How Many Letters Are In Goodbye?

by Yvonne Cassidy

  I would like to know if Columbia responded to my application. I don’t expect you to pay my fees now, but I would still like to know if I was accepted.

  You can write back and let me know using the address on the envelope and they will send the letter on to me. Please don’t come to the soup kitchen again to try and find out where I am. They won’t be able to tell you and by the time you get this, I won’t even be in New York and no matter what happens, I’m not going back to Florida.

  I’m sorry for everything that happened and for causing trouble for you and your family.

  Yours sincerely,

  Rhea Farrell

  Dear Mum,

  It’s the first time I’ve had a chance to write to you and even now I should be in bed but I can’t sleep. We have to start work at 8:00 a.m. here—not get up, start work—and after the kids come on Monday, we’ll have to start at 7:30! It’s like a prison camp here, Mum, there’s so many rules.

  I’m not even meant to be down here on my own, on the beach, after dark.

  The best part so far was the train journey, with me and Winnie playing poker and the conductor walking through shouting out the name of each station. I’m winning—I would have won—if I hadn’t got distracted when he calls out Bridgehampton and I lay down the wrong card. I want to play another game, but Winnie insists on packing the cards away to get ready to get off, even though we don’t get to the Amagansett station for ages after.

  Jean and David are waiting on the platform and it turns out Zac and Matt were on our train as well. Zac and Matt are twins who are a year younger than me but twice as tall. Both of them are starting at Brown University at the end of the summer and, so far, that’s all they’ve talked about. Laurie would love them, especially Zac, because he plays football and you can tell he’s the one who’s the leader of the two of them, because he speaks first and laughs more and Matt looks smaller, the way he rounds his shoulders, even though they’re the same height.

  At first I don’t know who she is, the woman who’s hugging everyone—it takes me a minute to realise it’s Jean. For some reason, I don’t expect her to be black or to be wearing shorts and flip-flops and a neon pink T-shirt. She looks too young to be the boss, especially when she’s wearing her Oakley sunglasses, which she is most of the time. When she hugs Winnie, they kind of rock back and forth, hugging for so long it’s kind of embarrassing. I’m next and it’s weird but it’s like she somehow knows that I don’t want to hug her because she only squeezes my shoulder and says that I’ll be a great addition to the team.

  David’s the cook and the van driver and he has a long ponytail and a beard. He gives me a big handshake with his left hand and says he likes my Hendrix T-shirt. He’s wearing a tie-dye one with someone called Jimmy Buffett on it and I pretend I’ve heard of him and I say I like his T-shirt too.

  He drives really fast, David does, and we’re all thrown around in the back when he takes the sharp turn off the road in through a tiny gateway. It’s like a dirt track in Ireland—grass up the middle and trees and bushes scraping the sides of the van—but then it suddenly opens up and there’s the house, with the sea, crystal blue, right behind it. This house is nothing like beach houses in Florida—it’s old, white wood and four storeys and a big wooden deck that wraps all the way around.

  Me and Winnie are staying on the top floor, in the attic room, up four flights of stairs with no air conditioner because apparently the window is too small for one. The only people who have their own rooms are Jean and Gemma, the other therapist who smiles a lot but hardly says a word. Zac and Matt are sharing, and Amanda is sharing with Erin, some kind of trainee therapist who’s not here yet.

  Amanda’s the lifeguard, by the way, we meet her after Jean gives us the tour of the house. The pool is in the back, down the opposite set of steps than the sea, and when we get there it looks like it’s empty until we see the bubbles and then Amanda bursts through the surface of the water, her cheeks puffed out.

  “Talk about a dramatic entrance,” Jean says, and everyone laughs. Jean laughs too, at her own joke, and her laugh is louder than everyone else’s, loud and annoying.

  “Sorry,” Amanda goes, wiping her hair out of her eyes. “I was seeing how long I could sit on the bottom.”

