Welcome to Last Chance (Last Chance #1)(17)
Author: Hope Ramsay

Chapter 8

Haley’s school was closed on account of the fact that a tree had blown over and busted up the roof. Haley might have felt good about that—after all, Lizzy’s school wasn’t closed—but when Haley wasn’t at school, the Sorrowful Angel would hang around and cry all the time.

That wasn’t any fun. And it wasn’t much fun spending the morning at Betsy Maxwell’s house, either. But that’s what Haley had to do, ’cause Granny had lots of customers on Friday mornings and needed to work, and Jane, the new babysitter named like the hurricane, needed to work at the beauty shop, too.

So Haley was stuck with dumb old Betsy until Betsy went to her piano lessons in the afternoon. Thank goodness there wasn’t nothing wrong with the piano teacher’s house, ’cause Haley didn’t like to play Barbies that much, and whenever she was at Betsy’s house she had to play Barbies all the time.

Mrs. Maxwell dropped Haley off at the Cut ’n Curl on the way to Betsy’s lessons, and then Jane quit doing manicures, and the two of them decided to walk down to the school playground for a little while before they had to go meet Lizzy at her bus stop.

Jane didn’t look any different from anyone else Haley had ever met, which was kind of surprising since last night Daddy and Granny had had a big fight about her being a floozy. They had hollered so loud that Haley had heard what they said all the way from Granny’s kitchen to the living room, where she had been coloring. Granny kept saying Jane was an answer to her prayers. Daddy yelled back that he didn’t believe in the power of prayer and didn’t want a floozy looking after his children.

Daddy lost the argument on account of the fact that Daddy was a policeman and had to work a lot of hours, and Granny had said she was going to go on strike if Jane couldn’t be the new babysitter. Haley didn’t know what a strike was, but she figured it had to be like a lightning strike, ’cause Daddy shut up real quick. Haley was kind of scared of lightning.

So that’s how Haley ended up being watched by a person who was a floozy and had seen the insides of the Peach Blossom Motor Court.

It was a red-letter day.

Haley figured this might be the only time she would ever get to figure out some important things. So she looked up at Jane and let her question fly. “What’s the insides of the Peach Blossom look like?”

“It looks like any old motel, I guess,” Jane answered without even getting mad.

Jiminy Christmas! Grownups never answered questions like that, ever.

“Miz Bray says a good girl never wants to see the insides of that place. Is it scary?” she asked.

Jane laughed and shook her head. “No, it’s not scary. I guess Mrs. Bray keeps an eye on the place, huh? I guess that’s why she says things like that to little girls like you.”

“I don’t rightly know, but Miz Bray knows you saw the insides, ’cause she called up Granny and told her. And then Miz Randall called, and Granny got mad.”

“What?” Jane stopped walking. “Would you say that again?”

Haley turned and looked up at Jane. She had a nice face. If she was a floozy, then floozies must not be so bad.

“Like I said,” Haley began. “Miz Bray called Granny and told her all about how Uncle Clay had been inside of the Peach Blossom Motor Court with a floozy, and how that made Uncle Clay no good to be the organist at church anymore. Granny got really mad about that. But then Miz Randall called and Granny wasn’t so mad anymore. And then Granny decided you were the answer to her prayers.”

“Because Mrs. Randall said so?”

Haley shrugged. “Don’t know.” She squinted up at Jane and asked the main question on her mind. “So, what is it about the Peach Blossom Motor Court that turns a person into a floozy?”

Jane looked mad for a minute. And then she turned and headed down the sidewalk. “Come on, Haley, this conversation is officially over.”

Haley followed with a determined stride. “Why?”

“Because your question was not polite. No one likes to be called a floozy. So you’ll just need to ask your granny about this stuff… when you’re older.”

Haley let out a deep breath. “That’s what everyone says.”

Jane didn’t say anything else, and Haley knew she’d messed up her one chance. Jane was mad.

“Jeepers, I’m sorry,” Haley said, on account of the fact that Granny always told her to apologize if she ever did anything impolite. Not that she completely understood why Jane was mad or anything. But she kind of liked Jane.

“It’s okay,” Jane said.

The Sorrowful Angel took a break from crying and nodded like she approved of the apology. Haley took that as a sign and spent the rest of the walk to the playground playing tag with the Sorrowful Angel. Once they reached the playground, Jane sat down on the bench and plugged up her ears with earphones, which put an end to any further conversations.

There wasn’t much to do, so Haley made her way to the deserted swing set and took a seat and watched the group of workmen cutting up the tree that had mashed one whole corner of the school, including Miss Jackson’s second-grade classroom. The Sorrowful Angel hovered nearby watching Haley watch the men, like maybe the Angel was like a babysitter herself.

Haley pushed herself off and started to pump the swing and sing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” which was her favorite thing to sing when she was swinging. A little later, Uncle Clay came down the path, headed for Jane. He had something in his hands.

