by Rae Foxx
I didn’t know how long I stood there, but the burnt yellow sun was taking over the field by our trailer when I turned and stomped up the steps, trying my damndest not to let the door creak as I shut it.
I tiptoed into our trailer and scrunched up my nose at the smell. Several cardboard produce boxes lined the counter, so I knew Mama had gone to the food bank. At least she was good for something. Now if she could get the water turned back on. I dropped my shit in my room and armed with a gallon of water in my hand and a washcloth and a bar of soap in my other, I trudged to the bathroom where I soaked myself in a makeshift bath. It would do for now, but I would need to find somewhere else to shower.
Especially when I started working at the grease trap.
Maybe with Tommy--maybe without.
Mama called this a whore's bath. Maybe she was right.
While washing under my arms and around my neck, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Scraggly brown hair twisted in a braid; dark eyes hinted with the gold flecks my dad had cursed me with. Clear skin, not even a lone freckle lining my nose.
Normal.
The same face I always had. Pretty, in some ways. If it wasn’t washed with bar soap in a trailer park. I rolled my eyes. Tommy needed a brain check. There was nothing wrong with me or my eyes.
I couldn’t deny the pull of that wolf.
“Stop it, Ivy,” I snapped, scrubbing my rib cage and arms harder than normal. Maybe if I tried hard enough, I could scrub the memory of the last twelve hours from my mind and Tommy from everywhere else.
Brushing my teeth with what was left of the gallon of water, I felt the trailer quake with footsteps. Mama was up. I checked the clock on the wall, the paper numbers inside contorted from the years of humidity from the shower--when we had running water.
A bang on the slim bathroom door made me yelp. “I’m going to Maggie’s to use the bathroom. Get something made to eat, will ya? I went down to the church food bank yesterday since you weren’t here.”
Maybe I should not be here more often. Something might get done around here—not by me.
“I will.”
I waited until the door banged shut before I changed clothes into the last clean thing I owned--a pair of cutoffs and a red tank top. My chunky-with-grease hair got tied up in a bun.
With a huff of breath and a mental note to refill the water jugs at the spigot tomorrow, I stomped to the kitchen and flitted through the food bank findings. They usually gave us half-meals. Cereal with no milk. Bread with no eggs. Luckily, I found some oatmeal and I cooked that up, adding the last of the hardened brown sugar after it was done.
Mama came in as it finished. She’d begged coffee off Maggie, our elderly next-door neighbor.
“Thought you’d be gone all day camping.” The gleam in her eye reminded me of Tommy when he hinted at sex.
“No, Tommy got his panties in a twist about some wolves that came to the campsite. Started screaming some bullshit about my eyes changing color, swearing I talked to them or some shit. He’s smoking something other than cigs from the way he acted.”
“Wolves? Give me some of that oatmeal.” She plopped on the couch and lit up a cigarette.
Oatmeal and tobacco. Yummy.
“Yeah, there were three. One big one and a few smaller. Have you ever seen my eyes change color? Maybe when I was little?”
There were no pictures of me as a little girl. When Daddy left and Mama lost her shit, she burned all of it. Every picture, toy, baby booties, all of it. I didn’t even know what I looked like as a baby.
“No. Always been that shit brown they are now, sparkling with the last of your daddy’s lies.” She slapped my ass after I gave her a bowl of oatmeal with puddles of sugar floating on top.
“And my voice? Has that ever sounded weird? Maybe when I was scared or angry?”
“Knew you were stupid if you are thinking that shit Tommy’s throwing is true.” Mama picked up the remote to the TV and flipped through the four channels we had before settling on a show where kids’ DNA was under question.
I snorted. I wondered the same thing about myself sometimes.
“Mama?” I prodded, but she was lost in some other world, slurping her breakfast while I ate my own.
The dishes would have to sit until I got more water, so I gathered up all the empty jugs and slipped on my flip-flops.
So much for waiting until tomorrow.
