SHE’S ON THE last row of the bus when I get to the bathroom. My stomach feels queasy. I think I might throw up—again. That’s why I’m back here. I go inside the bathroom, gag, rinse out my mouth with sink water, and walk out. She sitting with a baby in her lap. Guess she got on while I was sleeping. She the one sleeping now.

I get close enough to smell her baby’s baby-sweet breath. “Hey.” She hold on to my finger. I tickle the palm of her hand. “You strong, huh? Pretty. What’s your name?” She got chubby legs and feet. A strong, hard kick. Her hands shake like rattles when she laugh. If I was her mother, I couldn’t sleep on no bus. Somebody might run off with her.

It’s hard to know what all she got in her, some black for sure, maybe a little white mixed with Chinese or Japanese or Filipino—something beautiful anyhow. It shows in the shape of her eyes. Wish I had ’em—light gray with brown highlights. She my favorite color in the crayon box—Raw Sienna.

They both got thick dark hair. Her mother’s is extra long, real. Their skin don’t match though. Her momma’s skin is white, but not white-people white exactly. For a minute I wonder why there ain’t different shades of white crayons in a box.

Before I ran away, I promised myself I’d have a baby if I didn’t get back in school or have nothing better to do. Lifting the pacifier off her green blanket, I slide it between her lips. She sucking it like a bottle when her mother’s eyes open.

“Sorry. I—”

She looks at me, then the front of the bus, then me again. She let out a yawn and stares down at the baby. “It’s okay. People play with her all the time. I don’t mind.” Another yawn and her eyes close and stay shut. “You don’t want one. They’re so much work, you wouldn’t believe.”

I ask how old she is.

“Old, old.”

It’s a lie. She my age I bet—could be younger. She been through some things too, worse than me I bet. It show on her skin like lint on carpet. And that foundation she wearing don’t hide what she trying to hide anyhow—dark circles under her eyes, a cut on her right cheek.

She asks where I’m going.

“Nowhere.”

She laughs. Sits up. Finds him before I do. I don’t know if he coming for me or the bathroom. Real quick—I let her know what happened at the rest stop. His hand is on the bathroom door when he smile and wink at us. She lifts her top, flashes him, and asks, “How much?”

Licking his lips, he look up front. And tells her he got twenty for her if she meet him in the bathroom after everybody goes to sleep.

She puts her hand out. “I’ll take it.”

He repeat what he said.

“Driver!” she yells.

I stand up. “Driver!”

He pulling out money faster than a cop taking out his gun. Dollar bills rain on us. I pick ’em up, divide ’em up. Once he back in his seat she says, “When you can, make ’em pay for being jerks.”