Drunker than a skunk. Hilda didn’t slur until she’d gone through at least a couple of six-packs.

“School’s out. It’s nearly four.”

“Big deal high school girl,” Hilda sneered. “You think you’re so damned smart.”

Polly’s mother never made it to high school. At thirteen, she’d gotten knocked up. When she was on a toot, she’d tell this to whoever would listen, as if Polly had intentionally interfered with the higher education of Miss Hilda Farmer by intruding in a womb that did not want her.

“So damn smart.”

“That’s right, Momma,” Polly said.

“None of your lip.”

Hilda forgot she was crying. Reaching out blindly, she felt around until her hand closed on a beer can on the end table.

Drinking deeply, she stared at the television. “They think that’s dancing,” she said sullenly. “Wiggling their behinds and shaking their topsides. When I was young we danced.”

When I was young.

Hilda was twenty-eight. When she was Polly’s age she’d had a two-year-old daughter.

“Miss High and Mighty Sophomore, just you wait,” Hilda said, never taking her eyes from the television. “One day it’ll be you sitting here, and some snot-nosed kid looking down on you, and there ain’t one thing you can do about it, not one damn thing. No high school dip-low-maaah is going to get you there.” She pointed at the black-and-white figures frugging on the screen. TV-land was akin to heaven in Hilda’s mind.

“Dancing!” she snarled. “What a load of crap.”

Polly left her to her beer and bellyaching and went to her room. It was so small, if she lay crosswise on the bed, she could put the soles of her feet on one wall and the palms of her hands on the other.