GRACE AND GRAVITY

by Melissa E. Ferguson

justice, and I love it.” Sue paused under the bare bulb. “But I’d hate to be Greta’s mother.” She nodded to a middle-aged woman, who looked away. “On the one hand, Greta ain’t a girl who insists the crusts of her PB and J are cut off.”

“Cut ‘em off!” The heckler’s remark earned a few chortles.

“On the other hand, imagine laundry day.” Sue pitched her voice downwards. “Girl, you better wash those jeans. There’s no fewer children walking miles for water if your greasy ass slides off Parliament’s steps.”

A few chuckles popcorned the room. To the phantom Greta, Sue said, “And I’ve noticed—you’re skipping school on the same day as the math quiz.” In the back, a giggle grew into a coughing fit. “Just kidding—you know Ms. Thunberg can algebra her way out of a diamond mine.”

Sue fixed her gaze on the blond nestled under the heckler’s arm, her engagement ring sparkling as she sipped a Corona. Sue leaned in. “Cheers to the child who earned a quarter mining that rock.” A howl, a boo. The heckler’s jaw flexed. “Thank you, Atlanta. If I was you, I’d boo child labor, too.”

The emcee grabbed the mic. “Suuuuu—don’t sue me for having her—Sue Beasley, ladies and gentlemen!”

Sue collected her twenty from Dotty and the half-sheet lineup. Dotty offered to throw in a beer. 

“Got a long drive home. Thank you kindly.” 

Sue peeled her purse off a table and wet a paper towel in the restroom to wipe it off. The door swung open. 

“Listen here, funny girl.” The engaged blond pushed Sue into the hand dryer, cursed, and spat on her sneaker. Her purse as a shield, Sue scurried out the bar’s kitchen door.

In her hybrid hatchback, she sputtered laughter and tapped the GPS buttons to guide her to I-85 north. After stopping at the Burger King drive-through, she bit into the warm sandwich, chewed the fake meat, and shook her head. “Impossible to eat, I’d say. Methane-spewing cows—one. Vegan meat—zero.” Steering with one hand, she popped the lid off the iced tea and dribbled on her satin blouse. Despite her sympathy for sea turtles’ nostrils, she regretted skipping the straw. 

Big rigs rumbled aside her, drowning the echo of the blond’s fury from her ears. Past the Savannah River and Lake Hartwell, Sue saluted the sign for Fair Play, South Carolina. All’s fair play in love and war. She daubed iced tea under her eyes, rolled her shoulders, and bore down on the accelerator. With one rest stop, she’d arrive home before Lance and the kids left for school. 

+

Under her carport, Sue swept the paper cup above the trash and recycling bins, the thirty miles since the Gastonia pit stop blurring through her mind. 

Her daughter Tink opened the kitchen door. “Did you kill, Mama?” Tink’s hair was sprayed into unnatural dimensions.

“Wiped them off the floor.” Sue dropped the cup in the garbage. She squeezed past Lance’s workout gear, kissed Tink’s forehead, and followed her into the kitchen. “Girl, that hairspray’s chemical-laden. Did you try that plant-based gel from the natural food store?”

Tink’s younger brother Joey said, “It doesn’t keep her bird’s nest off the ground,” and peered into the fridge. “Mama, where’s my lunch?” Tink pushed his head.

Sue pulled Joey close, made bug eyes until his nose crinkled, and kissed his cheek. “If your daddy didn’t make your lunch, I’ll give you money.” 

Lance said, “What money? Son, look behind the milk.” He spooned instant coffee into a cup of tap water and nuked it in the microwave. 

At the table, Sue pushed the pile of bills aside and read the headlines in the Hickory Daily Record. Heavy rains had flooded another pig farm, the lagoon of waste poisoning the pines along neighboring trailer homes. The image of overflowing pig shit sank into Sue’s brain. She rubbed her eyes.

A yellow blur rolled past the kitchen window. Joey kissed Sparky the Boston terrier between the ears and hiked his backpack to his shoulders. His shout mingled with the school bus’s squeaky brakes. “Bye—have a good day!”

Tink licked peanut butter off a spoon, stuck it in the dishwasher, and dragged her backpack towards the front door. Lance abandoned his coffee and pecked Sue’s cheek. She cupped his jaw in her hands and kissed him, his moustache bristling her upper lip.

“You’ll walk Sparky before he messes the carpet?” Lance said.

