"She can't operate," Rollie said. "She can't even talk."
"She can talk," June said. Her voice cracked. "She just can't find the words yet."
"Well," said Rollie, "she better find them by five tomorrow."
He turned to go. And there was Shelby, at the front of the crowd, in her pink Kruse's T-shirt, with her arms crossed tight over her chest like she was holding herself together.
"Dad," she said.
"Not now, Shel."
"I told you about the line because I was mad," Shelby said, loud, so that everyone could hear. Her face was scarlet. "I was mad about Domino and I wanted you to be proud of me. That's the only reason. She never did anything to us. Her grandma never did anything to us. You dropped your price to fifty cents to run them out of business and you lost two hundred dollars a day doing it. You told me so." She swallowed. "Mrs. Pettit, I'm sorry. I'm the one who started this."
"Shelby," said Rollie, very quietly. "Go back to the trailer."
"No," said Shelby.
It was a small word. June had never heard anyone say it like that before, like a person setting down something heavy they'd carried a long way. Rollie Kruse stared at his daughter. For a second he looked like what he probably was, under the buckle and the voice: a tired man with four trailers and a mortgage on all of them, standing in the heat in front of a hundred people, who did not know what to do.
He walked away. He didn't say anything. The crowd parted for him.
Shelby stayed.
* * *