Girls in Trouble: A Novel

by Caroline Leavitt

  “You’re crazy,” Anne said, but she flushed, pleased that Flor would think she might actually have a boy interested in her.

  “Like that dress,” Flor said, “it’s different than what you usually wear. It’s you.” Flor walked with her, idly talking. “There’s a group of us going to hang out at Bobby’s this afternoon,” she said casually. “Maybe you could go.”

  Anne glanced at Flor to see if she had heard her right. Flor never invited Anne anywhere, never even thought to. “Can’t make it,” Anne said cheerfully. “I’m meeting a friend.”

  “Oh?” Flor said, and then they were walking past Burger Heaven and there in the window, at a corner table, in a short paisley dress and high boots, her long hair wild about her, was Sara. “Wow, look at that babe,” Flor said. Flor’s eyes were glued to Sara, right up until Sara spotted Anne and waved happily, and then Flor turned her stare to Anne. “See you,” Anne said, and she pulled open the door and walked inside.

  Anne slid into the booth just as Sara got up. “Be right back,” Sara said. “Just going to the ladies’ room.”

  Sara was gone so long, Anne took out her notebook and started to write. Carolyn, the waitress, the one Mr. Moto loathed, was out on the town with the housewife she had met, and the two of them were spilling their hearts out, bonding, telling each other everything.

  “What are you writing?” Sara asked, and Anne jumped. She looked around dazed. She had been so deep into her writing, she hadn’t heard Sara’s footsteps. Anne quickly closed the notebook.

  “I just like to fool around,” Anne said.

  “It didn’t look like fooling around to me.” Sara sat down. “Could I see?”

  Anne pushed the notebook aside. “No, no, forget it. It’s horrible.”

  Sara shrugged. “Okay,” she said, and reached for a menu, and suddenly, the fact that she didn’t press made Anne want to show her. She nudged her notebook forward.

  “Just read a little,” Anne said. “No more than a page.”

  The whole time Sara was reading, Anne was so nervous, she could hardly sit still. Sara finished a page and turned another, but Anne didn’t tell her to stop. She anxiously watched Sara’s face for reaction. Sara slowly shut the notebook and studied Anne. “You hated it?” Anne asked.

  “I loved it,” Sara said.

  “You did? You’re not kidding? Really?”

  “Really. You have talent.”

  “My English teacher, Mr. Moto, said I couldn’t write at all. He gave me an F.”

  “He’s completely insane. Look at this line,” Sara said. “‘The spoon made whirlpools of cream in the coffee.’” I like that.” She shrugged. “Your teacher doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

  “Do you write?” Anne hesitated. “Is that where I get it from?”

  Sara laughed. “Some people think I write. I wouldn’t know what I’d call it.”

  “Can I see?”

  Sara laughed even louder. “The right whites,” she said. “Blanc de blancs.”

  Anne looked confused. “I don’t get it—” she said doubtfully, and Sara laughed again.

  “Catalog copy,” Sara said. “I’m a hack.” She grinned, cheerful. “Turn on red. The skirt flirts with possibilities in deepest crimson.”

  “That’s what you do?” Anne laughed. “That’s your job?”

  “You’re the real writer. I don’t have that gift. But you—” Sara shook her head in admiration. “You’re the real thing.”

  * * *

  Anne got home by ten. “Where were you?” Eva said, but Anne was too fired up to say anything more than, “Library.” She couldn’t wait to get to her room, to write. “You have talent,” Sara had told her. “You’re the real thing.” All those days and days of yearning to be something else, someone else, and here was Sara telling her she was real. What did it matter what Mr. Moto thought? What did it matter that her parents didn’t see it?

  Sara did.

  Anne lay on her bed, her mind zooming. She started thinking about another Carolyn story, about the waitress discovering she had a long-lost daughter. “By five, she found her.” That was the first line.

