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Walk About, Chapter Twelve Darlene Franklin-Campbell's new novel, Walk About, is being posted online chapter-by-chapter, for people to read for free. Previous Chapter: Walk About, Chapter Eleven, or start at the beginning: Walk About: Chapter One. Chapter Twelve By Darlene Franklin-Campbell "Rooms for rent," Pinky said from the front passenger seat as she looked at a paper she'd picked up in a small community near Athens, Georgia. "It says right here to inquire at Jennie's Joyous Junk and gives an address and a phone number. Directions say that it's just off this road." Ace was driving because it was her turn. "Wonder exactly where it is." "Junk," Rosie said, leaning forward, over the seat, "sounds trashy to me!" She laughed at her own pun. Clyde started singing, "Jennie, Jennie, I got your number, 867530..." "You better stick to working on things," Rosie said. "Singing is not your gift." "I think it's close to where we are," Pinky said, ignoring the backseat antics of her two younger sisters. "We could at least stop and look at it. Everybody, keep your eyes open for a sign that says Jennie's Joyous Junk." "I don't know what you've got cooking in your mind," Ace said, "but okay, if you say so." For the next few miles they scanned every building and house that they passed, looking for a sign. "There it is!" Rosie shouted from the backseat. "Where?" Ace asked. "We just passed it. Turn around." Ace found a drive and turned around in it. "Now," Rosie said. "It's about a half-mile back the way we came. There's a short sign at the end of a gravel road with orange letters on it and an arrow that points to Jennie's Joyous Junk." "Oh, great," Ace said. "A hole in the wall." "There it is," Pinky pointed. "Rosie's right." Ace turned the big truck onto the narrow gravel road and drove past a garage, a lawn mower repair shop, a house with school buses parked in the front yard, an underground house with dogs in the yard and then rounded a wooded bend, coming upon an old colonial-style pink house. A large tree partially hid the wrap around porch. The house had once been elegant, but now with its pink paint and maroon shutters, it was a comical echo of the elegant plantation home it had once been. The yard was filled with resin flamingos, gnomes of every size, tropical Santas, plastic palm trees, wagon wheels, birdbaths, small windmills, and hundreds of other gawdy lawn decor items. Wind chimes hung from tree branches and the once beautiful porch was cluttered with chairs and tables of every sort. A large sign over the front porch steps read, "Jennie's Joyous Junk." A smaller sign under it read, "Rooms for Rent." Ace pulled into the drive and cut the engines. "Rosie's right. This place looks trashy." "Looks like a t...tornado went through," Clyde said, "and dumped all the flamingos in F...Florida on this yard." "It's perfect," Pinky said. "Horrifically out of the way and not too far from our target." "It's horrific all right," Ace said. "I didn't think anything on earth could be uglier than this truck. I stand corrected. And what target?" Pinky handed Ace the paper. She had circled an announcement about an extravagant gala being held at the home of a wealthy entrepreneur. "Lots and lots of rich people are going to be there. And this guy, I've heard that he has made his fortune as a result of causing misfortune to others. It's time he had a little misfortune himself." "Oh my gosh, Pinky, are you planning on breaking in and robbing this guy?" Rosie asked. "That's against the law." "So's killing your husband," Pinky said. "But that was an accident," Rosie replied. "We aren't breaking in," Pinky said. "We're getting invited but first we need to get this Jennie to rent us a room so we can lay low and plan this whole thing very carefully." She opened her door and got out. Her sisters followed suite. They stepped onto the porch of the old home. One section of the house protruded farther out onto the porch than the rest of the house. This was the shop portion. An "open" sign hung on the door. If the outside was cluttered, it paled in comparison to the inside. There were multiple shelves of items for sale, bobble head dolls, glass dishes, ceramic animals, dolls, wooden carvings, bowls, baskets, soaps, bottles, purses, used dishes, scarves, hats, shoes. The room was dim as the shelves blocked some of the light from the windows. At the far corner of the room there was a counter and beyond that, a door that separated the shop from the rest of the house. Currently, the door was partially open. A gray-haired woman stepped through the door. "I thought I heard someone come in," she said. "I'm Jennie. Can I help you ladies?" "We saw your add in the paper," Pinky said. "About a room for rent." "Oh, yes," she said. "How long will you be needing the room?" "About three weeks," Pinky said. "Three weeks?" Ace and Rosie squawked in unison. Pinky ignored their protests. "Would you possibly have two rooms?" Jennie grinned. "I have actually had four, but there's a gentleman staying in one of them, so that leaves three." "A gentleman?" Rosie asked. "Oh, he's a nice young man," Jennie said. "He won't bother you." "Could we see the rooms first?" Pinky asked. "Sure." Jennie retrieved some keys from under the counter. "Follow me." She motioned the girls to step around the counter and follow her into a long hall with windows and French doors along the east wall and rooms along the west wall. "These doors open up into a little courtyard," Jennie