Fair-hair, hazel-brown eyes, a matched set of longish sandy lashes and heavy eyebrows that forced a serious and intelligent expression onto the narrow face they accented.

Melanie rolled tiredly onto her back, the late afternoon sun filtering through the window and drawing a brightly yellow rectangle on the wooden floor beside her bunk. She held her hands, palms facing away from her, in front of her face, studying the backs of their pale skinned surfaces. Her left hand, ringless. A thin silver bracelet dangling tiredly tarnished off her right wrist. Calluses on the tips of her fingers blackened with newsprint.

Jane slept, her breathing quiet in the otherwise deserted bunkroom. Her tiny chest rose and fell in comfortable rhythm. Her yellowy hair lay in almost invisible wisps on the white-and-blue blanket that framed the basket wherein she lay. Tiny hands in loose fists, miniature eyelids pressed shut to create an individual darkness.

Melanie gently allowed her gaze to grow less intent, her hands dropping tiredly to her sides and finding their resting spots on the smooth thin cotton quilt that lay spread neatly over her bottom bunk in the Bay Ridge newsies' lodging house. Her eyes felt as though they were detached from her body, purposefully remaining open just enough that the room remained lit and observable to her vision.

A face with cheekbones flushed pink with sunburn appeared at the bunkroom window and glanced swiftly around the room; it appeared to be empty, so the brown-haired boy slipped his thin body the rest of the way through its warped wooden frame and hopped to the floor, landing with bare feet on the wooden floor.

"Who's there?" asked Melanie quietly, her eyes darting in the direction of the sound.

"Just Leapfrog, Mel," answered the boy with rapidity. "Nobody else in here, right?"

"No one else but me. And Jane," replied the dark-headed girl with a smile. She sat up, resting her feet on the frame of her bunk and hugging her knees loosely to her chest. "How're you doing today?"

"Well, pretty good. Except at lunch I left a frog on Switchblades' chair and I don't think it made her too happy when she got back." The boy's dark green eyes displayed sincere amusement.

"Where'd you find a frog?" laughed Melanie as the boy stepped around the door to the girls' washroom and plunked himself down on the floor, leaning his brown-topped head back against the rough-hewn boards of the wall.

"Got it from a kid," he said offhand. "I gave him a penny for it."

"It's probably worth more than that, in this city. I didn't know there were frogs around here at all!" Melanie grinned down at the twelve-year-old.

"Oh, sure. Go to parks with ponds and things, and there's all kinds of stuff. Ducks, and frogs, and...other pond-things..." Leapfrog trailed off, rubbing his cheek with one hand; a faint streak of newsprint-grey left a line over his skin.

"Aw, your hands are dirty," Melanie told him, slipping her feet off her bunk and crossing the few steps to him. "Here, let me fix your face."

"Fix my face!" The brown-haired boy burst out laughing, then sobered as best he could. "My face is fine!" he exclaimed as he rolled into a ball and scooted out of her reach.

"You've got a bunch of black on it from the newspapers," she answered defensively, a wide smile settled gently on her lips. "I won't do anything to your face..." She rubbed at the dark smudge with her fingertips while the boy wrinkled his nose in impatience.

"You're not my mother," he complained under her hands.

"No, but I can pretend to be," she laughed. "I won't lick my fingers, all right?" She brushed her hand on her skirt and stood back up. "Well, it's a bit better."

"I don't care if there's newsprint all over my face," Leapfrog stated with assurance. "I don't care if you can read whole articles about-about-flooding in Poughkeepsie on my forehead."

"Well, it's big news this morning," the older girl responded, still smiling. She took a seat on the floor in front of her bunk, her shoulder blades resting against its sturdy wooden frame. The slim fingers of one hand rested absently on the wicker edge of her daughter's basket. "After all, they can't talk about baseball all the time. The wives start to get upset."

"The wives?" Leapfrog tucked his feet under him as he sat in the center of the hardwood floor.

"Because whatever's in the paper is what people talk about. And when all the men are only talking about baseball, then the wives get upset."

"Don't the wives like baseball?"

"I don't think it's so much that they don't like baseball as that they don't understand it. Mostly, wives don't get a lot of time to read the paper. They're very busy with little children, and keeping the house, and cooking, and all of those things." Melanie tucked a lock of her dark brown hair behind her ear with one hand as she spoke. "I always liked baseball; Jason always played baseball, when he was young, with a handful of other boys from Ryalin including one of my brothers."

"So you don't mind when it's all that is in the paper?"

"No."

"But you're a wife."

"True..." Melanie allowed the simple word to trail off. "True, I am." She pressed her lips together as she considered this fact, then just smiled. "But I'm not a very ordinary wife."

"Well, ordinary people aren't all that much fun to be around," Leapfrog told her, jumping to his feet in a rapid and fluid motion, proving the origin of his name effortlessly. "So I'm glad you aren't ordinary."

"Thank you," laughed Melanie, a grin spreading across her face. "That's nice of you." Her amusement remained present on her face, lighting it up with a pleasant sort of pale glow. "I'm glad you feel that way. I'm glad you aren't ordinary, too."

"Ain't ordinary is damn right," complained the low-toned but feminine voice of Switchblades Gutierrez as she pounded up the stairs on soft-soled shoes and then burst into the bunkroom. "What in hell d'you t'ink you was doin', Kristo? Why d'you constantly do mean stuff t'me? I ain't done nothin' t'you! Well, nothin' much...really..." She paused, glancing at Melanie quickly. "Nothin' you didn't start," she finally consented. "Aftah all, you was 'da one 'dat randomly attacked me wit' 'da lemon drops..."

"I didn't do any attacking!" Leapfrog edged slowly toward the window of the bunkroom. "You've just got a...a....a paranoia! You just think I'm attacking you 'cause you're paranoid!" He had one hand on the windowsill and Switchblades was standing with arms folded in the center of the bunkroom, her auburn hair ponytailed behind a face painted with narrowed eyebrows and suntanned cheeks. "Sorry to run, Mellie," he exclaimed, squeaking as the turquoise-eyed young woman took another menacing step toward him. She shifted her hands to rest on her hips, her fingers hinting at the presence of a knife near her palm. "But-uh-I have plans. See you girls later!" he hollered as he fled through the window and tore down the fire escape, its black rusted iron rattling metallically beneath his feet.

"Yeah, 'dat's right! You run!" yelled Switchblades as she leaned out the window. "You run far's 'dem feet a' yers'll carry yah!" She remained suspended above the fire escape grate, her fingers curled tightly around the sill of the window, for several minutes before pulling back into the bunkroom, shaking her head so that her red-brown ponytail slapped lightly against her shoulders. "Christ," she muttered. "'Dat kid."

"He's just having fun," Melanie reasoned lightly with an undertone of a chuckle. "He's twelve, after all. Twelve-year-old little boys are...like that." The thin silver chain on her right wrist chimed lightly as she offered a vague gesture toward the open window. "Besides, he's a good boy, really. Better than most."

"Well," Switchblades kicked absently at the wall to the washroom as she listened to Melanie speak. "It's annoyin' jus' 'da same."

"He'll grow past it," the elder girl commented. "And besides all that, he's only doing it in fun. You know he'd never do anything that would really hurt you."

"Yeah an' I'd nevah ac'shully knife 'im, eithah," the girl replied, darting her blue-green eyes up to meet Melanie's for a moment. "Like I promised yah."

"Well, hopefully you wouldn't actually knife anyone here." Melanie folded her hands in her lap, smoothing her skirt quietly.

"I don't really wanna hurt nobody if I like 'em," reasoned the auburn-haired young woman as she tugged her blade from its position at her belt. "Pretty much I don't wanna kill nobody. I don't mind kinda fightin' or nothin', though..."

"Just be careful," was Melanie's advice. "You know I'm awfully conservative."

"Yeah, you ain't all 'dat much fun," laughed Switchblades with a touch of joking in her voice. Melanie could tell that the sixteen-year-old was at least a bit more serious than she hoped to come across. "But you'se still nice, so it don't mattah."

"I take that as a compliment," grinned the blue-eyed girl as she reached out a hand. "Help me up?" she inquired, and grasped Switchblades' hand, getting to her feet. "My back never complained a minute until after Jane was born."

"Now 'dat'd be bad," was the helpful comment from the younger girl as she looked at Jane. "Havin' a kid."

"Well, possessing her isn't a problem," Melanie replied with a smile, knowing what Switchblades was getting at.

"I ain't talkin' 'bout no possessin'," brushed off the native of Spain as she glanced tentatively at Melanie before slowly crouching down next to the sleeping baby's basket. "I'se talkin' 'bout ac'shully havin' a kid."

"Yeah," commented Melanie. "I've-done things that were more fun." She shrugged a little, dropping neatly to her knees. "I lived through it, so I can't complain."

"If yah ain't lived t'rough it, yah couldn't complain, eithah," smirked Switchblades, but she sounded somewhat subdued in her attempt to be cheeky. "Y'know, I ain't nevah seen no baby up close."

"She's right there," Melanie responded gently, motioning toward the eleven-month-old child with her braceleted hand. "If she wasn't so hard to get to sleep, I'd wake her up and let you hold her."

"No, no..." Switchblades shook her head rapidly, falling back into a sitting position on the floor. "I'd be 'fraid a' droppin' 'er or somethin'. 'Sides, somebody might come in heah an' see me..." She looked quickly toward the doorway, a slightly nervous expression crossing her face as she sprang back to her feet. "Y'know-can't have-'dat..." Her blue-green eyes darted from the door to the window as she took a handful of steps backward across the wooden floor.

"Well, sometime we could walk down to the park or something, and then you could hold her without anyone seeing you. Some night, perhaps." Melanie did her best to hide the smile that tugged at her lips.

"Yeah. 'Dat-'dat sounds fine, I t'ink. Y'know, I t'ink I'm gonna head out an' grab 'da aftahnoon edition b'fore 'dey run out. You comin'?"

"As soon as Jane wakes up," Melanie answered with a nod. "You go on."

"'Kay," agreed Switchblades rapidly, reaching behind her head with both hands and tightening her red-brown ponytail. "See yah latah, 'den, Mel." She tugged open the door to the bunkroom and then waved before dashing down the hallway.

Head down, eyes averted, a pale-haired young man made his swift-footed way through the crowded New York streets. He paused outside the Journal distribution center in southern Brooklyn, glancing up at the large chalkboards that stretched across the tops of the surrounding buildings, block print outlining the events of the day: "Railroad Union Threatens Strike," "Murder in East Harlem Baffles Law Enforcement," "Alleged Criminal at Large."

"Excuse me, sir, but are you lost or something?" A boy with dark hair that begged for trimming and big, green-brown eyes framed by dirt-smeared cheeks paused and glanced up at the taller young man, leaning one elbow on a concrete pillar supporting a railing.

"Not lost, exactly. I've managed to find myself Bay Ridge." The blonde boy laughed tiredly, his thinly-lidded muddy eyes conveying a touch of frazzled nerves.

"What're you looking for? I know Bay Ridge pretty damn well, if I do say so myself." The younger boy blew on his knuckles with a bit of a smirk peeking out from under well-defined cheekbones.

Twenty-year-old hands gestured vaguely, finally dropping back to the sides of the sandy-headed young man. "Ah-you see-I'm not entirely sure…"

"So you're just planning to wander around Bay Ridge until whatever you're hunting comes along and bites you in the butt?"

"Ahm…" The visitor offered a slightly nervous laugh, then shrugged his shoulders. "Well, not exactly…"

"I mean, that's fine. You just do whatever it is that makes you happy. I'm just saying if you have an idea what you're after, I can at least point you in the right direction. Maybe." The seventeen-year-old rubbed the back of one hand across his face, leaving a thin trail of dirt behind.

"I'm looking for someone, you see. I don't know where exactly she'd be."

"Ah. A girl. What, did she run off or something?" The younger boy offered a bit of a smirk but the blonde-haired lad displayed no amusement.

"Do you know a lot of the people around here? Or perhaps-boarding facilities? Or-places where, I don't know, people work for their keep…" Straight blonde hair shivered into a comfortable position as the young man shook his head with uncertainty.

"Actually…" The boy grinned. "I live at a boarding facility. It's called the Bay Ridge newsies' lodging house. Pretty much anybody can stay there, and have a job selling newspapers, too. That's why I'm here." He motioned with one grimy hand to the distribution center. "To get papers. To sell today."

"Oh? Well, perhaps you could help me. What's your name?"

"Smudge McDoyal. And how about you?" The hazel-eyed boy rested his elbow on the concrete, letting his chin fall onto the palm of his hand as he languidly studied the older boy.

"Jason Connoy."

The wax-coated paper of the bag rustled lazily against Melanie's fingers as she tugged a sunshine-bright lemon drop from its contents and popped it calmly between her lips, leaning back against the wooden frame of her bunk. She sat, legs stretched out in front of her, on the worn wooden floor of the bunkroom. "Morning," she called as Charity and Leapfrog trailed into the room.

"Morning?" Tiptoe, seated quietly as usual in a chair near the window, smiled a little. "Afternoon, you mean."

"Well, it's…hardly after twelve…" Melanie shook her head, dark hair falling over her shoulders. "I can't keep track of all those numbers, anyhow."

"Oh, all those numbers," groaned Leapfrog with a mocking grin as he flopped with feigned exhaustion onto the vacant bunk nearest him. "I think I'm getting a headache."

"Oh, be quiet," muttered Melanie, trying her best to hide her grin.

"Sleeping?" exclaimed Leapfrog, tumbling off the bunk and getting to his feet. "Jane, sleeping?" He laughed and peered into the basket wherein the infant was indeed dozing. "Whatever happened to fussy, crying, never-tired Jane?"

"Apparently all that wailing finally wore her out," answered Melanie with a nod of her head. "At last." She extended one hand with the paper bag tucked into its palm. "Lemon drop, anyone?"

"No thanks," Leapfrog told her, smiling.

"Thanks, Mel, but no," answered Tiptoe.

"Charity?" The blonde-haired girl had thrown herself on her bunk and appeared to be brooding silently.

"No. Thank you." She smiled at the older girl and then laid back down.

"Well," Melanie exclaimed as she took another for herself. "I, for one, am not ashamed to eat candy." She grinned and sucked meditatively on the sweet.

"That's good, Mel," laughed Tiptoe. "That's good."

"Um, Connoy, you say…" Smudge took a quick step backward, then caught himself on the railing and managed to push his face back into a grin. "Well, it's good to meet you. How can I help?" His green-brown eyes darted left and right as he measured his escape options.

"The girl I'm looking for is actually my wife." Jason rubbed his chin lightly as he watched the younger boy's face cloud with anxiety. "You know where she is, don't you."

"I-I don't know, sir." The dark-haired boy took a second backing step.

"She's staying at that lodging house, then? The one you mentioned?" Jason raised one eyebrow. "I don't want to hurt her or anything-she's my wife; I love her. I'm just looking for her." The twenty-year-old studied Smudge with confusion on his face. "Why are you so…antsy, all of a sudden?"

"I-I just realized…I'd promised someone…I'd meet him before selling. I've-got to head back," stuttered the dirt-dusted young man as he slid past Jason. "I-I'll try and see you later. Help you, and such. You know…"

"Yes," sighed Jason as he rubbed his forehead. "I know."

Melanie turned off the stream of water pouring from the faucet into the kettle and moved the heavy container onto the lit stovetop, placing the lid on and waiting for it to come to a boil. She stared at the teakettle for a few moments, then picked up a cookie off a chipped ceramic plate and flopped onto one of the wooden chairs, leaning back against its worn slats.

"Hi!" exclaimed a cheerful voice from the kitchen doorway as a brown-haired girl, dressed prettily in a navy blue dress, swung around the doorframe and offered a grin to Melanie. "How's it going?"

"It's going fine," Melanie replied, waving her cookie-free hand pleasantly in the direction of the younger girl and laughing quietly. "Where are you off to, looking so fancy, Promise?"

A slight blush crept across Promise Kept's cheeks and she ducked her head a bit. "Angel," she answered quietly. "I was wondering… If you're not busy… Could you help me with my hair? And-and give me some pointers on going out with someone? Because…I've never really gone out with someone before…"

"You have a comb?" Melanie asked as she pushed out a chair with her free hand and then set the cookie on the tabletop. The younger girl extended her hand, passing the narrow-toothed comb back. "Here," continued Melanie. "Sit." She patted the back of the chair in front of her, getting into a kneeling position on her own chair.

