The Princess of Las Pulgas

by C. Lee McKenzie

  When I walk to the stairs, my footsteps ring hollow. Sitting on the bottom step, I watch Mom move through the house like she's lost, slipping into the empty dining room, staring down at the rug, glancing at the walls where sunlight has etched the impressions of frames onto the wallpaper. The depressions in the rug where the table and chair legs have been for so long are all that remain of the dining room set. It sold at the auction along with the living room sectional and king bed with matching dresser.

  Mom starts into the kitchen, but stops at the doorway. With a quick turn she walks back to the fireplace and sweeps her hand along the mantel. When she glances over her shoulder I’m looking into a face I’ve known forever, but don’t recognize at this moment. I’ve watched storms gather over the Pacific, and I know how they bring lightning to the land midsummer when it’s most likely to ignite dry California grasses. Right now, her face is that storm.

  She opens the front door and without turning to look back, steps outside. “Let’s go.” Not closing the door behind her, she walks toward the car, her head down as if she’s looking for something she’s lost.

  I remember Mom when she’d be in one of her thoughtful moods, sitting with her knees pulled to her chest, watching Dad and Keith huddled over a board game. Dad had called her Mona.

  “Who’s Mona?” I remember asking when I’d been about eight.

  “The woman with the most beautiful, mysterious smile in the world before your mother came along,” Dad said. “Now Mona Lisa is second best.”

  “Not anymore,” I say to the empty room. Mona has no competition for smiles from Mom now. I stand with my hand on the worn door handle; its smoothly curved brass is cold under my palm. When I’d been three I had to reach above my head and press on the latch with one thumb on top of the other to open it. Now, it’s at my waist. It feels small inside my hand, yet it holds memories of all the times I’ve opened and closed it. For one last time I pull the handle toward me, hear the click that had always said Welcome or See you later. I rest my forehead on the familiar leaded glass door panels. “Adieu.”

  Our “new” car waits at the curb—a black Tercel, only slightly dented on the driver’s door panel, only a little dinged and pitted on the hood, a clock that always reads two forty-five, and only driven 200,000 miles by a grandmother the salesman knew personally. This is Mom’s first solo car purchase. Keith and I have an unspoken agreement. We will never say anything about that car.

  As we climb into the Tercel, Keith sets the cat carrier behind the passenger seat, and Quicken howls when Mom turns the key in the ignition.

  “Stifle it. You’re not going to the vet.” Keith taps the top of the carrier, but Quicken only howls louder.

  I dig my fingernails into my palms and keep my eyes straight ahead.

  Mom drives with both hands clutching the wheel, her knuckles white. The one sound in the car besides the motor is Quicken. She’s howling for all of us.

  It’s only a twenty-minute drive, but while the time is nothing, the difference it makes in my life is huge. Mom turns into the narrow driveway and winds through the backside of the complex where dumpsters line up against a chain link fence, cardboard boxes and black plastic garbage bags poke from under the heavy lids. On the opposite side is a flat-roofed carport. Some of the bunker-like spaces shelter trucks or cars that no longer need to be smog-checked they’re so old. Moving boxes, broken furniture, and freezer chests are the most common items stacked along the walls.

  When we come to space 148 Mom parks. Even Quicken stops making noises and we sit inside the Tercel in silence.

  My cell chimes and breaks the spell. As Mom and Keith get out, I flick open my phone and a number I don’t recognize pops up on the screen.

  “Moving day, right? Aunt Corky knows all.” Sean’s voice sends shock waves through my chest.

  “Right.” I climb out of the car.

  “What’s your new address?”

  I’m in the bowels of Las Pulgas, and Sean Wright wants to know where I live? Is there no justice in this world?

  “Um, I don’t know the address yet. Can you call me later? I’ll give it to you.” Then I remember I’ll only have my cell phone one more week. I glare at Mom’s retreating back. She’s taking everything away. Without explaining that all I’ll have is a home phone, I give Sean our new number and my email.

