Survival Strategies of the Almost Brave

by Jen White

  The hotel pool had been easy to find. After Billie and me walked around the building looking for a pay phone, we turned the corner and, bam, there it was. Like maybe Mom had sent it down to us from outer space. A perfect place where Billie and me could wash off grime and pee. After that we could find a phone.

  Of course, the gate around the pool was locked. The sign said no swimming after nine o’clock, but after taking the Lavender Lady’s money, I just kind of decided that the rules didn’t apply to Billie and me. I climbed the fence and found a place where Billie could slide through.

  Now swimming in the pool, I imagined I was a sea turtle, gliding through the ocean. The moon glistened on my back and my baby sea turtle sister swam next to me. I knew it wasn’t true, but it was a nice thought as Billie and I swam naked in the outdoor swimming pool. It was dark, and it was pretty late. No one had walked by, not even once.

  The water was still warm from baking in the desert sun all day. I couldn’t believe our luck; it was like an oasis just for us. The pool was amoeba-shaped. It had little nooks and crannies, some in very dark spaces, surrounded by hedges and rows of lounge chairs. It felt hidden and safe. But more than anything, it felt good to wash off everything that had happened today.

  I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t just done it. Now I needed to plan our next step. But I couldn’t think without making a list. Clasping the edge of the pool to catch my breath, I saw my notebook sitting on the lounge chair I had pulled near a row of hedges. Just seeing it there, waiting for me to fill it with everything I knew, calmed me.

  “Liberty, watch.” Billie floated on her back in the shallow end. The only light came from the glow of the moon.

  “That’s awesome,” I whispered.

  Billie had found an old damp towel that someone had left behind. I spread it out next to a lawn chair, behind a row of bushes. I rinsed Billie’s clothes out in chlorine water and laid them on the warm cement to dry.

  I swam over to the shadowy side of the pool and pulled myself up. My hands and toes were pruney, and the concrete from the bottom of the pool had chewed away at my feet, leaving the edges raw. I padded over to the towel and wrapped myself up. The breeze tickled my skin and covered me in goose bumps. I glanced up at the hotel floors; there were three levels surrounding the pool, some windows black and some bright like eyeballs, reflecting back the light. Maybe everyone was safe, except for us.

  “Billie, come here,” I whispered. I didn’t have to remind her to be quiet. She knew.

  As she swam over, the water rippled behind her like a dolphin tail. The little crease between her eyes deepened, like it had been forever part of her face, a baby S-shaped snake in the center of her forehead. It had crept there and stayed after Mom died.

  I knelt down and pulled her closer to me through the water, cocooned in the shadows of the pool.

  “I thought of the best joke,” I whispered, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “What did the baby zebra say to the other baby zebra?”

  She balanced a little army man she had found on the ledge. It teetered and fell in. She shook her head. Her flyaway hair had already begun to dry. Her pinched face looked tired.

  “No jokes, Liberty. I’m hungry. When are we going to eat?”

  I had to face it sometime. Billie never was her best self when she was hungry. I didn’t want her to have a meltdown. We needed to find something to eat and we needed to call Julie.

  “When’s Dad coming? I want Koala.”

  Dad.

  I shoved him out of my brain and locked it tight. I reached for Billie’s face so I could get a better look at her cheek. The swelling had gone down, but a purplish bruise had formed.

  “Why do you care after he did that to you?” I asked. It should have been me, not her. I had tried to protect her. I really had, but—

  “He didn’t mean to,” Billie said. “It was my fault.”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  “Yes, it must have been. Or why would he do it?”

  “Because there’s something wrong with him,” I said.

  “Like what?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t know.

  After the first few days, Dad started to change. He forgot what a kid needed. Like a shower, or breakfast, or clothes that didn’t smell like sweat or campfires. I had to remind him when we needed to eat. The longer we stayed with Dad, the more he got:

  1. Standoffish.

  2. Annoyed.

  3. Angry.

  “It wasn’t our fault, Billie. He’s the dad. Mom would have never done that to us.”

