Young Adult Category

[ Back to Main Pitches Page ] [ Back to Category Page ]

[ Authorlink SMART QUERY ] [ Rate this Work ]

Welcome to AUTHORLINK, the electronic clearing house and information service for editors, agents and writers. This section displays brief synopses and excerpts of available manuscripts.

A Bias Made of Ribbon

Rhonda Geraci

Ref. No. 611006ya
Length 76,061 words

Summary

During World War II, Delores Meloney was studying to be a nurse. As the best shot in Screven County, she could have been a soldier like her brother except she was a girl. However, when the hobo, Bo Marks gets kicked off the train in her hometown of Sylvania, Georgia that's the last thing on Delores' mind. Her growing suspicions of Bo end up uncovering a ribbon of secrets she takes across the world. While she unties the knots of her past, she realizes how the real wolves of war, at home and abroad, can live in our own mind.

From The Book

Chapter 1

Meetin’ new folks was like getting dessert for me. It was as rare as the sugar my momma got with the number twelve coupon in her ration book. When you’ve known your neighbors all your fifteen years, and they’ve known your kin even longer, it’s like breathing in air that’s already been used. All the good stuff’s been taken, so it no longer has the ability to inspire you. That’s why I liked being around the railroad. You never knew what it might bring.

Mr. Paggleman was the train engineer from my hometown in Georgia. On the twenty-first of March he had to kick a hobo out of the reefer car (that’s the refrigerator car). I was there. I’d been waitin’ on the silk stockings Mrs. Billings had ordered for me from Memphis. Lady Billings is what she liked to be called. She was the town matriarch. I read to her for money. She preached to me about how to be a real Southern lady. According to her having silk stockings was a sign of good breeding or something. She said that FDR wanted all Southern ladies to have them. He just needed other women to give them up, so he could make parachutes for the war.

Mr. Paggleman transported supplies for the war effort. On the evening of March 30, 1942, he was coming through our town from Memphis, on his way to a port in Florida, and was supposed to arrive at the Sylvania station at 5 o’clock. So, I was well on my way back home by the time he pulled up at ten past six. But when I heard the whistle of his train, it shot through my ears, and stretched out a smile– I’ll bet was near as long as the Savannah River. I turned and ran back as fast as I could.

“Mr. Paggleman! Mr. Paggleman! Did you get it?” I hollered, kicking up a blanket of orange ash as I barreled down the dirt path towards him.

“Delores is that you?”

Mr. Paggleman was a short round fella about the age of my Pa with red hair. His face looked like a tanned wrinkled shirt when he grinned. His eyes sparkled with hazel and wonder, which made me so curious about where he’d been.

“Did you get it? Did ya? Did ya?” I yelled tripping over a fallen limb and picking myself up to run more.

“Have you been waitin’ all this time?” He jumped down from the front of the train. I stopped beside him out of breath.

“Did you get it?”

“Well I think so,” he said.

“I knew it. I knew it would come this time!” I smoothed out my dress, and dusted off the dirt and blood from my knee. Inhaling the fumes of burnt coal, I coughed then asked, “What was Memphis like?”

“Oh, well, I met a famous singer, ‘course I can’t recall his name. He played banjo for everyone loading the freight.” Mr. Paggleman walked to a car just next to the caboose, in the very back of the train, then shouted to me, “…had a breakdown in Atlanta, it’s thrown the whole line off.”

“What happened?” I asked. I played with the yellow bias ribbon I’d tied in my hair and rocked off the heels of my Mary Jane’s.

“Just a foul up in the engine, we got it straightened out thank goodness. Did I miss anything while I was gone?” he asked, climbing the ladder to the boxcar.

I walked closer to him. “Nothing except another scrap drive…oh, an old man Watson and his Sons of the Revolution’s annual victory celebration at The Monument for the Battle of Briar Creek.”

“The battle we lost, but have won every re-enactment since…”

“That’s the one. It’s kind of silly, ain’t it?” I giggled. “It was even funnier seeing the Boy Scouts wearing the men’s costumes for it this year. I guess with so many gone to war the Boy Scouts were their only choice.”

“Sorry I missed it.” He said dryly, adding a short chuckle on the end.

I smiled but didn’t take my eyes off of him as he started to pull at the train car door. He stopped to wipe a shimmer of sweat from his rusty hair then gave the door another tug. I covered my ears when he slid it open. When I lost sight of him after he climbed inside the car, I walked even closer.

