his sleeve. "Wasn't that sweet of your sister, to share with you," said Step. He wiped down Robbie's sleeve. "There you go, Road Bug."
"It stinks."
"I'm not surprised," said Step: "Bear it proudly, like a wound acquired in battle."
"Was that a joke, Daddy?" said Robbie.
"It was wit," said Step. Robbie was trying to learn how to tell jokes. Step had given him the funny-once lecture recently, so Robbie wasn't telling the same joke over and over again, but the different kinds of humor still baffled him and he was trying to sort them out. If Stevie's experience was a fair sample, it would take years.
DeAnne spoke to Robbie from the front seat. "We'll change your shirt as soon as your father has finished wiping up Betsy's booster seat."
Step wasn't having much success cleaning down inside the buckle of Betsy's seat belt. "The only way our seat belts will ever match again," he said, "is if Betsy contrives to throw up on all the rest of them."
"Move her around in the car and maybe she'll have it all covered by the time we get to North Carolina," said Stevie.
"She doesn't throw up that often," said DeAnne.
"It was a joke, Mom," said Stevie.
"No, it was wit," said Robbie.
So he was getting it.
The baby wipes were no match for Betsy's prodigious output. They ran out long before the seat was clean enough for occupancy.
"When they hear you're pregnant for the fourth time," said Step, "I think Johnson & Johnson's stock will go up ten points."
"There's more wipes in the big grey bag in the back," said DeAnne. "Make sure you buy the stock before you announce it."
Step walked around to the back of what the Renault people called a "deluxe wagon," unlocked the swing-up door, and swung it up. Even with the bag zipped open he couldn't find the baby wipes. "Hey, Fish Lady, where'd you pack the wipes?"
"In the bag somewhere, probably deep," she called. "While you're in there, I need a Huggie for Betsy. She's wet and as long as I've got her undressed I might as well do the whole job."
He gave the diaper to Stevie to pass forward, and then finally found the baby wipes. He was just stepping back so he could close the wagon when he realized that there was somebody standing behind and to the left of him. A man, with big boots. A cop. Somehow a patrol car had managed to pull up behind them and Step hadn't heard it, hadn't even noticed it was there.
"What's the trouble here?" asked the patrolman.
"My two-year-old threw up all over the back seat," said Step.
"You know the shoulder of the freeway is only to be used for emergencies," said the cop.
For a moment it didn't register on Step what the cop's remark implied. "You mean that you don't think that a child throwing up in the back seat is an emergency?"
The patrolman fixed him with a steady gaze for a moment. Step knew the look. It meant, Ain't you cute, and he had seen it often back when he used to get speeding tickets before his license was suspended back in '74 and DeAnne had to drive them everywhere. Step knew that he shouldn't say anything, because no matter what he said to policemen, it always made things worse.
DeAnne came to his rescue. She came around the car carrying Betsy's soaked and stinking clothes.
"Officer, I think if you had these in your car for about thirty seconds you'd pull off the road, too."
The cop looked at her, surprised, and then grinned. "Ma'am, I guess you got a point. Just hurry it up. It's not safe to be stopped here. People come down this road too fast sometimes, and they take this curve wide."
"Thanks for your concern, Officer," said Step.
The patrolman narrowed his eyes. "Just doing my job," he said, rather nastily, and walked back to his car.
Step turned to DeAnne. "What did I say?"
"Get me a Ziploc bag out of there, please," she said. "If I have to smell these any longer I'm going to faint."
He handed her the plastic bag and she stuffed the messy clothes into it. "All I said to him was 'Thanks for your concern,' and he acted like I told him his mother had never been married."
She leaned close to him and said softly, affectionately, "Step, when you say 'Thank you for your concern' it always sounds like you're just accidently leaving off the word butthead."
"I wasn't being sarcastic," said Step. "Everybody always thinks