  Jean laughs again and gets down on her hunkers next to where Amanda has propped herself up on the edge.

  “This is Amanda, our trusty lifeguard who keeps all the kids safe in the water. Amanda, meet the troops—Zac, Matt, Winnie and Rhea.”

  We all say hi at the same time.

  “Do you surf?” Zac goes. “I hear the surfing is awesome out here.”

  Amanda’s wearing one of those lame necklaces with her name on it in loopy gold that’s supposed to be handwriting and it glints in the sun.

  “No,” she goes, scrunching up her nose, “but I boogie board.”

  “Good enough,” Zac goes. “David said he has a long board, I’ll show you how.”

  Jean must have noticed the total flirting going on because she does this thing to bring the rest of us into the conversation.

  “Maybe you can teach us all how to boogie board, Amanda,” she goes. “I’d like to learn too.”

  “Sure, why not.” She fiddles with her necklace, sliding it back and forth on its chain.

  Winnie puts her hand on my shoulder and I think she’s going to say something nice. “You can start with teaching Rhea how to swim. That can be your first challenge!”

  She laughs, like it’s a joke, and I can’t believe she’s said that in front of everyone, and I hate how they are all looking at me and at my stump and feeling sorry for me, like I’m some kind of victim.

  “You can’t swim, Rhea?” Jean goes.

  “I hate the water, I’ve never wanted to learn.”

  She nods. I can’t see her eyes behind her Oakleys. “I used to be scared of the water too, but I got over it, out here. No better place to learn.”

  I don’t know if I already didn’t like Jean or if that’s when I decided fully.

  “I didn’t say I was scared,” I go. “I just don’t like it.”

  But she doesn’t answer me because she’s already leading the way back up to the house so she can take us down the other steps, to the beach. And I keep trying to catch Winnie’s eye but she’s not looking at me and I wish she wasn’t Jean’s friend because I want to say to her that Jean must be the biggest dumbass psychologist ever because she obviously doesn’t listen.

  That was yesterday. Today, I hate Jean more because of the way she sits up on the upper deck with Gemma, reading through folders, while Matt and Winnie and me are dragging all the furniture up from the basement and wiping it down and sweeping the deck. Zac’s helping Amanda clean the pool, even though I think he should be helping us, and all you can hear is water splashing and their voices laughing—it sounds like there’s not much cleaning going on, and I bet they are boyfriend/girlfriend already.

  Matt offers to finish off the carrying part but I don’t let him, even though my arm is killing me from all the lifting. And just when I think we’re finished it turns out the basement needs to be cleaned out too, because it’s the rec room where Winnie and me are going to be doing the art class, so we do that too.

  After lunch, we have our meeting and just before it starts, Erin shows up, the trainee psychologist. And I wish that Laurie was here because she’d roll her eyes and laugh at how excited Erin gets when she hears my accent and how she goes around the table hugging everyone, just like Jean did. Laurie would hate Jean too, I know she would, and I know she’d think it was lame how the others all keep laughing at every one of her crappy jokes.

  Jean hands out these sheets stapled together with each of our names at the top that have a printed schedule for each day with eight time slots. I scan the slots for my name, I’m in five of them, no, six. I count Winnie’s—she’s in four. Amanda’s in five, the same
as Matt and Zac. I’m doing more work than anyone else, but when I glance over at Winnie to see if she’s noticed, if she’ll say anything, she’s writing down something Jean has just said. The talking goes on for ages—Jean first, then Gemma—about what it’s like for these kids to be homeless and in shelters, as if they know anything about it. They take ages going through the activities. It takes longer because of all the questions—everyone has questions and after nearly every one Jean says “great question!” before she answers. I’m the only one who doesn’t ask anything, just like I’m the only one not taking notes.

  Jean is going on about something lame called “Be Myself Time” where kids sit around in the rec room and do anything they want. She’s all animated explaining it, how the time is unstructured so the kids can pick up an instrument and play it or draw or read, whatever they feel like. She says it three times, “Be Myself Time,” as if she’s just come up with the name, as if it’s the most amazing name in the world.

