Providence (3 page)

Only a few hours had passed since I left home this morning. I wondered what Mama and Daddy were thinking, now that the flames must be gone. Mama didn’t even know Tammy and I weren’t close anymore. Would she even check to see if I was there? What was going to happen when Mama and Daddy realized I was really gone? Would Daddy call the police to fetch me home, so he could do the punishing?

Baby Girl’s fussing drew me back into the here and now. I laid her belly-side down across my arm and rubbed her back, trying to draw a burp from her. As worried as I was about my current situation, I couldn’t imagine a mama leaving a baby alone in an empty train car. I thought again about going to the police, but then a whole other batch of ‘what ifs’ came into my head. What if her mama meant to be on the train with Baby Girl and the train just pulled away without her? What if she was searching all over for her baby right now? What if the police were looking for us both?

I finished burping Baby Girl and looked back toward the gas station. I noticed the nasty old man talking to a police officer and pointing my way. I picked up our bags and hurried down the block. I ducked into a store called Second Hand Rose and hid in the back behind a stack of old blankets and curtains.

“Can I help you, miss?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin. I turned to face the store clerk. She was shaped like a comma with hair as white as milk.

“Boy or girl?” she asked, reaching out to stroke Baby Girl’s head.

“A girl,” I answered.

The old woman smiled. “I thought so. That baby is too pretty to be a boy. What’s her name?”

I was just about to say that Baby Girl’s name was Trouble with a capital T when I looked down at her innocent sleepy face. “Her name …” I hesitated and looked toward heaven for the answer. What I saw instead was a great big old map of the state of Georgia hanging on the ceiling. “Her name is Georgia,” I said, finding it impossible to cross my fingers since my hands were otherwise occupied. And then, because I always talk too much when I’m nervous, I added, “I’m looking for a carriage.”

“I just got a beauty in,” the clerk said. She put her arm around my middle and shuffled us up front. When she let go, I peeked out the front window. The policeman was gone, so I breathed a little easier.

“Back here,” the old woman said, waving us in behind the counter like we were a crop duster looking for a landing.

I came around and let out a whistle. I had never seen such a fancy carriage in my whole life. The clerk looked pleased as punch. “Brand new,” she said. “Never been used.” Then she opened the cartons next to it and started pulling out baby clothes and bottles, and rattles. “You get first pick,” she said.

At first, I got real excited. Then I started to think about my money situation again. “How much is the carriage?” I asked.

The old lady thought for a minute. “Hmm, it’s the nicest one I’ve ever had in here. I think fifty dollars seems fair.”

She might has well have said fifty million dollars as far as my funds were concerned. I turned to the cartons and plucked a couple of undershirts and sleepers and an extra bottle from the box. “How about just these?” I asked. I stepped back onto the customer’s side of the counter and started twitching and turning, trying to get my money out while holding Baby Girl and all our bags.

The clerk looked at me and said, “I got so many new things in this week that I could really use some help around here. Money being tight and all, I can’t pay much but I’d be willing to throw in some merchandise. You wouldn’t happen to be looking for a job, would you?”

I took a deep breath and stood there, shuffling my feet. I felt Baby Girl’s legs ride up my chest as she started to fuss. Her beet red face could only mean one thing—she was going to need another diaper change. I looked back at the old woman. On one hand, we had walked into this store less than twenty minutes ago and here this woman was offering me a job. I couldn’t help but feel a little suspicious. On the other hand, diapers cost money and money was in short supply. Then the old woman came around and started rubbing the baby’s head again.

“Having this little princess here every day will draw in the customers,” she said. “Do we have a deal?”

The baby squirmed into a new position. I looked down and saw a stain on my shirt where the diaper had leaked. What was it that Daddy always said about desperate times? “Deal,” I said.

The clerk grabbed my hand and shook it. “My name is Mary Rose Perkins, but everyone calls me Rosie.”

I smiled, and without thinking said, “And my name’s Becky Miller.” I wished I could grab hold of my words and swallow them back up. Telling a stranger my real name could be dangerous, since I didn’t know just how much trouble I was already in.

Rosie wheeled the carriage around and said, “Take this as an advance on your pay. Be here at ten sharp.”

I looked at the carriage, unsure of what I should do.

Rosie must have sensed my uneasy feeling because she reached up and patted my shoulder. “Please, take it,” she said. “I’m not worried. Mother Nature might not have given me a pretty face like yours, but she did give me a sixth sense about people. I know in an instant if I can trust folks or not, and I’ve got a good feeling about you.”

I walked down that block pushing Baby Girl in her carriage, with all our bags tucked in the deluxe basket on the back. I didn’t know where the old woman’s kindness was coming from, but I promised myself then and there that somehow I would live up to her trust in me.

CHAPTER 3

I stopped at a laundromat called Super Suds to change Baby Girl’s diaper. When I was done, I noticed a pay phone against one wall. A phone book hung below it, chained to the wall. I skimmed the yellow pages, looking for an ad for a motel nearby. I had never stayed in a hotel or motel before, so it was on the top of my adventures list. I’d read enough books to know a motel would be cheaper.

Baby Girl started crying again, so I started pushing the carriage back and forth while I balanced the open phone book on my knee. This first adventure wasn’t going to be quite the way I imagined it. There would be no sunbathing by the pool with my little friend, here. But it would give me time to think over my situation and try to figure a way out of it.

It didn’t take long to realize I was dipping my pail into an empty well; there were no motels listed in town. I dropped the phone book and looked over the cork board hanging on the wall. A few notices announced rooms to let. I skimmed over them and sorted them in my head. The one with NO KIDS written in big red letters and the one that cost more money than I’ve ever had at one time were of no use to me. I dug a pen and paper out of my backpack and jotted down the addresses of the other two. Maybe I could talk one of these folks into renting the two of us a room for one night.