“Where the hell are you going now?”
“We need more water. I used the last of it.”
Damn, I needed to get a job so we could get running water in this place. The way we lived; we might as well be animals.
Two blocks down the busy highway and I arrived at Gus’ Stop and Slurp, where if I gave Gus a nip slip he would let me refill my jugs in the soda machine. He lit up the second I entered, his nasty little tongue darting out to lick his lower lip.
Sick.
I put it out of my mind.
One unwanted nipple-tweak later was standing at the door with three filled water jugs. Two for the house. One for me.
I was shifting my dress back into non-Mardi-Gras status when I noticed a fancy car parked at the gas pump. Never saw something so clean and pretty here. Which would make sense why the man who was equally as clean and pretty was looking left and right while he pumped his gas.
Left, right, and right into me.
I almost dropped the water jugs. Damn, he was hot! I blinked, jugs precariously perched in my arms like a soapy baby, the man had finished pumping his gas and was on his way inside.
Right toward me.
We didn’t have those fancy pumps like they had in town where you could pay with your card. I shifted my three gallons, two in one hand and one in the other and pushed the door open before he could get in.
“Here, ma’am. Let me get the door.” His voice was raspy and rough, the depth of it taking me by surprise. It almost sounded like he had swallowed a mouthful of gravel.
“Uh...thanks.” I rushed past him, across the parking lot and back to the trailer park.
Something about him was giving me the heebie-jeebies and I had about enough of that for today.
I was halfway home when I froze, turning to the abandoned lot that Tommy liked to park his van in. Wouldn’t you know it, the beat-up van was parked in the middle of it.
“Shit.” I was laden down with water jugs, smelled like acidic bar soap, but he just sat on the back fender picking at his nails as he smoked down the butt of a cigarette.
Like he always did. Maybe he’d gotten over it.
He’s your last fucking chance, Ivy.
The sun hit my face as I made my way across the pricker field and toward Tommy, jugs still balanced in my arms. He flicked his gaze my way and then shook his head, looking down.
“Tommy, can we talk?”
He took the last inhale of his cig and put it out on the bottom of his holey sneaker. “I don’t have time. Got to get to work.”
I forced a smile, trying to shift the jugs. “Oh, are you going to talk to them about me getting into the manager’s program?”
His blue eyes squinted at me. “Nah, you can do that yourself. You never wanted it anyway.”
I jerked, sending the jugs rattling again. I barely caught them.
Goddamnit, why couldn’t I have grabbed the things like a normal person? You know, by the handles.
“Tommy, come on. Some dumbass wolves come to the campsite and now, what, we’re done? We’ve seen wolves before.” I couldn’t help the crack in my voice as I asked the question.
“You’re damned right. You’re not…I can’t be with someone like you.”
“Someone like me?”
He got up and reached inside his van to grab his grease-stained t-shirt and hat, not even looking at me as he changed into it.
“You’re not who I thought. Don’t come over here again, Ivy.”
A lump bobbed in my throat like a boulder. “What? We had plans.”
He shook his head and gr
imaced. “Not anymore.”
I intended to beg--whatever I had to do to make him change his mind, but I was interrupted by the sound of flying rocks and gravel rattling across the field. Someone was heading to my house. My first thought was that it was social services coming to rescue me right before I turned eighteen. Like I could be so lucky.
Halfway across the field, I froze in place.
The car from the gas station was at my house. The glistening thing looking as out of place as a gem in a trash compactor. The man from before got out, buttoning his jacket the way FBI agents on TV did. He strolled to the back of the car and opened the door. One lipstick red heel came out of the car, then another.
I couldn’t breathe as a woman got out, dressed in a pencil skirt that looked to be choking her waist and hips. Her hair was pulled tight in a bun, the color like mine but with less grease and more hairspray.
She looked around the place, not looking pleased.
Maybe it was social services.
