Pieces

by G. Benson

  Rae ended up flat on her stomach, huffing against the mat. “Where’d you learn that?”

  “Four karate classes.”

  “Cheater.”

  Carmen and Dex both laughed when he just shrugged at that, his smile so wide Carmen thought he might burst. In one swift move, Rae pushed herself up, and then bounced on her toes a few times to loosen up before moving toward him again.

  “He looks good.” Dex’s voice stayed low.

  “He does. I…”

  “What?”

  “Maybe he’s better staying at the foster home. Maybe it’ll be better for him. And we can just do visits.” Just the thought of it made Carmen’s chest tight, like she couldn’t breathe. But she couldn’t shake the feeling.

  “Maybe you should ask him that. But I don’t think so. That boy and you… You two belong together.”

  There was no way Carmen could look at Dex after he said that. Instead, she dropped her head against his shoulder. His cheek brushed against the top of her head. He smelled like the bar, like the warehouse, a little like diesel. Like Dex.

  “Oh, I want to get in on this.”

  Carmen didn’t bother raising her head when Ollie spoke. She heard the thump of her backpack—her school had started back this week—and then Ollie was bouncing on her toes on the mat, and Rae and Mattie were looking sideways at each other, then back at Ollie, who just blew a kiss at Carmen. She waved back at her. Dex’s shoulders shook with silent laughter.

  “You want to spar?” Mattie was staring at Ollie like she’d just made a terrible joke. “With us?”

  Carmen almost snorted, trying not to laugh.

  Ollie didn’t even look toward Dex and Carmen. “Yeah,” she said, pulling her hair up into a ponytail that was just an explosion of curls. “What of it?”

  Because he was a cocky nine-year-old, Mattie shrugged. “Okay.” He launched forward with no warning, and Ollie sidestepped easily.

  Mattie pulled up short and put his hands on his hips. “Has Carmen been teaching you?”

  “A little.”

  “Hm.” He stared at her. “Are you good?”

  “Not even a little. I’m surprised I got out of your way.”

  Finally, Carmen laughed, and they all turned to look at her.

  “Is she good?”

  “She’s learning, Mattie. Your face was priceless, though.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her before turning back to Ollie. “Want me to teach you some stuff?”

  “Sure.”

  It was one of the best afternoons Carmen had had in months. In longer, even. Dex asked Mattie about summer school and his lessons, what he’d been learning. Ollie slipped him a new DS game. And Carmen sat and watched him in a space where he seemed so natural. To think she’d dragged him into this place so long ago and then worried about it.

  At five thirty, she dragged Mattie away. He went quiet when they left, walking to the bus stop. Not wanting to push him, she let him stew until they were on the bus. In the back, she finally nudged him. “What’s up?”

  For a second, she thought he was going to ignore her, to build himself into an anger like he sometimes did, one that simmered for hours but never really exploded.

  “I had fun.” He kept his gaze out the window, watching the city center crawl closer where they were going to jump off for a piece of pizza before she took him back. “I had fun. And I miss it. I miss them. I miss living with you.” He turned to look at her then, his eyes red-rimmed. His bruise had finally gone, a tiny pink scar left behind from the cut on his cheek. Barely a mark was left on the outside.

  Carmen wrapped an arm around his shoulder so he was tight against her. She dropped her chin against his head and watched the streets pass. “I miss you too, Mattie. We all do. But you know…you know, if I get you back—it won’t be like before. You’ll have to go to school. We won’t be living in the warehouse but in an apartment that’s just me and you. I’ll have to work. We won’t have much money.”

  The silence dragged on for a long time, just the rumble of the engines beneath them and the hissing of the brakes.

  “But I’ll have you,” he said, like that was everything.

  Carmen couldn’t bring herself to push it any further.

  School was a rhythm that was hard to fall back into. Ollie wanted to be with Carmen, to go back to the hazy warmth of summer, the warehouse, the pool, and her friends. Yet at the same time, everything felt accelerated, like she was racing past what was supposed to be a huge moment in her life and barely had time to catch her breath.

  Her SAT results weren’t what everyone else had hoped, but they were better than Ollie had expected.

  “You didn’t score low. You did pretty well,” Sara said, darting her hand out to nab Ollie’s pudding off her tray. Expecting it, Ollie pulled it out of her way and poked her tongue out at Sara’s pout.

  Deon chuckled.

  On second thought, Sara had spent days helping Ollie prepare, and Ollie probably would have failed if not for her. With a sigh, she handed the pudding over.

  Sara ripped it open. “Thanks. So are you going to retake them?”

  That was the big question. The one her dad kept asking her. The one the school guidance counsellor asked her. But her scores seemed good enough to get into the University of Connecticut, and they had a great art program. She didn’t care about getting in with flying colors or aiming higher.

  She just wanted to study art.

  “No. I don’t handle exams well. You know that. The stress is too much. If I don’t get into UConn, I’ll do art at a tech college.” Ollie pushed her tray away, frowning at her cold fries.

  Sara licked the back of her spoon with zero reproach in her eyes, and Deon watched Ollie unflinchingly. She couldn’t imagine her dad’s expression if she had said that to him.

