Upside Down in the Middle of Nowhere (23 page)

“My, my,” the shiny lady said in one of them high-pitched, sugary-sweet voices set aside for what Memaw calls the highfalutin' types. “What do we have here?” Her smile was plastered on in a way that reminded me of the kind a nurse wears right before she shoves a long needle in your arm.

The older kid took to staring at the floor, and the little one went and hid behind him. The orange-haired man barely looked at the shiny lady when he said into his walkie-talkie, “Two unchaperoned minors. Child Protective Services dispatched.”

My legs felt like they were full of muscadine jelly.

“Well, all righty then,” the shiny lady said. I don't know how words rolled out of her smiling mouth when it didn't even look like her lips budged.

The line moved an inch. Khayla scooched forward.

The shiny lady reached out like she was gonna touch the older boy's Afro, but he took a quick step back and said, “You need to let us be. I'm fifteen years old, man. We don't need anybody. We can take care of ourselves!”

“Oh, darlin', it's gonna be just fine,” the shiny, highfalutin' lady said. She tipped her head and kept right on smiling with her extra-large white teeth flashing this way and that. “Come on, now. We're gonna find us a nice place to rest, and get y'all fresh water and somethin' to eat. How's that sound?”

The little kid poked his head out from behind the older one right when the older kid glanced over at me. I had to remind myself to breathe. His nostrils opened and closed real big. His chest moved up and down
fast
. The boy looked like a bull getting ready to charge. “We're not goin'
anywhere.”

The orange-haired man in the tacky red vest looked at the kid with the lopsided Afro. “You don't have a choice. You either go with this nice lady or I call security.” The man got all up in the kid's face. The kid finally looked away, rolling his eyes.

This time when the shiny lady reached out, the kid curled up his lip and let her put her arm around his shoulder. “Well now, see? I told y'all it was gonna be all right.” She took hold of the little one's hand. “Let's see if we can find you a nice cookie, darlin'.”

The older kid turned his head and looked back at me one more time before the three of them got lost in the crowd. I could still hear that highfalutin' voice way after they were out of sight.

Khayla scooched forward.

I knew what I needed to do.

“Armani,” Sealy said for the umpteenth time.

“What?”

“That man over there wants us to come here.” She pointed at a very tall white man standing off by hisself. His long gray hair almost reached the pockets of his dirty PawPaw pants that were pulled clear up by his armpits. He seen Sealy pointing and he waved back with a
heavy, wrinkled hand and a great big happy smile. She waved some more and let out a giggle.

I pushed her waving hand down. “Are you crazy, girl? Don't be wavin' at strangers.”

“But he's nice, Armani. He has Dumbledore eyes.” She wouldn't stop staring and smiling.

“Dummy sounds about right.” I stood in front of her to block her view of the homeless-looking man.

“Not
dummy
, silly, Dumbledore. Look.” Sealy pointed again, still grinning from ear to ear, and leaned to the side so she could see past me. The girl had lost her mind.

The line moved again. The knot in my stomach twitched.

Khayla whimpered, “I haffa go potty.”

I ain't never been so happy to hear them four words.

“Sealy.” I snapped my fingers in her face, trying to get her attention on me and off the white man with the high pockets. I grabbed Khayla by the hand and pulled her to her feet. “Follow me,” I told Sealy over my shoulder.

“Where are we going?”

“Just hush up and do what I tell ya. And stay close.”

“But we'll lose our place in line, Armani.”

“What part of hush don't you understand, girl?” I'd done lost my patience. “Just follow me and don't talk to nobody.”

Khayla was holding herself and bouncing around like fire ants were crawling up her legs. Mama would've made her stop jumping around, acting a fool, but I was glad she was doing it, 'cause it made it easier for me to get us out of line, and quick.

My rubber boots squeak-squeaked every time I took a step across the hard shiny floor. Heat filled my cheeks. I needed to get us as far away as possible from the orange-haired man and his meddlin' self.

Loud enough, but not so loud that it sounded suspicious, I said, “Hang on, Khayla, there has to be a bathroom around here somewhere.”

“I haffa go,
now
.” Khayla was playing her part perfect.

“Armani—”

“What?” I said, taking another squeaky step away from the line.

“The bathroom's over there.” Sealy had stopped behind me.

“How do you know?”

“Because
he
told me.” She pointed and smiled at that ol' mister so-and-so with his pockets all high and his grin too big.
He was following us
?

He seen me looking at him with my lip curled up, and he went on smiling big with one of them
follow me
nods of his gray-covered head.

“See?” Sealy said, all happy.

I let out an annoyed poof of air. “
Whatever
.”

We fell into the back of the line for the bathroom. The bellyaching pouring out of Khayla was so loud, about a thousand eyes fell on us. We were finally away from the worry of mister orange hair pulling us off to the side so Miss Highfalutin' could come haul us off to who knows where, and now Khayla's fit had everyone in the world looking at us. The baby girl needed a toilet, and she needed it
fast
. She wasn't holding her front side no more—now she had both hands planted firm on her backside. It had become a serious emergency.

Out of nowhere, a teenage girl wearing a red vest came up beside us and wanted to know why Khayla was hollerin'. She wanted to know if the
baby needed a doctor. She seen for herself the way Khayla was clinging for dear life to her booty. The girl hurried up and told us to follow her.

Sealy and Mr. High Pockets man gave each other a thumbs-up. I didn't have the want-to or the time to try and figure out what was going on with Sealy and that strange ol' man.

I followed the red-vested girl all the way to the front of the line. I swear Sealy skipped up behind me the whole way.

