Little Miss Strange

by Joanna Rose

  The window was fogged over on the inside, and I wiped at the glass. Rain and fields and the wet black edges of the road. I closed my eyes, wanting to have tears, warm wet tears, and afraid of Mrs. Smit, that she would see me cry, that she wouldn’t shut up.

  “So, won’t this rain just ruin the rest of your dahlias?” she said.

  I leaned my forehead on the cool wet glass, warm tears easy in my eyes.

  BIRD ISAAC.

  Elle.

  Lady Jane.

  Tina Blue.

  Freedom.

  Little Miss Strange.

  THE WIND blew at the sides of the bus, and the bus slowed down, and the windshield wipers clacked faster. The road curved one way and then the other way along the edges of muddy fields.

  “This storm is really slowing us down,” Mrs. Smit said.

  MIDNIGHT LATE, and the downtown bus station was busy with people hurrying around outside the bus. Mrs. Smit was standing up before the bus engine was even turned off.

  “Well, goodbye, Bird,” she said. “Goodbye, Bird, doesn’t that sound odd? Doesn’t sound Catholic.”

  She stepped out into the bus aisle, people leaving the bus, out into the garage. Gone. When the bus was empty I pulled my green bag onto my shoulder and went bumping along the empty aisle, off the bus. The bus driver was outside, smoking a cigarette, watching a guy take suitcases and boxes out of the baggage place under the bus. I went behind the bus driver, into the door of the bus station.

  Echoey loud, shiny big floor, rows of blue seats.

  Midnight.

  Omaha.

  I dropped my bag onto a blue seat and rubbed at my shoulder. I stretched my arms out front, closed my eyes, and the noise around me got louder, and there was ammonia smell. I dropped my head down until my neck made a popping sound and my face went warm.

  When I opened my eyes, the light was brighter.

  “Omaha,” I said.

  My voice didn’t make any sound at all, like the word just dropped onto the floor.

  A sign at a hallway said LA IES LOUNGE. I pulled the strap of my bag back onto my shoulder and went through the rows of blue seats, past a row of telephones. Phone books hanging on cords. An old lady was poking into the trash can at the end of the row of telephones.

  “Bathroom on the right,” the old lady said, talking down into the trash can.

  The gray door under the LA IES LOUNGE sign had no doorknob, just a square of clear plastic showing where to push. The part of the door around the square of plastic was gummy black. I shoved the door open with my butt.

  The ammonia cleaner smell was pissy. A row of sinks went along one wall, under a cloudy mirror, under a buzzy fluorescent light.

  I set my bag on the floor under a sink and got out the tied up towel, and balanced it on the edge of the sink. I set my comb on the back of the sink, in between the faucets, and I stared at my face in the mirror, my fingers looking for my toothbrush, toothpaste. There was splashing and flushing behind me in one of the toilets, and the hallway door opening let in noise from out there, and then shut out the noise again.

  “Bathroom on the right.”

  The old lady was looking in the trash can inside the bathroom door. I turned away from her, felt around in the folded towel for my toothbrush, my eyes closed, and I heard the old lady scuffing across the floor behind me, and I jumped when she reached in front of me and grabbed my comb off the sink. The folded-up towel hit the floor and my stuff scattered, and the old lady said, “It’s mine.”

  She looked into the mirror and combed my comb through her snarly hair, not looking at me, both of us in the mirror, her face frowning and combing and talking without words, my heart beating as far down as my elbows, as far down as my knees.

  “It’s mine,” she said again, and she turned away and started to the door, combing at her hair with my comb. Her legs were thick and bare, old men’s shoes scuffing on the floor, out the door.

  My toothbrush was lying on the floor, lying on its side on the wet floor.

  I said, “Fuck.”

  I kicked the toothbrush and it went spinning across the bathroom floor, spinning to the feet of a girl coming out of one of the toilets. She looked at me.

  “This toothbrush,” she said. “It has offended you?”

