APRIL TELL ME how she made her money when she was homeless. And it wasn’t selling pills. Then she apologize to me and herself. ’Cause she shoulda known before she paid for the job, she say, that things ain’t seem right. “I’ve been in the game too long to get played.”

Sometimes JuJu say I can’t see the forest for the trees or my nose right in front of me. “You streetwise, Char, for a girl living on the street in the city we live in. But the world’s way bigger than our block. Faster. Got more shit happening in it.”

“Someday,” she told me, “you gonna end up on the expressway with no way off. Then you’ll see—snakes out there just waiting for you.”

April wanna talk to him. Let him know she changed her mind. He interviewed her in his car up the street, so she on her way there again. She say for me to go inside, and she’ll meet me later. I’m at the food counter when she come with good news. She gonna stay here and find a job. He understand why she changed her mind. But she still got to pay the money she owe the company. All she got is those pills. He know the neighborhood, so he’ll help her get rid of ’em, he told her. April says they’ll be back in a little while.

She got her suitcase by the handle, pulling it. She’ll stash it in his car to make it easier for me to get around with the baby.

“Take this.” I hand her the carrier. “It’s too much to carry with her and everything else.” She act like she don’t want to do it, but she does. Halfway to the door, she comes right back. “You like her, don’t you?”

“I love babies. Anybody’s. Any color. Special needs or regular. It don’t matter to me.”

She hugging me and Cricket at the same time. Soon as she’s gone, I think about the kind of curtains we’ll get for our apartment. And wonder if there’s a Goodwill or thrift shop close by. I got money. We could start early to pick up things for our place. JuJu don’t like to shop at those stores. Me either. But you gotta do what you gotta do till you can do better.

I been outside a few times now, watching traffic, walking Cricket, asking people for a cigarette. Once I get back, I call Maleeka.

I have to practically scream for her to hear me over all the people talking and laughing near her, music playing loud. “Maleeka! What y’all doing?!”

“Char! Char! We won—!”

“Oh.”

“—first place! Know what that means?! We get to go to California! California, Char! I never been that far away from home in my whole life!”

“Oh. That’s nice.”

“Stop! Don’t y’all see I’m talking?”

Her new friends try to get her to come with them to a restaurant next door. The whole team is going, Maleeka say. She’ll meet ’em over there, she tells ’em. “How you like the bus ride, Char?”

“It was okay.”

“We rode the bus all the way to New Jersey once. I liked it. Momma didn’t.”

I say it again. “It was okay.” Then I tell her about WK.

She laughing. “What kind of name is that?” Then she bring up the twins, Raina and Raise. “But now that I think about it, they have weird names too.”

For like ten whole minutes, Maleeka talks to me, when anybody can see she got better things to do. After she can’t stay on the phone no longer, she promise to call me again sometime.

I don’t know why, but that make me feel good, like everything ain’t always gonna be bad for me.

“Maleeka. Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me, Char. We were friends, girls. Now we’ll be different kind of friends, you know.”

“I know.”

She tells me, like she done the other day, that if I treat her bad, she won’t talk to me no more ever.

“Why you keep saying that?” My voice not so nice now.

“So you don’t forget, and I don’t forget. Otherwise—” Somebody calls her. “I have to go.”

“Me too.”

Cricket start crying for no reason at all. Before she get too loud, I stick the nipple in her mouth. She sucking in air ’cause we out of milk. I had too much in my hands, dropped the can on the floor, and the Similac went everywhere.

There’s a store around the corner, a Greyhound worker says when I ask. I pay six dollars to store our things. I walk to the store. Find out it’s four blocks away, not two. Besides the milk, I buy a gallon of pure water. Can’t carry that and her, so I buy new bottles. Fill ’em up—all six. I ask the lady to do me a solid and microwave them. Nope, she won’t. Can’t. That’s what she say.

“They don’t like this, Cricket,” I say, going into Panera. “But you do what you gotta.” I buy a cinnamon bun—not that I like wasting my money—and put the bottles in the microwave instead of the bun. After I turn it on, I stand with my back blocking it. And hope nobody catches me.

Using a napkin, I wipe her nose. Holding her tight around the belly, I force her to sit on my lap when all she want to do is fight me, kick and yell. I bounce her on my legs. “It’s okay. She coming back.” Guess she tired of being here. So am I. “She a little late, is all.” I’m lying. She’s two hours past the two hours she said she needed to sell them pills. “You’ll get another bottle in—” I look at the lady’s watch beside me. “Twenty minutes.” Cricket is greedy. Every hour she want to drink something. But everything can’t be about her.

“Pretty.” A woman sits down across from me. “You babysitting till your mom gets back?”

I would answer, but she wouldn’t like what I say. Instead of being rude, I keep quiet. I tie Cricket to me with a long, thick scarf I bought after we left Panera. She wiggles and fights me, but finally calms down. I sit her bag and my backpack on top the suitcase and start walking. Dragging it behind me, I walk around looking for another place to sit, mad that I gotta look out for somebody else’s baby.

I’m barely in my seat when she start up again. “It’s okay.” I lay her on her back across my legs. “Want to play patty-cake?” Maybe she’s tired of that game. ’Cause she screaming now. “Chill. I know other games.” I sing the one about the baby coming down after something breaks. ’Cause I can’t remember all the words, I stop. Besides, she don’t like that one either. Or maybe she hungry again. I dig deep into her bag and pull up her bottle and give it to her. We both fall asleep while she drinking it.

“You stupid, Char. Stupid, stupid. She not coming back.” I smack my forehead, then look around to see who saw me. People staring all right. A woman asks if something is wrong. I tell her I forgot my earbuds. She go back to reading on her iPad. Cricket and me moving again in between people who moving too. When I stop, I’m near a girl lying down on the floor. I find us a spot. Take out Cricket’s blankets. And lay ’em on the floor so we can get comfortable. Only, I’m not there long.

“Young lady.”

“Huh?” I rub my eyes and sit up.

He don’t have a dog, just a smile on his face. But I still don’t trust police. One move and I could be shot dead. Only, JuJu ain’t raise no fool. I’m smiling when I stand up and put my hand out for him to shake. “Hello, Officer.” I try to think up a big word to impress him. “Mighty splendid kind of day, ain’t it?”

He says I got a nice firm grip. JuJu said make sure it was when you run across the police. But the last time we did, seem like she was gonna wet herself.

“What a beauty. Yours?”

I look down at Cricket and lie. Then tell him they make pretty babies in my cousin’s family. Lifting Cricket, I talk to myself instead of him. “Why she always making us late? Coming to the bus station, forgetting stuff, changing tickets, going back home to get things. Now we won’t leave till morning.”

He wanna know my age. I tell him I’m eighteen. Got a body that look that old, anyhow. When he mentions my ID and how he wanna see it, my toes go cold. “ID?” He a cop with the city, he say. They come now and then to the station, checking on things. There’s been some craziness with people running through grabbing things from the counter, “wreaking havoc,” he says. The station don’t got a real guard, so they help out now and then. Guess that’s why the last cop was here.

I can’t get to my wallet holding her. He offers to take her off my hands. A few minutes later, out comes my fake ID. It was my idea, my doing, not JuJu’s. I had it made over the summer when I wanted to get in a eighteen-and-over club.

“Okay. Well, if you need anything. I’m here. Have a safe trip.” He gives Cricket back. I sit there another hour with him not that far away. That’s the only reason I decide to call JuJu. Well, that and the fact that I realize what a blind man can see—April played me.