Lena (6 page)

“Mama's people were farmers,” I said one afternoon. Maybe a week had passed since we'd gotten dropped off in Owensboro. We'd gotten a couple more rides since then and I tried to remember the name of the town we were in. We were sitting out in front of an old shed we'd found the night before. All around us white pine trees shot up tall enough to keep the shed halfway hidden. I leaned back against it. It was pretty out, warm, with the sun shining in splinters through the trees. We were closer to something. I could feel it.

Dion scratched her head and stuck a few pine needles between the pages of her book. She was sitting across from me with her legs folded Indian style. It'd been some time since we'd had a good shower. Dion's hair looked oily. I kept a bottle of water in my bag alongside the toothpaste and brushes and made her brush her teeth every night but her neck looked like it could use a good scrubbing and our nails were chewed and dirty.

She shrugged and looked up at the trees.

“You should know about Mama,” I said softly.

“I'd rather just think it was you all along, Lena,” she said. “Just you taking care of me.” She looked down at her fingernails. “I miss Daddy. I don't want nobody else to miss.”

 

“Knowing about her don't mean you have to miss her, Dion. I just figure it's a way of having a mama.”

“You're like my mama, though. You always took care of me. I don't remember her—just shadows and stuff. I miss things I remember—like school, my bed in Chauncey, that pair of red sneakers I left at home.” She smiled. It was one of those sad grown-up smiles.

I leaned back against the shed. “Maybe I tell you Mama stories 'cause
I
want to hear them. I don't want to forget her.”

“What kind of stuff did her people farm?”

“She never really said . . . or I don't remember. What can you farm up in the mountains?”

Dion squinted and thought for a moment. “Mountain land is sloping and whatnot. Dirt would slide right down it. One good rain and—”

“Well, maybe her people lived in the valley,” I said. Sometimes Dion's smartness got on my nerves.

“Well, maybe
you
know what they grew then!” She snapped her book open and started reading again.

I watched her for a few minutes. She was wearing her sweater turned inside out and her blue jeans and hiking boots. Her hair was starting to grow out some and every now and then she wiped it back away from her forehead.

I lifted up my own boots and checked the bottoms for holes. There was a tiny one in the right boot but other than that, they were holding up fine. I leaned back against the shed again and sighed. Some nights, standing out on the road with my thumb out, I got scared. Scared the next ride was going to be our last one—that someone would hurt us real bad or turn us in to the police. But every time we got out of somebody's truck or car, I felt good— a little bit more free. And times like this, when we could sit and get our minds together a bit, I started getting real sad. I didn't know what was harder—moving or sitting still.

“You know what I miss most about Chauncey, Dion?”

“What?” Dion mumbled, not taking her eyes off her book.

 

“Remember how on Saturdays we'd go over to Marie's house and take baths?”

 

Dion nodded. I didn't care that she was only half listening, it felt good to be talking about Marie. Even if I
was
mostly talking to myself.

“Sometimes Marie would come in and sit on the toilet and read—”

 

“I wish we had a toilet here,” Dion mumbled.

“We do. Right in the woods. Go when you gotta go.”

She sucked her teeth.

 

“Anyway, Marie would read this
poet
named—”

Dion looked up. “What poet?”

“This lady named Audre Lorde. She was mostly a poet and sometimes she wrote other things.”

Dion went back to her book. “Her poems rhyme? I don't like the rhyming kind.”

“Maybe some rhymed and some didn't. I don't know. That's not even the point.”

“Well, what's the point then?”

“It's how the words made me feel,” I said. Then I started reciting softly—the same way Marie used to read to me. “It went something like ‘Living means teaching and surviving and fighting with the most important resource I have, myself . . .' ”

Dion closed her book and looked down at the cover.

 

“ ‘. . . and taking joy in that battle. It means, for me, recognizing the enemy outside and the enemy within . . .' ” I stopped reciting, not remembering any more.

