Stand Alone

by P. D. Workman

  “Hey, Zel,” Dickie said casually to Justine. She looked at him and blinked.

  “It’s Katie,” she reminded him.

  “Not any more. I like Zel.”

  “Zel doesn’t make any sense,” Justine objected. “At least pick something that—”

  “It makes sense,” Dickie interrupted, “Zel is short for Rapunzel.”

  Justine groaned.

  “Really? My hair? We’ve got Rooster, Blondie, and now Rapunzel? Do you have a hair fetish, or something?”

  He shrugged.

  “It’s your best feature,” he said with a smile. “Rooster ain’t the only one who’s noticed.”

  “If Dickie was an Indian,” Squints said, “He’d call you ‘Girl with Long Hair’. Be thankful for Zel! It sounds cool and it could be worse—at least he didn’t shorten Rapunzel to ‘Rape’.”

  Justine wrinkled her nose, and shook her head.

  “Fine, then, I accept ‘Zel’. The namer has spoken. By the way  … What’s with ‘Dickie’? You can give everyone else a good name, but you go by Dickie?”

  He smiled at her smugly.

  “If you’re lucky, maybe someday you’ll find out.”

  Justine groaned, and Dickie and Squints laughed.

  CHAPTER 16

  JUSTINE LEFT THE CIRCLE of firelight and groped her way through the makeshift aisles of the warehouse to her space. She hoped that as her eyes adjusted to the dark, it would seem just a little bit lighter. Despite her penchant for sleeping in abandoned buildings, Justine didn’t like it to be really dark. The houses that she slept in always had windows that let in some of the moonlight and city street lights from outside. Even windows that were boarded were rarely completely blocked.

  She felt for the empty space she had cleared. She didn’t have a mattress yet, just a couple of blankets stolen from others. She lay down, turning toward the fire barrel. She could just dimly see its light in the darkness of the warehouse, and soon the fire would go out. Maybe she should volunteer to be the keeper of the fire. To lie down near it and keep it going all night long. Would they see right through her? Change her nickname to ‘Baby’ or something like that?

  Some of the others had phones or flashlights that Justine could see flickering on and off in the dark. That would help, but only as long as they were awake. She stared up at the ceiling. She couldn’t see it. There were some holes in the building that you could see in the bright sunlight of the day, but at night she couldn’t see them. Justine turned and stared at the fire again. It was getting low. If she was going to keep it going, she should go put more wood or trash in it now.

  She grew too drowsy to get up and take care of it. Eventually Justine just closed her eyes, and sleep took her.

  Justine let out her breath and looked over her little nook. It wasn’t really private, but she had her own space. No door to shut like at Em’s, but she felt more like it was hers than she had ever felt about her room at home. Blondie had helped her to scrounge a mattress, as Squints had suggested, and it wasn’t smelly or broken or anything. A few blankets and pillows, and it was actually pretty comfortable. She had fashioned some modular furniture out of crates and put her few clothes and possessions into them. Dickie warned her to still keep some stuff in her backpack and carry it with her, just in case anyone broke into or raided the warehouse. It could happen; you had to be prepared for contingencies. So for now, her dresser was pretty bare. But she had a place to sleep at night, and it was so much better than a park bench or the close, stinking, wheezing homeless shelters.

  Justine saw a dark shadow snake through some debris a few feet away, and froze, her heart in her throat. She would have screamed, but it happened to fast, and she just stood there looking, her chest tight with anxiety and her pulse beating loudly in her ears.

  “Hey, Zel,” Rooster yelled from across the big room. “Are you comin’ or what?”

  Justine tried to raise her voice, but couldn’t. He approached.

  “Zel, that’s your name now, remember?” he joked. “What’s wrong? You look like you saw a ghost.”

  “A snake,” Justine whispered.

  “What?”

  “I saw a snake.”

  “There’s no snakes in here,” he laughed.

  “Squints  … Squints said there were snakes. And some of them were venomous.”