“Get out of here, you hear me!” Mr. Paggleman shouted.

I squinted to try to see inside the dark boxcar.

“This ain’t no free ride train, boy. Now get out of here before I call the bulls on you!”

I got up closer to the boxcar, and leaned over, to see if I could get a better look, just as the boy was jumping out. He landed inches from me. The heat from being discovered poured off of him. I gasped. He glanced at me then ran away. I’d never seen a real hobo before. I’d heard about the railroad police, but didn’t know Sylvania even had any.

“Damn hobos, I knew I heard something rattling back here. I should have called the law on him.” Mr. Paggleman muttered under his breath. “Oh, my apologies Miss Delores…I…”

“That’s okay,” I said, staring into the distance at the hobo taking off into the woods.

Mr. Paggleman jumped down and climbed the ladder of another boxcar. He slid the door open and disappeared inside. “I think that package of yours is right here somewhere.”

I strolled over to the next boxcar, and waited until he came out with a package in his hand. “Is that it?” I asked

“…to Miss Delores Maloney, mailed January 21, 1942.” He handed the package down to me. “That’s it. It’s very late, like me.”

I smiled and took the package from his hand. I was so excited. I was almost shaking. I ripped it open forgetting all modesty, and lifted a stocking up to the moonlight. I was admiring the sparkling silk when Mr. Paggleman let out a deliberate cough.

“Oh my, Mr. Paggleman, I didn’t mean to…”

“They’re mighty nice, I think.” He turned his eyes away and stepped down the ladder.

I could feel a blushing heat grow across my cheeks, but I let it out with a giggle. “Thank you!” I said then turned to go home. I skipped a little then started to run; then walked again as I thought about how grown up it felt to own real silk stockings.

“Be careful getting home Delores, you hear?”

I hadn’t paid much attention to the night coming on, until I heard Mr. Paggleman’s distant warning. Suddenly, darkness fell all around me, and a chilling breeze brushed by me. I comforted myself by identifying the cicadas’ rare serenade. My momma had compared it to the sound of hot grease in a skillet. I listened to the crickets’ determination to outdo the cicadas and the screech of the barn owl that beat them all. I began to whistle after that, and kept my mind from worrying by imagining my older sister, Eloise’s response to my new stockings. I knew she would be deliciously jealous. I looked inside my package once again. Suddenly, I heard someone behind me, and it made me jump.

“I’m not a hobo, you know.”

I turned around, “Who’s there?” I asked hearing the quiver in my voice.

“I just wanted you to know I’m not really a hobo. I’m going to be an actor.”

The boy, who had been hiding in the train, had come up the embankment off the side of the path I was walking to get home. He got right up next to me, smelling of musty coal and tainted straw. I backed away scared. I hugged my package close to my dress. I turned toward the train station then turned back. I stared at the tattered coat and rucksack he was carrying under his arm. My heart began to pump hard. I couldn’t breath real good. I turned away again then turned back, unable to make up my mind which way was safer.

“I won’t hurt you either. I just wanted you to know that I can read and write. I also do very well in math, although I don’t like it. I didn’t want you to assume that I was some kind of tramp or something.”

“Oh no…no,” I said turning again towards the station then back towards home, “I didn’t think anything, honest.” But I knew he didn’t pay for a ticket. Mr. Paggleman was an engineer for freight trains, and everybody knows you can’t buy a ticket on that kind of train. I’d known Mr. Paggleman a long while. He was sweet on my Aunt Irene, and always showed up at the Screven County Library, where she was the only librarian. Funny thing was, though all the far off places he’d traveled were placed like lines on map on his face, Mr. Paggleman didn’t read very well – never had any schoolin’.

The boy walked closer to me showing me the books he’d strapped in a belt and carried over his shoulder. “See?”

My eyes shifted over to the books he was showing me by authors I’d heard of like Dickens and Thoreau. I paused a little, but thought better of it, and began to run.

“I write poetry, too,” he said trying to catch up to me.