“I used to know the whole thing,” I said. “Me and Marie memorized it. There was something in it about life and love and work and power that only girls and women got. And something else about a river—the Missisquoi River. She said something about how beautiful it was to fish there and how it was real quiet. . . . That the quiet was sweet and green.”

I pulled my knees up to my chin, remembering how peaceful it was in Marie's bathroom, the way the light came in through the windows and turned everything gold. And Marie's soft voice drifting over to me while I played with the tubful of bubbles. It felt like there would always be Saturdays at her house—bubble baths followed by hot chocolate.

“You ever heard of Audre Lorde?”

“No.”

I picked the book of maps up and held it close to my face to feel the breeze of the pages. “How far you figure we are from Pine Mountain?”

 

“It's southeast of here—near Virginia.” She exhaled. “Take a look at it instead of fanning yourself with it!”

“Just want to walk the land Mama walked,” I said softly.

Dion closed her book. “Bowling Green got a hospital and it's headed in the right direction. We get ourselves there we could head straight east then.” She stopped talking and looked at me. “Then we done, Lena? We get to Pine Mountain, we find a place we could stay, go back to school. Huh?”

 

“Yeah,” I said. “In Pine Mountain, we can probably hook up with some of Mama's people. They'll take us in.”

Dion smiled. “I'd like that.” She came over to the shed and sat down, leaning her head against my shoulder. “I'd like it a whole lot.”

Seven

You walk long enough, you get to dreaming about things—the sound of chicken grease popping hot on the stove, the taste of fried chicken when you pull the crispy skin back, the way the steam rises up from the tender meat underneath. And other things too. Like the feel of a nice pillow under your head and sheets when they're fresh out of the wash, smelling like detergent. Windows and doors and hardwood floors underneath your feet.

It was near dark when Dion and me got out to the highway the next evening. We weren't standing on the side of the road two minutes before this Lincoln pulled up and a black woman leaned over asking where we was going. Dion stepped back. We hadn't taken any rides from black people. Not because we didn't want them, just 'cause nobody was offering. Ladies were always a better bet than riding with men but Dion's face scrunched up a bit, the way Daddy's used to when he saw black people. I felt heat rise up to my head and had to put my hand in my pocket to keep from decking her with it.

“Y'all climb on into the back where it's safe,” the woman said.

 

“Get in,” I whispered.

Dion looked at me and shook her head.

 

“Get in that car or I'll leave you standing right here!”

She glared at me a moment, then climbed into the backseat. I climbed in beside her. The woman gave us a strange look, then pulled the car back onto the highway.

“Hi, ma'am,” I said. “My name's Lena and that's my sister, Dion.” I leaned back against the seat and rolled my window down a bit, hoping me and Dion didn't stink up the car too bad.

 

“Fine to meet you. I'm Lily.”

“Fine to meet you too, Miz Lily.”

The woman glanced at me in the rearview and smiled. She had a nice smile. She was old enough to be somebody's grandmother, heavyset with white hair. “Where you girls headed?”

“We live up in Owensboro but our mama just had herself a baby down in Bowling Green. We lost the money she left for bus fare and now we trying to get to the hospital. There was complications so she's going to be there longer than we can be alone. She say come down there.”

“How come your mama didn't have her baby closer to home?” Miz Lily asked.

Dion gave me a big elbow in the side. She was pretending to be asleep.

“ 'Cause of her complications,” I said real fast.

Miz Lily nodded. “Well, my daughter, Rona, lives up there near Owensboro—in Thruston. Used to live in Paris.”

“France?”

 

Miz Lily smiled. “She wishes. Paris, Kentucky, girl. You from Owensboro and you don't know Paris, Kentucky?”

I swallowed. “Yes, ma'am, I know it. I just thought maybe you meant Paris, France.”

Miz Lily nodded. “Kentucky people like to say
Pay-ris
but not me.”

 

I nodded.

