Free My One Hundred Adventures by Polly Horvath Page B

“Your mother had better watch her step. Yep. I’d say your mother’d better watch her step, all right.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œWell, you don’t mean to tell me you’ve never heard that Caroline took an axe to H.K.’s last girlfriend.”
    â€œShe hit her with an AXE?”
    â€œWell, of course, to hear Caroline tell it, that leg was ready to come off by itself.”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œSixteen stitches and Caroline went back into the loony bin, where everyone thinks she always belonged anyway. That rich old family and all they produce are a poet and a loony toon woman who can get a PhD but not a job and so H.K. has to take care of her. I’d say Caroline’s energies are definitely blocked.”
    â€œI thought she was keeping house for H.K.,” I say.
    â€œThat’s what they’d have you believe,” says Nellie. “But anyway, he’s not what I’d consider an eligible bachelor. Not unless you’re
very
swift-moving.”
    I don’t say anything.
    â€œAnyhow, I hope you don’t think I’m criticizing your mother. There aren’t a lot of men her age available, I would guess.”
    â€œMy mother is not H.K.’s girlfriend. She’s just helping him through some troubles,” I say.
    â€œIf that’s what she told you, then I’m sure it’s true,” says Nellie.
    â€œShe told me she’s just helping him during a hard time.”
    Nellie doesn’t say anything or move her eyes from the road but her lips start working in a worried, irritated way as if this is something she hadn’t counted on and now she is going to have to rethink things and she doesn’t like not knowing everything but she can’t disagree with me without contradicting my mother. So to change the subject I tell her about the Gourd baby even though I had planned to tell no one but Ginny. I don’t even like thinking about it and when I say that I may have maimed him for life I begin shaking slightly.
    Nellie stops the car right there and turns and looks at me. A long look as if she has to size me up all over again. Then she says, “We must not judge.” She drives on and then she says, “Of course, you’re in the soup energy-wise. But there are no accidents. Maybe that baby was meant to be maimed or maybe you were meant to have this horrific occurrence that changes your future.”
    We drive quietly for a long time and then a ways out of town we skid suddenly to a gravelly stop. There is a garish trailer parked by the side of the road and a sign on it saying MADAME CRENSHAW . YOUR FUTURE ’ S IN YOUR HANDS . “This must be it. We’re making a little stop here,” Nellie says briefly. She doesn’t get a Bible out of the back.
    â€œWhy?” I ask as we walk to the door of the trailer.
    â€œI heard some things about this woman. From Mabel next door. She had her fortune told. She says this fortune-teller is gifted. She has the sight. We’ll check it out and see if it’s true. I want to ask her about what you need for absolution.”
    â€œI’m already babysitting,” I say.
    â€œWell, maybe she can see down the years. How it all pans out. If that baby recovers.”
    I am game to do this even though I don’t want to start relying on fortune-tellers in garish trailers. But I want to keep an open mind after seeing Nellie with Mrs. McCarthy. The universe is full of wonders and I hope for more mystic experiences like the purple circle against the sky. More signs. And Nellie seems to believe in these things too and be plugged into them.
    Nellie stomps up the three steps to the trailer door and bangs loudly on it.
    A woman trailing scarves and gypsy-type clothes answers. “Madame Crenshaw, your future’s in your hands.”
    â€œMy future is in Jesus’s hands,” says Nellie.
    â€œYou’re entitled to your opinion,” says