Compromised

by Heidi Ayarbe

  Nicole turns on her side and looks at him. “We’d never leave you, Klon.”

  A wet leaf in the fire hisses, its crimson edges curling inward until it burns. “What’s with you two?” I finally say. “It’s like you’re both on some freaky mortality thing. We’re fine. We’re young. Nobody needs to meet God in Heaven or wait with anybody who’s dead.” I try to control the tremor in my voice.

  “It’s just street talk, Jeops. It’s always there, you know.”

  “What?”

  “Death,” Nicole whispers, like saying it aloud will call it over. “It’s always there. You just don’t feel it as much sitting in front of a flat-screen TV watching your Discovery Channel reruns. It doesn’t mean anything, okay? It’s just talk.”

  We’re quiet for a while. The only thing we can hear is the crackle of the fire and Klondike’s raspy breathing. I find three sticks and hand one to each Nicole and Klondike. “Let’s pretend we’re roasting marshmallows. My dad and I used to roast marshmallows out on the barbecue.”

  Klondike grins. “I like that. Pretending.” He scoots a little closer to the fire, caught up in the game. “I had them once. Marshmallows. Like Heaven. Asswipes.”

  Nicole smiles at me. We spend the rest of the evening eating pretend s’mores with roasted marshmallows. Klondike’s the best at pretending his stick catches fire and he has to stomp out the invisible flames. Then he acts like his marshmallow is gooey, and he pulls on it and lets the sweet sugar fill his mouth. He shivers and croaks. But at least he’s closer to the fire.

  I fuel the fire before we go to sleep. We listen to the sizzle of the leaves and twigs. Red embers burn, throwing off heat with their flames. I stare up at the sky through the hazy smoke of the campfire. So many stars to wish on.

  Maybe I’ll call Dad. I can just call him and hear his voice. Ask him what I should do about everything. Will he know?

  Will he care?

  “The s’mores and shit. That’s pretty high class,” Nicole says, breaking the silence. “Your dad doesn’t sound like such a bad guy,”

  He isn’t. I know that. It’s just that he gave up on me—on us. And I don’t know if I can forgive that.

  Nicole stares at me through the popping campfire.

  “Yeah. He’s pretty okay. Most of the time.”

  “Does he know you’re looking for Auntie Em?” Nicole asks.

  “I think so. He’s the one who told me about her.” I pull on the locket.

  “That was cool. So he didn’t totally fuck it up.”

  I listen to Klondike’s wheezy breathing and Nicole’s stillness. We’re almost there. Almost to Boise. And in a way, I don’t want to get there and find her, because I don’t know what will happen. I can’t even come up with a reasonable hypothesis for what might happen to me, Nicole, and Klon. My head pounds and I can feel a slow ache creep up my body.

  I stare up at the sky—billions of stars light-years away. I’ve never wished on stars before. It’s something totally unscientific. But tonight I make a wish instead of a hypothesis or procedure. Maybe somebody up there really does listen.

  Maybe.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  “I still don’t know why we can’t stay here. Asswipes.” Klon has moped all morning. It took Nicole and me about an hour to convince him to leave the bathroom.

  After two nights sleeping under the stars with a cozy campfire, the third night it was as if the sky opened up and dropped down thick curtains of icy rain. At first the freezing drops pelted us one at a time. We jerked awake and ran to take cover in the bathroom while the storm thundered on the corrugated fiberglass roof. We couldn’t talk above the clamor of the pounding rain, so we huddled in the center of the bathroom watching as rainwater seeped through the window until the storm cleared. Klon coughed for hours.

  In a way, I want to drag it out, too. “You’re stalling,” Nicole said to me the second night before falling asleep.

  I am. We’re at the edge of the unknown and maybe at the end of the road. We might no longer be “we” after this. Nicole knows that, too.

  “We’re out of food,” I finally say.

  “So we’ll pick berries,” Klondike pleads.

  “Klon, if we walk about two minutes out of the campsite, we can see the golden arches. It’s not like this is the place for foraging for berries. Plus berry season was a few months ago. It’s almost winter, Klon. We need to find someplace warm.”

  “Almost?” Nicole asks rubbing her hands on her blue jeans.

