The kid was looking at me. I had one of those Bics, a red one, and when I held it out to her smoke, she touched my hand for a second and held it steady with hers. She looked up at me and tried to smile. I knew I needed to get back inside right away, before it got any worse. I turned to go and what she came out with stopped me dead in my tracks.

“You wouldn’t buy a lady a nice cold beer, would you?” she said. I turned around. There was this sudden silence, and I knew that everybody in the car was straining to hear what I would say. It was serious. Hot, too. I’d already had about five and I was feeling them a little in the heat. I took a step back without meaning to and she opened her door.

“I’ll be back in a little bit, Mama,” she said.

I looked at those kids. Their hair was ratty and their legs were skinny. It was so damn hot you couldn’t stand to stay out in it. I said, “You gonna leave these kids out here in the sun?” “Aw, they’ll be all right,” she said. But she looked around kind of uncertainly. I was watching those kids. They were as quiet as dead people.

I didn’t want to buy her a beer. But I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, either. I didn’t want to keep looking at those kids. I just wanted to be done with it.

“Lady,” I said, “I’ll buy you a beer. But those kids are burning up in that car. Why don’t you move it around there in the shade?”

“Well.” She hesitated. “I reckon I could,” she said. She got back in and it cranked right up. The fan belt was squealing, and some smoke farted out from the back end. But she limped it around to the side and left it under a tree. Then we went inside together.

The first Bud she got didn’t last two minutes. She sucked the can dry. She had on some kind of military pants and a man’s long-sleeved work shirt, and house shoes. Blue ones, with a little fuzzy white ball on each. She had the longest toes I’d ever seen.

Finally I asked her if she wanted another beer. I knew she did.

“Lord yes. And I need some cigrets too if you don’t care. Marlboro Lights. Not the menthol. Just reglar lights.”

I didn’t know what to say to her. I thought about telling her I was going to the bathroom, and then slipping out the door. But I really wasn’t ready to leave just yet. I bought her another beer and got her some cigarettes.

“I’m plumb give out,” she said. “Been drivin all day.”