“You have to be somewhere. And we have to know where you are. And we have to know for a fact that you’ll be there in the morning so we can figure out how we’re going to get you back to L.A. Understood?”
Because it was a direct question, and the officer seemed to be waiting for an answer, Allie said, “Yes, ma’am.”
McNew glanced at her watch. “It’s late. I have to call over there and see if they’ve served dinner already. If so, I’ll order us something. Sandwiches? Pizza?”
“That’ll be hard,” Allie said. “There’s an awful lot I don’t eat.”
“Let me call and find out, anyway.”
McNew rose to her feet, hands braced on her thighs.
“I hope they’ve already eaten,” Allie said quickly. Before the officer could get away. “Because I just about guarantee you, if you take me there for dinner, I’ll starve. Dinner will be a slice of plain bread.”
For a moment, the woman only stared down at Allie. As if measuring something. Then she broke for the door.
“I’ll see what we have in the way of take-out menus,” she said.
“Here’s what I don’t get,” McNew said. She was eating spaghetti and meatballs from a round, corrugated foil container. “So you got away from the girl at the home who you thought might hurt you. And then you got away from the trafficker. Why not just call the police and get yourself resituated?”
Allie had been using disposable chopsticks to hold a piece of Japanese vegetable roll, but she set it all down again. As if the question had made her lose her appetite, which was partly true.
“Jasmine said I’d go to juvie.”
“Juvie might have been better than the street.”
“But I wasn’t on the street. I was with Bea. I knew I was okay with her. If I’d turned myself in, I’d be leaving a situation where I knew I was okay and going into this totally scary new world. Do you have any idea how many times I’d just done that? I couldn’t bring myself to do it again. I was sort of shell-shocked. I just couldn’t take one more big jump into the unknown.”
“Got it,” McNew said, her mouth full of spaghetti. She swallowed. Wiped her mouth with a sauce-streaked paper napkin. Set the napkin down. “So, I’ve been going back and forth on whether to tell you this. If it would help or hurt. But I guess here goes. I had a talk with a couple of your social workers. The one assigned to you personally and the one associated with the home. The day after you took off . . . and I mean literally when the sun came up in the morning . . . they had an opening in a foster home, and they were going to take you there.”
Allie set her face in her hands and tried to decide what she felt. All this could have been avoided. All the terror and the danger. So did she wish she had stuck it out another day at New Beginnings, even if it meant she would never have met Bea and Phyllis? Never seen almost the entire West Coast of the United States on their great adventure?
Before she could sort it all out, McNew asked, “How does that make you feel?”
“Stupid.”
“That wasn’t what I was going for. I just wanted you to think twice next time. Maybe give things another few days to play out.”
“Yeah. I see your point.”
Still, Allie decided, she would not want to go back to a world in which the big coastal trip had never happened. Weird as it had been at times, disagreeable as Bea could be, that trip was very high on a list of episodes Allie would never want to see subtracted from her life.
It might even have held the winning spot.
An unsmiling uniformed woman led her to the tiny cell that would be Allie’s lodging for the night. It looked a lot like prison. In fact, it fairly screamed prison. Then again, she thought, it was prison.
Cream-colored concrete block walls. A concrete floor painted dark green. A bed that consisted of not much more than a thin pad of mattress on a built-in shelf. A stainless steel toilet with a miniature sink built right into the top of the tank.
There was a window. But it was high over the bed, small, and surrounded by a strong metal frame that divided the opening with two horizontal bars.
All this trouble, Allie thought, everything that’s happened—it was all because I didn’t want to go to juvie for the night. And now here I am.
“You’ve eaten?” the woman asked.
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”
The woman handed her a small bundle. A thin pillow, one folded blanket, a threadbare, overbleached white towel and washcloth. Toothbrush with a tiny tube of toothpaste. Cheap plastic comb.
“Someone will come get you in the morning when it’s time.”
“Any idea what happens to me then?”
“I think someone’s going to take you to Sea-Tac.”
“Sea-Tac?”
“The airport. Seattle Tacoma. You’ll probably fly back to L.A. With a law enforcement escort, of course. But they may still be working out the details. Lights-out in an hour.”
“Oh. Okay. How do I turn out the lights?”
The woman laughed. Allie had no idea why.
“You don’t. When it’s lights-out, the lights will go out.”
“Oh. Okay.”
The woman walked out, closing the door behind her. It closed with a frightening whump. It sounded sturdy and airtight. It made Allie think the woman had left her with not enough oxygen to breathe. Allie felt suddenly claustrophobic in the small cell.
She lay on the bed for a few minutes, sure she wouldn’t sleep. Marveling at the fact that, once again, she owned nothing more than the clothes on her back.
A moment later she got up and stood on the bed, peering out the high, small window. She hadn’t quite discussed it with herself in her brain, but in her heart she knew what she was hoping to see.
Maybe Bea had driven back to that police station. Maybe she had followed Allie here. Maybe she was packing Allie’s scant belongings in those two wonderfully familiar South American bags, just waiting for the chance to deliver them. To be Allie’s support team. To prove she still cared. Maybe she hadn’t just driven on and left Allie and her troubles behind.
