Barely aware of the coming storm, Maybelle sat on the front porch, staring at nothing.  She had never imagined anyone could be so alone.  Living way out here only added to the feeling she was completely cut off from the rest of the world.  Although she stared at the muddy clay road running out to another muddy clay road, all her thoughts were on escaping this place.

An unrelenting, all-day drizzle had replaced the gray fog that had persisted for the previous week.  Now, churning blue-black clouds piled high and collided all across the sky, unwelcome messengers of much worse weather to come.  Yellow clay dust, churned up by the breeze preceding the drizzle, had settled in a thick layer on the freshly swept porch and lent its own distinctive smell to the odors of damp, rotten wood, rain, and pines.

When Maybelle was brought back to reality by the low rumble echoing across the hills, she moved slowly to the end of the porch and looked around the woods, hoping to see at least one friend.  But, even the chickadees and meadowlarks, normally darting about the meadow in search of last year’s seeds, sat on the lower limbs of the trees, their feathers ruffled and their heads pulled back against their breasts.  It seemed all the wildlife, usually making Maybelle’s little piece of Tennessee their home, had gone into hiding.  She couldn’t blame them.  Not only was it an immeasurably dismal day, the sky had become dark and scary, and Maybelle was afraid of the dark.  She couldn’t imagine there might be anyone else, anywhere in the world, as lonely as she was right then.  Maybelle was smart enough, and had taken enough sociology classes to know she was suffering from depression but, what the heck, she had a right to be depressed.

Only one more month until she’d be off to Raleigh, but she wished so she could leave sooner, like today.  With daddy buried years earlier, since mama died, there was nothing to stay here for.  Not a lot mattered now but escape.  A tear slid down Maybelle’s cheek and dropped to the weathered gray boards of the porch, making its own miniature mud puddle in the dust.  She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand and turned to open the ragged old screen door, its squeaky, rusted hinges, like the rest of the place, slowly falling apart.

Stopping just inside, the same terrible loneliness and hurt enveloped her, as it had at mama’s funeral.  She looked around at the broken-down, worn-out furniture and wished mama still sat there in the rocker, reading her beloved Bible.  The steady splat-splat-splat of water dripping into pots, pans and buckets provided a haunting serenade to accompany her loneliness.

Maybelle was struck by guilt for the way she felt about the tiny four-room shack.  At least, she considered it a shack.  Before mama died, it would have hurt her deeply, if Maybelle had expressed her true feelings about their home.  But, it had no sink, no bathroom, no central heat or air conditioning, no telephone - nothing.  It was, plain and simply, a shack.  What else could she call it?  The only heat in the winter came from the wood cook stove in what one could jokingly call a kitchen.  That same cook stove made the place unbearably hot in the summer, so many summer meals had been cooked outside over the stone fire pit daddy built.

Over the years, too many bricks had fallen from the top of the chimney and lay in a haphazard heap, oblivious to the danger their departure from the chimney had caused.  The coldest winter nights, when the stove turned bright red, flames climbed beyond the top of the soot-filled chimney.  Often, the winter wind whipped the fire dangerously close to the dried-out wood shingle roof.  These same unaware, uncaring winds blew snow through the cracks in the walls, when the weather turned nasty.  Then, Maybelle piled everything available atop her bed, including her one threadbare coat.  Still, by morning, the fire in the stove had disappeared, and she awakened shivering from the cold eating it’s way through all her protective efforts.

Summer and winter, hot or cold, dry or wet, they had to travel a hundred yards to the outside toilet, but mama said it was set that far away to keep the flies away from the house.  In the summer, when it got sticky and hot, they couldn’t buy enough fly spray to keep the pesky demons away from the little wooden single-seater.  Maybelle supposed mama had been right.  With all its faults, and as much as Maybelle dreamed of living in a fine home like her friend, Suzy, the airy little house had been home for as long as Maybelle’s memory went back.  Yet, the one and only kind thing she could say about it was its beautiful location, in the middle of ten pine-covered acres.  In the spring, when the wildflowers bloomed and the meadow turned green, she couldn’t imagine a more beautiful place.  She was sure God had made it perfect, but had done so in the summer, then forgot it the other six months of the year.

