The Four Winds

“She’s probably calling the police,” Loreda said. “She’ll say we’re vagrants. Or worse.”

A few moments later, the woman returned to the beauty parlor and faced them, pulling a comb out of her pocket. “I’m Betty Ane,” she said, moving toward them, her high heels clicking on the hardwood floor. She came to a stop in front of Loreda. Close but not too close.

Please, Elsa thought, tightening her hold on Loreda’s hand, be kind to my girl.

At the same moment, a large man in a brown suit came into the parlor from another room, carrying a big cardboard box.

“This is my husband, Ned,” Betty Ane said.

“I understand,” Elsa said. “You and Ned want us to leave. Go back to our kind.”

Ned pulled the hat off of his head. “No, ma’am. We came here in ’30. It was tough to make a living, but nothing like it is now.” He offered her the box. “Here’s some coats and sweaters and such. Winter can be cold here. There’s a shower in our bathroom. Hot water. Why don’t y’all help yourselves? A hot shower and new clothes can be a mighty bit of help in hard times.”

Betty Ane smiled kindly at Loreda. “And I see a girl who needs a new hairstyle for her first day of school. Lord knows thirteen is hard enough without all of this.” Betty Ane gave Loreda an appraising look. “You’re a real beauty, doll. Let me work my magic.”

TWENTY-THREE

Loreda sat in the tufted velvet chair and stared at her reflection in the mirror. Betty Ane had cut Loreda’s black hair in a precise line along her chin and then coaxed it into waves that cascaded down from a deep side part. Her face, scrubbed clean with scented soap, was deeply tanned from work in the cotton fields. A new purple dress accentuated the startling blue of Loreda’s eyes, and Betty Ane had talked Elsa into letting Loreda put a little pale-pink color on her lips.

“I forgot what I looked like,” Loreda said, touching the silky tips of her hair.

Betty Ane stood behind her. “You may be the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.” She turned. “Elsa. Your turn.”

Loreda hated to get out of the chair. It felt magical, a portal to a what-if world where ditch-dwellers turned into princesses.

Her legs were a little shaky, to be honest. In the mirror, she’d seen more than her face. She’d seen the girl she’d been before all of this. A dreamer, a believer. Someone who would go places. How had she forgotten all of that?

It gave her a newfound, or refound, hope, but it fed the anger in her, too. She thanked Betty Ane and moved away from the mirror. Mom touched her shoulder as they changed places.

“Say, is this your natural hair color?” Betty Ane said as Elsa sat down. “It’s beautiful.”

Loreda backed away. Without a glance at Ant, who was on the floor playing

with a toy car, she went outside.

Even the air out here smelled different now.

She straightened to her full height, realizing all at once how life in the fields had hunched and diminished her. She’d spent months trying to be a cog in a wheel, unseen.

No more.

She strode confidently forward in the new-to-her dress with its Peter Pan collar. Her scuffed brown shoes hardly bothered her when coupled with lacy white socks.

She found the library on Pepper Street, set back from the town, on a pretty grass lot, with an American flag flapping from a white pole out front.

A library.

Magic.

She opened the door and walked right in, standing tall, the girl she’d been raised to be. A girl who believed in education and dreamed of being a reporter. Or a novelist. Something interesting, anyway.

The first thing she noticed was the smell of books. She inhaled deeply and felt transported for a moment to Lonesome Tree. In her bedroom, light on, reading …

Home.

“May I help you?”

“Yes. Please. I would love to find a book to read.”