  Matt is next to me and he’s not writing anything down. I lean closer to him. “I think I’d prefer ‘Be Someone Else Time.’ ” I whisper, but when he turns around his voice is too loud. “What?”

  Jean stops talking and looks over and the silence is like school all over again. Across from me, Amanda’s next to Zac. Now that her hair is dry I can see it’s curly and blonde, even though it’s tied back. She dips her chin down to her chest and I realise she’s trying not to laugh.

  “Did you have a question, Rhea?” Jean is smiling a pretend smile.

  I look at my blank page and shake my head. “No.”

  Her eyes hold mine, they’re big in her face, lots of white around her dark brown pupils.

  “You’re comfortable with your role? Helping out on the beach and in the kitchen and afternoons with Winnie in Arts and Crafts?”

  “Yep.”

  They’re all looking at me, everyone is, except Amanda, who’s doodling on her page. Jean is still smiling, as if she is waiting for me to say something more.

  “So, how do you feel about tomorrow?” she says. “Are you nervous? Excited?”

  She hasn’t asked anyone else a question like that, not even with all their questions, and I know it’s a trick, that she’s picking on me because I haven’t asked her anything. And that’s when I think of a question.

  “Do you think it makes any difference?”

  She puts her chin in her hand. “Makes any difference?”

  “I mean, you’ve told us all about the lives that these kids have. Do you think a few weeks at the beach making sandcastles actually changes anything?”

  She sits back, straight up in her chair.

  “It’s a lot more than building sandcastles, Rhea. I don’t know if you followed the whole programme but there are many components—”

  “Art, music, physical activity, nutrition, play, community.” I list them off, exactly as she said them. “I know what they do, but I just wondered if it actually makes any kind of difference.”

  It’s the first question that’s not a “great” question, or even a “good” question. She looks down at her page and back to me.

  “We give these kids a place to be children, Rhea, a place to heal. You’ll see the difference for yourself.” Her voice is annoyed, she’s not able to hide it. “On the first day, they’ll be shoving sandwiches in their pockets, hardly able to talk to us, and when they leave they’ll be laughing and playing like children.”

  “Yeah, but what happens after? After they go back home?”

  Winnie is looking at me now, frowning behind her glasses, and I know she wants me to shut up. In the beginning, I was asking to annoy Jean, but now I’m asking because I really want to know. Jean is pulling at the curl over her ear, where a little bit of grey is. She opens her mouth to answer, but Gemma gets there first.

  “There’s a lot of evidence to support the fact that helping children reclaim their childhoods can lead to a better ability to cope as adults.” Her voice is so soft and I can hardly hear her over the noise of the air conditioner. “This programme is only five years old, though, so it’s too early to track real outcomes.”

  “So you can’t know for sure?” I go.

  She shakes her head. “No, we can’t.”

  Jean is the first one to get up from the table after that, and we have a break before dinner. When I go up to the room, Winnie’s there changing her T-shirt and I’m glad we’re sharing then, because we haven’t had a chance to talk since the train.

  “Well?” she goes. “What do you think so far?”

  I lie down on the bed, even though I still have my Docs on.

  “It’s okay.”

  “Only okay?”

  I know I should have pretended to like it, to like Jean, but Winnie’s supposed to be my friend and I thought the whole point of having friends was to tell them the truth.

  “I like the house, but it’d be nicer if we didn’t have to share it with this bunch of whackjobs.”

  “Whackjobs? I haven’t heard that in a while. Why are they whackjobs?”

  I roll over onto my back, look at the ceiling.

  “I don’t know—they all are. Like, Erin. All she wants to talk about is some bumfuck part of Leitrim where her dad’s from. I’ve never been to Leitrim. I’d rather kill myself than go to Leitrim.”

  Winnie laughs and that makes it okay to keep talking.