“That’s nice,” I said breathless. I was trying to be kind but I wasn’t sure I was supposed to be. I thought I should get away but I didn’t know how to escape. The worst part was, the more I listened to him, the more curious about him I got. I didn’t know what I should do; then I thought about how I’d always believed I could see the bad in anybody, if I stared long enough in his eyes. So I decided right then and there I was going to do just that. I stopped in my tracks, turned right in front of him, and looked real deep into his eyes. He stumbled back a bit, but I walked up to him again, and stared with the poking power of a thorn bush. His eyes were the kind of deep blue made when the sun meets wet metal splattered with oil. They were warm and kind. Not what I expected at all. His blond hair was matted close to his fair skin. He wore a white T-shirt that was stained and worn. His baggy trousers were muddy and frayed on the ends from dragging on the ground. It scared me when I saw his right hand was wrapped in a bloody white rag. I was almost ready to take off again fast, but my gaze caught his black shiny leather shoes.

“I shined them on the train ride,” he said turning one leg out to better display the shoe. “I bought them in Memphis after working for a sharecropper. A railroad bull almost took them from me, but I was faster.” He smiled right proud of himself.

I relaxed a little.

“I see you got something from Memphis, too.”

I tensed up again and pulled my package behind my back, “Oh, it’s nothing – really.”

“It didn’t sound like it was nothing, the way you were yelling for the engineer. Well, look at that,” he said pointing down to my legs, “Did you skin your knees while you were running for it?” He bent down, took a handkerchief from his pocket, and began wiping my knee.”

My knee jerked, “Ow!” I screeched scrunching my shoulders close to my ears.

“Sorry.”

“What happened to your hand?” I asked getting braver.

“What this? I grabbed a torn piece of metal hanging off the corner of the car when I jump the train – stupid, huh? It’ll be alright.” He stood up and stared into my eyes, “Can I walk you home?”

I could feel a fortress like Fort McAlister building up around me, “Absolutely not I’m completely fine!” I was astonished he thought I’d given him any idea that I’d be willing to let him walk me home.

“It’s quite dark for a young lady to be outside. I don’t think my mother would be very happy with me if I let you go home alone.”

“Well luckily, she’s not here is she?” I said a little sassy then picked my pace up my pace so fast my body got all stiff and jerky.

“I like to think she is – Diamond eyes and ruby lips and lots of loving around her hips. That’s my mom.” He ran to catch up to me.

I didn’t let him see my smile.

“She died three years ago.”

I slowed down and my body relaxed again. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

“It was a blessing actually, she’d been sick for a while. It started out as a cold, we thought, but it turned out to be tuberculosis.” He walked to catch up to me again.

“Was she all you had?” I asked.

“No, I have a father. Everybody has a father, I guess. We just don’t get along.”

“Does he know where you are?”

“I don’t believe he really cares,” he said, “All he talks about is fortitude, and is too mathematical to calculate the value of art.”

I didn’t understand what he meant, so I just smiled. We walked a minute in silence then I asked, “How long have you been alone?”

“Oh, since I was twelve.”

We were walking at exactly the same pace now.

“You quit school?”

“It closed.”

I slowed down, “How old are you now?”

“...Seventeen.”

I stopped and looked at him long and hard, “I’m fifteen,” I told him.

“My name is Bo. Bo Marks. I’m very pleased to meet you Miss…”

I smiled, “Delores. Delores Maloney.”

I had noticed his accent was strange. It was deep and clever sounding. I knew Bo was a Southern name but there was nothing Southern about this boy. As we continued walking he told me stories about riding the rails then asked me if he could recite part of a poem he’d memorized called Waste Land by T.S. Eliot. I agreed and stood still with him to listen, keeping my eyes down, or somewhere else until he finished.

April is the cruelest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain

Winter kept us warm, covering

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding

A little life with dried tubers

I liked the poem and told him so. He thanked me then pulled out a notebook, opened it, and read some poems he said the older hobos (he called them dingbats) had written. He told me how the dingbats had helped him after he lost his shoes- running right out of them trying to catch a train two steps ahead of a railroad bull. He said they showed him how to put strips of leather tied with twine to the bottom of each foot. He had to stay like that through the winter until he could afford to buy his new shoes. I knew what it was like walking barefoot on hot gravel, but I couldn’t imagine not having shoes when it was cold. He said the dingbats taught him all kinds of things: how he could make 2 cents from Uncle Sam for a glass bottle trade, and if he boiled the black grooves out of records, he could get 10 cents for the aluminum disk that remained. He was a little sad when he told me he ended up melting down all his momma’s records that he’d been carrying around after she died, just so he could eat. I didn’t have any phonograph records, but my Aunt Irene did. We never did boil any of them down, or get paid for anything we gave to the scrap drives in town. All I knew was the government told us that one copper tea pot could make eighty-four rounds of automatic rifle ammunition, one steel bucket could make three bayonets, one old shovel could make four hand grenades, an aluminum washing machine would build 21 four-pound incendiary bombs. Oh, and two pounds of kitchen fat could make glycerin to fire five anti-tank shells. I’d helped round up 400 pounds of scrap just last week, but that didn’t beat the Girl Scouts, who all gathered over 17 tons. So I didn’t feel it was worth mentioning.

