Orphans 05 Runaways Read online

  "You can sit in the back with us," Butterfly told her and opened the door.

  "Why thank you, Janet. See? I remembered your name. Janet. You remind me of my Donna. Did I tell you that?"

  "Yes," Butterfly said, smiling at her sweetly. The elderly lady got in and Butterfly followed. Raven seized Crystal at the elbow and pulled her back.

  "She better not rob us," she said sharply. Crystal smirked.

  "I hardly think there's an analogy here, Raven."

  "A what? Why don't you speak English?" Raven complained.

  Crystal laughed.

  "That is English." Crystal got in and Raven turned to me with a look of desperation.

  "You have to carry a dictionary on you when you're with Crystal. I don't care what she says. It's like learning a new language."

  I laughed too, and we got into the wagon. We started out of the parking lot.

  "My name is Theresa James," the elderly lady said. "I've lived in Morrisville for nearly forty-one years. My husband Eugene was a shoe salesman. He used to say he peddled good soles and saved more than a minister." She laughed. "Ain't that the truth? Ain't it though?"

  "How many children and grandchildren do you have?" Butterfly asked her.

  "I have three children, a son Thomas Kincaid James, and two daughters, Marion and Jennie. Jennie's the most like me. She's a good cook. Marion doesn't cook. She has servants who do everything. She married well. Her husband builds boats, pleasure boats, and they live in a house that looks like a castle. It's near a lake, too. I spend a part of my summer there and I see my grandchildren. Oh, I have five

  grandchildren, three boys and two girls. Two boys are Thomas's He has a daughter who just turned seven. Her name's Connie, but she has long dark hair, not curly gold hair like you, dear. She's a good speller. They're always sending me her spelling tests with A's on them and I put them all over the refrigerator. I have so many. I can hardly find the handle." She laughed. "Ain't that the truth? Ain't it though?"

  I looked in the rearview mirror and saw Crystal grimacing. I raised my eyebrows and she indicated there was a strange odor. After a moment I smelled it too. It smelled like charred wood and it was coming from Theresa James.

  "My husband was a very good salesman. He never lost a sale. He could talk the last dime out of Rockefeller. They wanted to make him a vice president and give him an office, but he said, no sir, no thank you, I would rather be on the road, out there with the people. He loved being with people, talking, pressing flesh as he called it."

  "When did he die?" Butterfly asked.

  "Oh. He died . . . let me see now. My goodness, it's almost ten years. It isn't easy being a widow. All my old friends look the other way when they see me."

  "That's awful," Raven said.

  "Oh, I'm getting used to it, dear. Sometimes, I just pretend they're not there either. It's like we're all ghosts, you know. When you get old, you become a ghost. Ain't that the truth? Ain't it though?"

  "I wouldn't let you be a ghost if you were my grandmother," Butterfly said.

  "Well isn't that sweet? I do believe you are the most adorable child I ever saw, even sweeter than my Donna who could bring a smile to the Grinch. Isn't that what he's called?" she followed quickly, "the Grinch?"

  Butterfly laughed.

  "When did you see her last?" she asked.

  "Oh, let's see now. I think it was four months ago. No, I guess it was more like six or seven."

  "Don't they call you every day?" Crystal asked.

  "Oh yes. My phone never stops ringing. The neighbors think I'm a bookie. You know what a bookie is, sweet light?" she asked Butterfly, who shook her head. "It's a man you call to place a bet on a horse. If you win, he has to pay you, but if you lose, you have to pay him. I have a brother who used to be a bookie. Now he's in an old-age home. I never get to see him."

  "Why not?" Raven asked. "Won't your son or daughters take you?"

  "No, they don't like him. They never did. They don't want me to see him either. They say he's the black sheep of the family and he made my mother old before her time. Mothers can get old before their time if their children are bad. Ain't that the truth? Ain't it though?"

  "Did you spend last Christmas with your grandchildren?" Butterfly asked.