To mama, the little hovel had been a home.  To Maybelle, it was a prison - a poor, miserably depressing, dilapidated pauper’s prison.  It hadn’t been quite so bad before mama died, but now, it seemed the house died a little more each day, its ultimate goal, to be with its dead mistress.  The cracks between the loosely nailed board siding had gotten wider, the breeze more easily rattled the windows in their frames, several new leaks in the roof required additional pans and buckets when it rained, and the front porch was in real danger of collapsing and sliding down the hill toward Nashville.

Maybelle knew there had to be a better life out there, somewhere.  After daddy died from the black lung disease, as so many of the coal miners did, mama got a small pension from the miners’ union and a little money from social security, but together, it wasn’t enough to improve their life.  And, God knows, mama worked herself into the grave trying.  But, having only a third grade education, about all mama knew how to do was hoe and pick cotton, tend a garden, and cook.  She never owned even a treadle type sewing machine, mending all their clothes by hand, and trying to make a few extra things for her only child, when money allowed.  Mostly, she bought flour in cloth bags printed with some sort of design, and when empty, turned the bags into clothes.  Laundry was done on a washboard and hung on a clothesline to dry, where in the winter, they froze into grotesque ghost-like creatures.  As a young girl, Maybelle had always been afraid of the frozen ghosts blown about by the icy wind, especially after dark.

Poor mama had it hard all her life, and Maybelle lived in stark fear she might be stuck in the same pathetic, destitute situation if she didn’t get away from this place.  As she stared at the rocker, she thought about mama coming home after a long day in a cotton field, so tired she collapsed into her rocking chair and fell asleep instantly, the worn old bible in her lap.  It was as if mama prayed every night that she wouldn’t have to return to the struggle the following morning.  Maybelle got tears in her eyes every time she thought about mama becoming more stooped as the years passed.  Mama was a small woman, and her desperately fragile spine was unable to recover from being bent over all day in someone’s field.

After standing, almost in a trance, thinking about mama and how hard mama’s life had been, Maybelle suddenly realized she had little time to get ready for the awards ceremony.  She agonized over going, having nothing nice to wear, and knowing the other seniors would all be well dressed.  As she removed the bib overalls and flour sack blouse and put on the only decent dress she had, it pained her deeply to have to wear such an ugly thing.  Sure, it was the dress mama got married in, but who else would wear an ankle length dress decorated with a thousand tiny pink carnations on a mauve background?  If that wasn’t bad enough, pink buttons the size of silver dollars ran the length of the front.

She stood before the peeling framed mirror, procured from K-Mart ages ago, and which her mama so happily hung on the back of the bedroom door.  Maybelle again wiped away the tears, remembering how proud mama was of the five-dollar purchase.  But now, the mirror, like the house, seemed to be mourning its mistress’ passing.  It had, long before, turned a scratchy yellow and distorted everything.  As she looked at the chubby, poorly dressed girl in the mirror, tears continued down her too-fat cheeks.  Maybelle covered her face with her hands and sobbed softly, silently asking God why he took her mama away and why he made her so ugly.  Why didn’t you make me pretty… like Suzy?

She had hoped she could dry her tears and lose the redness in her only pretty attribute before Suzy arrived.  Despite her homeliness, Maybelle had absolutely beautiful eyes.  Were they but a joke God played on her?  They were the color of new sprigs of pine needles; not a definite green, but a soft yellow-green.  Everyone kind enough to say something nice mentioned her beautiful eyes and pretty long lashes.  It always embarrassed Maybelle, because even though she knew her eyes were pretty, she was aware nothing else worked with them to make her attractive, and they were only being kind.  Her chin was too wide, her nose too big, and her face too fat.  Sometimes, she stared at her eyes in the mirror and pretended everything else matched.

***

As usual, Suzy came early; a half-hour early.  Darn her.  Now, Suzy would know she’d been crying again, and she’d have to listen to the same lecture she’d heard a hundred times.

Of course, the first remark out of Suzy’s mouth was, “Aw, my God, Maybelle, girl, you’re not wearing that ugly damned dress again?”

Maybelle didn’t know whether to slap Suzy across the face and run her off, or ignore her unintentionally hurtful remarks.  Sometimes, her only friend really got under her skin.  Suzy had everything she didn’t.  Beauty, money, a daddy… everything.  Finally, she looked out the dirty kitchen window to avoid looking at Suzy and said quietly, “You know it’s the only dress I have.”