  She leaned on the doorway of the toilet, leaned in a long black coat, white face and red lips with lipstick, black hair.

  I said, “What?”

  Her lips were so red I couldn’t tell if she was smiling or trying to be funny or what.

  “Yes,” I said. “That toothbrush has offended me.”

  My face started to go easy into the funniness of saying that, and the girl took her hand out of a long black fold of her coat. White hand, silver rings, black gun. Little black gun.

  She said, “Shall I shoot this toothbrush?”

  The buzzing light buzzed louder and the light got brighter for an instant and the black and the red of the girl got blacker and redder where I was afraid to look at her hand, at the gun.

  “No,” I said. “Don’t shoot the toothbrush.”

  The bathroom settled back around me. The girl held the gun up, not pointing at the toothbrush, looking at the gun.

  “It’s not loaded,” she said. “I don’t know how to get bullets.”

  Her hand with the gun went back into some deep pocket somewhere in the long black coat, and she left, black boots, out the door, and I was alone in the bathroom.

  “Fuck,” I said.

  My head went dizzy when I bent to pick up all my stuff on the floor. I dragged my bag back onto my shoulder and went out the door, past my toothbrush lying on the floor.

  The old lady was farther up the hall, messing around in another trash can. I went to the row of telephones and opened one of the phone books.

  Five Blumenthals. No Christine. No C. J.

  No Tina Blue.

  The glass doors of the bus station opened out to the sidewalk and the foggy night smell, gas smell, the same wet smell as Ogallala. I walked up the sidewalk a little way, away from the doors, away from the gas smell. Halfway up the block I stopped and leaned against the side of the bus station building, slick pale colored bricks. The street was a little bit of a hill, and up and down the block ended in fog lit up by streetlights. I lit a cigarette and leaned there, looking around.

  Omaha.

  Up the street one way a sign said INTERNATIONAL HOUSE OF PANCAKES. The sign turned around above the fog, OPEN 24 HOURS WELCOME. I smoked three cigarettes in a row, lighting one cigarette off the other, the sign turning around, the other buildings on the street dark and empty, broken looking, with boards nailed up, and black windows.

  Three people came walking down the sidewalk, boots on cement. The girl from the bathroom and two other kids, blond hair, one for sure a girl and one I couldn’t tell. They walked past me, and the girl from the bathroom looked toward me but not at me, her long black coat wrapped around her like a tall black crow. The three of them walked down to the other corner and stopped there. I looked up the street the other way, and when I looked back, they were gone.

  FOURTEEN TWENTY Belmont Street.

  Tina Blue.

  Are you Little Miss Strange?

  “SO, ARE you just hanging out or what?”

  I jumped up straight from leaning on the building. The girl from the bathroom was right next to me. I looked for her hands.

  She said, “You coming or going?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I just got here.”

  She said, “Got another cigarette?”

  I took out the pack of Marlboros and handed the pack to her. She took one hand out of her coat, no gun, and took a cigarette and stuck it behind her ear. She handed the pack back to me. She had silver rings on all her fingers.

  “So where did you just get here from?” she said.

  “Denver,” I said.

  “Well, Denver,” she said. “Want to meet my friends?”

  She didn’t look at me. She looked around th
e street. Her two friends were gone. Not anywhere in the fog.

  “Where are they?” I said.

  She jerked her thumb toward the International House of Pancakes sign. There was a ring on her thumb.

  “You might as well,” she said. “The rent-a-cop will chase you off unless you have a bus ticket. You have a bus ticket?”

  “One-way,” I said.

  “One-way ticket to Omaha?” she said.

  “Well,” I said. “Yeah. I’m kind of looking for someone.”

  “Someone hanging out at the bus station in the middle of the night?” the girl said.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

  “Well,” she said. “You want to meet my friends?”

  She kept looking away. In the streetlight light her lips looked black.

  I said, “Okay. I guess.”