I counted what was left of my money, and started thinking about the price of diapers and formula. I told myself to stop wasting my time. Thinking about how little there was wasn’t going to make my money grow any. I was going to have to use what I had as wisely as I could.

I could feel the wire binding on my notebook as I stuffed my money back in my bag. I’d made sure to bring it with me when I left. I didn’t need to open it to know that the words Super Suds did not appear anywhere on my adventure list. Then again, neither did taking care of a baby. But here I was, surrounded by peeling paint and dented clothes dryers, house hunting in the Super Suds.

The air in there was starting to curl my hair, so I decided to ask the ladies by the washers if they knew about a motel nearby or could point me in the direction of the addresses on the notices. They whispered to each other and turned their backs to me. I felt like I was back in school when the girls would all huddle together to compare their new back-to-school shoes and pretend to not notice when I walked in the room. I guess it was easier for them to ignore me than to have to look at the worn down heels and scuffed toes of my shoes.

Standing there in the Super Suds I did exactly what I’d done back at school—looked for the closest doorway to pass through. In this instance, I was glad to see the door to a ladies’ room. Since I was going to have to search out these addresses, Baby Girl and I would likely have a long afternoon ahead of us. That would mean having to stop to feed her again. I rinsed her bottle in the bathroom sink and filled it back up with water. When we came out, the laundromat ladies, who had been staring at the bathroom door, turned away again. I was starting to think that Rosie was the only person in town who had read that welcome sign down by the tracks.

I could feel the heat penetrating the soles of my sneakers as soon as I stepped back onto the sidewalk. I hoped to find someone to help me get my bearings, so I didn’t have to push the stroller all over town looking for those two houses. As I searched the dusty storefronts for a friendly face, something up the road a piece caught my eye. I turned my attention to the black and white car heading in my direction. I put my head down and kept walking. I pictured the officer jumping out of the car and chasing after me. I tried to listen to the tires on the pavement, hoping they didn’t slow down as they approached us, but all I could hear was my own heart pounding against my chest. I kept my head down and plowed forward. About a half a block later, I felt a jolt and the carriage bounced back at me.

“Whoa!” a voice said. The rest of his words were drowned out by Baby Girl’s crying.

I bent over to lift Baby Girl out of the carriage and when I stood up straight I came face to face with my traffic victim. He brushed a mass of dark hair from his eyes. The expression on his face looked like worry, not anger.

“Is she okay?” he asked, in almost a whisper.

I swayed back and forth, rubbing her back until she quieted. “She’s fine,” I said. “I’m sorry, I should have been looking where I was going.”

“I guess we should be happy you are steering a baby carriage and not a car,” he said.

I bent down to put the baby back in the carriage and to hide my red cheeks. I fidgeted with her for a while, making sure she was far enough up to be covered by the shade of the carriage top. When I stood back up, the boy was still standing there smiling at me. I guessed he was waiting for some kind of an excuse or explanation for my running him over on the sidewalk.

“My mind was on where I was going instead of where I was. We’re new in town and I don’t know the streets,” I explained, hoping I hadn’t said too much.

“I think the problem was more where your eyes were than where your mind was,” he laughed. He reached out and pulled the slip of paper from my hand. “I know this area.”

He was giving me directions when music started playing from the phone hanging at his hip. He glanced down at the number and said, “I’d take you there myself, but I’m already late getting back to work.”

I shook my head. “You’ve already been enough help,” I said. “Sorry again about running into you and making you late for work.”

“No problem. Maybe it will teach me not to be rushing around all the time. If I hadn’t plowed out of the store and right across the walk, I wouldn’t have been such an easy target,” he said. “Take care now.”

I watched him climb into a truck with a stallion painted on the side of the bed. Almost like a knight in shining armor, I thought. Luckily, my common sense made an appearance and reminded me of one of the contributing factors to my current troubles. I pushed away any more thoughts of this boy and got back on my way.

The good news was that both places were within a few blocks of each other. As I walked along, I decided to visit them both and then make up my mind as to what would be best for us. Since waking with the sun that morning, I had made enough rash decisions to last me a month of Sundays. Plus, letting on I had options might make the owner more inclined to let us have the room for only one night too.

It didn’t take long to reach the first place. A red and white sign declaring a room to let hung in a first floor window. I picked up Baby Girl, carriage and all, and carried her up the porch steps. Before I even knocked, a woman wearing a flowered housecoat and bright red lipstick swung open the front door. “Who are you looking for?” she asked.

“I came about the room to let,” I said.

“Speak up,” she said, in a voice loud enough for the neighbors to hear.

“I came about the room to let,” I repeated.

She stepped closer, took a good look at the baby in the carriage, and scowled. “How old is that baby?” she asked.

“She’s just a couple of days old,” I answered.

“A baby that young shouldn’t be out in this heat,” she said. She stared at me a moment and said, “There is no room.”

“But the sign,” I said, nodding toward the window.

She threw her shoulders back and placed her hands on her hips. “I said there is no room to rent,” she said. “I was just going to take the sign out of the window.”

She turned her back to us and went inside, closing the door tight behind her. I lifted the carriage down the steps, then turned and looked back at the window. The sign was still there.

When I reached the second house, I saw a man aiming a hose at a rabbit that had invaded his garden. He had the poor thing trapped between the stream of water and the fence. The old man seemed to be enjoying the rabbit’s dilemma. Taking notice of me standing there staring at him, he turned off the water. Dropping the hose, he walked toward us as the rabbit made its escape. He stuck his cigar between his teeth, wiped his hand on his dirty T-shirt, and grabbed my hand and shook it. “Are you here about the room?” he asked, looking me up and down with a smile.