  “And that other one, Gemma—what’s up with her? She hardly said a word all day and now she’s sitting on her own on the balcony upstairs with her eyes closed.”

  “I think she’s meditating.”

  I can hear a smile in Winnie’s voice, I think I can.

  “And Jean, all that crap about healing these kids’ emotional scars. That’s total bullshit.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  I wait for her to say more but all I hear is the hiss of her perfume. When I look over, she’s dabbing it behind her ears. She’s wearing her white shirt, the one with the pink flowers on the collars.

  “You’re getting dressed up for dinner?”

  “I’m going to a meeting after, in Bridgehampton.”

  “Again? You went last night.”

  She folds her T-shirt, doesn’t answer me.

  “David’s going to drop me in.”

  “In New York you don’t go to AA every night.”

  “Sometimes I do.”

  “Not when I was staying with you.”

  “No,” she smiles, “not when you were staying with me.”

  She puts the T-shirt in the top drawer of the dresser, the drawer I said I didn’t mind her having. Sometimes I hate these conversations, when Winnie just repeats everything I say.

  “Is your meeting anywhere near the ice cream place? The Candy Kitchen?”

  “I don’t know—it’s probably not too far. Why? Did you want to come with me?”

  “No.” I sit up on the bed. “No, I was just asking.”

  “Okay.”

  She slips her feet into her flip-flops. We have half an hour before dinner and I wonder is she going to walk on the beach and I’m thinking of asking her if she wants to do that, but then she says the most annoying thing ever.

  “Just give the place a chance, Rhea. It’s going to be okay. When I get scared, I’m judgemental too.”

  She leaves then, closing the door behind her, before I can say anything back, and that’s what annoys me most of all, that I don’t get to tell her that she obviously wasn’t listening to me and that I’m not fucking scared.

  It pisses me off, Mum, that she can be so wrong about me, and I should have said something to her but there was no time at dinner and later, after she came back from her meeting, she seemed really happy so I didn’t want to then. But then I couldn’t sleep, and lying in that hot-ass room with her snoring, it’s all I can thi
nk about, and not even listening to David’s Pink Floyd tape on my Walkman can stop it.

  Because I’m not scared of Jean, Mum, or of this stupid place. And I’m not scared of the water. If I was scared I wouldn’t be breaking the rules—I’d be in bed now, up in that stuffy attic, trying to sleep. If I was scared, I wouldn’t be down here on the beach, by myself in the dark. I wouldn’t be writing to you.

  Rhea

  Dear Mum,

  I want to write a list of all the kids’ names but I don’t know what order to put them in and I can’t remember all their names because some of them are names I’ve never heard before and I have to know how to spell something before I can remember it.

  Out of thirty-six, only three are white, the others are mostly black and Hispanic. It might sound fifty kinds of crazy, but I can’t understand half of what they’re saying—even the ones who speak English—and they can’t understand me either.

  None of them are meant to be older than twelve but one of them claims he’s thirteen—Marco, one of the white kids who wears a T-shirt with an Italian flag on it all the time. Erin makes him the captain of one of the volleyball teams which anyone with half an eye could see is a bad idea. Shirley is the captain of the other team and she gets to go first. She picks Amanda, straightaway, so I’m the only counsellor left, with all the other kids. Marco spends ages choosing, his arms folded.

  “Come on,” Erin goes after a while. “Pick someone!”

  “Okay.” He walks towards me and, at the last minute, whirls around to point at Isaac. “You!”

  Isaac runs over and they high five. It was Shirley’s turn again and her eyes hovered over me.

  “Are we allowed to have two grown-ups on our team?”

  She’s asking the question to Erin, but before she can answer, Marco does.

  “She’s all yours. I don’t want no handicapped bitch on my team.”

  I hate the way he looks at me when he says it, but I hate even more that I look away.

  “Marco!” Erin goes. “Apologise, you can’t call people names like that.”