We walk up to the counter. “I’m Mrs. Edmund. I got a call about my son, Keith.”
Just like the other people, we have to wait. We watch as each of the waiting women is called to the counter and each leaves with a teenage boy trailing behind. When the man’s turn comes, I watch him leave with the girl, from the strong resemblance between them, must be his daughter. How did this girl look before the tattoos? Not beautiful, but kind of pretty. Her dark hair hangs to her waist. Without the purple and orange spirals her skin probably would be perfect.
In my mind, I trace the purple line that snakes down her neck, across her collarbone, and disappears under her T-shirt, then trails from under the sleeve and down her arm. What route does the orange one on her leg take? That has to drive guys nuts.
“How is she ever going to get a job?” Mom’s voice startles me as if I’ve been caught snooping somewhere I shouldn’t.
“Mrs. Edmund.” The uniformed policeman behind the counter calls out and motions us over. When we get to the counter, he hands Mom some papers to sign.
“Will he have to go to court?” Mom asks.
“Yes. And a parent will have to be there.”
“Do you know how much the damages will cost?” Mom asks.
“That’s up to the school and the judge.”
Keith doesn’t look up when he comes out. With his head down and his hands stuffed in the pockets of his sweatshirt, he shuffles toward us. I wait as Mom goes to him and reaches to brush his hair back from his forehead. He jerks his head away.
Is she just noticing he’s stopped getting buzz cuts?
“Let’s go. . .” Mom leaves the sentence incomplete.
Even she can’t say the word, home when she’s referring to our apartment.
Without making eye contact, Keith walks ahead of her and brushes past me as if I were a piece of the furniture.
When we return to the apartment, Keith goes directly to his room and closes the door. Mom doesn’t try to stop him. It’s as if she’s watching a ghost, something she has no control over.
“I haven’t done anything.” Her voice is a whisper. “I signed loan papers I didn’t understand and I lost our home. I’m the reason we had to move to this—,” she looks around her, “—this awful place we don’t fit into.”
“I told you Las Pulgas was a rotten idea.”
“Not now, Carlie.”
“Then when? After a gang member beats me up because my brother’s a jerk?”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Oh, yeah. Right!” I hurl myself onto the couch and burrow into the cushions.
Mom leans against the living room wall, her hands covering her face. She's not crying. It’s more like she needs to shut me out.
I stomp into the kitchen, shake two Tylenos into my palm, and fill a glass with water. With a single swallow I wash the pills down.
“Give me two of those.” Mom slumps into her chair at the table and unfolds copies of the papers she signed at Juvenile Hall. “How am I supposed pay for this?”
That’s another question for Dad.
Her face takes on that look of a storm in summer. “It’s time I stop asking someone who’s dead for help.”
That catches me in my chest. Mom never sounds like that when she talks about Dad. She never uses the word, dead, when he’s the topic.
I refill my glass, and then go to my room and close the door. Quicken stretches up into her Halloween-cat impression to greet me. I take my journal from my desk and hold it against my chest, then lie down next to her cat warmth, stroking her fur and listening to her gentle purr.
“Now what, Dad? What do we do now?”
When he doesn’t answer I get up and go to the closet, where I put the on the top shelf.
Mom and I both need to stop asking him for help.
Chapter 25
When that woman in 147 isn’t smoking, she’s screaming at her husband, so I keep those earplugs in anytime I’m in my room. Between secondhand smoke and the reality show rehearsals, trying to study anywhere in the apartment ranges from challenging to impossible.
I figure I have about five minutes before the fireworks start next door, because Quicken has already scooted between my legs and into the kitchen. She seems to know when it’s time to escape.
I log on to my computer and open my email. Why doesn’t Sean email me? I’ll shoot him a quick message. No. I shouldn’t look too eager. Maybe he’s got a girlfriend at Channing. I mean I’m not there. And I can’t bring him here. “Merde!”
The only message I have is from Lena, who’s written again about her dress for the spring dance. “When RU coming to Channing to see it? Or can I, Lena, the one who’s supposed to be your BFF, bring the dress over? Oh, and did Nicolas call yet about the dance?”
I’m about to answer Lena when a door slams and rattles my window. The woman in 147 screeches, “I told you we were out of money and look what you went and did. I’m sick and tired of having your lazy ass around here!”
The wall explodes with the sound of shattering glass and I clap my hands over my ears as another thud from the apartment next door sends a tiny seismic tremor into my room. I gather my books and flee into the kitchen where Mom sits with a stack of bills and her checkbook. She’s still in her brown and gold uniform. It reminds me of what women wear who clean toilets at ballparks.
I drop my books at the end of the table. “Our neighbors are killing each other in the next bedroom.”
Mom rubs her eyes and says, “I’ll talk to the manager.”
“Our ‘manager’ won’t do anything,” I tell her. “We've complained about the neighbors at least ten times by now. We've begged for the blasting music to stop by ten, and when the manager puts up signs one day, they're shredded and floating in the pool the next.
Mom’s face crumples, and she looks old, like pictures of my grandmother that I remember from our old photo album. “Carlie . . .” She sips from a cold bottle of water and picks at the label with her thumbnail, then goes on. “. . .this won’t be forever.”