said, pushing them open and showing the girls an enclosed area of yard. "You can sit out here in the mornings and have your breakfast if you like, drink your coffee or whatever." The lawn furniture was concrete. "The house has a rich history," she said as they stepped back inside. "It was once part of a large plantation but after the Civil War the original owners died, and their descendants sold the property off a little at a time until just this house and the two acres it's sitting on were left. The house is divided into three sections. The front portion is my what-not shop, as you can tell. And the rooms along this hall are rental rooms. The upstairs portion is my living quarters." She stopped and unlocked the second door on the west wall. She shoved the door open. "Wow," Ace said. "Not bad." The room walls were beige and there was a large window, a closet, a full-length mirror, and a door leading into a bathroom. "Now this bathroom is shared with the adjoining room." They went through the bathroom and into the next bedroom which was almost identical to the first one. They followed her back out into the hall and passed two more doors. "Now this door," she pointed to the third one, "is where the young man is staying and it shares an adjoining bathroom with the last room on this hall." "We don't need to see that one," Pinky said. "The two you showed us are fine." Jennie nodded. They came to the end of the hall and she opened a thick, wooden door. "This is the dining room," she said. "I eat my meals in here, too." It was obvious that the house had once been grand, but a lack of proper maintenance and Jennie's cheap furniture from the 1960s somehow dulled its potential for grandeur. The dining room was outfitted with a gray aluminum table and vinyl chairs. A macrame owl hung on the wall and a bowl of plastic fruit served as a centerpiece. There was a white cabinet along one wall, an old trunk along another and a coatrack on the wall. The place lacked class but it was clean, dry and their rooms had an outside access so they could come and go as they pleased. "Now through here is the kitchen," Jennie said, leading them through an archway at the far end of the dining room. The kitchen opened up onto a small porch with aluminum and plastic lawn furniture. "We'll take it," Pinky said. They figured up the payment and Ace gave Jennie rent for three weeks. "I'm so happy to have you girls," Jennie said. "I will need some kind of I.D." "Oh, I'm Camila Florica," Pinky said. "This is Ana Maria." Ace smiled. "And Narcisa and Rosalia Florencia Christina." "Lovely names," Jennie said, "but I will also need some paper ID." "Oh," Pinky said. "That's a problem. You see, we're illegal immigrants and we don't have ID. Please don't turn us in." "Immigrants? But you speak perfect English. Where are you from?" "Romania," all the girls answered in unison. "Romania?" Jennie squawked. "Where is that?" "Europe," Pinky said. "Wow," Jennie replied. "You all look just like Americans." "We are just like you," Ace said. "Except that we speak Romanian," Pinky said. "Suntem la fel ca tine." "That's beautiful," Jennie said. "Is that your language?" "Yes," Pinky replied. "We just need a place to stay until we can get all our papers in order." Jennie smiled. "Well, I remember the story of the good Samaritan and that sounds a little like Romanian. Maybe you girls are my chance to be a good Samaritan." "Oh, thank you," Pinky said. "Well, I'll let you girls get settle in then. Dinner's at 6:30." The sisters went back out to the truck and brought their bags into their rooms. They all congregated in the first room which Clyde and Pinky claimed as theirs. Rosie and Ace would share the adjoining room. "I'm glad you paid attention to Nanna's Romanian lessons," Ace said. "Me, too," Pinky said. "I had to think real fast to make up those names!" "Wish I had some of her cabbage rolls," Clyde said. "Nanna made the best c...cabbage rolls." "Tomorrow, we are all going into town," Pinky said. "We've got a lot of work to do." At 6:30 the women went to the dining room where a blondish man in his late thirties sat at the table reading a paper. He was thin, wearing a striped shirt with rolled sleeves, wire-framed glasses and a pair of jeans. Rosie whispered to Ace, "He is gorgeous." Ace looked at him and whispered back, "He actually is." The man looked up from his paper, smiled and nodded. Just then Jennie came in, carrying a lasagna. "Oh, girls, so glad you're all here. This is John. John, this is Ana Maria, Camila, Rosalia, and Narcisa. Did I get your names right?" "Close enough," Pinky said. John folded the paper. "Nice to meet you, ladies." Darlene Franklin-Campbell, an Adair County native, holds an M.A. from Lindsey Wilson College but has also done post-graduate work in storytelling and literacy at Western Kentucky University and is an alumnus of Campbellsville University. She is a member of the Elizabeth Maddox Roberts Society, the Adair County Arts Council, The Adair County Genealogical Society, The Green County Genealogical Society, Phi Theta Kappa, and the Mysterium Society (an IQ society for linguists). She has attended the Appalachian Writers Workshop, WisCOn, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. She currently teaches Art at the Adair County Primary Center. You may visit her webpage at https://www.dardet.com or her writer's blog at https://whisperingwind.blog to check out more of her work. This story was posted on 2022-02-22 15:16:29
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