The Four Winds

“Where we goin’, Mommy?” Ant asked, holding her hand.

She loved that he still held her hand in public.

“To town.”

“Oooh,” Loreda said. “What fun we’ll have standing in line for the few dollars we earned this week.”

Elsa elbowed her daughter. “No member of the Explorers Club is allowed to be unhappy on a Saturday adventure. New rule.”

“Who made you President?” Loreda said.

“I did.” Ant giggled. “Mo-mmy for President, Mo-mmy for President,” he chanted, marching on the soft, wet grass.

Elsa pressed a hand to her heart. “It is such an honor. Why … I never expected such a thing. A woman President.”

Loreda finally laughed and the mood lifted.

They turned onto the main road and walked all the way to Welty. By the time they reached the quaint little town, with its cotton-boll welcome sign, the fog had been burned away by a surprisingly warm sun. The mountains in the distance showed a new layer of snow. The trees along Main Street displayed their autumn finery.

“Wait here,” Elsa said outside the Welty Farms office. Inside, she got into line and waited her turn to cash her chit.

“Here yah go,” the man at the desk said, taking her chit worth twenty dollars and giving her eighteen dollars in exchange. Elsa rolled the money as tightly as she could, mentally calculating the total of their savings. It seemed like a lot now, but she knew it wouldn’t be much by February.

But she wasn’t going to think of that today. She returned to the street, where the children stood beneath a lamppost, waiting.

It was one of those sharp-as-a-tack moments when she saw them: Loreda, thin as a chicken bone in a threadbare dress and shoes that didn’t fit and long, raggedly growing-out hair; Ant, scrawny and with dirty hair no matter how hard Elsa tried to keep him clean, still—thankfully—fitting into Buster’s old shoes.

Elsa forced a smile as she walked out to meet them. Taking Ant’s hand, she headed down Main Street, where the shops were opening for the day. She smelled coffee and freshly baked pastries as she passed the diner, and the familiar smell of baled hay and bags of grain as they passed the feed store.

There it was: the destination she’d had in mind when they left the camp this morning.

Betty Ane’s Beauty Shop.

Elsa had seen the pretty little salon every time she came to town, seen well-dressed women coming out with stylish hair.

Elsa walked toward the salon. It was housed in an old-fashioned bungalow with a fenced yard out front.

Loreda stopped, shook her head. “No, Mom. You know how they’ll treat us.”

Elsa knew better than to make another hollow promise; she also knew that no matter how often you were knocked down, you had to keep getting up. She tightened her hold on Ant’s hand and opened the gate.

Loreda wasn’t following. Elsa knew it and kept going. Come on, Loreda, be brave.

Elsa and Ant walked up to the front door and Elsa opened it.

A bell jangled overhead.

Inside, the salon filled what had once been the bungalow’s parlor. There were two pink chairs stationed in front of mirrors. Cords lay snaked on the floor, gathered up at a machine in the corner. Framed photographs of movie stars lined the pink walls.

A middle-aged woman in a white frock coat stood in the center of the salon holding a broom. She looked thoroughly, almost stubbornly modern, with waved, chin-length platinum-dyed hair and pencil-thin eyebrows. Her Clara Bow lips were painted a bright French red. “Oh,” she said at the sight of them huddled together.

Loreda slipped in beside Elsa, took hold of her hand, and tugged it. “Let’s go, Mom.”

Elsa took a deep breath. “This is my daughter, Loreda. She’s thirteen and about to start school on Monday, after a season of picking cotton. She expects to be teased, because … well…”

Loreda groaned beside her.

“Let me speak to my husband,” the beautician said, and left the room.