"Thank you so much!" exclaimed Promise Kept as she sat down on the procured chair. "I-I really appreciate it."

"I'm not exactly anexpert on dates," Melanie prefaced with a light chuckle as she started to run the comb through the green-eyed girl's sandy hair. "But I will do what I can."

"Anything would help," Promise Kept pressed, a smile on her lips. "I have no idea what I'm doing…"

"Well, you just…act normally," Melanie explained. "Except that you look a little fancier." Reaching a small tangle in the sixteen-year-old's tresses, she carefully began to work the comb through it.

"Okay," breathed Promise Kept, fairly trembling with nerves. "Okay… Okay, I got it: normal, calm…normal…" She whimpered anxiously. "I'm going to mess it up so much!" she cried in desperation.

Melanie squeezed her shoulder affectionately, continuing to straighten her hair with the comb. "There's nothing to mess up, dear. You'll be just fine and wonderful." She laughed quietly. "I lived through dating, and I didn't know the first thing about anything."

"You did?" Promise Kept wrinkled her nose slightly, but Melanie couldn't see that from where she knelt behind her. "Well…you…seem so confident. I don't see how you could mess it up, even if you tried!" She shook her head a little, but then remembered that Melanie was trying to fix her hair and quickly stilled. "I'm exactly opposite of that. I mean-Angel, he's always so sweet. And he would act like nothing wrong ever happened, but…I mean, if I ruined something, I would be so uptight about it…" She sighed quietly, her shoulders falling a bit.

"You're just as confident as I ever was," Melanie soothed, setting down the comb on the table and running the fingers of both her hands carefully through the younger girl's hair. "I was a terrified little thing almost all of my life." She chuckled quietly, allowing most of the sandy brown hair to fall through her fingertips and beginning a tiny French braid at the top of Promise Kept's head. "Here, dearie, tip your head back a bit-yes, just like that." She stood up off the chair and bent over her work. "We'll see how we like this when it's finished."

"Okay," murmured Promise Kept with a bit of a wiggle; she finally sat on her hands to try and keep herself from being too fidgety. "I hope I look good enough for him…" she commented, rocking slightly back and forth. "Dating is way too difficult," she finally concluded. "Why did it ever have to come around?" She smiled, tipping her head up to look at Melanie.

"It's not so bad," the dark-haired young woman replied as she tilted Promise Kept's head back to the appropriate position. "You just find yourself a good boy, and it'll make all the difference in the world."

Stealthily the pinkness returned to the sixteen-year-old's cheeks. "Yeah, the right boy." She laughed quietly.

"You'd-you'd have adored Jason, I think. He was so sweet…" The elder girl smiled to herself, pausing as her French braid reached the base of Promise Kept's neck and she shifted into a fishtail-style braid.

"What was he like?"

"Just…sweet." Melanie's voice grew wistful. "A good boy, really. He wanted to do what was right. We just-he was…" She paused, chewing methodically on her lower lip. "He wasn't ready to get married when we did, nor to have children when we did. I don't…I don't blame him, exactly.

"Oh. I see." Promise Kept's words were somewhat subdued. "He must've really loved you. I…I want a boy to actually love me. Just to love me for me…and not for what I used to do…"

"What you used to do." The words were merely a repetition, not truly a question, but instead a simple invitation to provide further information or a brief explanation.

Promise Kept licked her lips, her mint-colored eyes displaying apprehension as she replied, falteringly, "I… Well, I… I used to sleep around. I…worked at…um…a whore house. And-whenever I met someone…someone who acted like he really liked me, he ended up…only using me." She was glad that Melanie was behind her and couldn't see the scarlet color that had graced nearly her entire face.

"Mm-hm," Melanie replied slowly as she adjusted the tilt of Promise Kept's head and unbraided the end of her braid. "That's…a shame, dear." Her hands flew over the strands of sandy-colored hair, neatly tucking them around each other. "I don't know what I did that made him leave," she finally stated musingly.

"Well, he was stupid for doing so. I might not've known him, but you're one of the nicest people I know. Maybe there was something wrong with him." She folded her arms over her chest, leaning back against the chair's smooth wooden slats and offering a slight shrug.

"I didn't do anything wrong," continued Melanie quietly as she twisted strands of hair. "The thing is, he wasn't stupid. I don't know why… I… I know what bothered him, but…" She paused, pinching the braid with the fingers of one hand as she rubbed her cheek lightly with the other. "Still. I…loved him. I still do..and…" She shook her head a little. "I'm just so completely boxed in. I'm married, but I'm not, and…"

"Maybe," Promise Kept answered as Melanie's words trailed off into uncertainty. "Maybe it was time for him to move on. I know that might sound stupid, since you still love him, but…my old friend, Alice; she loved a man, but he left her anyway. She loved him for years after he left. But all she found out was that she didn't want to be alone. That's why she had been clinging to him for so long."

"But he married me," Melanie stated simply. "That's a responsibility he took… And more than that, he made it-he made it so that I had no other choice…" A tiny, forced-sounding laugh interrupted her speech. "I know it sounds still, but I grew up in such a very small town, as a daughter in a family that was…very important, in the town. And when a girl…" She pause, considering her words carefully. "We…we would have eventually married, I believe, but we were forced into it too quickly because of Jane…and I think that since he didn't have a choice, it somehow made me less desirable to him." She shook her head a little, a thought coming to her that made her grin in spite of herself. "We could do with more boys like Leapfrog. He'll grow up and stay good-hearted.

After chuckling at the Leapfrog comment, Promise Kept gave the older girl a confused look, turning her head just as Melanie was fastening the end of the braid with a thin rubber band. "You were forced to marry him because of Jane? You should be able to marry anyone you want to!"

"I was…dating Jason," Melanie said delicately. "It's a small town, Ryalin." She frowned a little, placing her hands on the sixteen-year-old's shoulders as she walked around to study her hair from the front, then met her eyes. "When I found out I was pregnant it was like…it was…" She trailed off, feeling the old nervousness again. "It was one of those terrible things that you couldn't tell anyone, because the scorn, Promise. The scorn would have been…unbearable. I hated to be forward enough to ask Jason about marriage but I finally had to. You see…it was for the sake of saving my face. I think he felt like…like a benefactor, or something, rescuing me with the wedding…"

As understanding came to her, Promise Kept's soft green eyes grew somewhat rounder. "Oh," she murmured. After a few moments of sitting silent, she commented, "I-I would rather have lived like that, though, than the way I…I had to."

"Was it hard for you?" asked Melanie gently, leaving one hand on Promise Kept's shoulder and smoothing her hair quietly with the other.

"Yeah…" Promise Kept trailed off, her eyes dilating with the memories. "Talk about the reputation I got," she commented with a disdainful chuckle. "Everywhere I went out on the street, men who had been in-the place I worked-would whistle and cat-call, and all the women sneered and whispered about me. Right in front of me."

Tentatively, Melanie wrapped her arms around the younger girl and hugged her lightly, nodding her head as she took a half-step back. "I thought my little life was so perfect, anyhow. We got a quick wedding, beautiful home… I mean, Promise, the boy I loved married me and we had a beautiful little daughter. How on earth could that have gone wrong? I still don't understand it." Her voice was fraught with a dismay she rarely exhibited and Promise Kept grew slightly concerned, deciding to offer her opinion on the matter frankly.

"It seems perfect," she replied with a bit of a shrug. "But nothing's perfect. That's the bad part. Maybe he felt trapped, somehow, by all the haste and preparation, and he needed time alone, to think? Who knows-maybe he's looking for you as we speak right here, and he just can't find you?" She offered a smile and moved Melanie's long dark hair behind her shoulder. "It's possible," she pressed.

"Possibly," Melanie admitted with a brush of a smile on her face. "Possibly that's all. Possibly…it was all a mistake." She managed a nod, then a shrug. "At any rate, I'm here, now, and things are just as lovely as I could ever imagine them being." She motioned to Promise Kept, "Dear friends, kind people…" She moved her gesture to encompass the building. "The occasional tiff, but that's unavoidable in such close quarters." With a second tiny shrug, she reached for Promise Kept's hands and helped her to her feet. "Here," she smiled. "Let's find a mirror and see what you think."

Promise Kept began a brisk walk toward the guest room, trailed by Melanie, and slid into the small bathroom there, admiring her reflection in the dim, scratched-surface mirror.

"Personally," Melanie began quietly as the younger girl turned her head from side to side. "I think you're beautiful. But…you're beautiful on any account, without any special hairdo…"

Peering into the glass, Promise Kept grinned. "Wow, thank you so much!" she exclaimed as she ran her fingers down the braid. "It's so pretty-thank you!" She hugged Melanie tightly. "No one's ever said anything like that to me before, either…" she murmured into Melanie's collar before pulling back and studying her image again.

"I'm glad you like it," Melanie said quickly, and her tone shifted slightly. "No one's ever told you that you were beautiful?" she inquired with skepticism in her gaze.

"Y-yes," Promise Kept stated softly. "But they were all drunk, and had no clue what they were talking about. They could have been looking at a dog, for all they knew…" She swallowed hard, thinking about it, and fought to keep tears from her eyes. "Angel started to, once, I think, but…he didn't. He just got up and walked away." Her words trailed off, a tinge of sadness framing them.

Melanie reached out and took the sixteen-year-old in her arms, embracing her tightly. "You're a beautiful girl, Promise Kept Smyth," she said gently and seriously. "Don't you ever forget it, or let anyone tell you that you aren't."

"I won't," the younger girl promised, glancing toward the window and jumping a bit. "Thanks again, Mel."

"Enjoy your date," Melanie laughed as Promise Kept slipped toward the doorway. "And you come ask me anything, anytime."

"Thank you!" exclaimed Promise Kept as she ducked through the guest room doorway. Melanie shut the bathroom door and moved toward the window, but the sandy-haired newsgirl reappeared in the doorway. "Hey Mel," she commented as she glanced at the older girl. "Y'know what?" she asked rhetorically while Melanie studied her brightly. "Stuff happens, sometimes," she stated. "But it's always good in the end. And-if he loved you as much as I think he did…then…I'm sure that he'll find his way back to you,"

"You're a darling," Melanie said quietly, extending one hand toward Promise Kept as a gesture of friendship. "Take care of yourself this evening."

"I will," she answered quickly, waving as she fled from the guest room.

Smudge McDoyal snatched one the large, grey foam sofa cushion out from underneath Melanie, grinning as she flopped onto the bare canvas stretched tightly across the couch's frame. "Sorry, Mel," he laughed as he tossed the cushion on the floor and took a seat on it. "But the floor's too hard."

"Hey!" she complained, poking at the fabric stretched tight and stiff beneath her as she curled her legs under her. "Take a cushion from-from Chrissy, or something…" She shook her head, smiling at the younger blonde-haired girl.

"Nah, Mel's a better person to take cushions from," Chrissy Kane replied through a wide smile.

"I'm an old lady," Melanie answered with a mock-pout, folding her arms over her chest. "You'd deprive an old woman of her couch cushion?" She sniffled jokingly and wiped a faux-tear from her eye.

"Yeah, `cause eighteen is so old, Mel," Charity commented with a bit of a smirk from her seat at the round card table. "Pair of threes," she sighed to Ransom, Chess, Scribbler and Penny as she set down her poker hand on the tabletop.

"Hah," commented Ransom under his breath, sliding his card into Chess' line of vision. The boy turned his sandy-haired head to Ransom and then elbowed him in the ribs. "Hey!" exclaimed the leader of the Bay Ridge newsboys as he looked to Penny.

"Christ," sighed Penny. "I lose."

"You lose in the face of a pair of threes?" snickered Ransom, nudging Penny's shoulder lightly and reaching for her face-down cards.

"Trust me." She grinned, slapping his hand away.

"Oh, but I do!" he exclaimed with another burst of amused laughter, placing his hand on the table. "Full house," he announced unnecessarily.

"Eighteen is old here," countered Melanie. "Considering that there isn't a soul older than me in the place!"

"That doesn't mean you're old," Leapfrog exclaimed. "Old people aren't anything like you, Mel, don't worry."

"Yeah, well… I should get some sort of senior privileges or something here. Stealing cushions. I don't believe the nerve. Children these days…" A slight smirky smile spread across her face as she added that last phrase.

"Chess!" hollered Ransom suddenly, and the others assembled in the room turned their attention quickly to the poker game.

"Way to come in from the back," Scribbler laughed as she grinned across the table at Chess McLeroy who had just placed four aces on the table.

"Ah, so Ransom the unbeatable is shown up again," sighed Penny, grinning broadly at the tall young man and patting him on the shoulder.

"Are you playing for money?" inquired Leapfrog from his perch on the arm of the sofa near Melanie. "Or just for fun."

"It's a practice round. Penny claimed not to be good enough for real gambling." Ransom rolled his eyes. "Everyone knows she's lying."

"I just lost!" she exclaimed in a desperate voice, swiftly scooping the cards into her hands and shuffling them. "If you would be so kind as to recall that fact. Goodness, boys have short memories." She laughed over her shoulder as she glanced at Melanie. "Don't you agree, Mel?"

"Boys," laughed Melanie in response, tucking a handful of dark hair behind her ear.

"Is that my Mellie?" exclaimed an astonished voice from the doorway. Within instants, Leapfrog had jumped to his feet and Melanie's heartbeat had increased tenfold as the entire group of occupants looked to the door.

Melanie blinked slowly, vivid blue eyes staring in disbelief at the cornsilk-haired entrant. "J-Jason?"

Silence coated the handful of newsies and finally Leapfrog said, "Uh, who's that, Mel?"

"Mellie?" repeated the blonde-headed young man. The eighteen-year-old just looked with large, round eyes across the room, getting slowly to her feet and then suddenly breaking the spell of slow-motion, running to her husband and tightly folding her arms around him.

"Jason," she murmured. "Where-and what-and…" She trailed off, pressing her nose against the cotton of his neatly-pressed button-up shirt to which he responded with a token embrace and a detached glance around the room.

"This-is where I've been living." Her blue eyes were almost fearful as she sought to entertain or at least obtain some nature of response from the twenty-year-old and continued at a nervous pace. "These are…my friends-Chrissy, Leapfrog, Smudge-"

"We've met," Jason interrupted simply, studying Smudge with cool eyes. The startled green-eyed newsboy offered a smile of his own in response.

"O-oh…" Melanie trailed off, glancing swiftly back at Jason and then hugging him once more, listening desperately to his familiar heartbeat. "I've missed you such an awful lot…and Jane-oh, Jane!" Her blue eyes flew open, brightening, and she tugged at his hand. "She's so beautiful, and she's grown so much; oh, you must see her…"

"I came to see Jane," he replied quietly.

"Oh, and you didn't come to see me…" she tittered, grasping for absolutely anything to bring him down to earth; he'd never been so detached before.

"Of course I came to see you, Mellie," he murmured, putting his arms around her shoulders and resting her head against him, kissing her hair as his pale brown eyes darted curiously around the lobby. "I've missed you, as well. Who are your other friends?" He took her by the shoulders and turned her around to face the other newsies, gently rubbing her neck.

"R-Ransom, Penny, Scribbler and Chess," answered the younger girl, tipping her chin back to grin up at him. "And everyone, this is Jason. Connoy. He's-my husband…"

"Nice to meet you," replied Ransom pleasantly, taking his leadership role back. "Ransom Cane, leader of the boys around here."

Jason extended a handshake, keeping one arm around Melanie's shoulders, and firmly shook hands with Ransom who nodded his greetings.

"The bunkroom and Jane," pleaded Melanie. "I left her with two of the other girls-Promise and Tiptoe-watching her." She took Jason's hand in both of hers and led him toward the stairs, her heart tap-dancing frantically behind her ribs.

"Good meeting you," called Leapfrog quickly.

Melanie grinned at the younger boy over her shoulder while Jason tossed back, "You too," without turning around.

Jane wiggled happily in Promise Kept's arms as the brown-haired girl sat on Charity's bunk and laughed quietly at the baby. "Mmm-hmm, is that right now?" she asked in a soothing voice, offering a quick smile to Tiptoe who was sitting on a chair across from her. "Is that right? Babble-bubble-bleh, mleh…" She chuckled again, dropping onto her back and holding Jane up above her in both hands, swinging her gently back and forth. "Mleh, bleh, mleh, nuh-huh…" she repeated as Jane giggled. Tiptoe just folded her hands in her lap and smiled at the pair.