  “I think that’s a great idea,” Deon said. “Less stress, still art. A backup plan.”

  “Yeah, except I think Dad wanted my backup plan to be arts at UConn.”

  “Well, lucky it’s not his life, then, isn’t it?” Deon winked.

  Ollie smiled at that, the weight that had been settling on her chest lifting. “True.”

  “So, it’s arts, then?” Sara was grinning at her.

  “Wasn’t it always going to be?” Ollie asked.

  Deon snorted, and Sara shoveled more pudding into her mouth. When they dragged themselves to their next class, Ollie was already itching to get home for dinner. Carmen was coming around. Now that school was back on and Carmen had more access to Mattie, they were seeing less of each other. She missed seeing Carmen every day, or, at least, most days. So, even if it was just going to be dinner with her dad, it was better than nothing. And afterward, they could disappear to Ollie’s room. She’d have to study, but Carmen would pull Ollie’s head into her lap and run her fingers through her hair while Ollie held a heavy book up on her chest and read. Apparently, this semester’s grades were important.

  Forcing herself to tune in to the teacher, she heaved a sigh.

  They were all important.

  “But when you applied to UConn, I thought you could maybe look more toward engineering in the end, or maybe architecture?” Ollie’s father tried to keep the note of disappointment out of his voice.

  Ollie wanted to disappear upstairs with Carmen, away from the hairy eyeball she was receiving over the dinner table from her father.

  “I want to do art, Dad. I always have.”

  He pursed his lips and then finally blew out a breath. “Well, there’s no point studying something you wouldn’t want to. Your mother knew you’d want this from the day she found you using bubbles in your bath to paint the wall.”

  “She did that?” Carmen smirked at Ollie. “Cute.”

  Her dad laughed. “Onc
e, she took off her diaper—”

  “That’s enough!” Ollie glared at him. “That story came out once, and Sara has never let me live it down.”

  “But I can’t get half the story.” Carmen tried for begging eyes, and Ollie’s dad opened his mouth again. When Ollie just raised her eyebrows, he snapped it shut.

  Carmen shrugged. “Fine, I’ll just get it out of Sara.”

  “Just come by early for dinner next time, Carmen. I have plenty of stories.”

  Ollie groaned and dropped her head back. “I hate you both.”

  “No, you don’t,” they said at the same time. It was creepy.

  They finished dinner quietly, her dad still eyeing her despite his words. She was grateful to escape upstairs later. With the door mostly shut, Carmen did exactly what Ollie had hoped she would, taking Ollie down on the bed beside her and running fingers through her hair. It didn’t matter that when Ollie sat up, her hair would be a frizzy mess. Or that the feeling was making her sleepy. It felt good. She read lazily, the words almost blurring in front of her.

  After an hour, she let her textbook fall to the bed and tilted her head up. Carmen’s eyes were already on her. “Done already?”

  “It’s boring.”

  “It’s important.”

  “It’s boring. You’re not boring.”

  A slow grin unfurled across Carmen’s lips, and Ollie rolled so she wasn’t sprawled over her lap anymore so Carmen could lie beside her. Like this, with their mouths gentle and limbs wrapping around each other, everything slowed. That feeling from dinner of racing forward toward something too big to handle drifted away, and it all became about the softness of Carmen and the ease Ollie had around her. She didn’t feel awkward with her. Or like she was playing pretend by making life-altering decisions.

  “I see Maria again tomorrow.”

  And then Ollie had to remember, her life wasn’t the only one filled with big things, but Carmen’s was too. And with things that far overshadowed her own. They were nose to nose on the same pillow; Carmen blinked at her slowly. Ollie grazed her fingers up over her neck, smiling as Carmen’s eyes drifted closed at the sensation, then lazily opened again as Ollie pushed her hair back. The shaved patch over her ear was always fuzzy-soft, and Ollie often found herself running her fingertips over it again and again.

  “Is this the big one?” Ollie asked. The moment called for quiet, hushed tones. The bed was their bubble, and Ollie didn’t want to burst it.

  Carmen nodded. “About actually going for custody.”

  “What happens once she petitions for custody on your behalf?”

  Petitions. Custody. On your behalf. All terms that had been beyond Ollie once. But now she googled with Carmen for hours, searching for everything they could find in their state about custody and guardianship, so she’d know what was happening. Maria answered all Carmen’s questions, but it was like Carmen needed reassurance: Yes, custody was possible at her age. Yes, she needed to be registered as a foster parent. Yes, Connecticut provided payments to guardians, just like to foster families. Carmen had booked her place in the week-long course immediately; she started next week.

  Even when she was not with Carmen, Ollie researched to make sure she understood.

  But there was so much that hinged on the line in the child’s best interests. Ollie couldn’t understand how, if you saw Carmen and Mattie together for more than a minute, you could think anything but Carmen was in Mattie’s best interests. But Carmen was eighteen, a former street kid—well, still one, technically. Street adult?

  How were they adults?

  “Well, the next thing that happens is we receive the hearing date. Maria said it’s not, like, dramatic court. It’s just a judge and a lawyer from the state and my lawyer. They want to figure out what’s best for Mattie.”

