“Ginny?” says Gloria.
I stop blinking and look up.
“Come on. People are starting to stare,” she says. “That guy who just went into the gas station—We have to go.”
“No,” I say.
“What?” says Gloria.
I swallow. “No,” I say again but it doesn’t sound like my voice. I don’t know if it was me or (-Ginny).
“Why the hell not?”
In my brain I see the answer. I see exactly why because:
Gloria ≠ Someone Who Can Run Away to Canada without Getting Caught
Gloria will end up in jail and Krystal with a K will go to a Forever Home. Just like I did.
I hold up two fingers. “There are two reasons,” I say.
“Well, what are they?”
“The first is because my Baby Doll is six years old.”
“Yes, I’m glad you got that straight,” says Gloria. She looks left and right fast. “What’s the second?”
“The second reason is that you’re going to end up in jail.”
Gloria shakes and her eyes get skinny. She is going to hit and so I wince.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve, kiddo,” she says. “Look at your sister. Look at her! I raised her just fine, without your help! I know she’s skinny, but that’s just how we are! And damn it, we can’t talk about this now! We can’t stay here! Someone’s going to come looking for you any minute! Don’t you see? Your school is right down the street!”
She points but I don’t look. I keep my eyes on her hand. Her knuckles are white. Behind her Krystal with a K points at me and points at the car and makes a smile with big teeth.
Gloria makes a loud breathing sound. “That’s it. Come on!”
She reaches out and grabs the front of my coat. She pulls me forward.
In my brain I see him. Donald.
“No!” I yell. I grab Gloria’s sleeve and rip her hand away. Then she tries to grab me again so I pull back. I put my hands up to stop her. “Please!” I yell. “Please!”
Gloria stops. She looks at me in a scared way. Then she puts part of her hand in her mouth like she’s trying to eat it. “It isn’t supposed to be like this!” she says. “It isn’t supposed to be like it was before! You aren’t scared to come with me, are you, Gin?”
She wants me to say No, I am not scared but that isn’t true so I don’t say anything.
Then Gloria says, “Ginny, I need you. I need to have you back with me so we can be a family again. Don’t you see what they took from us?”
I check in my brain. I don’t see what anyone took from us. I just see too many equal signs and words that don’t add up.
Now Gloria’s eyes are wet. “I did the best I could!” she says. “I had a habit! And damn it, we have to go! We’re going to get caught! The school will start making calls and—”
She makes a grunting sound and reaches to grab me again. I try to pull away but now she has me. She pulls me to the car. I try to yell but my mouth won’t work so I pull, pull, pull away. I slam into the car door.
Then Gloria’s face is right in my face. I see her teeth and her eyes and then my brain makes me say, “Please no!” like I used to and cover my head with my hands.
She grabs my wrists and pulls me up again. “Ginny,” she says, “we have to get out of here! We have to leave! No matter how awful you might think I am right now, we have to leave. Now!”
My voice won’t do what I tell it so with my eyes still covered I shake my head.
Gloria looks around the parking lot and across the street and when she looks back at me her face is mad, mad, mad. “Get in the car!” she yells. “Just get in the car! I didn’t come all this way to relive every mistake I ever made! You think I want to act like this? I came to make things right! Now, are you coming or not?”
While she talks she hits the top of the car. She hits it again and again and each time I jump.
I try to say something but Gloria is making so much noise I can’t find a place for my voice. It is hiding deep in my brain again so I close my eyes and pull my hands and arms down and then I make a place for it.
“We do not yell!” I say. “We do not yell or hit! We say I’m too mad to talk! and then we go get some air! So you just stop it, Gloria! You stop yelling at me!”
Because it’s all true. That’s how we do things at the Blue House.
When I open my eyes again Gloria isn’t yelling anymore. She is quiet. When she starts talking her voice is scratchy and low. “I can’t keep going like this.” She laughs but it isn’t a funny laugh. “It’s way past time for me to go. You turned into a real piece of work, Gin. A real handful. We can make it work, if you still want it to. But you have to want it to.”
I lower my head. “I don’t want it to,” I say.
She hits the car and at the same time says my name. Then, “So this is it? After all this, you’re just going to call it off?”
Slowly I shake my head but then I start nodding. My brain is scared and it doesn’t know what I want anymore. “Yes,” I say but the word scares me. Because I don’t know what comes after it.
“Krystal?” says Gloria. She bites her lip and wipes one of her eyes.
“Mom?” says Krystal with a K.
“Get in the car.”
Krystal with a K gets in the car. She doesn’t say goodbye. Then Gloria says, “I’m sorry, Ginny. I’m so, so sorry. I love you, but I’m not going to stand here and get caught. Not today.”
I don’t say anything.
“The cops will be here any minute,” she says. “Maybe look me up when you’re a little older, all right? When you’re eighteen. We’ll be in Quebec. Until then, try to take care of yourself and...and have a nice life. Okay?”
She hugs me and I don’t recoil. Because I want her to now. Her whole face is wet, wet, wet. She squeezes so tight it hurts but I’m okay with her hurting me now because I know as soon as she stops she’ll leave.
