by Louise Hawes
It was less easy dividing his hair into ponytails and wrapping them with the pompoms. He twisted and chattered the whole time, so that Feena, in her hurry, tied one pompom snugly behind his left ear, the other several inches higher behind the right. When she stood back to study him, she laughed. She wanted to start over, but he was much too excited. And hungry.
She stuffed the leftover plums into her backpack, closed the booth’s flaps, then led him outside and locked the door. The air was almost cool at this hour, a reprieve from the swampy furnace that would start up when the turquoise and purple streaks on the horizon gave way to the full-risen sun. They moved quickly, heading for the gas station to buy milk and check the morning headlines.
The video-game fan from yesterday had been replaced by a very large woman with frosted hair and a frown line. She looked up as soon as Feena and Christy walked into the store. “Hep ya?”
Feena tightened her grip on the baby and calculated the distance to the back of the store. “We just need some milk,” she said. She didn’t move, though, giving the woman time to turn away, busy herself with something so they could scan the morning papers in the rack under the counter.
But the woman folded her cushiony arms and stared till Feena began to wonder if she’d called the police when she’d seen them coming. Or maybe she was a plant, waiting for backup. There were lady detectives, weren’t there? At last, just when she’d decided they didn’t need the milk that badly, that they would try another store later, the woman nodded her head toward the dairy case along the back wall of the store. “It’s over there,” she said.
Suddenly aware she’d been holding her breath, Feena felt her whole body go loose. She headed down the aisle, plucking up a box of crackers and a can of tiny cocktail hot dogs on the way to the milk. Beside her, Christy eyed the shelves without touching anything, content to point out highlights as they went. “Bwu,” he said, reaching toward the picture of a little girl in an apron with a bright blue bow in her hair. “Bwu,” he repeated, jabbing a finger into the shirt on his own tiny chest.
Now that they weren’t under surveillance, Feena took her time, studied the photograph, a smiling girl on the verge of devouring an impossibly huge iced cookie. “Right,” she told Christy. “You guys are wearing the same color.” She looked down at the socks she wore. “What color are these, O Wise One?”
He beamed. “Bwu!” Racing to a package of doughnuts: “Bwu!” And a carton of cottage cheese in the case: “Bwu!” And an ancient, limp rubber band on the floor: “Bwu!”
As he crouched to retrieve the rubber band, she dropped the crackers and swooped him into her arms. “Bwu, bwu, bwu,” she said, tickling, laughing, faint with relief. “You sure like blue, don’t you?”
He giggled, shifted wildly in her hold, pushing against her, walking on air like a tiny robot. Feena set him down and then retrieved the crackers. She chose four small milk cartons from the case, handing him two to carry. “There,” she said. “Make yourself useful, Whiz Kid. And while we’re at it, what color are the letters on your milk?”
“Bwu!” They said it in unison, then said it again. They chanted it all the way back down the aisle to the counter. It was only when they reached the magazine rack that Feena remembered who they were. Remembered she couldn’t relax into this love. She could never relax.
But the morning’s papers told her nothing. While the woman added up their purchases, Feena even picked one up and leafed through it. As if she had all the time in the world. As if she weren’t really interested. There were no headlines, no articles about a missing boy. Why hadn’t Christy’s mother gone to the police? Wasn’t it news anymore when a little boy disappeared?
She put the paper back, then took the bag the woman handed her. She paid with the last bills she had, wondering how they’d manage tomorrow on the forty-five cents in change she got back. She’d talked Christy into surrendering his milk cartons and dropping them one after the other into the bag, when the woman surprised them both.
“Here.” The frown line was still there, but she wore a smile like a thin seam across the bottom of her tanned face. She held out a lollipop in a see-through wrapper. “On account of you like blue.”
Christy stared at the blue pop, eyes wide. But he made no move to take it from the woman’s hand.
“Here,” the woman repeated, leaning down, wrapping his fingers around it. “It’s for you. On account of you’re such a sweet little girl.”
