Fireside by SUSAN WIGGS

Author:SUSAN WIGGS [WIGGS, SUSAN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIRA Books
Published: 2017-11-30T12:51:10+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Grand Central Station was one of those places people mentioned when they wanted to describe something really busy.

“It’s Grand Central Station in here,” a teacher might say about a classroom.

The real Grand Central Station lived up to the description. It reminded AJ of a human anthill inside a marble cube, with everyone scurrying in different directions.

AJ had no idea which direction to scurry. Still, he knew better than to stand around looking lost, so he joined a stream of people heading for the exit. Along one wall he spied a bank of pay phones. Almost no one used pay phones anymore, except people who couldn’t afford a mobile phone. Like AJ.

There were stickers on the wall around the phones, advertising bail bonds, help for suicide prevention, addicts, runaways. AJ wondered if that was what he’d become—a runaway. A knot of fear formed in his stomach, compounding the lump of sadness in his throat and the keen sense of yearning that burned in his chest. All these emotions together made him want to throw up, so he followed some signs to the men’s room.

A couple of guys there halted their conversation and glared at him, making AJ change his mind and back out the door. He cast about for somebody to ask for help, but suddenly everyone looked sketchy to him. A group of teenagers poured in through one of the entrances, and a couple of them checked him out. He could feel their stares from twenty yards, and something told him they weren’t like the guy he’d sat next to on the train. He tried to act all cool, putting on the dangerous slit-eyed expression and unhurried saunter of the gangbangers at his old school. He headed for daylight and found himself on a busy street jammed with traffic, mostly yellow taxis and delivery trucks. Honking horns, whistles and shouts clouded the air, along with the cindery smell of exhaust.

Although there was no snow here, the city felt cold. He should never have come here. Bad things happened to kids who ran away to the big city.

On the other hand, what could be worse than losing your mother?

At least he fit in a little better here. There were plenty of brown-skinned people everywhere, workmen in blue jumpsuits doing street repairs, guys in hard hats on a scaffold, people stopping for a chat at the coffee carts on every street corner. As he wandered along the street, he occasionally caught Spanish being spoken, just a whiff, like the scent of hot dogs in the air.

He dug the slip of paper out of his pocket, something he’d printed off Bo’s computer last night. It was a place with a New York City address: Casa de Esperanza. The House of Hope. Although he hadn’t planned this trip out, he’d hung on to the printout, somehow knowing it would be important. He studied the address and prayed it wasn’t far, shivering as a gust of wind howled through the street. He didn’t understand how people could live in this cold weather.

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