Sheriff Tate. Every good and kind thought I’ve had about Mama for the past six weeks just flies right out of me, and there is nothing but anger boiling up in its place. Anger, the cover-up feeling. But no time for hunting down that covered-up feeling. Just time to run back to the elevator, go back up to eighth floor, and stay at Nathan forever. No. Just time to run out the door, and go Lord knows where, anywhere besides to Littleton with Sheriff Tate. Just time to slow down out on the sidewalk, my heart beating like rocks banging inside it. Just time to think who to go to—Miss Hansom? No. Just time to be strong, be I, Elizabeth, in charge. Just time to slow down, take it easy, walk, not run. Just time to slip into the Indoors-Outdoors Cafe, sit down, and think what to do. Just time to order a lemonade and think, Elizabeth, think, think, what the real and true I, Elizabeth, woman, would do.
But just as I am drawing in the first sips of my sweet lemonade, the doors to the cafe swing open, and in stalks Sheriff Tate, just like he’s a big-time marshall, for heaven’s sakes, swaggering into some western saloon. I, Elizabeth, will pay no attention to him, will not even look at him, will not even know he’s on the place. No. That’s what Angela would do. Angela would pretend. Angela would play around like that. Elizabeth, real and true, will face up to him, will at least acknowledge that he’s here, will have to be a woman, no matter how she feels.
At my booth Sheriff Tate doesn’t sit down right away. He just stands there, looking down on me. I can feel it, feel his eyes burning holes in me they are so scorching hot. I’d a thousand times rather be Jesus on the cross with nails hammered into me, than have Sheriff Tate staring me down this way. At least Jesus had people all around looking up to Him, not down on Him, and at least they were crying out for Him. I, Elizabeth, have no one. Except I, Elizabeth. And that has to be enough. If only Angela could come out and start crying, maybe the stalker would go away and leave me alone. But Angela is dead and buried and I have to keep her that way.
Sheriff Tate slinks down into the seat across the table. “Well, now,” he says, “Elizabeth’s done gone and got her a new way of looking. Whaddya know about that.”
For one split second my eyes flit up from my lemonade, long enough to see he still has his hat on.
“S’ does that mean Elizabeth’s got her a new way of acting, too? With this straight hair and, look at that, pink fingernails? My, my. What’d they do to Elizabeth down here?”
Although his creepiness gets next to my skin, I know I’m not afraid of him, just mad. Mad at him, yeah, but mostly at Mama. So, it is madness I have to deal with, not fear. I draw a long swallow of lemonade, and then with all the woman I can muster up inside me, I say, “Real men remove their hats at the table.”
From downright sleaziness to upright coolness, that’s how Sheriff Tate turns in a matter of seconds. “Well, now, I reckon that depends on who you are, now, don’t it? Besides, real women don’t have to come down here to Nathan, now do they?”
For the first time ever, I do believe, I look Sheriff Tate straight in the eyes. I just look. Pure and simple, look at him. “People come to Nathan, sir, so they can get real.”
“So they made you real, huh? Made you into a real little bitch?”
“Excuse me,” I say, sliding out of the booth. The real woman Elizabeth may have to face Sheriff Tate, but she doesn’t have to put up with such talk as that from nobody, not even a so-called officer of the law.
As I walk out of the cafe, he walks behind me, and I can feel his eyes on me staring me down, as I go looking for a phone.
“What’re you doing?” he says, catching up with me, as I step into a phone booth and slam the door shut. Even though I slam the door, I’m not feeling all that mad anymore. It’s like I have already been as mad as I can possibly get, and I can’t get any madder, and the only other possible thing to do is just to put all my feelings in neutral and my actions on automatic so I can do what has to be done to get myself back to Littleton in one piece.
I put in the nickel, dial the number, wait, and listen to the phone ring and ring and ring. I hope and I pray with all my heart that Aunt Lona will be at home. Please, please, answer the phone, Aunt Lona. Please. But the phone keeps on ringing and ringing and ringing. Until I slam the receiver down.
So, what now? I think about calling home to talk with Daddy and see if he knows where Aunt Lona is. But Mama will answer, and I just can’t talk to Mama right now. Not even to say three words. So I just lean back against the door, and watch the cars, the taxis, the buses, the trucks, I just stay leaned back for a while, thinking, what to do. Will I have to hitch a ride home?
“Are you coming outa there, or not?” Sheriff Tate demands. “I don’t have time to wait around here all day, you know.” He goes on and on, ranting and pacing, ranting and pacing, and when I get good and tired of it, I open up the door.
“Well, just don’t you wait, okay?”
“What in hell you mean?”
“What ‘in hell’ I mean is just you go on,” I say, swooshing my hand at him. “Just,” swoosh, “go,” swoosh, “on,” swoosh. “That’s what I mean.”
“You mean to say I come all the way down here, and you ain’t even going back home?”
“Not with you, Sheriff Tate. I’m going. But not with you.”
“Now, I done got orders from your mama to come bring you home, and, if I have to,” he says, jingling his handcuffs. “If I have to. . .”
“Uh, excuse me,” I say. “You take orders from my mama, Sheriff Tate? My mama? I, Elizabeth, don’t even take orders from my mama. And you, Sheriff Tate, I didn’t think you took orders from nobody. Least that’s what you always say.” After walking around him, looking him up and down, giving him the once-over, just like the Orange Nurse had given me the once-over in the nude, I finally stop and stare him in the face. “You. . . orders from Mama,” I say, trancelike. “God help you, Sheriff Tate. God help you.”
I pick up Daddy’s army satchel and start back toward Alexander T. Syms Memorial Hospital, the tallest building around. I’ll just stay there in the lobby until I can get Aunt Lona on the phone. But just as I reach the hospital, a taxi wheels in, a well-suited man gets out, whisks away, and the driver calls out to me. “Need a ride, miss?”
