by Jamie Sumner
“Here’s how it’s going to go. I will ask you to lift your arms at your sides.” She mimics lifting her arms at right angles to her body just like I had to do with Dr. Janson. “I’m going to use my hands”—she holds up her gloved hands like a magician—“and run them along your back, down your sides, and rib cage, right here.” She touches her own waist and runs her hands up under her armpits. I take a step back. No. No way am I letting her do that to me.
“Lou,” Maria says. “It’s this”—she points at Sheela—“or that”—she points at the giant black box. “If you refuse, we can’t fly.”
“Good.”
I watch her exhale slowly through her nose and smooth the black and gray strands that have escaped from her bun. She leans down then, so we are eye to eye. “Lou, do you understand that if I can’t get you to Nashville to stay with your aunt and uncle, you will be placed in the temporary custody of a foster family?”
I picture this—people I don’t know telling me how to dress and what to eat and where to go. It’s not like Aunt Ginger is any different. But at least I can kind of remember her face. She and Mom have the same eyes, I think. I close my eyes and try to swallow. I spread my arms and pretend this is all in my head. For a second there’s nothing but the sound of airport announcements and the whirring of the conveyor belt pumping out carry-ons. I begin to hum the only song I can think of—“You Are My Sunshine”—to have a familiar sound in my head.
Then Sheela’s hands are on my back. I stop humming and grind my teeth. Her hands travel up my back and under my arms. I bite down so hard my jaw aches. And then she moves her hands down to my waist, and I can’t take it anymore. I smack at her hands and run a few feet away, against the benches where the people who are pulling on their shoes stop to watch me. Jorge follows. He looks nervous. I don’t care. I don’t care if I live with a foster family. I’ll just run away back to Mom, wherever she is. I will not let Sheela touch me again.
Maria pulls Sheela aside and whispers something to her. Flashes her ID again. They talk a minute longer while Jorge and I watch. Something in Sheela’s face softens, and then they both nod.
“All right, honey,” Sheela says as she walks back up to me over by the benches. She holds up a black wand-looking thing. “I’m just going to wave this down your back and up your front. No touching, okay?”
I look to Maria and she nods.
“Okay,” I whisper.
* * *
When we get to the gate, I collapse into a puddle in one of the seats. I have that total boneless feeling I get when a performance is over. Except this isn’t over. I’ve only made it through security. I’ve still got to actually get on a plane and fly across the country. I can see the plane from here, like a giant silver bullet with wings. I’ve never asked Mom if she’s flown. Will this be something I do that she’s never done? For the millionth time today, I wish I could talk to her.
Maria sits down next to me with two chicken burritos from the neon-lit food court. I eat mine so fast I swallow a little of the foil wrapping, too. I picture Mom laughing and shaking her head. She’d pass me a napkin and say, Manners, Lou. We’re not animals.
When we board, Maria makes sure I’m on the aisle so I don’t feel cramped. We sit in the first row. I study the plastic emergency pamphlet. All the cartoon people look weirdly calm while they barrel down an inflatable slide into the ocean. My heart hiccups. I put the pamphlet away and rub my sweaty hands on my knees.
The plane jerks, and I grip my armrests as we pull away from the gate. This can’t be normal? I lean into the aisle and look behind me. People are already asleep or watching movies. When I turn back around, the flight attendant smiles and mouths, It’ll be okay, and then picks up a phone on the wall to explain how to put on your oxygen mask. I feel a little bump on the runway and tighten my seat belt.
And then the craziest thing happens. The flight attendant breaks into song. Right there in front of me as we rumble down the runway, she starts to sing “Leaving on a Jet Plane” at full volume into the intercom. I stare at her with my mouth open, and Maria smiles. She’s got a good voice. A little showtuney, but strong. And I know this song. It’s John Denver. I used to perform it before Mom decided it was too slow. It’s not slow how this lady’s doing it, though.
