by Jay Bell
“Oh, good! You’re awake!”
Mrs. Hubbard stood in the doorway, a pair of slacks draped over one arm. She held up a white dress shirt for him to see. “Always best to make a good impression on your first day of school. You’d better get ready now. There’s a schedule for the bathroom, and you only have twenty minutes left.”
“It’s Friday,” Jason said, hoping this would excuse him from starting at a new school. Couldn’t it wait until Monday?
“Friday is a school day,” Mrs. Hubbard said, gliding into the room and hanging the clothes on the back of the chair. “Hurry along now. Breakfast will be ready soon.”
Jason resisted a sigh and rolled out of bed. He was heading to the door when Mrs. Hubbard spoke again.
“The green toiletries belong to you. Everything is color-coded. If you need a towel, washcloth, toothbrush, or anything else, choose green.”
With his back turned to her, Jason could safely roll his eyes, which he did.
The bathroom, thankfully, did have a lock. He felt tremendous relief at having some guaranteed privacy. Until his allotted bathroom time came to an end, at least. He leaned against the bathroom counter, hands splayed on the cold marble, and stared at himself in the mirror while willing himself to wake up. His mouth was naturally downturned at the edges, just like his mother’s had been, which often led to inquiries of why he was sad when he wasn’t. He also had her button nose, although he thought it looked cuter on her, especially the way it crinkled just before she laughed. Tangles of naturally rumpled brown hair made his eyes difficult to see, but he knew they were a bluish-gray like his mother’s.
Jason wondered sometimes what he had inherited from the father he’d never known. The chin that jutted out involuntarily when he felt uncomfortable? The broad shoulders? The build that wasn’t quite thin, but resisted putting on muscle? He tried to remember what the photos of his father had looked like, but couldn’t, so he turned his attention to other matters.
Glancing around the bathroom, he took note of the color-coded towels and such. The pink items no doubt belonged to Amy, the orange to Carrie and the blue to Peter. Maybe. That left green for him, and for Caesar? Jason spun around, searching for the missing fifth color. When he couldn’t find it, he shrugged, stripped off the T-shirt and pajama bottoms he’d slept in, and stepped into the shower.
When he was finished and had returned to his room, he put on the clothes that had been left out for him, wishing he could slip into a comfortable old shirt and jeans. Maybe schools in this part of Houston had a dress code. But when he reported downstairs for breakfast, he was no longer sure. He noticed Caesar first, dressed in a loose black T-shirt and artificially aged jeans. Next to him, Carrie was rocking a red blouse, so definitely no code. Only Peter wore an equally dopey dress shirt and slacks.
“Good morning!” Mr. Hubbard said, gesturing for him to sit.
Jason nodded in greeting, then focused on pouring and eating a bowl of cereal. Breakfast passed the same way dinner had last night. Mr. Hubbard tried to force conversation out of them, but only had success with Peter, who liked to talk. Amy did too, but she and Mrs. Hubbard were elsewhere.
“And how did you sleep?” Mr. Hubbard asked. From the way he beamed, he acted like this had been Jason’s first night in a real bed and not out on the streets.
Jason’s mouth twitched, eager to sting Mr. Hubbard with words, but he’d made a promise. “I slept great,” he answered.
“First night in your new home,” Mr. Hubbard pressed.
“Yes. It was wonderful. I’m so lucky.”
Satisfied, Mr. Hubbard turned his attention to his oldest daughter, freeing Jason to glance across the table. Much like at dinner last night, Caesar’s entire attention was on his phone, fingers moving in a flash as he texted. Jason wondered how one person could have so much to say. Was Caesar’s head full of countless thoughts he couldn’t hammer out quickly enough? Jason wished, just for one hour, to be on the receiving end of those texts, if only to see what they said. Of course that would require him to have a phone, which he didn’t.
By the time Amy and Mrs. Hubbard appeared from upstairs, the other kids had risen from the table and were getting ready to leave.