We continued walking, and he talked and talked. The closer to home we got the more lost I became in his stories. They seemed to go on and on like the railroad tracks leaving town. I tried to think of one I could tell him, but couldn’t remember anything that would compare. He acted like he thought I was interesting though, which was probably why I didn’t protest anymore when he insisted on being a gentleman, and walking me to my Pa’s farm. As I led him on the path home, my eyes slowly adjusted to the night. I could tell on account of the night seeming lighter somehow. I began to wonder how he ate, and where he slept, and how he could stand smelling so sour. I figured he must be hungry if he’d been hiding in a train since Memphis. I didn’t really know how far that was exactly, but I knew it was a long way. “You had supper, yet?”

“I know we are in the state of Georgia but where exactly?”

I was a little unsure why he disregarded my question, but answered him directly anyways. “This here is Sylvania, Georgia. It’s Latin for “a place in the woods.”

So what are you doing in this little place in the woods, Miss Delores?”

“I’m going to be a nurse.” I got to the back steps of the house, and kicked off my shoes quietly. “You must be hungry. I can go inside and get you something to eat.”

“I could eat something,” He said rugged and proud.

“Sit here a spell. I’ll be right back. Try to be quiet now.”

I paused and watched him sitting on the steps. A wave of uncertainty welled up under my throat, but I just swallowed and carefully opened the back door. I tiptoed inside the kitchen making as little noise as possible. I put my package on the counter, turned the kerosene lamp up low, and opened the icebox. I pulled a piece of ham from the half-sliced leg. Then placed that along with two biscuits, and a few deviled eggs on a plate. I put the rest of the food back in the icebox then grabbed a napkin, knife, and fork before quietly stepping outside.

Bo was looking up in the night sky when I walked out. His eyes lit up when I gave him the food I prepared. He started to eat immediately. It felt good to watch him eat. He picked up the slice of ham and ate it with his hands. When he realized I was staring at him, he picked up the fork and knife; then cut the ham into small bite-size pieces.

“Mmmm….this is very delicious. You know, I’ll have to be honest with you, I don’t think I’ve had a good meal in a few weeks. You see all that empty sky, that’s my stomach right now.”

“Well, at least there are stars in there.” I said trying to be clever, but what he said made me sad.

“My mother always thought I had a twinkle to me.” He chuckled. When he looked down at his plate and realized he’d almost eaten everything, he slowed down with his last few bites. He savored the last deviled egg and morsel of ham. “You know if it wasn’t for the jungle professors, I’d probably never get to eat. They’re experienced hobos who tell you where campsites called jungles are located. The sites usually have a warm fire and stew. The professors will also mark the mailboxes of people who will feed you. They do it in a way so that the people wouldn’t ever notice, but it tells us a lot about them, like how nice they are, and how well they cook.

“I don’t think you better mark my house.” I wondered if I should pull the plate from him and run inside the house. The air was getting heavy. It was hard to breath. I couldn’t help but think what a heap of trouble I’d be in if my Pa knew I was feeding a hobo. The thoughts of what Pa might say began to whirl in my head. My insides started to feel all confused without knowing why I added, “He’s got a shotgun you know, my Pa does. ‘Course I’m a better shot than he is. I’ll have you know I was voted the best shot in Screven County last year. I could be a soldier I’ll bet, if I was a boy. My brother Ronald taught me to shoot- on squirrels. You ever eat squirrel? It’s good. Tastes like chicken.” I stood up like the hair on an angry cat then saw his empty plate. “I could get you some more if you’d like, I can’t get much more or my momma will notice or worse Pa.” I took his plate and quietly walked back inside the kitchen without waiting for Bo’s response. I came back stiff and guarded, but holding a little piece of ham stuck in a biscuit in one hand and bandages, a wet cloth, and iodine in the other. I placed the biscuit on his empty plate.

Bo looked up at me scrunching his eyebrows in confusion then picked up the biscuit, took a big bite and smiled.

“I need to put something on your hand. It’s my duty as an up and coming nurse to not let that get infected, you know.”