  She suddenly bolted up. Oh shit, shit, shit. Oh holy fuck. She forgot she had a book report due for Mr. Moto, and she hadn’t written one, she hadn’t even chosen a book for it. Shit. She couldn’t get another failing grade, not from him, not from any class. She got up and flicked on the light by her desk. Shit, shit, what was she going to do? Drumming fingers on the desk, she tried to dredge up a book she had recently read, something she might write about. She thought about Sara, on the Greyhound, with her as a baby clutched in Sara’s arms, and then suddenly, she clicked on her computer.

  She made up a book, Forget Me Not, and an author, H. R. Fleebling, a novel about a woman who kidnapped her daughter and brought her on a Greyhound bus and got away with it. Then, fueled, she started to write her book report. “Forget Me Not is lyrically written, beautifully told,” Anne wrote, “this book makes you believe that happiness is possible.” She wrote for twenty minutes, printed it out, and then went to bed.

  When she handed it in the next day, Mr. Moto looked at her with hooded, lizard eyes. She was too keyed up with everything that was going on to worry about it, not that day, or even the next, when she was in his class again, and he approached her desk, looming over her, so she lowered her eyes. Here it comes, she thought. Another F.

  “Well, this is a surprise. Another deviation from your usual poor performance,” he said, and she glanced up at him. He was still holding the paper, one hand over the grade. Around her, the other kids slumped in their seats, trying to be inconspicuous.

  “Probably the book you chose made the difference,” said Mr. Moto, fluttering the paper in his hand. “And your sticking to the facts, fiction certainly not being your forte. I’ll have to check that novel out myself,” he said and put the paper down on her desk. “Now, as for your work, Mr. Lapro-dose,” Mr. Moto said to the boy who sat behind Anne, “shall we discuss your little adjective problem?” And then Anne dared to look at her grade, and every other voice in the classroom disappeared.

  Anne stared, astonished. She had only thought she’d pass, but her nerve had made her pull off something even greater. A. It was an A. The first he had ever given her. “Good job,” he had written. She touched the paper and laughed so loudly, the girl in front of her turned around. “What’s so frigging funny?” she asked Anne, who laughed even louder.

  George could barely get to work anymore. He hated to go to work, but he hated to come home, too, because as soon as he did, he felt the tension in the air. He didn’t know what was happening, only that things were snowballing. He couldn’t concentrate at work. Patients were noticing, canceling. He was losing some of his practice. But worse than that, far worse, he was losing Anne. He used to come home and find her everywhere. Now he was hyperaware of every change in her. He noticed a new tone in her voice that he couldn’t pin down. He noticed she was wilder-looking somehow. Her hair was longer, curlier, and he hated it. What he hated more, though, was the way she ran to Sara, the way her whole body changed when she got on the phone, how he didn’t even have to hear her say “Sara” to know that it was her on the line, and then the two of them talked for hours.

  He knew it was natural for Anne to want to know her birth mother. He knew every book, every statistic, said it was important for adopted kids to trace their roots, to know where they came from, but the one thing those books and statistics didn’t take into account was a birth mother who had tried to take the baby, who was trying to take her now, at least in spirit, and Anne, sixteen and impressionable, the age when most kids wished they didn’t have parents at all, seemed more than willing to go. His heart tumbled inside of him. Come back, come back, he wanted to shout to Anne. Don’t go.

  He used to think he could reclaim her. As soon as his work problems were settled, he could devote himself to her again, he could take her places, the way he used to. All he needed was time. Anne went to
movies and out to dinner with Sara—he and Eva would take her there, too, if she’d let them.

  It was a beautiful night. “Let’s all go take in a movie,” he offered, but Anne was flying out the door. “Gotta go,” she said.

  “Go?” George said, baffled. “Go where?”

  “You know where she’s going,” Eva said quietly. “Where she always goes.”

  “What’s wrong with scheduled visits? With limited time? With visiting her when she’s right here in this house with us?” George asked.

  Eva stared at him. “You sound the way Sara’s parents used to when we proposed open adoption.” She sighed. “I deal with this all day. She’s never home, but neither are you these days, and you expect it to work out all right.”

