The Smell of Other People's Hou - Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock Page 0,40
me get these soaps and lotions inside, and we’ll see,” she says.
—
The mercantile is one of those out-of-the-way places that has a bit of everything. Pump pots full of coffee and hot-pink Hostess Sno Balls are the “breakfast special.” There’s a whole wall of fishing lures and metal spinner racks of postcards with pictures of moose or pristine mountain lakes. The dusty cans of peas and fruit cocktail could be ten years old, it’s hard to say. There is another aisle with playing cards, panty hose, and votive candles mixed in with just about everything else that nobody needs. This is also the aisle where the nuns sell their soaps and lotions. It seems pretty well stocked to me, but Sister Josephine says to squeeze in as many more as I can. The label says PERPETUAL SORROW SOAP, and I wonder if the nuns should think about changing the name.
“Here’s my own special milk-and-honey lotion,” she says, making a precarious pyramid with a few of the bottles.
I glance over at the Datsun woman, who has come out of the bathroom looking a bit tidier. Her hair is freshly combed and her lips are much, much redder than when she was frowning at me for denting her door. The boys have decided on the breakfast special, and the older one is stirring his coffee with a red plastic straw and stealing looks at me. I pull my jacket tight around my belly and pretend to be busy. But I can hear everything they say.
“How much farther to Fairbanks?” asks the younger boy, his mouth full of Sno Ball. The word Fairbanks is like a kick in the gut, which the baby decides to do just then, right on cue. “Shhh,” I tell it, rubbing my belly.
“It’s a good week,” says the woman, pouring coffee into a foam cup.
“Well, we’ve been driving for two weeks already,” says the older boy. “That doesn’t seem so bad.”
“It wouldn’t take so long if they’d pave the road,” she says, “but the Alaskan side doesn’t want to spend the money and the Canadian side doesn’t want to spend the money. So nobody does it.”
“Well, I can drive, too,” the boy says, “if you want a break.”
“Thanks, Oscar. We’ll see.”
He doesn’t look like an Oscar to me. It sounds old-fashioned. He needs a haircut. I watch him push his bangs out of his eyes every few seconds. His hair is dirty and it’s obvious he hasn’t showered in a while; he moves slowly, like he’s carrying the world on his shoulders. But there is something sweet about his disheveled appearance. If he washed his hair, it might be the same color as Ray’s. I shake my head at the thought of Ray and how quick I am to think this stranger looks sweet.
Aren’t all boys the same? I’ve only been at the convent for about a month, but it feels like years and I’ve forgotten what people my own age look and act like. Then again, maybe I’ve never known. I wouldn’t be here now if I’d been smarter.
I watch Oscar watching his little brother, who has a rounder face than him and darker hair and skin, but they have the same sharp, pointy nose and the same dirty, tousled look. The younger one is licking his Sno Ball–covered lips, which are pink and chocolaty with bits of coconut stuck to them. Oscar hands him a napkin, but he’s also smiling in such a sweet brotherly way—there is nothing phony about it. It reminds me of when George gave me a doughnut that day at the Salvation Army and how strangers have been kinder to me than my own family. Suddenly I feel like the loneliest person in the world. Without any warning, I know I have to get out of here. I drop all my soaps in a heap and bolt out of the store, the little bell tinkling as if to alert the world that I have just been completely undone by the smallest act of kindness.
In the truck I can’t stop crying. Sister Josephine comes out and hands me a travel packet of tissues and a lumpy brown package with my name on it. The boy called Oscar has come out to stare at us as we pull away. I slump farther down in my seat, but the tears will not stop.
—
Sister Josephine does not go back to Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow right away. She pulls off onto a secluded dirt road and