it does seem a shame … since we will be all the way up there …”

Adelaide began to fan herself with a copy of Mississippi By-ways magazine that she’d brought to look at in the car.

“If you’re not getting enough air back there,” said Edie, “why don’t you let your windows down a little?”

“I don’t want to muss my hair up. I just had it fixed.”

“Well,” said Tat, leaning across, “if you crack it just a little …”

“No! Stop! That’s the door!”

“No, Adelaide, that’s the door. This is the window.”

“Please don’t bother. I’m fine like this.”

Edie said: “If I was you I wouldn’t worry too much about my hair, Addie. You’re going to get mighty hot back there.”

“Well, with all these other windows down,” Adelaide said stiffly, “I’m getting blown to pieces as it is.”

Tat laughed. “Well, I’m not closing my window!”

“Well,” said Adelaide primly, “I’m not opening mine.”

Libby—in the front seat, next to Edie—made a drowsy, fretful noise as if she couldn’t quite get comfortable. Her powdery little cologne was inoffensive, but in combination with the heat, and the powerful Asian clouds of Shalimar and Souvenez-vous? simmering in the rear, Edie’s sinuses had already begun to close up.

Suddenly, Tat shrieked: “Where’s my pocketbook?”

“What? What?” said everybody at once.

“I can’t find my pocketbook!”

“Edith, turn around!” said Libby. “She’s left her pocketbook!”

“I didn’t leave it. I just had it!”

Edie said: “Well, I can’t turn around in the middle of the street.”

“Where can it be? I just had it! I—”

“Oh, Tatty!” Merry laughter from Adelaide. “There it is! You’re sitting on it.”

“What did she say? Did she find it?” Libby asked, looking around in a panic. “Did you find your pocketbook, Tat?”

“Yes, I’ve got it now.”

“Oh, thank goodness. You don’t want to lose your pocketbook. What would you do if you lost your pocketbook?”

As if announcing something over the radio, Adelaide proclaimed: “This reminds me of that crazy Fourth of July weekend when we drove down to Natchez. I’ll never forget it.”

“No, I won’t forget it, either,” said Edie. That had been back in the fifties, before Adelaide quit smoking; Adelaide—busy talking—had caught the ashtray on fire while Edie was driving down the highway.

“Goodness what a long hot drive.”

Edie said tartly: “Yes, my hand certainly felt hot.” A redhot drip of molten plastic—cellophane from Addie’s cigarette pack—had stuck to the back of Edie’s hand while she was slapping the flames out and trying to drive the car at the same time (Addie had done nothing but squeal and flap about in the passenger seat); it was a nasty burn that left a scar, and the pain and shock of it had nearly run Edie off the road. She had driven two hundred miles in August heat with her right hand jammed in a paper cup full of ice water and tears streaming down her face, listening to Adelaide fuss and complain every mile of the way.

“And what about that August we all drove to New Orleans?” Adelaide said, fluttering a hand comically over her chest. “I thought I was going to die of the heat stroke, Edith. I thought that you were going to look over here in the passenger seat and see that I had died.”

You! thought Edie. With your window shut! Whose fault was that?

“Yes!” said Tat. “What a trip! And that was—”

“You weren’t with us.”

“Yes I was!”

“Indeed she was, I’ll never forget it,” Adelaide said imperiously.

“Don’t you remember, Edith, that was the trip you went to the drive-through McDonald’s, in Jackson, and tried to tell our order to a garbage can in the parking lot?”

Peals of merry laughter. Edie gritted her teeth and concentrated on the road.

“Oh, what a bunch of crazy old ladies we are,” said Tat. “What those people must have thought.”

“I just hope I remembered everything,” Libby murmured. “Last night, I started thinking that I’d left my stockings at home and that I’d lost all my money.…”

“I’ll bet you didn’t get a wink of sleep, did you darling?” said Tat, leaning forward to put a hand on Libby’s thin little shoulder.

“Nonsense! I’m doing beautifully! I’m—”