My hand slides down the window and into my lap.
It doesn’t matter where I’m going, who gets me now. They can kill me, for all I care.
22 hours, 4 minutes
THE YARD IS DARK and bare, with just a pockmarked saguaro and a gray mailbox on a wooden pole. I have no idea where we are, or how long we drove, exactly, and when we step out of the car, all I see is darkness forever. No other houses. Nothing.
Karen looks at her phone. “Georgia’s a real believer in solitude and peace. Says it’s good for the soul.” She tries to smile, but I don’t think she means it. I think she thinks this place is creepy, too.
The house is brick and painted gray. I can barely make it out in the dark, except for the bulb next to the front door.
I’m not breathing. I hope I pass out. I hope Karen has to drag me back into the car, limp and ash-faced, and deliver me to the hospital in Tucson, where I can be with my mother again. I pinch the folds of the dress’s skirt in my fingers.
Karen says, “Listen to me.”
The front door of the house opens. Over Karen’s shoulder, a dark shape appears behind the iron screen.
Karen puts her hand on my arm. “Listen to me.”
I drag my eyes to hers. They are blue, and concerned, and tired.
“It is for one night only, I promise. The next home is having a removal this evening, and I’ll be here, first thing in the morning, to take you, okay? I just need you to follow Georgia’s rules, and get some sleep, okay, Tiger?”
A removal. Like, taking a kid away, to make room for me? Are we chess pieces? Broken game pieces in a weird adult game?
She said, the next home.
I blurt out, “How many homes are there going to be?”
The iron screen creaks open. My heart skips. The woman, Georgia, calls out, “Come on, now. We held dinner for you.”
Her voice is ragged. Not kind, but not mean. Flat.
“I can’t answer that,” Karen says, pulling my suitcase from the trunk. “One night, Tiger. One night.”
I look around. Could I run? My fingers and feet itch.
But it’s all just a velvety black dark everywhere I look. There aren’t even any streetlights.
“Do you promise you’ll come back?” I whisper. “Do you promise you will come and get me tomorrow?”
“It’s getting cold. The other girls are hungry.”
Georgia steps out onto the concrete patch in front of the house. She’s wearing an apron, a gray sweatshirt, and jeans. In the small circle of light from the bulb, her face looks tired and lined.
“Do you promise, Karen?” She’s going to leave me here forever. I know it. Beads of sweat pop on my forehead. I grab her arm and squeeze, even though she’s an adult, and I’m a kid, and you never touch the adult first. Ever. I squeeze her hard enough to make her face pinch up.
“Yes,” she says. “Yes, I do.”
I drop my hand. She rubs her arm. I know she doesn’t think I can tell how worried she is, but I can.
The last thing I say to her is, “You promised. And if you break your promise to me, you’re lying to the daughter of a dead woman. Know that.”
And then I take the handle of my pink suitcase from her and walk toward Georgia, and the silent, dark house.
I bite my lip until I taste blood, and I do not care.
22 hours, 5 minutes
THE AIR INSIDE THE house is hot and close, like walking into a sweater pulled straight from the dryer. The room is dim, just a lamp in the far corner, and a ceiling light with a weak bulb.
Georgia points to a corner. “Put your case there. I’ll look through it later. Safety purposes. Go on into the kitchen. The girls will help you.”
I hesitate. “The lady—Karen—she already looked through my stuff.”
Georgia says firmly, “I take care of my own house, thank you.”
She goes back outside and she and Karen begin talking quietly. I walk tentatively in the direction of the kitchen.
The light there is much brighter than the rest of the house and hurts my eyes after so much darkness.
Two girls sit at a round green plastic table in front of plates of creamed corn, white bread slathered with butter, and squares of dark meat. They run their eyes up and down my dress.
“Interesting choice of evening wear,” the one with the blond hair says.
They’re both wearing sweatshirts like Georgia. Plain, gray sweatshirts. It’s so hot in the house already, and their faces are moist from the heat.
Brown Hair has nice eyes, round and sorry-looking.