  Rooster cackled with laughter.

  “There might be snakes out in the hills,” he said, “but not in here! Squints was just trying to spook you.”

  “But I saw  …”

  Rooster giggled.

  “Not a snake,” he assured her. “Maybe it was Mister Wiggles.”

  Justine just stared at him. Rooster had a hard time getting his laughter under control to talk to her. His face was bright red. He rubbed at the corners of his eyes, sniffling and snorting. Justine waited coolly for him to settle down. Now that she knew there wasn’t a snake, her own body started to settle down and cooperate, and she stood looking at Rooster, hands on hips, like she was his mother or a schoolteacher or something. His giggles subsided.

  “Mister Wiggles,” he said, with attempted dignity, “is a cat. Good mouser. We give him treats, so he keeps coming back here. It’s best not to leave any food around here, ‘cause of rodents, did anyone tell you that?”

  Justine shook her head. She hadn’t left any food in her bunk anyway. She looked around, wondering if it had been Mister Wiggles she saw, and if so, where in all of the piled junk he was now.

  “Does he come when you call him?” she questioned.

  “If you’ve got food.”

  Rooster looked around, and picked up a discarded food wrapper. He crinkled it in his hands.

  “Mister Wiggles?” he called in a falsetto. “Oh, Mister Wiggles? Where is Mister Wiggles?”

  He smacked his lips and crinkled the wrapper some more. Justine looked around for some sign of the cat, but couldn’t see or hear anything. Then suddenly a slim calico jumped up beside Rooster and let out a raspy yowl. He had a long tail that was all black. Rooster reached out and patted it and scratched its ears, and Mister Wiggles purred, nuzzling Rooster’s hands, looking for food. When Rooster had nothing to offer him, he snorted and jumped down again, disappearing into the piles of boxes and trash. Rooster looked at Justine with one eyebrow cocked, and shrugged.

  “Mister Wiggles,” he said. “No snakes.”

  Justine nodded slowly.

  “Not yet,” she said darkly.

  Rooster looked confused.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  Justine had enjoyed another evening around the campfire. She wasn’t so sure it was safe to have a fire inside the warehouse, but the rest of the crew shrugged it off. They’d been having fires there for ages, and nothing had burned except what they put in the barrel. It was kind of cool to sit around it, talking, telling tall tales of skaters they had seen or heard of and the marvels they could perform. Sometimes there were personal stories or questions, but they seemed okay with Justine brushing off any questions about her past life. They were all pretty laid-back and accepting. After a few nights, Justine had stopped being worried that they were going to pry into her origins or try to find out her real name or where she went when she wasn’t with them, and started to just relax and enjoy the atmosphere.

  As several of them started to nod off around the fire, Justine stood and stretched.

  “I’m gonna knock off,” she advised.

  The others started to break up as well, murmuring their good-nights and heading in different directions. Justine glanced around to see where everyone was headed, and lay down on her mattress. About five minutes passed, and then the stillness was broken by hoarse screams. Everyone turned on their phones and flashlights to see what was going on. Squints stood on a crate a few feet away from the mattress that he occasionally occupied when he didn’t go home for the night, his eyes wild, gasping for breath.

  “What’s the matter, Squints?” Blondie demanded. �
�What happened?”

  “A snake!” Squints yelled. “There’s a snake in my bed!”

  “There are no snakes in here,” Blondie told him sternly. But she didn’t get closer to check.

  Smothering a smile, keeping her face as blank as possible, Justine moved closer.

  “I don’t see anything,” she observed.

  “It’s there! Under the blanket!” Squints gasped, pointing a shaking finger.

  “There are no snakes,” Blondie repeated.

  Justine caught the edge of the blanket and teased it gradually back, until the coils of the snake were revealed. Everyone gasped.

  “There is a snake,” Squints pointed out to Blondie, his voice cracking. “You see?”