He swallowed and paused. “You know my mom was a nurse.”

“She was?” It was strange to think of a hobo with a nurse for a mom.

“I remember she brought home a tongue depressor for me every night. I collected over 400 before I lost her. I was going to build her the Taj Mahal.” He took another quick bite from the biscuit.

“The Taj Mahal, what’s that?” I sat beside him and took his right hand. I felt a tingle run all up along my arm. I unfolded the rag, wiped his hand off then dressed it with iodine and bandages.

He took another bite of biscuit, chewed really fast, but swallowed slow before he answered. “It is a palace in India. A king had it built for his queen. My mother should have been a queen. She shouldn’t have had to work all those hours on her feet.” Bo took another small bite of biscuit. His eyes closed as he chewed. “Mmmm.” He had one last bite, pulled the handkerchief stained from my scraped knee, and wrapped the rest of the biscuit in it; then shoved it into his coat pocket. He handed his cleared plate back to me. “Thank you again. You are a very kind lady.”

“Lady,” I thought to myself. I liked the sound of that. It did seem appropriate now that I had real silk stockings and all. I stood up with the plate in my hand. The fortress around me fell, as quickly as Fort McAlister did during Sherman’s march to the sea. “You can sleep in the barn if you don’t mind the chickens or the hogs, and can wake up early.”

“No, no. You’ve done enough for me. I think I better go, but I want you to remember something.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s not good to be around all those sick people when your body is tired. Don’t you do that, okay?” Bo’s hand touched my shoulder. “With your river brown eyes and auburn hair, you know, you’re just too pretty to die.”

My eyes looked down at the empty plate then lifted slowly as I failed to keep from smiling. “The town’s that a way,” I said pointing west.

Chapter 2

“Delores! Delores Maloney!” Momma’s voice billowed up from the stairwell then dove inside my ear. “You better get up out of that bed and come down to breakfast. You’re going to be late for class young lady.”

I sat straight up with my eyes open. I looked left out my window watching the misty glare of the moon changing guard with the sun. Slowly I glanced down at the dress I was still wearing from the night before. I jumped off the bed, pulled off my dress, and put on my nightgown. I trampled down the stairs like a racehorse, and then slowed down at the kitchen door trying not to look out of breath. “Did you call me?”

“Did I call you?” Momma turned around from the stove in her housedress and white apron. She wiped her weary brow with a cloth and smeared pancake batter from the stovetop into her driftwood colored hair. “I’ve been calling and calling. I never in my born days experienced a child who sleeps as deep as you do.”

“I must have been tired.” I walked into the kitchen with a bounce, thinking about Bo. I grabbed a plate and started to fill it up with eggs, bacon, and pancakes until I felt the heat of Pa’s stare. I wondered if he knew I fed Bo last night. I hesitated but finally looked over at his spindly eyes and sour face. He was hunched in a chair that was too small for his long legs, wearing overalls and a faded plaid shirt. However, if I squinted my eyes I could make him look just like Humphrey Bogart.

“You should have just let her sleep then she wouldn’t eat none, like my Eloise here.” His face relaxed when he looked at my sister Eloise.

I was kind of relieved hearin’ him praise Eloise. At least, I knew for sure it was his same ‘ole gripe -nothing new.

He smiled at Eloise, who lifted her glass of buttermilk hiding what I was sure was a Cheshire grin.

“Layman, leave her alone,” Momma said.

I looked down at my plate, took a piece of bacon off of it, and put it back into the skillet. Pa scowled again and scolded momma about the food. It had all started after his corn crop failed last year. Rain delayed his planting then draught dried up his yield.

“My working hands need food, Gracie Mae. I done told you I need the family to hold back, so my hands can eat first. They’re doing all the work around here since Ronald was drafted. Delores don’t even milk the cow no more since she started that durn nursin’ school. At least Eloise brings us home some money, and she don’t eat near as much as Delores,” he said, patting her long blond hair.

Momma’s mouth twisted like she had venom on her tongue ready to shoot out, but she swallowed it instead. Her words came out quiet and kind. “Layman, you’re working hands are late, the girls have places to go, I have to send them off with something in their belly.”

Pa stood up and reached for his hat. His hand trembled as he placed it on his head. “I’m going on out to the field. Send my hands along when they get here.” He walked out and we heard the screen door slam behind him.