  Tears filled her eyes. I shouldn’t have said that. Internally, I had banned Mom from our conversations because it made Billie so upset. She let me pull her into an awkward hug. “It’s okay. I’m going to take care of us. We’re going home.”

  She pulled away. “We are? Going home! To San Diego? When?” A smile flashed across her face. Her real one. The golden one.

  “Yes. We’re going home. After tonight, okay? But first I’m going to find a phone.”

  Billie’s voice got whiny. “I’m hungry.”

  “Shh,” I whispered as I helped her out of the water. “Fine. Food first.”

  I gave her my damp towel and wrapped it around her scrawny little back. I sat her on the lawn chair crouching in the shadows and quickly pulled my clothes over my wet skin.

  “Your clothes are still drying, so you sit here in the towel and wait.”

  She nodded.

  I glanced up at the hotel windows; now only three of them had lights on. I squinted, imagining a fly’s eye with three thousand lenses staring down, ready to call Cowboy to come and get us.

  I tucked Billie farther back onto the chair, deeper into the shadows, hiding my most precious item. The towel was pulled tight around her. Was this how a sea turtle felt after she buried her eggs and slid back into the ocean? Like she might throw up stuff like sea grass and algae that churned in her stomach? Like it was the worst thing she ever had to do, to leave her shiny eggs glittering like gold in the wet sand, where anything might happen to them?

  “You stay here and wait for me. I’ll be right back.”

  Billie nodded. She leaned back and closed her eyes. The little crease on her forehead seemed smaller, like maybe she could be almost golden again.

  Survival Strategy #17:

  ACCLIMATE

  Through the glass door, I couldn’t see anyone at the front desk. I reached into my pocket and touched the money, just to be sure. I leaned in closer. To the right of the front desk there was a little shop inside, but I couldn’t tell if it was open. Maybe they had snacks and some flip-flops for Billie.

  With Billie alone at the pool I knew I didn’t have a lot of time. I pulled the money out of my pocket again and counted it. Yes, eighty dollars. I shoved the guilt and the image of the Lavender Lady’s face back into my pocket with the money. What could I do about it now?

  A bell echoed through the empty lobby as I opened the door. To the right was the shop. I paused and waited for someone to come out from the door behind the front desk, but nothing happened. All was quiet.

  Once, when I was seven, I stayed at a hotel with my mom and Billie when we went to a funeral of my mom’s only living relative, her great-aunt. Billie was too little and probably didn’t even remember, but I did, especially the elevator.

  While Mom was trying to get Billie and our bags inside the elevator, the doors closed. It had gone up a floor with just me inside. At first I screamed Mom’s name, but then I stopped because I hated the way my voice echoed against the metal doors. At the top the elevator opened, but no one was there. I curled into the corner and waited and eventually the elevator went back down.

  When the door slid open again, Billie said, “Bertie!” (which was the baby way she used to say my name).

  And Mom said, “Thank God, Liberty. That’s all I need right now—to lose one of you girls.” She had shifted Billie onto her other hip. “I knew you’d stay put. You always do the right t
hing.”

  She pulled the luggage cart inside and stroked my hair. “What would I ever do without you?”

  Little did she know I was the one who would have to do the living without. Even at seven I knew it was my job to be responsible. Always.

  Now I inched closer to the shelves stacked with things like tissue and aspirin and Doritos. There were no flip-flops, but there were a few other things to eat mixed in with souvenirs. I crept forward and stood purposely behind the postcard rack, hoping no one would come. The postcards said WELCOME TO WILLIAMS and HELLO FROM THE GRAND CANYON. We were near the Grand Canyon? That was on the way back to California. We had passed the Grand Canyon sign on the way to Four Corners. I had wanted to see it. But Dad said no.

  Suddenly, the postcard rack turned and its gears let out a horrible squeal. I jumped back, knocking over a bunch of packages of Nutter Butters that sat behind me. I scrambled to pick them up.

  A long dark face with furry caterpillar eyebrows stared down at me. “Can I help you?” he asked as he crouched down to pick up the rest of the cookies.

