Excerpt: Come What May

It was almost nine o'clock by the time we packed up the car and headed out. We drove for nearly forty-five minutes before we reached a small town. The kids and I waited in the car and watched an episode of Andy Griffith while Joel walked up and down the short main street to ask about a job. I kept an eye on him, and noticed that he was often not in a building for even more than a minute. Many of the businesses were closed and locked up.
He came back to the car, shrugging his shoulders.
“Nothing here,” he said. “I asked everyone I spoke to if they knew of any jobs around and no one knew of anything.”
This scene was repeated in the next town, and the next. Joel decided to take us all to lunch at a local diner, since all of our easy to prepare food was gone.
We sat in a booth in the nearly deserted cafe. There were two old farmers sitting at the counter, drinking their coffee, hats tipped back on their heads. They stared at us as we seated ourselves in the booth, and I smiled at them. One of the men grinned at me, nodding his head in greeting before turning back to his friend.
The waitress, a short red haired woman whose name tag said, “Ann” came to the table, pen in hand.
“What can I getcha?” she asked.
“We'll all have water to drink,” I said. “And the kids will share a cheeseburger and fries. I'll take a cheeseburger, too.”
“Me, too,” Joel said, handing her his menu.
She brought our waters to the table. “We're out of straws,” she said apologetically.
I smiled at her. “That's fine. Hey, just wondering, are there any job openings here?”
She laughed and pushed her hair behind her ear. “No. Definitely not. They are going to shut this place down soon. You folks are the first customers we've had all day, 'cept for the coffee crowd.” She jerked her head towards the men at the counter. “We didn't just run out of straws, they've been gone for weeks. Got no ketchup, neither. Or onions, or tomatoes. Hope you folks like mayonnaise.”
“Love it,” I said. “Sorry about the place closing.”
“Yeah, me too. I'm not sure where I'm going to go after this. I got two kids at home; I'm all they got.”
Joel heaved a big sigh. “So I don't suppose there is even any point in looking for a job in this town then?”
She laughed again. “No. Half the places aren't even open anymore. This place has become a ghost town. We're all just hopin' that the grocery store don't close down. If that happens, none of us will be able to stay here. Only thing left will be the post office.”
A short ringing sound came from the back.
“That'll be your order,” Ann said, hurrying away from the table.
I looked at Joel. “Might as well move on after lunch, huh?” I said. “No point in even going anywhere in this town.”
He nodded. “I guess you're right. Maybe the next town...”
Over the next two days, that became our motto. Maybe the next town. It was repeated often enough. We camped in remote spots away from the towns, hidden away from the houses around. Not that it mattered; many of the houses were dark and looked to be abandoned. I wondered where the people had gone.
It had been nearly a week since I had washed my hair. I had managed quick washes of my body in public restroom sinks, but I felt dirty and unkempt. I talked Joel into stopping at a Thrift-Mart so I could wash my hair in the sink. Joel and the kids walked around the store while I snuck into the bathroom, a bottle of shampoo and a thin towel stuffed into my purse. There was no one in the bathroom when I entered, and I quickly scrubbed out the sink with a bit of soap and a paper towel. I was sure it wasn't germ free, but having clean hair was worth the risk.
The sink was small, and I was unable to stick my head completely under the faucet. It was enough to soak my hair, and I splashed water onto my scalp to wet it. I squeezed a tiny bit of shampoo into my hand and massaged it into my hair. I was just rinsing out the soap when a woman came in. Her nose turned up and she stared at me. I ignored her and continued to rinse my hair before I turned off the water and began squeezing the water out. When I turned around, towel wrapped around my head, she was still standing there.
“Yes?” I said finally.
“That is disgusting,” she sniffed.
I rolled my eyes. “Uh-huh.” I simply toweled off my hair as best I could and rinsed the sink out.
She was still watching me.
“Look,” I said. “If you want to go tell management, go for it. But could you please stop staring at me? I'm terribly sorry I have offended your delicate sensibilities. I hope you can recover.”
She sniffed again and then went into a stall.
I rolled my towel up and stuck it back in my purse. “And hey, if you think what I did was disgusting, you should have seen what the last woman did in that stall you are sitting in,” I called to her as I headed out the door.
I found Joel and the kids in the toy aisle, pushing buttons on all the battery-operated toys.
“Doesn't look like Thrift-Mart is hurting too badly, does it?” I said to Joel, looking at the fully stocked shelves. It looked the same as it always had. There weren't as many shoppers as their used to be, however, the ones I did see seemed to be of a higher class.
