the New Pantagruel

Brave New Wanda

by Lynda Rutledge

This is an excerpt taken from Brave New Wanda (WordFarm, 2004) by Lynda Rutledge. Copyright (c) 2004 by Lynda Rutledge. Used by permission of WordFarm: http://www.wordfarm.net.

Lynda Rutledge’s first novel, Brave New Wanda, follows 13 year old Wanda Louise Ledbetter in the aftermath of her mother’s death and stepfather’s abuse as she, her grandmother, her dog, and her mama’s old Cadillac take to the road to figure out just who Wanda is. Wanda learns that her father was not the source of her conception. Swiftly paced and punctuated by moments of biting humor, Rutledge’s story deftly investigates the medicine, the ethical implications, and the human effects of our advancing technology of birth. From Wanda’s point of view, it’s clear that such medical advances are not without consequence, for all the parties involved.

itting in the glow of the motel desk lamp, Wanda poised her pencil over a small, spiral-bound notebook:

Dear D—

“Whatcha writing?” Granny asked, leaning over her shoulder. “Always scribbling in that little book of yours.”

Wanda slammed the book shut.

Granny stepped back. “Well, excuse me. Didn’t know it was private.” The old woman went back to examining a pile of change on the desk, pushing it around with a wrinkled finger.

Pulling the small notebook to her chest, Wanda watched her granny as she raised her eyes from the coins, straightened the big hairnet that held her beauty parlor hairdo in nightly place, then moved stiff and slow as sorghum toward the bed. Wanda worried a little. “Granny, do you need anything?”

“I need a certain young lady to keep her promises,” she answered. “And a bigger bed.”

“I don’t like sleeping with you either, you know.”

Granny looked around. “You used to not mind. ‘Course you weren’t more than about 40 pounds back then.” Wanda’s grandmother plumped the pillow with a couple of jabs and eased her big self under the covers. “All I want is for you to take me to the Poetry Cemetery like you said, and then I want us to go home. My chickens are going to miss a feeding.”

Wanda felt a lump in her throat. Her granny wasn’t getting worse…. She wasn’t. “You don’t have chickens anymore. Please? Okay?”

Granny’s face went a little blank, confused, then straightened out. “Of course I don’t. Isn’t that funny?” She frowned. “Well, good riddance.”

Wanda put the pencil and notebook down and came over to the bed, stepping around Wild Thing, who’d plopped down on the floor, one leg high, licking her privates, to straighten the covers under Granny’s flabby arms. Her fingers lingered on the old woman’s hand.

Granny grabbed Wanda’s hand suddenly, urgently. “And good riddance to Harley Dean! Until that no-good came around, your mama was a decent, church-going woman. Your mama loved your daddy. I don’t deny they had a hard time having you, lots of trips up here to this hospital. But they had you, didn’t they?”

Then she let go of Wanda’s hand just as suddenly as she’d grabbed it, and lay back, spent. Wanda sat down heavily on the edge of the bed and pulled Wild Thing’s furry head close, stroking, squeezing her near.

Wild Thing moaned with delight.

“Your daddy loved you, baby.” Granny murmured.

“I don’t want to talk about him,” Wanda said. “I never knew him and I don’t want to talk about him.”

“You don’t talk about people, they go away, baby. I don’t know anything about my people. All I got of them are headstones and hand-me-down names and this big German honker. Your mama never talked about her side of the family, as if they had the plague. But your daddy’s and granddaddy’s side, the Ledbetters, they were talkers. And even though they’re gone too, I know all about them.”

Wanda headed toward the sink, pulling off her cut-offs and boots as she went, her granny’s voice following behind: “You are your daddy’s girl and your daddy was the manager of the J.C. Penney catalog store and his daddy was a soldier and his granddaddy was a sheriff and his grandmama was a mail-order bride. From Boston, Massachusetts. And oh. There was this Texas patriot they were just real proud of, swore he rode into the Battle of San Jacinto with Sam Houston remembering the Alamo. Before that, it’s for sure they all got off a boat somewhere, sometime, but they quit talking about ‘em and they disappeared. So you talk about ’em, Wanda Louise. Because you are your daddy’s girl. A Ledbetter.” The old woman paused, sighing sad and full of memory, her big breasts heaving. “From the day you popped outta your mama, and your daddy bought that brand-new Cadillac, he loved you. And your mama loved him. And your mama loved you.”

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