"And she's got so many little teeth-though she won't touch regular food yet-and-" Tiptoe and Promise Kept glanced toward the door as Melanie stepped into the room, tailed by a tall, fair-haired young man with a trimmed-short and similarly pale beard.

"Mel," greeted Tiptoe with a nod.

The eighteen-year-old ushered her husband into the room, smiling brightly. "This is Tiptoe McAllister," she introduced with a gesture. "And Promise Kept Smyth-holding Janey."

"Ah-ha…" commented Jason, moving toward Charity's bunk.

"This, girls," Melanie said quickly, putting out a hand to stop Jason from moving any further, "is my husband, Jason Connoy." Both Tiptoe and Promise Kept gave a slight start, then smiled. Promise Kept sat up quickly before delicately getting to her feet and extending her hands to offer Jane to Melanie.

"Nice meeting you," Promise Kept stated earnestly as Melanie kissed her daughter on the head and turned to face Jason.

"You as well, both of you," the twenty-year-old stated solemnly, glancing with friendliness to each of the girls and then finally turning back to an obviously excited Melanie.

"See how beautiful she's gotten…" Jane squirmed around until she found a comfortable position, her head resting on Melanie's chest, and then relaxed with her big, light brown eyes wide. "And she talks," Melanie assured her husband with a proud expression. "She says `mum' and `Leapfrog'… That's the boy you met downstairs, the youngest one…"

"Leesog!" Jane announced triumphantly, following her exclamation with a round of burbling. All four of the other people in the room laughed.

"She's very beautiful," agreed the blonde-headed boy with a bright smile at the child. "Just like her mother." He let his gaze fall appreciatively on Melanie, who blushed noticeably under his approval.

"Though she looks like you," Melanie murmured, holding the eleven-month-old out toward her husband. "With that light, light hair…and her eyes turned brown."

"Oh, no!" laughed Jason. "Not those beautiful Rydell-blue eyes…" He scooped Jane out of the eighteen-year-old's arms and held her fidgety body against him. "Hey there, little sweetie," he murmured in a higher-toned voice. "Hey there… You remember me?"

Jane's little face contorted into one of distress and she whimpered, reaching for Melanie. "Ahmm…mum…" she wailed.

"Shh…it's okay, Janey-Jane… This is your father! It's da…"

"Mum," repeated the baby, letting out a dismayed cry. "Mummmm…"

"Shh…" Melanie shook her head and kissed Jane's nose, which quieted her. "This is your da. He's come back just to see you, little dear one…" Jane gurgled quietly as Melanie tickled her so she smiled from beneath chubby tear-stained cheeks.

"Her moods change quickly," laughed Promise Kept from where she stood with hands folded behind her back, watching the three Connoys.

"She's so good," added Tiptoe softly.

"She really is," Jason acknowledged with a bit of an unexpected frown on his face, his pale brown eyes somewhat too serious for the pleasure of the occasion. "She really, really is. Quite."

"Back downstairs?" inquired Melanie as she accepted Jane back into her arms and cradled the child. "There's a guest room down there, and-"

"And that sounds awfully good," replied Jason with a smirk in her direction, his eyes dancing. Tiptoe and Promise Kept hid smiles as Melanie flushed.

"Ah-ahm-yes…" she managed to stammer.

"Would you like us to keep Jane, or are you taking her with you?" Promise Kept asked through a grin, though two tiny spots of pink had appeared on her own cheeks as she studied Melanie's tomato-red countenance.

"You can-"

"We'll take her with," Jason interrupted, shaking his head quickly at Melanie who just shrugged. "I haven't seen my daughter in months. And we-" he motioned between himself and his dark-haired wife "-need to have a bit of a conversation. So if…perhaps…we could not be bothered?"

"A conversation, huh…" snickered Promise Kept as she perched on the edge of the table, letting one foot rest on the seat of a rickety wooden chair and her other leg dangle.

"We do need to talk," agreed Melanie wholeheartedly, her voice somehow managing to convey some of the pain she'd been forced to go through since her husband's abandonment.

"And maybe a little not-talking, huh?" grinned Jason, stepping around her armful of Jane and kissing the eighteen-year-old's lips.

"Uh-uhm-r-right," murmured Melanie, turning somehow even redder and ducking her head. "How-how about you get, um, Jane's basket-there, by my bunk-" she pointed "-and then…we'll…go downstairs."

"So who's up for lunch?" asked Scribbler, flicking several strands of her blonde hair behind her shoulder as she hopped to her feet from the poker table, where the game had rapidly deteriorated into absentminded folding and general ignoring of the game's proceedings.

"Mm!" exclaimed Leapfrog, who had usurped Melanie's place on the couch as soon as she'd moved, even without its cushion. "Food's a good way to get a frog going."

"Lunch sounds good, Scribbler," Smudge commented with a grin. "You're buying?"

"Not on your life, McDoyal," snickered the blonde-headed seventeen-year-old, pushing in her chair automatically. "But if you're coming, let's go, before everybody sends in the bad cooks. It's practically two in the afternoon!" She went to the smooth walnut door, tugging absently at its brass doorhandle as she waited for a response. Leapfrog instantly moved to her side.

"I'll come along," mused Chrissy, sliding lazily off the couch and yawning. Scribbler pulled open the door and motioned for the two of them to step outside.

"Any other takers?" Leapfrog called into the lobby area where several newsies still sat.

"I think I'm gonna go get some more selling done," Penny replied with a smile. "You all go ahead."

"But you need to eat, Penny-my-girl," commented Ransom, smiling gently at her.

"I had some of those biscuits Melanie made this morning," the redhead answered without concern. "I'm still doing all right."

"So it was you that ate all the biscuits!" Smudge complained loudly from his cushion on the floor. "I was wondering where they'd all gone!"

"I confess, I had several myself," Chess stated with a smile of his own.

"Chess," Chrissy called through the door. "Lunch?"

"No thanks," answered the brown-haired boy. "I ate before coming in earlier."

"All right, then the party's moving on. C'mon, go," Scribbler laughed as she prodded Chrissy and Leapfrog forward, shutting the door behind her.

"I'll sell with you, Penny," Ransom offered. "But don't go if you're tired or anything…" He eyed her with concern.

"You treat me like I'm glass," the seventeen-year-old answered offhandedly. "I promise you, I'm not going to shatter selling newspapers for a couple of hours. But I'd love to have you along, if you'd care to join me."

"Love to!" Ransom exclaimed, linking arms with her. "Dah-ling, shall we then?"

She giggled lightly as he opened the door and they stepped through. "Bye Chess, Smudge!"

"Bye!" called Smudge before flopping onto his back. "Ack, I'm too lazy to move."

"You are too lazy to move," Chess affirmed with a comical grin. "You're gonna lay there all day, then?"

"I'm not going back out in that confounded hot sun," muttered the older boy, rolling his green eyes.

"Then c'mon upstairs with me and we'll play chess." The sixteen-year-old wiggled his eyebrows. "Unless you're too afraid I'll beat you."

"You will beat me," laughed Smudge, grasping the edge of the couch and pulling himself to his feet, shoving the grey foam cushion, now slightly disfigured, back onto it sideways. He frowned a little at its poor fit, then shrugged. "I'm not afraid to admit that…" He smiled and flopped onto the couch. "Grr… Maybe I should just pay somebody to work for me."

Chess just raised one dark eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Aw, shut up with all your logic…" muttered Smudge, toying with the knitted blanket that lay disheveled on the sofa.

"Oh, hello," Chess said suddenly, and Smudge looked up.

"Heya, Mel," he repeated, then nodded to her husband. "Jason."

"We were just going to go talk a little in the guest room," Melanie said quickly, doing her absolute best to remain straight-faced and of normal coloring. "If you don't mind."

"Nah," Smudge said with a wave of his hand. "We were just heading upstairs anyhow."

"All right." Melanie smiled.

"Thanks, Smudge," Jason stated simply, his voice implying more meaning than his words. Melanie eyed him strangely but just amiably opened the door to the guest room and then shut it behind them.

"All right," she said, sitting down on the double bed that took up a large portion of the bedroom and holding Jane on her lap with both hands. "Start talking."

"Hm," Penny muttered as she glanced over the afternoon edition of the New York Journal. "You'd think there'd be better headlines in the afternoon."

"There's never better headlines," laughed Ransom as he paid the distribution officer and accepted his stack of twenty-five newspapers, which he tucked neatly under his arm. "C'mon, let's see what we can do with them."

The two newsies sat down on a park bench, its dark brown paint chipping off of the wooden planks it was made of with alarming speed, showering down on the sidewalk beneath them as they took their seats. Its wrought-iron legs shuddered beneath their combined weight. "Flying Stunt Stopped," read Penny in a singsong voice. "Well, what'd they have to go and stop it for? I mean, `Two Die in Attempt to Fly.' Now there's news."

"How about, `Lives Saved by Attentive Neighbor'?" Ransom suggested, his grass-colored eyes skimming the article in question. "Or, `Potential Suicide Attempt Thwarted'?"

"Ooh, I like the sound of `Potential Suicide,' and I like `Thwarted,' too," commented Penny with a grin at the strawberry-blonde. "One down, about fifty-five to go." She sighed, rolled her bright green eyes, and leaned her head back on the bench, causing another storm of chipped paint. "Oh great," she muttered as she placed one hand behind her head and attempted to sift the brown flakes out of her copper-colored curls. "Now I've got a bunch of paint in my hair…"

"Here, let me help you," smiled Ransom as he took her by the shoulders and turned her around, gladly running his fingers through her long, soft hair. "This stupid bench," he chuckled. "You'd think they'd come out here and paint it once in a while…"

"You'd think!" Penny exclaimed, laughing under her breath as she leaned back against him, letting the sun shine warm and yellow on her closed eyelids.

"My biggest question is, how angry are you?" Jason leaned back against the solid pine dresser in the room with his arms folded across his chest. His expression was difficult to read, his eyes implying a certain affection for the dark-haired girl and pale-haired baby across the white carpeting from him, but he also seemed to be nearly indifferent to her response.

"I-I'm not angry so much as-hurt. Jason… You knew that I was-I had an infant daughter! And I didn't have a job, or-or anything, and you-sent nothing. Not letters, not messages-not money…"

"I'm sorry, Mellie." Yet, like his initial reception of her, his apology seemed to be superficial.

"And what was I expected to do?" Her gaze fell fondly on Jane, and she gently rubbed the child's back with one hand. "Imagine that you're a seventeen-year-old girl with a baby and, suddenly, no husband."

"I'm still your husband," he told her quietly, letting his face soften to create an appearance of desperation, desire, and continuing love. "I'm sorry about all this, Mellie." He unfolded his arms and crossed the room in a few strides, taking a seat beside her on the bed and placing an arm around her waist. "I've missed you a lot," he told her quietly, turning her head toward him with his free hand and pressing his lips softly against hers. She held Jane on her lap with both her hands but closed her eyes as he ran his fingers gently through her dark, wavy hair.

"I-I've missed you too," she said after he pulled away from her, and she licked her lips quickly and then swallowed hard. "L-let me put Jane…in her basket…"

"I'll do that," he replied, his hands lingering on her shoulders before he picked up his daughter and placed her into the basket on the table. "Can she get out?"

"She-she hasn't," Melanie answered carefully. "But she's always surprising me with new things she's managed to start doing. If you set it on the floor, then she won't hurt herself even if she does." Her words came out haltingly, tinged with apprehension and concern, while she watched Jason's actions. After he'd carried out her request, he returned to her bedside and then sat back down next to her, taking her hand in his.

"Your ring," he murmured, his eyes shadowing as he met her vivid blue eyes. "Where is it?" He smoothed the skin on the back of her hand with his fingertips, gazing at her imploringly.

"I-I have it," she replied with a slight stutter, her cheeks flushing with recall. "In my trunk. I-I couldn't bear-without you, and-" She paused, tugging her hand out of his grasp and interlacing her fingers in her lap. "Besides that, it made me look like I had-money. Or something…and…" A slight wince passed over her face. "I don't know, Jason… It's dangerous to be a girl and-and do anything to draw attention…around here…"

"A little scary in the big city," he agreed with a quiet nod, taking her hands in both of his and kissing them. "For such a small-town girl, too. Even Bridgestone seemed big to you."

"I know. New York-it's like an entire country. Like you could never leave, no matter how far you traveled…" She shrugged a little, shivering when he kissed the pale skin on the inside of her wrist and then sighing, leaning against him. He wrapped his arms around her, clasping them around her waist.

"You've gotten so thin," he commented. "So very thin."

"It's been hard on me," she admitted, nearly on the verge of tears. "I-I've had to work so hard just to try and stay alive… There's been so much work, and… I've been so alone. How could-why would-?" She broke off, nestling her head against his chest and letting the dampness prickling her eyes create one tiny dark splotch where the side of her face met his shirt. "Why'd you leave me, Jason?" she finally asked in a timid voice. "I-I just want to know, even if it's mean, even if it was because you didn't love me anymore…"

"Let's not talk about this," he told her quietly. "Oh, Mellie, don't cry, love…" He hugged her tightly, almost crushingly so, and smoothed her hair over her back with one hand. "Sweetie," he continued. "Melanie, c'mon, don't cry…"

She sniffled and wiped her eyes viciously with the back of one hand. "I just wish I knew. I didn't mean to do anything wrong; I didn't…"

"You didn't do anything, Mellie. I promise." He trailed his hands through her hair, then down her back to her waist, where he toyed with the hem of her blouse. "Do you forgive me, Melanie Sarah Connoy?"

"Mm-hm," she answered cautiously, clinging to him as his hands traced their way along the skin beneath her blouse, causing her to shiver deliciously. "J-Jason," she breathed shakily.

"Shh…" The twenty-year-old kissed her carefully, easing his lips over hers so tenderly that she melted away at his very touch. "You're a good girl, Mellie. You've always been a good girl." She could only nod in overwhelmed response.

Scribbler burst out laughing, nearly choking on the French fry she'd crammed into her mouth, covering her face with her napkin as she continued to snicker. Chrissy slapped her on the back.

"Don't go and choke, now," she stated with a grin to the older girl as she continued to pat her. "I still don't know what you're laughing about, anyhow…" She offered a hurt glower to Leapfrog, who was also chuckling, and pounded the blonde-haired girl one more time for good measure, folding her arms as Scribbler coughed into her napkin.

"It's really nothing," Leapfrog said through a poorly-disguised grin. "Just, um…" He gestured to an area behind Chrissy's head, unsuccessfully muting another titter.

The brown-haired girl turned around, blue-green eyes curious, and scanned the area behind her. "What?" she snapped, turning back to the table where Scribbler was nearly blue with suppressed laughter. "What?" she repeated more forcefully, snatching the basket of French fries away as Leapfrog reached for one. "You tell me…" she began in a threatening voice.

"The waiter," whispered the twelve-year-old, leaning across the table. "He-" The lad made an attempt to snatch a fry, but Chrissy successfully yanked the basket out of his reach.

"Nice try," she muttered, turning around once again to study the waiter in question, who was retreating into the kitchen. "What about the waiter?" she exclaimed in a low voice, leaning similarly low to the wooden table top.

"He-his-" Leapfrog burst once more into chortles, and Scribbler with him. Chrissy picked up her knife and waved it maliciously at them.

"Excuse me, sir and ladies…" The waiter about whom Leapfrog and Scribbler had been laughing approached their table. "Is everything all right, here?" His eyes wandered from the knife in Chrissy's hand to the decidedly purple tones of Leapfrog and Scribbler's faces. "Ah…" he commented uncertainly.

"Everything's fine, thanks," Chrissy said quickly, slamming the knife back onto the table as soon as the startled and confused waiter had left. Leapfrog shoved his face into his hands to muffle his snickering while Scribbler merely continued to hold her breath, looking about ready to go into convulsions any minute. "You're causing problems!" snapped Chrissy. "We're gonna get kicked out!"

"I-can't-help it," hissed Leapfrog between gasping for air.

"You can too! Or I'm leaving!"

"No, no…don't leave…" Scribbler gulped her breath and reached across the table, laying a hand on Chrissy's arm. "We'll stop, we'll stop…" She was practically panting from the effort of it.