He was right. Ever since my brother, Ronald left for the war, I hadn’t milked the cows or even gathered the eggs from the chickens. There was schoolwork, scrap drives, and tending the town’s Victory Garden. On top of that I had to read to Mrs. Billings. She paid me but it wasn’t enough to bring home. Or was it? I thought about how Bo melted down his momma’s phonograph records for food; here I was buying silk stockings and filling my plate to eat, like a prize hog.

Eloise stared at me with creased cat’s eyes and purred, “You got home mighty late last night.”

“...So.”

“She did? Your Pa and I must have dozed off early,” Momma replied, finally feeling the batter in her hair and trying to wipe it out.

“I was waiting on the train. It was over an hour late.” I sat down beside Eloise.

Eloise took a sip of her buttermilk. “You left in a hurry after supper. What were you waitin’ on?”

“...My package.”

“What package?”

“The silk stockings Lady Billings ordered for me.”

“You let that rich woman buy you silk stockings?” Momma’s tone stung.

“She took it out of my pay.”

“You better not let Pa find out,” Eloise said getting up to rinse out her glass.

“Delores Maloney, you’re Pa is working his hands to the bone so you can have food on this table. How in God’s name were you thinking you could afford silk stockings?”

I didn’t know. I looked down ashamed.

“Can I see them before I go?” My sister asked, with the tinge of jealousy in her voice I was so hoping for last night.

“You most certainly can not young lady, you are going to sit back down and eat your breakfast,” Momma said putting a plate of food on the table.

Eloise sat back down and ate quickly before getting up to leave. “I better run. It’s getting late and I don’t want to miss my train.”

Eloise was older than me by two years. She took the train to Savannah every morning to work. She was the top sales girl for the Blade & Jade Glass Company. She’d been working for them since she was fourteen- part-time on the weekends, while she was in school and full-time since she finished high school. The owners liked her so much they gave her a 50% discount off all their merchandise. That’s why even though we never had matching dishes we’d started to get quite a collection of fine glassware.

When she stood up to leave that morning, I noticed something strange about her legs. They were the color of the caramel frosting Momma used to make. In the middle of each of her legs was drawn a dark line. It looked kind of like the line on the back of the silk stocking I’d gotten from Memphis.

“Bye now!” Eloise Shouted.

“Bye.” Momma and I said together.

“Momma did you see her legs?” I asked as soon as I heard the screen door slam.

“She painted them with makeup. I know it’s stranger than a pig at a weddin’. I don’t know how it’s not goin’ to rub off. She goin’ to have to stand on the train so it don’t smear. You girls are about to have me fit to be tied. She’s gone to painting her legs and you up and buy real silk stockings. What were thinking? God forbid you should both wear sturdy cotton stockings like I do.”

I thought about the thick putty-colored stockings she wore with a rubber band to hold them up.

“You won’t see me paying 10 cents to the drugstore for sewin’ a run with my cotton pair neither. No siree! It’s just not like you, Delores. You’ve been working for the war effort so hard. I don’t understand it, and what with your Pa not hardly able to pay his hands much less feed ‘em. I declare, I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.”

I squirmed in my seat. “I just got away with myself, Momma. Lady Billings made it sound like silk stockings were going to change my life or something.” My thoughts drifted over to Bo again then quickly came back.

“Lady Billings, that old woman hasn’t set foot out of her house since her husband left over a year ago; yet somehow she thinks she knows what everybody needs.”

“I’m sorry Momma, truly I am.” I held my head low but quickly looked up at the clock remembering I had class. “Oh my goodness, I’m going to be late.”

“I’d been calling you to the table for over an hour, Delores.”

I ran upstairs, changed my clothes, grabbed my book bag, and stumbled down the steps right as Pa’s two workers stood knocking at the screen door.

“Mrs. Maloney, is Mr. Layman gone to the field already?”

Momma walked out of the kitchen holding a brown sack that I knew was my dinner to take to school. “You’re late,” She said to the workers.

I took a breath at the bottom of the steps while I tightened the yellow bias ribbon in my hair. I smiled at Henry Joe and Oriah Sam. Their skin was as brown as a bruised banana and shiny as corn silk. They were exactly the same height, holding their hats in their hands. They wore the same kind of overall over a white t-shirt. I knew their T-shirts got dirtier than a mud pie everyday, but their wives would somehow wash them white as new.

Henry Joe stepped forward to speak. “It was my fault we’re late. My Sarah Jean just delivered a baby this morning.”

“Congratulations.” Momma said warm and joyous. She loved babies and birth no matter whose they were.