“It’ll just seem like it.” I’m sorry I’ve said this as soon as the words are out of my mouth, but I don’t apologize. I have no energy for it after all that’s happened today—the nightmare of seeing my brother dragged off by police, being jumped by Chico and having the confrontation with K.T., and then going to the police station—I can’t handle anything else. Even my hopes for any kind of relationship with Sean are fading fast.
Mom rubs her eyes. “I know it feels like it, but nothing’s forever. You should know that by now.” Her voice is so low I barely hear what she says. Suddenly she’s up from her chair and shoves her books away. She stands with both hands on the edge of the kitchen counter, not looking at me. In a moment she sits down again, and with a sigh, draws the books to her again. “I think I did okay on that test today. I’ll know by the end of the week.”
I should say something—congratulations, great job. But I don’t.
Keith scuffs past us to the refrigerator. “No milk?”
I want to strangle the graffiti criminal.
“I knew I forgot something,” Mom sounds like she’s just failed her test, not passed it. “We need something for dinner, too.”
I grab my jacket. “I’ll go. What should I get?”
She looks as if she doesn’t understand the question.
“Never mind, Mom. I’ll figure it out. But I’ll need some money.”
Mom fumbles inside her wallet and hands me five crumpled dollar bills. We won’t eat steak tonight.
“Go with your sister, Keith. It’s getting late,” she snaps at my brother.
He doesn’t answer or look at her, but he does leave the kitchen and the front door opens and closes, so I guess he’s at least doing what she asked. We haven’t talked since his arrest this morning, but I plan to say a lot once we’re alone.
As I step outside the sound of someone running come from behind me and the balcony bounces under the pounding of feet. I turn to
face a lean male figure bearing down on us. He whips past, shoving Keith so hard that he falls against the wobbly railing, and for a second I'm sure it will give away under his weight. I grab Keith’s arm.
Without stopping, the runner flips us the bird, scrambles down the steps to the pool area and disappears out the gate, letting it clang shut behind him.
Keith yanks away from my grasp. “Let go!”
“He almost pushed you off the balcony!”
“I’m okay,” he says sharply. “Mancuso’s an Olympic sprinter wannabe—and Mancuso hates my guts." Keith juts his chin toward the apartment house. “And just happens to be a neighbor.”
“Anthony Mancuso?” I ask him, but now it all makes sense. Cassio—that’s where I’ve seen him. He was in the apartment with the guy in the orange jump suit the day I went out looking for Quicken. “He's in the play.”
Keith shrugs. “Whatever.”
“What? Are you so used to dealing with hoods now that you’ve been in lock up?”
He shoves me away and buries his hands in his pockets.
I walk alongside him, matching his steps. “So say something.”
Keith doesn’t break his pace and he doesn’t look at me.
“You think you’re the only one in this family who’s hurting? I’m taking the heat for what you did, you know. How’d you like to not being able to walk into class without looking over your shoulder?” Stepping in front of him, I put my hands on his chest. “Huh?”
“What do you want me to say?” Anger flares across his face.
“How about why you did it?”
“I—” His anger vanishes, and all I see is the pain takes its place. “Las Pulgas track sucks.”
He’s suddenly younger, looking the way he did in grade school. I almost forget what he’s done to make my life at school hell. He doesn’t have to say the rest of what he’s thinking. He doesn’t want to run on a team that his Channing friends think is a joke.
“The good news is Las Pulgas will kick me out. I won’t be in that rat hole again.” He steps around me and walks down the street.
Chapter 26
The next morning I’m burrowed under my sheets, considering how to barricade my room when Mom knocks and comes in. I feel her put Quicken aside and sit on the edge of my bed. She waits until I poke my head out.
“You could stay home if you want, but you know what I’m thinking,” she says.
“I know. I know. Putting it off is only going to make it worse.” She’s always told me that, as long as I can remember. It’s something she’s passed on to me from some great-grandmother who crocheted afghans.
“You decide, okay?” She strokes my hair and leaves.
How can I stay home now? I haul myself out of bed, and on my way out I pause to pick up my Jack-in-the-Box and whirl the crank. I wish it had the power to put itself back together. I need one thing in my life that works the way it should. Quicken purrs between my legs. “Thank you fur person for being here.”
After feeding Quicken, I head to the bathroom. At least this morning Keith isn’t here before me. He’s shut away in his mole hole.
“Carlie love, you’re strong enough to take on that whole school.”
I turn on the shower, then reduce the flow before stepping under it and letting hot water wash over me. I don’t feel strong enough to stand under a pelting stream, let alone take on Las Pulgas High today.
In Mr. Smith’s class, K.T. only glares at me a little more than at everybody else, but once I’m in the halls she and her gang of six are in my face or rapping behind my back.
She the girl who got a brudder.
He be paint-man with a paint can.
Off to Juvie do he go.
Carlie Edmund’s little bro.
