Rosalind (5 page)

The man, once he was sure she was inside and couldn't see him, got up quickly and ran out to the back of the truck. He opened the suitcase and
rummaged through it, searching for the money. After he didn't find a purse or any other conventional means of storing it, he searched the bottom of the container and underneath the pile of panties and saw it: a wadded up twenty-dollar bill. He stuffed the bill in his pocket and then shoved the items back into the suitcase. He looked back into the restaurant and didn't see any movement in the windows, so he took the suitcase and dropped it on that ground. She would need her clothes and after all, he wasn't a monster. He just needed a way out and you know what, he brought her this far, didn't he?

The suitcase hit the ground and flew open, sending her clothes all over the sidewalk. He bent down to grab a few dollar bills that he had missed, but decided against
the last one when he saw that the waitress was coming out of the shop.

"You bastard!" she cried.

Horrified, he ran around the side of the truck, hopped in, and revved up the motor. And with a long squeal of his tires, he was down the road and out of sight. The waitress covered her mouth in disgust and went back into the shop.

She went to call the police, but realized that she hadn't actually bothered to look at the license plate or the make and model of the truck. She went back to folding napkins an
d tried to think of a way to tell the girl in the bathroom that she had just been robbed.

The reflection in the mirror didn't scare her. She had become quite accustomed to the haggard girl in the reflection and for all she knew, every girl her age looked like this.

When t
he water was warm enough, she cupped her hands under the flow and splashed it on her face. There was a bar of Ivory soap sitting in the white porcelain impression, so she grabbed it and began lathering her face with it. She wasn't so dumb that she didn't know what clean was, she just wasn't used to worrying about it. Besides, no one at her house ever seemed to complain, least of all her father. Her arms were caked in soot and dirt, so she washed them next. She would need to make a good impression if she was going to stay at a stranger's house. That much was just common sense. They wouldn't want a dirty, ugly girl mucking up their house. But maybe they'd just take an ugly one who smelled nice and looked clean?

Her hair was another matter. Brushing and grooming were never a major concern at the Stump residence, so she decided against washing it and instead pulled loose a small thread that
had been eeking its way out of the bottom of her skirt. She had to be very careful with it so it wouldn't break. Her skilled hands managed to tie up a single ponytail that kept a majority of her hair out of her face. Once satisfied with her appearance, she half-smiled at the mirror and went back into the dining area.

The man who brought her to town and bought her breakfast was no longer sitting in their booth. She scanned the room
and didn’t see him anywhere, but she did see the waitress standing behind the counter with her hand over her mouth, looking at Rosalind like someone had just died. She walked to the door to see if he was outside warming up the truck, but when she got to the window, she saw that the truck was gone. Rosalind pushed open the door and ran to the curb. She looked up and down the street, but he was nowhere to be seen. At her feet, she saw a pair of panties that looked like they could be hers, and when she saw the rest of the clothes and the opened suitcase, she knew that they were. Rosalind knelt down and calmly put her clothes back in her suitcase. She rifled through the suitcase and found a single dollar bill and some loose change amounting to forty-seven cents. She didn't know how to count, but when Henrietta had told Rosalind that she put twenty-three dollars in there for her to escape, she believed her. She believed her then and she believed her now. And she knew that what she held in her hand wasn't twenty three dollars. At that moment she knew that the man who brought her to town had taken something from her which made him no different than her father. She started to think that maybe all men were like that. She didn't know, but if her brief experience with them had taught her anything, it was that men would always want something from her and they would always take it whether she wanted to give it or not. She closed her suitcase and set it upright. She looked back and forth down the road for the man, but she caught no glimpse of the battered truck anywhere. When she decided that the man wasn't coming back, she pulled her skirt close to her legs and sat down on the suitcase.

When Nancy Fletcher, the waitress who had witnessed the man run off with Rosalind's money, had finally gone out to the curb and convinced Rosalind to come back into the diner, she made her lunch and promised her that everything was going to be okay. If Rosalind would have asked Nancy right then why the man had stolen her money and left her like he did, Nancy would have probably held her hand and offered some meaningless wisdom. What broke Nancy's heart was when Rosalind didn't bring it up. The girl just pecked away at her burger and fries like nothing had happened.

Rosalind
finished her lunch, but she didn’t enjoy it. The hamburger tasted like cardboard and the fries were nothing like her own homemade delicacies, but every time she sipped the soda through the straw, her eyes lit up like little miracles. This dark, bubbly elixir was a luxury that had never entered her house or her mouth. The crisp, crackling soda played havoc on her throat, creating a juxtaposition of salty bubbles and sweet, vanilla-flavored Coca-Cola. It was heaven in her mouth and on her taste buds. And it was simply miraculous.

She shyly asked for a refill
and Nancy was happy to oblige.

The door to the restaurant opened and a man in a uniform walked in. Rosalind had seen this type of uniform before when men like this came out to their home on a f
ew occasions; usually to take her father away for the night. Her mother had always told her to hide in her room every time they came and she would always hear her mother yelling and screaming at the top of her lungs just before they would take her father away.

She recoiled in her seat as h
e sat down at a booth and motioned with his finger. "Coffee," he said.

"You got it, Sheriff Hanes," she replied.

"Damn, Nancy, you don't have to be so formal," he said.

She only smiled back and then filled a large cup for him. He grabbed the cup from her and took a sip. Nancy sniffed him.

"Whew! You smell like burnt wood," she said.

"
Bad morning. Trailer home up north burned right to the ground."

"Oh my God, I hope no one was in it," she said, sitting down in the booth.
He looked over at Rosalind and then nodded at Nancy. She put her hand on her heart and said, "Oh."

