“I work with young women. Like yourself. Women from other countries. Refugees. I help them, sometimes, to get settled.”
The waitress returns to take our order. I order the French toast and Willow says she’ll have the same. I realize then that she would have had whatever I was having. She didn’t want to be presumptuous, to order a half-pound burger when I was having a salad, or breakfast when I was having dinner. The waitress removes the menus from our table and disappears behind a swinging aluminum door.
“There are some wonderful holistic shelters out there. They offer a safe haven, medical care, psychological care, education. There are caseworkers to help you get on your feet. Help you put together a resume, find childcare for Ruby. I can make some calls,” I offer, but I see that her eyes are cinched on an elderly man sitting at a booth alone, neatly slicing a deli sandwich in half.
“I don’t need any help,” she says, piqued. Then she’s silent.
“Okay,” I acquiesce, knowing if I continue down the same path, she’ll take the baby and the leather suitcase and leave. “Okay,” I repeat, quieter this time. A concession. I stop meddling and she will stay. So she stays and devours her dinner in near silence and I watch as the baby becomes slowly lethargic and drifts to sleep on the girl’s lap. I watch as the girl tears apart the French toast with the side of a fork, and drenches each and every piece in a pool of maple syrup before plunging it into her voracious mouth. I eat slowly, watching the syrup drip down her chin, watching as she wipes it away with the sleeve of the army-green coat.
When is the last time she’s had a square meal?
This is only one of the infinite questions I have for her. How old is she, really? Where is she from? How did she become homeless? How long has she been living alone on the streets? Where is Ruby’s father? How did she acquire the ochre bruise? How often does she visit the library? Does she always haunt the literature aisles, or just whatever suits her fancy on the given day? I nearly mention the librarian with the kind smile—a contrived comment for the purpose of small talk—but I stop myself in time. Of course the girl has no idea I saw her at the library, that I tarried in the neighboring aisle, spying as she read aloud from Anne of Green Gables.
And so we eat in silence. In place of small talk, there are the sounds that accompany eating: mastication and swallowing, more maple syrup spurting from the plastic bottle, a fork dropping to the floor. She reaches down and picks it up, and plunges it into the French toast like a torture victim who’s been denied food for days. Weeks. More.
When the meal is through she sets her hand on the suitcase and rises from the booth. “You’re leaving?” I ask. There’s a pang in my voice. I hear it. She hears it.
“Yes,” she says. Ruby wakes briefly from the movement and then returns to the Land of Nod.
“But wait,” I say, and there is that desperation I felt on the street: her, drifting away, and me, unable to stop her. I flounder for my purse and find a single twenty-dollar bill, not enough to cover the cost of dinner. I will need to wait for the waitress to bring the bill, will need to pay for the meal with a credit card. “Let me take you to the drugstore,” I beg. “We’ll buy you some things. Formula,” I say. “Diapers.” Hydrocortisone for those inflamed cheeks. Cereal bars for Willow. Diaper rash cream. Toothpaste. Toothbrush. Shampoo. Hair brush. Vitamins. Bottles of purified water. Gloves. An umbrella. And then it sounds harebrained, even in my own mind, for how could she tote all of those so-called necessities up and down the city streets.
She eyes the twenty in my open wallet and I yank it out, without a second thought, and extend it to her. “You’ll go to the drugstore,” I say. “Buy what you need. For yourself. For the baby.” She hesitates for a brief second, and then yanks the bill from my hand. She nods, which I take to mean yes and thank you.
“Wait,” I say, before she slips away. Without thinking, I place a hand on the nylon coat and stop her before she goes. The nylon feels strange to my touch, foreign. When the frosty blue eyes turn to me, I withdraw the hand in haste, and beg, “Please. Wait. Just one second,” as I unearth a business card from my bag. A simple black business card with my name and phone numbers—cell and work—in white, in an easy-to-read Comic Sans font. I force it into her hand. “In case—” I begin, but a waiter rushes past in haste, a tray full of food perched on a palm above his head, and sing-songs, “Excuse me, ladies,” and the girl retreats from him, retreats from me and withers slowly away, backward, like buttercup roses in a cylinder vase, shriveling up and fading away.
And there I stand, all alone, in the middle of Stella’s, thinking, Please. Wait. Though by now the girl has vanished from the diner and the redheaded waitress, apathetic to my distress, passes by and hands me the check.