  "Oh sure. We all went to my daughter's big house and we had a very big tree with mountains of presents, and there was a turkey that could feed an army. I made a pumpkin pie and an apple pie and Jennie made a date and nut bread and some Yorkshire pudding. It was a big feast with music and the fireplace just roaring away like in those Christmas cards, the ones that play a little tune when you open them. Oh sure, I spend all the holidays with my children and my grandchildren, birthdays and . . . birthdays." She paused as if she had forgotten what she was saying, and then she found her way again.

  "But for now I live alone in my little old house, paid for years ago by my husband who was the world's best shoe salesman. Did I tell you what he used to say? He said, I saved more good soles than a minister." She laughed.

  "Ain't that the truth?" Butterfly said.

  Everyone smiled.

  Theresa James laughed and then said, "Ain't it though?"

  She talked almost the whole way to Morrisville. Raven kept swinging her eyes at me as if I could stop it or as if I were to blame Finally, she turned on the radio and then began to sing along with a song.

  "You have a beautiful voice, dear," Theresa James said. "My Jennie has a nice voice, but not as nice as yours. You could sing on a street corner and collect money in a hat," she added.

  Raven smiled proudly.

  "I'm going to sing on a stage and be paid a lot of money for it someday," she declared.

  "Oh, I'm sure you will. I'll come listen and I'll say I knew you when you were . . . when you were . . . I forgot what time I was supposed to be in the parking lot. Maybe I was early and not late," she suddenly said. "I'd feel just horrible if they waited and waited for me and I had already left. Maybe I should have stayed there and not gone off with you. Oh dear. I'm not sure."

  No one said anything. I looked at Crystal in the mirror. She wound down her window to get some fresh air into the wagon and shook her head.

  "Your children should take better care of you," Raven said suddenly.

  "Oh, ain't that the truth? Everyone tells me that. They say, why is it one mother can take care of three children but three children can't take care of one mother? Maybe mothers are harder to take care of, huh?"

  "No," Butterfly said. "They would be easy."

  "You're so sweet. Your name is Janet. I almost named my Jennie, Janet. We were looking for a name that began with J. My husband said, maybe Joyce or Joan and I said, no, it just came to me we should call her Jennie after my grandmother on my mother's side. He agreed even though he never met her. If he had, he would have sold her a pair of shoes." She laughed and Butterfly joined her to say, "Ain't that the truth? Ain't it though?"

  All of us were grateful when a sign indicated Morrisville was just a few more miles.

  "Where do you live?" I asked Theresa. "We'll take you there."

  "That's very kind of you. Look how nice strangers can be," she said to Butterfly. "Well now, I live in a very exclusive area. My husband thought it would always be a nice neighborhood and he said, let's invest in a home here. We'll never be sorry, and we never were. It's a lot of house for just a little old lady, you understand, but I am as used to those old walls as they are to me. I couldn't imagine living with my children. It's nice to visit, but remember what Ben Franklin said, 'Guests and fish smell in three days.' " She laughed. This time Crystal joined. "Ain't that the truth? Ain't it though?"

  We were all chanting it by the time we entered Morrisville. The sky had darkened and there was a light drizzle falling. One of Gordon's windshield wipers was badly worn and only streaked the right side. I tried not using them.

  "You go right down Main Street," Theresa directed, "and then you turn on Fourth and I'll show you. Thank you, dear." She smiled a
t Butterfly. "What a sweet child. You know, my mother said I was a pretty little girl. She said all the men would give me a penny and I would do a little dance. My father could whistle whole symphonies.

  "He was a happy-go-lucky man," she said, "but he never made a good living. Not like my husband, who sold good soles and saved . . . saved so many." She paused and wiped her face with her hand. "I'm tired. I'm glad I decided to go along with you girls."

  I reached Fourth Street and turned right. It looked like a shabby neighborhood to me. The houses were old, worn, the small patches of lawn bald and messy, full of weeds and garbage. One even had some old tires on it. We didn't see many people. The rain started to fall a little harder.

