Babies By The Busload. Raye Morgan

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       Two

      J.J. felt like whistling as she walked up the pathway to her condo. Things had gone much better today. The giftwrapped box of special doughnuts she’d brought in for the station manager seemed to have done the trick of turning him from a foe into a fan. And when she’d had a chance to fill in and do a morning update, there had been a flurry of complimentary phone calls from the public. Things were looking up, and she smiled to herself as she fumbled for her keys, shifting from one hand to the other the bag of groceries she’d picked up on her way home.

      A feeling rather than a sound prickled the nerve endings on the back of her neck, and she looked around to find a young girl sitting on the steps to the next condo, gazing at her solemnly.

      “Hi,” J.J. said, surprised. She didn’t often live in housing where children were encouraged. It made for a rather artificial life, but it was quiet that way.

      “Hi,” the girl said back, her dark eyes huge. She wore a pink shirt and a blue corduroy jumper and her feet were in little red tennis shoes. Blond curls bounced around her pretty little face. She had a look you couldn’t help but smile at, and J.J. did.

      “My name’s J.J. What’s yours?”

      “Annie.”

      “Annie. That’s a pretty name.” She didn’t have a lot of experience with children, and ordinarily she hardly noticed them. But something made her want to linger and talk a little more to this one. Was it her appealing face? Or the slight hint of sadness in her eyes?

      “Do you live nearby?” she asked her.

      Annie nodded, but she didn’t leave her step.

      J.J. glanced at the next condo and bit her lip. Could this be one of Jack’s brood? Should she ask? For some strange reason she was hesitating, as though finding out the truth would draw her in somehow. But that was silly. Asking a question didn’t imply a commitment of any kind, did it?

      “Is Jack Remington your daddy?” she asked, steeling herself for the response.

      Annie nodded again, and J.J. smiled again. Yes, she could see his handsome face in the lines of this little girl’s bone structure.

      “Well, isn’t that nice?” she murmured, turning back to her door and inserting the key. Jack’s daughter was awfully cute, but J.J., for one, didn’t want to get to know her. The more distance she could keep between herself and the man, the better.

      She’d turned the key and the door was swinging open, but before she could escape into her house, Annie’s little-girl voice intruded once again.

      “Do you have any babies?” she asked, her piping voice echoing through the walkway.

      J.J. swung back around and stared at her. Annie had risen from her step and come a bit closer, shifting her weight from one red tennis shoe to the other. What a question to ask a complete stranger. And yet, from the look on her face, the answer seemed to be important to her.

      “No,” J.J. said quickly. “No, that’s something I don’t have.”

      “We have three.” She held up her fingers to demonstrate the number, her expression not so much proud as matter-offact. “One, two, three.”

      “Very good,” J.J. said, smiling at her. “I guess you all are lucky.” Now that was a pretty disingenuous thing for her to say. Three babies sounded like a prescription for chaos to her. A netherworld filled with hellions.

      She glanced at the sweet little girl standing before her and realized that hellions was possibly too strong a word. Monsters? No, you couldn’t call children monsters. It wasn’t right. Uncaring little beasts? From her experience, that pretty much hit the nail on the head.

      But Annie nodded, her little face completely serious. She obviously agreed that babies were a good thing to have. To her it seemed perfectly normal to have a few hanging around.

      “When are you going to get your baby?” she asked, her face completely solemn.

      “You sound like my mother,” J.J. said, laughing. “Does everyone have to have one?”

      Annie frowned, not sure of the answer to that one. “We have three,” she said again stoutly.

      “Maybe more than your share,” J.J. murmured, but not loud enough for the little girl to hear.

      The bag was getting heavy and she went into the entryway and on into the kitchen, setting the bag on the counter. Turning, she found the little girl had followed and was standing in the doorway.

      “I guess you need your husband first, huh?” Annie said, continuing the conversation, merely setting things straight.

      J.J. would just as soon have changed the subject. Babies and husbands were not things she’d wanted in recent years. And to tell the truth, she hadn’t missed them. Suddenly everyone from her own mother to her old roommate to the little girl next door was bringing up this motherhood stuff. And though she laughed it off, as she always had, something was beginning to stick, to tickle, to bother her about it.

      She began taking groceries out of the bag, putting them on the counter, and suddenly the single cans and single TV dinners seemed to be mute symbols of her lonely life. She frowned. She had to fight against such thoughts.

      “You’re awfully young to be thinking so much about babies,” she murmured a bit defensively.

      Annie took a step, bringing her farther into the kitchen.

      “I have to think about babies,” she said brightly. “I have to take care of them.”

      J.J. put the quart of milk into the refrigerator and smiled at Annie. Despite her own reservations, this seemed to be a subject that consumed the little girl. What could she do? She might as well go with it.

      “You’re a help at home, aren’t you? Three babies.” She shook her head. What a nightmare world that sounded like. “What are their names?” she asked.

      “Kristi and Kathy and Baby Mack.”

      “Baby Mack?” She raised a questioning eyebrow.

      Annie was obviously beginning to feel at home. She came all the way into the kitchen and looked around at the cabinets and the clock shaped like a large orange cat.

      “We call him Baby Mack because he’s soooo small,” she said in her chirpy voice. “But Daddy says he has a punch like a Mack truck.” Her forehead scrunched and her nose wrinkled. “What’s a Mack truck?” she asked J.J. curiously.

      J.J. grinned. “A big one.”

      “Oh.” Annie turned and looked into the living room.

      “How come you’re living in Bambi’s house?” she said out of the blue.

      J.J. swung around and looked at her curiously, childhood memories of Disney films swirling. This area was awfully close to the edge of civilization, but she hardly thought wildlife came down and camped СКАЧАТЬ