The only other person in the hospital waiting room was a great fat woman with an infected spot on her leg. The spot was greenish yellow and as big as a walnut. I tried not to look at her, but it was hard, as she kept squeezing at the lump and wiping off the drippings with crumpled-up Dairy Queen napkins. She seemed to have a never-ending supply of them in her purse.
When my mom finally came out, I saw right away she was aggravated. I found out later a boy with a jammed finger had bitten her on the arm and left an angry red mouth print.
“What do you want?” my mom said. She bit off the end of each word with a hard chomp of her teeth. “I only have a couple of minutes.”
I told her about the man calling for Hayes, which I hadn’t mentioned before because it hadn’t really seemed like all that big a deal at the time. More Hayes’s problem than ours. The husky woman on the other side of the room stopped milking her infected lump for a moment, so she could listen in. She nodded at me and clucked her tongue like I was talking to her.
“I hope to God you didn’t tell him nothing.”
“I told him he had the wrong number.”
“When was this?” Mom asked. She squeezed her lower lip with her fingers.
“Oh, a day or so ago, but that ain’t why I came over and bothered you.”
“Don’t say ain’t,” Mom said, although she said it all the time. “It sounds trashy.”
I lowered my voice. I told her about Hayes coming over today and then finding the ears.
“Jesus,” Mom said, her face going pale. She squeezed her lower lip until it turned yellow.
“Sorry for pestering you, but—” Watching her get worried made me feel even more scared.
“I think you should stay at Dani’s tonight.”
“What’s going on, Mom?”
“It sounds like a world of trouble to me,” the woman with the infection said.
My mom didn’t seem to hear her or pretended not to. “You go on over to Dani’s and I’ll call you. I expect Hayes just owes somebody money. It’s none of our concern.” She shook her head and frowned at my feet. “We really got to get you some new shoes. You can’t start school wearing flip-flops.”