A Place on My Pillow

Fed and showered, Cady dragged Polly out of the house, after leaving Otto plenty of things to chew and eat.

“I’m not going to enjoy this,” Polly stated as she was pushed into Cady’s car, which was even smaller and more of a matchbox than her brother’s. Polly didn’t think this was possible, actually. But here was a car that was no bigger than a shoebox.

“Yeees, you are. Now stop being difficult and get in the car. I promise you’ll look back on today and say, ‘oh, yes. I’m severely grateful to Cady for making my day so much better and buying me all these new things.’ Promise. Cross my heart,” Cady rambled, starting the engine of the shoebox on wheels. She hadn’t even put her seatbelt on before she started backing out of the driveway. Polly had a feeling that tiny Cady Jackson was a horrible driver, and had many a ticket in her lifetime. This didn’t make her feel any better about the day ahead of her.

“Cady, please, put your seatbelt on,” Polly said, closing her eyes. Cady sighed beside her but pulled the belt across her and buckled it in place.

“Good?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Okay. Let’s go!”

Cady pressed her foot into the gas pedal until it was scraping the floor of the car. Pollyanna cursed as the small car leapt forward, tires squealing and possibly smoking. Polly took a peak at the speedometer. 60, 65, 72. The car couldn’t possibly handle how fast it was going.

“Cady, I know I’m gonna sound like a naggy old woman but can you please SLOW DOWN?” Polly yipped as Cady took a corner, practically on two wheels.

“No. Why would I do that?”

“Because you’re going 100 miles an hour on side streets!”

“I’m only going 75, thank you,” she replied indignantly. Polly gripped the door handle in one hand and the side of her seat with the other, both sets of knuckles turning pure white with the pressure and tension.

“Please slow down,” Polly finally whimpered, squeezing her eyes shut.

Cady let out a bothered sigh but eased the car to a slower, much more reasonable speed of 59. The speed limit within the small city was 35.

“We’re never gonna get there,” Cady complained. Polly rested her head on the headrest behind her.

“Yes, we are. And there will be slightly less of a chance that we will die on the way there.”

“You’re too cautious, Polly,” Cady said, which struck Polly as odd. How was Pollyanna, the girl with no home and a dog she could barely care for, cautious? She lived on the streets and slept in schools. She stole things and spent time with homeless drug addicts. How was she in any way, in any sense of the word, cautious?

“You really don’t know me then, Cadence.”

“Oh, yeah? In what way are you rash?”

“I live on the streets. Shouldn’t that say something about me?”

“Not necessarily. You could be out of a home simply because you’ve gone through a rough time. Bad luck and all that. Just because you have no safe place to call yours doesn’t make you reckless. You’re the most cautious person I’ve ever met, Polly. Even more so then some of my conservative relatives.”

“The stealing? The spending the night at strangers’ homes? The sleeping on park benches? Does that sound cautious to you?”

“That’s not recklessness, Polly. That’s adapting to your situation. You do what you have to, in order to keep yourself and Otto alive. That’s out of pure need and desperation. Nothing about that is reckless.”

Polly stared at her hands, slightly confused. She’d always thought the way she’d lived was stupidly heedless, that it was unnecessary. But here was someone else, who was telling her that she did what she had to.

“Honestly, if I was on the streets, with Otto, I’d be doing so many things that could get be sent to jail. I’d even consider robbing a bank if it meant I’d get off the streets but you’ve been on the streets for, what, a year?”

“A year and a half,” Polly said softly.

“A year and a half! I wouldn’t have lasted a week! I’d be running home to whoever would accept me, crying about how I haven’t showered and how I’m hungry. You’re just, amazing. You’re spectacular. You don’t even see it. But you are.”

Polly was stunned, absolutely stunned! No one had ever said anything that nice and that sincere to her in years. If nice things had been said, it had been to get her to “see reason” or more often, to get her into bed. The sincerity of the words was always in question, at least to Polly and especially at the end of her time with the sociopath.

“Why are you being so nice?” Polly finally asked, her voice small and childlike. It was odd, Cady thought, watching the girl beside her fiddle with her own fingers.

“You’re not used to people being pleasant, are you?”