I close my eyes and smile. For a second I forget where I am and see us, Mom and me, at a farmer’s market in Oklahoma. I’m singing this song and it’s July and muggy hot, but the tips are piling up and the audience is easy and when it’s done, Mom scores us free fresh-squeezed lemonade, and it’s the coldest, sweetest thing I’ve ever had.
Then the plane jerks so hard I’m thrown back in my seat, and there’s a sound like a roaring animal. It shakes the whole plane, and I look down at my armrest swaying like my seat is attached to nothing at all. We’re crashing. I’m drowning in the noise and blinded in a wave of white panic. I try to cover my ears, but the sound creeps in around the edges. I taste the burrito coming up hot and chunky at the back of my throat. The roaring isn’t stopping. It’s never going to stop! I dig my nails into my scalp and pull hard at the roots. I stomp my feet over and over until they tingle. Somewhere, someone is screaming. It’s me.
I cry for one hour and sixteen minutes—the entire length of the flight to Los Angeles. The passengers across the aisle request to move. A little kid in a Lakers cap asks his mom, “What’s wrong with her?” on the way to the bathroom. Maria keeps passing me tissues and making me sip water. But she’s no help. The flight attendant looks like she’s ten years older by the time we land.
* * *
“Okay, listen.” Maria kneels in front of me with her beige knees on the dirty floor of the terminal. My hair is dripping around the edges from the water I splashed on my face in the bathroom. “We need a game plan.”
“I can’t do it.” I don’t cry. There’s nothing left but a wet hiccup. People are rushing past us, dragging kids and rolling bags. They all look so certain of where they’re going.
“Yes. You can. You are stronger than you think.” She says it with such sureness. The kind of sure you can only be when you barely know someone. “Tell me what triggered it. You looked all right just before takeoff.”
“I was okay when she was singing. But then the engines were so loud, I…” I can’t finish it. I can’t even think about it again.
Maria snaps her fingers and I jump. Everything’s making me jump today. “That’s it. The music. We need something loud enough to drown out the noise.” She stands and looks around and then leads me to a gift shop selling metal water bottles that cost fifty dollars and chocolate truffles with the Hollywood Hills on them. Is this what LA is like? Could Mom and I have even afforded water in this city? Did Mom know what she was getting us into? It’s still Friday. Today, a man named Howie and his wife will wait for a girl named Lou who will never show up. And then they will forget she ever existed.
“Okay,” Maria says, coming out of the shop and crooking her finger. “You follow me.” We wind our way through the terminal until we end up at a little vending machine. I expect to see Fritos and Snickers. But instead it’s filled with black boxes. She swipes her credit card and hits F-10.
We stand side by side and watch a black box make its way across and down and out into Maria’s waiting hand.
“Here.”
“What is it?”
“Open it.”
I peel off the clear sticker and open the box. Inside is a tiny iPod and headphones. I look up at her and then back at the most expensive vending machine I have ever seen.
“I can’t afford this.”
“Consider it a loan.”
“But—”
“No ‘buts.’ We don’t have a lot of time before our next flight. Let’s get you set up.”
We spend the next thirty minutes creating an Apple Music account on Maria’s laptop and downloading Pink and Katy Perry and, yes, Dolly Parton, to get me through the four-hour flight to Nashville. I hope it’s enough.
This time,
before the flight attendant can even begin the safety talk, I put in my earbuds, hit play, turn the volume all the way up, and let the good noise outshout the bad. I keep my eyes closed the whole time. By the time we land in Nashville, it is three o’clock in the morning and my head is throbbing and I still have to meet my mysterious aunt Ginger and I am now farther away from Mom than I have ever been. But I did it. I flew across the country, and I did not fall apart. Not all the way, anyway.
5 Music City, USA
I slip the iPod in my jacket pocket and then pat it and keep patting it all the way down the long empty terminal. With no people to dodge, it feels bigger and calmer, like walking the mall after closing time. All of a sudden I kind of like airports.