Christy held the pop and checked in with Feena, his whole face a question mark. “I’ll bet it’s blueberry,” she told him. “And you can have it with your milk, okay?” She turned to the woman. “Thanks,” she said, meaning it. “Thanks a lot.”
Outside, Feena stopped, tried to decide what to do. It was Wednesday. Her mother was at work, and in less than an hour, she was supposed to be in school. Clearly, she was going to skip, but school made her think of books. And books made her think of the library.
So that’s where they ate breakfast—under a tree behind the branch library they’d seen near the park yesterday. As he had last night, Christy ate ravenously, finishing the plums, the milk, and half the crackers. By the time the library opened, his face was smeared, the heat was intense, and they were both glad to head for the basement restroom.
Afterward, cool and clean, they sat in baby-size chairs in a corner of the children’s reading room. Christy, his ponytails freshly combed and tightened evenly on both sides, looked almost too precious in Lady Macbeth’s jumper. For the first time, Feena wished his face were a little less appealing, his hair not quite so bright. Proud as she was of him, the last thing they needed was to call attention to themselves.
Afraid to use her library card, in case it might be traced later, she began to choose books to read right there. At first he was afraid to touch them, settled for watching her as she brought them to him one by one, opened them across his lap. But soon he learned he could take them himself—stacks of them, plucked off the low shelves and piled on a table close at hand. Big books, little books, books with red and yellow and (of course) blue covers, books with bright bold water-color splashes for pictures, books with delicate, careful illustrations as detailed as photos. Like the fruit and the milk and crackers, Christy devoured them all.
One book in particular, though, seemed to pull him back again and again. Even when they were reading another, Feena would notice his gaze wander, stealing a look at the cover of Mama’s Music. She couldn’t understand the attraction, didn’t think the book was nearly as exciting as the stories about gorillas attending grand balls, or lost dogs who grew wings, or laughing hyenas who told knock-knock jokes. But Christy clearly had his own opinion.
He begged her to read his favorite over and over, until she had it memorized. I have a singing mama, the first page read. I have a singing, dancing mama, said the second. I have a singing, dancing, piano-playing mama, announced the third and fourth, across a double spread. And it was here he always made her stop, pointing to the drawing of a round jolly woman who tapped her tap shoes and opened her O-shaped mouth while she pounded away on an upright piano. “Ma,” he said each time. “Ma.”
Feena was mystified. Could Christy’s mother possibly be a musician? She tried to picture the harsh, loudmouthed woman she’d seen at Ryder’s, seated calmly at a piano, a tinkling fountain of music spilling from under her fingers. She tried, but it was so unlikely, so preposterous, she nearly laughed. “Does your mother play the piano?” she asked Christy three different times. Three different times, he tore himself from the picture, looked up at her with his new-moon smile, and nodded.
He wouldn’t let the book out of his sight, persisted in moving it to the top of the pile, where he could reassure himself that it was still within reach. When it was time to go, he refused to unhand it, coming close to crying the way he had at Ryder’s.
They had to pass the circulation desk on the way out, and the librarian, who had obviously spotted Christy’s puckered countenance, stopped them. “Why don’
t I check those out for you?” she offered, not unkindly. But Feena told her they couldn’t, that she’d forgotten her library card.
“I can look it up,” the woman said, smiling at Christy, who hugged Mama’s Music and two other oversize picture books to his chest. “I’d hate to lose such an eager reader.”
Feena didn’t like lying, knew she was pretty lousy at it. She persevered, though, on the theory that practice would make her better. “Actually, I don’t think the card’s on record,” she said, stalling for time. “We just moved here from out of state, and I’ve been using my aunt’s old one.” She lowered her eyes. “It’s expired.”
“Oh.” The librarian’s sharp intake of breath and hushed tone suggested she understood how much such a confession must have cost Feena. “Well, why don’t I just make a new one for her?”
Feena panicked. “You can’t,” she said, swallowing hard, thinking fast. “She died.”
“I see.” The librarian looked at the two of them as if they’d been orphaned. “I’m so sorry.” Then she brightened. “How old are you?” she asked.
