Compromised

by Heidi Ayarbe

  I shrug and throw more clothes in the pack until it bulges. Beulah leads me out to her car.

  I turn back and see a man lock our front door and stick some paper up. There’s already a sign on the lawn: BANK OWNED PROPERTY.

  That didn’t take long.

  Beulah drives me to Kids Place—a “middle ground shelter,” as she calls it. We coast through the gate and park between small square houses painted yellow with white trim. A heavy woman with bread-kneading hands meets us on the walk. She takes my backpack and grips my hand in hers. “I’m Rose. Welcome.”

  She strides ahead of us, her hips swaying back and forth. “Beulah’s your social worker,” she turns to say, “and I’m the one in charge here. We’ll check you in and take you around so you can get more comfortable.”

  Beulah and I follow Rose into a colorful office. Finger paintings are pasted on the walls and her bookshelves are covered in dioramas and toilet-paper-roll art projects. I sit next to Rose, across from Beulah.

  Rose hands me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and an apple.

  “That’s okay. I had breakfast.” I push them back. That burning feeling that started in my stomach spreads until it feels like all of my organs are on fire. Classic gastritis attack caused by stress. I hope they won’t take away the Pepto-Bismol I packed. That’s as much a staple in my diet as protein.

  Rose smiles and says, “I’ll leave you two for now,” and hands me an instruction manual. “Rules and Regulations of Kids Place.”

  Beulah registers my bag and takes out the Pepto-Bismol. “No medication here.”

  “But,” I start to say, and then think better of it. I have a bottle in my locker at school.

  She hands me a pile of stiff clothes. “These are for you.”

  “I have clothes.”

  She purses her lips. “It’s procedure.”

  Procedure.

  She has her scientific method, too, I guess.

  “This isn’t…,” She flips open a file that says AMAYA SORENSON and jots something down. “Amaya, this isn’t going to be an overnight thing.”

  AMAYA SORENSON. I have a file. She puts my name and case number in her computer.

  I clench my jaw and try to focus on the dinosaur dioramas—one of which is totally off since some kid put a Triassic dinosaur next to a Late Jurassic dinosaur, only the Triassic was extinct by then. Sloppy work.

  Beulah’s tapping on the keyboard brings me back to the room. “There,” she says. “Just need to get the basic information down. Your family doctor should be able to provide us with medical information we might need.”

  We have no family doctor, I think. I’ve never actually been to a real doctor, except for emergency rooms.

  I’m officially in “the system.”

  “We’re trying to contact family.” Beulah clears her throat. “Do you, um, know where your mother is?”

  I nod. “Dead.”

  When I came home from kindergarten, her lips were blue, her hands cold. I covered her with a blanket and waited for the doctors to come. Doctors are magicians. They had gotten her to come back before. I knew I just had to wait for them to turn Mama’s blue lips pink.

  Then we’d find a way to make her happy again. She wouldn’t want to go away. I’d be a really good girl.

  They drove up with flashing lights and a blaring siren. But the machines didn’t work. Or the pumping. Or the fluids they shot through her body.

  “Five minutes. If only we had gotten here five minutes ago,” I heard one of them say under his breath. Another one shook her head and pulled me away from Mama, covering her face with my soft pink sheet.

  Five minutes doesn’t sound like much. But five minutes is time enough to run through the big pile of raked leaves at the schoolyard three times, get a hair ribbon back from Jimmy Sanchez, sneak an Oreo from the cookie jar, or turn on the TV, the volume off, to see if the grown-up kissy shows are on.

  Five minutes is a lifetime.

  Dad ran through the door just as they were wheeling her into the back of the ambulance.

  “Ahem.” Beulah swallows and blushes. “Dead mother” is always something that gets people squirming. They want to know how, when, why. A kind of morbid curiosity. Some things, I’ve learned, are okay. She died of a terminal illness. She was in a car accident and slipped into a coma. She had a heart condition. People like those explanations.

  I usually say, “She had a neurotransmitter imbalance with deficiencies in seratonin and norepinephrine.” Most people don’t know what I’m talking about and just figure it’s some rare virus. Better that than telling someone that your mom downed a bottle of pills with a bottle of whiskey. That makes for some pretty awkward moments.