  “Which is you.”

  That deep little furrow appeared between Carmen’s eyebrows. “Mattie thinks so. I want to think so…”

  Sometimes, Ollie had learned, you should sit back and let Carmen talk on her own rather than ask her questions. She easily slipped into herself and fell quiet and would end up difficult to tug back into the world.

  So Ollie sat and watched the furrow deepen a little more.

  “What if I’m not? What if Mattie is better with adults? I don’t mean ‘adults’ because their birthday was two months ago, but people who can really help him have somewhere stable?”

  “You can do that too.”

  “Can I? I have to quit the bar, and the only other jobs I can get interviews for are retail and waitressing gigs. Nowhere that pays much.”

  “You’ll have some help. They give you money for having Mattie. That will help you to get his clothes and food. Who knows? You can probably get the Internet and other things slowly set up. And once you have the Internet, maybe in a year you can look at doing some courses online and move out of retail…”

  Carmen put her head in her hand, looking down at Ollie. “How do you do that?”

  “What?”

  “Make me feel better? So easily that I think I can do it?”

  “Because, Carmen.” Ollie pushed closer. “You did it all before with so much less.”

  That furrow disappeared, and Ollie pulled Carmen back down.

  Chapter 28

  It took six job interviews.

  At least by the fourth, Carmen had started to know what to expect. She had to be careful her answers didn’t become rehearsed.

  “What do you feel you could bring to the position?”

  Another person to fill your capitalist agenda? A faceless worker who is just a number to you to bring you profit in the cheapest way possible? An employee who dropped out of high school to live on the street with her kid brother and will soon hopefully have said brother living with her?

  “I can bring my ability to work well under pressure, as demonstrated by over a year working in a bar during different periods. There were nights that were extremely busy, and I learned to prioritize tasks and jobs, to keep my head, and to keep customers happy and satisfied with the service, even at peak times.”

  “Do you work well in a team?”

  No, people kind of suck. Working alone was far better.

  “Definitely. I like working with others and coming up with a strategy to ensure we can all work together to complete our tasks efficiently. I also work well alone, however, and am very good at self-directed tasks.”

  “What other skills and abilities do you have?”

  Being jaded and pretty good with sarcasm. Probably the ability to kick your ass.

  “I’ve worked with invoices and stock, with cash registers, and finalizing tabs. I really enjoy making sure things run efficiently. In fact, I completely changed how we took in new stock and placed orders in my current position. This ended up reducing waste and saving money.”

  “What’s your view on customers?”

  They’re stupid and mostly always wrong.

  “The customer is always right. If I ever have an issue, I politely ask them to wait and get the manager.”

  “Why do you want to leave your current position?”

  Because Mattie was the most important person in the world. The bar was the best place to work but took too many nights. Because this job was offering full-time, which was difficult to find at eighteen.

  “I’m really interested in expanding my skill set, and while working in the bar gave me a great foundation, I’d really love to gain some more experience in the retail side of things. I’d like to be able to work my way up to a manager position one day.”

  Sometimes, Carmen wanted to hug Jia for the help she gave with prepping for this. At others, she couldn’t believe this stuff came out of her mouth. None of it was really true. She wanted a steady job that could hold her over as she did some co
urses, that she could then leave to find something that paid more.

  “Also, I would really love to do some further education by taking some courses. Most of these are available in the evenings, and I won’t lie, this job being a day job is exactly what I’m interested in.”

  Six of these.

  And finally, one called back.

  Having a phone was nice in a lot of ways. Mostly, it was nice because she could contact Ollie all the time. The summer had spoiled them. Now Carmen not only missed Mattie’s presence constantly, but found herself missing Ollie’s too. But with her phone, she received streams of updates and photos. Snapchat was probably her favorite part.

  But sometimes having a phone was annoying. She was constantly in contact with people now and often found herself leaving it behind in places, or jumping when it beeped at her. Still, the call to confirm she’d gotten the job at one of the only bookstores left in Connecticut came as she was walking into the bar to open up with Dex. She hung up, a little shell-shocked, to find Dex beaming at her.

  “The bookstore?”

  “You knew?”

  “They called for a reference yesterday. I talked you up, of course. I didn’t want to tell you, in case it was another dead end.”

  Carmen was still half holding her phone up. Her fingers were trembling a little. “They want me to start next week.”

  Both their grins faded, just a little. Carmen stepped forward, and Dex wrapped his arms around her. He was always so big, his embrace the definition of a bear hug. A lump swelled in her throat, easily swallowed past but still there.

  “I’ll miss having you around, kid.”

  The words rumbled in his chest against her ear, and Carmen tightened her arms. The beginning of something was always the end of something else.

  Getting a lease, however, was not so successful.

  Carmen was two weeks into her new job. It was strange to be getting up so early to stock shelves and go through inventory when the warehouse had only just settled down for the night. She stayed at Ollie’s more often, grateful for Ollie’s dad for so many reasons. Sleeping there was easier, quieter at night, and seeing Ollie more was nice.