Getting Somewhere

by Beth Neff

  Jenna is the first to speak. “How did you find me?”

  She doesn’t sound upset, but Cassie is a little disconcerted by the question, has a sense of how odd it must seem to Jenna to have Cassie show up here.

  “The book. I found your book. I’m sorry if . . . maybe I shouldn’t have come.”

  Cassie is startled by the sound of her own voice echoing through the hollow space, thinks the words sound small and empty and weak, like she is asking Jenna for her comfort when it should be the other way around.

  Then it occurs to Cassie to ask, “How did you find it?”

  Jenna reaches behind her and lays a folded piece of paper between them. Cassie opens it and strains to make out the crudely drawn map, immediately recognizes the farm in the bottom corner, marked with an X, a dark line crossed by other dark lines angling across the page, ending with an X at the top, the building where they now sit. “I copied it out of the plat book,” Jenna says as she leans forward to peer at the paper.

  For some reason, the sound of pride in Jenna’s voice makes Cassie extremely irritated, and she curbs the impulse to crumple the paper into a ball and throw it into Jenna’s lap. This is not at all how she expected to feel, Jenna transformed in her mind from helpless victim to . . . what? Cassie is suddenly too uncomfortable with the thought to let it develop any further. She struggles to concentrate on what has brought her here, the story she believes will explain and even correct whatever has sent Jenna away, the hope that a new, shared story will restore something she cannot stand to lose.

  “They came.”

  Jenna nods and Cassie waits. She wants Jenna to ask, doesn’t know what she will do if she doesn’t. She needs Jenna to hear what happened today, even if she doesn’t want to. Maybe she doesn’t even care, has already moved beyond the farm, but Cassie suspects that Jenna has no reason to trust in anything but the worst, maybe even imagines that she is somehow to blame, and Cassie can’t let her go on believing that. She has never thought she would be able to do anything for Jenna, to offer her anything equal to the friendship that Jenna represents to her, but this is probably as close as she will ever be able to get.

  Cassie is ready to burst when Jenna finally lifts her head, asks, “What happened?”

  Cassie covers each detail like a travel brochure, bringing Jenna carefully and methodically back to the farm, to the events of the day. Cassie tells her that it was Lauren who filed the complaint, that she accused Grace of sexual harassment, but the social worker people know now that she just made it up to get herself out, that the interviews have probably cleared the program from any wrongdoing, at least as far as they can tell, as long as the attorney still doesn’t want to pursue official charges. She doesn’t say, not yet, because she doesn’t know how, that Jenna will not be allowed to stay. Jenna listens carefully, though at the mention of Lauren’s accusation against Grace, she tightens her jaw and closes her eyes.

  When Cassie is done and they are enveloped in silence, Jenna lifts her face again to Cassie and says, simply, “It was my fault.”

  Cassie knits her brow, looks confused as if she must have heard wrong. “How could it be your fault?”

  “I mailed the letter.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Lauren talked me into mailing the letter to her parents. I didn’t know what was in it. I should have told Ellie. But I just stuck it in the mailbox with the rest of the stuff in there. I should have said something, told someone about it, but I didn’t.”

  Cassie is watching Jenna carefully, unsure how to respond. The truth. “I knew about it, too.”

  “What?”

  Cassie shrugs. “I saw her steal stuff from Ellie’s room. And I overheard your conversation with Lauren. I heard her ask you to mail her letter.” Cassie looks down, notices the drying mud still clinging to the sides of her shoes. “We all knew something and none of us did anything about it.”

  Jenna doesn’t say anything, though her expression looks confused, and Cassie wonders if she is replaying that conversation in her head, remembers what Lauren had said about their friendship. Cassie leans forward urgently. “Jenna, you can’t blame yourself for that. She would have found a way no matter what. You were just, I don’t know, a tool. She uses everybody that way.”

  “Well, I should have known better. I knew she had it in for Grace.”

