Two Coins

She’s seventeen years old and standing at a bus stop in East Texas. It’s raining, and her hair is pulled into a ponytail. She’s wearing a backpack, and on the bench beside her is a green duffel bag with a broken strap. 

The bus is late. Her shoes are wet, and the cold is seeping in through her socks. She looks at her watch and back up at the road. She reaches inside her pocket, feels her bus pass there, two coins alongside it. 

Imagine the gas station behind her, the payphone on the wall outside. Imagine her turning toward it, then turning away.

A car pulls up to the curb in front of her. There are two women in the front seat. Imagine the window unrolling, the blonde head poking out. Imagine the duffel bag strap getting caught in the back door as it closes. 

But maybe it’s not a car, maybe it’s a truck. Maybe it’s a red one with a man in a ball cap driving. Maybe he’s wearing torn jeans and a mustard-stained shirt. Maybe it smells like rust and rain. Maybe she wipes her wet shoes on a newspaper spread across the floorboard.  

Now let’s try a station wagon. Think of the family inside. Two young children, a boy and a girl, in the back. There she is, in the backseat, feeding apple slices to the children. Imagine the couple up front. The woman turning around in her seat to talk. And the man driving, how he bunches up his shoulders and stares at his new passenger in the rearview mirror. 

But what if the bus wasn’t late after all? No, that can’t be right. She never made it to California. Imagine the bus stalls out on the way, and when she gets out, there they are. The women, the red truck, the station wagon with the kids inside. 

Imagine her sleeping on a too-small couch, her feet crammed under a pillow. Imagine her in a bathtub with a comforter tucked beneath her. Imagine her on the floor, or a chair, or the cab of a pickup truck, the green duffel bag clutched tight. 

Maybe she drinks weak coffee in the morning. Maybe she has toast, oatmeal. Maybe there’s a box of cereal, a carton of milk. 

Picture her in a red apron, wiping down a table. Picture her restocking cans of beans on a metal shelf. Or maybe she’s pushing the keys on a cash register, sliding change across a counter.  

Imagine her pressing coins into a dryer slot, watching her bathtub sheets spin and spin. How long did she stay in the same place? How many people put her up? There was enough kindness, wasn’t there, to last a month or two? 

And what about the man? The one outside the restaurant who offers her a ride home. Her boss at the grocery store who says, just one minute, I’ve got something to tell you. The one she saw every day on the bus. The one who always tipped her well. The one who held the door open and said, let me help you carry that inside. 

Imagine she fought. Imagine she screamed. Imagine she kicked and tore at him with her teeth. 

Or imagine she didn’t. Imagine he was one of the ones who gave her shelter, who turned his head when she took bills from the register or ate a leftover piece of pie. 

Imagine she thought, just for a moment, that everything would be ok.

Imagine her throwing up in toilets, paper bags, cups. Imagine her standing in line at the drug store, the small plastic bag she carries home. Imagine her looking down at the blue stick, her fingers going numb when she sees that little line.

Imagine her imagining me. 

She’s seventeen years old and standing at a bus stop in East Texas. It’s raining, and her hair is pulled into a ponytail. She’s wearing a backpack, and on the bench beside her is a green duffel bag with a broken strap. 

The bus is late. Her shoes are wet, and the cold is seeping in through her socks. She looks at her watch and back up at the road. She reaches inside her pocket, feels her bus pass there, two coins alongside it. 

There’s the gas station behind her, the payphone on the wall outside.

And what if she turns away before the car pulls up to the curb? What if the car slows down and then speeds up again when her back is turned, water spraying the spot where she’d just been standing?

Imagine she pulls the two coins out of her pocket and drops them into the payphone slot. Imagine there is someone on the other end of the line.