"What in hell is so funny?" demanded Chrissy, pounding her fist lightly on the table so as not to cause any further disruption.

"His pants are undone," Leapfrog managed to inform her before dissolving into chuckles. Scribbler's amusement was refreshed and she pressed her hands to the sides of her head in a desperate attempt to control herself while Chrissy merely shook her head.

"Oh. My. God," she stated slowly. "You are-oh, for goodness' sake…" She rolled blue-green eyes and felt like slamming her head against the wall. "Would you just eat your lunch, for God's sake?" she exclaimed, picking up her ham and cheese sandwich and taking a large bite to demonstrate.

"Sure, sure…" Leapfrog said in a calm voice, his diaphragm aching from all the laughing. "Of course, of course…"

"Your move," Chess reminded Smudge quietly as they stared at the chess board in front of them, the black ink of its squares bleeding a little along the grain of the wood but still clearly white or black territory.

"I know," muttered Smudge, resting his fingertip on one of the cheaply-molded steel pieces. "I just know I'm going to lose…" He slid the piece into its next position and glanced to Chess.

"Can't move into check," Chess told him.

"Argh…" Sure enough, he'd made his king susceptible to attack by one of the black bishops. "Eh…" He slid his own bishop back to its previous position and instead moved his rook.

"Can't move into check," repeated Chess with a broad smile.

"Well, what can I move?" demanded Smudge, slapping the rook back onto its original square.

"This pawn, this pawn, this queen…" Chess pointed out the various options available to his opponent.

"I can't believe I agreed to play this," muttered Smudge as he pushed one pawn forward a square.

"You agreed to best of three," Chess reminded him with a laugh.

Smudge laid his head on his arm in mock-anguish, whining, "Aw, damnit…"

Melanie pressed her eyelids together, feeling the feather-like rustling of their gently curled ends brushing the sensitive skin around her eyes and focusing intently on it, almost too intently and without reason. Jason smoothed her dark hair over the pillow her head was resting on.

"Mellie?" he asked huskily, kissing her lips just barely so she opened her eyes.

"Mm-hm?" she murmured, suddenly sitting bolt upright, her heartbeat rapid, breathing shallowly and tensely. "I-I-oh, Lord…"

"What?" asked Jason, startled, taking her chin in his hand and quietly stroking her dark hair all along the smooth pale skin of her back.

She took a deep, shaky breath, her hands clumsily searching amongst the blankets and then along the floor for her garments; she felt oddly embarrassed, almost ashamed, especially as she flicked her eyes toward the crossing paths of sunlight still streaming in early evening brightness into the room. Her cheeks grew further flushed against her paleness. "N-nothing, really-it's just-" She shook her head as she turned away from him and dressed herself with some anxiety worrying her heart. "I-I-here, it's so…and…" She shook her head, cheeks burning, and looked toward the basket wherein Jane had fallen asleep, worn out from her earlier exploits in the girls' bunkroom.

"Ah, so you're ashamed of me," Jason commented with a smile. His voice hid the coldness and indifference of their original meeting.

"N-no, not at all…" Melanie was shaking visibly now. "I-I think I'm just-feeling strange. Overexerted-today there's been so much, with you, and…and…and this…" She took a few steps toward the window, checking her apparel with downcast blue eyes.

"Ah, yes." Jason smiled ever-so-slightly, slipping on his trousers and walking toward Melanie and the window. He put his arms around her waist from behind and kissed her disheveled dark hair. "Well, I'm sorry that I made you uncomfortable, but it'll be all right. After all, I've come for Jane."

Something cold wormed its way through Melanie and she tipped her head back with slightly frightened eyes. "What?"

"I've come for Jane," Jason merely repeated quietly, his emphasis on all the wrong words. Melanie blinked slowly, her vividly blue eyes intense behind long dark lashes. Jason reached out to tuck her hair behind her ear but she drew back, her voice low.

"Wh-what do you mean?" she murmured with desperation tingeing her voice.

"For her. I've come-for her." He took one of her hands and turned her around, adding, so softly, "Not-for you."

Melanie jerked back, twisting her skirt in her hands and staring at him with ferocity. "You-would take her from me," she inferred sharply, her face paling except for two flushed spots on her cheekbones. "That-that is what you're saying…"

"That," repeated Jason quietly, "is what I'm saying."

The room lay in silence as Melanie gazed, disbelieving, at her husband. After several moments, she folded her hands across her chest and the pale-haired young man made a motion as if to stand. "Don't," she stated in a low voice. "Don't you move."

"What're you going to do, now, really, Mel?" Jason offered a broad grin and sat back down, his eyes almost amused with his knowledge of her physical powerlessness.

"There's-there's a lot of people in this lodging house," she replied grimly, clinging to the material of her blouse's sleeves tightly in her hands. "They-they will help me if I need it. They will help me."

"They aren't here," Jason replied with a touch of a smirk. He extended a hand to her. "So let's just shake on it so this doesn't get ugly, my girl. I set you free, Mrs. Connoy, and you only have to allow me the baby. It's easier for you. Don't you try and tell me it won't be easier."

Melanie replied through gritted teeth, her eyes narrowed to incandescent slits. "I will not give her to you. I will not. I have not-I did not-I will not have gone through hell for that child only to have you come flouncing along after having abandoned us and to take her from me." She kept her voice at a low growl, almost inaudible but saturated with anger.

"I'm not flouncing," Jason answered coolly. Shrugging his shoulders innocently, he smiled that broad smile-which Melanie concluded was quite false. "I'm not even requesting. I'm demanding, Melanie Sarah Connoy, and as my bound-to-be-obedient wife, you're going to oblige. Or perhaps you've forgotten. Because legally, whatever mumbo-jumbo somebody or another might spit out, you and our children are my responsibility to deal with as I please."

"If we're going to talk about responsibility and wedding vows," the dark-haired girl responded, "then let's talk about your responsibilities-to honor, protect, and generally take care of me and our daughter. Let's talk about a husband who for some God-unknown reason decides to just pick up and clear out, claming to be taking another job, claiming to be coming back, claiming to be staying with some cousin that in fact you never even visited… Let's talk about adultery, which is illegal in every sense-and don't you dare deny it-including morally; let's talk about a seventeen-year-old girl who gets evicted from her apartment with a baby, gets chased by the police trying to put both of them into orphanages, who can't prove her husband's existence; let's talk about what it means to get married, why we got married to begin with, whose raving brilliant idea it was to get his girlfriend with child before they were even engaged…" Here she was standing up, bright blue eyes filled with sparks that snapped their hostility, hands clenched into white-knuckled fists resting on her hips. Jason stood too, and slapped her across the face. She just glared harder, her eyes growing glossy and chin trembling, but continued to speak. "Who you never, ever hit before…"

"I want you to shut your mouth," Jason stated simply. "And sit down."

Stung, the eighteen-year-old sank onto the somewhat rumpled bed and quietly touched her hand to her cheek, her pinking skin numb with its own shock. "Sitting," she finally said in a subdued voice, swallowing hard. Her fright boiled within her.

"No one is going to listen to you," he told her with unfeeling calmness. "No one is going to listen to an eighteen-year-old bringing a case against a twenty-year-old. No one is going to listen to a silly little girl who has a grievance with a man. I have not hurt you in any illegal fashion. You have no proof that you're Melanie Connoy, no proof that this child is your property-"

"I will not let you have her," repeated Melanie desperately, but they were only words now as she stared at her hands and pressed them tightly to the heavy fabric of her skirt. She trembled.

"If you'd only be good about it, I'd at least allow you to visit…"

"Jason, visit her all you want. I want her with me."

"My daughter, living in this sort of poverty? Ah, never, my lady. And it will only work against you. It will work against you everywhere. Your threadbare skirt, your cracked leather shoes; look at me for a moment. A man of means. Apartment to live in, dressed nicely, and generally all-around more capable of caring for a child."

"You know nothing about caring for a child," mumbled Melanie, cowed. "You know nothing about Jane, nothing, nothing…"

"I'll get to know her," he said, approaching the basket and scooping the child out of it. "Look-rags. Rags. I would have clothes made for the girl."

"I don't clothe her in rags." Jane wriggled with distress in Jason's tight grasp, her pretty little pale lavender dress, ribbon-hemmed, betraying no sign of any sort of destitution whatsoever.

"I thank you, Melanie, for the lovely introduction and the pleasant bedroom experience. I always missed your nervousness; it's hard to come by in a girl these days."

"I hate you," she whispered with tear-filled eyes. "I-hate-you."

Jason just shook his head and simpered, "I'm sorry to hear that," as he stepped toward the door.

"No!" Melanie finally shrieked, throwing herself against the thin wooden planks out of which the door had been fashioned. She fumbled behind her head with the latch, trying to lock it at least temporarily. She was breathing very hard, her tears evaporating off the flushed heat of her cheeks as they streamed from her eyes. "I will not let you go this easily, I am not going to let you take away my daughter from me."

"She's our daughter, Mellie," smiled Jason, tucking a wailing Jane under his arm and twining one hand into Melanie's dark hair, wrapping it tightly around his fingers and then jerking her head toward the floor. The pain sent automatic messages to her vocal cords; she didn't even intentionally scream before she curled up into a ball on the floor, whimpering softly as she heard the latch pop softly behind the blonde-haired twenty-year-old. She just stayed prostrate on the white carpeting and wailed until she was too breathless to move.

She didn't notice Tiptoe crouching silently beside her, one hand even on the older girl's shoulder, face lined with worry, for a long time.

Promise Kept trudged slowly up the stairs, her sandy blonde hair bedraggled from running, and appeared in a bunkroom already haunted by a tense pair of newsies, Penny Johnson and Leapfrog Kristo. "Damn," she commented quietly, kicking the nearest bunk post without great energy.

"I know," was all Penny said, and she tipped the chair she was sitting in back against the wall, exhaling heavily.

"Did you find that guy?" Leapfrog asked hopefully, sprawled on his stomach on the floor with a deck of cards and a halfhearted game of solitaire spread out in front of him.

Promise Kept shrugged narrow shoulders and flopped tiredly onto Poker Face's bunk, resting one hand over her closed green eyes. "Sorta," she answered vaguely.

"Sorta," repeated Leapfrog with raised dark eyebrows. He flipped over a card, the three of hearts, and placed it indifferently onto the four of spades. "Elaborate."

The sixteen-year-old just shrugged a tiny bit, then admitted quietly, "No. No, I didn't."

"How's Mel?" Penny asked carefully.

"Mel's fine," replied a soft, somewhat strained voice from the doorway as the dark-haired girl in question slipped through, hanging momentarily on the doorframe and then slowly nodding. "Don't worry about me," she added delicately, blinking rapidly and obviously bordering on tears before she fled to the girls' bunkroom.

"Mel-" In the hallway outside, Tiptoe paused, listened to the eighteen-year-old calmly close the girls' room door, and then made the sharp turn into the other bunkroom. "She's pretty frustrated," the green-eyed girl commented as she took a seat on one of the straight-backed chairs that littered the room. "Because…"

"Can I go talk to her?" Leapfrog asked quickly, springing to his feet. "'Cause…'cause I want to…"

"Sure," Tiptoe answered with an almost-laugh despite the gravity hanging languid in the air. Three pairs of eyes in varying shades of green followed the boy until his exit and then shifted to study one another.

"Well, I think it's downright stupid," Penny finally snapped. "That-that-that bastard has no right-"

"Are you talking legally or morally?" countered Tiptoe sadly. "Because legally he's got every right."

"He left her with a kid! Alone! That's like-relinquishing all your rights!" interjected Promise Kept.

Penny was still shaking her head. "Legally-legally-legally, can't she somehow do something? Get the kid back through the courts?"

"Legally, she's his property just like Jane." Promise Kept scratched the back of her neck, her tone wrought with anger. "Because legally, every single judge in the country is male."

"What about divorce?" The bunkroom fell silent and Penny's freckled cheeks pinked ever-so-slightly. "I know it's sort of-"

"It's all right," Promise Kept finally said slowly. "We forgive you."

"Forgive me-? But-" The sandy-headed girl shook her head. "I mean it. Women-can win-if they can prove…" She trailed off and paused, considering her words. "What sort of suits can girls bring?" Promise Kept finally asked, tipping her head in Tiptoe's direction.

"I-I don't know," the brown-haired girl said almost sharply. "Why would I know something like that?"

The sixteen-year-old ducked her head, green eyes still glowing. "'Cause you're smart," she finally said.

"I'm sorry," sighed Tiptoe. "It's just-I'm so-"

"We know," the copper-haired girl explained softly. "It's all right."

Leapfrog Kristo apprehensively hung back in the doorway to the Bay Ridge newsgirls' bunkroom, both his hands wrapped loosely around the light-colored wood of the doorframe. His brown hair hung in slightly-tangled disarray in front of his worried green eyes and his lips were pressed together tightly enough that whiteness tinged their wrinkled edges. He watched eighteen-year-old Melanie Connoy lying facedown on her bunk, long dark hair in tumbled curls outlined by the white fabric of her pillow and sheet. Finally, he spoke from his position at the door. "M-Melanie?"

"Mm-hm?" she answered muffledly into her blankets. Leapfrog just chewed his lip and she carefully sat up, smoothing first her skirt over folded legs and then quickly tucking her hair behind her ears as she gazed at him with bright, mournful eyes. "God," she breathed, clinging to several strands of her hair without even realizing it. "God, how unbelievably stupid…"

"Mel… Mel, what happened… Are you okay?" The twelve-year-old moved on rapid, silent feet across the wooden boards of the floor, swinging around her bunk post and dropping to a seat beside her, inspecting the ghost of a bruise that inhabited one side of her face.

"I'm… Oh, you mean…" She placed one tear-stained hand to her cheek to cover up the throbbing reminder of her attempted protest. "Is it so visible?" she finally asked.

"You got hit by that guy-Jason-and all you want to know is if it's visible!" Leapfrog exclaimed, leaning heavily back on his hands as he looked up at the bunk above Melanie's. "Mel, you have to tell us this stuff. We didn't know he would hurt you. Smudge would have told you, or someone, or…something…"

Melanie shook her head quietly, rubbed-red eyes filling once again with humiliating tears. "I didn't know he would hurt me, either…"

Leapfrog's grass-colored eyes surveyed her dejected posture, her glistening eyes staring with overwhelmed anguish at the backs of her trembling hands. Finally he scooted toward her and wrapped her in an uncertain embrace.

The kitchen of the Bay Ridge newsies' lodging house hung heavy with the damp air resulting from boiling a kettleful of water despite the stovetop having been earlier turned off and the eighteen-year-old girl responsible for its humid status seated at the table in its center. Her pale hands were wrapped around the cream-colored china of a teacup, its contents cooling as she stared blankly at the steaming clearish-brown liquid with dulled blue eyes. Outdoors, midnight stars pinned velvet blackness to heaven's dome, but the bright electric yellow converted the sole window to a dim mirror and Melanie hardly noticed the harsh illumination that danced in her soft dark hair and highlighted the tiny ripples in her cup as soft footsteps indicated the entry of Charity Adams.

"Hey," greeted the blonde-haired girl softly, almost delicately, as she paused in the entry to the room and blinked into the electricity with night-accustomed green eyes.

Melanie glanced solemnly upward, charcoal-like smudges of sleepiness beneath worn-out eyes, and offered a tight-lipped smile. "Evening," she murmured, nearly inaudible.

Charity slid into the seat across the table from the older girl, looking from the lukewarm teaclutched in Melanie's hands to the tear-tracks still visible on her face. "How've you been doing?"

"I'm still alive," shrugged Melanie. Her expression was disinterested and she observed her slightly rippling tea as the table moved invisibly from Charity's arrival.

Charity watched the dark-haired girl with narrowed eyes, chewing her lower lip meditatively. "Are...are you...going to be all right?" she asked softly after a few moments.

The elder girl shifted her hands slightly on the cup, still gazing at her tea. "Once I figure out what to do," she said with even tone.

"Is there anything you can do?" Charity inquired with raised pale eyebrows, tipping her chair back slightly and holding onto the table's edge with her hands.

"Isn't there?" Melanie asked quickly, snapping her gaze up toward the sixteen-year-old. "How can there possibly be nothing I can do?" she pressed, vividly cobalt eyes nearly ablaze.