“That’s a weird dress,” she says. “You just get back from a funeral or something?”
“No,” I say quietly. “Not yet, anyway.”
Blondie says, “You got blood on your lip. Here.” She presses a forefinger to her own mouth.
I drag my laced arm across my mouth.
Then we all look down at the red smear across my sleeve.
Brownie says, “Ooookkkaaay.” She points to a stool in the corner by the counter. “You have to eat there until you can show Georgia you know how to act. Your food is on that plate.”
She adds, in a whisper, “Just eat it, okay? It doesn’t matter, just eat it.”
I walk over to the stool and slide onto it. On a paper plate is a piece of white bread and a spoonful of the creamed corn. No meat. A blue plastic cup of milk sits on the counter, its sides slick with sweat. The girls have glasses of milk and real plates.
The blond-haired girl says, “You get paper plates and a plastic spoon until she’s sure you aren’t a thrower, a screamer, or a stabber. And you better eat, because you won’t get anything else until tomorrow.”
I follow her eyes to the kitchen cabinets.
Every single cabinet has a padlock on it.
I look at the refrigerator. It has a padlock, too.
I look back at Brownie and Blondie, my heart sinking.
Brownie spoons some creamed corn into her mouth. “You don’t get it, do you? Is this your first placement? Like, ever?”
I grit my teeth, nod.
Blondie makes a whistling sound between her teeth, then checks the doorway quickly, like she’s afraid of letting Georgia hear. She leans across the table. “Some kids are hoarders because they never get enough food. Maybe lived on the street or their parents were druggies and never bought any food or anything and so they like to hide it, just in case. So some houses keep stuff locked up. I was with one kid one time? And his bio mom used to keep him in a dog cage? So she could get high without worrying about him wandering off and getting her in trouble. He got so used to eating out of a dog bowl, that’s how our foster mom fed him. Even scrambled eggs? She’d put them in the bowl. He even slept on the floor. On a little pillow the foster mom gave him. I liked him. He was all right.” She pauses. “I mean, it’s not always the kids, though. Sometimes the fosters are just dicks, to be honest.”
Brownie nods.
Blondie takes a small bite of her meat and winces. “Georgia is a big fan of boiling. It’s her main culinary fallback. You’ll get used to it.”
“That can’t be true.” My voice shakes. I picture a little boy, huddled in a cage. Yellowy piles of egg plopped in a mound in a bowl. “About the dog cage. That’s not true. You’re just trying to scare me.”
Blondie guffaws. Creamed corn sticks to her chin. “Oh man, you don’t know the half of it. Just wait. Adults…” She pauses, and her eyes get very wet.
“They can treat kids like shit, is all.” Her chin trembles, and a piece of corn drips onto her plate. She looks down at her lap.
Brownie’s head jerks in the direction of the doorway.
There are footsteps in the hall.
“Start eating,” she orders. “Now.”
If I have to eat this food, I will vomit. If
I have to cram creamed corn down my throat, and stuff dry white bread into my mouth, I will gag. “I can’t,” I tell Brownie. “I’m sorry, I just can’t.”
They start shoveling food into their mouths. I dig a spoon into my corn and move it around. Maybe Georgia won’t notice.
She stands in the doorway, papers in her hand. I wonder if they are about me. In the light of the kitchen, her eyes look watery and unhealthy. I feel sick and decide to keep my eyes on my plate.
“You not hungry? The girls tell you this is all you get? I don’t want you out here snooping around for food in the middle of the night. That’s an infraction. Against house rules.”
Please don’t let me cry in front of everyone. Please don’t let me cry. Please don’t let me—
“You can at least drink your milk. The caseworker said you haven’t had much to eat since yesterday.” Her voice softens the smallest bit.
“Did you girls tell her the food rules?”
Brownie and Blondie nod, eyes down.
“Finish up, it’s getting late.”
I look at the clock on the wall. It’s 7:30 p.m.
Georgia points to a laminated piece of paper tacked to the wall. “House rules,” she says, walking to the sink. She turns on the tap, begins soaping some pots. “My house, my rules; you follow them, and you’ll do just fine.”