“Occasionally you’ll meet someone who will buy you a meal or lend you a room for the night. But not someone who will tell you that what has happened in your life is just bad luck and not your own fault. People tend to think that I gambled away my home but it’s nothing like that. You see that. It’s just, I’m not used to people seeing it that way. You’re the first,” Polly replied, her eyes still on her tangle fingers.
The conversation fell and the pair sat in silence, only the sound of the overly worked engine and wheels accompanying them. Cady pulled the car into a parking lot, mostly empty that lead to a large building.

“Is that a mall?” Polly asked. She hadn’t been to a mall in months. She avoided them, mainly because they have mall cops. She hated mall cops, even more than regular cops. Actually, it was more that mall cops didn’t like her.

“Indeed, it is.”

She frowned and got out of the car.

“Mall cops hate me,” Pollyanna admitted.

“You’re lovely. I’m sure they don’t.”

“I’m serious. Every time I so much as just stepped inside a mall, they glare at me. Most of the time, I just want to get out of the rain, or the cold. I want a place to sit down. I’m not looking to steal anything!” Polly rambled.

“I know, it’s alright. Let’s go enjoy ourselves. Besides, you don’t look like someone out to steal stuff. Except for your hair. Your hair is a bit, scraggly.”

“It hasn’t been cut in, like, two years!” Polly defended.

“It looks fine. It just needs a trim,” Cady said. She had her thinking face on, Polly would realize later in their friendship. It wasn’t just a thinking face either. It was more of a plotting and scheming expression. It would be the death of Polly, the homeless girl used to think.

“There’s a great hairdresser in the mall. We should start there,” Cady said and promptly grabbed Polly by the wrist. The taller girl was dragged behind the small, feisty girl. It looked like, to on-lookers, a tug-boat pulling the Titanic.

The hairdresser, that Cady praised and said was the best in the state, worked in a rinky-dink shop in the corner of the mall between the food court and a pharmacy. It was the typical set up, with a line of chairs for waiting, a desk with a register, two rows of chairs sitting before mirrors. At the fair end were yet more chairs with the hairdryers and then across from those were sinks with even more chairs. Hair products lined shelves in the waiting area, from the most expensive to the least.

“Rachel!” Cady yelled. A small blonde girl with a page-boy haircut popped out from a door at the far end.

“Cady! Are you finally gonna let me chop off that mop?” the girl, Rachel asked, skipping down the store to stand in front of the pair. Cady still had Polly’s wrist in a vice-like grip. Polly reached down and extracted her limb from Cady’s surprisingly strong hand.

“No. We’re here for Polly today. Besides, you’re not coming anywhere near my hair with those scissors. I need my hair.”

“For what? For children to use as a vine?”

Cady moved her hand like a mouth, rolling her eyes.

“Focus, Rachel. Polly needs a haircut. She has two years worth of dead ends.”

“She has what? Come, sit. We’ll get your hair as sorted out, on the house. I promise. You’re a case that needs no money.”

Polly felt insulted and relieved. She hated how broken the tips of her hair were. She followed Rachel to the sinks and sat back, waiting. She was draped with an apron and then the water started up behind her. She jumped slightly as the water sprayed from the head hit her scalp. It wasn’t too hot or too cold. It was just surprising.

“How’s that feel?”

“It’s, it’s good,” Polly stuttered. She was too busy savoring this moment. She had enjoyed haircuts a lot as a kid, especially the scalp massage you got when the hairdresser washes your hair.

“What kind of style do you want?” Rachel asked.

Polly murmured out an “I don’t know,” before closing her eyes again.

“I’ll just hack off the dead and we’ll go from there.”

Polly nodded and let Rachel work. She felt the cold shampoo being massaged into her hair and then the water rinsing it out. She felt the conditioner come afterwards, and then it was rinsed out again. A towel was placed on Polly’s head.

“Alright, hun, stand on up.”

Polly did as instructed and wrapped the towel around the back. She lead me to one of the chairs. Her nametag was stuck to the lower right-hand corner of the mirror below a picture of Rachel with a small baby, dressed in head-to-toe pink, with a full head of dark brown hair laying in her arms.

“Is that your daughter?” Polly asked, nodding her head at the picture.

“Yeah. My Abigail. She’s 6 months old now.”

“She’s adorable.”

“Thank you.”

Rachel pulled the towel off Polly’s head and her long blonde hair tumbled down.

“Are you ready?” Rachel asked. Polly breathed in slowly and exhaled just as slowly.

“Yes.”

“Alright. Let’s get to work then!”