He leaned in and whispered, "We found three bodies. It was awful. One was a baby." Rosalind sipped her soda, unaware of the contents of their discussion. This Coca-Cola was the most amazing thing she had ever introduced to her tongue.

"The guy, you know, trouble here and there, but never deserving of something like this," he continued to whisper.

"Deserving? What you saying? Was it arson?" she asked.

"Looks like it. We know the fire killed the woman and the baby, but him? There was a knife in his throat. What was left of this throat. Now don't you go tellin' no one you heard that from me, but I had to tell someone. We don't get that kinda thing around here, you know?"

She nodded.

He sipped his coffee and looked over at Rosalind. "Well let's see, you got yourself some company over there Nancy?"

"Oh, sheriff," she said, still holding her hand to her heart. "I tell you some people in this world have got it comin'. Poor girl came here this mornin' with an older guy. He done run off with her all her money and left her here. I never seen her around before so I think she was abandoned."

"What'd he looked like?" he asked, pulling out a small notebook and a pen.

"
I dunno, about fiftyish, bald, long gray beard. Drove an old truck, like one of them during the war."

"
Korea?"

"No
, before that. The big one," she replied.

"
She got any family around here?" he asked.

"I don't think so. She's alright here for now. I'm gonna give Mary Peterson a call and see if she
a spare room."

"
Bad morning all around," he said, downing the last of his coffee. He got up and walked over to Rosalind and Nancy followed, circling the counter. He put his hands on her back and it caused Rosalind to flinch.

"Sorry, young lady, didn't mean to startle you. We're gonna keep an eye out for
this creep, does that sound like a plan?" She nodded and looked down at her soda, sipping at it. "You just keep to Nancy here and she'll get you all squared away." He looked back at Nancy when he got to the door. "You just tell Mary Peterson that I'd be happy if she watched out for this young lady," he said. He tipped his hat and left.

"He's a good man," she leaned in a
nd said to Rosalind. "But by the looks of it, I don't suspect you ever met one of them." Rosalind sipped her soda until it was gone. "I'm gonna give Mary a call and see what's what." Nancy went down to the end of the bar and called Mary. Rosalind didn't know what they were talking about, but Nancy nodded her head a lot and smiled once or twice so maybe that was good news. She was tired. What little sleep she'd gotten sitting on the side of the road clearly wasn't enough.

Once the soda was gone, the events from the previo
us night came rushing back. The fiery shape of her mother sliding back and forth across the living room; her dead brother in the tomato crate; her father just sitting there on the couch, burning; none of that seemed real but she knew that she had seen it all happen. Why didn't he get up and put himself out? she asked herself. She wondered if she would ever be able to forget about the horrific scene that took place only hours before.

Nancy came back with a smile on her face. "Okay baby,
I got some good news that you more than deserve. She's got a room available for cheap, but honey, one dollar and the change you got there ain't gonna cover it, so she said you might be able to work it off. But you have to be at least sixteen to work there. She said that's the rules. Are you sixteen?" Rosalind didn't know how to answer. The first time she ever told a lie was to the man who brought her into town. Maybe that's why he took her money, because she lied to him. What would happen if she lied to Nancy? After all, Nancy was the nicest person she'd ever met, but so was the man in the truck until he'd run off with all of her money. She started to speak, and Nancy seeing the dilemma, interrupted her. "You look sixteen to me. You understand that, don't you? If I could take you home with me, I would. God knows you need a friend, but Hank would skin me alive."

Rosalind was relieved. She didn't have to lie to Nancy and that meant that she wouldn't get mad and leave her. She looked Nancy in the eye and nodded.

"Good girl," Nancy whispered.

After her shift ended, Nancy grabbed Rosalind's suitcase and put it in the back seat of her car. Mary Peterson's boarding house was less than a mile away, so the trip was quick. Rosalind had driven in two different vehicles in the same day and decided that she liked the experience, even if one of them had resulted in her getting robbed and abandoned in an unfamiliar town.

The sun was setting a
nd the warmth that it had brought the day was succumbing to the coolness of dusk. Rosalind pulled her jacket tight around her slender frame as she walked up to the three-story, Victorian-style house. Nancy knocked on the door and a plump, dark-haired woman answered it. She didn't smile at first, but when she looked at Rosalind's freckled face and stringy hair coming out of the makeshift ponytail, she offered one in sympathy. They followed her into the hallway and Rosalind was happy once again to be warm.

"Young lady, you can call me Mrs. Peterson. Mr. Peterson passed some years ago, God rest his soul, so it's only me here and the rest of the tenants. Do you know what a tenant is?" Rosalind shook her head back and forth, bowing her head. "Well, that's you! And we're happy to have you." Mary Peterson motioned for them to follow her down the hall, where they stopped at a plaque on the wall. Rosalind looked at it and saw the writing, then bowed her head again. "These are the rules, and I expect you to learn them. Memorize them and you'll be just fine. Can you start by reading the first one?" Rosalind slowly lifted her head and looked at the top rule. She squinted and then started to say something, but stopped. Mary looked at Nancy, and Nancy shrugged. "Honey, can you read it?" Rosalind shook her head back and forth.

Nancy bent down and looked Rosalind in the eyes. "Sweetheart, can you read?" Nancy asked. Again, she shook her head back and forth.

Nancy looked at Mary. Mary clapped her hands together. "Well, let me begin with the first one. It says:
Be kind to one another.
Judging by the looks of you, I should say that'll be an easy one." Rosalind smiled.

"Mrs. Peterson, it looks like you have it from here. I'll tell Sheriff Hanes that our girl is in good hands," said Nancy. She knelt down again and ran her fingers through Rosalind's red, oily locks. "What's your name, honey?"