First step in Missy’s plan—chastity. She wasn’t going to get knocked up by some pimply teenage boy whose best prospect was maybe becoming a tractor repairman. No, thanks!
Second step—no drinking, no drugs, no smoking. Heroin was a huge problem in these parts, and most of the kids she knew already drank. Kaitlyn came home smelling like booze half the time, and she was only twelve. Missy-Jo told her to quit it, but Katie said it was only beer, and besides, she never listened to anybody.
Third step—get through high school without flunking a single class. The bar was not that high in Wakeford. She could probably be an honors student just by finishing homework and passing it in.
Fourth step—get a rocking body. She wasn’t fat, but looking at her parents and their sizable bellies, her mother’s wide hips and her father’s double chin, she couldn’t count on genetics. She started running, which was a great excuse to get out of the house. She would’ve joined the high school track team, but there wasn’t one, so she ran on her own. Started an exercise routine to the best of her ability, doing fifty push-ups and fifty sit-ups as soon as she rolled out of bed, another set at bedtime.
“What are you doin’？” Kaitlyn asked from the other side of the room they shared, watching her with a look of disdain.
“Takin’ care of myself, that’s what,” she said. “You should think about it. Stop drinking, Katie. You’re gonna wind up just like Daddy.”
Kaitlyn rolled her eyes and left the room to hang out with her no-good friends. Missy knew her sister was sneaking cigarettes. A shame she didn’t have any plans for her own future. Missy loved her sister, but she couldn’t fix what didn’t want to be fixed.
Missy found a book on yoga at a tag sale and started trying that in the basement, the only place in the shabby house where there was enough space—Mama was a bit of a hoarder. Soon enough, her muscles were taking on definition and her ass was firm and high.
Next step—learn how to act and look rich. There were magazines for style advice. She learned how to apply makeup bought from the Dollar General. She found an Emily Post etiquette book in the church basement one Sunday morning, stuffed it under her shirt and took it home. Studied how to set a table, cross her legs, make easy conversation. At the library, where there was Wi-Fi, she watched makeup tutorials—natural glow, enhancing green eyes, contouring, lip stains. She was a natural. No crazy cat eyes for her, no clumpy mascara or ridiculous fake eyelashes, no tan from a can.
Next step—fix her accent. Ohio Appalachian wasn’t going to cut it for what she had planned. She watched network news and adjusted her speech to sound more generic and less hillbilly. No more y’all, no more fixin’ to, no more done did, no more dropping syllables and leaving off the g. She bought a Word of the Day calendar and memorized each new word, tried them out in sentences. In English class, she pored over sentence structure and figured out past tenses. Her schoolmates made fun of her, and her mother liked to tell her, “Y’ ain’t no Princess Diana.”
High school inched past, and Missy-Jo positioned herself for greater things. She waited until she had applied to four colleges to tell her parents.
This caused an uproar from the family . . . all of them: her parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, grandparents. Her mom worked as a nursing assistant at the old folks’ home, changing diapers and giving bed baths for seven dollars an hour. Her father had been on disability for years, courtesy of an alleged back injury attained while unloading a truck over at the Walmart in Waverly. He spent his days drinking beer in front of Turner Classics. Not being educated was an odd point of pride. “Not a single person in this here family ever even left the county,” her father said. “What makes you think you’re better ’n them?”
“I din’t have to go to no college,” her mother said, waving her cigarette in the air. “Your daddy din’t have to go to no college, and we’re just fine.”
“Are you, though?” Missy-Jo, now seventeen, asked, gesturing around the kitchen, the chipped laminate countertops, the peeling linoleum. “This was your dream?”
“Don’t sass me, young lady. You get fed around here, dontcha? Shut your mouth and show some respect. Gettin’ too big for your britches, you are. That fancy-ass accent ain’t foolin’ no one.”
There wasn’t a lot of love demonstrated in the Cumbo household. Missy-Jo didn’t think homesickness would be an issue. The TV shows she watched showed a different way of parenting—Modern Family, Malcolm in the Middle, The Walking Dead. （How many times did Rick save his son’s life, huh?） Those parents loved their children. They encouraged them. They wanted the best for them. Mama and Daddy . . . not so much.