  "Looks like I should have remembered my umbrella. I don't think it was supposed to rain, though."

  With the dark clouds above, the drizzle falling, the neighborhood looked even more dismal. The gutters weren't very clean and in front of one house, four dogs had turned over a garbage can and were chomping through whatever food remains they could find.

  "You don't live here, do you?" Raven asked.

  "Oh no. I live nearby," she said. "When you come to the corner, turn left and I'll get out," she said. "I can walk a little. You've been very nice, but I just can't ask you in. My house is a mess and I'm tired. I'm going right to bed. I'm sorry."

  "That's all right," Crystal said. "We have a lot of traveling to do and have to make as much distance as we can before it gets dark."

  "Thank you, dears. Thank you, thank you," she said moving in her seat.

  "Here?" I said.

  "Thank you, dears. Thank you."

  I stopped and Crystal opened the door. Theresa started to slide out. She paused and turned to look back at Butterfly.

  "Don't you sell anyone any of your curls. And watch out for men who wink when they smile. Goodbye," she said with a wisp of a smile

  "Good-bye," Butterfly said sadly.

  "Good-bye," Crystal told her. Raven said it too, and I followed. Crystal got back in the car and for a moment, we watched Theresa James waddle up the sidewalk. She paused near an open lot. I started the car.

  "We better get back to Main Street," Crystal said. "We'll find our way to the main highway easier."

  "Right."

  I turned into a driveway and backed up. As we started down the street again, we saw Theresa off to the right of the vacant lot. She put her bag down by a large cardboard box. I slowed to a stop.

  "What is she doing?" Raven wondered aloud. We all did.

  A moment later, she got down on her knees and she crawled into the box. My heart did a flip-flop.

  "Crystal?" I cried.

  "She's homeless," Crystal said. "You know, I thought she might be. There was something about her and that odor of burnt wood. Everything she told us was either a dream or . . ."

  "Or what?"

  "Or she's the worse kind of orphan there is, Butterfly, a mother forgotten by all her children."

  "How can we leave her sleeping in a box?" Butterfly cried as I continued.

  "What can we do, Butterfly?" Raven said. "We can't even help ourselves."

  The hard truth fell like cold rain around us.

  Silence was suddenly louder than thunder. "Ain't that the truth?" Crystal muttered. "Ain't it though?" I said.

  We drove on.

  13 The Jig Is Up

  After we had left Theresa James, I felt as if we were just drifting along, floating through space, aimlessly carried by the power of the station wagon's engine. Our destination had become so vague, our purpose lost and confused. I felt it wouldn't be much longer before Crystal's prediction came to be. We would give up, turn ourselves in, throw ourselves back on the mercy of that impersonal government agency that had served so long as our surrogate parents.

  Reality had a way of making me numb. Theresa talked about old people, widows and widowers becoming invisible. In a strange way I believed that was exactly what had been happening and continued to happen to us. Without family to support us, we were truly invisible. We might as well have been assigned numbers. You never realize how big a role family plays in ordinary conversation until you had none. Around us our fellow students talked about their parents, their brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles and cousins. There was always someone who did something, looked like someone, said something brilliant or stupid.

  The thing that interested my school friends the most was how much I knew or remembered about my real parents. I knew absolutely nothing about my father, which most seemed to accept or understand. There were a number of students whose parents had been divorced, and many who had little contact with their fathers. What intrigued them more were my vague references to the woman I called my mother.

  Having lived with her for only a little more than a year, I had nothing I could specifically mention. I had my dreams and I had some details I picked up from administrators at the orphanage. I had learned that she was not quite twenty when she had me. She didn't come from a wealthy family and from what I could gather, was actually on her own at the time I was born. Maybe she had been disowned because of me. I don't know why I came to a conclusion about her whereabouts, but I believed there were hints or things said that led me to believe she had left for California herself.