“No ma’am, no congratulations, it didn’t make it. Turned upside down it was.”

Momma placed her hand over her heart and pressed hard. “I’m so sorry.”

My stomach sank. Henry Joe’s eyes were glazed in pain. I remembered how he’d lost his five-year old, Henry Clay to polio two winters before. “I’m sorry, too. Sincerely I am.” I felt my words stick in air all stiff and useless.

Henry Joe tilted his head down. Oriah Sam stepped up close to him. Henry Joe leaned in a bit towards him, and then Oriah spoke, “We’s jus gon run on to the field then.”

“You should eat.” Momma said, opening the door wider and stepping aside so they could come inside.

“Maybe later, I done ate ‘fore I came and he don’t have much of a stomach this mornin’,” Oriah continued.

“Yes, I don’t suppose he does. Well, I’ll fix you both a plate and bring it out to you in a bit that way you can eat when you feel hungry.”

“We’d be much obliged ma’am,” Oriah said in earnest.

“Please give Sarah Jean our sympathies,” I pleaded then whispered to Momma, “I better go now.” I slipped around them, walked down the porch steps and was almost to the dirt drive when something tugged at me. Pain has a way of doing that - calling you back even if it isn’t yours. I turned around to see if there was anything more I could do, but Henry Joe and Oriah Sam were putting on their hats. I watched them walk towards the field. I heard Henry Joe and Oriah Sam start singing their church songs. The tugging inside me stopped. I felt released somehow but my eyes stayed on Momma. She stood barefoot with her hand still on her heart and holding the brown paper sack folded neatly in her hand. She lifted it looking out to me, “Delores, you forgot your dinner,” she said.

I didn’t have time to go back. I just waved good-bye and turned towards town. I charged through the gray dawn as the rising sun sprayed the sky with an orange glow. I soaked up the silence that drowned the morning until the thoughts of Sarah Jean and her upside down baby dying forced their way inside my head. Luckily, the Common Grackle black bird cawing at the crops got me to thinking about scarecrows instead. Ronald had been in charge of making the scarecrows every year until he went away. I got to wondering if it would be a good idea if I made one this year. I thought it would help Pa and might just make him right proud. I imagined that putting two coke-a-cola bottles for eyes would be scary enough and getting some of Ronald’s old britches for pants would make it special. I figured I could tear the bottoms so they were frayed on the ends, like the ones the hobo Bo Marks was wearing. Running passed Little John’s Feed & Seed, I figured I’d kept a pace that would get me to class on time, but when I got to the middle of Main Street, I felt a pebble in my shoe and had to stop to pull it out.

“You’re going to trip and skin your knee again running like that Miss Delores Maloney.”

I looked up and saw Bo Marks rocking in a rocking chair on the porch of the Widow Haverty’s Inn.

“It’s you…,” I stuttered, digging for the pebble.

“None other.”

“How are you here?” I asked thinking about the night before. I threw the pebble on the ground and pulled up my sock.

“Well, Mrs. Haverty agreed to let me work on her farm as payment for staying at her fine Inn.”

I walked up closer to the porch. He’d cleaned up a bit and was whittling a stick.”

“That’s pretty detailed work there.”

“The dingbat hoboes taught me how to do it. It’s from an oak tree, the Tree of Life. They call it that because it is known for its strength and endurance. They grow up to 110 feet tall and 30 feet around. Did you know that?

“No, no I didn’t.”

“Where are you going in such a rush?”

“I’m late for class.”

“...and after class?”

“I…”

“I think we should have lunch by the creek. Or you call it dinner, right? We could have a picnic.”

“I most certainly will not. Bo Marks, I’m sorry if I gave you any inclination that I…”

“You remembered my name. Well, no you gave me no inclination whatsoever Delores. I just wanted to repay you somehow for your kindness last night. I was wrong in asking you. I’m sorry.”

“Well, I have my dinner anyway.” I lifted my book bag then remembered my Momma calling me. “Oh no, I forgot it! I can’t believe it. I better get to class. I’m going to be late.”

“Indeed and if you so happen to change your mind, I’ll have delicious sandwiches and lemonade for you at noon just past the station down by the creek.”