  “Technically, it’s not winter until December.”

  “Technically my ass. It’s raining ice. It’s fucking winter.” Nicole shakes her head. “It’s been winter ever since we left.”

  “And what if we don’t find a better place?” Klon asks. He croaks and squeezes his eyes shut really tight. A new tic. “Asswipes.”

  “I’m hungry, Klon. C’mon,” Nicole says. “We’ll find a way better place than this dump. It’s time to move on.”

  Klon hesitates. “Where?” he finally asks.

  Nicole looks at me.

  “The airport,” I say. “Let’s go.”

  We have to look presentable. We have to look okay. That might make the difference between foster care and family.

  Purpose: Find Aunt Sarah

  Hypothesis: If we show up at the restaurant where Aunt Sarah works all cleaned up and looking good, she’ll see me, recognize me because I look just like her deceased sister, and invite us to sit down for hot chocolate and cookies.

  (I can’t make myself go further than that with the hypothesis. I need to stop there.)

  Materials: Mom’s box—the locket’s especially important; the paycheck stub; new clothes

  Procedure:

  1) Go to the airport

  2) Steal a suitcase

  3) Find a bathroom in a restaurant, hotel, library, whatever. And clean up.

  4) Find Main Street (just ask around)

  5) Find the XXX Grill restaurant

  6) Find somebody who knows Aunt Sarah—or Aunt Sarah herself

  Variables: The restaurant: Will it still be there? What if it’s got a new manager who doesn’t know Sarah Jones? Aunt Sarah: What if she doesn’t care? What if Nicole was right about that? What if she cares about me but not about Nicole and Klon?

  Constants: Me, Nicole, Klondike

  Even though I’m terrified, I feel a slight buzz of accomplishment. I made it to Boise. This is where she might be. I look at Nicole and Klon. Klon is squished between us in the back of a 1980’s Chrysler Imperial. Nicole stares out the window.

  “Why the airport?” Nicole turns to me and asks. “What happened to Main Street?” It’s the first thing any of us has said since we got a ride. The lady is nice. She doesn’t speak much English, but she seems like she wants the company even though we don’t talk.

  She takes an exit and leaves us at a gas station. She points. “Airport,” she says.

  “Thanks!” we say. I notice she watches us through her rearview mirror.

  We walk to the airport, past people lugging heavy suitcases on wobbly wheels. The place is packed. Perfect timing. “Again. Why the airport?” Nicole asks.

  “We need clothes—for Klon.”

  Nicole shrugs. “I’ve never been inside an airport before.” She looks around at the expensive gift shops. “But I don’t think this is the best place for shoplifting.”

  Klondike is fixated on a woman who wears tight leopard pants and a nice pair of silicone-enhanced boobs. “Tits. Tits. Big nice tits.” He jerks his head. “Tallywhacker. Tits.” He turns to me, looking helpless. “I can’t help it. Tits. Goddammit,” he says.

  I yank on his arm. The woman’s boyfriend looks like he has steroid-enhanced muscles. “Klon, c’mon.”

  “Tits,” he says in his gravelly voice, then croaks.

  “Follow me,” I say.

  We weave our way through the horde of passengers. It looks like fun. Going somewhere. Having a suitcase. Having a plan.

  W
e follow the signs to baggage claim. Conveyor belts carry suitcases around—suitcases that miraculously pop out of a shoot from the top. People push, shove, and heave suitcases off the slow-moving belts. Airport workers pull some bags off to make room for more, piling them in the center between different flights.

  I turn to Nicole and smirk.

  “I don’t get it,” she says.

  “A hefty percentage of these bags won’t get claimed because people miss flights, bags are sent to the wrong destination, etc. The airlines have insurance for this kind of thing.”

  “Sounds familiar.”

  “Huh?”

  “Grocery stores.” Nicole shakes her head. “Don’t you remember anything we talk about?”

  “Sorry, instant replay,” I mutter. There’s something slightly irritating about the fact Nicole remembers every stupid conversation. Ever.

  “So?” Nicole asks.

  “So we pick a bag. Just one. And we wave and pretend we’re bringing it to our mom and dad. Okay?”

