Rebel McKenzie by Candice Ransom

club. I was one of the girls picked to model the outfits. Oh, how I loved wearing those beautiful dresses. From that second on, I craved to leave Terrapin Thicket and be a fashion model.”
    â€œWhat happened to the turtle?” Rudy asked, bouncing on the cushion.
    â€œQuit interrupting,” I said. “And sit still.”
    â€œThe next summer,” Miss Odenia went on, “what should mosey through the garden but that turtle with our initials on its shell? We named him Job because he seemed to be carrying a world of troubles with him. Job came back the next summer too and the summer after that. Ercel said it was a sign that we’d be together forever. I didn’t want to get married. I had plans. When I was eighteen, I left home for Washington, D.C. That summer, Job didn’t come.”
    I dried the same lunch plate over and over. Miss Odenia’s story wasn’t boring anymore. Her low voice almost hypnotized me.
    â€œModeling agencies didn’t want me,” she said. “I wasn’t tall enough or pretty enough. So I worked as a photographer’s secretary. One day he had a job, but the hand model he hired never showed. Then he noticed my hands. Next thing I knew, I was holding a Sears iron like I was presenting the crown jewels. Nobody saw my face or my figure. Just my hands.”
    â€œThis is like a story in a book,” Lacey Jane said with a sigh. “Were you rich?”
    Miss Odenia smiled. “Hand modeling is hard work. In those days pictures weren’t airbrushed. I kept my hands out of the sun so they wouldn’t get tan. While I was on the set, I had to hold my arms up in the air to drain the blood. See, blood settles in the hands and makes the blue veins stand out.”
    All of us except Doublewide checked our hands. My veins were like spiderwebs.
    â€œI took my portfolio of photographs to agencies to get jobs. One day I was at an agency when in comes a woman about my age. The other girls whispered, ‘She’s the Avon hand model.’ Plain as mud with a figure like a scrub board. But her hands were flawless. She never opened doors or windows or cans. She didn’t garden or clean. She always wore gloves. And she was treated like a queen. I wanted to be a hand model for Avon, like her.”
    By now I had nearly rubbed a hole in the plate. “Did you get to be one?”
    â€œI moved to New York City. Mama threw her apron over her head. She thought I’d be killed in the big, wicked city. I went on all the casting calls for Avon.” Her voice dropped a notch. “But I was never picked. My hands weren’t good enough for hand lotion photographs. They were only good enough to push the button on a blender or pour soup in a bowl. Or model gloves. And my hands were cast to use as jewelry store displays.”
    â€œBut you were famous,” I broke in. “How come you’re here—” I stopped, realizing that everyone but me lived in Grandview Estates trailer park.
    â€œLiving in a mobile home? Never married? No children or grandchildren?” Miss Odenia shook her head. “I lived the life I wanted. I got out of Terrapin Thicket and traveled all over the country. I have no regrets.”
    Before I could ask what she meant by that, Lacey Jane said, “What happened to Ercel Grady?”
    â€œMama wrote to me every week faithful,” Miss Odenia replied. “She kept me up on the doings back home. Ercel Grady married the Scott girl, Rusleen. They had five children, eleven grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren. Two years ago Ercel sent me a Christmas card. His wife had passed.”
    â€œWas it a big funeral?” Rudy butted in. “Open or closed casket? Did a whole bunch of cars drive out to the graveyard? That means the dead person had a lot of friends.”
    Lacey Jane stared at him. So did I. What was with that kid and his obsession with funerals? I dropped my tea towel on the counter and