Charlie's Angels

“You’re the angel, like the one in my book.” She pointed to the colorful cover. “See?”

“I’m not an angel,” Starla denied, glancing at the picture of the platinum-haired celestial being. “I’m just a person.”

Meredith shook her head. “Says you’re a angel right on the door of this truck, don’t it?”

“That’s just the name of the truck. Men are silly like that. They name things. Like trucks. My dad calls his truck Silver Angel.”

“You’re the angel,” the child insisted, pointing. “This one.” She opened the book and turned pages until she came to a picture of the woman sprinkling sparkly dust. There was a smear that appeared to be ketchup across the corner of the page. “See right here?” Meredith turned enormous blue eyes on her. “My daddy needs some of your miracle dust. Please say you’ll help him.”

“That’s just a story,” Starla told her. “It’s pretend. If I was an angel, what would I be doing driving a truck across Iowa in a snowstorm?”

Not to be dissuaded from her cause, Meredith ignored the denials and used five-year-old logic to explain, “Aunt Edna who lives at the nursey home said she was in a car crash once, and a beautiful angel in a white robe sat right on the seat beside her and kept her from going off a bridge.”

“Your aunt Edna is in a nursing home?”

“She’s not my aunt. That’s just her name. She’s prob’ly somebody’s aunt, though.”

“Well, as you can see,” Starla replied, gesturing to her cashmere V-neck sweater and jeans, “I don’t have a white robe.”

“Uh-huh.” Meredith nodded and pointed to where Starla’s white satin dressing gown and pajamas hung on a plastic hook.

“Those are my pajamas.” Starla shook her head in negation. Or was it confusion? “How did you get in here?”

“I watched when Miss Rumford carried dishes to the back. When you got your coat, I followed. I was behind the gas pumper and saw you take your papers from inside and walk around, looking at the tires and the lights and stuff. You left the door open.”

She certainly had. After all Dad’s warnings.

Meredith scooted toward the edge of the bed. “I have to go potty.”

Starla held her forehead in her hands, her mind thrown into overdrive. She would have to take this child back to her parents. To her father. To that café. She was going to lose…her gaze shot to her watch…nearly three hours, even if she made good time!

The child’s family would be frantic by now.

“Meredith,” she said suddenly. “We have to let somebody know that you’re okay.”

“Daddy’s going to be mad. Really mad.”

“I’m sure he’s more worried than mad.”

“I really have to go potty.”

Ten minutes later, after showing Meredith the camper-size toilet, digging a bag of popcorn from a supply cupboard, then buckling her into the seat belt on the passenger side, Starla asked. “Do you know your phone number?”

Meredith nodded and reeled off the number. Starla jotted it on the edge of a log sheet on her clipboard and unplugged her phone to dial. She got an answering machine. “He’s not there.”

Of course he wasn’t there. He was either at the café or at the sheriff’s department, reporting a missing child.

“He gots a cell phone, too,” Meredith told her.

“Oh! Do you know that number?”

Meredith shook her head.

“That’s okay. I’ll call information for the café. What’s it called?”

“Miss Rumford’s restaurant?”

“Yes, what’s the name of it.”

“Miss Rumford’s restaurant.”

“Of course.” Starla called long distance information and asked for the café in Elmwood, Iowa. She jotted another number down and called it.

“Waggin’ Tongue,” a male voice said.

“Oh, hi. Um, is there a man there who is looking for his daughter?”

“Charlie! It’s for you!”

At the man’s shout, Starla jerked the phone away from her ear, then returned it tentatively. “Hello?”

“Hello!” a man said into the phone. “This is Charlie McGraw.”

“I don’t quite know how to say this,” she began. “I have your daughter with me—”

“Oh God,” he said. “What do you want? Is she all right?”

“She’s fine, she’s just fine. I…I don’t want anything.”

“Please don’t hurt her. Let me talk to her!”

Starla held out the phone. “Meredith, tell your father that you’re all right.”

Meredith sank back against the seat and shook her head, her chin lowered to her chest.

“Just say you’re okay, so he knows. He’s worried about you.”

Meredith shook her head, and her lower lip protruded enough to park a truck on it.

“She’s afraid,” Starla began to explain, talking into the receiver.

“What’s wrong? What have you done with her? Where are you?”

“I haven’t done anything! She thinks you’re mad at her. We’re on I-80, almost to Rock Island. I just discovered her in my sleeper about fifteen minutes ago.”

“Discovered her? What do you mean?”

“Well, she’s a…a stowaway.”