“It’s not the only break you’re getting tonight. I’m also going to bend the rules and take you to that group home instead of juvenile detention. I hope I don’t lose my job for it. But . . . well, okay. Very well. Go get a couple of suitcases, and then I’ll help you pack your things.”
Chapter Ten
Getting to Know Fear. Getting to Know All about Fear.
Allie sat in the kitchen of the group home with the tiny elf of a woman who supervised the place. It was late, possibly after midnight, and Allie and her social worker had rousted the woman out of bed.
Allie heard the click of the front door closing and knew it was her social worker letting herself out. Surprisingly, it brought back that breath-killing chest constriction of fear. Who would have imagined that by the end of this horrible night Polyester Lady would be her closest tie with familiarity? That it would scare Allie to hear her go?
Allie felt a pang of longing deep in her belly. She wanted her mother.
The kitchen was illuminated only by a soft light over the stove. Everything else in the house was dark. Unseen. Unknowable. A cocoon of potential surprises.
“Where are we?” Allie asked.
“We’re at New Beginnings for girls.”
“Yeah, I know that part. But where? It was dark and the neighborhoods kept getting less and less familiar. But it felt like we were going downtown.”
“Pretty much. We’re right outside downtown L.A. Where did you come from?”
“Pacific Palisades.”
“Oh. I see. You are a long way from home, aren’t you?”
It was a statement that worked on a couple of levels. Nearly poetic. Certainly symbolic. Definitely more than geographic.
Allie didn’t answer.
“So,” the woman said, and then paused. As with the social worker, Allie had already forgotten her name. “There’s a lot you need to know about this place, and living here. There are rules, and they’re important. I ask the girls to sign a paper stating that they understand the rules and agree to abide by them.”
“What if I’m only here for a day or two, though?”
Allie watched The Elf blink in the soft light. She had curly hair bordering on frizzy. Carrot red. It reminded Allie of a wig a circus clown might wear.
“That would be unusual. Why would you think you’d only be here a day or two?”
“In the morning they’ll have to bring my parents in front of a judge. Right? And the judge will probably set bail. And they can afford bail.”
The Elf turned her eyes away. Looked over at the light on the stove. As if something significant were happening in that direction.
“Even so . . . ,” The Elf said. Then she faded for a time. “Even if your parents came home on bail tomorrow . . . once you’re in the system . . . they’d have to do more than just come pick you up. They’d have to file to have you placed back in the home again. There’d be factors to consider. When they go to trial. The charges. Whether their . . . activities . . . ever endangered you.”
Allie felt no emotion in response to the news, because the only emotion available to be felt was crushing disappointment, and Allie refused it.
“When can I talk to them?”
“Well, I don’t know. That’s something your social worker will tell you.”
Allie had asked. Of course she had. Multiple times. But Polyester Lady hadn’t known yet. Allie realized she had been foolish to think The Elf would somehow know more.
“I know you must be tired,” The Elf said. “I know this was a hard day for you. So let’s just get you to bed and we can worry about the rules and the orientation after breakfast tomorrow.”
“Breakfast,” Allie said.
Most of the rest of this new world fell down around her ears. Just all at once like that. A ceiling that had been crumbling and shedding plaster and then let go.
“How am I going to eat here?” she asked, not sure if she was addressing The Elf or talking to herself.
“I’m not sure I understand the question.”
“I’m vegan and there are a lot of things I don’t eat. Like sugar. And refined carbs. Or anything with soy or hydrogenated oils or high-fructose corn syrup. Which is everything processed. Once I’m outside my house it’s really hard to get something to eat. The things other people think of as food are not things I would eat at all.”
“We do have vegetarian dinners twice a week. Usually macaroni and cheese.”
Allie peered into The Elf’s face in the mostly dark to see if she was kidding or not.
“Macaroni and cheese is not vegan. It’s a bunch of refined white flour with butter and milk and cheese on it.”
“Oh. Well. We’ll figure something out. I can always separate out some macaroni before I put the cheese sauce on. And we usually have salad and bread and butter. Oh. Butter. Right. Well, there’ll be bread. And I can do the same thing with potatoes. Separate some out before I put on the butter and cheese. And we always have oatmeal with breakfast.”
Allie didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer.
Say goodbye to protein. That was all she could think. And speaking of thinking, do lots of that while you can. Because when food is nothing but pasta and potatoes and bread and oatmeal, you won’t be doing much clear thinking.
Too many carbs and not enough protein always made her brain foggy and thick, as though she’d slept too long and couldn’t quite wake up.
“Maybe you’ll decide to relax the meat thing a little while you’re here.”
Again, Allie looked into The Elf’s face as best she could in the dim light. As if she could physically see whether this was the little woman’s clearest thinking.
“I can’t just ‘relax’ it.”
“Why can’t you?”
“I’ve been a vegan since I was nine years old. My digestion wouldn’t be able to handle meat anymore. It would make me incredibly sick. And that’s if I would consider eating it. But I won’t. Because I won’t be any part of that cruelty. I just couldn’t.”
Allie waited, in case the woman wanted to answer. But she wasn’t honestly expecting a response.
