Day 2

The nameless girl was back again the next day, though she sat about twenty feet down the curb and refused to look up at him when he sang the song about the scandals of government. Henry couldn’t help but wonder about her name, how old she was, or if she had a family. Henry couldn’t help but wonder if she had a home, watching her thin shoulders rise and fall so heavily with each breath. She looked ill and tired and hungry, and Henry wanted nothing more than to hear her sing again, because she had almost seemed alive when she had been singing the day before. The only problem was actually beginning a conversation without her running away. She seemed very skittish.

 

In the course of a full hour busking (he actually admired his own patience when doing other things slowly made him twitch and jiggle his leg) Henry inched down the sidewalk toward the girl, trying to get nearer without frightening her with sudden movements. She was completely unaware of his voice rising in volume, so focused on not only the noisy traffic, but her own voice. It was rising and falling, soft and sweet where his was loud and rough, in perfect harmony. And when she didn’t know the words she hummed.

 

Henry, as he slid his hat carefully down the sidewalk so he wouldn’t have to worry about leaving his money alone, couldn’t help but feel like this girl was going to change things for him. This was different from all the half-baked hopes he had had for his life. However he had no further time to contemplate how wonderful his life could be if he just made the connection, because when he was directly behind her he accidentally kicked over his hat and sent coins chiming softly right into the gutter.

 

The girl startled and looked to her right where Henry had been an hour ago. Then she spun around, saw him, and Henry thought she might scream or pass out from the way she went so pale. He quickly put up both of his hands in a gesture of surrender, and they both stood there for several moments without moving an inch. Then slowly, cautiously, as though moving too quickly would set off a bomb, they simultaneously knelt and started scooping up the spilled money, restoring it to the hat. Her thin delicate hands shook in the cold, gray-white callouses standing out on thin fingers as she scooped a handful of quarters into the bowler hat that once belonged to Henry’s grandfather.

 

“I-I’m sorry I scared you,” he stammered, wringing his hands. The girl seemed to shrink visibly into herself, avoiding his eyes. “I just wanted a chance to hear you sing again.”

 

That seemed to get her attention just as ardently as it had the day before; her eyes snapped up, gray and startlingly large in her thin face, and her lower lip slid up between her teeth as she cautiously watched him watch her. Her eyes held a maelstrom of mistrust and yet also the hungry, desperate desire of the lonely to trust somebody.

 

Encouraged by the look in her eyes, Henry smiled winningly. “I’d really like to hear more, if you’re willing.”

 

The girl’s thin pale lips parted into something almost close to resembling a hint of a smile as a small sigh left them. Then a gust of wind roared around the corner and sent the beautiful face away as she tugged her stocking cap farther over her ears. Her sleeves jingled when she moved, harboring the change she had gathered in the day, and Henry suddenly remembered the weight of her forgotten cup in his pocket.

 

He reached for his pocket a bit too quickly and she jumped back, face white and startled, and Henry froze, realizing his mistake. With one hand held palm-out to show he meant no ill will, he moved his hand more slowly into his pocket and pulled out her cup, keeping cautious to not spill the money. “You left this yesterday,” he explained slowly as if speaking to a frightened animal. “I just wanted to give it back.”

 

The girl’s silent nervous stare moved from the cup in his hand to his face. He moved the cup a bit closer to her, almost shaking at the suggestion that he might soon be feeling her hand brushing against his, but the girl was very careful not to touch him as she took the cup. The Styrofoam squeaked on her callouses, and Henry vaguely wondered if she was self-conscious about them. Either way, as she started sorting through the coins, he was convinced that she was not about to talk to him any time today, and adjusted his guitar on its strap.

 

“It’s all there,” he promised, scratching absently at his right eyebrow; the girl blushed a dark shade of pink and stopped counting. “Well…I should be getting back.” The girl’s face fell and her mouth strained open and shut as if she wanted desperately to say something. Henry paused, holding his breath, but then she visibly sagged and closed her lips. “Um…okay. See you.”

 

More than a bit crestfallen and dejected, Henry picked up his hat and started back toward his corner. The girl’s eyes stared after him, making the back of his neck itch, as she stood on the very shoulder of the road. Then when he was nearly around the corner he heard it; her voice, shaky like an old woman’s but strong: “T-tank you!” Henry’s gut churned with joy and he grinned from ear-to-ear, turned to face her, and waved in an I’ll see you tomorrow sort of way. Her fingers twitched down by her right hip, and that was good enough for now. His step was lighter as he walked home.

 

“You’re looking awfully chipper tonight, Henry,” said his mother over the dinky kitchen table that night. Henry grinned bashfully and stared at the mug of tea that she was stirring. “Did someone pay you well?”

 

“Not really.”

 

His mom smirked but said nothing for a long time, convincing Henry that she was finished with her questions. Then, nearly ten minutes later and after he and his dad had started and ended another conversation, she stood up and started clearing plates. “Let me know when to expect her for supper, dear.”

 

***

 

“Klára?”

 

The wind caused by cars rushing past drowned out her brother’s voice. Everyone had somewhere to be tonight, it seemed as they sped down the near-empty street.

 

“Klára!”

 

Klára opened her eyes when another hand took hers and squeezed. Markus stared at her, rather like the night before, with concern. “Why are you standing on the side of the road?”

 

She looked down at her feet, heels just barely contained by the white stripe of the shoulder, and stepped up onto the sidewalk. “I’m not.”

 

“You were.”

 

She jerked her shoulders irritably. “Well, I’m not now.”

 

Markus was not amused. “You had that odd look on your face again. Did someone say something to you?”

 

Another car sped by and sent a chill down Klára’s spine. “No. Let’s go, I’m hungry.”

 

Jopie’s cough started up again in the middle of the night, rough and whooping like a wounded dog, and against everything her instincts were telling her, Klára knew she would be forced to move herself and her siblings out of the shelter and into an alley behind some Italian restaurant. It would be warm almost all the time because of the massive ovens (at least until the early hours of the morning when they finally cooled, but that was only for an hour or so before the place opened), and there were plenty of boxes to build wind barriers. Klára had been scoping out new places for a few weeks, knowing that if anything happened that would draw attention to the small family they would have to leave immediately. Jopie had been sick on and off for the past six months, and her cough was just unsettling enough to have people get nervous and talk to firemen or volunteer nurses to drop by and talk the girl’s older sister into taking her to the hospital.

 

As Klára lay awake the last night of their stay in the shelter, craning her neck to look out the window, she couldn’t help but feel a bit less hopeless than she thought she should. Sure, they were about to be victims to the elements again, but something else, another part of her that was completely separate from her living situation, was beginning to take form in that boy she loved. He was turning out to be the sort of boy she had imagined him to be, but was well aware that no one was perfect. However, she could handle close to perfect. She wondered what his name was, if she would ever have the courage to say more than two words to him, or if she would ever hear him sing a song just for her, away from the sidewalks and noise of the city.

 

Jopie started to cough again, whimpering with every breath she drew in. Klára rolled away from the window and toward her sister, holding her close and refusing to worry about germs at this point in her life. If things didn’t get better soon, she would just have to allow them to get worse.