Maria had requested that Aunt Ginger and her husband, Dan, wait for us in baggage claim. She stops me just before the escalator. We are standing under a big cutout of a guitar that makes me wish I had Mom’s in my hands. She kneels again in her suit, now wrinkled and grimy at the cuffs from a morning at a hospital and the rest of a day on planes. Sixty percent of her hair has escaped its bun, and she kind of looks like a mad scientist, but when she smiles, her eyes crinkle like Mrs. Claus.
“Got your iPod?”
I pat my pocket again. I’m worried now about the big meetup and also so tired I could curl up under this fake guitar and sleep for a week. Maria’s already told me this is where we part ways. She’ll be staying until tomorrow to confer with my new caseworker, whatever that means, and whoever that is, and then she’ll fly back to Tahoe. I hope she fights for Mom, too, even though she keeps saying, “You’re my first concern, Lou.” It’s a little scary that as of right now, Maria is the person who knows me the most in the whole wide world, outside of Mom. The people downstairs are strangers. I don’t want her to leave.
“Now I want you to listen to me very carefully before we say good-bye.” She doesn’t try to take my hand, but she does lean in, and I’m looking at the top of her graying head and then finally meeting her eyes. “I know these people are new. This town is new. And maybe it will only be for a little while. If what you tell me about your mother is true, then I hope so. But this is an opportunity, Lou. No. Don’t roll your eyes at me. It is. I meant it when I said you are tough. I know the world can be too loud sometimes and too close—”
I let my eyes slide off hers and back down to my feet.
“But you are not the only one who feels like that. Look at me.”
I do.
“You are not the only one scared of noise or crowds or planes or strangers and the unknown. I’ve seen your file from the school in Biloxi. I know you’ve had a hard run. But I also know you’re smart. And this is a chance to find out more about yourself and to learn who you are when everything else falls away. This is an opportunity.”
I’m so tired of hearing how I have to fight for everything. For someone who won’t let me see Mom, Maria sounds a lot like her. It makes me want to hold on to her sleeve.
“There’s more than just an iPod to get you through, Louise. But you’ve got to be curious. You promise to do that? To be curious?”
I nod. Because what choice do I have?
She gets up. “All right, then. Let’s go.”
Maria walks onto the escalator, and I let one, two, three steps go by and then follow. Over the loudspeaker, Johnny Cash is singing “Ring of Fire,” and I think, Yeah, that’s sounds about right.
* * *
The baggage carousel has already stopped. I spot Mom’s battered guitar case covered in stickers before I notice the woman with the bright red hair holding it in her arms. She’s holding it all wrong, cradling it like a baby. She shouldn’t be touching it at all. Who gave her the right? Next to her is a very tall, very blond guy.
Maria walks up first and holds out a hand, but it’s not to shake. She’s asking for ID. “Mr. and Mrs. Latimer?”
“Yes, I’m Mrs. Latimer, Ginger, and this is Daniel.”
Daniel fumbles with his driver’s license after Maria hands it back. Then he turns to me. “You must be Louise. Ginger’s told me so much about you.” He holds his hand out, but I stick my fists in my pockets and fiddle with the iPod. How does Ginger know anything about me to tell?
“Hi, Lou,” Ginger says, and offers up Mom’s guitar case to me. I was right. She has hazel eyes, same as Mom, same as me.
“Hi,” I mumble, and hold the case by the handle, as it was meant to be held.
Silence trips over us like we’re a crack in the sidewalk. Then Maria breaks the quiet. She’s all business.
“Mrs. Latimer, Louise’s caseworker, Melissa, will be by tomorrow afternoon after we meet to discuss the current custody status. For now, as the closest living relative and appointed guardian in case of an emergency, you have been granted temporary placement. Obviously, we will keep you apprised as the situation unfolds.”
As the situation unfolds… like it’s a Christmas present and not the unraveling of my whole life. I don’t want to go with these people. I don’t want to be in this airport at ridiculous o’clock in the morning. We walk together as a group toward the exit, but then Maria starts to turn left at the line for shuttles while Ginger and Dan head for the parking lot.
“Wait!” I yelp, and everybody freezes.