“I’ll show you to your room,” The Elf said. “But we’ll have to be quiet so we don’t wake up your roommate. I’ll get your things.”
The Elf rose and made her way down the dark hallway to the front door. Allie did not follow. That feeling of dread had locked up her chest again. She wouldn’t have even the tiniest space that was private. Nothing that was hers alone. Somehow she had not seen that indignity coming.
“Oh,” she heard The Elf say from the hall. “Suitcases.”
Allie rose and met her halfway.
“Here, I can carry those,” she said.
“We don’t usually get girls with suitcases.”
“So I hear.”
Allie reached out and took her bags from The Elf’s hands.
“Sometimes we get girls with those backpacks people make up and contribute to social services. But we don’t see a lot of soft-side suitcases come through the house. This might be a first.”
“I don’t know why everyone is so down on suitcases,” Allie said, hauling them up the stairs in the dark.
“You might when you see how little space each girl gets to store her things.”
“Oh.”
They tiptoed along an upstairs hall together. The house was huge, with lots of bedrooms. An old-fashioned house from L.A.’s earlier days. Probably classy in its time. Maybe even a multifamily home way back when. Allie guessed that when the sun came up she would find it was the only one in the neighborhood that hadn’t been converted to apartments.
“Couldn’t I just store them under the bed?”
“Oh. I suppose so.”
They passed three closed doors, then The Elf opened a door on the right side of the hall.
“Your roommate’s name is Lisa Brickell,” The Elf whispered, her lips close to Allie’s ear. “The bathroom is that way down the hall. And breakfast is at seven.”
Then
she disappeared into the darkness.
Allie climbed into bed without bathing or brushing her teeth. She lay in the dark imagining her mother’s face. Imagining herself wrapped in her mother’s arms. Likely she wouldn’t be, anyway, even if her mother were there. She wasn’t much the cuddly sort, Allie’s mom. But it was a nice thing to imagine all the same.
Allie woke, blinking too much. The room felt bizarrely light. Offensively so, and she couldn’t understand why. She sat up and looked around.
Then, just like that, the glorious split second in which she assumed she had awakened in her own room, her own life, ended. The vanishing illusion abandoned her at New Beginnings for girls.
In the middle of the scuffed hardwood floor sat a girl Allie could only assume to be her new roommate, Lisa Brickell. For some odd reason that one name had stuck in Allie’s head. Lisa was skinny and insubstantial, with sun-bleached blonde hair in dreadlocks. Her skin was tanned to the point of damage, which made Allie feel weirdly pale. Which she was. The girl had Allie’s leather suitcases out in the middle of the floor and was carefully combing through Allie’s belongings. Or what was left of them.
“Excuse me,” Allie said.
No response. Not even a tilt of the head. No sign that this strange girl had heard.
“Excuse me,” Allie said again. Louder this time.
Lisa Brickell lifted her eyes to Allie. They were a light blue, so light as to be nearly gray. In fact, they seemed to border on no color at all. And in them, Allie saw . . . nothing. No caring. No personality. Just the coldness of an empty space.
“You’re excused,” Lisa Brickell said. Her voice sounded raspy and deep, like an aging smoker. “Just don’t ever let it happen again.”
She returned to sifting through Allie’s clothing, where she zeroed in on the socks.
Allie’s socks meant a lot to her. They cost more than thirty dollars a pair, and were guaranteed for life and made with serious backpackers in mind. But Allie wore them every day, because they made her feet feel pampered.
Lisa Brickell pulled off her own socks, thin and white and floppily non-elastic, with holes worn through at the heels. She tossed them onto the pile of Allie’s clothes and began to pull on the backpacker socks.
“Hey!” Allie said, and jumped to her feet.
Lisa Brickell was already fully dressed for the morning, in jeans with purposeful-looking holes in the knees and a patched denim shirt. It felt strange to face off in only pajamas. It seemed to put Allie at an embarrassing disadvantage.
“Hey!” she said again, because her first “hey” had gotten no response. “You can’t do that.”
Lisa Brickell pulled the second heavenly sock into place.
When I get them back from her I’ll have to wash them, Allie thought.
“You might be wrong about that. I mean . . . I just did. So it’s a little weird to tell me I can’t do something. You know. When I’ve already done it. Kind of makes you seem like you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Give them back.”
“Or . . . ?”
“They’re mine.”
“They were. But I don’t think they are now.”
“Give them back.”
“Or you’ll do what?”
“Or I’ll tell . . .” Allie realized she didn’t even remember the name of the woman who ran the place.
A movement caught Allie’s eye. The door to the bedroom was standing open, and another girl was walking by on her way to the bathroom, a towel clutched to her chest, a toothbrush in one hand. She was lanky and tall. Pretty, with butt-length brown hair. There was a gentleness to her. Allie had been searching for gentleness since leaving home. She just hadn’t realized it yet.
“You’ll tell?” Allie’s roommate was on her expensively socked feet now, moving in Allie’s direction. Her face had hardened further—if such a thing were possible—her icy eyes drilling into Allie’s brain. “You’ll tell?”