  People don’t “get” suicide. Who can blame them? It’s against nature considering we’re born with the instinct to strive for survival—it’s our biological inheritance. Think concentration camps, famine, slavery, and the will to live all those people had. All animals are wired to strive to survive. Humans, though, are the only animals that commit suicide; it’s like some people’s survival instinct gets all tweaked.

  Major evolutionary flaw.

  Beulah gives me one of those horrible pity looks. One I don’t need. I kind of figure if I’m over it, the rest of the world can find a way to deal with it. She leans forward and a crease forms between her eyes. Her cardboard suit crumples at the armpits and hips.

  “And, um, other relatives? That you know of?”

  I shake my head. The branches on my family tree are pretty bare. Dad and I have spent every Thanksgiving and Christmas at Denny’s or the local diner since Mom died. People think that’s sad. But it’s not. It’s just our way—our tradition. And it’s always been fine by me.

  “When can I talk to my dad?” I ask, staring at the phone.

  Beulah taps her pencil on the desk in a rat-a-tat-tat. “Right now”—she clears her throat—“right now your dad can’t talk to anyone except for his lawyers.”

  “Doesn’t he get a phone call? Isn’t that standard?”

  “It’s a pretty big federal investigation, and your dad has been put in isolation until things get weeded out. And—” She pauses.

  “And they need to weed me out.”

  She nods. “Something like that. But it won’t take long.”

  “Sure. Quick and fair trial.”

  The point of her pencil snaps off during her last rat-a-tat-tat. “Maybe, um, you can get settled in. I should have a clearer picture of what’s happening later today or tomorrow.”

  We leave the office and walk down the concrete path to one of the yellow houses. She opens the door and I gag on that industrial-clean smell. I look down the blindingly white hall. Colorful bulletin boards announce activities, birthdays, tutoring. I’d like to call somebody—anybody. But after two years in Reno, I haven’t made one close friend. Unless you count Eileen Jones, my chemistry lab partner.

  Eileen’s not really a reliable lab partner. Last week, for example, she got sick and blacked out when we were testing the oxidative rancidity of food. I missed out on a cool lab because I spent the rest of class with her at the nurse’s office. She brought me a thank-you card the next day.

  Friendship has always been a waste of time since I never know when Dad and I will be leaving with new identities and lives. And I definitely didn’t inherit Dad’s attractive genetics. I sigh.

  “This is your room and bunk. For now. Until we find appropriate placement.”

  I freeze in the doorframe, then exhale and throw my stuff on the top bunk Beulah assigns me.

  She clicks her pen in and out and clips some papers together. “Tomorrow things will look a little brighter.” Even Beulah’s smile is cardboard.

  It feels like I’ve swallowed a thousand cotton balls. It’s never gotten this bad. Sure, there was the time we had to sneak out the bathroom window of our apartment, scramble down the fire escape, and leave town. But that was more like an adventure. Dad was with me. And we always made it. Together.
r />   The last two years have been too good—like an NBC Family Channel sitcom without the token, politically correct minority character. I should’ve known it wouldn’t last. The nice car, nicer house. Suburbia in all its glory. I remember driving up that first day, not believing what I was seeing. After years of apartments, trailer houses, and seedy motels, Dad drove up to American suburbia.

  Our neighborhood looked like one of those model cities you see at science fairs. All the houses were that same Popsicle-stick color. Every yard followed regulation landscape rules with decorative rocks and desert plants. And an obligatory status SUV filled every driveway. American flags flapped in the wind.

  At first I thought I’d get lost in all the sameness. Like if Dad dropped me off, stripped the house of its number and streets of their signs, I’d never find it. It could be a new reality show: Suburban Survivor.

  You’ve got ten minutes to find your own home. Go!

  We pulled up to a house that looked like every other house.

  “What do you think?” Dad grinned. “I’ve got a great job now, honey. All those other things are behind us.”