Sparky’s breath warmed Sue’s leg. “Such romance,” she said, tugging Lance’s belt loop. She set her phone alarm with a poop emoji. Infinitely more manageable than an overflowing pig lagoon.

She gave Lance another peck before he and Tink drove to the high school in his pickup, locked the front door, and followed Sparky’s waddle to the bedroom. 

Sparky settled on his own bed as she tossed her jeans into the hamper.

Her phone rang, jolting her awake. “Beasley, this is Phil, over in Boone.” 

In June, she had emceed a pie-eating contest at Phil’s Tavern. A real stage plus a dance floor. Seats for two hundred. Sue cleared her throat. “Phil—how you doing?”

“I’m sick of the old hack,” he said. “The guy’s bit about throwing a hooker off a bridge? I can’t run off the younger folks—they’re ringing up the shots.”

Sue heartily agreed. The fellow billing himself as a crusty uncle made her skin crawl.

Phil said, “I need you Saturday. You’re edgy—you make people think.” “I’m all yours.” She thanked Phil profusely.

Sparky whimpered as his urine puddled on the carpet. 

+

On Wednesdays, Tracey joined the Beasleys for dinner. Tracey was the nurse at Hickory High School, where Lance taught shop, and Sue was the attendance secretary until two years prior. Tracey had egged Sue to rachet past warming up assemblies with scrap paper jokes dug out of her pockets. No more dozing in meetings and opening the senior center’s festivals with incontinent Betsy 

Wetsy doll jokes. Sue had found her stand-up mission, riding a wave of giddiness reminiscent of chasing her toddlers with bubble wands. On stage, she tingled. Not merely alive—she felt wild and crazy and true. In love with possibility borne from the dregs of a storm.

It had been the third consecutive summer of record-breaking heat. Power lines had snapped from the Appalachian Mountains to the Piedmont. From Sue and Lance’s bedroom window, Joey and Tink counted from flashes of lightning to thunder booms shaking the house. Inches of rain fell in hours. The next morning, Lance had driven to Concord to borrow his brother’s generator while Sue, Tink, and Joey cleared the backyard’s battle wounds: the old oak’s felled limbs, a young pine’s pale innards splayed into splinters. Like Sparky’s sap-sticky nose exploring the open pine, most folks returned to regular living once the power was restored. Yet Sue had changed. Comic relief grew from a ruse to survive the school day’s chaos to a detox mission. Like a fast from sugar and white flour, Sue aimed to clear the audience’s sedation, prevent their gas-guzzling annihilation, coax them towards environmental caregiving.

Lance had resisted her quitting her school job. He wore himself out slugging the punching bag hung from the carport rafters. Sue stood firm. “One year,” he conceded. “Then let’s see.” Two years of begging for stage time—and now Phil had called her. His barbecue tavern was packed on Saturday nights. 

Sue showed Tracey the newest lineup sheet pinned on her kitchen bulletin board. After dinner, Tracey played Boggle with the kids and Sue listened to Lance’s stories of the day. Already feeling the warmth of Phil’s stage lights, Sue kept one ear tuned to Lance recalling a student’s nicked thumb on a circular saw not fully stopped. “Nearly passed out in my office,” Tracey chimed in.

Tink practiced her tap dance to everyone’s applause, even Joey’s. The kids kissed Sue, Lance, and Tracey good night and headed to their bedrooms. Lance tipped his BarcaLounger back, Sparky sprawled across his lap. 

Sue grabbed a paper towel roll as a microphone. “All right, here’s what I’m working on.” Tracey scootched to the edge of the couch, her Peanuts scrubs bunched around her knees. Sue met her gaze. “Lately I’ve been thinking how much Neil Young and I have in common.”

Tracey struggled to not spit out her beer. Lance cocked an eyebrow. “We both love farms and log cabins, sing off-key and don’t care.” “True enough.” Tracey pointed to Sue with her beer bottle.

Through the cardboard tube, Sue said, “And I, too, want to marry Daryl 

Hannah when I’m seventy-three.”

Lance’s chuckle rippled through Sparky’s sleeping body.

“Daryl will be eighty-three—up for pretty much anything.” Sue dodged Tracey’s giggles and Lance’s smirk. “Unless Neil’s still alive at ninety-eight. Then I’ll bide my time seeing about that Crazy Horse—still a win.” Sue lowered the paper towel roll. 

Lance said, “Now there’s Netflix potential.” 

