Catawumpus

I’m a last-pickin’s, catfaced tomato kind of girl. Not pretty, barely fit for the skillet. Still, I agreed to meet him.

My stomach growls as I stare through the glass. Past the garden, plum hills and bruised, mulberry skies are sweet enough to ease my nerves—but don’t.

A gecko scurries over the cracked sill paint, claws ticking like the wall clock. Thirty minutes till supper in town. I’ll finally see him. And he’ll see me, bare, no filters.

Was just last week she first said his name. “He’s lookin’ for a wife,” Granny said, after she got back from church. “Name is Enzo.”

That’s how it worked here: grannies swapping grandkids like recipes.

She told me his family were immigrant farmers, a good God-fearin’ people, that he had his own place and was only a few years my senior.

“Not interested,” I’d said.

I’d been on enough of her blind dates. The last guy was Atlanta-born, ordered me an unsweet tea without asking. Said sweet was unhealthy, and I said I’d rather meet my Maker, blood pumped with sugar, than drink dirt water.

Still better than the local men, always hunting a ‘submissive, godly wife’ like it’s some prize—code for someone to boss and bully, I figure.

But Granny showed me a picture of a broad-shouldered, dark-skinned man.

“Bet you’ll like him,” she said. “You’ve always been fond of those worldly types.”

“Granny,” I groaned. She once called my cousin exotic just ’cause he got himself a nice tan one summer.

Granny gave Enzo’s granny my number and he called two days later, after my shift. We exchanged awkward hellos, my drawl thick with nerves.

“You are deep-fried, eh?” Enzo said.

I frowned. “’Scuse me?”

“You sound as southern as they come. It’s fine. So am I.”

“You don’t sound southern, sir.”

He laughed. “Argentina. About as far down the globe you can walk without falling into the ocean. That makes me more southern than you, no?”

I grinned at that. “Don’t you know God’s southern too, sir? Got Himself a porch swing, leaning back, thinkin’, bless their hearts.”

“None of this ‘sir’. Just Enzo.”

“Sure, si—err, Mister Enzo,” I said, cheeks burning.

Enzo clicked his tongue, amused.

His family had come to these parts when he was young. Enzo spoke slow and listened long, as if the dirt itself had beat patience into him. Grew tomatoes, too, and admitted some days he got so hungry he couldn’t stop biting into them. I almost asked if hunger ever drove him to the ugly ones, but shut my mouth.

That voice, rich as a sip of bourbon, burned all the way down. I guess he felt it too, ’cause he called every night since.

Now, a week later, I pat a sponge of flesh-colored cream over my cheeks and the gnarled skin of my scar, above my eye. Like canning something spoiled in a shiny jar, as if Enzo won’t see through the glass.

A rap at the door breaks my thoughts. Before I give permission, Granny marches in, cigarette stuck between her lips. Her eyes drift out the window, at my tomatos.

“Those love apples comin’ in nice.” She faces me and frowns. “What’s got your hackles up?”

“Nothing,” I say, eyes wet.

“Lawd, June, I know you better than that. Spit it out.” She taps her cigarette butt on my doorframe, ash flicking onto the old oak floor.

Now tears flood, my sight blurring.

Granny folds her arms across her chest, frown deep and wrinkled as a shelled pecan.

I fess up about my calls with Enzo. How he asked for a picture, and I sent a filtered one that made my eyes bigger, nose smaller, scar gone. Told him I got employee of the month at my bank job. Truth is, I got it at Piggly Wiggly across the road, worst one in the county.

“Fibbin’ fool,” Granny mutters. “Now he’ll think you’re a liar.”

“I am one, Granny. I can’t go,” I say. “Can’t face him.”

“Oh, you’re goin’ alright. You’ll meet this Enzo.”

His name raises the hair on my neck. Like steppin’ onto the porch after dark, when the night hushes and you feel eyes on you.

“It’ll just be another bad date,” I say. “Don’t care none.”

Another lie. I melt when he tries out my sayings, rolling them slow on his tongue till they fit. Or when he says he doesn't know much, which sounds a whole lot like wisdom to me. And how he asks my opinions, like my words got roots deep enough to shift the soil beneath his boots.

“You sure like the fella, don’t you?” Granny says.

I squeeze my hands together tight, don’t answer. That doesn't mean he’ll want me back. Or save me from being the oddball at the showers. Another diaper cake, another toilet paper wedding dress—everybody marching on but me, stuck with nothing but a garden.

Enzo says he’s lonely, too. Sometimes he says things that let me know his heart’s hurt enough for a lifetime. Told me how his twin sister died two years ago, and he’d never been the same.