 

After a moment, she asked, “Where y'all planning on staying tonight?”

I looked at Dion. She opened one eye, then closed it and gave a fake snore.

“Our mama say it's okay to stay in the hospital waiting room. If you drop us off at the hospital, we can—”

“Uh-uh.” Miz Lily was shaking her head. “That hospital don't allow children in there after hours. My friend Betty works there. You better call your mama and see if she can make y'all”—she changed lanes before she started talking again—“see if she can make y'all some other arrangements.”

“I figure we best not bother her until the morning—being she just had a baby and all.”

Miz Lily turned full round and gave us a look. Her driving made me kind of nervous.

“You-all have any people here?”

“No, ma'am.”

Miz Lily didn't say anything for a while.

“You say you lost your money back where?”

“Owensboro, ma'am—on our way to the bus, I guess. Fell right out of Dion's pocket.”

Dion elbowed me.

 

“And how'd you get to be in Munfordville?”

“Excuse me?” Somehow I had lost track. We'd had rides, then walked some. I swallowed. I was the one supposed to be keeping track of things. I'd even gotten lazy about writing in the book Marie'd given me. Too busy trying to get me and Dion to the next place.

“How'd you get from Owensboro to Munfordville?”

“We found a ride,” I whispered.

“Seems you'd have to be mighty lucky to get this far in one ride. When'd y'all leave?”

“This morning, ma'am.”

Miz Lily glanced at me in the rearview.

“I mean . . . we left last night but we stayed with friends . . . up in Elizabethtown.”

“So you went across to Elizabethtown then came on down here to Munfordville? That's quite a ways.”

“Yes, ma'am.” I glanced at Dion and she was looking scared. She shut her eyes again.

“And your people didn't have a couple dollars to give you to take a bus?”

I looked down at my hands. My heart was beating fast and my mind felt like it was racing it. I elbowed Dion but she just went on pretending to sleep.

After a moment, I said, “No, ma'am. They didn't . . . have any.”

Miz Lily got quiet again. I breathed in real slow and stared out the window. Poor is poor. My people didn't have any money. I bit my bottom lip. I knew Miz Lily was thinking up a way to get us out of her car. Maybe she knew I was lying. Maybe, even in the dark, she could see it in my eyes. I wanted Pine Mountain to appear out of the darkness like Oz, all full of rainbows and little dancing people.

A truck passed us, lighting the car up. I could see Miz Lily frowning. She looked at me.

“Y'all didn't get scared out on the road?”

“No, ma'am.”

“I would think somebody as young as you would get scared . . . being out on the road for the first time.”

“It wasn't—I mean, yes, ma'am . . . it got a little scary.”

Miz Lily nodded. “I would think so,” she said slowly. “How long you say your mama been down in Bowling Green?”

 

“Since . . . yesterday.” I elbowed Dion again. I felt so tired of lying. The lies weren't coming fast enough. Nobody'd asked us this many questions in all our time on the road. I was messing up—stuttering and not remembering what I said two minutes before.

“Yesterday,” Miz Lily said. She said it to herself, like she was trying to make herself believe it was true. Then she said it again, real soft. “Yesterday.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“You ever heard that saying, ‘There's a hundred days in yesterday'?”

I turned back toward the window. “No. But it's real pretty.”

“And sad too,” Miz Lily said.

We drove awhile with nobody saying anything. I wanted to pinch Dion, tell her we should make a run for it. But maybe I was imagining Miz Lily knew we was lying and I didn't want to worry Dion over nothing.

“Being I live so close to the hospital,” Miz Lily said, “I figure I could put you up for the night, but you need to call, leave word with the hospital about your whereabouts . . .”

 

I looked down at my hands again and tried not to start bawling. Not from sadness. Just from feeling tired and . . . 'cause the thought of sleeping in a real bed at Miz Lily's house sounded so good. Even if it was just for one night, it was something.