Allie looked past her to the girl in the hall, hoping for some help. The dark-haired girl shook her head carefully, and Allie could tell how she meant it. She was suggesting an answer to Lisa’s question. She was clearly feeding Allie the right line.
“Well, no,” Allie said. “I won’t tell.”
The girl in the hall nodded. Breathed visibly.
“Glad to hear that. For a minute there I thought you were so new and so spoiled and so stupid that you honestly don’t know what happens to girls who tell.”
“No,” Allie said. “But I want my socks back.”
“I want a lot of things. A Ferrari. A house by the beach. But I don’t expect to get any of them from you. And you shouldn’t be looking to me for socks.”
“But they’re my socks.”
“They were.”
Finally, finally, the icy eyes cut away. Lisa Brickell turned and walked out of the room.
Allie looked up at the girl in the hall.
“Hey,” the girl said.
“Hey.”
Allie envied the girl the silky straightness of her hair. Allie’s hair, a sort of long, thick, wild bird’s nest of curls—quick to turn into frizz at the slightest hint of humidity—had always felt like quite a burden to bear.
“You’re new.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m Jasmine.”
“Allie.”
“Be careful of Brick. I mean, really careful. She can be crazy, and I don’t just mean it the way people usually say ‘crazy.’ I mean seriously. She can be dangerous.”
Allie tried to breathe around the chest girdle of fear. She only barely succeeded.
“Just my luck to get her as a roommate,” she said, trying to keep her voice artificially light.
“Oh, there’s no luck about it. So long as there’s any space in any room, no girl’s gonna room with Brick. Has to be a thing where the last girl in the last space gets her because there’s no other choice.”
They stood a moment, awkwardly. Saying nothing.
Then Allie asked, “How do I get my socks back?”
“Depends on whether they’re worth risking your life for.” Another awkward silence fell. “I better get in line for the bathroom. You know. While the hot water holds.”
Allie sat at the breakfast table looking at the nine other girls’ faces. Preferably when they weren’t looking back. She wanted to memorize the residents. Size them up in some way that might be useful. But she wasn’t entirely sure what useful would mean in this context.
The table was clearly built to accommodate six comfortably, eight at the reasonable max. The other girls seemed to have perfected the tucking of elbows. Allie was learning the talent the hard way.
She poked her spoon into her plain oatmeal. Her choices of toppings had been butter, milk, sugar, or syrup. Pass, pass, pass, pass. If this had been Allie’s home, there would have been almond milk. Golden raisins. Dried dates. Toasted pecans.
In case I needed a reminder that this is not home, she thought.
The Elf wandered off into the living room, and Allie stared directly at Brick, who was seated diagonally across the table.
“What?” Brick asked. Playacting extreme innocence.
“I want my socks back.”
Suddenly every other girl at the table found a new place to look. All at once. Under better circumstances it might have been comical. One began inspecting the ceiling plaster, another the back of her hand. A heavy girl with thin, stringy hair pulled a cereal box close and began reading its ingredient list in fascination.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Brick said.
Allie set down her spoon. Her heart pounded, and she was afraid the fear would leak out into her voice. But sometimes you can’t back up. It’s the principle of the thing.
“So you’re just going to go through the world like this? Your whole life? Just bullying people out of anything you want and threatening them with violence if they mind? This is your contribution to society? Seriously? You’ve thought it over, an
d this is the best plan for living you could think of?”
Brick changed her grip on her knife. Held it more the way you’d hold a knife going into a fight. It was only a dull butter knife but the message came through.
“Yeah. It’s working out fine. Thanks for asking. For example, my feet are really comfy.”
“I’m not just letting this go. I don’t care what happens to me.” She did care. Actually. It would have been more accurate to say that all her caring about what would happen to her—which was quite a lot of caring—was unable to slow her forward progress. Allie felt like a person trying to stop a speeding freight train by dragging her foot. “Because wrong is just wrong. What you’re doing is wrong. And if I shut up and walk away because you’re the threatening type, then I’m just part of that terrible system. And it’s all just wrong.”
Allie could see Jasmine desperately trying to catch her eye. Finally Jasmine’s efforts burst out into words. Well . . . word.
“Allie!”
“I don’t care, Jasmine. It’s just not right. It’s the principle of the thing.”
Brick laughed a snorting, sneezing laugh. Then she got up and walked away from the table.
“So, new person,” the big girl with the cereal box said. “Your days are numbered.”
Allie tried to pick up her spoon again, but her hands were shaking, and she didn’t want the other girls to see. It wasn’t because of the comment about her numbered days. That had been a tossed-off sort of thing, whether there was any truth behind it or not. The deep upset was more about the courage it had taken to directly confront someone. Allie had marginally held it together while it was happening but, now that it was over, the stitching was disintegrating at all of her seams.
She looked up to see Polyester Lady standing in the kitchen doorway.
“Alberta?”
Which seemed strange. Because she was looking right at Allie. So what was the point that needed clarifying?
“Um. Yes.”
“You ready?”
“For what?”
“We have to get you registered for school. And then I’m going to try to arrange a phone call with one of your parents.”
Allie and Bea : A Novel Page 6