"Well, it's not like you have a whole lot of options," responded Charity slightly offhandedly with a bit of a shrug as she uncertainly appraised the situation. "You can always just...steal her back, the way he stole her from you..." Her nose wrinkled slightly at the suggestion as displeasure with her statement crept into her mind.

Pencil-thin dark eyebrows raised into neat arches above Melanie's eyes as she studied Charity. "Yeah," she agreed with a wry smile. "Perhaps if I split into seventeen of me and march in there like an army."

"We could help you," Charity suggested without much emphasis on the possibility of this becoming a reality. "But...he could always just come back and take her again."

"There has got to be recourse!" Melanie protested weakly. "I...I just have to find it." Overwhelmed by the futility of it all, she sighed heavily and rested her chin tiredly on the condensation-warm rim of her cup.

"I...I hope you do find it," the blonde said quickly, nodding her head. "And hey...if you ever need me to do anything for you, I'll do it." She spoke with such sincerity that Melanie had to smile through her desperation.

"Thanks," the older girl said simply.

"But why," pressed Charity as she allowed her gaze to flicker around the brightly-lit room. "Why would he just take her-after all this time? I mean... You've been through hell with that kid..."

"Don't I know it," mumbled Melanie without moving her chin from her cup or even opening her mouth much. Charity watched her quietly, then offered a soft sigh. "It's all right," Melanie said quickly, her blue eyes studying the leader of the Bay Ridge newsgirls.

"No," countered Charity simply, "it isn't." She folded her hands on the tabletop. "He took your kid, and there's practically nothing we can do about it."

"His kid, too," was the subdued reply.

"But that isn't fair! He wasn't even around for all those months..."

"I know, I know..." Melanie just shook her head in personal frustration before taking a deep breath and releasing it in a slightly miffed huff. "But what can I do, right?" She finished with a flippant snort, shrug, and smile. Charity just studied her with concerned emerald eyes. "Hey," she continued, laughing irreverently. "I always wanted to be a normal teenager, didn't I? Haven't I said that? Oh, yes, well... Here's a perfect opportunity to be normal!"

"Mel..."

"Oh yes, yes..." The eighteen-year-old was flushed with pent-up emotion and her eyes brimmed with tears. "Yes, yes... I can be perfectly ordinary, now. No husband, no daughter..." She was afire with strange, unfocused passion. "What is it that you do all the time, Charity? Shall I come along? Find some nice guys, drink a little alcohol, get a bit drunk? To hell with mothering and nursing-when do I get to have some fun?"

"Mel."

"Oh, Janey, Janey-she'll be fine. She's got a father with a job and an apartment, and probably a whole swarm of little mommy-wanna-bes running around him in circles. Oh yes, she'll be fine, and Jason will be fine... What do I need to worry about? Me? No, not me; no, no sir..." She gritted her teeth to stop herself from continuing, her eyes overflowing with saltwater. "What-what is it, Charity? What did you have to say?" Her hands clutched the teacup desperately, trembling enough that droplets of room-temperature liquid splashed over its edges and freckled her skin. "What is it?" she demanded through lips white with frustration, with temporary madness.

"Melanie!" Charity pounced up from her chair, standing with legs apart, hands palm-down on the table, her eyes bright and intense with green vigor as she leaned over until she was nearly face- to-face with the older girl. Strands of short blonde hair hung stick-straight in front of her forehead, brushing her nose and cheeks, but she paid them no mind as she demanded Melanie's attention. "Mel," she added slightly more conversationally, her position so dominant that it wouldn't have mattered if she'd used even less familiar language. "You're letting this get to your head. You'll go insane-insane-if you don't stop. You'll lose your head. I mean it; I know. You can't let this overtake your life." She was breathing heavily, desperation showing in the creases of her forehead.

Melanie swallowed hard, closing her eyes briefly and allowing their dark lashes to rest cool against the fury-heated skin of her eyelids. She paid startling attention to her lungs, forcing them back into a regular slow rhythm, and tried to will away the heat of anger that lay coiled in her neck and face. "I'm sorry," she whispered without opening her eyes. "I'm sorry."

Promise Kept rolled up the pale blue cotton fabric of her sleeves carefully, tucking their knobby cuffs above her elbows and then leaning her bare arms on the narrow rail of the fire escape. She let her soft green eyes ramble tiredly over the narrow strips of lawns that surrounded the boxy, sleepy houses of the Bay Ridge area, then sighed quietly.

"Mel?" she finally commented timidly, turning her head a bit and resting her chin on her shoulder as she looked back through the window of the bunkroom.

"Mmm-hmm?" The dark-haired girl was lounging on the floor, her neck bent at a harsh angle where she rested her head against the post of her bunk, an open book resting on her stomach.

"I got an idea," Promise Kept murmured slowly. She extended one hand toward the windowsill and knelt on the opposite side of the window. The fire escape's metal grate felt cold through the worn fabric of her pants.

"An idea?" Melanie raised her eyebrows slightly but otherwise remained motionless. "What sort of idea?" Her hands clutching the book were white-knuckled, though her tone was indifferent.

"An-idea…" First one leg, then the other, swung over the windowsill, and then the sandy-haired newsgirl slid into the bunkroom with a gentle thud. "For you." She twisted a couple strands of hair around her finger as she pursed her lips in Melanie's direction. "See-I-I know this person…this doctor…" The sixteen-year-old's voice trailed off but Melanie simply nodded for her to continue. "He-he's very nice and…very smart… He could…help you…" Suddenly she broke off, internally frowning at herself. "I-I suppose I don't know what I'm talking about, anyway," she finished swiftly, her eyes shifting to her feet and her cheeks flushing.

Melanie's fingers tapped the floor softly. "Who is this?" she asked after a moment.

"The…" Promise Kept tugged absentmindedly at the hem of her blouse as she spoke. "The doctor you met…with me…a while back…" She chewed on her lower lip with nervous apprehension. "Dr. Thompson."

"He did seem smart," was Melanie's rather vague comment. The idea that had been swelling to a possibility in Promise Kept's mind had suddenly planted itself in Melanie's brain. "Oh-he might be able to help!" she exclaimed, her dark blue eyes snapping wide open and her book tumbling to the wooden floor as she sat straight up. "Oh-oh, that's a very good idea…"

"It-it is?" Promise Kept's mint-colored eyes were a bit startled as they watched Melanie retrieve her book and mark her page, tossing the novel onto the soft quilt of her bunk. "Is it?" She smiled a bit at the older girl, her expression almost shy.

"It's better than any I've had," replied Melanie swiftly. She crossed the room to the dinged-up mirror that was tacked to the plaster of the wall and adjusted her hairdo with one hand. "What time is it? Could we go now? Is he there?"

The sixteen-year-old looked quickly to the window through which cloud-filtered sunlight was dribbling. "I'm sure he's there… But you want to go right now?" Her pleasant surprise at having her suggestion so well-accepted was more than apparent in her bright tone. "I mean-do you want to, you know, plan, or…something…?"

"I'm dead out of ideas," was the simple response as the blue-eyed girl straightened her embroidered collar and then turned back to Promise Kept. "I need another opinion."

"Well…then…" stuttered Promise Kept as she followed Melanie to the door of the bunkroom. "I-I guess we'll go, huh…"

"You'll lead the way?"

"Well…" She laughed a slightly nervous laugh, then nodded, her sandy brown hair sitting ruffled on her shoulders. "Sure. Sure, Mel, I'll do that. Let's go."

Melanie's gaze scanned the face of the man standing opposite her, smiling delicately at him. He was clean-shaven, with bright eyes and a youthful face.

"This is Elliot Stephens," explained Dr. Thompson as he ushered Melanie across the entryway of the pleasantly-furnished apartment.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Stephens," stated Melanie amiably, extending a hand to shake. He gravely shook, then lightly kissed the back of her hand, which made her roll her eyes and pull her hand back. "I'm Melanie Connoy."

"A pleasure," he replied affably. "You can call me Elliot."

"Perhaps I will," was all she said, and she laughed lightly. "For now, I've imposed upon you long enough. Is there a convenient time for you to talk with me?"

"Melanie would like your legal assistance," explained Dr. Thompson.

Elliot scratched the back of his neck, then pushed a few stray sandy hairs off his forehead; he was somewhat in need of a haircut. "I'm at leisure now," he replied. "Would you care to speak right now?"

Melanie paled ever-so-slightly, and then flushed as her face overcompensated for the loss of color. Pressing one hand to her cheek, she bit her lip and chuckled slightly. "I've got to head back to the lodging house before someone gets concerned; I promised I wouldn't be gone more than an hour tonight."

"What about tomorrow, at lunchtime?" Elliot suggested.

"Noon?" Melanie fetched her small bag and looked at him with wide eyes.

"Noon. I'll meet you at your…lodging house."

"That's all right," Melanie stated firmly. "I'll meet you here. It's a short walk."

"All right, then."

"Thank you, Mr. Stephens."

Melanie folded her legs under her skirt, resting her hands lightly on her knees and smoothing the fabric beneath her hands absently, smiling hollowly. "He introduced me to a friend of his, Elliot Stephens, who is a law student. He's going to graduate this spring."

"An' he'll help yah?" asked Leapfrog earnestly, his green eyes round and somewhat guarded. "Couldn't yah find a real lawyah, Mel?"

The eighteen-year-old chuckled gently, tucking a thick dark coil of soft hair behind her ear and rocking back a little. "He'll be a real lawyer soon, Leapfrog. He seems very intelligent and very kind."

"How kind?" demanded the twelve-year-old, eyeing his elder friend.

"Very. Just…just enough," she corrected, reading his frown. "You sweet, silly dear," laughed Melanie. "I'll take care of myself."

"Jus' makin' sure," mumbled the brown-haired boy. He smiled grudgingly at her.

"It's dear of you." Melanie unfolded her legs and slipped off her bunk, moving toward the mirror and grabbing a stray hairbrush, slowly detangling her wavy dark hair. "But truly, I'm not concerned about Elliot in the slightest."

"Oh, Mel, not anothah boy in yah life!" exclaimed Gears McNatt as she thumped into the room in heavy leather shoes. "Ain't it insane `nuff fah yah wit' one bastard guy ruinin' yah life? What `chu chasin' anothah one for?"

Melanie giggled and set down the brush, studying Gears in the mirror. "No, no, no boys. A friend of Promise's Dr. Thompson, Elliot Stephens, is helping me try to get Janey back legally."

"I still t'ink it'd be easiah t'bump `im off an' steal `er back," muttered Gears, shoving her balled-up oil-stained overshirt under her bunk before flopping onto a wooden chair.

"And I just might take you up on that, dear, if this thing with Elliot doesn't work out." Melanie grinned at the sandy-haired girl.

Gears remained skeptical and studied Melanie through half-closed eyelids. "Long's y'don't go gettin' in love wit' `dis Elliot fellah an' I gotta kill `im, too."

"She's married!" interjected Leapfrog indignantly, hopping to his feet. He walked a quick circuit around Gears' chair and glanced to Melanie for affirmation.

"That's exactly right, Pat," smiled Melanie as she reached out to ruffle Leapfrog's hair. "I'm married."

"Hey!" the twelve-year-old exclaimed in indignation, slapping her hand away.

"You'se nuts," Gears observed, rolling her eyes at the twelve-year-old.

"I'm nuts?" he scoffed, shaking his head. "Ain't you seen `dat goil wit' `da creepy knife problem? Or how `bout ouah resident photographah? An' Mel, heah, bakin' all `da time? Insanity runs rampant in `dis lodgin' house. So don't `chu go pointin' fingahs, missy!"

"Don't call me `missy'!" yelped Gears, snatching at the younger boy.

"Yipes! Help! Lunatic on `da loose!" hollered Leapfrog, dashing from the room.

"Bye, Mel!" hollered Gears as she chased the brown-haired boy down the hallway.

"See you later. Stay in one piece, you two!" chuckled Melanie. She rolled her vividly blue eyes in identical slow circles and then pressed the backs of her palms to the two sudden pink spots on her cheeks.

“We moved to Bridgestone from Ryalin just after Jane was born. I was still a little shaky, but Jason was convinced that we needed a new residence with our new family. It strikes me that he may have been a bit worried about his…image in the town.”

Elliot was listening to her with light green eyes calm behind wire-rimmed spectacles, occasionally scribbling a word or two onto the notepaper in front of him on the tabletop. “Because…”

“Because…” Melanie wrinkled her nose a little. “We’d only gotten married six months earlier. Not that I’m particularly proud of that fact, so I’d rather not promote it.”

“So you moved to Bridgestone. Did you have friends there?”

“I… I had a friend, Susan Scatarella, who lived in the house next door. I suppose she was a friend. She helped me out with Jane if I needed it; she’d raised three children of her own.”

Elliot nodded, watching her while he wrote. “She would remember you?”

“Probably. I would assume so.” Melanie offered a bit of a smile with her slightly sardonic tone, but her overall mien was so subdued that it only felt ironic.

“Anyhow, continue. I’m sorry. You moved to Bridgestone.”

Melanie nodded slowly, her dark hair falling prettily over her shoulders. “A few months later, in the middle of the winter, Jason said he was going to go visit some cousin of his or another in Little Rock-Colorado, that is-where his cousin wanted…to start a business, or something? Anyhow, he was only going to visit. Well, he said he was only going to visit.” The eighteen-year-old frowned, her vivid blue eyes unfocused with the recollection. “I wrote a few letters. I never got any replies…”

Her words continued, spinning the story that felt disconnected from her person, as though she hadn’t really lived it. The room, ringed by dark wooden panels, furnished prettily and stoutly with furniture typical of a residence shared by two highly-educated men, resonated her quiet voice and infused it with a seriousness that pervaded Elliot’s consciousness. He couldn’t stop looking at her, although he could feel his handwriting slanting off the lines of the paper and his pen scratching inklessly beneath his fingertips.

“Elliot?”

“Yeah-or, yes?” He blinked at her, his expression stiffening once again into a businesslike motif.

“Nothing,” she said quickly. “I just-you looked-never mind,” she mumbled, looking toward the window and lowering her eyelashes.

Stopping in the center of the cobblestoned road to stomp the dust off her ankle-length brown leather boots, Melanie Connoy took advantage of the moment’s pause to brandish the day’s edition of the New York Journal and announce, “Rainstorm Predicted for Weekend; Meteorologists Guarantee a Wet One!”

“I’ll take a paper, ma’am,” a tall, graying gentleman stated when she reached the other side of the street. She smiled and obliged, tucking a thick lock of hair behind her ear and nodding slightly as they exchanged goods and coin. “What do you do when it rains?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye.

“Get wet,” she laughed in response. “Stand in doorways and holler extra loud.” Her wide grin was infectious and he couldn’t help but snicker in response, adjusting his pair of thin, gold-rimmed glasses.

“Well, thank you,” he finally said before walking off down the road. She followed him with her eyes, then rested her stack of newspapers on the wooden plank back of a bench, taking a deep breath. The smile she’d posed her face into felt stiff on the muscles surrounding her lips, but pleasant. Her mood lightened considerably as the smile felt more and more appropriate.

“Interest Rates Lowest in Weeks!” she exclaimed, hefting her pile of Journals off the bench and resting them against her hip as she walked along the narrow sidewalk, offering a smile to each person who passed her.

Elliot placed a sheet of paper in front of Melanie, his washed-out green eyes fixed on her face. “You have to sue for divorce,” he told her carefully. “While you’re still married, he has basic control of you-and especially of Jane.” The dark-haired young man sank into the chair opposite her and folded his hands on the table. “I know that’s not what you want to do.”

“I need my baby back,” Melanie stated in a low voice. “I will do what it takes.”

“I…I can’t guarantee that. But it will become simpler if you can obtain divorce.”

Melanie’s breathing grew slow and rhythmic, and she consciously thought about each inhalation and heartbeat. She touched the fingertips of one hand to her forehead. “I just…” She paused, trailing off uncertainly. “I just…keep hoping things will fix up. Soon.” A vague gesture with her hand indicated her confusion regarding this philosophy. “I’m a Christian,” she stated after a moment, biting her lower lip. “Eighteen feels too young to basically wreck my entire life.”

Elliot raised both his thick eyebrows slowly. “Your life has already been wrecked,” he pointed out. “Do you want to be able to keep him from having Jane?”

“Y…yes,” she conceded slowly.