“You’ll give Jason a ride, won’t you, Caesar?” Mr. Hubbard said. “And Carrie, you show him around the school. Make sure he gets a nice warm welcome.”
Carrie and Caesar exchanged glances, then smiles. “Of course,” they said in unison.
“And this is for you,” Mrs. Hubbard said, holding out a new backpack. “It has everything you’ll need in it.”
Jason eyed it with unease. “Thanks, but I already have one upstairs.”
Mrs. Hubbard shook her head. “That old thing? I’ll throw it out. Here. We want you to have a good start.”
Jason wanted something familiar around, even if it was just a ratty old backpack, but he thanked her and took the new one.
“Ready?” Peter asked him. “Come on, we’ll wait out front.”
Jason followed him out the front door, surprised when Peter kept walking past the cars in the driveway and headed for the sidewalk.
“Wait. Aren’t we supposed to get a ride?”
Peter turned, but kept walking backward. “There is no ride. They put on a sweet and innocent act around Mom and Dad, but trust me, they won’t give you the time of day. Carrie’s a snob, and Caesar…” Peter shook his head and turned forward again.
Jason paused and thought about heading back to the driveway to see for himself, but two things stopped him. Mostly it felt good to be away from the house. Every step he took was liberating. And Peter liked to talk, which made him an easy source of information.
“We can take the bus,” Peter was saying. “Or we can walk. It’s not far. Sometimes walking makes me late, but who cares?”
“Do we even go to the same school?” Jason asked, catching up and walking alongside him.
“No, but middle school is right next to the high school.” Peter glanced over at him, freckles covering his pug nose. “You’re putting on an act, right? This whole quiet and polite thing, it’s not the real you. Or do you have some sort of mental disability?”
Jason felt uneasy at this sudden inquisition, so he played innocent. “Huh?”
Peter watched him a moment longer before snorting. “Almost had me for a minute. How old were you?”
Jason let himself relax fully for the first time since Michelle had dropped him off. “Seven,” he said. “You?”
“Six years old. Parents were crackheads, although not until after I was born, thank god.”
Jason nodded, the pieces falling into place. He didn’t ask all the usual questions about relatives who might have taken Peter in, since he knew firsthand that life sometimes dealt nothing but cards with low numbers and mismatched suits. “My mom fell in love with the wrong guy,” he offered. “And I don’t mean my dad.”
The explanation was vague, but sufficient. Jason didn’t like to talk about his past. Most of the kids he’d met while in care didn’t. At a certain point, you decided that your life was split into two distinct halves. There was Before—no matter how good or bad it had been—and there was After. Only so much crying could be done over Before, especially since the game of After was so complex and demanding.
“I didn’t get adopted until recently.” Peter said. “I’m twelve now, so I spent plenty of years in the wilderness. I don’t want you to think I’m like them.”
“Fill me in,” Jason said, glad he could dispense with any pleasantries. “What are we dealing with?”
“It’s safe here, if that’s what you mean,” Peter said. “Nothing creepy.”
Foster home number five. That had been a hard lesson for Jason. The father there, camera in hand, had come into his room one day and asked him to take off his clothes. He had said Jason’s caseworker needed proof he was being fed and in good condition. Jason had been trusting enough to take off his shirt, but when the man demanded his shorts go too, Jason had known
something was wrong. The man blocked the door when Jason lunged for it, but he didn’t let that stop him. Jason fought, hopelessly overpowered, but he managed to gouge one of the man’s eyes and earn his freedom. When he made it to a neighbor’s house, his chest was covered in red scratches. He didn’t need to convince anyone of his story. Jason had escaped before the worst could happen, but it had been a turning point for him. He hadn’t trusted another adult since. Not completely.
“There will be plenty more of this,” Peter said, tugging at the collar of his dress shirt. “The Hubbards want perfect little children, but play along and they’ll ease up eventually. I’m no saint and they still adopted me. You seem smart enough to make it. Unlike the last two.”
“What did they do wrong?”
“Big mouths and lots of attitude. Nothing like you and me, I’m sure.” Peter grinned. “Just keep yourself in check until you become their problem permanently.”