Then she stops.
And gets in the car. The engine turns on and the car backs up and the car drives to the edge of the parking lot. It stops for approximately one second and then the tires turn so fast they squeal and make black smoke. I cover my ears and crouch down low and when the noise is gone I open one eye and stand.
EXACTLY 7:57 IN THE MORNING,
TUESDAY, JANUARY 25TH
Gloria’s car isn’t in the parking lot anymore. I am alone behind Cumberland Farms without my Baby Doll or anyone. I am alone on the other side of the giant equal sign. I don’t know if I can get back to where I came from.
I am scared and anxious. Gloria is gone. She isn’t going to kidnap me. She tried but I said no.
I said no.
I look to see if there are any cars coming and then I walk across the parking lot. I look across the street and see my school. I could try to go back across but I don’t belong there. Where I belong is where I’m nine years old and my Baby Doll is still a baby but now it’s six years old. The math I was using doesn’t add up. Plus Gloria said I was a real handful. Crystal with a C said that too.
I look down at my hands. I am still holding the picture of me and Krystal with a K. Of me and my Baby Doll. Both of them have faces.
I put the picture in my pocket. Then I pull my thumbs out of the thumb holes in my mittens and start to pick at them with my other fingers.
There’s nothing for me this side of Forever and there’s nothing for me on the other side either. I’m not Ginny LeBlanc anymore and I don’t know how to be Ginny Moon. My Baby Doll doesn’t need me. No one needs me at the Blue House. I don’t belong anywhere anymore.
Because I am (-Ginny).
I’m guessing this is what it feels like to be a ghost. Or not to have a face. No one knows me and I don’t even have a house or a car
or a suitcase to hide in.
I look across the street. A truck comes by fast. I feel the wind on my face and I recoil. But when it is gone I look at my watch and stand up straight again.
I look down the road to the right. There are a lot of cars on it but the sidewalk keeps going. I know that it’s safe to walk on sidewalks. So I start walking.
I walk down the sidewalk until I come to a corner. I can go across the street or I can take another right. The noise of the cars is loud and the air is cold and my backpack is heavy. I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know where a girl who doesn’t belong anywhere should go.
Mostly I think I need to find a place to live. But no one is here to help me do that. I need to find one on my own. I don’t know if it will be a house or an apartment. I don’t know if it will be in the city or the woods. Right now I’m guessing the city because that’s where I am and I don’t see trees or the woods anywhere.
The cars are moving fast and I am anxious. So I turn right again. Ahead of me I see a lot of buildings made out of bricks. I see signs that say Credit Union and Books and Jewelry. There is a church and a store called Boss Furniture and a Chinese food restaurant.
I walk past all of these. Then I see a movie theater and I remember that I don’t have my DVD player with me because I brought a gallon of milk for my Baby Doll instead. So I say, “Well dang!” as loud as I can because no one is around to hear me.
The movie theater has a big sign on it with letters that start at the top of the building and go down to the door. The sign has a lot of colored lightbulbs on it but they are not lit up right now. The letters say Colony Cinema. I walk to the door and look up at the sign. It makes me dizzy when I look all the way to the top. I am cold. It would be good to go inside to get warm. I look at the door and see that no one is inside. Plus there’s a chain on the door which I’m guessing means I can’t get in. So I walk around the corner of the building to see if there is an open window because that is what Gloria told me to do one time when she needed to get into Donald’s house to get her money back.
Behind the movie theater a cat climbs over a fence. Papers are blowing around on the ground. I see an old bicycle with no wheels. There aren’t any open windows behind the movie theater but there’s a black staircase made of metal. It is up in the air but there is a ladder hanging down from it. It looks scary but I really want to get inside because the movie theater looks like a good place to get warm and maybe live and mostly I’m guessing I can watch movies there. There are windows up higher on the building and all of them are near the staircase.
I climb up the ladder and step onto the stairs and start going up. It is like walking on a black skeleton. I can see down to the ground and I feel like I could fall but I know there are windows up higher so I keep climbing. Finally I come to one. It is open so I climb inside.
It is dark in the room but I find the floor with one of my feet and pull my body all the way through the window. My backpack almost gets stuck. When I stand up I see a room with nothing in it except old blankets and black garbage bags and a door that is closed. There are pipes on the ceiling and a broken picture frame on the floor. Everything is dirty and it is hard to see because there are no lights.
Then I see a switch on the wall. I walk to it and flip it but nothing happens. So I say, “What, can’t I get some lights?”
But no one answers me.
And I think, Maybe this can be my room. I don’t like that there are no lights but there is a door and maybe a kitchen on the other side of it. I try to open the door but it is locked. So what I have is a room with no kitchen or bathroom or lights.
I stand in the middle of the room. I turn around and around and around. I see the window again and again as I spin. I hear the sound of cars outside. I do not hear people talking. I do not hear music. I do not hear the sound of someone washing dishes or Baby Wendy playing. And it is cold, cold, cold.
Which means this isn’t a good place to live.