He was so proper. He wasn’t like what I expected a hobo to be at all. I didn’t know what to say to him, so I just smiled and took off. I reached my classroom right before the First Milton Bank clock chimed for the eighth time. I wasn’t late but my class was lost to the chatter in my head. I thought about how Eloise would have a field day if she knew I’d even talked to Bo Marks. A picnic was totally out of the question. He seemed so nice though- so smart and charming. I started to compare the warmth in his eyes to the pain in Henry Joe’s. My thoughts drifted to poor Sarah Jean. I began to imagine her baby being stuck in the birth canal upside down. I felt so sad. I wanted to help it and wondered why the doctor couldn’t.

“Delores Maloney!”

I jerked inside my skin and looked up at my teacher, Miss Clarke.

Miss Clarke’s thin figure towered over me. “Are you going to be here for the test tomorrow?”

"...test? What test? Yes, of course I’ll be there…here.”

Miss Clarke was a real nurse from Atlanta. She’d been assigned by the American Red Cross to teach our 80-hour Nurse’s Aid course. Her mother was supposed to be a well-known “Gray Lady”, who even though she didn’t get her nursing degree, helped many patients during World War I.

“Well, please make sure you are really here next time, Okay?”

She was very strict but she was so pretty it was hard to take her seriously sometimes. Her blond hair waved and curled around her steady misty blue eyes that were always painted perfect. She started talking to the class about preparations for the test and then went over the purpose of the program again.

“The American Red Cross Nurse’s Aid program is part of the ARC’s drive to increase the number of nurses available on the home front for the war effort. Many of you like Delores here have graduated from high school early and are eligible for the program now. The program is completely paid for by the U.S. Public Health Services as long as you promise to serve in the Army Nurses Corps.”

A few of the girls raised their hands to ask questions. I couldn’t think of any. I kept thinking about how Miss Clarke had told us the reason she got into nursing was so she could be with her mother. She said her mother worked so hard for the Red Cross she never saw her. They called her mother the Clara Barton of Fulton County. When Miss Clarke became a nurse they sent her here away from her mother. I wondered if Miss Clarke had feelings about that. I noticed everyone was leaving so I started gathering my things.

“Delores, can I speak with you a moment?” Miss Clark asked.

“Yes ma’am,” I said walking towards her.

“You were not with us at all today. That’s not like you.”

“No, ma’am, I had other things on my mind. I’m sorry. You know, one of my Pa’s workers lost a baby this morning. It was upside down.”

“It was breach.”

“Yes ma’am,”

“Was that what was concerning you?”

“It’s hard to understand is all.”

“Sometimes, there are things outside of our control. We can’t save everyone. Part of this job is about understanding that we must face death more than other people have to.” She looked down, twisting the toe of her high-heeled shoe on the floor; then she looked up again. “I know the death of a child is very painful. I suppose nowadays it’s a matter of getting enough doctors or the right doctor and in the Negro community sometimes that doesn’t happen- especially with the war on, and so many doctors being called away. I’m sorry this is upsetting you.”

“I’ll be okay. I promise I’ll be ready for that test, too.” I started to walk out and paused. “What do you say, Miss Clarke? How do you help somebody like that? Poor fellow lost his five-year-old to polio a few winters back, too. ‘I’m sorry’ just doesn’t seem to be enough.”

“Sometimes that’s all there is to say.”

About The Author

Education: American University

Texas Christain University

St. Francis College

Portfolio Center

Georgia State University

Experience: Copywriter

Ogilvy & Mather, NYC

Joey Reinman, Atlanta

WestWayne, Atlanta

Freelance

Young & Rubicam, NYC &

other Atlanta agencies

Copyright 2006-2009, Rhonda Geraci (Expires February 18, 2009)

To request information on this author or a manuscript contact the listed agent or e-mail: dbooth@authorlink.com

AUTHORLINK SMART QUERY

Editor/Agent Request for Manuscript/Screenplay

This service is for legitimate publishers, editors and agents only. Please do not request a manuscript or information unless you can verify that you are an active professional in the industry. Thank you!

Note to Editors and Agents: Your contact information will remain highly confidential at all times. The information will be given ONLY to the person whose materials you requested. Respond to any listed writer in seconds. No paper rejections! It's the quick, "green" thing to do. More book deals have been facilitated here than any similar service. SMART QUERY helps you quickly choose and receive manuscript projects that are more relevant to your needs. Thanks.

Author Reference Number	611006ya
Author Name	Rhonda Geraci
Your Name
Your Company
Address
City
State
Zip Code
Your Title
Phone Number
E-mail Address
Materials Requested
Enter characters from image below: (we do this to prevent spam)
Phonetic spelling (mp3)

---