Jason took a strange comfort in knowing he could get kicked out of this placement. There had been other Hubbard kids who hadn’t made the cut. That was good. A few of the foster homes he’d been in had parents who lived for lost causes and were determined not to give up on any child, no matter how bad their situation. Such homes took a lot of creative destruction to escape from.
“So tell me about Amy and the others,” Jason said, hoping Peter would start with Caesar.
“Amy gets treated like a princess. Do yourself a favor and never ask her about her past. You don’t want to know. Believe me. But at least this was her first and final placement. She got adopted almost right away. Carrie is a total snob. She’s the first kid the Hubbards adopted, way back when she was Amy’s age. She likes to pretend she’s biological. Practically treated that way too.”
“Practically?” Jason asked, knowing where the conversation was headed.
“Yeah, because only Caesar gets the star treatment. He’s blood, if you haven’t figured it out yet. Mrs. Hubbard couldn’t have any kids after she gave birth to him. His ego was probably too big. Tore everything up on the way out.”
“Gross!”
Peter laughed shamelessly. “For real. Wait until you get to know him. If he’ll ever talk to you, that is. You can tell what the Hubbards think of their son from what they chose to name him. His bedroom is the biggest in the house, he has his own bathroom, and have you seen his car? Anything he wants is handed to him on a silver platter. I hate him.”
“Only because you envy him.”
Peter considered this sullenly and then nodded. “Yeah, fair enough. I’d switch places with him in a heartbeat. When he goes off to college to drink himself to death, maybe I will replace him.”
“You want his room?” Jason asked.
Peter glanced over at him, eyes surprisingly cold for someone so young. Then he blinked. “Hey, you ever play World of Warcraft?”
“Nope.”
“It’s never too late to learn. You’ll need a computer. Better yet, you can have mine. It’s a good starter machine. I want to upgrade to—”
Jason half-listened to him rattle on about computers while he considered what he had learned. His new foster home was safe, and he shouldn’t have any trouble with the other kids. Amy was troubled, Peter was bitter, Carrie was a snob, and Caesar was distant—which was probably for the best. Jason thought he could deal with all of that. He just needed to keep his head down, get adopted, and do whatever else Michelle thought would give him a good life. College probably.
As Jason laid eyes on his new school for the first time, he realized how empty all of this sounded. A fake family and an education he didn’t want or need. What would he do with a degree? For that matter, what would he do with the rest of his life? Jason had been offered so many fresh starts previously—so many blank canvasses—that sometimes they were all he could see in his future; one giant white void. This begged the question of what he wanted to fill that empty space with. The answer that came from inside sounded an awful lot like Amy.
I don’t want to feel lonely ever again. Do you?
* * * * *
“You have something against my car?”
Jason was shoving his new textbooks around in his locker, pretending to get organized before heading to his next class. That way he could avoid awkward conversations with other students about who he was or what he was doing there. With his head almost totally inside the locker, his ears needed a moment to register the familiarity of that voice.
Peeking around the locker door, he found himself face-to-face with Caesar.
“Uh?” Jason managed to say.
Caesar grabbed the locker door and opened it wider. “Was that a yes or a no?”
“I like your car,” Jason said, not knowing if he’d ever seen it.
“Then why didn’t you ride in it this morning?”
“Oh. Uh… I didn’t want to be a burden,” he said, recovering slightly. “Anyway, I’m used to walking. Helps maintain my girlish figure.”
Caesar’s eyes traveled down said figure and back up again. “If you want a ride home, I always park right up front.”
“Okay,” Jason said.
Caesar’s brow furrowed. “Okay, you understand, or okay, you’ll be there this afternoon?”
“Both,” Jason said.
Caesar nodded as if satisfied and turned to walk away.
Only one class remained, and Jason’s stomach clenched all through it as he wondered what the ride home would be like. Would the car be loaded with Caesar’s friends, Jason pressed between two of them? Or would they be alone, Jason grasping for words to fill the silence? No matter which way it went, he was okay with it. He’d be nervous during the drive, but he’d also have ample opportunity to check Caesar out and add new details to the steadily building fantasy in his mind.
