THE WORLD IS full of crooks and thieves—and half of ’em is grown-ups. That driver wrestled another thirty bucks out of me. He kept the doors locked until I paid it. The guard out front the motel got forty. Said I couldn’t step foot in the place unless I paid him first. This neighborhood the same as mine—it ain’t kind to strangers at night. Now I’m in the lobby, and this man say they don’t rent to minors.

“But the guard—”

“Guard?”

I would explain. But what’s the point. I got played—again. Shoulda known better. Seen it coming. “Mister.” I look down at Cricket. She slept through everything. “I’m not from here and I got no place to stay.”

He’s heard that story more times than he can count, he says. “It’s that kind of neighborhood. You know.”

I know. It’s my neighborhood stuck in a different city. It’s after two. That driver picked up other people and dropped them off, then done it two more times before he pulled up to the motel. When I got out the car, the club next door was letting out. People was piled on the pavement and curb like parked cars, talking about the next party. Billboards selling lottery tickets and used cars, found me here. Grandmas and girls my age walked up to cars, jumped in some, hoping to get paid. I seen it too many times to feel sorry for ’em.

This man behind the desk says he owns the motel. “Who can I call?” he says after I walk up to him.

I watch him put the last letter in his word puzzle. He smiling down at the word—snobbery. I show him my ID. He look up and repeat the question. “Like I said, who can I call?”

“I got nobody—just me.”

He back to his puzzle when he tell me to show myself out.

He the type to call the police. Not to mind if I’m locked up and she in foster care. That’s the only reason I’m headed for the door. Only, once I get there, I stop like a red light forced me to. For the first time all day, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.

“You going or what?”

I would if I could.

“Hey. You okay?”

The front desk lifts in the middle to make it easy for workers to get out. It squeaks so I know he on his way. Only, that don’t stop the tears or me hiccuping like a five-year-old.

“Jesus.” He step in between me and the door. “Here. Here.” He stuffs a tissue in my hand. “You kids always crying. Wanna be grown but tear up at the least little thing.” He’s overweight. Short. In a suit that fit just right but got stains on it, gravy seems like.

He take me by the elbow. Helps me over to a bench that faces a wall with a flat-screen TV on it. “Sit.” He go back for my suitcase. “Here.” It’s beside me when he goes behind the desk again, taking the first cup off a stack sitting on the water cooler. It’s full, wetting the floor, when he come running over. “Drink this.” He sit down beside me. “Now, that’s better.” He stands up, leans against the wall, and looks at Cricket lying on her belly across my lap. “You girls …” He shakes his head. “I just don’t know what to say.” He sneezes six times in a row. “Allergies.” It’s a lie. They let you smoke here anytime you want, anywhere. I can tell. My eyes itch, and I’m sniffing, plus they got cigarette burns in the brown carpet. “This your only one?” he asks.

I nod.

“Keep it that way. Then maybe you’ll have a fighting chance in life.”

I don’t got no words. Nothing to say about nothing. I started on a bus trip to Alabama yesterday, and now I got a baby. That’s what I’m thinking. And what if April change her mind, and they put a Amber Alert out for Cricket? “Mister … please.” I don’t beg nobody for nothing usually, but I gotta right now. Nothing good will happen to me or Cricket if I go back out tonight.

His eyes dig into mine the same way mine do when people come to JuJu’s parties. I look down at the floor ’cause sometimes your eyes can snitch on you.

I can stay the night, he finally says. But he don’t want the police all up in here, so I got to be gone in the morning. I open my purse, pull out half the money I got. “How many days will this get me?”

He staring at it, licking his purple lips. “Well. Now I don’t know. The cops—” He walks over to the door and looks out. “Those girls draw attention, the law you know, men from all over town, college boys too.” He got his hands behind his back, folded. “They ask to stay sometimes. But I can’t have it.”

“You won’t hear a sound out of me—or her. I promise.”

He walk back over to me. Takes the money, counts it twice. “Another fifty gets you three full weeks. After that, you pay on Fridays, weekly starting the fifteenth. Make your own bed. We dust the floors, give you toilet paper, fresh linen and towels—charge extra if your guests relieve themselves where they shouldn’t.”

“O—kay.”

“No male company. Otherwise—”

Who I know? Nobody. April probably long gone by now. I cross my heart, promise “no company—male or female.”

“I almost forgot.” He’s on the opposite side of the room behind the desk before I get a sip down. “I’m giving you my best room.”

I look at him.

“Well—maybe not the best. But it’s clean.”

I blink my eyes; rub the right one a few times and sniff. He know what’s up, I guess. And tells me what I know already. “There are no non-smoking rooms. People here free to do like they want as long as they don’t burn down the place or bring the cops to my door.”

He sound like my sister, JuJu. Seem to like plants as much as she do too. There’s a spider plant on the desk, snake plants reaching outta floor pots like fingers beside the front door. They been around a while—years I bet. Some is as tall as me. A few got spiderwebs. “Thank you, sir.”

He drop the key in my hand. My room got lots of amenities, he say. I’m glad when he explains what that means. “A stove, refrigerator, plastic dishes—two—cups, ice trays, a desk, bed, dresser, and a TV.” He talk about how he been meaning to update the building. “Bad heart. And sons that I paid to go to college that think working in LA is better than working here.” He shakes his head, sort of laughs. “Oh, the elevator is out. Take the stairs.”

My room is on the second floor, he say. Not far from the elevator that don’t work. “Watch yourself on the stairs.”

“Can you hold her at least? I can’t take her and all this up at one time.”

He lifts her out my arms. Says he had open heart surgery and can’t carry anything over ten pounds. I pull my suitcase across the room, turn left and take the steps. Dang, no lights.