  Cassie notices that the irritation is starting to return. “Not just Grace. Ellie even more. But everybody. If we could predict what people like Lauren were going to do, we’d be just like her. We ignored her hate and her accusations because we thought they were wrong and didn’t want to give them any attention. She tried to make us hate everything, too, but it didn’t work because we’re not like her.”

  “It worked on Grace.”

  Cassie is glad Jenna can’t see her face flushing or hear the thoughts echoing in her head, her frustration at Grace for running away just like a, well, just like a scared teenager. Cassie realizes she is almost angrier at Grace than at Lauren, is certain they wouldn’t be here right now if Grace had found the strength to stick around.

  Suddenly, Cassie knows that Jenna needs to come back with her, no matter what will happen to her when she does. She hadn’t planned it that way, hadn’t even thought that far when she made up her mind to find Jenna. But now she knows. There are people she can trust, people who love her, and Cassie now realizes that helping Jenna understand that is why she had to come.

  Cassie scoots a little closer to Jenna and lays her hand gently on her arm. She waits for her to flinch, and when she doesn’t, Cassie grips a little harder, speaks her words as if they have the full weight of her body behind them.

  “None of this is your fault, Jenna. Not Lauren and not Grace, and it wouldn’t have been no matter what had happened with the program. It’s all . . . much bigger than that.”

  Jenna is looking at Cassie with a mixture of curiosity and surprise. As Cassie fights to maintain her resolve, her eye catches the paper still folded in her lap. She picks it up and opens it, lays it flat against her thigh.

  “This”—and she holds the map out to Jenna—“is just a tiny piece of it.”

  Jenna looks confused, doesn’t take the paper. Cassie struggles to find the right words.

  “Jenna, it’s like your map only goes one way. It’s, I don’t know, too easy.”

  Cassie looks up into the expanse of empty space above them and presses her lips together, tries to hear her own thoughts above the roaring in her head.

  “Do you remember what Ellie said about choices?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. “She said they have to be based on information and power. If you’re blaming anyone, including yourself, you’re just giving up the power, saying the decisions belong to somebody else. And, well, they don’t. And other people’s decisions don’t belong to you either, whether you like them or not. And not having information—well, it’s like this.” She holds the map out again. “It’s like using a single line and a couple of Xs to represent the whole thing when it’s so much more complicated than that. I’m sorry. I know that’s really mean, but this map wouldn’t tell you anything unless you already knew where you were going, what you were going to do. There’s nothing new here, no different roads or intersections or rivers or lakes or hills or valleys or any of the stuff that’s really out there, and leaving those things out doesn’t give you enough credit, it doesn’t include everything you are that’s not just this same path, the one you always take.”

  Cassie feels a growing terror creeping up her spine, but she can’t stop and Jenna appears to be listening. “It’s much harder, much more complicated, to draw the whole map, to include everything but, if we don’t, we’re never going to be . . . all of ourselves. We’ll just be a dot on someone else’s map and it will never be ours.”

  Cassie’s legs are getting cramped and stiff and she wants to stretch
them out, change position, but doesn’t want to lose the moment, the little crack in time that has put her and Jenna here above the river, like a crevice just large enough to slip a prayer or a blessing into.

  Jenna has now taken the map and is smoothing it gently on her lap. Her head is bent, as if studying the marks there with great concentration, and the sound of a tear hitting the paper reverberates around them.

  When Cassie lifts her head, Jenna is watching her, says, “Do you hate me?”

  “Why would I hate you?”

  “Because I messed everything up. I was so . . . mad . . . mad at Grace, but also thinking that we were the reason, that us being there is what chased her off her own farm and that she’d gotten in trouble because of us, because of me. That I left without telling you, ran away because it felt so much like all those other times when everything fell apart, and I didn’t know I’d ruined it until it was too late. That I was wrong about . . . everything.”