  I looked at Dad and back at the cream-colored house. I blinked. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. The next-door neighbor waved enthusiastically. “Hey there! Welcome to the neighborhood!”

  I wasn’t ever allowed to talk to our neighbors. Not in our old places, anyway. Dad was already waving. He winked at me and grinned.

  “Why don’t you go and pick out your room?”

  I walked into the empty house that smelled like fresh paint and lemon wood polish. I sniffed. Not a trace of backed up sewers, urine, or greasy pizza. Almost too clean. The back windows faced mountains with blooming yellow sagebrush—not a dump or a back alley. Open Nevada-desert space.

  “Come on. Let’s check out the house.”

  The narrow entryway opened up to one of those great rooms, combining the living room, family room, dining room, and kitchen. In the back, a narrow staircase led upstairs.

  We walked up. I chose the first room on the left, with a view of the mountains. “How are we going to fill all the space?” I asked.

  Dad flashed his smile. “I guess we’d better go shopping.”

  I believed him. The human mind is funny like that because even if we stack up the evidence that shows life will go a certain way, we ignore the evidence and “believe”—deceiving ourselves. But I fell for it—that sense of normal. How stupid.

  “We’ve already called your school. They know you won’t be coming in today.”

  I hold my stomach and think about the half-full pink bottle stuck in my locker. “I can go. I don’t mind.”

  Beulah pats my shoulder. “You’re a great student. One day won’t interfere with your school performance.”

  I sigh.

  Beulah points to the rec room on my personalized orphanage tour. “You can play cards, read, just take it easy. Tomorrow we’ll have some answers—or some direction, at least.”

  She slips a gnawed pencil behind her ear. Her nails are ragged, chewed down to the skin. It has to be a really hard job, taking kids away from their parents. She leads me back to my room.

  I lie down on my bunk. Midday light glints off the polished floors.

  Dad’s in jail. I’m stuck at some orphanage. And for the first time in my life, everything has spiraled out of control. There isn’t going to be a nighttime “escape” or frantic rush to the train station. Dad isn’t going to surprise me at school midday to pick me up because we were going on an “adventure.”

  I’m screwed.

  I clutch my stomach and wonder how hard it would be to stage a prison break. Step one: State your purpose.

  Purpose: Break Dad out of prison.

  Yeah. Like that’s a normal thing for a fifteen-year-old to be considering.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Step two: Hypothesis. The hypothesis, though, is based on prior knowledge and observations. It’s not just some random shot in the dark.

  I try to think about ways to research prison and orphanage breaks—neither of which seem plausible outside the realm of Hollywood and Charles Dickens’s novels.

  I’m not a big fan of either.

  Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron…I finally fall asleep when I get to the Lanthanide series.

  “The freak’s back,” a husky voice rasps. The room smells like cheap perfume. “And we’re stuck with her in here.”

  The bedsprings groan as somebody flops onto the bottom bunk. She sniffles to the count of five. One, two, three, four, sniffle. One, two, three, four, sniffle. “They say she went on a hunger strike and they had to force food into her. Sniff.”

  “Fucking cracked. And the worst part is she never shuts up.”

  “I know. Her mouth is on total rerun mode.”

  “Just blow her off. Everyone else does.”

  I peel my eyes open and turn over on my side. “Hi,” I venture. “I’m Maya.” I’m not what you would call socially gifted to begin with, and have no idea how one goes about introducing herself in an orphanage.

  Two girls stare at me. The one bathed in drugstore perfume wears tight black jeans and a leather dog collar. I refrain from telling her that our noses are always homing in on potential mates, and with her stench, her breeding possibilities are slimmer than mine. (My lessened reproductive chances are due to the fact that my hair looks like a Brillo pad and I have way underdeveloped mammary glands.) The one on the bunk below me blows her nose on a ragged Kleenex stuffed in pudgy hands. Folds of milk-blue skin stick out from the top of her jeans.

  Just then a girl walks into the room and the other two get real quiet, looking right through her, like she’s invisible.

  I recognize that look.

  Dark circles ring the girl’s black eyes. Her arms are scarred and bruised. She stares at me, then turns her attention to the dog collar and Sniffles.

