“Seriously, Cal,” I told him. “I’ll be fine. I just need some time alone.”

He turned and looked at me, and I held his gaze. “Nothing stupid, right?” he said.

I nodded. I knew he meant a bottle of pills or a razor. My head in the oven. What I was planning might have been even dumber. But I wasn’t like Cal; I lied all the time. Had it down to a science. “Nothing stupid,” I agreed.

SIX

The titty bar my mama had mentioned, the one where Jimmy Ray had been hanging out recently, was about ten miles down the road, situated a few feet off the highway and topped with a giant sign announcing ADUL EN ER AINMEN. I didn’t know if some thief had a hankering for Ts or if there had never been any to begin with, but the sign had looked the same for as long as I could remember. And if anyone was confused by the missing letters, the silhouettes of naked women painted on the boarded-up windows were a dead giveaway as to what went on inside.

I didn’t doubt that this was Jimmy Ray’s new watering hole. My mama’s information was always good. But I didn’t think Jimmy Ray was spending his time here looking at boobs. He had that crazy charisma particular to very bad men. He didn’t need to stuff dollar bills in the G-string of some washed-up meth addict to get his rocks off. He had women lining up to do that for free. Which meant whatever he was doing here was business related. Money laundering or signing up mules, if I had to guess. And business always made Jimmy Ray more careful than usual. Meaner, too.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous, maybe even scared. I knew what Jimmy Ray was capable of when he felt cornered. My wrist still ached on rainy days, and every time I thought of him fear pulsed at the base of my spine, my legs wanting to run even when he was nowhere in sight. But scared wasn’t going to stop me. Not now. What’s the worst he could do? Kill me? The thought didn’t even bother me all that much.

I’d only been inside the strip bar once before, back when Junie was an infant and I’d been desperate for some extra money. I’d gotten about five minutes into the interview—had been told that while blow jobs and hand jobs were fine, actual fucking had to be off premises, but hadn’t yet been asked to peel off my top so the owner could ogle my milk-heavy breasts—when Cal had barreled through the front door and dragged me back outside. I’d screamed at him for interfering, for treating me like a baby, but inside I’d pulsed with relief. Standing on that beer-sticky stage night after night, letting glassy-eyed men flick my nipples when I leaned over to take their money, would’ve kept Junie fed in the short run but killed something inside me in the long term, something I needed in order to be a different kind of mother than my own.