Tracey said, “Isn’t Neil Young fighting pipelines? Lean into his conservation work—there’s the bridge to your climate niche. Say you’re hitting on Daryl while planting trees on Arbor Day.”

Sue picked up her notebook and joined Tracey on the couch. 

Tracey said, “This’ll be great for Saturday’s talent show.”

“I wasn’t called to emcee the talent show this year.” Sue wrapped her fingers tight around her pencil. “This is for Phil’s Tavern.”

Hickory High School’s talent show was the PTA’s biggest fundraiser, the audience thick with local business owners. Well-to-do families who hosted catered parties. And yet, Phil invited her. It was a breakthrough.

Lance shrugged. “Somebody from the Rotary Club is emcee this year. You’re past school stuff. Phil’s paying you, isn’t he?” Was he?

“Anyone need a beer?” Lance lowered the armchair’s footrest. Sparky waddled after him to the kitchen.

“Water, please,” Sue said.

Tracey called, “No more for me,” and nudged Sue. “I got a date on Saturday night.”

Sue covered her ears. “If Julie’s back in your life—.” 

Laughing, Tracey pulled Sue’s hand down. “This is fresh meat. Alex.”

“The Spanish teacher?” 

“She’s taking me to that Asheville craft beer shindig.”

Sue thanked Lance for the water. She almost missed the staff lounge gossip, the impassioned teachers’ buzz, and ribbing the ones crawling through the day. And the kids. She certainly missed the paycheck.

Tracey stepped into her Crocs. “Time to head home. Keep your cellphone on Saturday night. I might need to debrief.” 

“I won’t check my phone until I’m home from Boone.” They hugged at the front door.

Tracey winked. “Well, don’t you call me, in case I’m getting lucky.”

“Take your time, missy. You work with the poor gal.”

Tracey scuttled to her car. “Don’t give up, girl.”

Sue blew her a kiss. Behind the closed door, the clink of Lance rinsing out the beer bottles. The hush from the children’s bedrooms. She rushed to her notebook and squirreled out a line order from Daryl Hannah’s mermaid movie to the warming seas and wildfires. She’d find the beats and massage the through line in the morning. It’d be a hoot.

If pig shit wasn’t tainting backyards where grannies grew zucchini and children played tag. If everything natural wasn’t under siege.

Sue clicked off the living room lamp. In the bedroom, Sparky’s and Lance’s snores competed.

+

Under the carport, Lance eased the barbell off the rack, completed ten reps, and settled the barbell in its cradle. He stretched his fingers, adjusted his gloves, and started a new circuit. Bent over the flower bed, Sue pinched brown leaves off the ferns until Lance sat up.

“The talent show—,” she started.

“Sue, the Rotary guy does knock-knock jokes. Maybe that’s the style for PTA donations.” He motioned for her to not sit on the crate of free weights. “But Phil called you. That’s something.”

She filled the watering can at the spigot. “He wants a twenty-minute set. It’s a big deal.” Behind her, Lance shuffled and stamped his heel. She faced him.

He leaned forward, knees bent and grinning like a maniac. He waggled his gloved fingers. Sue tilted her head. Lance slid his forward foot back and tapped around in a circle.

Tink’s tap dance routine. Sue nearly dropped the watering can.

Lance touched his nose. “You forgot the talent part of the show.” He dropped his gloves into the crate and entered the kitchen.

Sue watered the ferns, sorry she couldn’t be in two places at once. Water soaked between the shallow roots. She crouched, waiting for the leaves to perk up, her mind wandering from Daryl Hannah to Willie Nelson smoking reefer. 

Sue giggled aloud.

“What’s so funny?” Joey stood over his bike.

Sue straightened up. “Hey, honey. You have fun at Chad’s?”

“His mom said no riding bikes ‘til he learns his spelling list.”

Sue dumped the leftover water onto the camellia. “What’s on your list?”

Joey hung up his helmet, his hair sweat-pasted to his head. “P-a-r-t-i-c-u-l-a-t-e.” “Particular?” 

“Particulate matter,” he said. “That’s why it doesn’t rain where there’s wildfires.” Sue perched on the crate.

“Raindrops get stuck over smoke, clogging up the air. Like Tink’s hair stuck in the shower drain, the rainwater’s waiting, or evaporating—e-v-a-p-o-r-a-t-i-o-n.”

Sue opened the door to the kitchen. “Want a Popsicle? And tell me more.”