  “I’m back!” Her face transforms, and she cracks a smile, throwing her bag on the bottom bunk. “Move your shit, Jess. I get the bottom.”

  Jess glares and climbs up to the top bunk.

  The girl stares at the poster on the wall and rips it off; Sniffles winces. “What is this, Shelly? Another one of your ‘Dream Big’ posters?” She shakes her head. “Fucking psychobabble bullshit.”

  “Yeah. You’d know about that, Nicole,” Jess says.

  “Sure thing. I’m just a regular Vincent Gigante. This time they declared me depressive with thought disorder.” She laughs. “Last time it was manic depression. I have a list a mile long of cool diagnoses.” And she goes on about this guy Gigante—aka The Chin—and how he snowed over thirty-four psychiatrists over the years. She’s on number eight.

  Jess flips open a book and puts in earphones, cranking up music on an MP3. Shelly noisily rolls up the poster Nicole took off the wall, smoothing it out where it was torn.

  And Nicole keeps talking, taping up a poster of Marlon Brando. “Now that’s style. He didn’t do motivational speaker crap—he fucking lived.”

  I clear my throat. But nobody pays attention. Finally I say again, “Hi. I’m Maya.”

  The three turn to me and Jess flicks out her earphones. “Fuck,” she says. “We’ve got ourselves a greeter here.”

  Shelly says, “Oh. I’m Shelly. This is Jess”—she points to the one with a dog collar—“and Nicole,” motioning to the girl who just walked in. “Nicole just got back.”

  “Yep, from the loony bin,” Nicole says, and laughs—forced. Hollow.

  “Good thing we got the introductions out of the way, Shelly. Maybe you can show her where we play shuffleboard on the Aloha Deck,” Jess sneers. She looks me up and down. “Why don’t you just go back to your sweet dreams about designer jeans? Nobody here gives a rat’s ass who you are.”

  Shelly blushes and mouths, “Sorry.” She blows her nose.

  I feel an urge to mark my space and half wait for their claws to come out and tear me to shreds. That’s something I really like about t
he animal kingdom. It’s direct. Every animal knows the rules. They’re genetically designed to know the rules.

  Humans change the rules.

  I stare Jess down and sit cross-legged on the bed. I’ve had a pretty crap day so far and am not in the mood for a territorial war in some dorm room.

  Jess glares and turns to Nicole. “So? You done with that Gandhi shit?”

  Nicole pulls herself up on the windowsill and takes out a clove cigarette, inhaling the sickly-sweet smoke and blowing it out the crack in the window. She wears a T-shirt with some guy’s mug shot. LUCKY LUCIANO is written in bold letters below his picture.

  “I mean, you eating now?”

  “No, Sherlock, I’m just here on fumes. What do you think?” She looks at a trash can filled with little candy papers and sighs. “Dude, Shelly, what’s with that? You hoarding again?”

  “No,” Shelly says.

  “Fuck, Shelly.” Nicole shakes her head. “Who’s your shrink now?”

  Shelly shrugs. “I’m back with Dr. Jenkins.”

  “Figures. Fucking ‘Dream Big’ poster.” Nicole turns to Jess. “And where have you been the last nine months?”

  “Fuck you. You think you’re the only one with problems? Your biggest problem is not going through with it.”

  Shelly blanches. “Jess,” she whispers.

  Jess hugs a pillow and mutters, “I hate it here.”

  “Then leave.” Nicole inhales. Smoke curls up from her cigarette.

  Jess turns, staring straight through Nicole. “Why don’t you? Oh yeah. I forgot. You can’t even read where the buses are going.” She lowers her voice. “You can’t even kill yourself.”

  Nicole tenses. Nobody speaks. I can almost smell the alarm pheromones.

  Jess and Shelly won’t even look at her.

  Nicole faces me. “What are you looking at?”

  “You,” I say.

  She flinches, then glares at me, her eyes narrowing. Then she smiles again. But it’s not real.

  I hate when that happens, when the observer becomes the prey. I wonder how I’ll deflect the attack when I blurt out, “This is definitely an issue of territorialism.”