“Well, I’m gonna tell you something for your own good, Maybelle, girl.  Someone five feet four and a hundred fifty pounds shouldn’t wear a dress that makes them look fatter.  And that’s exactly what that dress does.”  As she usually did, when lecturing Maybelle about something, Suzy stood with her feet apart and her hands on her hips.  When her gaze moved to Maybelle’s feet, she shook her head in disgust.  “You’re not really gonna wear those ugly red shoes!  My gosh, girl, I know you have better looking shoes than that.”  There was the usual “Oh, man, you look awful” whine in Suzy’s voice.

Maybelle’s whole body stiffened, and she tried hard to be angry instead of hurt.  She blurted out rapidly, “Darn it, Suzy, they match the red in the dress.  And, I’m not exactly rich, like you, you know.”  She gave Suzy a look that said, “Shut up about the way I’m dressed.”

Suzy turned toward the door and, in a still disgusted tone, said, “Well, to hell with it.  C’mon, we’re gonna be late.”

Maybelle hung her head down and stared at the floor, not knowing whether to cry or cuss.  One more time, she wished mama were here.  Why did mama have to go and die?  It just isn’t fair!  “Suzy, I don’t really wanta go.”

“You gotta go, girl.  You’re gonna get awarded the scholarship.  If you don’t show up, why… hell, they might give it to some dumb-ass like me.”

This made Maybelle laugh.  Of course, she knew better.  The scholarship to North Carolina State was hers whether she went to the awards ceremony or not.  Suzy sure couldn’t get any kind of scholarship with her C’s and D’s.  But, Suzy had a way of looking at her when she said something like this that always made Maybelle laugh, even when she wanted to be angry with her.  “Okay, okay, I’ll go.  But, you gotta promise, as soon as they give me the award, you gotta bring me right back home.”

“Fer cryin’ out loud, Maybelle, I was plannin’ on sneakin’ out to cemetery hill with Bobby James ta git a little.”  Suzy again put her hands on her hips and stood with her feet spread apart, grinning devilishly, “You know what, Maybelle?  That’s what you need, girlfriend.  You need to git a little.  Put a smile on that old sourpuss.”

Maybelle felt her face flush.  She was real uncomfortable when Suzy talked this way, and Suzy knew it.  “Like you said, we’d better go.”  As she brushed past Suzy toward the front door, she added, “If you want to go git a little from Bobby, you go right ahead.  I’ll walk home.”

As Maybelle pulled the rickety door closed and wound the wire around the glass knob to hold it in place, Suzy opened an umbrella and picked her way between the known rotted porch boards and said, “You’d hafta be crazy to walk home.  It’s six miles.  Besides, the TV said a big storm’s comin’ this way.  Real heavy rain and hail and stuff.”

Maybelle made her way carefully across the front porch, also avoiding those boards weakened by rot.  The wooden steps had long ago fallen apart, so it was a pretty good plop down to the ground.  Once, when she’d overslept and had to rush around like crazy to catch the school bus, she had scurried across the porch and forgot about the missing steps.  She landed square on her butt in the mud from the previous week of rain.  Never having missed a day of school, Maybelle wasn’t about to spoil her perfect attendance record, so went to school, her whole backside covered with yellow Tennessee clay.  Despite all the hoots and insults slung her way, she didn’t give a damned.  She was the one with a perfect attendance record.  It was she making perfect grades, while the others were more interested in making nightly trips out to cemetery hill, the favorite lover’s lane around Wesco, Tennessee.  As the preacher at the small Baptist church had said one Sunday in his hell and damnation sermon, the road past the cemetery was littered with so many beer cans, whiskey bottles and condoms, one could walk the two mile length of the road without ever touching the ground.

All of Maybelle’s paying attention to her homework and keeping her nose clean had paid off.  Not only did she have a grant for an academic scholarship that would pay all her tuition and other class costs at North Carolina State, Raleigh, but it would provide her with on-campus living quarters and three hundred dollars a month stipend for personal expenses.  Never, had Maybelle dreamed such a thing could happen to her.  She thought good things only happened to good-looking people, like Suzy.  The scholarship for her tuition was no big surprise, but all this was more than she could ever have hoped for.  When she had read the scholarship offer and came to the part about the money, she screamed aloud, “THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS A MONTH!”  All, in all, it was a quite generous offer for a girl from this dreary, godforsaken place, where her daddy had settled with such big dreams of becoming a rich farmer.  Yes, he had managed to buy and pay for this poor small piece of property, with a shack that was surely previously occupied by slaves, but that’s all he ever had.  Any dream of becoming a rich landowner had disappeared at the entrance to the coal mine.