"I won't have to. He's leaving for Baylor in two weeks." Luke and I had both agreed that it would be impractical to continue dating exclusively while he was at college. It wasn't a breakup exactly—we had agreed that he could come see me when he was home on break.

I had mixed feelings about Luke's departure. Part of me looked forward to the freedom I would regain. The weekends would belong to me again, and there would be no more necessity of sleeping with him. But I would be lonely without him too.

I decided I was going to pour all my attention and energy into Carrington. and into my schoolwork. I was going to be the best sister, daughter, friend, student, the perfect example of a responsible young woman.

Labor Day was humid, the afternoon sky pale with visible steam rising from the broiled earth. But the heat didn't hinder the turnout at the annual Redneck Roundup, the county rodeo and livestock show. The fairgrounds were filled to capacity, with a kaleidoscope of arts and crafts booths and tables of guns and knives for sale. There were pony rides, horse

pulls, tractor exhibits, and endless rows of food stalls. The rodeo would be held at eight in an open arena.

Mama and Carrington and I arrived at seven. We planned to have dinner and visit Miss Marva, who had rented a booth to sell her work. As I pushed the stroller across the dusty broken ground. I laughed at the way Carrington's head swiveled from side to side, her gaze following the strings of colored lights that webbed the interior of the central food court.

The fairgoers were dressed in jeans and heavy belts, and Western shirts with barrel cuffs, flap pockets, and plackets of mother-of-pearl snaps running down the front. At least half the men wore hats of white or black straw, beautiful Stetsons and Millers and Resistols. Women wore tight-fitting denim, or crinkly broomstick skirts, and embroidered boots. Mama and I had both opted for jeans. We had dressed Carrington in a pair of denim shorts that snapped down the insides of the legs. I had found her a little pink felt cowgirl hat with a ribbon that tied under the chin, but she kept pulling it off so she could clamp her gums on the brim.

Interesting smells floated through the air, the flurry of bodily odors and cologne, cigarette smoke, beer, hot fried food, animals, damp hay, dust, and machinery'.

Pushing the stroller through the food court, Mama and I decided on deep-fried corn, pork-chop-on-a-stick, and fried potato shavings. Other booths offered deep-fried pickles, deep-fried jalapenos, and even strips of battered deep-fried bacon. It does not occur to Texans that some things just aren't meant to be put on a stick and deep-fried.

I fed Carrington applesauce from a jar I had packed in the diaper bag. For dessert, Mama bought a deep-fried Twinkie, which was made by dipping a frozen cake in tempura batter and dropping it in crackling-hot oil until the inside was soft and melting.

"This must be a million calories," Mama said, biting into the golden crust. She laughed as the filling squished out. and lifted a napkin to her chin.

After we finished, we scrubbed our hands with baby wipes and went to find Miss Marva. Her crimson hair was as bright as a torch in the gathering evening. She was doing a slow but steady business in bluebonnet candles and hand-painted birdhouses. We waited, in no hurry, for her to finish making change for a customer.

A voice came from behind us. "Hey. there."

Mama and I both turned, and my face froze as I saw Louis Sadlek. the owner of Bluebonnet Ranch. He was tricked out in snakeskin boots and denim, with a silver arrowhead-shaped bolo tie. I had always kept my distance from him, which turned out to be easy because he usually left the front office empty. He had no sense of regular work hours, spending his time drinking and tomcatting around town. If one of the trailer park residents went to ask him about fixing things like a clogged septic line or a pothole on the main drive, he promised to take care of it but never did a thing. Complaining to Sadlek was a waste of air.

Sadlek was well groomed but puffy, with broken capillaries spreading across the tops of his cheeks like the mesh of hairline cracks at the bottom of antique china cups. He had enough good looks left to make you sorry for his ruined handsomeness.

It struck me that Sadlek was an older version of the same boys I had met at the parties Luke had taken me to. In fact, he reminded me a little of Luke himself, the same sense of unearned privilege.

"Hi yourself, Louis," Mama replied. She had picked Carrington up and was trying to pry the baby's tweezerlike grip from a long curl of her light hair. She looked so pretty with her bright green eyes and her wide smile...it gave me a jolt of unease to see Sadlek's reaction to her.

"Who's this little dumplin1?" he asked, his accent so thick it was nearly devoid of consonants. He reached out to tickle Carrington's plump chin, and she gave him a wet baby-grin. The sight of his finger against the baby's pristine skin made me want to grab Carrington and run without stopping. "You already eaten?" Sadlek asked Mama.

She continued to smile. "Yes, have you?"

"Tight as a tick." he replied, patting the belted jut of his stomach.

Although there wasn't anything remotely clever about what he'd said, Mama astonished me by laughing. She looked at him in a way that sent a creeping sensation down the back of my neck. Her gaze, her posture, the way she tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, all of it conveyed an invitation.

I couldn't believe it. Mama knew about his reputation just as I did. She had even made fun of him to me and Miss Marva, saying he was a small-town redneck who thought he was a big shot. She couldn't possibly have been attracted to Sadlek—it was obvious he wasn't good enough for her. But neither was Flip, or any of the other men I had ever seen her with. I puzzled over the common denominator between all of them, the mysterious thing that drew Mama to the wrong men.