I took a back way into town and then circled around to the street where Hannah lived. I was hoping she’d be out in the yard or on her porch, but she wasn’t. She should have been home from school by then, so either she wasn’t there or she was ignoring me. I thought about knocking on the door, but except for Miss Lil’s, I’d never been inside a white person’s house. So I just walked up and down the opposite side of the street a while, making a fool of myself and hoping her father wouldn’t come home or a neighbor wouldn’t come out and chase me off.
I got back to Miss Lil’s well past suppertime. This was before the fire, so she was in that two-story house next to the Iron Pier. All the girls had eaten by then and were upstairs dolling up for the evening trade. A hotel across from Miss Lil’s pr