“I guess Thrift-Mart is going to become the rich people store now,” I said, seeing an attractive woman in a nicely tailored black suit and expensive jewelry walk past.
“Guess so,” Joel said, eyebrows raised as he leaned to watch her walk down the aisle. I elbowed him in the ribs and rolled my eyes.
As we wandered the store, I braided my still-damp hair in an attempt to keep the curls contained.
“It's kind of weird being here, isn't it?” Joel said to me. “I mean, we used to practically live at Thrift-Mart.”
It was true. Just one year ago, going to Thrift-Mart had been a near daily occurrence. We had frittered away our money on things we couldn't live without but didn't really need: a DVD here, a new spatula there, new bath towels, cleaning supplies. If we couldn't buy it at Thrift-Mart, we just didn't buy it.
But now, after not having stepped foot in one for six months, it felt unnatural and strange. I didn't see anything that I wanted at all. I had no walls, so that nice picture frame was totally useless to me. Besides having no house to put it in, the furniture didn't appeal to me at all because it was so flimsy and didn't look like it would last a month.
But it was nice to be indoors, in a warm building with plenty of lights and clean bathrooms. It was nice to have clean hair again, even if I still needed to shave my armpits and hadn't had a full-body shower in a week.
We wandered around the store for hours. The kids grew tired of walking so we put them in a cart and pushed them around. Even though we weren't shopping, walking the aisles and looking at stuff on the shelves gave us a purpose for that day, and helped us to avoid the ever-present thought: what were we going to do?
The sky was a dusky rose color when we finally left the store. My hair was long dry, and the kids were complaining of being hungry. We drove out in the countryside until we found a quiet road to camp beside. The tent was set up, and I was just dishing out a bowl of canned spaghetti o's to everyone when a pair of headlights turned down the road.
“Uh-oh,” I said, watching as the car slowed down. I could see the silhouette of a light bar across the top of the car.
A police officer slowly got out of the car and wandered up to the campsite. Joel had stood up and walked to meet the officer.
“Howdy,” the officer said, tipping his head towards me. “I'm sorry to have to do this to you folks, but I'm going to have to ask you to move on. The owners don't want anyone camping out down here. They are afraid of-” He didn't finish his sentence, but I knew where he was going with it.
“Transients?” I finished, with a wry smile.
He grinned sheepishly. “You all seem like a nice family. I hate to have to do this to you.”
“It's okay,” Joel said. “We understand.”
“It could be my family out here in a few weeks,” the officer said, determined to make sure we understood his position.
“We hope not,” I said. “Really, it's fine. Would it be okay if we finished our dinner before we left?”
He glanced in the bowl Joel was holding and saw that our dinner consisted of canned spaghetti o's. “Oh, of course,” he said. “That'll be be fine. I really am sorry.”
After we left, we ate our meal in silence. Without speaking, I stood to rinse our dishes and Joel took down the tent.
“What are you doing that for, Daddy?” Felix asked. “I want to go to sleep.”
“Sorry, buddy,” Joel said. “That man said we had to leave.”
“Where we going?” Mary piped up.
Joel just looked at me. I shrugged. I truly had no idea where we would go.
In the end, we drove back to the town and slept in the Thrift-Mart parking lot. We were all terribly uncomfortable in our seats and no one slept very well. I set the DVD player up on the dashboard and we all watched an episode of Little House while the kids fell asleep.
As the ending credits were rolling, I looked back and saw that the kids were asleep, their heads cocked at uncomfortable angles in their seats.
“I never should have let you guys come,” Joel muttered.
I stared at him. “What?” I said. I had heard him perfectly well.
“I said I shouldn't have brought you guys. It's all my fault. You guys could be safe at home, at your mom's house. Instead I have you out here, sleeping in a parking lot in the car.”
“And if we weren't here, you'd be all alone. Would that be better?”
“At least I wouldn't have you guys to worry about. I'd know that you were safe at your parents' house, sleeping in a warm bed. Instead...” He didn't finish his sentence, just waved his arm around, indicating our surroundings.
“We're all fine,” I said. “I wouldn't have stayed behind, you couldn't have made me. For better or worse, huh?”
He smiled half-heartedly. “Don't get all corny on me now.”
“Don't worry. I'm just saying, we are a family, and we should always stick together. If sleeping in the car is the worst thing that ever happens to us, I'll consider myself lucky.”
Joel sighed. “I hope this is the worst.”