by Sara Hosey
He tossed his head. “No thing.”
I was going to ask for the photo back, but he beat me to it. “I’ll keep the photo,” he said. “Case I run into anyone else.”
“Okay,” I relented. My fingers itched for the photo, but I made fists with my hands. My breath was shallow and I felt myself blinking, hard, and I realized everybody was looking at me.
“Let’s go,” Corinne took charge, looking at me like, what are you waiting for?
We walked away from the pond in silence, and she touched my elbow to steer me back to the main path. I waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. We passed a playground and the sounds of the swings, their heaving chains, and a faint and familiar childhood chant drifted through the trees. Waiting, listening, I heard the birds, too, and then looked up to see a little speck of an airplane cutting across the darkening sky at an impossible angle.
Corinne cleared her throat.
“You know, Iff, I’m not as innocent as I seem,” she tried to joke, but her laugh was weak and weird. She took out her cigarettes.
I realized that she was embarrassed. I was so busy thinking about my mother that I hadn’t noticed. I didn’t think I’d ever seen her embarrassed before. I wasn’t sure what we were talking about.
“So, whatever,” she rattled on. “A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do … You know what I mean, Iff?”
I didn’t, so I didn’t say anything.
“I’m just saying I know some of the working girls is all. I just didn’t want you to be … surprised.”
And then I knew what she meant. I was so sad for her then, because I hadn’t known before. Not really.
“It’s okay with me, Corinne,” I said, but she looked at me sharply, hearing something else in my voice.
“I don’t give a shit if it’s okay with you.”
I was stunned. She had never spoken to me like that before. I went into my default mode: I shut up.
“I’m doing you a favor, remember?” she snapped.
I looked at the ground.
My nonresponsiveness only seemed to make her angrier.
“I don’t even know why I would help you,” she spat at me. She started to walk away from me, into the woods.
There was a lump in my throat as I stood, watching her walk away from me. I had to say something, I had to stop her.
I forced myself to speak.
“Please don’t go, Corinne,” I said, my voice just a little squeak. I looked back at the ground. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything.”
She glanced back but kept walking.
“My mom …” I called to the ground. I couldn’t get anything else out.
I could hear that Corinne had stopped walking, and when I looked up I saw the anger fading from her face.
“Yeah,” she said, with attitude still, but not with the rage that I had seen building. It was like watching a wave recede, watching her go from hot back to cool again. And it was like a wave, too, in the way I had felt helpless, unable to control it or to stop it, like I was just being tumbled around in it. It was scary. My skin prickled. My nose itched, but I didn’t lift a finger to scratch it.
She flicked the lit cigarette off into the leaves, a habit of hers that I hated. “Shit. Stop looking at me like a lost puppy.” She set off walking again, looking back to suggest that I better hurry up. I scrambled to keep up with those long legs.
Corinne was silent all the way, a long walk, out of the trees and over to the boulevard that sliced the park in half. I still felt tense, nervous, and, if I was being honest, a little afraid of her. The traffic and noise were almost overwhelming. I was tired and hungry. We had been walking all day, but I didn’t dare say I needed to stop, take a break. I didn’t dare say anything at all.
But Corinne was suddenly herself again as we approached a girl in short shorts and high boots standing in a bus shelter. “Hey,” she called out brightly. “What’s up? You know if Monique’s around?”
The girl in the bus shelter half turned to look at Corinne. “You know Monique?”
“Yeah. She’s a friend of mine,” Corinne returned, pursing her lips and then smiling at the girl. The girl was distracted by a car that slowed down and then sped up again. She turned back to Corinne. “She just went over to the deli. She’ll be over on that side of the street anyway.” The girl regarded me. “What you looking at?”
I looked at the ground.
“She a lesbian?”
Corinne laughed. “Nah, she’s just skinny.” She grabbed my arm and pulled me into the street. “Thanks,” she called back as we skipped across the busy intersection. When we got to the other side she turned to me. “Are you a lesbian?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Interesting answer.”
“I mean, no,” I protested.
“Humph.”
I was relieved that the sarcasm and jokes were back. I knew Corinne liked the excitement, liked being on a mission. I almost did too.
I followed Corinne to a deli. A bell on the door tinkled as a girl walked out, also dressed in tall boots, but in a tiny tube-top dress.
“Hey, girl!” she squealed when she saw Corinne.
“Hey, Monique,” Corinne matched Monique’s enthusiasm, “Oooo, and red was always your color! So, hey, this is my friend Iff—” She stopped herself. “Brenda.”
Monique barely gave me a nod and turned back to Corinne. At first glance, she seemed like a woman. She looked sophisticated, grown-up. But up close I could see she was my age or even younger.
“You’re obviously not working,” she said to Corinne. She waved a hand up and down the length of Corinne’s face and torso. “What is happening here, Corinne?”
I regarded Corinne. It was true, she wasn’t looking quite put together. The two of us, I realized suddenly, probably looked like the homeless weirdos we were.
“Long story …”
“And I do not have the time,” Monique’s voice was high-pitched and sweet. “I’d love to catch up and all, but Jackson will be all over me in a minute.”