The tangy smell of pee flew up my nose. Walking into the bathroom was a whole new kind of fool-headed crazy filled with blabbering, bickering women and girls and babies all shoved in there like crawfish in a boiling pot. I ain't never seen Sealy's mouth so wide open as it was when she went to staring at them nasty ol' women standing around in nothing but their bras and panties, just a-jabbering and doing their laundry in the tiny gray-white sinks like they did it that way all the time. Soon as they seen Khayla up on her tippy-toes grabbing hold of her backside, they all but opened a stall and shoved all three of us inside.

“Oh, my gosh. This feels so good!” Sealy said, splashing water from the sink up on her face. I watched the water drip off the round part of her chin. She looked into the cracked mirror and went to smoothing down her flyaway hairs with her wet hand.

After cleaning my sisters the best I could with the rough brown paper towels, I pulled a wad of towels down out of the dispenser and ran them up under the water to get them good and wet. I closed my
eyes and tried to scrub hurricane muck from my skin. A shirtless woman pushed me out from in front of the sink and started scrubbing her hairy armpits with the lunch-bag-colored towels. She messed with herself in the mirror, not even taking the time to look my way.
Whatever
. It was fine by me. I didn't wanna look in no mirror nohow.

Before we left the bathroom, I pulled Sealy over to a corner. I tried to whisper so no one would hear. “Listen, Sealy, we can't tell no one that Mama an' Daddy ain't with us. You understand that, right?”

“But why?”

“Why what?” I was trying to get Khayla up off the floor where she'd gone and plopped her sleepy, fussy self.

“Why can't we tell anyone that we're by ourselves?”

“Because we just can't, that's why. Didn't you see what happened to them boys?” Sweat was pouring off me. “Khayla, stand up.” I nudged her with my foot.

“How come, why, Ah-mani?” Khayla said, with her eyes half closed. Sealy wasn't even
trying
to help me with our baby sister.

“We need to ask someone to help us,” Sealy said.

“No, we don't!” I said louder than I meant to. Khayla weighed a ton. I couldn't get her up.

“But if we don't get someone to help us, what will we do? How will we find—”

“Did you forget that I just made ten?” I yelled in a whisper. “Mama left
me
in charge of y'all, remember?” My head hurt when I tried to slide it.

Sealy wasn't backing down. She flipped her watery eyes up at me and about knocked me over backward when she put both her hands
where her hips should be and did a perfect head roll. “Well,” she sniffed, “you can be in charge, but we still need to tell
someone
about Daddy and Georgie so we can send help.” She wiped the back of her hand across her soggy face, not even caring about the snot she left there. Her beady little eyes never left mine. Hot stabs poked the inside of my chest.

I grabbed her by both shoulders and pulled her close to me. I tried to press my nose up against hers, but she did a good job of pulling her head back as far her little neck would go. “You better listen good, Sealy Jean Curtis! Mama ain't here, now,
is
she?” My fingers started to dig into her shoulders. “And I sure don't see Daddy.” The shaking in my legs moved fast up to my middle. “You better do what I say, or I swear, I'll just leave your butt right here.” Me and Jesus knew that I'd never leave my sister nowhere, nohow, but right then, I shut the door on babyfyin' lil' Miss Sealy.

Big ol' alligator tears rolled down her cheeks. I pushed back on her shoulders when I let go, and she stumbled backward. I didn't care. I was tired. I looked away and took a step back. I took a couple fast, deep breaths. Without thinking twice, I whipped around and got back in her wet baby face. Her hands flew up like she thought I was gonna hit her or something. “And if Georgie was stupid enough to go an' jump off the roof into the water like an idiot, why should I care?” My eyes burned. My whole entire self was shaking.

A snot bubble came halfway out of Sealy's nose and popped. I grabbed Khayla by one arm and slung her up onto my hip. I didn't hear one sound out of her for a long while. I didn't have a clue what Sealy was or wasn't doing, mostly 'cause I didn't care. I didn't care
right then if my sister was mad or not. All I knew was that I had to do what Mama and Daddy expected me to do—keep Sealy and Khayla and me together—and safe.

I marched as best I could with Khayla melted into me, and whiny-baby Sealy and her snot bubbles trailing behind, the whole while making loud squeaky noises with my dumb boots on the supershiny marble-looking floors. Finally, we made it out of the stinking bathroom.

“Excuse me.” A lady tapped my arm.

I looked quick to see if she had on a red vest. She didn't. The only red she was wearing was up in her cheeks. I turned and glared at her.

“I'm sorry, but I couldn't help but overhear you in the ladies' room,” she said. My heart started beating up in my head. “Are you children alone?” She tried to look at me like she cared.

“That ain't none of your business.” I looked away and took a step. She touched my arm again.

“I'd like to help, if you—”

“Oh, look, Sealy,” I sniffed and pointed. “There's Daddy.” I thought my heart would stop when Sealy looked at me with that look of Christmas morning on her face.

“
Daddy?
” Sealy whispered.

I did the
come here
wave and that mister high-pockets man smiled and walked toward us. I switched squirmy Khayla to my other hip.

I wanted to hug Sealy and tell her I was sorry for fooling her into thinking that our own daddy was right there, but I was more worried about that meddlin' woman.

I stepped away from the busybody woman for the last time. She looked confused. Her eyes turned to teeny slits, looking from us to the old white man and back again. “Oh, I must have misunderstood. This man's your father?”

“Uh-huh, my father,” is all I said. Sealy's eyes weighed down on me.

The woman kept right on staring at us while she slowly walked away.

“You should've just told her the truth, Armani.” There was a look in my sister's eyes that made me sad. Her eyes were just plain ol' brown. The twinkle was gone.

I opened my mouth to say something, but went on and closed it when I couldn't think of what else to say.