  “Eva!” he said, but she turned away from him, and he suddenly felt pained with loneliness, and he reached for her. Come back, he wanted to say to her, too. “Come sit outside with me,” he said, but Eva was halfway to the kitchen. “I’ll be outside,” he called to her, and he sat out, waiting for her to come out, too, sitting until it got cool and dark, until the neighborhood emptied out, until it seemed like there was no one else in the world but him.

  chapter

  fourteen

  It was three in the morning in her hotel room and Sara was awake, sitting cross-legged on her bed, ticking off all the amazing things she knew about her daughter. Anne’s favorite color was blue. Anne’s favorite writing pen was a black fineline Pilot. She doused her popcorn with grated cheese and peppered her fries. Every little detail was a revelation, and the more she knew about Anne, the more she wanted to know.

  She couldn’t imagine leaving her; she had to find a way to stay. “I think my parents are pissed at you,” Anne told her, and Sara didn’t tell Anne how Eva had called the other night to ask Sara when she was planning to leave.

  Sara thought of being back in New York and she felt undone. That whole life paled before this one. The only thing that mattered to her in New York was Scott.

  Scott. She thumped fingers on the bedspread. When she was at her parents’, she had missed him so much it made her a little crazy; he had been like a glass of water on a table too far away from her, and there she was dying of thirst. This was the first time he had been in her thoughts since she got to Florida.

  She reached over for the phone and dialed Scott’s number. It rang a few times and then, abruptly, she hung up the phone, sitting back on the bed. What would she say if he answered, that she missed him, that she wanted him to come here? And what if he said no?

  She had been here a month already and her money was dwindling at an alarming rate. She made her lunches from the vending machines, she went to the diner for dinner and filled up on grilled cheese, the cheapest thing on the menu. She would find a way to stay here. She could get a job, an apartment. She was determined to save enough money to hire a lawyer and see just what her rights concerning Anne were. Her rights. What a thrilling phrase!

  She slid down into the bed. Sleep, she told herself. She’d find a job if it killed her.

  At first, she felt ridiculously hopeful. She had found Anne, surely she could find a great job, too, but as she scanned the listings, her hope grew as small and skimpy as the listings. There was an advertisement for a copywriter for an automotive firm, an editor for a supermarket flyer, nothing terribly exciting, but still, they were jobs with steady pay, with benefits, work that might anchor her here with Anne. She’d call them all.

  “Just hired someone,” a voice told her when she called about the editorial slot. “Sure, come by,” said a woman at the automotive firm, “but I should tell you that the pay is only a bit above minimum wage.” Sara hung up. With pay that low, she’d have to take on two other jobs just to barely scrape by, and then she’d have no time to see Anne at all.

  Sara spent two weeks calling places. She and Anne never really talked about her staying, but she couldn’t help seeding her conversation with things like “don’t worry,” and every time she did, Anne’s face was so bright, it made Sara even more determined.

  By the next week, Sara began to panic. Her money was almost gone. She could probably let her New York City rent slide for a month, but her landlord gave people problems if they wanted to sublet, and in the time Sara had been there, he had even evicted two people on the first floor, and although it had taken months and months, it hadn’t been pleasant. No, she couldn’t risk that. And the hotel would want more money soon, too. She bought the paper every day, she made blind calls, she tried other employment agencies, but still she had no job. She could cash in her plane ticket, which would tide her over for a while, but then what if she didn’t find a job after that?

  She sat with her head in her hands, trying to figure out what to do. Madame, she thought. If she still had her job, she could go back to New York. Just for a while. She could ask for a raise, she could save more money and take her time looking for work down here. She could have more time to talk to Scott, to try to work things out. Maybe he’d come here with her. The thought of leaving Anne made her crazy, but it was the only way.

  She picked up the phone and dialed. Hal probably had fired her already. He probably would make his secretary talk to her. To her surprise, though, he answered.

  “Sara?” Hal’s voice was rushed. “When are you coming back?” he said.

  That evening, Anne bounced happily into the room, a red Gap backpack like the one Sara carried slung casually on her shoulder. “You’re not ready?” she asked.

  Oh God. The movies—Sara had been so preoccupied she had completely forgotten.