  As I snap my phone closed, my thoughts churn. How am I going to keep my friends at Channing from seeing where I live? And what about Lena? I’ve deliberately missed three calls from my best friend already and she emailed about coming over to see my new “house.” I can’t tell her I’ll be living in a Las Pulgas apartment, and I have no intention of ever letting Lena see this dumpy place with the dented refrigerator and a stove Mom calls vintage Ark. I’m wearing out the chain on my Sweet Sixteen bracelet by twisting it almost all the time now, counting the links—where they begin, where they end—and pushing away the reason that makes me ache inside.

  I follow Mom and Keith who pick their way toward the gate that separates the carport from a kidney-shaped pool. Quicken is curled into a silent fetal ball inside the cage that Keith holds close to his chest. They push open the gate and walk across the pool area where tables are littered with overflowing ashtrays. Keith kicks aside a dented beer can and, following Mom, climbs the steps. With one hand I grasp the iron railing. It wobbles. A lot of good this thing is going to do to keep anyone from falling. I make my way across the creaky balcony to the apartment.

  Night brings a whole different character to our palace. What starts as a hide and seek game with kids by the pool about three, turns into a weekend keg party with booming music by eleven. The windows pulse to the beat so hard that I'm sure they're going to pop out of their aluminum frames.

  When Mom yanks the front window curtain closed it falls onto her head. She hurls the curtain and years of dust explode around us.

  Keith disappears down the hall, leaving Mom and me about ten paces apart, dueling range.

  “Don't say a word, young lady. Do you hear me?” She snatches the phone from her purse, flips it open and stabs her finger on her keypad.

  “This is Mrs. Edmund. 148. Can’t you put a stop to that loud party?”

  While she's talking I coax Quicken out of her carrier and slip away to my bedroom, shutting the door without turning on the lights. It's better not to show that world outside where I'm hiding. Tomorrow I’ll borrow one of Keith’s black sheets to hang at my window.

  Later, the police arrive and for a while red swirling lights chase each other around the walls of my room. Bull horns shout to clear the pool area. One more shattered glass bottle hits the sidewalk; then slowly the sound and light show grinds down, leaving only the hum of the pool pump and the yellow glow of bug lights at the side of each apartment door.

  The quiet doesn't last long. Something crashes against my wall and a woman's angry voice shouts words that would make the FCC duct tape her mouth. A man's voice mumbles something I can't make out; then a door slams and the pool pump is the only noise again. Like I used to when I was little, I crack open my door to the hall. Somehow that makes my room less scary and it reduces the faint smell of cigarette smoke that’s seeping through my wall from next door.

  I don't hear Quicken, but I know she's at the back of my closet, crouched and staring. Getting on my hands and knees I look inside. “Quicken, come here, fur person.”

  She hisses. When I reach for her she slinks along the wall and disappears into a dark space behind my desk.

  I roll inside my comforter, not bothering to make my bed. I want to vanish and not just for tonight, forever.

  Another sound begins. It's one that's become a familiar part of the night. Mom tries to muffle her crying as she passes my door, but she can't muffle the pain of it. Tonight it hurts me to hear her more than it ever did in Channing.

  Chapter 15

  “Quicken. Here kitty- kitty-kitty.” Mom’s voice startles me from a dream that has left a sour lemon taste in my mouth. I jump
from bed, letting the comforter fall to the floor, looking around the box cluttered room. I’ve come from a dream into a nightmare. Surely I’ll wake up and hear the ocean. Surly the traffic noises will fade once I get my bearings.

  My door is slightly ajar and Mom sticks her head inside. “Honey, is Quicken in here?”

  I shake my head; my mouth won’t open. My eyes are slits. If I look in the mirror I know I’ll be facing Carlie Edmund, puffy-eyed Las Pulgas dweller. “Get dressed. We’ll have to search for her. She must have run outside when I went to the store this morning.” Mom closes my door, calling, “Quicken. Here kitty-kitty- kitty.” After we search all the crevices in the apartment and still can’t find Quicken, I set out to scout the area. When I knock on the door to Apartment 147 the door pops open the width of a security-chained crack. A woman squints at me through the slot.

  “What?” I recognize the voice, but she doesn’t scream at me like she does the person she lives with.