  Somebody pushes past Nicole and bumps into Klondike. “Fucker,” Klondike whispers. “Tits and ass. Asswipe.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “Tits.”

  “Go stand outside, Klon. Wait for us over there.” I point to one of the exits. “We’ll be there in a couple of minutes.” I watch as people avert their eyes when Klon walks by them. Some people even gasp.

  “Assholes,” Nicole says. “As if they’re walking specimens of pure beauty.”

  “Yeah,” I agree. “Let’s get a suitcase. Hopefully,” I say, “it’ll have a toothbrush.”

  Nicole curls up her lip. “Ewwww. You’d use somebody else’s toothbrush? That’s so foul,” she says.

  I stare at her. “Cappy, we’ve been drinking from cups we fish out of the trash. I don’t see much of a difference there.”

  She shakes her head. “You’ve gotta draw the line somewhere.”

  Yeah, I wonder, thinking about Nicole’s arms. Did she make sure she used only clean razors to cut herself? I shudder.

  “What are you staring at?” Nicole asks. “What?” she asks again.

  I rub my eyes. “Okay. Dibs on the toothbrush. You pick whatever else you want. And we all need clean clothes.”

  Nicole moves toward one of the conveyor belts.

  “Over there,” I say, and pull her to me.

  “What’s the diff?” she asks.

  “We can’t risk taking off the conveyer belt. We’ve gotta take one of the bags workers have piled in the center. Those people are either slow in getting off the plane or late or something.”

  “Oh. Clever, Jeopardy. So you’ve got a bit of thievery in you.”

  “We’re not stealing. We’re cleaning up after the inefficiency of airlines to get people’s bags where they need to go.”

  Nicole rolls her eyes. “Did your dad always sugarcoat things like that? Stealing is stealing, Jeopardy. And sometimes it’s okay, you know. It’s not like you have to have a justification for everything. Haven’t you ever seen Les Misérables?”

  “What? Now you’re a Broadway show expert?”

  “Just saying,” Nicole says.

  I shrug. It feels better, though, to have a reason for things.

  We walk over to the bags the workers have piled in the center. “Pick a black one,” I say.

  “They’re all black,” Nicole says.

  “Yeah. Okay. Let’s get one and go.”

  “Wow. It’s like when you’re a kid and go to a birthday party and wonder what the surprise will be.”

  I laugh. I like the feeling of excitement building up, and I wonder if this is how Dad feels when he pulls off a scam.

  “We should get Klon to pick it. He’d like that,” Nicole says.

  “Next time. That one looks good. Big.” I point out a black duffel. There are four other duffels piled on the floor, so it’s an easy target and one we can pass off as being a mistake in case we get caught.

  “Cool, Jeopardy. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  “Neither did I.” I need this, I remind myself, to up my chances at Aunt Sarah’s restaurant.

  Nicole clicks her heels three times. “There’s no place like home,” and picks up the heavy bag. We each grab a handle. I wave, “Got it, Dad!” The two of us walk to the doorway where Klondike waits.

  We walk away from baggage claim as fast and calmly as we can.

  “Fuck, this is heavy,” Nicole says.

  “I think we got a good one,” I say, that tingly feeling still in my stomach.

  We duck into the parking garage, dragging the bag behind a big SUV. MY CHILD IS A SUPER STUDENT AT MAPLE GROVE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL is pasted on the shiny bumper.

  “What’s it say?” Nicole asks, trying to sound out some of the words. “Fucking sometimes ‘y.’ It can’t decide whether it should be a vowel or a consonant. A total ‘Johnny Boy’ D’Amato—the closet gay mob boss. He got whacked, you know? You can’t hide who you are.”

  “You’re comparing the letter ‘y’ to a dead gay mob boss?”

  “Yeah, so?” Nicole spends more time miffed at the English language than trying to learn it. But I can tell she’s getting better. “My,” she says, and continues to read. She gets all the words except maple, grove, and elementary. It’s painfully slow, but I have to be patient. Like she doesn’t get pissed every time I come out of a store empty-handed.

  “Yep,” I say, and repeat the whole bumper sticker.

  “Dude, that kid probably gets the shit beat out of him every day.” Nicole laughs.