  “I’ve got a stash,” Anne said, tapping the backpack. “Mars bars, chips. Soda. Maybe we can make it a double feature, sneak into another one, like last time.”

  Sara smiled weakly. How could she do this? How could she convince

  Anne it was the best thing to do? “Anne—” she said, and as she looked at her daughter’s bright happy face, her mouth went dry. “Sit,” Sara begged.

  Anne glanced at her watch. “Okay, but we’ll miss the previews,” Anne said. She plunked down on the bed, bouncing on the springs, making them squeak. “Looks like someone let the air out of you,” Anne said. “Hope it wasn’t my parents. What a fight I had with them this morning over coming here!”

  She wanted to say it right, to take her time and sound calm. “I have to go back to New York,” Sara said. “Just until I can save money, and until I can get some work here.” Anne grew still. “It’s just temporary,” Sara insisted.

  “We’re leaving here?” Anne asked uncertainly.

  “No, no, of course not!”

  Anne’s backpack slid off her shoulder, thunking to the floor, but she didn’t bother to pick it up. “I don’t know what my parents would do if I left—I know they’d try to stop me, they’d make it so rough—” She rubbed one thumb along her fingers, deep in thought.

  “Anne—”

  “But I don’t know what I’d do if you left me here.” Her voice speeded up. Her shoulders rose with her breathing. “I can always go to school in New York, right? Or maybe I can get a job.”

  Sara threw up her hands. “Anne, you can’t quit school! And you’re not listening to me. Even if I thought it was a good idea, which I don’t, I can’t take you. You’re a minor. It’d be kidnapping! And this time, the charges would stick. I have to do everything right!”

  “Is leaving me right? I thought we were best friends!”

  “Anne! I’m not your best friend!”

  Anne’s neck snapped back, as if Sara had slapped her. Her mouth crumpled. “You are mv best friend! We think alike, we dress the same—we are the same—”

  “Anne, I can’t be your best friend! I’m your mother —I have to be responsible!” Sara reached to touch Anne, but Anne jerked away from her so hard, she knocked Sara’s brush off the dresser, and then Anne knocked everything else from the dresser, too, keys and loose change and Sara’s Gap knapsack, the same as Anne’s, and then Anne whipped around to face Sara. “My moth
er?” Anne said, incredulous. “I don’t need a mother! I have a mother, thank you very much. I need a friend—something I thought you were!”

  “Look, I made a lot of mistakes when I was a kid—I’m trying to do things right—”

  “Now I’m a mistake?” Anne cried. “I hate you! I wish I never heard of you at all!” Anne sprang up from the bed. She strode to the door and yanked it open.

  “Anne! Oh God, I didn’t mean—” Sara cried, but Anne was gone.

  * * *

  Anne didn’t know where she was going. Her heart was a hard little marble inside of her, rolling crazily around in her chest. She couldn’t go with Sara, couldn’t stay here without her, either. Couldn’t go home and face her parents’ relief when they discovered Sara had left her. She dug in her jeans. Ten bucks. Her just-in-case money Eva always made her carry, because you never knew what could happen. You never do know, Anne thought, helplessly. Ten dollars wouldn’t get her very far but at least it was something. She walked along the road, sluicing her tears with her fingers.

  She didn’t believe for one moment that Sara would come back. People could say things all they wanted, but it didn’t make them true. She felt so alone. Where was there a place for her? She used to have friends. She used to feel like she had parents. She used to have Sara. She looked out across the highway, at the cars zooming past her.

  But she still had a father.

  He floated up in her mind, a tracking blip on a radar screen, growing louder, more insistent. She could go find him, show up at his doorstep and present herself and he’d have to take her in because she had nowhere else to go. He had loved Sara, maybe he’d love her, too. Sara had said he lived in Pittsburgh. He shouldn’t be so hard to locate, and she had all the right in the world to find him. And he had no right to turn her away.

  She stood out on the road and jabbed out her thumb. Who cared about dangers? What more could happen to her that hadn’t happened already?

  Eva was at home waiting for George, waiting for Anne, who was late, and Eva didn’t have to wonder where she was. She knew, all right. And she knew with whom.