Then I feel hungry which means I have to find something to eat. I am good at finding food. So I go to the window and climb out onto the metal stairs. When I get to the ladder I climb down to the ground but then I can’t remember which way the front of the movie theater is. I start walking until I come to a street.
And I see a police car.
The police car is not moving. It is parked next to a streetlight and a garbage can. There is no one in it which means the police officer is out of the car somewhere. He might be looking for me.
In my mittens I start to pick at my thumbs. I look up and down the street. I see an old lady bringing a dog somewhere on a leash. I see a man in a long coat go inside a building but I still don’t see the police officer which means he’s probably hiding somewhere or around the corner asking people, “Have you seen Ginny? She’s in a lot of trouble now.”
Now my hands are shaking and I am hyperventilating and my legs want to move, move, move. So I run.
I run past a fence and some more brick buildings. I run past piles of garbage and garbage cans. I run past cars that are parked and cars that are moving. I run past two old ladies and a man listening to headphones and a man wearing a winter hat with no pom-pom and a lady with a black coat and a black bag and silver earrings. There are loud noises everywhere. Engines and horns and sometimes people talking or the wind. And the air is cold and my feet are tired. I am breathing fast and I still don’t know where to go even though I need to find a place to live.
Then I feel wet on my back and my bottom and my legs. I stop running. I am on a sidewalk in front of a big glass window. There are people on the other side of it. I take off my backpack and look inside. The gallon of milk is empty. There are drops of milk on the plastic and all of my things are wet. The milk jug is broken. It has a big crack in it. I’m guessing the milk is what made everything wet even though nothing turned white.
Which means I don’t have any milk for my Baby Doll.
Then I remember how big it is and that it is not one year old.
I want to cry but I need to be a tough cookie. I want Gloria to come back in her car so I can say I’m sorry for making her mad. And I want to tell Krystal with a K that I’m okay with her being the Other Ginny and replacing me. I will say anything if Gloria will take me back and take me up to Canada with her. Because I need to belong somewhere and where I am isn’t anywhere at all.
But deep in my brain I know that I don’t want any of those things. I just want to be safe now.
I need to put the broken milk jug in a garbage can because it’s a rule that We do not litter but I don’t see a garbage can. I am still standing next to the big glass window. There is a lady on the other side of it. Looking at me. She is wearing an apron and has a tray in her hands with cups and mugs on it. She looks at me and puts one of her hands in the air and scrunches her face like she is confused and moves her mouth. So I say to her, “Don’t you know I can’t hear you? You’re on the other side of the window.”
She looks behind her and then looks back at me again. She makes a funny face and she starts talking.
So I say, “Don’t you understand me? I can’t hear you!”
Then the lady puts her tray down on a table and walks away. I’m guessing she had to go to the bathroom.
I’m still hungry and cold but I need to find a garbage can to put the milk jug in. My jeans are sticking to me because they’re wet and my legs and bottom are getting colder and colder. But there aren’t any garbage cans anywhere. There was one near the police car but I don’t want to go back there. I look down the street again and look across the street and then someone says, “Are you all right? Do you need help?”
I turn around. It is the lady from the window. She is on this side of it now. She is holding her arms like she is cold.
So I say, “Yes, I need help.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I broke
the milk and my pants are wet,” I say. “Plus I have no place to live.” I’m hoping she will give me a nice warm place to stay.
The lady makes another funny face and says, “Are you hurt? Are you feeling all right?”
But that is two questions at once so I don’t say anything.
“Listen,” says the lady, “it’s really cold out here. Why don’t you come inside and we can talk? There’s a phone, if you need to call someone.”
But I don’t know who to call because my Baby Doll is six years old and I told Gloria I didn’t want to go with her and if I go back to the Blue House then Maura and Brian might make me live at Saint Genevieve’s Home for Girls Who Aren’t Safe. I don’t belong anywhere and I am not happy about it.
The lady is saying something else now but I can’t hear her. Because I’m still thinking. Then behind her I see a police officer walk out of the door she came out of.
So I run.
I run to a crosswalk. I run straight across as fast as I can without looking. I keep running and running. I run past stores and buildings. Then behind one building I see a Dumpster.
A Dumpster is like a big garbage can except you throw big things in it like old couches or broken chairs. The Dumpster is next to a brick wall. I run to the Dumpster and stop. I know that I need to put litter in its place so I throw the broken milk jug over the top. It is like scoring a basket at Special Olympics. Only there’s no one here to cheer. There are no people here at all. I look around to see if I can find someplace to sit down or get warm. There’s a fence across from the Dumpster and through the fence I see a big open space with weeds and dirt and snow and some garbage blowing around. And more buildings on the other side of the open space. There are no trees like there are at the Blue House. And at the Blue House there aren’t any train tracks.
I stand at the fence for a long time. I see a seagull flying. I hear a police siren far away. I wonder if the police officer saw me and is on his way. Then I hear another noise. A rumbling sound. It doesn’t go away like other noises do. It is getting closer. Then I hear a horn that is not a car horn. It is a train horn and it is long and loud and coming faster and faster.
Ginny Moon Page 26