from across the street or perhaps from passing cars. “Whatchoo want?”
“I’m looking for 251 Durham Avenue,” Rosie said. “It’s a place called Daughters and Sisters. I had directions, but I guess—”
“What, the welfare lesbians? You ast the wrong chicken, baby girl. I got no use for crack-snackers. Get lost. The fuck outta here.” With that she turned back to her dolly and began to push the rattling cans up the driveway in the same slow, ceremonial manner, holding them on with one plump white hand. Her buttocks jiggled freely beneath her faded housedress. When she reached the steps she turned and looked back at the sidewalk. “Didn’t you hear me? Get the fuck outta here. ’Fore I call the cops.”
That last word felt like a sharp pinch in a sensitive place. Rosie put her sunglasses back on and walked quickly away. Cops? No thank you. She wanted nothing to do with the cops. Any cops. But after she had put a little distance between herself and the fat lady, Rosie realized she actually felt a little better. She had at least made sure that Daughters and Sisters (known in some quarters as the welfare lesbians) actually existed, and that was a step in the right direction.
Two blocks farther down, she came to a mom-and-pop store with a bike rack in front and a sign reading OVEN-FRESH ROLLS in the window. She went in, bought a roll—it was still warm and made Rosie think of her mother—and asked the old man behind the counter if he could direct her to Durham Avenue.
“You come a little out of your way,” he said.
“Oh? How much?”
“Two mile or so. C’mere.”
He settled a bony hand on her shoulder, led her back to the door, and pointed to a busy intersection only a block away. “That there’s Dearborn Avenue.”
“Oh God, is it?” Rosie wasn’t sure if she needed to laugh or cry.
“Yessum. Only trouble with findin things by way of Big D is that she run mostway across the city. You see that shutdown movie tee-ayter?”
“Yes.”
“You want to turn right onto Dearborn there. You have to go sixteen-eighteen blocks. It’s a bit of a heel n toe. You’d best take the bus.”
“I suppose,” Rosie said, knowing she wouldn’t. Her quarters were gone, and if a bus driver gave her a hard time about breaking a dollar bill, she would burst into tears. (The thought that the man she was talking to would have happily given her change for a buck never crossed her tired, confused mind.)
“Eventually you’ll come to—”
“—Elk Street.”
He gave her a look of exasperation. “Lady! If you knew how to go, why’d you ask?”
“I didn’t know how to go,” she said, and although there had been nothing particularly unkind in the old man’s voice, she could feel the tears threatening. “I don’t know anything! I’ve been wandering around for hours, I’m tired, and—”
“Okay, okay,” he said, “that’s all right, don’t get your water hot, you’ll be just fine. Get off the bus at Elk. Durham is just two or three blocks up. Easy as pie. You got a street address?”
She nodded her head.
“All right, there you go,” he said. “Should be no problem.”
“Thank you.”
He pulled a wrinkled but clean handkerchief from his back pocket. He held it out to her with one gnarled hand. “Wipe you face a li’l bit, dear,” he said. “You leakin.”
5
She walked slowly up Dearborn Avenue, barely noticing the buses that snored past her, resting every block or two on bus stop benches. Her headache, which had come mostly from the stress of being lost, was gone, but her feet and back hurt worse than ever. It took her an hour to get to Elk Street. She turned right on it and asked the first person she saw—a young pregnant woman—if she was headed toward Durham Avenue.
“Buzz off,” the young pregnant woman said, her face so instantly wrathful that Rosie took two quick steps backward.
“I’m sorry,” Rosie said.
“Sorry, schmorry. Who ast you to speak to me in the first place, that’s what I’d like to know! Get outta my way!” And she pushed by Rosie so violently she almost knocked her into the gutter. Rosie watched her go with a kind of stupefied amazement, then turned and went on her way.
6
She walked more slowly than ever up Elk, a street of small shops—dry-cleaning establishments, florists, delis with fruit displays out front on the sidewalk, stationers’. She was now so tired she didn’t know how long she would be able to