  Justine carefully reached for it and picked it up, holding it out toward Squints as it started to wrap itself around her arm.

  “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a little snake,” she taunted.

  “Keep it away from me!” he hollered.

  “Didn’t you tell me they liked to come in here to eat the mice? And that I shouldn’t worry about it?” Justine questioned. “Even the venomous ones?”

  “Is that one  … venomous?” Squints squeaked.

  Justine chuckled.

  “This little guy? He’s just a little boa. They’re constrictors, not vipers. If he eats enough mice, maybe he’ll get big enough to squeeze you while you sleep  …”

  “Keep it away from me!” Squints repeated, his voice choked with tears.

  Justine went back to her own bed with it, and wound it round an artificial tree she had recently installed in her bedroom area.

  “It’s best to just put up with them,” Justine said sweetly, and lay back down to go to sleep.

  Squints just stood there on the crate whimpering and staring at her as the rest of the crew mocked and teased him, and then eventually went their separate directions, leaving him to settle into bed on his own. Rooster walked over to Justine’s room and examined the boa wrapped around the tree, stroking its smooth scales in the darkness.

  “Nicely done,” he told her. “Very well-played.”

  Justine smiled and said nothing.

  She had been with the gang for a while. A few weeks, by the time she tracked him down. Justine took a deep breath, and rang the doorbell. She had waited until Cliff Bywater had returned to the house after work, parking his car in the garage. Then she gave him a little bit of time to get settled before intruding. Let him have a chance to greet his new wife and other kids. They made a nice little family. They actually had a white picket fence surrounding the front yard. Probably a dog in the back yard and a cat sunning itself in an upstairs window. She hated him for having another life. For giving life to her and then abandoning her to live her life out with Em. If he had been there for them, things would have been different. As it was, he had consigned her to a life of misery, living alone with Em.

  After she rang the doorbell, it was a few moments before there were any sounds of anyone coming to answer it. Justine’s heart raced. She was going to see her father. Really see him, and find out who he was. In her previous like, she had never really thought much about her father. She had wondered about her real mother, not believing that it could really be Em, but she had never fantasized much about a father. That had never been part of her ponderings. It was always the absent mother, the mother who was not Em.

  One of the kids opened the door. A small, blond-haired boy. He opened it and looked at her through the screen door, saying nothing. Waiting for her to say what she wanted.

  “Uh—is your dad here? Cliff?” Justine said, licking her dry lips nervously.

  He turned and yelled over his shoulder.

  “Dad! It’s for you!”

  There was a yell back, indistinct, asking who it was, probably. Justine waited nervously, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, wishing that he would just come, just give her a chance to speak her mind and be done with it. Eventually, Cliff Bywater came walking down the hall to the door. He had dark wavy hair. Brown eyes. A pleasant face, with wrinkles around the eyes. Em’s ruggedly handsome type. He smiled at her questioningly.

  “Uh—can I help you?” he questioned through the screen, as if she was a complete stranger to him. If she was his daughter, shouldn’t he at least know who she was? Recognize the family resemblance?

  Justine gulped.

  “My name is Justine Bywater,” she said baldly. He just stared at her blankly. “I’m—uh—I’m your daughter,” Justine said, forcing the words out.

  He stood there, still silent, still blank. He shook his head slowly.

  “You’re not Justine,” he said.

  Justine should have expected that. Should have expected the denial. No, he wasn’t her father. No, she wasn’t his daughter. She was just a nobody. Her face got hot, and she gritted her teeth to hold back the angry reaction that threatened to boil out of her.

  “I am too!” she insisted. “I’m your daughter.”

  “I don’t know who you are. My daughter died when she was just a toddler.”

  Justine heard the words, but they didn’t make any sense. She felt a wave of vertigo and had to put her hand on the door to steady herself and keep her feet.

  “What?” she breathed.

  “You’re not Justine. My daughter Justine died. I buried her. I don’t know who you are, but you are not Justine Bywater.”