  In my secret putaway heart, I really hoped and prayed I could find her there. Of course, I knew how big the state was and how many people lived in it, and I knew how small my chances were, but nevertheless that was my dream. I couldn't tell Crystal or Raven or even Butterfly, despite their being my sisters. It was like being naked, exposed, taking off your armor. How could the bravest girl they knew be such a weak, sentimental fool?

  "What's the matter?" Raven suddenly asked me. We had been driving for nearly two hours, the radio droning on and the rain going from showers to downpours to showers and drizzle. The clouds on the horizon looked charred, like burnt marshmallows. Occasionally, the wind whipped the rain into sheets that flashed and wiped across the highway. We had to travel slowly.

  "Why?" I asked, turning to her.

  She twisted a bit in her seat, throwing a look at Crystal.

  "You're crying," she said. "There are tears on

  your cheeks."

  I touched my face and felt the warm liquid

  drops. It surprised me more than it surprised Raven. I

  wiped my eyes quickly.

  "I don't know. Something must have gotten into

  my eyes," I said.

  "Both of them?"

  "Yes, both of them," I snapped back at her. She spun around as if I had slapped her and stared out the

  window.

  "We should splurge tonight and sleep in warm

  beds," I said, trying to make up for snapping at Raven.

  "With a television set and a hot shower. Then we'll all

  feel a lot better."

  "If we do that, we'll have little left for food, not

  enough even for another day," Crystal commented. "I don't care. I'll worry about food then. I'll go

  out and beg," Raven chimed in.

  "Beg?" Crystal said. "Would you really stoop

  that low?"

  "Maybe, maybe not." She smiled jokingly. "Just

  leave everything to me."

  "That's the last thing we should do," Crystal

  said. She was tired of joking.

  Raven nearly jumped around and over the seat. "What's that supposed to mean? Why do you

  always have to be Miss Doom and Gloom?" Raven

  asked angrily.

  "I'm not being gloomy. All I'm saying is

  begging for our meals isn't enough to keep us going,"

  Crystal said calmly, which infuriated Raven more. "And just what will be enough, Crystal? If you

  have all the answers why don't you share them with

  us?" Raven demanded.

  "Will you two stop it!" I cried. "We're not

  acting like the Orphanteers."

  "Orphanteers. What a stupid name," Raven
/>   mumbled.

  "You used to think it was good," Butterfly reminded her.

  "That was before I grew up."

  "And when did this miraculous maturity occur?" Crystal asked sarcastically.

  "Oh boy. Did you hear that, Brooke?" "I asked you two to stop it," I said, slowing

  down even more. "If you don't, I'm pulling over and . .

  . what's that?" I asked instead.

  Raven turned back around and peered out the

  windshield.

  "It's a woman, waving. She looks hysterical,"

  Raven said.

  Off to the right, just before an exit, a woman

  who looked about forty was swinging her arms

  wildly. She wore no coat or jacket to protect her from

  the rain. Her light brown hair was already soaked, the

  strands stuck to her forehead and ears. She was so

  desperate she looked like she might leap into the path

  of cars if one didn't stop soon. Two passed us by, but

  didn't slow down to see what she wanted.

  "Stop for her," Crystal said and I turned off and

  headed toward her. She came running.

  Raven rolled down her window.

  "Oh, thank God someone stopped," the woman

  cried. She wiped the rain from her face. "It's my

  husband," she said. "He was feeling dizzy and pulled

  off this exit. Almost as soon as we stopped, he

  slumped over the steering wheel. My two little girls

  are with him, but there's absolutely no traffic on that

  road. I thought if I came back to the main highway, I

  could flag someone down and get help, but you're the

  first to stop and I've been trying for a few minutes." "Get in quickly and show us where he is,"

  Crystal said in her take charge tone of voice. She

  opened the door.

  The woman got in and I drove to the exit. We

  didn't have to go far after the turn. The recreational

  vehicle was parked awkwardly on the right side of the

  road, the right blinker light still going. A little girl was

  sitting in the grass on the shoulder of the road, crying. "Denise, get up," the woman cried. She did so