“And do you want to be able to be her sole legal guardian?”

“Y…yes.”

“There is one way you can do that. All right, two. Jason can die, or Jason and you can cease to be wed. As a pair, you are technically permitted equal access to your children, and according to convention, Jason is allotted some degree of dominion over you.” Elliot’s lips curved into a tight-lipped smile. “Your options are awfully limited, Mrs. Connoy Eighteen years old or not, you need to make a decision and then act on it. It won’t work for you to waver forever.”

“Elliot…” She brushed her fingers over the smooth, official piece of paper in front of her. Most of it had already been filled out in neat block script with her name, Jason’s, their daughter’s, her address, and etceteras.

“Melanie,” he replied softly. He was studying her with that too-intense look that unnerved her and she dropped her gaze to her hands. “Where was Jason during the in-between time?”

“I…I don’t know, exactly. Out west.” She pushed her bangs off her forehead and studied the grain of the tabletop. “Why?”

“You need grounds for divorce.”

“He stole my daughter!”

“That,” Elliot reasoned slowly, leaning across the table toward her; she could feel his breath ruffling her hair, “is insufficient. It would be ruled, dear girl, that she is as much his daughter as yours-more, in fact, because he is a man. Your running from the police in that whatever-town isn’t going to help.”

“Bridgestone. Can’t I say I was feeling maternal? She’s my baby.” Melanie rubbed her furrowed forehead with her fingertips, her long-lashed eyes closed. “If they are anti-female, anti-child, and anti-emotion in general, how do I win anything?”

“What,” repeated Elliot in a grave voice, “was Jason doing in the in-between time?”

“I don’t know!”

“You have a guess, do you?”

“Elliot…”

“Your brother went after him. Daniel. He must have said something when he came back.”

Melanie’s cheeks flushed slightly. “It’s improper.”

“You want to know what your only chance of getting a divorce is going to be, Mrs. Connoy?” Elliot pressed the fingertips of his hands into the varnish of the tabletop, his eyes sincere and fiery. The dark-haired girl managed a mute nod. “You need to prove that he was being unfaithful to you before you got into trouble with the police.”

“How can I-?”

The young man drew a breath, drawing a rectangular shape on the table with one finger. “Melanie. Bring me your Certificate of Marriage and the address of your brother Daniel tomorrow afternoon. Can you do that?”

Swallowing hard, Melanie nodded her head slowly. “Yes. But you can just wire Daniel. I’ll write it all down for you.”

“Thank you, Mellie.”

She nodded quickly, moving toward the door. “Have a nice rest of your day, Mr. Stephens.”

“Elliot.”

“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll stick with Mr. Stephens for now,” Melanie said in a soft, serious voice that was not at all insulting for all its soothing nature. She slipped out the door and closed it, and Elliot slumped back in his chair and rubbed his face with the palms of both hands, finally just staring tiredly at the ceiling.

Promise Kept Smyth tucked her legs neatly underneath her on the soft grey foam of the couch in the Bay Ridge newsies’ lobby, allowing her mint-colored eyes to drift lazily along the whitish smoke that floated off the end of her cigarette. Her eyelids felt heavy with the sleepiness of boredom.

Slam.

The sandy-haired girl glanced upward, her eyes narrowing slightly as she peered in confusion at the ceiling. “Eh-erm?” she mumbled as she cleared her throat and then delicately unfolded her legs and slouched to her feet.

The sound of rustling papers wafted through the ceiling, followed by a lighter crashing sound. Promise merely raised her eyebrows lightly and continued toward the staircase. She blinked slowly. “Mel?” she announced carefully as she began to ascend. “Are yah, um, okay?”

“Ah-hah!” yelped the dark-haired eighteen-year-old as Promise Kept entered the bunkroom, greeted by the largest single mess she had ever seen one person make.

“Ah-hah?” asked Promise as she grabbed for a few sheets of paper that Melanie had flung in her general direction. “Ah-hah, what?”

A startled look passed over Melanie’s face and then she grasped a handful of papers off her bed, leafing through them swiftly and then sighing, allowing them to slip to the ground with a glare of general contempt at the chaos around her. Folding her arms in childish irritation, she flopped onto her bunk with a groan. “Ah…” she muttered. “Stupid.” Her dark hair swept her collarbone as she shook her head in dismay.

“Missing something, I gather,” commented Promise Kept with a rather careful smile as she observed the discarded papers and strewn clothing.

“Yeah.” Melanie smiled wryly.

Promise Kept nodded her head slightly. “Anything I can help you find?”

The eighteen-year-old responded with a grim smile as she knelt beside her now-empty trunk and ran her fingertips lightly along its interior. “Yeah,” she answered softly. “A half-sheet of paper that says ‘Certificate of Marriage’ on it.” Her dark eyebrows arched slightly with her meaning, and then she rolled her blue eyes up toward the ceiling. “Ay, me…”

“Why exactly do yah need this sheet of paper?” inquired Promise Kept, kneeling on the floor and sifting through several booklets.

“Prove I’m married,” Melanie replied offhandedly.

Raising one eyebrow, Promise Kept nodded a bit. “Oh. Um…okay,” she finally mumbled, picking up a neatly-scripted half-sheet of folded paper. “Is this it?” she asked, peering at the sheet.

“Well,” Melanie stated without looking up, flipping the pages of a book. “Does it say ‘Certificate of Marriage’ on the top?”

“Yeah,” Promise Kept responded. Her tone was somewhat skeptical and Melanie crossed the room with heavy footsteps, snatching the sheet of paper from the sandy-haired girl’s hands and looked at it.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s what it says.” She paused to frown at Promise Kept. “Where’d you find it?”

“There,” explained the green-eyed girl, pointing to the floor beneath Gears’ bunk. She pushed at a paper cut on the inside of her thumb.

“Lordy,” murmured Melanie as she turned a full circle and gaped at the immense mess she’d made on the floor of the bunkroom. “Well, that’s found, at least,” she mumbled, rubbing the back of her hand across her forehead. She sighed quietly and took a seat on her bunk, beginning to fold a cream-colored cotton blouse. “You ever seen one of these?” she asked after a moment, holding out the certification.

“Nope,” stated Promise Kept as she collated papers off the floor.

“They’re kind of pretty,” commented the older girl. “If you want to look-” As she extended her hand, she noticed Promise Kept’s activity. “Oh, you don’t need to help with all…this…stuff,” she exclaimed.

“Nah, it’s okay. Might as well help. I sorta helped cause the mess, eh?”

Melanie raised her narrow dark eyebrows. “No you didn’t, dearie.”

“Oh well,” Promise laughed, leaning back on her hands and placing the stack of papers beside her. “I’m still gonna help.”

Rubbing her eyes, Melanie leaned both elbows on the light varnished wooden table in the apartment that Elliot shared with Dr. Thompson-or John, as she could now call him if she wished-and sighed quietly. “I honestly don’t know,” she told him across the table.

“I went and spoke with one of my professors about your predicament, Melanie, and the two of us have devised a very workable ploy. Our only concern was that you might not like it. The question is this: would you rather have Jane live at some sort of boarding institution, or with Jason?” Elliot studied her pensive expression and continued in an explanatory voice. “If you were willing to accept that, the case would be-I hesitate to say easy, but it would be easier. There would need only be proof that Jason, for any reason, is unfit to parent. You would not be called into question because you would not be vying for immediate custody. Instead, stipulations would be made; for example, your twenty-first birthday or when you can demonstrate total financial stability, whichever comes first.” Melanie nodded her head ever-so-slightly, so Elliot continued in his soft, serious voice. “That means there is no spotlighting you, Melanie. No worrying over your running from the Bridgestone police. None of that is a concern of the courts anymore, because you will not be attempting to attain anything for yourself. Do you see?”

“So I have to give her up.”

“In essence, yes. But you could…put her…on hold, shall we say? Reserve her? So no one else can obtain her.” Elliot watched her with grey eyes intense, afire with fresh knowledge and logic. “She would be perfectly safe. We would find an institution-you could approve it.”

“But I have to give her up.” She rested her forehead on the table in front of her and closed her eyes to stop the world from spinning.

“Mel?”

Melanie was lying on her back, staring up at the bottom of Little Bit’s bunk with her hands folded flat against her stomach, and she barely moved upon hearing Tiptoe’s voice. “Yeah?” she asked quietly.

“Hello, girls!” announced Diamond Lockheart chipperly as she swept into the bunkoom and usurped all the attentions of the room, turning around rapidly so her pretty skirts swished around her calves. “How is everyone?”

Making a valiant attempt at normalcy, Melanie turned slowly onto her side and propped her head up on one hand. She offered a weak, if friendly smile. “Hello. I’m all right.”

“Mel,” murmured Tiptoe, peering at the dark-haired girl. “Do you need anything?”

Melanie shook her head swiftly, turning her attention back to the distraction that was Victoria Elizabeth “Diamond” Lockheart. “How…how about you?” she managed to ask in a perfectly ordinary tone.

“Can you tell me…is my cheek bleeding?” The blonde-haired girl crouched down near Melanie’s bed and the eighteen-year-old studied the clear white skin of her face.

“Um, no,” she said slowly.

“The little guy-I think his name was Frog, or something else of that vile sort-punched me for no reason.”

Melanie ran a hand through her hair in consideration. “Leapfrog?” she asked skeptically.

“Yes, that was him,” stated Diamond with certainty, her pale blue eyes vague. “Anyway, then someone came-I think his mother-and hit him.”

The disbelief on Melanie’s face turned to unmasked anger. “What?” she demanded, sitting up straight, her eyes snapping.

“Yes, it was when I arrived. He just hit me!” Diamond rubbed her cheek and looked pitifully from Tiptoe to Melanie.

“No, no…his mother?” Melanie waved the girl off with a deep frown and then sank back against the soft white cotton of her pillowcase. She sighed. It was all far too much.

“Well, anyhow-where is everyone else? I need someone who actually talks back! Goodness, you two certainly are the quiet types!” exclaimed Diamond as she flounced out of the room. Silence settled on the bunkroom.

“I don’t know,” Melanie murmured toward the doorway, her words too quiet and belated to be heard by the sunny-tempered sixteen-year-old.

“Have you heard anything?” Tiptoe asked delicately.

“From Jason?” Melanie replied. The green-eyed girl nodded mutely and Melanie answered with a distressed shrug. “No. I hear nothing.”

Tiptoe sighed, her voice soft through the bunkroom. “I’m sorry. I wish there was something we could do. I really do.”

“I’m not used to being helpless!” exclaimed Melanie at last, her listlessness sliding off her like a cloak. Her bright blue eyes sharpened and focused tightly on Tiptoe’s quietly kind form.

“You’re not, Mel,” assured the brown-haired girl quickly. “You’re not helpless.”

“Yes, there’s Elliot.” Melanie pushed her bangs back and frowned slightly, considering the fact that they had grown a mite too long and needed trimming. “He holds all the strings. All of them. I know nothing of what he’s saying. I wouldn’t know where to begin if he weren’t around.” She swallowed. “I admit to being a bit afraid of him. He’s so…intense. About me.”

“Intense?”

“That’s not the point,” Melanie pressed on. “Tell me-where my options lay, then. If I’m not helpless.” She eyed Tiptoe with a daring expression on her pale-skinned face.

Biting her lower lip, Tiptoe looked softly at the older girl. “Well…” she trailed off, desperately attempting to conjure some sort of an alternative to her mind.

“Helpless,” concluded Melanie. Tiptoe shrank away from her, almost imperceptibly, but her eyes showed hurt. “Without Elliot. And I…I don’t know about him.” The eighteen-year-old held her breath, not breaking eye-contact with the younger girl, and then sighed heavily, her eyes glossing over ever-so-slightly. “I’m sorry,” she said to the stillness.

“You have no reason to be sorry,” murmured Tiptoe, toying with her hands. “It’s all right.”

“These are the things I don’t understand,” Melanie explained. “I’m not helpless, and it’s all right. Neither of those things can possibly be true, and everyone keeps on saying them. I keep saying them, too.”

“Everything will be all right,” asserted Tiptoe quickly. “I’m sure of it. You…you have to think positive.” She smiled at Melanie. It was more distressing than she had banked on to see Melanie, normally the most stable member of the group, looking so completely powerless.

“I’m always positive. I’ve been positive for days.”

“And something will happen soon,” Tiptoe said softly, her voice sincere.

“Soon, soon…” Melanie smiled wryly. “Soon isn’t soon enough.”

“We’re all on your side, here at this house.”

“And I’m ever so grateful.” Melanie smiled tentatively. This, at least, was blissfully, wonderfully, beautifully true.

“Just…just do it, all right?” Melanie said in a rush as she stepped into the third-floor apartment belonging to Elliot Stephens and Dr. John Thompson. “Just do…whatever it takes. Do I have to be there? Because I don’t want to be. I don’t want to play anymore. Just…do…whatever you want to do, all right?” She closed the door and stepped back into the hallway.

“Melanie!” exclaimed Dr. Thompson as he jumped up from a conversation with his roommate and pulled the door back open, poking his head out. “Melanie…” She turned around in the hallway and blinked her blue eyes at him slowly.

“Yes?” she asked in a voice as delicate as rice paper.

“Come back in…” he concluded weakly, gesturing toward the door he held open for her. Elliot emerged from the room and approached her on quiet brown leather shoes.

“Mrs. Connoy,” he murmured, putting a hand on her shoulder. “At least talk to me. I’m afraid I scarcely managed to understand you.”

“You understood me,” she replied icily. “I want you to do whatever you want to do. Whatever you think is right, I want you to do.”

Elliot kept his hand on her shoulder and turned her around, placing his other on her back. “At least come back inside.” His voice was calm and earnest, the light pressure of his hands insistent. She allowed herself to be guided back into the room, and Dr. Thompson shut the door with a quiet click.

“I’m sorry I interrupted,” Melanie stated, casting an ashamed glance at the physician.

“It isn’t a problem,” he replied with a nod of his brown-haired head.

Elliot drummed his fingers lightly on the back of a chair and held it out, motioning for the eighteen-year-old to sit. “I still contend that your most affable option is to permit Jane Miriam to be separated from both you and your husband, and to create a stipulation that Jason be not permitted to visit with her under any circumstances, and to even more certainly never be granted permission to take her from the establishment with him.”

“If that’s what you think, then do it,” Melanie answered, her vision focused on her pale hands, clenched and resting on the tabletop.

Dr. Thompson studied her with lips pressed tightly together. “Melanie, don’t do anything without thinking about it.”

“Do I understand this? No. All I know, Dr. Thompson, Mr. Stephens, is that I am married to a man named Jason Connoy and have a daughter named Jane Miriam. I know that at the moment, I have neither of them. That is all I know. I live the rest in your capable, intelligent, knowledgeable hands. You are dealing with an idiot, my friends, who knows nothing of these legal knots. If you think you have a plan to get Janey back for me, I authorize you to go for it. Even if it doesn’t work, does that leave me worse off than I am now? So tell me where to sign, and I will place my eighteen-year-old signature on that paper for you and bind myself to whatever intelligent scheme your well-taught minds have successfully worked out. I don’t know anything, Elliot. I don’t know anything, John. I have imposed upon your valuable time more than I ought to have, and I do not want to have to think about it anymore. I can’t win on my own, because I don’t know the first thing about my legal recourse. You know these things. So I want you-” here she motioned to Elliot, her eyes glowing blue- “to do whatever you can for me. And if you don’t want to, I suffer. That is my decision, boys. I have thought it through, I have discussed it with one of my friends, and I-am…” Her voice broke. “Going to cry if you don’t let me out of here.” She sprang to her feet and moved toward the door. “Thank you for your time, gentlemen. It’s good of you to deal so squarely with someone like me.”

She hardly touched the brass knob before she felt Dr. Thompson’s hands on her shoulders and was turned back around to face Elliot, who was staring at her with a dumbfounded expression on his scholarly face. He adjusted his spectacles with the fingers of one hand and continued to blink slowly at her.

“I will draw up the papers this afternoon,” he said in a low voice. She could hear him swallow hard. “Sign them tonight, and I will bring them to the judge tomorrow.” He spoke in a detached way, as though he were on the other side of a large tunnel and she only heard the echoes of his words. “You’ve truly been a wonder to work with, Melanie.”

