Valentine's Day
- Taylor's narration skips ahead to mid-February. Yup, think candy hearts, pink doilies, the whole kit and caboodle. She and Turtle are living with Lou Ann and Dwayne Ray, and Taylor has taken a job at Jesus Is Lord Used Tires. Funny how all those things come back around.
- Taylor describes the routine that she and Lou Ann and the kids have gotten into. Sounds nice enough.
- She also says that Mattie has a "whole set of people who spoke Spanish and lived with her upstairs for various lengths of time" (6.8). Get ready for the plot to thicken.
- Mattie tells Taylor that the room upstairs is a kind of "sanctuary" (6.10).
- One afternoon, Mattie sees Taylor jump when a car backfires across the street. She wants to know why Taylor is so jumpy, and Taylor explains that it's on account of her fear of exploding tires. And we'd have thought it was almost normal to squirm a bit when you hear a loud noice.
- Mattie brings Taylor across the lot, and fills a jerry can (those fat square jugs you see at gas stations) "a little better than halfway up with water" (6.25). Without warning Taylor, she throws it at her.
- When Taylor catches the jerry can (not so jumpy now, Missy—er Taylor), Mattie explains: "That's twenty-eight pounds of water. Twenty-eight pounds of air is about what you put in a tire. When it hits you, that's what it feels like" (6.28).
- For the first time since she saw Newt Hardbine's father get blown over the Standard Oil sign, Taylor's fear of exploding tires starts to subside.
- Later, Taylor heads downtown. She buys a Valentine's Day card to send to her Mama, along with two new books for Turtle.
- When she gets home, she finds Lou Ann reading a book of baby names aloud to Turtle, hoping to hit on the child's real name.
- Taylor suddenly finds herself in a bad mood, and she and Lou Ann bicker as they get supper laid out for the kids.
- She explains: "Later that night when the kids were in bed I realized exactly what was bugging me: the idea of Lou Ann reading magazines for child-raising tips and recipes and me coming home grouchy after a hard day's work. We were like some family on a TV commercial, with names like Myrtle and Fred" (6.60). Is it just us, or does Myrtle rhyme with someone else's name who is human but named after a ninja turtle?
- Taylor and Lou Ann sit down together to hash things out, and after a few beers and a pile of junk food, they're good. With that kind of a feast, how could they not be?