“I’m only here for tonight,” I say quietly. “So I’m probably just going to bed and that’s that.”
When Georgia looks at me, I think I see the smallest flicker of a smile at the corner of her mouth. “Is that what the caseworker said?”
Blondie murmurs, “That’s what they all say,” but Georgia shoots her a look, and she shuts up fast.
The girls take their plates to the sink and Georgia steps to the side. Brownie dunks the plates in the water and Blondie rinses them. They move carefully, tucking the damp plates in the dish rack.
I slide off my stool. Georgia looks at me. “You’re not going to finish your meal? At least drink your milk.”
“I can’t.” I swallow hard, afraid of her dark eyes. “I don’t…I’m not…I’m not feeling well. I think I’ll just go to bed.” I inch across the wall toward the doorway.
“No one goes hungry in this house and you eat what is provided to you. Drink your milk.” Her eyes are not watery anymore. They are steel, and they are curious. She wants to see what I’ll do. I wonder what she’ll do.
Blondie and Brownie plead with their eyes.
The plastic cup shakes in my fingers as I lift it to my mouth. The milk is warm, too warm, now. It’s full fat, and tastes oily. I keep my eyes on Blondie and Brownie as I drink.
They take the cup from me when I’m done and throw my plate away. The milk sloshes in my stomach in an uncomfortable way.
Georgia looks pleased. She folds her hands.
“Good night,” she says. “Do your teeth and put your clothes in the hamper and I don’t want to hear any fussing.”
Blondie and Brownie push me out of the kitchen and down the dark hallway.
There’s a plastic laminated list on the wall in the bedroom, too, and as Brownie sits cross-legged on the floor and sorts through my pink suitcase, holding up the clothes Cake picked out for me, Blondie taps the list.
“Bed is in fifteen minutes. Bathroom’s in there. If you have to pee, go now, because she hates it if you get up in the middle of the night. She likes the night really quiet.”
“It’s not even eight o’clock,” I say slowly. “Isn’t it…kind of early for bed?”
They look at each other. Brownie shrugs. “Truth be told? I kind of like it. I get a lot of sleep. My life is better in dreams, you know? And I’ve been in houses where you got no sleep, if you know what I mean.”
I don’t know what she means, and I don’t want to. I hold my stomach, as though I can keep the milk from sloshing around.
There are three twin beds in the room, each one with a dresser next to it. On top of each dresser is a lamp with a plain white shade and a small picture of Jesus. I blink and bite my lip. Why a man? my mom says every time we see an image of Jesus. I mean, I like the idea of someone watching out for you, taking one for the team, but why always a white guy? If she said it in front of Bonita, Bonita would cry out, Where’s my brown goddess? And they would laugh together.
My heart tightens. I hold my breath.
Blondie catches me looking at the picture. She smiles. “Don’t you think he always looks kind of annoyed? Always rolling his eyes all…” She folds her hands and tilts her head, thrusts out her hip, rolls her eyes back, like a sulky girl.
Kind of like Lupe Hidalgo, actually.
In spite of myself, and my gurgling stomach, I smile.
Blondie says, “I mean, I believe and all, just not in him. Something else. Something magical. A spirit, maybe. I just think there has to be, you know? After all this.” She looks around the plain room. Her face turns sad.
“Nobody is up there looking out for us, Lisa. If they was, we wouldn’t be here right now. We’d be in canopy beds watching My Little Pony and eating cheesecake all day long.” Brownie shakes a Rolling Stones T-shirt at me. “Can I have this?”
She eyes my dress. “Something tells me your sartorial skills are taking a turn for the peculiar and you won’t be needing it anyway.”
Sartorial. Brownie would have fit right in with Hoffmeister’s Lit class.
I nod and she murmurs, “Score,” and keeps going through my things. She’s skinny. My T-shirts are stretched out from my boobs and will hang off her, but I have a feeling she won’t mind.
A heavy pang settles in my stomach. I sit gingerly on the bed. Brownie and Blondie, they must have seen lots of kids like me by now. They don’t even seem to care.