The window overlooked the parking lot, and Allie saw two official-looking government vehicles—something like unmarked police cars—and a couple of passenger cars that might have belonged to employees.
No vans as far as her eyes could see.
Chapter Thirty-One
A Close, Personal Relationship between Woman and Cash
“So when can I go to the foster home?”
The Polyester Lady only stared at Allie, then back down at her files. She never answered the question.
They sat in an office in the second juvenile detention facility Allie had occupied in little more than two days. This time in Southern California.
“I’m starving here,” Allie continued, to break the weird silence. “I didn’t eat on the plane because they didn’t have anything I could eat. Then I got here in time for dinner last night, and all I could have was some iceberg lettuce and a slice of dry white bread. What’s the point of eating white bread? It has no nutrition.”
Polyester Lady looked up from her folder of . . . Allie had no idea, really. There was always paperwork in this woman’s polyester world, but Allie had little idea what any of it meant, or what purpose it served. She stared at Allie again, unblinking. Seeming not to comprehend.
“Did you tell them about your dietary restrictions?”
“I told the girls who were serving the food. I’m not sure yet who else to tell. They told me if I’m hungry I should eat what they serve.”
“Well . . .” As though it were an idea of some merit.
“Oh, no. Not you, too.”
“What’s this foster home you were asking about?”
“Some policewoman in Washington told me you had a foster home for me. She said you were going to take me there the morning after I ran away. Was that true?”
Polyester Lady took off her reading glasses and set them down on her file. Like an actor in a TV movie, portraying sud
den grave concern.
“Yes. It was true. The key word being ‘was.’ That vacancy has been filled. We couldn’t just hold it for you when there are other children in need. We had no idea where you were or whether we’d ever see you again.”
“I’m sorry,” Allie said.
Allie grasped for the first time that her social worker was angry with her. Also that Polyester was hurt in some personal way Allie never would have anticipated.
“I think we can get you another one. Things are not as scary-tight as they were when I first met you. But you’ll be here in detention until we get you in front of a judge. A judge needs to make the determination that you’re not a flight risk, and that he sees no need to sentence you to more detention.”
“Oh,” Allie said. She was looking up, watching dust motes fly in a beam of morning sun shining through a high, small, dirty window. Maybe because everything below was so abnormally awful. “When do I do the judge thing?”
“When we have a date, I’ll let you know.”
Polyester Lady stood to leave. Halfway through her dramatic bustle to the door, Allie stopped her with a question.
“Wait. Don’t go away for a minute. Did you hear anything from Bea?”
“I have no idea who that is.”
“Did anybody call and ask about where I am, or how I’m doing?”
“I’ve talked to your parents. But nobody else. But you should ask the staff. In case somebody called here.”
“I did,” Allie said, followed by a sigh. “Nobody called here.”
“I’m starving,” Allie said to her roommate, a minute or two after lights-out.
Her cell was much the same as the one in Washington, except the floor was painted brown, and it housed two uncomfortable slab beds instead of one.
“They give you vegetarian if you ask for it,” the girl said.
Her name was Manuela, and she was a year or two older than Allie. She seemed wise to the ways of this place, yet cautiously nonaggressive at the same time. Which Allie found to be a great relief. No, more than a relief. A blessing of a magnitude that brought tears to her eyes when she dwelled on it. It was the first break Allie had gotten in what seemed like a very long time.
“I tried that. They gave me this mushy pasta covered with some kind of dairy. Like milk and cheese but mostly milk. I couldn’t eat that.”
“If somebody visits you they can bring you food.”
“Oh,” Allie said. “Wish I had someone to visit me.”
They lay in the dark for a moment in silence. Allie figured Manuela would be just as happy to go to sleep, but she also knew that if she said more, her roommate would listen. Allie was so full of longing and loneliness and uneasiness that her seams felt ready to burst. So she said more.
“I thought maybe that old woman I was riding with might come. I wrote down my full name and date of birth. I figured if she cared enough to want to find me, she could make some phone calls and figure out where I am.”
“So now you figure she don’t care enough?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to decide that yet. It’s only been like three days. Maybe she couldn’t even drive down from Washington this fast. But I was hoping at least she’d call. Even if they didn’t let her talk to me. I was hoping she’d call to find out where I am. But nobody called.”
A brief silence. Allie thought that might be it for their talk.
“You were close with her?”
“I don’t know. I guess I thought so.”
“How long’d you ride with her?”
“I’m not sure exactly. I lost track of days. Probably eight or nine days. After a while it was hard to keep it all straight.”
“That’s not much time.”
That seemed to be Manuela in a nutshell. Just the facts. Just the least she could get away with saying.
“It felt like a lot, though. Like we got to know each other a lot.”
“So, like . . . she just one of them people you latch onto real fast? Like, all loving? That sorta thing?”
Allie laughed out loud. “Oh, no. Not at all. At first she kept wanting to put me out of the van. We didn’t really get along.”
