Valentine

Three days after Dale Strickland was arrested for sexually assaulting Gloria (now Glory) Ramírez, her mother, who worked a menial job cleaning administrative offices in downtown Odessa, was detained during a surprise immigration raid of the building and summarily deported to Mexico. Two days later, Glory, now living alone, was asked by the building owner to vacate the apartment, as he wanted nothing to do with “illegals.” Only her uncle Victor’s arrival saves Glory from being turned out into the streets. His arrival triggers her memories of the endless fights she had with her mother. Glory wanted to drop out of school, seeing no point in it given the lack of job opportunities for immigrants in Odessa. Now her uncle, who works in the oil fields, has Glory pack a few things, and they head to the Jeronimo Hotel, about 30 miles out of town, for her safety until the trial, which is scheduled for the end of the summer. “This is gonna pass” (134), he reassures her.

Glory is alone most of the day at the hotel. She watches television and tries to sleep, but her memories haunt her dreams. She thinks back on the rape and how she fought her attacker. The long, thin scar from the surgery to remove her lacerated spleen reminds her how hard she fought. She’s certain now that she’ll never be able to appear in court. She tells her uncle, “I don’t care what happens to him” (139).

On impulse one blistering hot afternoon, Glory dares to leave the hotel room and venture to the pool. There, she meets a woman named Tina Allen, from Louisiana, whose husband found seasonal work at the oil fields. Tina is staying at the hotel with her two kids, one of whom makes a vicious racist remark about Glory and uses a racial slur. Tina apologizes, and suddenly Glory opens up, telling this stranger about the rape and how her life is shattered now. Although self-conscious about her scar, Glory gets into the pool with Tina. In a moment of quiet friendship, the two hold hands “real hard” (148). The next day, Tina’s husband gets notice of a better job back in Louisiana, and Glory knows she’ll never see Tina again.

Suzanne Ledbetter, another resident of Larkspur Lane, enters the story. As her last name suggests, Suzanne, believes she leads better. She’s married, is approaching 40 now, and has a daughter in high school. Suzanne believes that life is best lived with organization and a plan, and that a woman cannot depend on a man. She is aware that her family has long been regarded as white trash; Suzanne was the first in her family to owe a home, and she’s determined that her daughter will be the first to finish college. She runs every aspect of her home with pride and conviction. She uses real butter in her chocolate chip cookies. She never uses canned soup in her casseroles. An Avon sales rep as well as a Tupperware rep, Suzanne throws herself into her routine, making lists, determined to use the money she earns for her daughter’s college fund. She preaches to her daughter about the importance of paying attention, staying focused. When Suzanne watches her daughter practice her baton with the high school band (and passes out little Avon gift bags to the other waiting mothers), her daughter takes her eye off the baton for a second, and it smacks her just above the eye. Her daughter then throws the baton in disgust: “I hate the baton” (163). Suzanne is explicit and direct: “Stop that crying and act like a big girl, for heaven’s sake” (163). Her advice is simple, “You have to be tougher than the rest” (164).

It’s mid-summer, and Corrine has made a habit of easing the long days with bourbon. She sits in her husband’s old pickup truck in the garage, fingers the keys, and wonders what it would take to do what Potter had done, “wishing she had the nerve” (168). When D.A. came to the door to borrow one of Potter’s old camping tents, the girl claimed that she was helping a friend of hers get back to Tennessee. Corrine assumes that the friend is another of the girl’s imaginary friends. Lost in her grief, Corrine thinks back on her childhood, her family and its ties to the oil field, her own relationship with Potter, and how she got pregnant unexpectedly when she was teaching, a job she loved. She was expected to leave her job and devote herself to motherhood—which she tried. It was boring. The baby, Alice, was colic-y and restless. Potter drifted away from her, assuming she was now a mother. She knew she should be happy, but she wasn’t: “I need to go back to work” (186), she told Potter one night in desperation. She recalls how once, just after the baby was born, she and Potter decided to get away together. They left Alice with her father and stole out to the oil fields to a make-out spot. They drank recklessly and were just preparing to have sex when the conversation turned too honest: “I’m going to tell you something, Potter. The only thing I hate more than being home with Alice all day long is feeling guilty about not wanting to do it” (188). It might have been the liquor. It might have been the freedom of being out of the house. It might have been the sweet openness of the night. However, Corrine’s honesty can’t be taken back. On the drive back the next morning, she realizes that nothing and everything had changed.