  “We’ve lost a Siamese cat.” The woman slips the chain free and opens the door. “What, is it, like, joined at the hip or someplace?”

  At first I don’t get it, then when I do I don’t like the joke. “Her name’s Quicken and she's silver with a black face.”

  The woman steps outside. “Sounds interesting, but it’s not here.” She eyes me and lights a cigarette. “You the new neighbor next door?”

  I nod.

  The woman flicks her ashes over the balcony.

  “Who is it?” A gravelly voice comes from inside, then a man pokes his head out and fixes me with heavy-lidded eyes. “Whaddya want?” His jowls jiggle when he talks.

  “Butt out, Gerald.” She sounds as if she’s giving commands to a particularly stupid dog. She flicks ashes at his feet and he ducks inside, leaving the door open. The woman follows after him, but before closing the door she says, “Cats come home when they get hungry.”

  I try a couple more doors, but nobody answers. At Apartment 152 the door jerks open and a man in an orange prisoner-style jumpsuit stands staring at me. Looking over the man’s shoulder is a lanky boy with short dark hair and intense eyes that travel from my chest to my hips and back, making me feel like I forgot to put clothes on.

  “Whatta ya sellin’?” the man asks.”Whatever it is we don’t need it.”

  The boy’s eyes make another sweep over me.

  “I’m look for a Siamese cat? Have you seen her? She’s wearing a —”

  “I ain’t seen no cat.” The man shuts the door so fast I still have my mouth open.

  That’s enough of meeting the neighbors. “Jerk.” I go to the pool area to check behind the barbeque pit and under plastic lounge chairs, but there’s no sign of Quicken.

  Keith walks down the short path from the carport and lets himself through the gate. He kneels at the edge of the pool and tests the water with his hand. “I wonder what the percentage of pee is.”

  “That’s gross.”

  “Any luck?” He flicks the water from his hand.

  “Quicken’s the only sane one in this family. She's escaped.” I test one of the plastic chaise lounges to see if it collapses. When it doesn’t, I sit with my legs stretched out.

  Keith joins me, his arms on his knees, staring at his feet. “This place totally sucks.” The silence hangs between us until he says, “I’m dropping track.”

  “Track is all you ever wanted to do.”

  “Not at Las Pulgas.”

  I know why. He doesn’t want to compete against his old teammates. He knows Las Pulgas will lose because Channing has topnotch runners.

  This is the first time in a while we’ve been alone and talked, instead of sniping at each other. He hasn’t gotten a haircut in two months, so the way his sandy hair falls across his forehead reminds me of Dad. Now I can work on that promise. Today I’ll talk to my brother like he’s human.

  Keith plucks at his Channing Track shirt as if he wants to rip it to pieces.

  I get that, too. He’s as ashamed of where we’ve landed as I am. “Come on. Let’s blow this dump and see if we can follow Quicken’s escape route.”

  We walk the perimeter of the complex, calling to Quicken. When we come to the street we turn toward the center of town. Bits of black plastic flutter tangled in spiky weeds along the sidewalk and the curb is littered with used paper cups, candy wrappers and other trash I don’t want to identify, litter the curbside. At the stoplight, we start back, discouraged. If Quicken crossed into town, we’ll never find her.

  When we reach the driveway leading into the complex, I stop to look more closely under the bushes. I now notice that the sidewalk on the left side of the driveway becomes a dirt road. It’s like whoever paved around the apartments ran out of concrete.

  “Let’s look down there,” I say to my brother, pointing.

  Keith starts in that direction, saying, “Quicken might have gone exploring.”

  “Wait.” I point at a sign partly covered by a low-hanging limb. “That says ‘No Trespassing.’”

  “We’re not trespassing. We’re looking for a lost cat. Come on.”

  The road slopes away and becomes overgrown. The traffic sounds from Las Pulgas blend into a distant hum. Birds flush from the undergrowth and small brown critters with tails scurry behind rocks as we approach. With each step I have the feeling we are walking back into another time, a time before open space disappeared under asphalt and apartment houses.