“I know.” Corinne turned to me. “Give her the picture, Iff,” she instructed.
I took the couch picture—the one I didn’t like to look at so much—out of my back pocket and handed it to Monique. “She’s looking for her mom,” Corinne explained. “You told that guy Danny or whatever that you might know her? Like, he showed you a picture?”
Monique nodded. “Oh, yeah, sure.” We looked at each other and she said, “Your mom, huh?” and looked at the picture without waiting for an answer.
Monique nodded a little more and then looked at me again. Her face was kind. She frowned as though to say, I’m sorry. “Yeah. I think I seen her around.”
My stomach fell through to my knees.
She glanced behind her. “I only got a minute, for real, but, yeah. She was working and all, but she was like,” she looked at me apologetically, “kind of old? But she got picked up. You know? I think they put her in the hospital, like the crazy-person type hospital.”
“When?” Corinne pressed.
Monique sucked her lips, thinking about it. “I don’t know. A while ago. Like six months ago maybe?” She looked around nervously again. “Look, I gotta go. But you should talk to Dougie. You know that guy? Crackhead? He was always hanging around with her.”
I inhaled sharply, alarms going off in my head. Dougie again.
“Thank you, Monique,” I squeaked. “Thank you so much for helping me.”
“No big deal. You know. I just like to think …” She looked out into the cars flowing on the boulevard. She had a sweet voice. “You know, if somebody came looking for me, you know, I would want someone to help them too.”
“Like karma,” Corinne said.
“Yeah. Sure.”
I wanted to grab Monique, to ask h
er more questions, but my words were dead in my throat and then she was walking away, a different person suddenly, an exaggerated sway in her hips. She called over her shoulder, “Say hi to that cute boyfriend of yours, Corinne!” before a long dark car pulled over, and in a moment she was gone.
Part IV:
Sweet Sixteen
Chapter 18
We walked around for a while, me breathing short and quick, wanting only to get back into the tent and lie down so I could think. We didn’t find Dougie that night, of course. But I don’t even know what would have happened if we had. I had gotten information and then I didn’t know what to do with it. Was I really surprised that my mother was a crackhead? Or that she was, or had been, a prostitute? What had I expected? That I would discover that she’d been living off wild berries and sparkling pond water in the park?
Maybe I had expected that. I don’t really know what I had wanted, beyond an impulse, a desire, an undefined longing, a gut-level hope that I would find her and she would be okay. Maybe not perfect, but okay. We would take care of each other. And then we could get better together.
I couldn’t sleep that night, chewing on my thumb, my mind churning with Monique’s words. I was glad Corinne had been with me, because then I could ask her over and over again to verify what I had heard. That girl had known my mother. She had known my mother and my mother had been living in the park six months ago.
Six months ago.
If only I had run away sooner.
The next morning, I woke up with a tugging in my stomach. I brought some toilet paper and a maxi pad with me when I went to pee, but there was nothing on the paper. I had been pretty studiously not counting, but it was becoming impossible to ignore.
I thought it might be malnutrition. Once, in gym, when we had to sit on the bleachers and watch the teacher demonstrate how to serve a volleyball (supposedly before having to perform this feat ourselves), I overheard the two girls in front of me talking. “I haven’t had my period in like, two months,” the blond one said. “It’s ’cause you’re so anorexic,” her friend said. “I know!” the blond returned. “I love it!”
I went back to camp and sat down on the ground next to Corinne. I wasn’t going to think about it. I couldn’t.
Corinne handed me a granola bar. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I stuck the granola bar in my mouth so I wouldn’t have to talk. It was too dry and I reached out and Corinne handed me the bottle of water.
“Don’t be upset. We’ll find her. We gotta find that guy Dougie.”
I nodded as though it was no big deal and I hoped that she wouldn’t notice my lack of talk.
“Today, though, we need some supplies. We’re running low on food. So, one of us should beg and the other one should go buy stuff.”
I nodded again, patted Angel.
“I’ll go,” Corinne declared. “I’ll get some soups and beans and chips and jerky? Right? And cigarettes. Sorry. But I’m in a bit of crisis. They’re a necessity.” She looked expectantly at me. I shrugged.
“You want me to stop at the library too, you know, and check what’s on the sale shelf in the lobby? I know you’ve been wanting to.”
Now I knew for sure that she could tell something was wrong and she was trying to cheer me up.
I swallowed hard. The lump was still there, but I managed a weak, “Great.”
“Okay,” Corinne pursed her lips doubtfully. Then she added, “I’m gonna get us some good row-mances.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You’re a snob, Iffy. Everybody likes a good row-mance.”
“Get some, like, literary-type books,” I insisted, rousing a little, a reluctant smile on my lips.
“Watch out,” Corinne warned, giving me a gentle shove. “Next thing I know you’ll be starting a lending library of your own. Why not? You’ve got everything else here.” I rose to start repacking our food to hang in the tree. “Why don’t we just get a refrigerator for that stuff?”
I really smiled this time. “Might as well. Actually, I was thinking of building a tree house.”
She grinned. “You are not serious.”
