Laura's Big Win by Michelle Tschantre' Read Free Book Online

when they
were down to about eight hours left of the road trip. Playing
travel games helped, and Laura had the foresight to bring along a
couple of books both the kids enjoyed listening to.
    Late that afternoon, nearly 24 hours
since the outset, Laura, Jack, and Amanda arrived at the bus
station in Conyerville, Nancy’s current home town. Laura carded the
payphone and looked forward to hearing a friendly voice for a
change. After several rings, a familiar voice, but certainly not
Nancy’s, answered bruskly.
    “Yeah? Who is it?” came the voice of
Nancy’s husband Leonard, or Lenny as he preferred to be
called.
    “Oh, hi Lenny. It’s Laura. How are
things going?” Lenny had never been exactly a favorite friend of
Laura’s, but she was always careful to not show her dislike for the
man. After all, he was her sister’s husband.
    “Not bad, considering. You know I lost
my job when the factory shut down; haven’t had much work since.
Things are pretty tight right now. I suppose you wanna talk to your
sister?”
    “Sure do. Is she around somewhere
close?”
    “No; she and her girl friend drove over
to the metro-mall this morning. Don’t know why; we ain’ got any
cash to spare. Anyway, she won’t be back until really late tonight,
probably after midnight. You could call her then. We gave up our
cell’s to save money.”
    “Lenny, I have sort of an emergency. My
kids and I are here in Conyerville at the bus station and we need a
place to stay for a couple of days. I was sort of counting on Nancy
to help us out a bit. Can you put us up until she gets
back?”
    “Well…..uh…..look: we just don’t have
anything to spare right now and I don’t think we can do that. Tell
you what, grab a room for the night and call her in the morning.
Okay? See ya then kid. Bye.”
    Silence, deafening silence. Laura was
stunned by this sudden and unfortunate turn of events. All her
hopes had assumed Nancy would be there for her, and instead of
Nancy, Laura got her lout of a husband, Lenny, who had frozen her
out in a heartbeat. Laura wondered if it had more to do with her
family being seen as better off than Nancy’s, or was he just being
an ass of some sort. Regardless, they needed a place to stay for
the night, and with money in very short supply at this point,
charity was becoming the answer. Screwing up her courage, she
approached the part time ticket agent, a pimply faced youth of
generally unkempt appearance, but her sole source of information at
this point.
    “Hi. Can you help me with
something?”
    “Yeah, what?” the youth responded as
though he had been busy doing anything at all.
    “We seem to need someplace to stay for
the night, and I don’t have any money. Is there a Y here, or
someone from whom I might get help?”
    “No,…wait a minute. There’s some place
for homeless people over on second avenue, old hotel that’s been
converted. Isn’t much of a place, but then I guess you can’t be too
choosy can you…..unless maybe we can work out something else.” The
kid leered at her in what he probably believed was a suggestive
manner, but which only showed his lack of dental
hygiene.
    “Fine, thank you. That should be good
for now.” Laura responded, and thought about adding ‘I’d rather
sleep with a dog than you’ but restrained herself as the lady she
was. “Come on kids; we have a walk to take; it’s not very far.”
Laura lugged the heavy duffle bag along, thankful that she at least
knew Conyerville enough to know where they were going.
    The shelter did turn out to be an old
hotel, better than sleeping in the open but not by much. Finding
the night super, Angie Costello, Laura told her their plight, how
they were virtually penniless with no place to stay and a relative
that had turned them down. Angie had heard a lot of stories and was
not particularly impressed by this one since it sounded like a
familiar refrain, but she did have a room adequate for the three of
them. She also had some rations