“Do you know where Ivy Potter lives?” She squinted against the sun, crooking a finger in my direction as I approached.
My guts shook as I tried to form a sentence. “I’m Ivy Potter.”
Chapter 4
She smiled at my name like I had handed her a whole box of cigs for nothing, her long fingers slowly removing her sunglasses to peer down at me.
“I see. Is there somewhere we can talk privately, Ms. Potter?”
Who the fuck did this lady think I was? No one had called me that since kindergarten and that was because my dad had paid thousands a month for a private school to treat me like a princess.
“Why?”
I wished I was no longer juggling these damn jugs. The sweat that was dripping down my arms was making them nearly impossible to hold onto.
The woman turned back to the car, retrieving a black leather handbag that was bigger than the pot of oatmeal I’d cooked earlier and a rose gold water bottle, one of the expensive ones that you can refill. Fancy.
The skirt must’ve guessed she was shit out of luck if she wanted water at Ms. Potter’s house.
“I have a proposition for you, child. May we talk inside your…” She glanced at the trailer. “Lovely abode?”
Seriously?
I was surrounded by delusional people. Tommy thought I wasn’t human and this broad thought my crumbling trailer was an abode.
Might as well give the crazy what she desires.
“Sure. Come on in. Is he coming too?”
I nodded to Suit-and-Tie and nearly lost the jugs again, but he seemed content to stand with his arms folded in front of his junk. His suit seemed to be in pain as it strained over his muscles as he gave me a slight smile.
“No, Anatoly simply did me the honor of driving me here.”
Honor? Oh my god. I wasn’t going to be able to keep a straight face around this lady.
“Huh, so what’s your name?” I asked, needing something normal to help me hide the smirk as I climbed the dilapidated steps, the lady teetering awkwardly behind me. So much for hiding my smirk, it was turning into a full smile at the thought of her stripper heels getting stuck in one of the slats.
“I’m Nickolinia Ampste.”
Let’s add to the weirdness, shall we? There was no way in hell that was a real name.
“Really?”
She shimmied that tight-skirted ass up my rickety stairs and followed me in. Hopefully, Mama hadn’t thrown up or something worse while I’d been talking to Tommy.
I waited to see if she would give me an alternative to that mouthful of a name, but she didn’t. Instead, she stepped on the toes of her heels and into the house like I’d asked her to walk on hot embers.
Oh man, this was gonna be great.
“Take a seat,” I said, knowing full well there was no way in hell she was going to do that. It was worth it to see her face fall.
“Yes, I, um…” She looked around, her nose twitching as she stared from broken wicker kitchen chairs to threadbare brown floral couches that had more than their share of stains, farts, and cigarette burns.
Mama was passed out on one of those, thankfully vomit free.
“Take your pick,” I said, finally relieving myself of the slippery jugs.
She sat after whisking a stark white handkerchief from her suitcase of a purse and laying it across our rust-orange wicker chair.
“So, what can we do you for. Would you like some water?” I pointed at one of the jugs. She cringed and held her water bottle closer.
This was getting fun. Too bad Tommy wasn’t around to take bets on how fast I could scare this broad out of my abode.
“I’m fine.” The way her lips were puckering said otherwise.
I slammed myself down onto the corner of the couch that no one sat on because it didn’t face the TV, watching her face as the plume of dust predictably rose around me, catching in the light rays that came in through the broken blinds.
“You gonna tell me why you’re here?” I gave her my biggest shit-eating grin, pulling her focus from the dust and making her jump.
“Yes, yes.” She straightened her skirt as though it was going to get up and walk away all on its own. “As I said, my name is Nickolinia Ampste.” God, it was still a mouthful. “I am the headmaster of Bloodwood Academy, a preparatory university located in Northern California. Recently, we were given your name as a viable candidate to our fine institution…”
Thank God Mama had chosen that moment to snore and roll over. She ripped her shirt off like she always did when she was coming down from a high, revealing a stained bra and a tattoo of two dogs humping each other. Nicka-skirta-something Amputee gasped in shock. That’s all it took for me to lose it. I laughed and threw myself back on the couch, sending up another plume of dust.