  “But  … but you’re Cliff Bywater. In Burbank. You’re on my birth certificate.”

  He sighed.

  “Maybe you’d better come in,” he said, shaking his head. He opened the screen door and ushered her into the living room, where Justine collapsed onto an armchair. She stared at him, trying to figure it out, trying to figure out what he was saying, what was going on.

  “You’re Cliff Bywater,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “And you had a daughter named Justine.”

  “Yes, I did. But she died. A long time ago.”

  Justine got out her phone and opened up the photo of her birth certificate. She passed it across to him.

  “This is you,” she said.

  He looked at it for a long moment, and passed it back to her.

  “Yes, that’s me,” he agreed.

  “That’s my birth certificate.”

  “No, that’s my daughter Justine’s birth certificate. You are not her.”

  How many years had she been insisting that she wasn’t Justine? That Em wasn’t her mother? This was the first time that someone actually agreed with her, and she didn’t know what to do about it. And if it was true—then who was she?

  “But  …” she was at a loss.

  “Who were you raised by?” Cliff questioned after a period of silence. “Did you have a father, a mother? Who pretended to be the people on this birth certificate?”

  “Em,” Justine said. “Just Em. She raised me as her daughter. She said that  …” Justine trailed off, searching for the words. There was so little she could say to explain the situation. Her whole life was dissolving before her eyes. She had abandoned that life, left it behind, started a new life, the kind of life that she and Christian had dreamed about. But she didn’t realize that she was still attached to the old story. That it still meant something to her, gave her roots, a foundation.

  “Tell me about Em,” Cliff ordered. “Emma is the woman that I was married to. But was that who raised you, or did someone else take her name, and Justine’s name?”

  “Emily,” Justine corrected. “Her name is Emily, not Emma. But mostly she’s just called Em. She was  … I don’t know. Do you want me to describe her physically, or what? She’s shorter than me. Dirty blond hair. Sometimes shoulder length, sometimes shorter. She’s pretty  … She’s petite  … I don’t know.”

  “What’s her job? What is she doing these days?”

  “She’s a bookkeeper. She works at a little accounting firm, and then she takes some clients on her own as well  …”
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  “Family? What about her parents? Does she keep in touch with them?”

  “No. I never knew that she had any family. I figured they were all dead. She never talks about her family.”

  “Or about me, I’d guess.”

  “No. I just found the birth certificate  … you know, snooping through stuff. I never even knew that I had a father  …”

  “Well, you still don’t. I’m not your father.”

  Justine shook her head.

  “I don’t know what to think of that.”

  He shook his head.

  “And I don’t know what to think of you. Imagine someone coming to your doorstep claiming to be a person that died thirteen years ago. It’s bizarre.”

  Cliff’s wife came into the room, and smiled tentatively at Cliff and Justine.

  “Uh—hi. Honey  … ?”

  Cliff looked at her, and looked at Justine.

  “This girl claims to be Justine,” Cliff said. “The baby that died.”

  The woman looked at Justine with surprise and fascination.

  “But  … that couldn’t be, could it? You went to the funeral. You saw  … she was dead.”

  “Yes,” Cliff agreed evenly. “She was dead. This isn’t Justine. But she seems to think that she is.”

  “Oh. Um  …” she looked at her husband, not knowing how to react. “Dinner’s ready  … do you want  … maybe she would like to join us for supper?”

  Cliff shook his head.

  “I think we’ll just keep this between her and me for now. Can you just make a plate for me? I’ll eat later.”

  “Okay,” she agreed. She nodded to Justine, her eyes wide with interest, and then backed out of the room. Cliff shook his head and sighed.

  “That was awkward,” he commented. “So tell me about your life with Emma. She was a good mom?”

  Justine swallowed, and looked for words.

  “Well  … I dunno. I guess. She always pretended to be a good mom. She always said that she was. But  … I wasn’t  … really  … happy or anything.”