How many people have seen Kelsey’s picture of me in the State of Arizona car by now? Am I trending somewhere, people laughing at me in the backseat in my freak dress, my face swollen from crying?
#orphanarrest #littlehouseonthehomeless
The plastic alarm clock on one of the dressers says 8:15 p.m. And we’re going to bed.
Blondie comes out of the bathroom with a shiny, clean face and dressed in a long nightgown. She folds up the gray sweatshirt and the blue jeans and places them carefully in her dresser drawer.
“Your clothes are in your bureau. They’re just like these, so aren’t you lucky.”
She points to one of the twin beds on the far side of the room. “You sleep over there. Kendra gets the window.”
Brownie—Kendra—looks up at me, her eyes suddenly fierce. “Don’t fight me on that. Window is always mine. Right, Lisa?”
Lisa nods quickly. “Right.” She slides into her bed, fits the blanket up to her chest.
The milk remnants in my mouth taste sour. My stomach turns. My forehead feels damp. I start to sway and brace myself against the mattress. “Why is it so hot in here?” My words slur.
Kendra strips off her sweatshirt and bra and slides on the Rolling Stones shirt. “You don’t look so good,” she says. “If you’re going to yak, do it there, and do it in the toilet, and clean up, okay? She likes stuff very, very clean. I know this place is weird, but believe me, it could be so much worse.”
Lisa sounds sleepy. “I lived in a place where the dad always came in to say good night and made you kiss him. On the cheek, but still. Creepy. And gross.”
Kendra says, “Don’t scare her. This is her first house.”
“She needs to know,” Lisa says, shrugging. “Why are you here, anyway? You run away too much or something? Your parents on the Ox cart?” She squints, looking at me intently.
I stare at her. I don’t even know what that means.
I swallow the sourness prickling in my throat. I’m just a stupid girl who reads books and plays the drums and still sleeps with her mom sometimes and is actually kind of afr
aid of the dark.
Kendra says, “Oxy. OxyContin. That’s what she’s talking about. Painkillers. My mom’s in rehab for the ninth time. I’ve been in care since I was seven. I’m going to turn eighteen in here, I know it. Oh well. Shit’s the shit, I guess. Better than watching her sell our stuff for dope.” She shrugs, like it’s nothing, but her voice cracks a little. She hops on her bed, tucks her hands behind her head.
Lisa looks at me. “So? What’s the deal?”
The coating of milk in my mouth, the squeezing in my belly, the damp and close smell of the house, boiled meat, creamed corn.
Black spots float in front of my eyes.
Kendra jumps out of bed and grabs my arm just in time to aim me toward the bathroom, pushing me in a beeline for the toilet bowl, which absorbs all the warm milk Georgia made me drink.
There’s a sharp rap on the bedroom door.
“Everything is fine,” Lisa calls out to Georgia. “She doesn’t feel well. We’re taking care of her.”
Kendra wipes my face and then the toilet bowl with a washcloth. The small bathroom fills quickly with the smell of sour milk. She throws the washcloth in the sink.
“Rinse your mouth,” she says firmly. “You’ll feel gross all night if you don’t. Sleep on your side, too, just in case. So you don’t choke if it happens again.”
She looks at me sadly. “My mom used to black out all the time from stuff, and you can choke on your barf if you sleep on your back or stomach. I spent a lot of time rolling her over and checking her breathing.”
I rinse my mouth. The water tastes slightly metallic, and makes me gag again.
Kendra wipes at my dress with a tissue. “Just a couple of drops. Not too bad. There aren’t any pajamas in your suitcase. You gonna sleep in that? It looks old. I think it’s growing on me, though.”
I stagger past her, dizzy and sick. If my mom were here, she’d make me bouillon to drink and crispy toast. Tuck the red wool blanket around my whole body. Like a burrito, she’d say, and smile.
I settle on the bed carefully. My stomach hurts from heaving.
“My mom died,” I tell them. The words hurt, coming out.
How to Make Friends with the Dark Page 7