  Klondike shrugs, then jerks his head, tapping the bumper. “I think it’s—fuckit—kinda nice. Tits. Asswipe. He has parents that love him.”

  I stare at the bumper sticker. “It’s nice. But Cap’s probably right. That kid’s a punching bag.”

  “Plus you never know about the love part. I once had a foster home where the guy was some kind of big-shot doctor. He used to lock up all the food cabinets and the refrigerator, so his wife couldn’t eat. He let me have dinner, but she could only eat celery. I lost like fifteen pounds in two weeks. They found out he’d been giving me some kind of funky weight-loss shit in my food and I had to go back to Kids Place. I was kinda bummed because at least he didn’t try to get on me or hit me or anything. But a weird fucker.” Nicole stares at the bumper sticker. “You never know what people’s homes are like.”

  I nod.

  Klondike coughs his raspy cough. “Open it. Let’s see what’s inside.”

  We open the bag and sift through a bunch of Styrofoam popcorn. The three of us peer inside. “No,” I say, and pull off the plastic.

  “Oh man,” Nicole says.

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “Figures. No wonder it was so Goddamned heavy.” Nicole sighs.

  “Yeah. I didn’t know people would be allowed to travel with something like this.”

  Nicole shrugs. “Maybe it died when he was on vacation and he didn’t want to bring home Fido’s ashes to the kids.”

  “Weird.” I shake my head.

  “Very.”

  Klondike pats the fur as if the dog were alive. “He’s soft. What’s his name?” he asks, and looks under the dog’s leg. “Gonads. Two. Testicle. Balls. Nuts. Two.” He coughs and can’t catch his breath. Nicole and I rub his back until his coughing fit ends.

  I look at the tag. “Lucifer.”

  “Really?” Nicole looks at the tag and studies the letters, trying to sound it out. “Somebody actually named their dog after the Devil?”

  I shrug. “That’s what it says.”

  Klondike jerks his hand back, then croaks.

  “Pretty freaky that they froze him in a growl,” Nicole says. “He’ll end up spending his entire afterlife pissed off. You know, there’s this guy called ‘Joe the Boss.’ They said he was the man who could dodge bullets. Once there was a hit on him, and the shooters missed—point-blank. The cops found Joe the Boss sitting in his bedroom with two holes in his straw hat.”

&nbs
p; “And?”

  “Well. Nine years later they killed him when he was playing cards at his favorite Italian restaurant. Shot him to death. No more bullet dodging. Rumor has it he had the ace of spades in his hand. Pretty freaky, huh?”

  “Freaky why?” I say.

  “Ace of spades. The death card.” Nicole shakes her head and pulls out her plastic bag of postcards and letters. She pulls out the card. “I always carry one around. It’s kind of—”

  “Morbid?” I say.

  “No,” she says. “A little freaky but mostly poetic. Death is freedom. Remember Pablo.”

  “So?” I finally say.

  “So what?”

  “So what does this have to do with a stuffed dog named Lucifer?”

  Nicole shrugs. “They’re both dead. And freaky.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “We can try again,” Nicole suggests. “We’ll maybe get a brown suitcase this time. No more duffel bags.”

  “Too risky. There are security cameras everywhere.” My heart sinks. I look at Klondike shivering. I pull off my last sweater—leaving me with a T-shirt underneath the black coat. “Here, Klon, put this on.” It’s not like we’ll be on the streets much longer. Maybe we can find Aunt Sarah today.

  He shakes his head. “I’m fine. Tits.”

  “Just put it on. We’ll find something else along the way. Let’s go find a place to sleep.”

  My body aches, and when Klon pats my back, it feels like he’s pounding me with a hammer. I struggle to swallow down my saliva and look at the late-afternoon sun. I can’t imagine finding Main Street today; I can’t imagine doing anything but sleep. I just wanted new clothes, something clean. I sigh.

  “Ahh, that’s all right,” Nicole says. “It was fun to go to the airport.” Nicole nudges me. “C’mon. Let’s find a place to crash.”

  Klondike nods. “My first time, too. I wish we could live in that—asswipes—campground. And roast marshmallows.”