“I’m sorry,” I said between laughs, “but are you sure you have the right place? The right Ivy Potter? Because I can sure as shit promise you that you won’t find anyone worthy of your fine institution here.”
She cleared her throat and straightened her skirt… again.
“Yes, I am quite sure I am in the right place.” A grin raised both sides of her mouth, revealing the whitest teeth I’d ever seen. The unnatural gleam sent something inside of me writhing. I was certain I could rip that smile right off her face. “I am quite sure. Ivy Potter, eighteenth birthday next month, daughter of Oliver and Ivory Potter, once attended Ingram’s Girls Academy?”
I nodded numbly. Most of that only Tommy knew. I was suddenly regretting telling him anything.
“We received your name after a report came across my desk concerning an altercation you had with three wolves last night…”
“What?” I was on my feet and shrieking; Mama was no longer snoring but pulling herself to attention with a mumbled grunt and a hiccup.
“Last night, we have had reports that you came in contact with three…”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
She was still smiling at me, something in her eyes glinting dangerously. It took everything not to step back. To run…
Fucking Tommy had called the insane asylum on me.
“Ms. Potter, I understand that this situation may be hard to--”
“What’s going on?” Mama slurred in interruption, pushing herself to stand, only to fall back on her ass again. “Who the fuck are you?”
“My name is Nickolinia Ampste,” she repeated as sweetly as she had the first two times. You think she would get tired of repeating that. It was a mouthful. “I am the headmaster of an elite preparatory university located in Bloodwood, California. We were given Ivy’s name by both her current school and the local community college she recently applied to as someone who could benefit from enrollment and could help further her education in multiple areas. Some she may not even know she possesses.”
Nocka lotta Hamster was no longer straightening her skirt. She was staring at me, smiling with those brilliant white teeth, her eyes flashing with that same feral gaze that was gnaw
ing at my gut.
Okay, so maybe she was from the insane asylum. Maybe I needed it.
I found it harder and harder to inhale a real breath. This was too good to be true. If the people who knew me had enough brains and funds to make all of this happen, I wouldn’t put it past them to pull a prank on me like this.
Opportunities like this didn’t knock on my door.
“Ivy? Ivy ain’t benefiting from no one’s education.” Mama laughed, now ruffling through the couch cushions for a butt. “Whaddya do, see her walking and think you could pick her up for some red light somewhere? She’s already got plenty of learnin’ in that area.”
Miss Fancy Skirt went to place her purse on the floor and then snatched it back up after getting an eyeful of the cigarette burn and food scraps that had been there since we moved in, maybe before.
“Nothing of the sort! We have people whose sole job is to find rare souls like your daughter and let us know so that we may…” She struggled for the words. “Invite you to study with us, progress in who you are.”
“Who I am?” The words were twisting in my gut the same way they had with the wolves. The same frightening twist of desire.
I knew I should be shying away from this, but I was suddenly leaning forward. Like she had me on a string.
Okay, insane asylum here I come. At least, if it’s the back of that fancy car it might not be too bad.
“I said, she ain’t fit for no learnin’!” Mama snapped, pulling me right out of my delusions. “Her Dad had learnin’ and look where it ended us.” She gestured around the trailer, her eyes widening when she spotted a butt on the backrest. She was lighting up in seconds.
“I can assure you that your daughter is a perfect fit for our institution and will be educated by the finest--”
“You’re crazy, lady. We don’t have money for no school. Hell, we don’t even have running water here. If you tapped us for some scam, we ain’t falling for it. I’m on to you.”
She stood and took a few steps toward the prissy woman and wagged her cigarette butt laden fingers at Nickola Ha-ha. The woman stared at her unflinchingly, even when the ash of Mama’s cigarette fell on her precious skirt.