  I stood up. “No. I mean yes. I mean…” I tried to stack the Nutter Butter packages, but they kept sliding around like fish skin. I faced Caterpillar Eyebrows and took a deep breath, trying to quiet the spiders in my stomach. “My-mom-sent-me-down-for-some-aspirin-she’s-got-a-terrible-headache,” I said, and snatched the aspirin off the shelf.

  He paused. The caterpillar eyebrows stopped wiggling.

  Please believe me.

  He shuffled toward the cash register. “All righty then.” He punched a button on the machine and held out his hand. “Is that it?”

  We couldn’t eat aspirin for dinner. I needed food. I shook my head. Pull it together, Liberty. Fake it. It was just like before when we stayed at a hotel with Mom. I could make myself believe that she really was upstairs in bed with a headache. It was true. I willed myself to pretend it was true.

  “Uhh. No.” I slid back to the shelves, pulling things off, making sure I stayed clear of the Nutter Butters. “I’ll take these, too.” I set an armful of junk food down on the counter.

  He eyed my pile suspiciously.

  Now I stared at it, too. Turkey jerky. Sunflower seeds. Potato chips. Mini doughnuts. Mentos. Peanut butter crackers (Billie loved peanut butter crackers). Not really the dinner I was hoping for, but … “I’ll take these, too.” I sat two bottles of water right next to everything else. “My mom hates to take medicine on an empty stomach.”

  Slowly, he started scanning my items. “Well, I don’t know if this is going to set too well with aspirin, but—”

  “Do you have anything healthier?”

  He shook his head. “Not unless she wants to wait until morning. That’s when we do the continental breakfast. But then it’s just bagels and oatmeal.”

  “Oh, the breakfast?”

  “Yep, comes free with every night booked. Didn’t Doreen tell you that when you checked in? How many nights are you staying?” He stopped midscan—frozen, eyeing me, with his caterpillar brows quivering like they were trying to sniff out the truth.

  I picked at a scab on my elbow. “Oh yeah, I think she told my mom. We’re leaving tomorrow anyway.”

  The caterpillars stopped wiggling and he went back to scanning. “You folks heading over to the Grand Canyon? Are you taking the train over?”

  “Uh. Yeah. Isn’t that what you do around here?”

  “That train ride sure is nice. You can see for miles. Where you from?”

  “We’re from, um, Wichita.” I had always liked how that sounded—Wichita. Who wouldn’t want to be from a place called Wichita?

  “Is that so? Well, welcome to the Wild West,” he said, his caterpillar eyebrows wiggling. “You know, I have a granddaughter about your age. She just loves coming here for a visit. You will certainly love the canyon, except you need to watch out for the diamondback rattlesnakes this season. It’s a little cool this year. They’re coming out of their hiding places in droves, so watch where you step.”

  I nodded.

  “That will be thirty-six twenty-one. Do you want to charge that to your room?”

  My room? Should I charge it to the Lavender Lady’s room? I didn’t even know how to do that. Didn’t she say 202? I couldn’t. But … No, definitely not.

  Instead, I pulled out her money and peeled off two twenty-dollar bills and set them on the counter. The spiders in my stomach quieted. Survival was survival.

  He handed me my change. “Do you want a bag for that?”

  “Yes.” The clock sitting behind the cash register said 10:34. I had to get back to Billie. I grabbed the bag and headed for the front door.

  “The rooms are down that way,” he said, gesturing toward the hallway. The caterpillars narrowed a titch.

  “Oh sorry, I just got turned around,” I said.

  He relaxed. “I hope your mother feels better.”

  “She will,” I called over my shoulder.

  He seemed nice. I bet he was a good grandpa. For a minute, since I was pretending, I imagined he was mine. And Billie and me could live right here at the hotel and go to the Grand Canyon anytime we wanted. For a second, it felt really nice to have a grandpa who was alive instead of dead. But really, I didn’t even know if I had one alive grandpa. When I asked Dad about his father, he said he never knew him, so I guess he could still be out there somewhere. He could be anyone, even Caterpillar Eyebrows!