  Cassie isn’t sure why she feels a smile creeping onto her face, turns away for fear of Jenna thinking she is laughing at her. “And do you hate me because I thought the best thing for my baby was to give her away, and then I got more information and changed my mind? Do you usually hate people when they learn something and then try to figure out how to use it?”

  Jenna smiles. “No, of course not.”

  “Neither do I.”

  The flashlight dies completely on the way back to the truck so they are slow making their way down the levee trail, bumping hips and elbows, unwilling to step any farther apart, the sound of falling water receding into the background and the infinite stars smeared against the ebony bowl far above.

  THURSDAY, JULY 26

  AT LEAST IT’S NOT A BUS THIS TIME, THOUGH JENNA would be hard-pressed to decide which is worse—arriving or leaving.

  A few minutes ago, Maureen Detweiller came in a car driven by a man Jenna assumes must be one of the detention officers, though no one has introduced him. Maureen went directly into the office with Ellie, and now the man is leaning against the car door gazing out at the gardens, the smoke from his cigarette lifting lazily into the air around him. Jenna is trying to decide if she should take her stuff out to the car, having already said her good-byes to the girls upstairs and Donna in the kitchen, or wait in here. Instead, she wanders into the living room, stands in front of the sliding glass doors that no one actually uses and gazes out at the garden herself.

  She’s pretty sure she’ll never come back here, and tries to identify whatever feelings she might have about that. It feels already in the past, the exact sensation of it having slipped into memory mode, softened around the edges. She thought she’d have more time, another two months. If she had just known that the days would not keep happening, one after the other, she might have tried harder to capture them while she had the chance. As it is, they are more like scraps of film on the cutting room floor, victims of an editor’s eye, no chance of making it into the final version of Jenna’s life.

  And yet, she doesn’t quite believe that. There are things that have happened here that she will never forget, that have become a part of her. She’s not sure what all of them will be but she knows some include the feeling of warm soil between her toes, the sound of the river lapping at the bank, and a girl who came to get her not because of the trouble Jenna had caused (there was no arguing that) or to get her out of it (because no one could do that), but simply because she cared.

  JENNA IS ACTUALLY smiling when she turns to see Ellie standing in the doorway. She quickly reconfigures her features but can’t quite land on an appropriate expression. She realizes she has absolutely no idea how she feels about this woman or, in fact, what Ellie thinks of her. She’d been convinced Ellie hated her, but finds herself feeling sorry for her in a way that she has never felt about anybody, and she finally understands that what passes for hostility in her head is actually guilt in her heart.

  Last night confused Jenna, Ellie’s reaction. When Jenna and Cassie had walked through the front door, Ellie had run out of her room, gasped with instant tears running down her face, and said, “Thank god. Oh thank god. Don’t tell me. Just . . . save it for tomorrow. I’m just so glad you’re safe, you’re both safe.” Jenna had actually been afraid Ellie was going to hug her, but instead she just reached out her hand. Jenna had taken it and squeezed back when Ellie did, waiting to let go until Ellie seemed ready.

  While a part of her has wished this already over, Jenna realizes she’s been waiting. They meet about halfway across the room and, this time, Ellie takes Jenna in her arms with no hesitation.

  Her voice is almost a whisper when she says, “I wish it had been me who found you.” When Jenna pulls back, Ellie smiles but she is crying. “Just so you could have known how much I wanted you back.”

  Jenna nods, doesn’t know what to say.

  “It’s funny. I spend the whole summer trying to teach you guys to forgive yourselves for your feelings, and now I’m discovering how incredibly hard that really is to do.”

  Jenna nods again, still silent.

  “I know you’ve heard ‘I’m sorry’ a thousand times in your life, and it kills me to be just another person saying it. But I want you to know that, in this case, it’s a beginning, not an ending. If you thought that a little stretch at juvenile detention was going to mean a permanent escape from us, just know that you are very, very wrong.”

  Ellie pauses, searching Jenna’s expression. “Okay?”

  Jenna tries to smile. “Okay.”

