The Last Ballad(24)

By the time Verchel had entered the mill behind the dope wagon and seen the same girl he’d first seen holding a baby at dawn from atop a wagon seat, he’d sold two Nehi drinks (a peach and a grape), two Coca-Colas, four bags of pork rinds, and two Moon Pies, answered three questions about his now-useless hand and one question about his married life, and told two different women how his wife, Miss Myra, was doing. After all that, he was actually relieved to see the girl, especially to see her instead of her husband, because it meant he could spend a moment speaking with someone who knew nothing about him or his time at the mill or what he’d been doing since leaving it.

Verchel saw that they’d put her to work as a doffer, changing out the full spools for empty ones, work usually reserved for the very young, the very small, or both. From looking at her, Verchel had no idea how old she was—maybe seventeen, maybe younger—but he knew for certain that she was small. Her brown hair was braided and pinned up behind her head, and her thin dress could hardly hide her narrow shoulders and thin waist. It seemed impossible that a body so small could have given birth to another. But there was something about her that made him fear getting too close, something that told him she would just as soon spit in his eye as say hello.

When he saw the girl she was in the middle of a bank of spinners, yanking off the full spindles and sliding the empty ones into place. She pushed past the women on the line, not looking a single one of them in the eye. Verchel stopped the dope wagon and watched her, then he looked around to see if anyone was watching him. He waited for her to reach the end of the line.

“Hello,” he hollered, trying to raise his voice above the crush of machinery, waving his good hand and keeping the other tucked up close to his body for fear that something would grab ahold of it and not give back what was left. The girl looked up at him as if she were surprised that someone might be addressing her. Then she nodded and gathered the full spindles in her arms and set them on a little cart. She turned her back to Verchel and pushed the cart toward another line of spinners.

Verchel, not knowing what else to do and not knowing enough about the girl to chase after her or to ask after her once she was gone, called out the only question that came to his mind.

“How’s your baby?”

The girl stopped pushing the cart and turned to face him. Where her brown eyes once seemed to look past him, Verchel now felt as if they penetrated him.

“Who are you?” she asked. Her voice was clear and strong, deeper than he assumed it would be.

“I’m Verchel Park,” he said. “I work at the store. My wife wants to know how your baby is.”

“What business is it of yours?” she asked.

“It ain’t my business,” Verchel said. “It ain’t me who’s wanting to know. It’s my wife.”

“That’s not what you said first,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“You asked me how my baby is. You didn’t mention nothing about your wife.”

“Well, I’m mentioning her now,” Verchel said.

“What business is it of hers, then?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “She just wanted me to ask you.”

The girl looked at him for another moment, then she spun around toward the cart and lifted two full spindles and replaced them with two empty ones. She pushed the cart on ahead of her.

He didn’t know what else to do, so he left the dope wagon and hurried to catch up with her, looking around all the while to make sure no one he knew had spotted him talking to the girl across the banks of spinners that separated them.

“I saw y’all when you first got to town last year,” Verchel said. “I was at the store, and I saw you out in the wagon with your baby and that mule.”

“We ain’t got no mule,” she said.

“You had one then.”

“We ain’t got no mule.”

“Well, you must’ve sold it,” he said.

“Nope. Died.”

“Well, it was living when I seen you,” Verchel said. “And I told my wife when I got home, and she thought I should ask after you, ask after your little one.”

“And what is it your wife wants to know?” she asked.

“Well, how y’all are getting along, one,” Verchel said.

The girl looked up the row where the dope wagon sat waiting for Verchel’s return.

“Give me one of them Coca-Colas and I’ll tell you,” she said.

“Okay,” Verchel said. He smiled, acknowledging that the girl had gotten one over on him. “Okay.”

He left her and returned with an ice-cold, sweaty Coca-Cola in his good hand. The girl eyed the bottle. He offered it to her across the top of her cart, and she closed her fingers around it and tipped it back, emptying it in just a couple of swallows, the fizz of it causing her chest to jump. She handed the empty bottle to Verchel.

“We’re getting along fine,” she said.

“And your husband?”

“We’re getting along fine,” she said again.

“Whereabouts y’all living?”

The girl looked at Verchel, a slight smile playing across her mouth. She nodded toward the dope wagon again.

“How about one of them Moon Pies,” she said.