“I would speak to her sometimes, just to feel her close. Even in the fields, or at church. Folks thought I lost my mind…ah, and the sock.”

“What sock?”

“Ay, ay, ay...Nevermind. Enough about me.”

“Don’t do that, now. Too late. You’ve got to tell me.”

He sighed. “For a year after she passed, I kept her sock in my pocket. I took it everywhere. Pathetic, eh? A grown man needing a sock just to leave the house.”

Later he mentioned his hip. Said he had dysplasia, got it fixed, but a limp still comes out when he runs. Said he got laughed at for it.

“I want to know more of you,” he said. “You can tell me anything.”

Could’ve mentioned my face, my sorry grades growing up, or the job that keeps me caged. But shame pinched my tongue.

“I…bite my nails.”

True enough. But not the heart of it.

Can’t tell him that for me, love has always been a dog fight. A red dirt brawl. A thing that snaps bone and makes you bleed.

Wanting Enzo scares me more than a late night whistle, or seeing eyes past the pines. And trusting him, more than both.

Now, I swipe my tears as Granny plops beside me on my creaking bed.

“You think God made somebody for everybody?” I ask. “Someone who can see all your mess, and still stay?”

Granny sighs heavy, tapping her cigarette on the sill. “I ’spose not. Don’t you gotta get on, now?”

She could've kissed the brick before she hit me with it. But Granny was never one for comfort.

I follow her past the kitchen, where a Jesus portrait hangs crooked over the pantry. A sagging flag sticks beside him, held up by nothing but thumbtacks and faith. He’s blue-eyed and blond, almost too smooth to know me.

“Luck be a lady,” Granny says as I step outside. “Lord knows you’ll need her ridin’ shotgun tonight...maybe steerin’, too.”

The screen door bangs shut behind me. I shoot Granny a thumbs up and plop into the truck, thighs searing on cracked leather. In the rearview, my scar stares back. Got it from a Cane Corso in the yard while Daddy lay drunk on the couch, but Granny’s twelve-gauge cracked before it tore out my throat.

She said I lived because God had a plan for me. I figure that’s just what grannies say to make sense of drunk daddies and dog bites.

The whole drive to town, I grip the wheel until my knuckles ache. Each red light’s like a chance to turn back, to run for it. But maybe Enzo fibs too—maybe he’s my height, or much older, and we can be liars together. Folks around here got names for monsters: boo-hag, wood witch. Whether he fibbed or not, that might be all he sees when our eyes meet.

I kill the headlights and step out, slow and wobbly. Cicadas hiss, the lot reeking of fried catfish and tarry, baked asphalt.

Inside, booze and grease mingle. Neon buzzes overhead, a pale-blue Bud Light glow flickering like a bad omen. The jukebox spits old country, but laughter and clattering cutlery drown it out.

The young hostess, ponytail bobbing, gum chomping, looks me up and down.

“He’s over there,” she says, flicking her head toward the back.

Sure enough, Enzo’s half-hidden in a booth by the bar, Bud Light sign casting a haze behind him. Even so, I see it: he’s not like me. Not a liar. Just himself, better than his picture.

His boots cross at the ankle, shirt sleeves rolled at large forearms. He’s lookin’ out the window instead of at a phone screen, chewing on thoughts I pray he’ll spit out.

My body goes stiff, watching like I’ve spotted a haint at daybreak—afraid he’ll run for it if he sees me.

But I can’t tear my eyes off him. A man who makes me laugh, who swaps words and repeats mine with a labored southern drawl. Last night he taught me garra, meaning grit. I taught him catawumpus—all crooked and off. He said it so funny I nearly bust a rib.

Now my reflection glares back from the window, scar lit up in neon. I yank my hair down, trying to hide. But no filter here. I’m still catawumpus.

I take a deep breath, watching Enzo. He looks like his pictures. He told me things about himself, even shameful truths. Might even now have a sock stuffed in his back pocket.

My fingers lock up. Garra, I pray. Grit. I need it now more than ever.

I tuck my bangs behind my ear.

Enzo’s eyes meet me.

He rises tall, staring, and my heart kicks. My feet tap the tile, torn between stayin’ and boltin’.

But I don’t run. Can’t.

Enzo’s never seen me naked, but I’m raw now, trembling like fruit heavy on the vine. That gaze could wither me, curl me, split me wide.

There’s no frown. No wide-eyed shock. Just the look of a man who’s put in a long season, eyes aching with a bit of hunger.

Don’t need him to pick me. I got by before him, and I’ll get by after. Feel it in my belly, deep in my core. But oh Lord, may he bite.