Runaway

feeling of disgust about feet in nylon stockings. Not about bare feet, or feet in socks, or feet in shoes, or feet in nylons covered up in shoes, just about feet in nylons out in the open, particularly touching any other cloth. This was just a private queer feeling—like the feeling she had about mushrooms, or cereal slopping around in milk.
    “Just when you came in this afternoon I was feeling sad,” Delphine said. “I was thinking about a girl I used to know and thinking I should write her a letter if I knew where she was. Joyce was her name. I was thinking about what happened to her in her life.”
    The weight of Delphine’s body made the mattress sag so that Lauren had trouble not sliding towards her. The effort that she was making not to bump against that body embarrassed her, and made her try to be particularly polite.
    “When did you know her?” she said. “When you were young?”
    Delphine laughed. “Yeah. When I was young. She was young too and she had to get out of her house and she was hanging around with this guy and she got caught. You know what I mean by that?”
    Lauren said, “Pregnant.”
    “Right. So she was just drifting along, she thought it might go ’way, maybe. Ha-ha. Like the flu. The guy she was with already had two kids with another woman he wasn’t married to but that was more or less his wife, and he was always thinking about going back to her. But before he got around to that he got busted. And also she did—Joyce did—because she was carrying stuff around for him. She had it packed into Tampax tubes, you know what they look like? You know what stuff I mean?”
    “Yes,” said Lauren to both questions. “Sure. Dope.”
    Delphine made a gurgling sound, swallowing her drink. “This is all top secret, you understand that?”
    Not all the lumps of hot chocolate powder had got mashed up and dissolved, and Lauren did not want to mash them with the spoon that would still have the taste of the so-called cough syrup on it.
    “She got off with a suspended sentence, so it wasn’t all a bad thing she was pregnant, that was what got her off. And what happened next, she got in with these Christians and they knew a doctor and wife that looked after girls when they had their babies and got the babies adopted right away. It was not quite on the up-and-up, they were getting money for these babies, but anyway it kept her clear of the social workers. So, she had her baby and never even saw it. All she knew was that it was a girl.”
    Lauren looked around for a clock. There didn’t seem to be one. Delphine’s watch was up under the sleeve of her black sweater.
    “So she got out of there and one thing and another happened to her and she didn’t give the baby a thought. She thought she’d get married and have some more kids. So, well, that didn’t happen. Not that she minded so much, given some of the people it didn’t happen with. She even had a couple of operations so it wouldn’t. You know what kind of operations?”
    “Abortions,” Lauren said. “What time is it?”
    “You are a kid that is not short of information,” Delphine said. “Yeah, that’s right. Abortions.” She pulled up her sleeve to look at her watch. “It isn’t five yet. I was just going to say that she started thinking about that little girl and wondering what became of her so she started investigating to find out. So it happened she got lucky and found those same people. The Christian people. She had to get a bit nasty with them but she got some information. She found out the names of the couple that took her.”
    Lauren wriggled her way off the bed. Half tripping on the blanket, she set her cup on the bureau.
    “I have to go now,” she said. She looked out the little window. “It’s snowing.”
    “Is it? So what else is new? Don’t you want to know the rest?”
    Lauren was putting on her boots, trying to do it in an absentminded way so that Delphine wouldn’t take much notice.
    “The man was supposed to be working for this magazine, so she went there and they said he wasn’t there but they told her where he had went to. She didn’t know what name they gave her baby but that was another thing she was able to find out. You never know what you’ll find out till you try. You trying to run away on me?”
    “I have to go. My stomach feels sick. I’ve got a cold.”
    Lauren yanked at the jacket that Delphine had hung on the high hook on the back of the door. When she couldn’t get it down