“I mean, yes and no. Just need a hammer and nails, some boards … I was thinking the trees would be a good place to sleep. And definitely not a bad place to hide.”
“You are insane.”
“I just can’t figure out the best way to get Angel up there.”
“Don’t even humor her, Angel,” she ordered the dog. “Don’t even.” Corinne looked around, making sure she had collected what she needed. “All right, I’m gonna get going.” But she hesitated. “Look, Iff. Sorry about yesterday. Getting so mad and all.”
I shrugged as if to say, it’s nothing.
“Are you still mad?”
“No. I wasn’t ever mad.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said. “But that was about me. Not you. I know that much. Okay?”
“It’s okay,” I pretended it was nothing, but I was glad she said that. It was amazing to me, the way she just dealt with the awkward stuff head-on, like she dealt with everything.
She grabbed me and hugged me. At first I just stood there and then I hugged back. “You forgive me?” she said into my shoulder.
I don’t think anyone had ever asked for my forgiveness before in my life.
“Of course.” My throat closed again and my eyes got wet. I blinked, tried to pretend everything was okay.
Corinne saw that and maybe she didn’t want to make me feel even weirder, so she looked into the distance and smoothed her hair. “Okay, so where you gonna be?”
I hadn’t decided. “I guess over by the statue. It’s pretty high-traffic.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I’ll see you later at the bridge, then.”
“All right. Be careful and all.”
“You too.”
She gave me a quick smile and set off for the outside world.
When I couldn’t hear her crashing through the woods anymore, I rubbed my eyes, took a breath. Time for me to get going too.
We’d slept out, not bothering with the tent the night before, so I finished bundling up our stuff pretty quickly, putting the big garbage bag in the shallow hole and then covering it with leaves.
“Okay, puppy,” I called to Angel. She leapt up, ready to go.
Walking over to the big path I worried, a little abstractly, about getting sloppy, staying too many nights in one place, not cleaning up after ourselves like we should have. Henry hadn’t been able to find us, but still. There were the police to worry about. And the other homeless. And god knows who else.
We came to the path I was looking for and I found a good spot in the sun. I took off my backpack, propping my “Hugnry Please Help” sign against it. I put my finders-keepers Mets cap on the ground upside down and popped in two singles. Nobody likes to be the first, I’d learned, and it helped to have a suggested donation amount.
So, me and Angel sat, watching the joggers and the dog walkers and the baby-carriage pushers passing by.
After a little while a woman who was jogging past turned her head to look, I thought, at my sign. She kept going along the path, toward where it curved out of sight, but then she looked back again. She slowed down, staring over her shoulder, frowning, glancing forward now and then, but returning her gaze over to us. Was she thinking of giving me money?
Something seemed off.
For a moment, I weighed the possibility of running, worried that she recognized me, like maybe she had seen us that night outside Henry’s apartment or maybe she was a friend of his or something. But I just sat there, pretending not to notice her.
Then, like in a nightmare, the lady did a slow, wide U-turn and jogged back. I stared into the distance, watching her out of the side of my eye. Framed by the big trees that met in the middle and formed
a canopy, she ran smack down the middle of the path, all the other folks parting and streaming past her on either side.
She was an olive-skinned white lady with cropped gray hair. She was old looking, but muscled and wiry the way exercise fanatics are. She was wearing baggy green shorts and a white 5K T-shirt.
When she got closer, I saw that she was actually staring at Angel. Still, I sat there like a fool, my eyes focused on a point just beyond her shoulder.
And then Angel started wagging her tail.
“Hey,” said the woman, her voice deep and breathless. She was suddenly smiling, slowing to a trot and then a walk. She pointed at Angel. “Hey, I’m sorry. It’s just that … I think that’s … Hey, Lola!” She looked at me, excited. “I think this is my dog!”
She started to swoop down toward Angel who—traitor!—jumped up to meet her. I jumped up too, yanking Angel back and away from the lady. I grabbed Angel’s leash high, up by the neck, to keep her behind my thigh.
“This isn’t your dog, lady.”
The woman stopped smiling. She was pink-cheeked and breathing hard in the heat. “Hey,” she frowned and then kind of smiled again, nodding her head, seemingly unable to make up her mind about how this conversation was going to go. “No, I think it is. Lola ran away, like, three months ago. We’ve been looking for her. Did you find her in the park?”
“I said this isn’t your dog. This is my dog. This is Angel.”
The woman was apparently stumped. She looked at me and looked at Angel and then looked back at me. I focused on the lady’s torso, her face a peripheral blur, and I busied myself trying to control Angel, who was doing these little hops on her back legs, whining and squirming.
Other people were looking at us now, too. An elderly man and woman, both wearing unnecessary raincoats, had stopped and were staring at us. I felt self-conscious, obvious, criminal somehow. What, was this old lady gonna accuse me of stealing her dog? Would anyone even believe me if I said I hadn’t?
“Look …” The lady was not going to let this go. “Look, I recognize her by her tail. She has that distinctive tail. No other dog has that tail. And see,” she said, holding out her hand, palm up, toward Angel, “she knows me.”