“Yes, I do, but, where are you going?”
“Anywhere you wanna go.”
“Anywhere?” I say, wondering at the glory and the freedom sounding in that one little word, “anywhere.”
“Well, I need to go to Littleton, but that’s too far for you . . .”
“Never heard of it,” he says. “You taking the bus, maybe, the train? I can take you either place.”
The bus sounds far better than the train, and although there isn’t a bus station in Littleton, still the buses went through, and they could stop anywhere, couldn’t they, if somebody needed to get off just anywhere?
At the bus depot I try so hard to look like I know what I am doing, like I know where I am going, but I’m sure people can take one look and see “lost” written all over me. Especially the man behind the ticket window. He, too, has never heard of Littleton.
“What’s it near?” he says, chewing around on a smelly cigar.
“Near, uh, Pine Creek?” I say. “Up in the mountains?”
“We can get ’ya to Sleepy Hollow,” he said. “Close enough?”
“Sure,” I say, reaching into my pocketbook, “that’s not far from Littleton, thirty miles, probably.”
“Al-l-right, little lady,” the cigar man says, tossing an orange ticket onto the counter, and my heart sinks when I see the price.
I start to tell him I am “Elizabeth,” not “little lady.” But I only have three dollars and a quarter to my name, and I figure I’ll get further with him by playing nice.
I glance over my shoulder and around to see if anyone is watching, or listening, but they aren’t. “I don’t have that much money,” I whisper.
The cigar man clamps his teeth real hard, bites off a tiny piece of his cigar butt, and spits it toward the trash can.
“Look,” I say, “I just got out of the hospital. I didn’t bring all that much money with me. I wasn’t counting on riding a bus home. I can mail you the rest, okay?”
“Sorry, little lady, I don’t set the price. Three-fifty. You want a ticket or not?”
I take my coin purse out, my insides burning at the words “little lady.” I empty all the quarters out on the counter. “There. That’s all I’ve got. See?” I show him the insides of the purse. “I was going to save these for phone calls. If I can use your phone, I’ll call the hospital and get someone to come bring me some more money.”
Cigar man gets his wallet, pulls out a couple of bills and slaps them down. “I don’t make a habit of doing this,” he says, “but something about you looks desperate, little lady.”
“I am not desperate,” I say, “and my name is ‘Elizabeth,’ not little lady. But thank you, sir, thank you for the ticket. If you’ll write your address down, I’ll pay you back.”
Cigar man waves his hand, as if brushing me away. “Bus’ll be here about ten minutes.”
I nod a thank-you, pick up Daddy’s army bag just like I have come away from a war somewhere, and walk real fast over to the long bench that looks very much like a church pew, and I sink down on it; my body feels as heavy as a cannonball and at the same time as light and airy as an eagle soaring up in the skies.
I look over at the old, dried-up woman sitting just down the bench from me. Her hair, a mass of brown frizzy curls, looks like someone has left the permanent solution on too long and fried her. But, unlike Mama, she doesn’t seem to mind. She is cheerful enough regardless of a frizzed-up head.
“Where you going?” she chirps, sparrowlike, her cornflower blue eyes just beaming delight.
For a moment the question startles me, I guess because that’s what my mind was spinning around and around on like a spinning top—where, where, where am I going, where, where, where am I going? and I don’t know where, where, where am I going. So, it takes me a while to answer her.
“I’m sorry,” I apologize, “I’m not quite myself right now . . . if you know what I mean.”
“Oh, I know all right,” she says, her eyes sparkling clear, in spite of their years. “Oh, yes I know, I’m not quite myself either. I’m waiting for Grade, my daughter. Haven’t seen her in near about a year. A year! Can you believe it? Grade’s coming!” She looks at her black-band watch. “In just a few minutes, Gracie’ll be getting off the bus. I couldn’t sleep last night,” she says, shrugging her happiness into herself, “couldn’t sleep at all, thinking about Grade coming.”
All the bus waiters have grown silent, as if paying some kind of holy tribute to the old woman’s excitement. Sensing the mood she has created, she settles back onto the bench and grows quiet until everyone starts up to talking again.
“Where does Grade live?” I ask.
“Texas,” she says, her eyes brightening again, “Dallas, Texas. She’s just finished med school out there. She’s going to be a doctor out there. Can you believe it? My Grade, a doctor, a pediatrician—that’s a doctor who takes care of little children, you know.”
“Yes Ma’am,” I say.
“And you? Where are you going?”
“Home,” I say, “home for a while, just long enough to—”
“There’s Grade!” she says, jumping up, as the “Blue Highways” bus comes thundering into the station, a stream of hot, oily-smelling gray smoke billowing out all around it.
I take my time about getting out to the bus, waiting for all the people to pile off it, waiting, mostly, I guess, like the old mother, waiting for Grade.
Mother and Grade hug and cry and cry and hug, and I know it’s not proper, but I can’t help it, I just stand and stare at them so glad to see each other.
When their rejoicing finally calms down and they start away, the mother waves and calls out to me, just as I am about to climb up the steps of the bus.
“Bye, bye, honey,” she says, “I know your mama’s gonna be so proud to see you.” Grade, too, waves, and although I lift my hand to wave back, it doesn’t do any waving, just kind of hangs there in suspension, just like my whole entire body and self, until, finally, the bus driver calls out, “Let’s get moving, young lady, got a long way to go.”
I climb on up the steps, give him my ticket, and find an empty seat toward the back of the bus, a seat where I can sit all by myself and look out through the window and still see Grade and her mother, see them taking on over each other, while I, Elizabeth, just watch and wait, watch Grade and her mother and wait for the “Blue Highways” bus to start up and get going, to get on moving along and take me anywhere. Anywhere I want to go.