In each class I’m on the lookout for Chico. He’s a safe two rows away from me in English, but way too close in social studies. I’ve seen that face leering at me for weeks, but he didn’t have the angry, spiteful looks he’s giving me now. I ease into my desk and feel him glowering behind me, sharpening his switchblade to plunge into my back as soon as Mr. Burk turns the other way. If he makes up his final from today’s lesson, I’ll be a junior again next year—I won’t remember anything that went on today.
I avoid the cafeteria at lunchtime. I need to memorize more lines, so I decide to go outside. A quiet table or a tree would be good, but good just doesn’t seem to happen at Las Pulgas High and I have to settle for the steps to the auditorium. I’m focused on my tuna sandwich and reviewing Act II when Juan sits beside me.
“‘How do you, Desdemona?’” His Othello voice fills the air.
“I’d say, ‘Well, my good lord,’ if I could.”
“Rough today?”
“Pick another adjective with more edges.” I have to talk through tuna and I’m sorry I chose fish.
He has a bottle of water and sips from it. “How’s the Desdemona part coming?”
“Okay. Lots of lines. Lots of strange language.”
“Let’s see.” He thinks a bit. “‘Give me your hand:’” He reaches for my free hand, but I pull away. “You don’t know the lines yet, do you?”
“I know them,” I tell him.
“Show me,” he says. This time he takes my hand and doesn’t let go. “‘This hand is moist, my lady.’”
“‘It yet [has] felt no age or known no . . . sorrow.’” Only the first half of that is true.
“You do know them.” He laughs, but stops when he looks at me. “So what’s gone down?”
No way am I sharing my feelings with Juan Pacheco. Eyes track me. I douse conversations in the halls. When I pass, whispers follow me like stinging insects, and now my grumpy lab partner growls at me before I screw up in chemistry lab. Who knows what Chico and K.T. are planning to do to me? Whenever I go to the apartment I have watch out for snarly Anthony, who just might push me over the balcony railing. I give Juan a condensed version. “Chico’s close to stabbing me and K.T.’s getting ready to write a rap eulogy in my honor.”
Juan hasn’t released my hand. I’m about to yank free, tell him to get away and stay away when he moves closer and his smell of spicy aftershave and laundry-clean clothes compete with the tuna I’ve just swallowed.
“I talked to Chico,” he says. “He’s a hothead when it comes to his reputation, and that’s all about how fast he is on the track. He’s mad about what your brother sprayed in the gym, but my dad knows his dad, so he’s not going to do anything to you. And K.T.? She’s a royal pain, but she’s got serious trouble at home. She acts tough to get through a lot of bad stuff.”
I’m not sure I believe that, and my expression says so.
“Her mom killed herself last year, so she lives with her grandmother now.”
Killed herself. Those are such ugly words. “That’s horrible.”
“Yeah. She hung herself, and K.T. was the one who found her.”
The hanging woman! That hideous drawing and the way K.T. lunged at that girl, ripping off her clothes—now it all makes sense. And now I understand why everybody cuts her so much slack—her rappy Desdemona, her brawls—everything. Mr. Smith, the principal, even most of the other kids put up with her in-your-face attitude.
“She's always been bossy, so she’s made a few enemies. Some are mean enough to use what happened to her mom to get back at her.”
“The fight when she broke her leg . . . was it about her mom, too?”
He nods. “Some kids at Las Pulgas are trouble, but most aren’t.” He turns my hand palm up as if he plans to read it. “My dad graduated from here. After college he came back because he thought it was a good place to live.”
His dad went to college?
He looks as if I’ve asked him that question out loud.
“Mexicans go to college.”
“I didn’t mean—” Yanking my hand away, I slam my script on the steps. “I hate to disagree with your dad, but you’re choosing the wrong adjective again. Good and Las Pulgas do not go together.”
/> He leans toward me until I feel his breath on my cheek. “Maybe it’ll grow on you.”
“Ah, my two leading actors.”
Juan move back and I turn quickly to met our English teacher’s dark, smiling eyes.
“Rehearsing?” Mr. Smith asks.
“Just helping Desdemona with a few lines.” Juan’s smug voice almost gags me. How did I let him worm his way into my confidence like that? The only difference between him and Chico is he’s a make-love-not-war hood, but he’s still trouble.
My face has to be as red because I feel the heat in my cheeks, but Juan doesn’t look one bit concerned about being caught pressed so close to me.
“She’s almost got it right,” he tells Mr. Smith.
I’d love to punch him out, but he’s already gotten up and is halfway down the sidewalk, leaving me to face Mr. Smith alone.
My teacher sits next to me in Juan’s place on the auditorium step. “I’m pleased to see you took my advice, Miss Edmund.”
“Advice?”
“It was about coming to like your classmates, but you probably didn’t need me to say that. You’re doing just fine.”
I remember and now my face grows even hotter. I want to tell him it isn’t that I gave Juan a chance, but that he, well, he—
I’m scrambling to think of something to say that will shift his attention away from that too-friendly moment with Juan when he says, “I’m sorry about your brother’s trouble.”
“That’s the first time he’s ever done anything wrong. Well, not wrong, but bad.”
“I’m sure of it.” He gazes at the chain link fence that separates school property from the sidewalk. “I know how difficult it is to make the adjustment between Channing and Las Pulgas.”
The Princess of Las Pulgas Page 10