“I don’t understand,” she murmured, feeling so confused that she was glad of John’s hands, still holding her firmly in position and preventing the room from wandering around in something other than a three-dimensional plane. Dr. Thompson, too, was blinking curiously at his startled-looking friend.

“It’s just…” He flushed a little. “This is going to sound stupid,” he admitted.

“That’s hard for you,” John commented smugly. “You talk like a textbook most of the time.”

“Quiet. This is serious.”

“I can see that,” smirked the taller of the two men as he released Melanie. She fell into a chair so quickly that everyone jumped. She ducked slightly.

“It’s just…” Elliot continued to eye Melanie carefully. “You’re…real. All of a sudden.”

“I’m real?” she repeated in astonishment, her thin eyebrows shifting into dark arches high on her forehead. “What was I before, Elliot?” Her face remained in its position of shock.

“A case. A problem. You were a…you were an essay question. A science lab. An English paper…”

“Ell?” The young physician waved a hand in front of his roommate. “You all right in there?”

“I’m fine,” he demanded. “I’m serious.”

“You mean…you mean I was just…someone with a question. A difficult one. A…a hard math problem. Not an actual person. With actual people. An actual daughter. An actual husband.”

“Who hit you,” Elliot finally muttered.

Melanie blinked long eyelashes in a flutter of confusion. “Which is of no consequence.”

“It bothers me.” He paused. “Now that you’re real.”

“Mr. Stephens,” she said softly, rising to her feet and tucking her hair behind her ear. “I just want to have everything done with. I’m tormented thinking I haven’t done anything. Please just…do…what…whatever you deem appropriate.”

“I’ll bring them over for signatures tonight,” he repeated in a much more together manner. He stood and shook her hand. “Take care of yourself, Melanie Connoy.”

“You too. Both of you.” She nodded and slipped through the door into the hallway. Something extraordinary had occurred in that apartment. As the door clicked shut behind her, she wondered how many lawyers, doctors, or other highly educated people never saw that particular light.

Gripping the brown dustrag tightly, Melanie made her way down the staircase, wiping the railing as she walked, and emerged in the lobby, beginning a good sweep of the round wooden table in its center. She hummed tunelessly as she worked, her mind elsewhere while she cleaned.

“Hello?” A tall, brown-haired woman pushed the heavy walnut door open with one manicured hand, entering the room with her green eyes wary. “Is anyone there?”

Melanie turned from the table, setting the pack of playing cards back upon its varnished surface. “Yes?” she asked, resting the dustcloth-hand on her hip as she glanced at the doorway.

Moving the rest of the way into the lodging house lobby, the woman explained, “I’m looking for someone.” Her dark hair, large green eyes, and almost impish countenance were reminiscent in a certain way of something in Melanie’s consciousness, but she couldn’t pinpoint it.

“Oh?” Melanie tucked a few strands of her disheveled hair behind her ear and straightened her skirt, leaving the rag on the table and crossing toward the woman. “Who’s that?” She motioned to the sofa and chairs in the lobby. “Come in; sit down.”

Sitting primly on the grey foam cushions of the sofa, the woman smiled graciously. “I’m Cynthia Lorton.”

“It’s…good to meet you, Ms. Lorton.” She extended her right hand, palm down, toward the newcomer. The green-eyed woman did likewise. “I’m Melanie Connoy,” explained the eighteen-year-old, shaking hands lightly.

“I’m…looking for my son,” she explained in that same deferential tone.

“What’s his name?”

“Jed.”

Melanie’s eyebrows raised high above her bright blue eyes and she blinked slowly. “About…this tall?” She extended her hand at the proper height, but was met only with a blank look. “Brown hair? Green eyes?”

Ashamedly, Ms. Lorton blushed slightly and replied, “I…I’m not sure. I…I think he has brown hair. And…and he might have green eyes… But I don’t know how tall he is…”

With a touch of skepticism, Melanie commented, “You don’t know what your son looks like?” She offered a slightly startled-looking smile.

Still looking dismayed, the woman shook her head. “No…no, I don’t.”

“Oh.” Subdued, Melanie decided to fall back on something easy for her-simple hospitality. “Can I get you anything?” she asked brightly. “Do stay.”

“I… No, thank you.” She shook her head quickly, not a strand of her brown hair out of place in the neat bun at the back of her head. “My son,” she explained confidentially, “might go by the last name of…of Kristo.”

Melanie just nodded, having expected this. “How did you find this place?” Cautiousness showed in her eyes; the incident with Jason had obviously impacted her attitude toward strangers and their sudden arrival at the lodging house.

“I-I went to an orphanage in the Bronx, and they sent me to the jail here. And the jail sent me to this place.”

Waves of dark hair brushed Melanie’s shoulders as she nodded, her logic switches clicking neatly in her head as she devised a way to protect Leapfrog in the event that this meeting was not one he would desire. Chewing her lower lip, she responded softly, “There…there is a boy who might be your son staying here.” A bright smile washed across Cynthia’s face, but Melanie did not allow this to interrupt her thought process. “But I don’t know where exactly he is right now.” Leapfrog, please, stay upstairs. “You could give me where you’re living, and I can send him to you when he gets back, if that works all right for you.”

“I…I’m staying in a hotel. Nearby.”

Leapfrog, the master of subtlety and doing exactly what was most important he not do, chose that moment to appear. He blinked at the apparition in the lobby before him.

“J…Jed? H-honey?” Ms. Lorton’s green eyes widened hopefully at the twelve-year-old who stood with a shaken expression on his paling face. In a moment, he had turned and walked briskly toward the stairwell. Melanie’s gaze flicked quickly between the two, ready to intervene in any way necessary if the need should arise.

“Who…who are you?” he demanded, pausing in the doorway out of the lobby to the stairs.

“I’m your mother,” she responded openly.

“I…I don’t think…I…” With that, the brown-haired boy fled up the stairs and slammed the door to the boys’ bunkroom loudly.

Ms. Lorton did not move from her post just inside the lobby, calling in a wheedling tone, “Jed? Honey, come and talk to me, Jed.” Suddenly a hand touched her on the shoulder and she whirled around to see Melanie standing there, her lips white with being pressed together.

“Ms. Lorton,” she murmured.

“What?” snapped the older woman.

“Perhaps you ought to sit back down.” She motioned to the sofa across the lobby.

“Stay out of this,” Cynthia commanded in a low voice. She turned back toward the stairs. “Jed, I’m your mother, and you will come down and talk to me. Now.”

With eyebrows raised, Melanie spoke in a firm but reasonable voice. “Sit down, Ms. Lorton. Because you are not currently in your home, you are in ours.”

The woman began to walk up the stairs briskly. “I’ll make my own decisions, thank you.”

Sliding between Ms. Lorton and the railing, Melanie stopped and stood in the middle of the staircase directly in front of her, meeting her green eyes squarely. “May I emphasize the fact that this is not your place to act in such a manner!” She heard the door to the bunkroom open with a soft pop and a quick glance up the stairs revealed Leapfrog standing at the top of the stairs.

“I’m taking him with me to New Mexico,” growled Ms. Lorton. “And I plan to take him today. Move.”

“Come on, Mel. Move. Let me talk to my mother,” Leapfrog said quietly from behind her. A little surprised, Melanie nodded obligingly.

In a quiet, calm voice, she said, “How about if you come back downstairs, then, dearie?” Cynthia, realizing she had no other alternative, retreated down the stairs into the lobby. Next came Melanie, and Leapfrog followed shortly behind her. He stepped under Melanie’s arm on the last step and went to sit beside his mother on the sofa. The eighteen-year-old sat down on the bottom step where she could keep an eye on the proceedings.

“So, mom,” began Leapfrog a little cheekily. “Where’ve you been all my life?”

“Honey, it doesn’t matter now,” she cooed. “You and I can be together for the rest of our lives. We’ll go to New Mexico.”

Leapfrog’s emerald eyes hardened coolly. “No. Really. What made you leave? What made you come back? And why aren’t you dead?” Melanie winced a touch at his forwardness, but remained seated.

“I left because…” she reached for words, “your father was abusive to me. I didn’t want to take it anymore.” She paused. “I came back because I was worried about the way your father was treating you. I’ve been remarried, and I live in New Mexico with my husband and our two daughters.” Melanie smiled when Leapfrog wrinkled his nose; she could tell what he thought of having two sisters. “And I’m not dead because-well, I was never dead.” She raised her eyebrows a little in his direction. “So, Jed, my baby, are you going to come to New Mexico with me?” Her grass-colored eyes flicked toward the stairs and Melanie before she sneered, “Or stay here and live with the riff-ra…or…newspaper sellers?”

“Well, mom.” Leapfrog studied her quietly, his eyes fraught with a mixture of uncertainty and kindness. “First things first: As far as I’m concerned, you’ve been lying. You left for…for Mr. New Mexico. You came back because you wanted to have a son to carry on the Lorton name. And incidentally…Melanie, there, who you’ve treated like…like a servant or something, has been more of a mother to me than you could be in another lifetime.” The blue-eyed girl in question flushed hotly and looked at the floor. “No,” continued Leapfrog. “I’m not going to go with you to your husband and your girls. I’m going to stay here and make my own way.” He hopped to his feet-even solemnity couldn’t eliminate the characteristic bounce from his step-and started up the stairs. “And would you please come up here? There’s something I would like to show you.”

His mother walked upstairs after him, her expression somewhat pinched with hurt, and slammed the door so close to Melanie’s face that it flung her backward and she had to catch her balance on the wall opposite. Scratching the back of her head, her eyes troubled, the eighteen-year-old returned to the lobby and began to dust again, somewhat on edge.

A few minutes later, the sound of angry footsteps storming down the stairs startled her back to attention and she looked up to see Cynthia glowering up the stairs. From above drifted, “Bye, mom. Have fun in New Mexico.”

“You,” she growled to Melanie, jabbing a finger at her shoulder. “Are going to pay for this.” Melanie just blinked and rubbed her arm. “You’re not going to get away with…with…” Unable to come up with the word she wanted, she stalked through the door and banged it shut behind her.

“I haven’t done anything,” Melanie commented belatedly, her voice soft as she sank into the sofa cushions and sighed. She let the dustrag sit in her lap.

She felt something beside her and turned to see the twelve-year-old looking dejectedly at the floor, a light bruise forming on his left cheekbone and another darkening on his arm. She jumped to her feet. “Leapfrog-!” The dustrag dropped to the floor, forgotten about. “Let me get you some…ice?”

“Nah,” he murmured. “It’s fine.” He looked at her with tired green eyes. “She just wants me to go to New Mexico and carry on her husband’s family.”

“You’re sure?” she asked, still somewhat alarmed, “about the ice?”

“Yeah,” he affirmed with a nod. “So… I’m sure you’ll want to know what happened.”

Sitting back down, Melanie set the rag on the table and turned to look at him. “I admit to some curiosity.”

“Well, I showed her the article about the train wreck and asked her if she’d read it. She said yes, and that’s when she’d moved to New Mexico.”

Melanie folded her hands tightly, her knuckles whitening with her tension. “Yes…” She frowned slightly, not understanding entirely.

“I asked her if she worried about me at all, while she was off in New Mexico. She said she did.”

“Mm-hm,” Melanie mumbled.

“So I asked her why she hadn’t cared about me enough to come back and take me to New Mexico when I was eight or ten. That’s when she got hold of my arm and hit me in the face.”

Melanie’s eyes flashed anger. “It was a good question,” she said in a husky voice, folding her arms tightly across her chest.

“I…I thought so. So she’s going back to New Mexico, with her nine- and seven-year-old daughters. I’m having a hard time believing she cared when she had another child right after she left New York.

“That was horrible of her,” was all Melanie managed to say through the strange thickness that had settled in her throat; her eyes betrayed her dismay.

Leapfrog’s eyes, too, showed distress, and a mysterious wetness that he tried to blink away. “And…and I’ve dreamed about meeting her, Mel, and now when she finally comes, she’s…she’s a monster!” he wailed, pressing his hands into his eyes and internally cursing the tears that wouldn’t stop flowing from his eyes. Melanie was crouched down to his level, her eyes wide and concerned, as he continued in a broken voice, “I’ve been so hopeful,” he whimpered. “I used to promise myself that I’d have parents, and then this is what happens.”

“Oh, dearie,” she murmured. “It’s all right. It’s all right!” Her tone grew imploring.

“She said to go with her,” he sniffled, “because she was rich and could get me into college. To…to ‘Harvard’ or ‘Yale’…” He rubbed his eyes desperately.

“You can get into college anyhow,” Melanie said gently. “If you want to. You can do anything you want to, love. That’s true for certain.” She’d been trying so hard not to mother him too much, but she couldn’t help it and wrapped him in a tight hug. His arms tentatively embraced her in response and she found she didn’t want to let him go; here was a crying child that she loved as dearly as anyone in the world. All thoughts of everything had flown far from her head.

“She wouldn’t stop telling me bad things about you.” He pressed his face into the beige cotton of her shoulder. “And that’s when I just broke loose and asked her the question and she slapped me.”

“She doesn’t even know me,” Melanie reassured quickly, ruffling his dark hair affectionately, but she didn’t release him.

“And as far as I’m concerned,” he continued softly, “I like you much better. You don’t hit people or tell them that they have friends that are criminals.”

Melanie’s voice was almost a growl. “It’s very, very wrong to hurt childen. Especially when they’re your children.” The very prospect absolutely horrified her, but her comment only made Leapfrog cry harder and he hid his streaming eyes against her, wishing that no one could see him but completely unable to stop sobbing.

Several moments later, he valiantly forced his limp muscles to allow him to sit up and wiped his eyes with the damp sleeve of his shirt.

“I’m sorry,” Melanie told him. Her eyes were terribly sad, but she offered him a delicate smile.

“It’s…it’s okay,” he managed to say.

“It’ll be all right eventually, but it hurts now.” He nodded and wiped his eyes again mutely. They sat in near silence, punctuated by the occasional sniffle from the younger boy, for several moments. “Well, I’m here for you, dearie.” Leapfrog nodded. “Even though I’m not good for all that much,” she said with a bit of a smile.

“You’ve listened to my mother way too much today,” replied Leapfrog with a similar tiny smile.

“I didn’t listen to her at all,” responded Melanie with a shake of her head. Hoping to get a laugh out of him, she raised her voice half an octave and inquired in a gossipy tone, “What’d she say about me, huh?”

“She said you were the common ingrate criminal,” he said without a hint of a chuckle. “Now… I’m the ingrate criminal. Wait ‘til…‘til Mr. New Mexico…” he whimpered softly, “finds out,” he finished in a whisper before beginning once again to cry. She embraced him once more, tightly, like the little boy he truly was.

“I’m not a common ingrate criminal,” she said softly. “And neither are you. If you know it, and I know it, what does it matter what she thinks?”

“To me, it doesn’t. But what if I meet…meet…Chantel or Shari on the street?”

Before Melanie could begin her response, the door to the lobby banged open and a huge male voice bellowed, “Jed Kristo?”

The brown-haired young woman clung to Leapfrog. “You don’t have to answer,” she stated rapidly in a low voice. “You don’t have to answer; you don’t have to talk.”

“Your mother told me to get you now. Or you go back to jail.”

“Wait…wait…” mumbled Leapfrog too softly for Melanie even to hear at her close range. “Jay?” He blinked up at the eighteen-year-old. “My mother married Jay?” His tears seemed to dry instantly with the irony of it and he pulled back from her.

Melanie shook her head, turning toward the door. “Sir!” she exclaimed in the prissiest tone she could muster. Her blue eyes snapped electrical sparks of phenomenal anger. From her sitting position, it was as yet totally unapparent that she was in fact much shorter and less imposing than him.

“Well, well… It’s Bluejay,” commented Leapfrog, taking control of his voice and wiping the edge of the knitted wool blanket across his eyes quickly before standing up. “How’ve you been, you old jailer?”

The tall man gripped Leapfrog by the collar of his shirt and pulled his face close. “You are going to New Mexico.” He was unaware of the heat with which Melanie’s full-powered stare was on him.

“Really?” Leapfrog said, glancing quickly to Melanie with obvious discomfort in his green eyes. “What if I say no?” Feeling himself smushed up against a wall, he yelped softly and turned frightened eyes to the eighteen-year-old, who had gotten to her feet and stood with her hands on her hips, glaring forcefully at the blonde-haired man.

“Excuse me, sir,” she stated in a clear, very angry voice.

