Runaway

referring to you,” she said to Lauren, who was about to follow the others. “I’m sorry the chain wasn’t yours. You check back in a day or two. If nobody shows up to ask about it, I’ll figure, hey, it’s got your name on it, after all.”
    Lauren came back the next day. She did not care about the chain at all, really—she could not imagine going around with your name hanging on your neck. She just wanted to have an errand to do, someplace to go. She could have gone to the newspaper office, but after hearing the way they said
my dad’s paper,
she didn’t want to do that.
    She had decided not to go in if Mr. Palagian and not Delphine was behind the desk. But Delphine was right there, watering an ugly plant in the front window.
    “Oh good,” Delphine said. “Nobody’s come and asked about it. Give it till the end of the week, I have a feeling it’s going to be yours yet. You can always come in, this time of day. I don’t work the coffee shop in the afternoons. If I’m not in the lobby you just ring the bell, I’ll be around somewhere.”
    Lauren said, “Okay,” and turned to go.
    “You feel like sitting down a minute? I was thinking I’d get a cup of tea. Do you ever drink tea? Are you allowed to? Would you rather have a soft drink?”
    “Lemon-lime,” said Lauren. “Please.”
    “In a glass? Would you like a glass? Ice?”
    “It’s okay just the way it is,” said Lauren. “Thank you.”
    Delphine brought a glass anyway, with ice. “It didn’t seem quite cooled off enough to me,” she said. She asked Lauren where she would rather sit—in one of the worn-down old leather chairs by the window or on a high stool behind the desk. Lauren picked the stool, and Delphine sat on the other stool.
    “Now, you want to tell me what you learned in school today?”
    Lauren said, “Well—”
    Delphine’s wide face broke into a smile.
    “I just asked you that for a joke. I used to hate it, people asking me that. For one thing, I could never remember anything I learned that day. And for another thing, I could do without talking about school when I wasn’t at it. So we skip that.”
    Lauren was not surprised by this woman’s evident wish to be friends. She had been brought up to believe that children and adults could be on equal terms with each other, though she had noticed that many adults did not understand this and it was as well not to press the point. She saw that Delphine was a little nervous. That was why she kept talking without a break, and laughing at odd moments, and why she resorted to the maneuver of reaching into the drawer and pulling out a chocolate bar.
    “Just a little treat with your drink. Got to make it worthwhile to come and see me again, eh?”
    Lauren was embarrassed on the woman’s behalf, though glad to accept the chocolate bar. She never got candy at home.
    “You don’t have to bribe me to come and see you,” she said. “I’d like to.”
    “Oh-ho. So I don’t, don’t I? You’re quite the kid. Okay, then give me that back.”
    She grabbed for the chocolate bar, and Lauren ducked to protect it. Now she laughed too.
    “I meant next time. Next time you don’t have to bribe me.”
    “One bribe is okay, though. That it?”
    “I like to have something to do,” Lauren said. “Not just go on home.”
    “Don’t you go visit your friends?”
    “I don’t really have any. I only started this school in September.”
    “Well. If that bunch that was coming in here is any sample of what you’ve got to pick from, I’d say you’re better off. How do you like this town?”
    “It’s small. Some things are nice.”
    “It’s a dump. They’re all dumps. I have experienced so many dumps in my time you’d think the rats would have ate off my nose by now.” She tapped her fingers up and down her nose. Her nails matched her eyelids. “Still there,” she said doubtfully.
    It’s a dump.
Delphine said things like that. She spoke vehemently—she did not discuss but stated, and her judgments were severe and capricious. She spoke about herself—her tastes, her physical workings—as about a monumental mystery, something unique and final.
    She had an allergy to beets. If even a drop of beet juice made its way down her throat, her tissues would swell up and she would have to go to the hospital, she would need an emergency operation so that she could breathe.
    “How’s it with you? You got any allergies? No? Good.”
    She believed a woman should keep her hands nice,