Loretta’s Strainer

Loretta sits in the front seat of her cousin’s car and the audience is fading. This is her last show. From now on, the audience will be her family. That’ll take a while to get used to.

Malcolm, the one with the dying father, told her that she had real balls to make those balloon shapes after dinner. She still can’t figure out why it’s such a big deal.

She thinks about Gerald and Dolly and Cynthia. There’s a dog that likes to wander the woods behind Marla and Gottfried’s house. She reckons she’ll put them on the dog and wave goodbye.

No place for a flea circus in that big house.

She’s becoming someone else now.

The thought of this scares her.

She turns down the volume on her cousin’s car stereo and says, “I’m scared to change schools.” No one says anything, so she adds, “How do I fit in?”

“You’ll do okay,” Malcolm says. “The teachers are cool. It’s just mostly entitled white kids as far as the eye can see. It’s not like we have to go to a well to pump water for lunch, you know?”

Loretta says, “Well, that’s always good.”

There’s silence in the car. The shoveler reaches for the volume dial on the stereo, and Loretta stops him.

“Can you guys just be my friends and that way I don’t have to hang out with anyone else?”

“Sure,” Katie says.

“Promise?” Loretta asks.

All three of her cousins agree. Loretta will be their friend.

The faint audience applauds and whistles. Loretta bows and smiles and picks up the roses thrown at her feet. She watches as people make their way into the aisles and out the tent openings until the center ring is dark and the smell of popcorn has faded. Now it’s just Loretta in her sequins.

“Oh! Take the next exit. We’re nearly there,” she says.