Haley stopped singing but continued to pump the swing as Uncle Clay waited for Jane to take the earphones out of her ears. He started talking to her, and jeepers, he talked a long, long time. Jane didn’t say nothing; she just nodded. Haley wished she could hear what Uncle Clay was saying. He might be talking about stuff that would explain what a floozy was.

Uncle Clay gave Jane something that looked kinda like a CD player. And then Uncle Clay turned and walked back toward town. Jane started rubbing her eyes, like maybe she was crying, and Haley started to wonder if maybe Uncle Clay had been impolite and called her a floozy to her face, too.

Great, that was all Haley needed, a Sorrowful Angel and a sorrowful floozy. She looked up at the men boarding up broken windows and hammering on the caved-in roof of the school.

Jesus, Haley prayed fervently, please help me. All this sorrow is starting to wear me down.

“Look what I found,” Haley Rhodes said as she scampered into the sitting room of the little apartment above the Cut ’n Curl. It was late afternoon on Friday, and dusk was settling over Last Chance. Downstairs in the shop, Ruby was finishing Lessie Pontius’s weekly wash and set.

Jane pulled the earphones from her ears. “What?”

“Look what I found,” Haley repeated as she swung Woody’s stupid piece-of-crap necklace in front of Jane’s eyes. Recognition rocked through Jane, followed by a shiver of revulsion. How had the kid found that thing?

“Can I have it?” Haley tipped her head and gazed up at Jane out of a pair of precocious brown eyes. Haley hadn’t inherited her dark eyes or curly blond hair from her pa, that was for sure.

Lizzy Rhodes, on the other hand, was a dead ringer for her pa. She looked up from her book, her green eyes staring daggers at her little sister. “Haley, you know it’s not nice to ask for things that aren’t yours. Put the necklace back.”

“No. You’re not the boss of me.” Haley stuck her nose in the air and turned back toward Jane. “So, can I have it?”

“Honey, why’d you snoop through my trash?” Jane asked.

Haley gave Jane another innocent-little-me smile. The kid was a danger, really. “Oh, I wasn’t snooping, I swear,” Haley said. “I was just throwing away the empty juice boxes, and when I looked in the garbage can, I saw the necklace. It’s real pretty.”

“You pulled that thing out of the trash? Ew.” Lizzy wrinkled her nose. “That’s gross.” Lizzy was the antithesis of sweet little Haley. The teen was going through a serious Goth-libber phase, dressed in black jeans and an oversized T-shirt with the words “Feminist: A woman who respects herself” printed on its front. The shirt was so big and floppy it hid a figure that was somewhere between girlish and womanly.

“Lizzy’s got a point,” Jane said. “It’s yucky to take things out of the trash.”

“But it’s not yucky. It’s pretty. And if you don’t want it, can I have it?”

Jane pondered whether it would be good or bad karma to let the child have a necklace jinxed by Woody West. “Why would you want that thing?”

The little girl took a deep breath and began rattling out an explanation. “Oh, I’ve been wanting a big-girl necklace for so long. I even prayed for one, even though I know it’s not right to pray for things for yourself like that. But I promised Jesus that I would be good if He would find a way for me to have a pretty necklace like the one Jeremiah Jones gave Liz—oops.” The little girl slapped both hands across her mouth and looked at her big sister with terror in her eyes.

Lizzy, who had been sprawled on the sofa, sat up and glared. “How d’you know that Jeremiah gave me a necklace? Have you been spying on me?”

Haley shook her head but kept her hands over her mouth.

“I’m gonna tell Daddy that you’ve been spying on me,” Lizzy said.

Haley dropped her hands, her fear evaporating. “No, you’re not.”

“Am, too.”

“If you do, he’ll find out about Jeremiah, and he’ll be mad, even if Jeremiah is the cutest boy in seventh grade.”

Lizzy blushed a shade of red that rivaled Mrs. Randall’s nail color.

Jane had to stifle a smile. “You know, Liz, you ought to think this through. Your pa will probably slap handcuffs on Jeremiah and haul him in for questioning. And he’ll probably ground you.”

A smug smile split Haley’s adorable little face. Lizzy looked like she was ready for fratricide.

“You’re going to tell him, aren’t you?” Lizzy said in an angry voice. “Michelle, the last babysitter, was always tattling on us to Daddy.”

“Me?” Jane pointed at herself and gave Lizzy a what-who-me? look. “I don’t think so. I have a feeling Chief Rhodes won’t listen to a thing I have to say.

“But,” Jane continued, lacing her hands together in her lap and trying for her best babysitter-friend-mentor voice, “you ought to be on your guard against any boy who gives you a cheap necklace. Not that getting a gift from a boy is wrong. Just remember what it says on your shirt. You’re worth more than a necklace, Lizzy, even if the necklace is made of diamonds.”

Too bad Jane hadn’t learned that lesson. Wednesday night was the perfect case in point.

Lizzy nodded like she actually understood.

Haley hurled her next verbal bomb into the short silence. “So,” she said, “did you throw the necklace away because your last boyfriend was a peckerwood?”

“Haley!” Lizzy sounded totally grossed out. “Mind your manners.”