“Fourteen.” It was a relief to say this one true thing.
“Then I’ll just issue you a card. You can take the books home now and come in tomorrow with a proof of address. How would that be?”
Feena looked at Christy, crushing the three books against the lace front of his jumper as if he’d never let go. “Okay,” she agreed. She sighed as the woman pulled out a form, then leaned across the desk.
“Name?”
“Jane,” Feena told her, inspired. “Jane Rochester.”
Before lunch, they went back to the Pizza Hut. Feena had run out of money and decided to ransack the house for loose change. She found four dollars in quarters and nickels, most of it in the pockets of her mother’s cream-colored linen jacket, the one Lenore claimed went with everything. Thankfully, it didn’t go with whatever she’d put on that morning.
Christy and Feena ate the little hot dogs at the playground, which was empty now, except for a large man who stood behind the swings, shading his eyes with one hand. Feena worried that he might be an undercover cop, like the ones on TV, but after a while, he turned and walked back to the mall. Probably a clerk on break, she decided, relieved, able to taste what she was eating at last.
When they’d finished lunch, Christy took a few wobbly rides on a sea horse that rocked back and forth on a giant spring, then headed for the sandbox. He sat, desultory, sifting sand through his fingers, probably missing Angel and his paper cups. Feena felt raw with the ache of watching him, wishing he could be happy, satisfied forever.
This couldn’t last, she told herself. She couldn’t skip school every day, and they couldn’t go on hiding in bathrooms, eating out of cans. Christy needed a bed, clothes, someone keeping track of calories or vitamins or whatever you counted to make sure a meal was balanced. What did Feena know about raising children?
She knew only that she’d never experienced anything like the smug joy she felt lying next to him, the heady responsibility of his faith in her, his assumption that she would manage everything. But how could she? Why did she think she knew better than all the people who made it their business to protect kids, the people she should have turned Christy over to in the first place?
Sure, she’d be in big trouble if she took him to the police now. But she’d be in bigger trouble if she waited. When she watched him from a distance, when he wasn’t pressed up against her, the small engine of his body generating that heat, she could think straight. She would spend one more night with him, she decided, give him one more special day, then she’d take him back. She’d tell the police about his mother. She’d make them believe her.
“That dress is going to be stained for life,” someone said behind her.
“Huh?” Feena turned, off-guard.
“That bunny dress,” Raylene Watson told her. “You’ll never get that dirt out. Specially not after she’s ground it in with sand.” The older girl walked around the bench, pushed the picture books toward Feena, and sat down. She was wearing her CVS smock over a lemon-colored crop top and a long lavender skirt with a ruffled hem. Feena, of course, had on her standard uniform—T-shirt and shorts. “It’s bound to shrink. Just about guaranteed.”
“Bunny dress?” Feena repeated dumbly.
“Yeah.” Raylene nodded toward Christy, who looked at them briefly, then stood up from the sand. “Course, she does look a whole lot better in it than Flopsy Jo.”
“Flopsy Jo?” asked Feena. It wasn’t even two o’clock. What was Raylene doing out of school at this hour?
“Hmm-hmmm.” Raylene smiled like she meant it this time, like she was really tickled. “That’s the rabbit’s name, you know. Says so right on the tag. ‘Flopsy Jo, one-hundred-percent new materials. Made in Taiwan.’”
eight
A stolen baby in a stuffed-rabbit’s dress. No money, no plan, and now someone from school to witness the whole mess. Feena felt her brain melt, then shut down. She couldn’t imagine anything worse.
Christopher toddled up to them and put his hand on Raylene Watson’s knee. “Mik?” he asked her. “Mu mik?”
“Sure, I can give you milk,” Raylene told him, interpreting his baby talk effortlessly, hoisting him up to her lap. “But you have to come in the store and get it.” She turned to Feena, who stared at her, speechless. “I’m taking over somebody’s shift, so I had to cut bio. What’s your excuse?”
Feena continued to stare, as though if she watched long enough, she could make either Raylene or the baby disappear.
