Bull Mountain(54)

“I mean, a girl with your kinda looks, and your figure, could go all the way, for sure.” Hattie lightly rubbed a finger down the smoothness of her thigh. Angel continued to shrink. “You don’t even know if I can sing,” she said. She wanted to scream.

“I’ll just bet you sing like an angel. I bet that’s how you got your name.”

Angel stared out at the whirl of buzzing trees and highway markers. “That’s not my name,” she said. “That’s just what someone else decided I should be called. My real name’s Marion.”

“That’s a pretty name, too, Marion. A pretty name for a pretty girl.” Another pudgy finger down her thigh. He shifted his weight to press closer to her. She thought she might puke. Two months ago she would have screamed in his face and punched him square in the nuts, but now all she could see was the face of that man at the hotel, Gareth Burroughs. He’d almost killed her. He would always be right there to remind her how little she mattered. How helpless she really was. She hugged her belly tighter.

Hattie kept talking, kept groping, but she stopped responding. He said something about getting a drink. Finding a quiet place to “talk” when the bus stopped in Destin. He said he knew just the place. She bet he did. She closed her eyes again and hugged herself tighter, trying to disappear into the cocoon of her thin, damaged arms—to squeeze herself out of existence. She had to believe this time around things would be different. If she could just get back home, things had to be different. They just had to. It wasn’t just about her anymore. Things were going to be better for her in Mobile.

Better for her and the baby.

3.

Marion stood in front of the Grand Central diner on Dauphin Street, holding a pay phone to her ear and a menthol 100 to her lips. It rang twice.

“Hello.”

“Mama?”

“Marion? Is that you?”

“Yes, Mama.”

“Oh my God, baby, where are you?”

“I’m home, Mama.”

“Oh, thank the Lord. Tell me where you are, and I’ll send Roy to pick you up.”

Marion switched the phone to the other ear as if the first one were defective and she had heard her mother wrong. “You’ll send Roy? Mama . . . ? Is he still . . . ?”

“Is he still what, honey?”

“Mama, Roy’s the reason—”

“Marion, honey, please don’t start that up. You’re home, baby. That’s all that matters. We’ll work it all out. Where are you?”

Silence.

“Marion, baby? Are you still there?”

“I . . . I got to go, Mama.”

“Marion, wait. Your father’s changed. He’s a good man. It was all a misunderstanding.”

“He’s not my father.”

“Marion, baby, please. Tell me where you are and we can all sit down and work it out. You’ll see. He’s a wonderful man, and he misses you very much.”

“Mama . . .”

“Hold on, baby, he wants to talk to you . . .”

“Mama!”

“Hold on . . .”

“That you, pretty bird? You come to your senses? You wanna come on home now?”

Click.

Marion tossed her cigarette butt to the ground and immediately dug in her purse for the pack to light another. She savagely flicked her Bic until the flame held, and she pulled in as much smoke as her lungs could handle. She dropped another coin in the slot and punched another number. It rang three times.

“Hello?”

“Barbara?”

“Holy shit. Marion?”

“Yeah, girl, it’s me.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m home. I’m over by Grand Central. Can you come and get me?”

“Hell, yeah, I can. Just let me get the keys from Tim, and I’ll be right there.”

“Thanks, Barb. And Barb?”

“Yeah, girl?”

“I need some clothes, too.”

“Um, okay. I got you. Anything I need to know, Marion? I mean, Tim is cool and all, but is there anything I need to tell him first?”

She looked down and rubbed her flat belly. “Goddamn, Barb. I just need some clothes and a shower, can you help me or not?”

“Of course I can. I’ll be there in twenty, okay?”

“Okay.”

Click.

4.

Marion caught her reflection in the glass pane of the diner’s door, right above the HELP WANTED sign. A week’s worth of healing and Barbara’s magic makeup skills weren’t enough to cover up the ugly done to her in Jacksonville, but it was going to have to do. If Marion didn’t show back up at Barb and Tim’s place today with a job, she wouldn’t have anywhere to go back to. She wasn’t going back to Roy’s. She’d take her chances on the street before asking that son of a bitch for anything. The baby cooking in her belly was about ten weeks, by her estimation. That was kicking up the timetable, too. If she started to show before she could find work, nobody would hire her. Nobody wanted a scar-faced ex-whore, much less an unwed pregnant one. She straightened out the sleeves of the borrowed blouse and opened the door. She snatched the red-and-white HELP WANTED sign off the inside of the door and took a seat on one of the chrome diner stools at the bar, then took a deep breath in through her nose and out through her mouth. She placed the sign flat in her lap and resisted the urge to light up another smoke.