“Maria, please tell my mom…” And then I can’t think what to say. There are too many things. Remember to eat. Don’t smoke all day just because I’m not there to stop you. Don’t pick fights with the people trying to help. I’ve got your guitar. I’ll keep it safe. We’ll reschedule with the Mazes. Come get me. Finally, I choke out, “Tell her I love her.”
Maria smiles and wipes at her eyes once and says, “I will, Lou. I promise.” Then she walks out, and I am following two people I wouldn’t recognize in a crowd into the parking lot. And then we stop. It’s a sea of cars, and Ginger holds out her keys and points them at it. And then she begins to point them in every direction.
“I’m sorry,” she says, and we start to walk down the rows. “We were just so distracted getting here, and it was so late.” She pauses and cuts through the middle of a row. Dan steps back and waits for me to follow her before taking his place behind me. I feel hemmed in. “I can’t remember for the life of me…,” she says, and then we see a flash of lights off to our right. She cheers. I jump back and step on Dan’s toe. He doesn’t seem to notice as we follow Ginger to a white SUV. It’s a Lexus. My mother’s sister drives a big shiny Lexus. Dan sees my mouth fall open and kind of shrugs. I slide onto the leather backseat without a word. There’s only so much a person can process in one day without losing the power of speech.
I rest my hand on the guitar next to me and watch the landscape slip along the highway and try not to think about how this woman, who’s talking nonstop from behind the wheel, came to be my mom’s emergency contact and why I haven’t see her since I was a kid.
6 Castaway
The room I wake up in is blue, very pale blue with white wooden shutters and carpet so thick and soft it feels like walking on fur. I scooch up under the covers and make a nest of pillows on the queen-size bed. I am a bird in an egg.
The clock on the table next to me says it’s one o’clock… in the afternoon. We didn’t get here until almost five in the morning. The sun was just beginning to rise. Guilt rattles around in my head at the thought that I slept so hard in a nice fluffy bed while Mom is who knows where. I have to count the days in my head to figure out it’s Saturday now. I can hear a radio or television going somewhere in the distance. This house is big enough to have a “somewhere in the distance.” And I smell bacon and something else… blueberry muffins, maybe? My stomach gives a grumpy gurgle. It wants its breakfast. One day of real meals and it’s already high maintenance.
I look around my new bedroom. It has a couch that Ginger named the “reading chair,” under the windowsill. I have my own bathroom. And a white desk with a little lamp on it. A fan turns slowly above me. I feel turned inside out.
I get up and brush my teeth with a brand-
new toothbrush and toothpaste that tastes like bubblegum and then walk out onto “the landing.” That’s what Ginger called it. It’s really just the top of the stairs that overlooks the living room, which has wood floors and a fireplace and glass doors like the ones at Joe’s that open out onto a stone patio with a fire pit, because apparently, Dan likes to invite his book club over, and that’s where they meet. Dan is an English teacher at the middle school I’ll be going to and also the tennis coach, which makes sense when I think of his long pale limbs. I can just see him in white knee socks swinging a racket.
I know all this because Ginger talked a lot on the car ride home. She talked until I actually fell asleep standing in the doorway to my new room. But now I’m not so tired. And this new place is… scary. The carpet is too soft and thick and it makes all the other sounds in the house too quiet, like they’re being smothered. My room is too bright and alien compared to our cozy truck. I miss my red sleeping bag. I miss hearing the sound of the waves lapping on the shore of the lake. I even miss Mom’s smoky smell.
I creep downstairs, thinking maybe I’ll step outside for a minute to catch my breath, but then I hear someone banging around in the kitchen. It’s too loud. I shake my head, take a step back, and bump into Dan. I bite the inside of my cheek. How can this house be so big and so crowded at the same time?
He smiles sheepishly. “Hey there,” he says, folding a half-marked-up crossword puzzle under his arm. He was coming out of “the study,” which is basically a room lined floor to ceiling with books. He’s in a plaid button-down and jeans and moccasins. He looks like an L.L. Bean advertisement.