“How come you’re not in school?”
“I, uh…” It was a good question. “I…”
“You look tight in old Flopsy’s dress.” Raylene shifted her attention to Christy without waiting for Feena’s answer. She’d lapsed into the language she used with her friends, even though she could talk like a textbook when she wanted to. Last week, they’d both been in the school office, Feena to fill out more new student forms, Raylene to see the principal. “Mr. Cantrell, sir,” Raylene had told him, “my mother has made a doctor’s appointment for me this afternoon. It was obviously an oversight, and she should have scheduled it later, but I wonder if I might leave early today?” Afterward, Feena had heard her cackling like a banshee all the way down the hall, as she and her crew ducked out on afternoon classes.
“Course,” she told the baby now, “you won’t be truly bad, less we get all that sand off. Come on with me.” She stood up, held out a hand to Christy, and headed for the CVS. Wordless, hopeless, Feena stood, too, and followed after them.
Their first stop was the employees’ restroom. Raylene was endlessly patient, showing Christy how to pump a thin stream of shocking-pink soap from the dispenser and how to blow-dry his hands; Feena, though, was in an agony of suspense, praying Raylene wouldn’t insist on a change of diapers, ready to feign sickness, fall down in a faint, anything to prevent the discovery of Christy’s gender.
She needn’t have worried. Standing by the dryer, flipping the baby’s hands like pancakes under the hot air, Raylene spotted the oversize clock on the wall. “I got to punch in,” she announced suddenly. “You finish up with her.”
But she met them outside the door a few minutes later, led them to the glass beverage case. “There’s three kinds of milk—chocolate, strawberry, and just plain white. Course,” she added, “I wouldn’t take the white. That’s older, on account of no one much chooses it.”
Christy wanted chocolate, and Raylene opened a straw for him and stuck it into the carton. “I really got to get to work now,” she told them. “Later.” She handed the baby back to Feena, waved as she headed toward the registers.
“Say bye,” Feena instructed, suddenly finding her voice. “Say bye, Raylene.”
Christy, bundled again in Feena’s arms, stretched from her to Raylene. “Bye, Ween,” he said, waving like a trouper.
On the way out of the store, Feena checked the headlines in the pile of newspapers by the door
. Nothing. It was only the second day, she reminded herself, hurrying outside. Off balance from Raylene’s goodwill, she tried to figure out why on earth the Dis Queen Herself had taken such an interest in them. She also tried to figure out their next move. School would be over soon, so they couldn’t hang around the library. Maybe the restaurant?
But Christopher decided for her, lunging back toward the playground as soon as she set him down. And the minute she saw the slim, braided woman, Feena understood why. Angel, then Dale, looked up when they got closer. “Hey, Candace,” Dale said, friendly, warm. “You’re back.”
“Not for long,” Feena assured her, standing rather than joining Dale on the bench. She pictured kids pouring out of school, heading to the library. “We … we have to get home.”
Dale nodded toward the sandbox. “Better tell that little sister of yours.” Feena rushed after Christy, who was already halfway to Angel, who, in turn, was striding toward the sandbox.
As they got to the box and Angel stepped in and hunkered down, Feena took Christy’s hand and tried to steer him away. But he pulled against her, like a dog on a leash, pointing toward Angel. “Want pay,” he told her. “Want pay.”
“We’ll have to play later, Christy,” she said, trying to make it sound like an announcement, not a suggestion. “You’ve got to get your nap.” She looked at her watch; it was almost time for the eighth-period bell. They had to get out of there. “We can have a story, if you like.” She took out one of the big books and waved it like a truce flag. “Come on. Say goodbye to Angel.”
Angel glanced up at the sound of his name, only mildly interested, as Christopher tugged them closer. “She can’t have it,” the older boy told Feena matter-of-factly. He shifted in the sand, his chunky legs uncovering a small sand pail. “It’s mine, and it’s still new.” He picked up the pail, ran it along the sand like a plow, leaving fat wavy tracks behind.