+

Sue wound Tink’s hair tight with the curling iron. Tink leaned towards the dressing table mirror to draw glittery eyeshadow under her brows. Sue’s thoughts drifted to glitter waste shimmering on the ocean floor, starving the bottom feeders. She counted aloud, careful not to singe Tink’s hair.

“Nervous about your gig, Mama?” Tink combed her painted lashes for globs of mascara.

“A little. You ready to tap dance the heck out of the competition?”

Tink snapped an oversized bow into her hair and practiced her stage smile in the mirror. “It’s the ninety-heaventh time I’ve danced this routine. But I wish you weren’t going to Boone.”

Sue unplugged the curling iron. “I wish this gig was another night.”

Tink led Sue to sit on the bed and kicked sweatpants and socks to clear a space. Tink posed for a beat, then tapped her full routine. Sue focused her sight firmly on Tink’s strong limbs and pert expressions, the bouncing bow. Years of lessons girding snappy ball changes and drops. Sue clapped as Tink bowed.

They hugged and Sue peeked at the clock. Four thirty. She looked into Tink’s eyes. “Dance your skinny ass off and have fun. I want to hear all about it over breakfast. I’ll make waffles. Deal?” Tink nodded, her lips pale.

“The ninety-heaventh time.” Sue handed Tink her strawberry lip gloss. “Wait ‘til after dinner to shine that smile. And at the table, drape a towel over your outfit, no matter what fun Joey pokes.”

Sue squeezed Tink, rushed downstairs, and blew a kiss to Lance in the BarcaLounger. 

+

On the outskirts of Boone, Sue waited offstage. Wafts of Lysol and mildew penetrated the scent of Phil’s western Carolina barbecue sauce, specially made with his mother’s homegrown tomatoes. Sue nearly tasted the sopping biscuits and shredded pork.

A young woman in a cowgirl hat wrapped up her yodeling. Her mama—in a sparkly black top, a streak of purple dye in her short gray hair—beamed as the cowgirl rushed backstage. Flashes of Tink’s tap routine vied for space in Sue’s head. Phil squeezed her shoulder. She strode onstage, waving to the crowd.

The audience’s chatter grew as Sue warmed up with trash-sorting jokes. She launched into meeting Daryl Hannah at beach cleanup wearing—to Sue’s mock embarrassment—matching Little Mermaid costumes. Using the microphone cord, she gestured how to hold a polyester mermaid tail in one hand and a trash grabber in the other. The audience scraped their plates. Sue shifted to outlasting Neil Young and how she’d be first in line for Daryl’s next betrothal. Giggles percolated from a front table. Sue’s story sashayed to mermaids escaping hot flashes brought on by rising oceans. Leaning low, Sue trilled a mermaid’s highpitched dirge to beached whales, buffeted by a splash of laughter above pained muttering.

Sue widened her stance. “I love Willie Nelson as much as Crazy Horse, but we can’t risk a double feature on Young’s ranch. If Willie leaves his spliff burning on a woodpile, he’ll fire up the whole county.”

Trickles of laughter cut through conversations. Sue glimpsed the yodeling cowgirl, her elbow propped on her mother’s shoulder. With them, a man with a long, glossy beard wore a T-shirt painted with a green and blue Earth. Sue inhaled—beard oil and barbecue sauce, Lysol and tequila—and brought the microphone close. Down a woodsy path, Sue mucked across the stage ankledeep in pig shit.

“We’ll get mermaids circling the pig lagoons and keep Willie spicing up the atmosphere—blazing a trail and smothering pig waste down to a compost under our mermaid tails. ‘Cause wherever Willie settles in, we won’t see rain for weeks.” 

Across the darkened bar, a few head shakes. Glares over barbecue ribs picked clean. Then, offstage, a thumbs-up from Phil. The yodeling cowgirl standing and clapping front and center, her mother’s whistle and Glossy Beard’s howl. Cowgirl cupped her hands around her mouth. “You’re killing it!”

Bathed in the stage light of Phil’s Tavern, Sue beamed in her sweat-damp blouse, her glee blooming faster than E. coli in a pig lagoon.

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Melissa E. Ferguson has written stories since she was a child playing barefoot in the woods of North Carolina, the setting of her upmarket, period prose. She studied creative writing at Penn State University and women’s studies at Towson University. Melissa lives in Maryland. Readers can follow her writing at https://www.melissaeferguson.com/.