  I pulled my bag onto my shoulder and stood there for a second. The girl didn’t move, leaned there, looking at the sign turning around above the fog. Then she straightened up, and we started walking up the street, together, away from the bus station lights, the fog closing in around us, the girl’s boots loud on the sidewalk and echoing and sounding like Cassandra Wiggins.

  At the door of the International House of Pancakes the girl stopped and took the cigarette out from behind her ear. She lit the cigarette with a colored plastic lighter, her rings on her fingers clinking. Then she pushed through the door ahead of me, the cigarette dangling from her red mouth.

  She went to a booth by the back. The two blond kids sat there next to each other. One was a girl and one was a boy. The girl from the bathroom sat down across from them. I dropped my bag off my shoulder onto the floor and stood there for a second. The two blond kids looked at the girl.

  “This is Denver,” she said. “She has a one-way ticket to Omaha.”

  She patted the empty seat next to her, looking across at the two blond kids.

  I shoved my bag under the table and sat down on the edge of the booth seat. The two kids looked at me. They looked exactly alike, long blond hair. The girl had silver dangling earrings. The boy had a T-shirt that said NIXON FOR PRESIDENT.

  A waitress in a pink waitress uniform came to the table with four cups hanging off the fingers of one hand and a coffee pot in her other hand. She set the coffee pot down and then the four cups. She dumped a splash of coffee into each cup, filling the cups, slopping coffee over onto the table. She pulled a fistful of creamer packets out of her pocket and dropped the packets onto the table. Then she left.

  “So, Denver,” the boy said.

  He took out a cigarette and lit it with a match, and he handed the cigarette to the blond girl without looking at her, and she took it, without looking at him. She looked at me. He lit another cigarette and offered it to me.

  “No, thanks,” I said.

  Their eyes were pale pale blue.

  “You just get here?” he said.

  He had a nice voice, smooth and deep.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m kind of looking for someone.”

  “Well,” he said. “I’m Marcus. And this is Marcy.”

  The blond girl looked away, looking around the restaurant, smoking her cigarette.

  “Are you guys twins?” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “That’s what they tell us.”

  The girl next to me laughed when he said that.

  “And you’ve already met Jade,” he said.

  “Jade?” I said. “Your name is Jade?”

  “Jade,” she said.

  “Well,” I said. “Hi.”

  Nobody said anything. I reached for the sugar shaker, couldn’t reach far enough, and Jade slid it at me. I grabbed the shaker right before it went off the edge of the table.

  “Got any place to go?” Marcus said.

  “Tomorrow,” I said. “In the morning. Fourteen twenty Belmont Street. You know where that is?”

  Marcy looked at me.

  “What are you looking for on Belmont Street?” Marcus said.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “My mother.”

  “Your mother a biker?” he said. “Belmont Street. Shit.”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  Marcy stood up and got out of the booth. She didn’t say anything, just went to the very back of the restaurant, around a corner back there.

  Jade said, “Denver here doesn’t know if she’s coming or going.”

  The coffee was only warm, and sweet from sugar, no coffee taste.

  I said, “Is it very far, Belmont Street?”

  “Far enough for me,” Jade said.

  Marcus didn’t say anything, just sort of looked at Jade.

  A guy came up to the table. He was skinny and had short hair and a mustache. Marcus and Jade just looked at each other.

  The guy said, “Where’s your sister?”

  Marcus kept looking at Jade and he said, “Guess she’s not here.”

  “I’m looking for her,” the guy said.

  Marcus finally looked up at the guy and he said, “Maybe you ought to send her a Valentine’s Day card.”

  “Tell her I’m looking for her,” the guy said.

  He left, and Marcus and Jade went back to looking at each other.

  The counter that went by the booths was full of people. A fat guy sat closest to us, his back to our table. His jacket rode up on his back and his butt crack showed, and pimply hairy skin. He got up off the stool just when the waitress came by with the coffee pot. She had to stop short, and coffee sloshed onto the floor.

  “Watch it,” she said.

  She filled our cups back up with coffee, my cup, Jade’s cup, Marcus’s cup.

