Lena by Jacqueline Woodson Page A

father’s gone. I felt like I could just go on and on—talk right into the morning. Tell everything. “We was scared that first night but we got a ride from a nice lady and it felt like everything was going to be all right then.”
    â€œLena, tell me where you are. My father and I could come—”
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    â€œIn Kentucky. This other nice lady—not the one from Ohio—let us stay at her house tonight.”
    â€œWhat about tomorrow? Where will you be tomorrow?” Marie sounded desperate, the way she sounded the night me and Dion left.
    â€œI don’t know about tomorrow.”
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    â€œDon’t leave again. Don’t go somewhere I can’t find you!” Marie sniffed.
    â€œWe’re okay, Marie. For real we are.”
    â€œYou coming back?” Marie whispered. “What about school and being an artist?”
    â€œNo place to come back to, Marie.”
    â€œYou can come here, Lena. To my house.”
    I closed my eyes and tried to imagine me and Dion living in Marie’s big house with her daddy. Tried to imagine us all waking up together and getting ready for school. Imagining it made me smile but I knew it could never happen, not with her daddy not really liking white people and them being so rich and all. Two white girls like me and Dion weren’t gonna fit in that house.
    â€œI could ask him . . . ,” Marie was saying. “Soon as he gets home from his stupid date. At least let me ask, Lena. He’s different now. Now that I told him everything—it’s like . . . I think he knew there was no way he could keep my mother from leaving but there was a way he could have kept you and Dion from going. That changed him. He really wants to find you and Dion. He told me he wants everything to turn out all right.”
    I swallowed. Outside, I could hear an owl whoo- whoo ing.
    â€œYou ask him,” I said, feeling real tired now. All I wanted was to climb in bed beside Dion, to sleep peaceful one night before we got back on the road.
    â€œGive me the number there.”
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    I got up and recited the number off Miz Lily’s phone, not caring anymore about the lies we had told Miz Lily. It didn’t matter what anybody knew about us anymore. It was only me and Dion in the world now.
    â€œPromise you won’t leave there!”
    â€œI won’t.”
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    â€œPromise me!”
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    â€œI promise.”
    â€œI’ll call you real early in the morning,” Marie said. “You stay near the phone, okay?”
    â€œOkay,” I said, feeling a little bad for Marie. She still had a lot of hope and faith. We was real different that way.
    â€œAnd Lena?”
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    â€œYeah.”
    â€œLena, I’m glad you and Dion are all right.”
    I smiled. When I was still living in Chauncey, I used to always tell Marie how I wanted to do like this singer Jimi Hendrix and kiss the sky. Having Marie say she was glad I was all right was like kissing the sky. Knowing there was this person out there feeling glad about us being okay.
    â€œYeah,” I whispered. “Me too.”

Thirteen
    I woke up early to the smell of bacon frying. Dion was still sound asleep beside me, her hair sticking up all over her head. I climbed out of bed and made my way to the bathroom. Miz Lily had left our clothes outside the bedroom door. They were folded real nice. I found my jeans and T-shirt and then took my flannel shirt from the bottom of the pile and went into the bathroom, all the while trying not to think about Marie calling.
    I stood under the shower water a long time, not sure when I’d be able to take another. It felt warm against my back and I let it run over me a little while longer before soaping up and washing my hair again. Figure between the night before and this morning, I’d have one of the cleanest heads in Kentucky.
    When I came out of the shower, Dion was sitting on the toilet all sleepy-eyed.
    â€œI’m