Alice

Chapter Nine

"Young lady," the raspy voice whispered. A stiff hand gently nudged my shoulder and I opened my heavy eyes to see the bus driver barely leaning over me. "Young lady, I've made three rounds around this neighborhood. It's time to go now."

He was already parked outside of my house and I could see my dad's car parked in the driveway. It was still pouring down rain and my Alice in Wonderland book had fallen from my lap onto the wet floor beneath me. I hurriedly picked it up with one hand while the other hand searched for my purse. "How long have I been on here?" I asked the driver who was already walking back up to the front. "How much do I owe you?"

He turned around and smile formed. "Take it as a Christmas gift. From me to you."

I began to follow behind up to the front. He opened the bus doors and the sound of rain immediately overpowered the engine. I looked out to my house and looked back at him. "How'd you know?"

"Know what?"

I hesitated a bit. "You knew that I couldn't come home."

His eyes looked almost sad as he looked back at me and I realized that the two of us had never had a full conversation the entire three months I was riding the bus. An occasional "hello" and "goodbye" left out lips, but for the most part we kept quiet. He shut the bus door and the sound of rain disappeared again. "You know, young lady, I've seen you a lot. I pick you up on North Street, you wait approximately thirty minutes to actually get off and then I drop you off here."

"I like the bus."

"Nobody likes the bus," he said. "I think you hate home."

It wasn't like me to appreciate elders telling me what I liked and didn't like, but the man seemed to have some wisdom to him. "You know, young lady," he said, "I don't like particularly like seeing you walk into that house."

"Why?" I asked.

"You have such a high wall built around you. You probably think no one could knock that down." I realized he had a thick southern accent instead of the Detroit accents I was used to. "You remind me of my wife."

"I do?" I asked with a slight grin. "Why is that?"

"She was strong willed and she always had that same wall built up. Took me fourteen years to knock it down when I finally got the courage to ask her to marry me." I caught the "was" at the beginning of his words which signified to me that his wife had passed. "Of course, at first she said no."

"'No'?" I asked. I couldn't help but to be completely stunned. "Why on earth would she say no?"

"She was a stubborn one," he said. "She was so blinded by her own problems that she couldn't imagine anyone ever wanting to be a part of it all."

I laid my purse and damp book down by the door and sat in the seat closest to his driver's chair. "Problems?"