  “That’s your free refill,” she said.

  Marcus said, “Why, thank you, you are too kind.”

  “I know it,” the waitress said.

  Jade said, “Our other friend here will be right back.”

  The waitress looked at Marcy’s cup. She slapped a piece of paper onto the edge of the table and left.

  “So, Denver,” Marcus said. “Want to get high?”

  Pretty light blue eyes.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  The windows were steamed up, and it looked black and drippy outside, and I wanted to go back to the bus station and wait. For morning.

  “At our place,” Marcus said.

  “Your place?” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s just up the street. The service isn’t as gracious as it is here, but the ambience is comparable.”

  “Well,” I said. “Okay.”

  High in Omaha.

  Marcus stood up, and Jade tossed her cigarette into the ashtray, not putting it out, just tossing it there, smoking, in with the pile of butts.

  “What about your sister?” I said.

  “She had somewhere to go,” Marcus said.

  He bent down and pulled out my bag.

  “Thanks,” I said, reaching for it.

  “Allow me,” he said.

  He carried my bag, and I walked behind him, and Jade behind me. The skinny guy with the mustache sat, watching us, at the end of the counter by the door. At the cash register Jade put the bill for the coffee on the counter and reached into her pocket. She took out two dollar bills.

  “Here,” I said, digging a quarter out from all my change.

  “I’ll buy,” Jade said.

  “No, here,” I said, putting my quarter on the counter.

  “In that case you’re two cents short,” she said. “Tax.”

  It was raining outside, light rain coming down through the fog. I stood in the doorway of the International House of Pancakes for a second, wanting my bag back, looking back down the block through the rain at the bus station.

  Marcus turned around and said, “Come on, Denver.”

  I followed him and Jade up the hill of the sidewalk, the rain coming down harder.

  STEPS WENT down into a little room with windows looking up at the sidewalk, the light from the streetlights coming in. Ma
rcus switched on a lamp, and he dropped my bag onto a couch. Stacks of records and magazines were around on the floor, dark shaggy carpeting, tapes scattered across the seat of a chair. The place smelled like cat, and it was cold. I sat down on the edge of the couch, next to my bag. I leaned my elbows on my knees and rubbed my eyes hard, and when I opened my eyes again a cat sat in front of me, staring up at me. I kissed at it. The cat stared. Flat gold eyes.

  “Tangent,” Jade said.

  She scooped the cat up and tossed it across the room, the cat’s four legs clawing the air as it flew and landed in the chair. Tapes clacked to the floor as the cat hit and took off, around a corner, gone.

  I said, “Tangent?”

  “Always off on a tangent, that cat,” Marcus said.

  “Too much acid, that cat,” Jade said.

  Marcus turned the dial on a heater that ran along one wall. The heater clicked and ticked and started to glow orange on one end. He went over to the kitchen part of the room and he opened the oven door wide and turned the oven on. Then he came over and sat next to me on the couch. I scooted over until the wet from my bag came through my blue jeans. Marcus took out a cigarette pack, and he shook a yellow joint out of it. He lit the joint with a match and took a big hit, and handed the joint to me. He had long thin fingers. I took the joint, and my fingers were shaking. I took a small hit, a small careful hit, and handed the joint back to him. The taste was sweet and strong, and after the third time he handed the joint to me, my fingers stopped shaking, and my breath eased in my chest, and when he handed me the joint again I shook my head no.

  “Sure?” he said.

  “I don’t want any more,” I said.

  Jade sat across the room in the chair. She still wore her long black coat, the coat with the gun in the pocket, and she took the gun out and looked at it up close.

  I said, “How come you have a gun?”

  Jade didn’t look up at me, looking at the gun, holding it in the light of the lamp. The gun was kind of blue.

  “I think it’s kind of pretty,” she said.

  Marcus got up and took off his jacket, an old suit jacket. His arms were skinny and pale, pale like his hair, pale like his face. The apartment was warmer.