  We continue around a sweeping turn and come to a gate with a rope looped around a post. Keith ignores the second “No Trespassing” sign and slips the rope free. We enter a silent grove of trees, their gnarled trunks lined up on either side of us. Somewhere behind all these leaves is the Las Pulgas of today, but it looks like the developers forgot this place was here. At the end of the road is a two-storied house with a wide front porch. The curtains are drawn, but someone lives here. Plants in hanging baskets are sprouting their first green leaves, getting ready for spring, and wooden rockers sit empty, waiting for the warm weather.

  “What are these?” Keith asks, touching the bark of a tree.

  I shrug. “Trees?”

  “Very funny. What kind?”

  “They’re apple trees.” The voice comes from behind us. I spin around, face to face with a man, a long-barreled gun lying across his forearms. “Seems you don’t know your trees anymore than you know how to read.”

  “We—” I choke. “We lost our cat. We wanted to see if she might have come this direction.” I grab Keith’s hand like I used to when he was four and I was six. Dad always said I was the big sister. I had to keep Keith safe when we crossed the street. He’d never said what to do when a man faced us with a big gun.

  His wide-brimmed cowboy hat sits squarely on his head casting a dark ring around his broad shoulders. He cradles the gun as if it's a part of him and while I can't see his eyes for the shadow from his hat brim I'm sure they're trained on us—steady, unblinking. His skin is tight across his cheekbones, bronzed and shiny, and his features are sharp like a hawk. He's used to working with his hands, but in spite of the scars and leathery skin his nails are trimmed and clean. He stands easy and balanced on both feet, silently watching us.

  “Her name is Quicken.” My mouth develops a sudden case of drought, leaving my tongue filmed with dust. “Our cat.” I squeeze Keith’s hand to say let’s get out of here, and he returns the pressure.

  “Where do you live?” the man asks.

  I point in the direction from where I think we’ve come.

  “Las Pulgas Apartments,” he says. If words could be on fire, his would have burned down the entire apple orchard. “A waste of good orchard land.”

  I glance at the evenly spaced tree trunks to avoid looking at him.

  He walks around us and down the path toward the house. “Close the gate on your way out.” He turns after a few steps. “Next time, read the signs—and pay attention to them.”

  “Wait!” Keith shakes free of my grasp and runs after the man. “Look, we’re sor
ry about trespassing, but if you find our cat would you let us know?”

  I hold my breath. What is Keith thinking? This guy’s packing a major weapon and he’d probably love an excuse to use it.

  The man looks to Keith to me and back, then he climbs the steps to the house and enters, letting the door slam behind him.

  “Jeez, Keith, are you trying to get us killed? There are other ways to escape Las Pulgas, okay? I’d like to do while I’m still alive.”

  As I place the rope over the post to secure the gate, I look at the house. He’s at the window, watching us.

  Chapter 16

  Monday, Keith and I file through the security checkpoint at the main entrance to Las Pulgas High. One guard uses a wand; another does random backpack searches. Security cameras perch high along each side of the hall, their Big Brother eyes scanning and recording everything that happens.

  While the guard rummages through my backpack, I concentrate on the cracked plaster behind his head. If anyone needs searching it’s this guy. I hate standing across from him, smelling his stale tobacco odor, seeing his greasy hair. I try to remember the entrance to Channing High, but I can’t. All I know is that where I am today is more like entering hell than high school.

  “You’re cleared.” As the guard shoves the bag at me his dirty nails are inches from my hand. I can’t stop the grimace as I pick up the strap to avoid touching the canvass where Mr. Icky’s hands have been.

  After Keith passes the security check we make our way through the congested hall and follow the directions Mom wrote to the counselor’s office. I thought she might not hand the note to us this morning at breakfast. She looked at us like she had the first morning of our kindergartens. Still she didn't have much choice other than to drop us in front of the school so she could meet with the realtor for some last minute paperwork.

  Half way down the main corridor at the first door on the right is the office, but the counselor isn’t here today. Out sick. The secretary gives us each a map and a class schedule, and Keith peels off into a connecting corridor while I head straight down the main one to scout for my locker. I work the combination and throw my jacket inside. The halls are so stuffy, I won’t need it.