Before We Were Yours(76)

The phone rings, and everybody jumps. Then we stand still as statues, even the workers, while Mrs. Murphy decides whether or not to answer. When she does, she half yanks the phone off the wall, but her voice goes honey sweet soon’s she knows who it is.

“Why, yes. Good morning, Georgia. How delightful to hear from you so early.” She pauses and then says, “Yes, yes. Oh, why certainly. I’ve been up for hours. Let me walk back to my office and pick up your call in private.”

The words echoing through the phone come fast like the rat-a-tat-tat of the Gatling guns in cowboy western movies.

“Oh, I see. Of course.” Mrs. Murphy sets down the umbrella and lays a palm on her forehead, her lips pulling back from her teeth in a way that makes me think of Queenie the last night I saw her. “Well, yes, we can accomplish it by ten, but I don’t think it’s advisable. You see…”

More talk comes through the phone, loud and fast.

“Yes, I understand. We won’t be late,” Mrs. Murphy says past her teeth, and when she slams the earpiece back into its holder, she points my way with her eyes narrow and her mouth squeezed into a tight ball. “Take her and clean her up and put her in a Sunday dress. Something blue to match her eyes…and with a pinafore. Miss Tann wants her downtown at the hotel by ten.”

Mrs. Pulnik’s face looks like Mrs. Murphy’s. The last thing they want to do with me right now is wash me up, brush my hair, and get me in a dress. “But…she…”

“Do not question me!” Mrs. Murphy howls, then swats Danny Boy in the head hard, because he’s the one closest. Everybody shrinks away as she sweeps a finger around the room. “What are all of you looking at?”

The kids don’t know whether to sit down or stay where they are. They wait until Mrs. Murphy pounds through the swinging door. Then they slink into their chairs while the hinges are still creaking.

“I will be takingk care with you myself.” Mrs. Pulnik grabs me by the arm, squeezing hard. I know she’s about to get revenge on me one way or the other.

But I also know that, whatever Miss Tann has planned, it could be even worse. There are stories about what happens to kids when the workers take them to hotels.

“And don’t leave any bruises on her!” Mrs. Murphy’s order echoes in from the hall.

Just like that, I’m saved, but then again, I’m not. Mrs. Pulnik yanks my hair and wrenches me around. She tries hard to make the next hour hurt as much as possible, and it does. By the time I’m finally walked out to the car to join Mrs. Murphy, my head is pounding, and my eyes are red from the tears I’ve been told I better not cry.

Mrs. Murphy doesn’t say a word in the car, and I’m glad. I just press myself close to the door and look out the glass, scared and worried and sore. I don’t know what’s about to happen to me, but I know it won’t be good. Nothing here is good.

On the way downtown, we pass by the river. I see tugs and barges and a big showboat. Its calliope music pushes into the car, and I remember how Gabion used to dance on the deck of the Arcadia when the showboats went by. He’d make us laugh and laugh. My heart strains toward the water, hoping to see the Arcadia, or Old Zede’s boat, or any shantyboat at all, but there’s nothing. Across the way, a river camp sits empty. There’s only dead fire pits, trampled circles of grass, and a stack of drift somebody gathered up but never burned. The shantyboats are all gone.

It hits me for the first time that it must be about October by now. Pretty soon, the maples and the gum trees will change, bits of red and yellow edging along their leaves. The river gypsies have already started the long, slow drift south, down to where the winters are warm and the water’s chock full of fat catfish.

Briny’s still here, I tell myself, but all of a sudden, I feel like I’ll never see him, or Fern, or anybody I love ever again. The feeling swallows me whole, and all I can do is let my mind leave my body. I’m not there when the driver parks the car in front of a tall building. I barely hear Mrs. Murphy threatening what’ll happen to me if I don’t behave. It hardly even hurts when she pinches through my dress and twists the skin over my ribs and tells me I better do whatever I’m asked to do in here, and I’m not to tell anyone no, or cry, or carry on about it.

“You’ll be as sweet as a little kitten.” She squeezes my skin harder and holds her face close to mine. “Or you’ll be sorry…and so will your little friend, Stevie. You wouldn’t want anything to happen to him, would you?”

She gets out on the curb and drags me with her. Around us, men pass by in business suits. Women stroll along with bright packages. A mama in a red coat pushes a baby carriage out of the hotel and glances at us as she goes by. She has the kindest face, and I want to run to her. I want to grab on to her coat and tell her everything.

Help me! I’ll say.

But I can’t let myself. I know they’ll take it out on Stevie if I do. And probably Fern too, once they get her back to Mrs. Murphy’s house. No matter what, I have to be good today. I have to do everything they say, so they won’t lock me up when we get home tonight.

I straighten my back and tell myself this is the last time. This is the last time they’ll ever be able to make me do anything.

Whatever it is, I’ll go along.

But my heart flutters, and my stomach tightens like a fist. A man in a uniform holds open the door. He looks like a soldier or a prince. I want him to rescue me the way the princes do in fairy books.