  “No, it’s really a question. It’s your choice. We all want to keep you in our lives. Is that okay?”

  Jenna is just pretending when she hesitates. “Yes, that’s okay.”

  In the backseat of the car, her worn backpack on her lap, Jenna realizes that she actually hopes Ellie is telling the truth.

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 3

  AS LAUREN STRUGGLES TO CLOSE HER SUITCASE OVER the last few items retrieved from the bathroom, she looks up to see Ellie standing in her doorway.

  “Just about ready?” Ellie asks.

  Lauren nods, turns back to the zipper, her hands shaking a bit.

  Ellie takes another step into the room. “I’m sorry I’ve kind of been avoiding you the last week or so. We’re all pretty angry with you, Lauren. I guess you know that. But before you go, I need you to know, too, that, no matter what, I still care about you, care what happens to you.”

  Lauren lifts her head and faces Ellie, unsure what to make of this. She is searching in her mind for some kind of retort, maybe about how she couldn’t care less what Ellie thinks of her or something like that, even opens her mouth, but nothing comes out.

  With another step, Ellie is standing right beside her, close enough to lift her hand to Lauren’s shoulder, which she starts to do and then changes her mind.

  “And I have one more thing I wanted to say. I was thinking”—Ellie pauses, seemingly a little unsure of her own words—“that maybe you’d consider getting in touch with your brother when you get home.”

  Lauren’s eyes open wide, her mouth agape with astonishment. Her brother? Where in the world did that come from? And how dare she . . . But before Lauren can say anything, Ellie is speaking again.

  “I realize this is a difficult subject for you, and it probably feels like you don’t have any choices about it, but, really, you do. I know it’s hard to believe, but sometimes the people who can understand you the best are those who have been hurt in the same way that you have. Does that make sense to you?”

  Lauren shakes her head hard, takes a step back. Who in the hell does this woman think she is? How could she know anything about how Lauren’s been hurt? She opens her mouth to speak but has to clamp it shut again in order to control the choking feeling in her throat, the stinging behind her eyes. She turns abruptly away and begins to line her suitcases up next to the bed, her back bent to Ellie in the
only snub she seems to be able to manage. With her back turned, though, Lauren recovers herself a bit, says just under her breath, “She wouldn’t have run away if she wasn’t guilty.”

  There is a long pause, and Lauren can’t help but turn around to see Ellie’s reaction. Ellie’s face has blanched white, but her expression is unperturbed. “Is the same true for you as well?”

  Lauren frowns. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that you were trying to leave, too. If you really believed what you were saying, you wouldn’t have tried to run away.”

  “How—how did you know? I thought . . . with Grace gone . . .”

  “No, Grace didn’t have to tell me. I thought I had heard something and then, when I checked your rooms that night, I saw all your stuff packed up. Sarah’s, too. Did Grace catch you?”

  Lauren nods lamely. “Will Sarah get in trouble?”

  Ellie studies Lauren for a long moment, forcing Lauren to lower her eyes in discomfort. “Well,” Ellie says, “that’s between me and Sarah, isn’t it? And just so you know, Grace has come back.”

  Lauren feels a surge of panic, then quickly realizes that it doesn’t matter. She’s leaving and there’s nothing anyone here can do to hurt her now.

  She doesn’t look at Ellie when she hears her sigh deeply, turn toward the door. Ellie pauses, finally says, “Well, I’m just sorry it all worked out like this. The next year is going to be difficult for you, and I hope you use the opportunity to digest some of what you experienced here.” Her voice has gotten a bit deeper, slow and even, so forceful that Lauren feels compelled to listen in spite of herself. “I know you’re not interested in anything I have to say, Lauren, but next time you have a chance like this, I hope you decide to take it.”

  Lauren takes a deep breath, closes her eyes. When she opens them again, Ellie is gone. Though she is resisting any effect from Ellie’s words, they do remind her that she has one more thing she needs to do.