When the final bell of the day rang, Jason took his time reaching the parking lot, not wanting to appear desperate. Caesar was easy to spot, since he was in the center of an entourage. That was the best way of describing them since they all wore the same casual and yet carefully planned clothing, like a gang spawned from a middle-class suburb. If this little clique had a leader, Caesar was it, since all heads were turned in his direction.
Walking toward this group went against every instinct Jason had. Not because they were cooler than him. Even if Caesar had been surrounded by the school’s chess club, Jason still wouldn’t have wanted to approach because having so many friends was alien to him. Occasionally Jason made a friend at the group home, another hard-sell like him, but eventually everyone went away, either finding a family or aging out of the system. Jason made his peace with not having friends long ago. And yet, standing here now—watching as people listened to what Caesar had to say, laughing at his jokes or shaking their heads—Jason felt a sort of yearning.
Caesar turned to find him, amber eyes lighting up in recognition. “Hey,” he said, raising a hand, “there he is!” He gestured for Jason to come closer, putting the same hand on his shoulder when he was within reach and pulling him near.
Jason turned around at the last moment, realizing this wouldn’t be a hug. That left him side by side with Caesar, who adjusted his arm, draping it over Jason’s shoulders as he faced a bunch of strangers. A girl with black hair spiraling down her shoulders voiced the question posed by their expressions.
“Who’s he?”
“Jason,” Caesar said, as if this made everything obvious.
Most of them only feigned understanding, but a few heads nodded, telling Jason this had happened to other foster kids before him. He wondered if he was about to become victim to some horrible prank. Instead, Caesar started blabbering about a public argument two teachers had gotten into that day.
As Caesar talked, Jason kept sneaking sidelong glances at him. Two black discs covered his lobes. Just earrings, but maybe Caesar planned on gauging them next. An equally dark line of stubble outlined his chin. Jason wondered if that was intentional or if his facial hair just happened to grow that way. He found himself wishing th
e day was warmer, that spring had transformed into summer, forcing Caesar to wear a tank top. He imagined how the exposed arm would feel pressing against his neck, sweat sealing their skin together like they were—
“So what do you think?”
Jason came back to reality. A guy with a buzzed head, arms crossed over his chest, was staring at him expectantly.
“Me?” Jason cleared his throat. “I’m thinking I have no idea who any of you are or what you’re talking about.”
“Very honest!” Caesar laughed, squeezing him closer. “Unfortunately, that means you’ll never fit in with this crowd.”
The girl with the spirals of hair stepped forward. “I’m no liar! Although I might have stretched the truth a few times, if only to spare your feelings.”
“You’re cruel, Steph. So terribly cruel.” Caesar hooked her with his free arm, drawing her in much as he’d done Jason.
Except Steph didn’t turn around. She pressed herself against his chest, raising her head for a kiss. Jason found this extremely awkward, since Caesar still had an arm around him. He’d never been this close to a kissing couple before. If Jason strained his neck a little, he’d be right in the middle of the action, not that he had such an urge.
The arm around him tightened, probably reacting to Caesar’s other arm that was now wrapped around Steph. As exciting as it was seeing Caesar’s tongue slide into a girl’s mouth, Jason mostly felt like disappearing.
Thankfully, Caesar broke the kiss and gently released them both. “I gotta get home.”
“Aw!” she complained.
“You know how my mom is with the new ones. She’ll be worried if I don’t have him back on time.”
“I can walk,” Jason offered, causing Steph to perk up.
“Nah. It’s no problem. Hop in.”
Their chariot was a long silver car, the make oddly familiar. Jason realized he had a poster of it on his bedroom wall. Maybe Mrs. Hubbard had intentionally put it there. From the joints in the roof, he guessed it was a hardtop convertible. The car looked like the sort an older business executive would buy—respectable enough to please the wife, but sporty enough to recapture some youth.