“Yes?” he sneered, his blue eyes jeering.

“Let him go,” was all she said, attempting to look as scary as five-feet, two-inches could make her.

Leapfrog brightened as an idea struck him. “Allow me to introduce my friend,” he said swiftly, choking slightly as the grip on his neck tightened. “A married woman,” he gasped, “with a husband taller than you are.”

For some totally unexplained reason, Jay released his grip on the newsboy and, with a very dirty look at Melanie, slid through the door in stunned silence. Leapfrog sputtered on the floor for a moment and Melanie helped him up. “What was that?” exclaimed the newsgirl with confusion.

“That was…Jay McGuiness, orphanage owner and jailer,” he murmured, crouching in the corner. “Guess he…decided to open a farm. In New Mexico.”

“Why’d he run off?” she asked, fixing the collar of his shirt. In her mind she saw him racing off for reinforcements, returning with a large collection of very angry, very strong men. She shuddered.

“Because he’s a weak fighter,” explained Leapfrog with a shrug. “And he doesn’t want your ‘husband’ to…”

Melanie snorted wryly. “Well, there’s danger of that…” She rolled her eyes. “But…it worked. That’s good. Whatever works is good.”

“So,” mused Leapfrog, rubbing his dark hair with one hand. “He married mom. Great. A family that hates me.” Suddenly he looked toward the door and Melanie turned to see Charity entering quietly, respecting the atmosphere in the lobby.

“You’ve got a family that loves you,” murmured Melanie after a greeting smile at Charity. “Right here.” She motioned to the lodging house and then to herself. Leapfrog blinked and then hugged her, and she kissed the top of his head as though she was his mother; it just seemed like the right thing to do.

Elliot knocked at the door to the Bay Ridge newsies’ lodging house with a smile and a satchel, and waited patiently on the doorstep for several minutes. “Hello?” he called after sufficient time had elapsed, and he tapped once again on the heavy walnut. “Is anyone in there?” He placed his hand on the brass knob and found that it turned easily under a light pressure from his fingers. His pale green eyes peered into the lobby; its interior was gloomy in the setting sun, for no lamps had been lit. The house looked altogether uninhabited. To his left, a heavy wooden desk sat with neat stacks of paper on its solid surface. Glancing right, he smiled a little and took a couple steps into the house, allowing the door to close quietly behind him.

Several dark curls of hair hung limply over the edge of the sofa, clinging to the woolen yarn of a blanket that had been wrapped neatly around the shoulders of the young woman lying there, her breathing steady and soft into the muted grey of the couch cushions. He knelt delicately on the wooden floor beside her and smiled a little, touching her hair. “Miss Melanie?”

“I’m not a miss.” She sat up so quickly that Elliot nearly fell backward from his crouch, startled by her awakeness. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes anxiously. “Elliot-!” Rapidly straightening her skirts, she swung her legs around the side of the couch and made as if to stand. “I’m sorry; I-”

“No, no…” He put a hand on her shoulder to keep her from getting up. “Don’t worry; it’s all right. I wasn’t in here long at all… Don’t worry.” A pleasant smile settled onto his face. “You just go right ahead and sit there and I’ll bring you the things you need to sign.”

“All-all right. Thank you, Mr. Stephens.”

“I’ve been trying to tell you that Elliot will do,” he chuckled. “I call you Melanie, don’t I?”

Melanie flushed slightly, but he was sifting papers from his bag and couldn’t see. “It feels so informal.”

“Are we formal?” He looked at her with wide eyes, his glasses slipped comically down his nose. The eighteen-year-old just held her breath, unable to cobble together a reasonable facsimile of a response. The silence slowly eroded the question until it remained as only a vapor in the air between them, and drifted off as the dark-haired man placed several sheets of paper on Melanie’s lap. “I’ve already spoken with the judge, and he’s dealing with Jason’s end of this. He already understands your case and he’s notarized everything. You’re three signatures away from being all done with all of this.” He placed the papers on her lap and pressed a heavy, expensive ballpoint pen into her fingers. “All right, I’ll talk you through these.”

“Thank you, Elliot,” murmured the dark-haired girl, looking down at the documents worriedly.

“Not a problem, my dear.” He rested a hand on her arm as he pointed to various parts of the top sheet, and she shifted nervously, the fabric of her skirt rustling lightly against the paper. “All right; this one merely releases Jane to the City of New York.”

“Releases her?” exclaimed Melanie, snapping her head up to meet his eyes with her blue ones full of alarm. “It-”

“Shh, Melanie…” he soothed, reaching again for her shoulder. She moved abruptly and he simply placed his hand on the couch between them. “We can do that last, if you’d prefer. One of the others authorizes only St. Jude’s Home for Children to keep her, and the other is basically a stop-order against Jason-or anyone else-to remove her from thence, save you.” He smiled at her. “Mellie,” he added softly. “I wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t good for you.”

“I believe you,” affirmed the dark-haired young woman as she placed her delicately spidery signature quickly in the appropriate blanks and then held her breath for several moments. “That’s-that’s it, then? She’s not mine anymore?”

The bespectacled fellow collected the papers neatly and glanced over them. “She’s no one’s but yours,” he paraphrased with kindness in his voice. “I’ll bring them to the judge tomorrow. They have Jane already, you know.”

“They have her-where? Can I see her? Not-not in the prison, or…”

“No, no…” Elliot shook his head quickly. “She’s perfectly safe. I’ve seen to everything.” He stood smoothing, looking almost apologetic, and placed the papers neatly into a folder, which he then inserted into his satchel. “It…” he trailed off, looking at her through clear lenses. “It was good to work with you.”

“I owe you something,” Melanie pressed quietly, taking a step forward and then embracing him impulsively. “Money, or…or…what? How can I…I…pay you for your services? Your…priceless help…”

“Oh, Mel,” he breathed into her hair, holding her as tightly as he could and still breathe. They remained quite motionless until she shifted as though to step away.

“I…I have money upstairs,” she stuttered, clumsily drawing back and moving into the stairwell. He caught her hand and turned her before she could start up the stairs.

“Don’t worry about it,” Elliot stated, swallowing hard. He was looking at her strangely and then hugged her again, resting his head on her shoulder. She drew a breath and smoothed his hair gently.

“Mr. Stephens…”

“Elliot, for God’s sake, Mel!” His voice cracked strangely when he spoke and she pulled back to look at him, concern lacing her eyes. He touched her hair carefully, her blushing cheek, her lips. “If you would, please.”

“E-Elliot, th-then,” she managed to utter. She felt the startling warmth of his hands against her back, sliding under the protective cotton of her blouse. “O-okay, Elliot-dear boy, you don’t understand,” she gasped, jumping back. He held her too tightly and she felt her heartbeat hammering against her ribs. “Elliot Stephens, you know the obligations I’m under.” She held her breath, squeezing her eyes shut. Wooziness was sliding invisibly around her; one of his hands traced a soft path over her belly. “Don’t you understand?” She made a weak, trifling effort to disengage herself from his arms. “I-I can’t. Even if I want-” She bit her lower lip, hard. Melanie, for goodness’ sake, stop being an absolute ninny, she scolded herself. Here’s a lovely fellow that you’ve been half in love with since you met him. “El-Elliot. If…if I don’t…don’t prove fit to be a…a moth-” She was practically in tears, his hands lightly touching her soft skin, and she pressed back against the wall of the stairwell. “El-”

“You’ve been wronged,” he explained pleadingly. “I want to right it, Mel. Please? I’ll take care of you. Real care. Truly, I could-” He brushed his lips against hers and she finally snapped back to her senses with a start.

“I-” She jerked away, turning around as she flushed hotly and crossed her arms protectively over her chest. Her voice came out detachedly, choking somewhat in her tightening throat. “I have…a husband,” she managed to explain huskily. “And a daughter. And I love my…my daughter too much to-to jeopardize her happiness. She’s my baby, Mr. Stephens. And I-I can’t. I’m sorry. I’m-I’m sorry.” With one shaking hand, she leaned cautiously against the wall, and then sank to the floor in the center of a puddle of skirts. Her dark eyes were damp but intense in the dusky gloom of the stairwell. “I hope you can understand that…that it’s nothing about you.”

“I’m in love with you, Melanie,” exclaimed Elliot, holding the railing in one hand, its knuckles whitening with his compressed strength.

“I’m married, Elliot,” she managed to say clearly before she hid her face in her hands, the heat of her tears evaporating them almost immediately as they slid through her fingers.

Melanie’s haphazard breathing was the only sound in the dimly lit hallway for several minutes and finally Elliot took the few steps toward the door. When he spoke, his voice was tranquil and direct. “I’ll send someone over with the papers for your files tomorrow.” He swallowed, but his tone remained merely instructive. “Good-bye, Mrs. Connoy.”

She just nodded her understanding mutely, wiping her eyes with the hem of her skirt. After several painful minutes of real, honest silence in the dark, she crept up to bed.

A pair of intelligent blue eyes lowered into the blurry semicircle of Melanie’s sight and Gears McNatt blinked slowly, her dark blonde hair falling in front of her face as she leaned. “Mel?” she murmured, concern flickering over her expression of curiosity. Her head popped up and Melanie’s troubled field of vision was filled by a pair of worn man’s breeches. “’Ey, Tiptoe, what’s wrong wit’ Mel?”

From her perch upon the edge of Penny’s bunk, the sixteen-year-old in question shook her head lightly. “I don’t know, Gears. I think we should just let ‘er be.”

“But she ain’t sleepin’!” Gears walked away and Melanie’s view was once again of the pale plaster wall. She did not move, not even to breathe, as the room filled slowly to its characteristic level of boisterous evening activity.

“I was wonderin’ wheah my damn shoit went!” exclaimed the irritated voice of Switchblades Gutierrez. The pounding of footsteps followed, and a startled squeak.

“It looked just like mine!” complained a voice. Morning, possibly, or Slash. “I’m terribly sorry,” pressed the victim of Switchblades’ anger. Definitely Morning. “I…I’m really sorry! I thought it was mine…”

“Yeah, well, don’t t’ink ‘dat again,” grumbled the burgundy-haired girl.

“Anyhow, he tipped me four cents!” That was Gears, in conversation with Penny.

“Nice!” was the reply of the copper-haired girl.

The noisiness of the room was somehow comforting, but it grated on Melanie’s suddenly and keenly sensitive nerves.

“An’ ‘e was so cute!”

“Can I borrow your hairbrush?”

“So I’m practically lost, right? And then I see this sign.”

“’Dis guy named Dove Parkah.”

“Papes said it’s gonna be coldah t’morrow.”

“Damn. I don’t got a jacket.”

“It was the best ham sandwich ever.”

“Lemme see if I can do braids. Might be too short, t’ough.”

“Wanna go downstairs?” The voice was right near Melanie’s ear and she started, not having noticed Charity Adams silent figure, seated at the foot of her bunk.

“I…” The eighteen-year-old blinked slowly and swallowed hard. “Yes, please.”

The leader of the Bay Ridge newsgirls smiled carefully and stood, stepping through the chaos of the bunkroom with accustomed ease; Melanie followed slowly. “Y’might as well jus’ spit it out, ‘cause a blind woman could tell y’was bothahed by somethin’,” Charity stated, opening the door to the privacy of the guest room off the lobby. Melanie trailed through the door, folding her knees to her chest as she took a seat on the bed and hugging them tightly.

“I swear, Charity; I’m fine.” The dark-haired girl flushed as Charity lit a lamp, casting muted shadows around the white-carpeted room. The lie was, as the sixteen-year-old had pointed out, purposeless-Melanie was pale behind her fiery cheeks, her eyes still damp and pink.

“No,” explained Charity, offering a touch of a smile as she shook her head and stood in front of the older girl. “You’re not. Somethin’s botherin’ yah. Y’can tell me, y’know. I ain’t gonna say nothin’ t’no one else.”

Melanie looked at her hands, gently undolfing her legs as she spoke. “I know,” she murmured. “I-I guess I don’t quite know how to put it. I-” She broke off and gestured uncertainly as Charity sat down next to her.

“Put what?” she asked, looking at her with friendly green eyes.

Leaning back on her hands, Melanie gazed briefly at the ceiling. “You know Elliot?”

Charity nodded. “Th’ lawyer guy? Yeah, I’se hoid a’ him.”

“Did you ever…meet him?” Still looking upward, the elder girl shook her head lightly so her hair would flop back out of her face.

The blonde-haired girl pondered this, then frowned a bit. “I dunno. I don’t t’ink I did.”

“Well, anyhow. He…” She interrupted herself with a sigh. “I guess we were both sort of adamant about each other, though we didn’t say anything. Except for the fact that I knew I wasn’t allowed, so I didn’t. I did everything I could to keep him from doing it…”

Charity’s expression stiffened, seriousness settling over her. “Doing what ?” she demanded.

“I…I don’t know… Liking each other. Or whatever.” She shifted uncomfortably, glancing to the younger girl just in time to see something like relief cascade over her face.

“So…you’re upset because…you like each other?” The concept made very little sense, but it seemed to be the implication of Melanie’s fractured commentary.

“Not anymore, we don’t,” sighed the dark-haired girl. “I don’t know. Charity, am I being stupid? I feel like I’m being stupid, but only sometimes.”

A bit of a smile crossed Charity’s face. “Stupid? For what-likin’ him?”

“No.” She rubbed the back of her hand absently. “For not letting him…like me.” The term seemed appropriate enough, for all it scarcely touched her subject matter.

“Well, it ain’t like y’didn’t have good reasons, t’ough. An’ guys’ll pretty much like whoevah ‘dey want. It’s not like you can stop ‘em or not let ‘em like you.”

Melanie sighed, unable to come up with other words for what had transpired in the stairwell. “It’s…it’s just… I don’t know. It feels so strange when I think about it. I-I don’t like being alone. Like…like…alone as in not with a-a man. I’m not really alone-alone, but…” She licked her lips nervously, glancing at the floor. “I don’t know. It’s hard for me. I-and Elliot-” She winced a bit. “He isn’t coming back. Not…not ever.”

“I’m sorry,” Charity said gently, biting her lip. “But…but maybe it’s for ‘da best.” She looked to Melanie and quickly added, “I mean, it ain’t like you’re gonna be alone forevah or anythin’.”

“Aren’t I?” she inquired sharply.

Charity smiled again, still somewhat guardedly. “’Course y’ain’t. Why would yah?”

“’Cause I’m married to a person who couldn’t possibly manage to care less about me,” responded Melanie in a small voice. The betrayal she still felt was evident in her wounded tone.

“Then leave him,” came the offhand remark. “Get a divorce.” The phrase, usually accompanied by all the portentous mystery of a dimly-lit kitchen and a gossipy matron, slid easily from the young woman’s lips.

“I don’t want to do this anymore!” Melanie finally blurted out, flinging her hands down against the soft buoyancy of the quilt beneath her.

“So yah plan on jus’ givin’ up,” summarized Charity, tucking a strand of her short blonde hair behind her ear. Her green eyes were skeptical.

“I don’t give up,” Melanie stated simply. She pressed her lips together and spoke after a moment’s quiet. “I just… I suppose I just need to take everything one step at a time. And stop…stop playing hide-and-seek with everyone. And everything.” She toyed with a thread of the quilt.

Charity nodded a little, looking at the dark-haired girl. “That might be best. T’ough y’gotta admit, sometimes hidin’ helps.” She smiled a little. “A little hidin’ might’ve gone a long way for yah.”

“I think I made the right decision when I-I-” she wrinkled her nose a little, waving one hand as though to scoop a delicate means of phrasing out of the guest room air “-told Elliot I couldn’t do anything. But I think I’m going to stay hidden for a while before I go chasing after more trouble. I need…a break.”

“Good idea,” observed Charity. “Y’sure deserve one.”

“Thanks.”

The girls exchanged bright-eyed smiles, and Charity asked, “Want me t’leave y’alone now?”

Carefully sitting back up, Melanie shook her head. “I-I think I’m all right, actually. For going back upstairs. To my girls.” Her gaze lightened considerably and Charity nodded, tucking her hair behind her ears as she stood up.

“Let’s go, then,” she said in a more brusque voice, her eyes twinkling. “They’s prob’ly all worried ‘bout ‘cha, anyhow…”

“Thanks,” was Melanie’s laughing response, and she chased the sixteen-year-old out of the bunkroom.