to stay around here?” I asked.
“For all of ya?” the kid asked. He took out a squeegee and began washing the windows, counting the faces inside the car.
“For all of us.”
“Would two rooms do ya? My mom rents out rooms. There’s nobody using them right now.” He pointed at a big white house set back from the street on the opposite corner. A small grocery store partially blocked the view, but a lane ran back to it from the highway that snaked through the little town.
“Two would be fine. We’re going to go in and eat.” I handed him a few bills, enough to cover the gas and a little extra for his trouble. “Why don’t you go ask your mother if the rooms are available. We only need a night, but we’d appreciate a hot shower too, if we can get it. I’ll pay well.”
“I got ten more minutes on my shift, if you can wait until then,” the kid said.
I agreed, climbed back in the car, and slid into a parking spot in front of the Blue Ridge Restaurant.
“They ain’t gonna rent us a room here. If we’re lucky, they’ll let us sleep in someone’s barn, and it’s too damn cold for that. Let’s keep going. I’ll drive,” Money said when I urged everyone out.
“Please don’t let Money drive, Benny,” Lee Otis begged. “He about killed us when we had to get the car from the Mosque to the jail. Someone will definitely get hurt if you let him drive. He doesn’t even have a license.”
Money cursed and Alvin sighed, and I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. I was running on empty, and so was everyone else.
“Let’s eat. If the rooms across the street don’t pan out, we’ll find something else,” I said. The Mine siblings followed me reluctantly.
We walked into the diner and seated ourselves, just like the sign said. Two men sat at the bar, one in a suit, one in coveralls. They nodded at us, and the farmer gawked, though his look wasn’t insolent, just curious. I noticed both men had a stack of pancakes in front of them and figured the kid knew what he was talking about.
Esther and her brothers were uneasy, though, and it struck me that everywhere we went it was the same. They were always on edge in a new place. It was almost as if they expected mistreatment. Like they braced themselves for it. Even if most of the time it didn’t come. Even if the majority of people were fine, courteous, kind even. It had clearly happened enough, for long enough, that they never relaxed.
“You never know if you’ll be treated well,” I said out loud, the truth slamming into me with sudden clarity. I had my own hang-ups and my fair share of stereotypical treatment. Most people did. But I had never thought twice about walking into a diner or a motel or a department store.
“Oh, now he gets it,” Money muttered, avoiding eye contact with the men at the counter. Alvin and Lee Otis said nothing, but Esther left her coat on like she expected to be turned away. She left it on while a Lucille Ball look-alike took our order and filled our cups with coffee. She left it on until our plates were placed in front of us, the pancakes stacked high and the bacon fragrant, and didn’t remove it until the waitress retreated with a cheery “Eat up!”
There was a collective sigh, an unacknowledged relief, and we ate with silent gusto, pausing only when the boy from the gas station knocked on the window near our table and motioned for me to come outside. Immediately the tension returned.
“I have mud on my boots, mister. Miss Dot would have yelled if she saw me walking in there,” the kid explained when I joined him outside.
I told him I understood.
“Mom says you can have the rooms. Ten dollars per room, and she’ll throw in breakfast for another five dollars. She’ll do your laundry too, if you have it, but that’ll be extra. But the bathrooms come with the rooms, so the showers are free.”
My nose stung with an unexpected need to weep, and I patted the kid—I later learned his name was Roger Duncan—on his shoulder. I told him we’d take the rooms, and we would be over as soon as we finished our meal.
Carol Duncan was a blonde woman about my age with a pretty face and a mouthful of crooked teeth. She