  But then my thoughts were interrupted by something amazing. I saw it right out of the corner of my eye. A phone in the hallway! A pay phone sat innocently to my left, like it didn’t even know how beautiful it was. Like it didn’t even know how it was the answer to all my problems. We could call Julie. I could call her right now and she could come pick us up. No Cowboy. No Dad. No separation. Just me and Billie in our old condo and Julie to take us back to our old life. Except Mom wouldn’t be there. But still, it was better than this.

  I lifted the black receiver and put it to my ear. Even the dial tone sounded hopeful. Then I remembered Billie, damp, in the shadows, and definitely all alone at the pool. The spiders in my stomach threatened to revolt. I had to get back to her. First, I’d get Billie and then we could call. I ran down the hall, the plastic bag bouncing against my thigh. Nothing mattered, not even rescue, unless I had her.

  Survival Strategy #18:

  DON’T GET COMFORTABLE

  “These are my favorite,” said Billie as she shoved peanut butter crackers into her mouth. Cracker crumbs fell onto her lap. She licked her finger and dabbed them up. If it was possible, the pool felt even quieter than before. We sat on the lounge chair, the one near the broken pool light.

  “I-mow,” I mumbled, trying not to choke on the three stale-ish mini doughnuts I had shoved into my mouth. I scraped the waxy chocolate off my front teeth with my tongue; probably Caterpillar Eyebrows didn’t sell many doughnuts off his shelf. Still, they were good. We hadn’t eaten much today. For breakfast, we’d had strawberry Pop-Tarts. But I shoved the memory away.

  Only good things now.

  Only good things would come to Billie and me. I used my mind powers to make it come true.

  Billie held up another package of peanut butter crackers. “Can I have these, too?”

  “Of course. Don’t I always buy you two when Dad gives me money for food?”

  “Yeah.”

  That was my job. To feed Billie, like my baby bird. Dad didn’t want to have to worry about it. He always gave me the money, and I worked it out, usually at a gas station. Sometimes there was a restaurant at a truck stop, but Dad didn’t like to go to restaurants. I think too many people.

  “You should eat this, too,” I said, holding up the turkey jerky. “You need protein.”

  Billie shook her head.

  “You need it, Billie. All animals need it.”

  “Is it the spicy kind?”

  I shook my head.

  She grabbed a piece and shoved it in her mouth. “Tell me what else animals need.”<
br />
  I swallowed hard. That was easy. “They need food, shelter, water, most need sun, and…” I hesitated and thought about the ants from this morning. All of them with their skinny ant arms dragging that chip across the parking lot, helping one another like a family should. “And they need one another, someone to look after them.”

  “They do?” asked Billie.

  I nodded. Of course they did, didn’t they? I guess sea turtles didn’t, but I’m sure the mom was sad to leave her eggs.

  “How do they look after one another?”

  “Like how I watch after you.”

  She made a face. “I know, but how do animals do it?”

  I crumpled my doughnut wrapper into a tiny ball and glanced around the pool. Everything was quiet except for the occasional hum of a machine that sat beside the pool. Tucked behind the hedges, we were safe. And in just a few minutes I was going to call Julie. Now I could almost breathe. I continued, “Well, dolphins talk to other dolphins; like, they tell them where the good fish is or if there is danger.”

  “How?”

  “With clicks and whistles and stuff.”

  Billie chirped at me through a mouthful of crackers.

  “Shh,” I said, smiling. She knew dolphins were my favorite. “And killer whales stay together forever—at least the moms and babies do.”

  “What happens to the dads?”

  “They’re not allowed.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they like to be by themselves. But the moms and babies make a group called a pod and they stay together until they die.”

  I balled up the peanut butter cracker trash.

  She nodded some more, her eyes glistening. “Like us. We’re a pod,” she whispered. “Except we don’t have a mom anymore.”

  Even if I never talked about Mom, she was always in my brain, floating around, trying to get me to pay attention to her. I wondered if Billie was thinking about that awful day like I was.