“When’d you start getting along?”
“Well . . . Let me think. I figured out how to get some money for gas and food. Then she seemed much happier to have me.”
“Uh-huh,” Manuela said. Just that. Uh-huh.
“What does that mean?”
“Whatever you want it to mean, I guess.”
“I really think toward the end we were getting along great, though.”
“Let me ask you one thing. This gas money you had. Who got it now?”
“She does.”
Another silence. Probably more than a minute. Allie wanted to say something more, some defense of her bond with the older woman, but she was afraid her roommate had fallen asleep. Or that it would only sound pathetic. Not necessarily in that order.
“Well, you hang on to what hope you want,” Manuela said after a time. “You will anyway. Don’t matter what I say. But if she don’t call in the next couple days, at least you oughta think how maybe this big bond was really more between her and your money.”
Allie opened her mouth to argue. To say, “No, Bea’s not like that.” But Bea was like that. Bea stole cell phones and pawned them. Money was everything to Bea. To some degree this was through no fault of her own—everyone has to eat, as the older woman had pointed out. Still, it was true. With Bea it was all about the money.
Allie closed her mouth again and tried to sleep. But between the hunger and the knot of fear and disappointment in her sore belly, she knew sleep was unlikely anytime soon.
Allie stood in the lunch line the following day, up on her tiptoes to try to see what was being served. It didn’t look promising. Some kind of goop of brown gravy, with that white rice that’s had all its rice nutrition wrung out of it. And when does anybody ever put anything in brown gravy unless it’s meat?
The line shifted suddenly, and she found herself face to face with an older girl who may well have been an inmate. But she was on the other side of the stainless steel food island, serving.
“I can’t eat any of this,” Allie said desperately. She could have eaten the rice, but the prospect felt dismal. “I’ll starve. I’m getting hungrier and hungrier, and I don’t know what to do.”
Before the serving girl could answer, Allie heard her name called. Just her last name.
“Keyes?”
She looked around to see a uniformed female guard at the entrance to the cafeteria, or mess hall, or whatever you called this horrible room in this horrible institution.
“Keyes?” The woman barked again.
Allie’s hand shot into the air. Almost gratefully. As if the woman had offered to take her away from all this and buy her the best meal of her life. Only when it was up, waving, did Allie think—or, really, feel in her gut—that maybe having your name called in this place was not a happy event.
“I’m here,” she said, a little weak from the not knowing.
“You want to come with me, please?”
A collective ooh ran through the girls, a taunting recognition that Allie was in some kind of trouble. And that each of them was relieved it was Allie being called and not her.
Her heartbeat pounding in her ears, Allie followed the woman out of the cafeteria.
“What? Did I do something? Am I in trouble?”
“You have a phone call,” the woman said simply.
Allie’s heart jumped, rose to a peak of expectation so suddenly it felt painful, a pressure in her chest.
Bea had found her. Bea was calling.
I knew she would, Allie thought. I knew she cared. That she couldn’t just drive away and leave me behind.
She followed the guard down a long, dim, ugly hall—everything here was depressingly ugly to Allie—and around a corner. Allie saw a bank of six pay phones mounted on the wall. One was off the hook, its receiver dangling.
; The guard pointed Allie to it and stood fairly close, her back against the wall.
Allie grabbed up the receiver.
“Bea?”
“Oh, honey. Oh, Allie. I was so scared!”
Not Bea.
“Mom,” Allie said.
“Yes, it’s your mom. And I’m so glad you’re safe I could just cry, and I might, but I’m also so mad at you I could just . . . Lucky for you I’m not there in person, young lady! I don’t think I’ve ever slapped you before, but I’d really like to right now. What the hell were you thinking, Allie? It’s not like you to use such abysmal judgment. Anything could have happened to you out there!”
“Tell me about it,” Allie said quietly.
“Washington State? What in God’s name were you doing in Washington State? Every time I think about it I get so mad I could just—”
“Mom,” Allie said sharply, and a blessed silence fell. “Stop talking now.”
Amazingly, it worked. Her mom did as she had been told.
“Look, Mom. I didn’t run away for no reason. I was in a really, really terrible position. And you’re the one who put me in that position. When you hear the story you’re going to feel incredibly guilty, so save yourself some guilt and don’t yell at me anymore until you know what happened.”
A silence on the line.
Then her mother said, “I’m listening.”
“I didn’t mean now. It’s a long story. I was thinking, like, next time we’re in the same room together. No way either one of us’ll get that much phone time. How did you even manage to call here, anyway? I thought inmates could only make collect calls.”
“Don’t use that word in reference to me.” Her mother’s voice sounded tight and uncomfortable.
“What word?”
“That I word.”
“Inmate? Why not? We’re both inmates right now. If I can face it so can you.”
Another long, awkward silence. Allie glanced up at the guard, who did not look back.
“I got special permission to call,” her mom said. “I convinced them it qualified as an emergency. I was so scared, Allie.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I wanted to call but I didn’t even know where you were or how to get in touch with you. I’m sorry I scared you.”
Allie and Bea : A Novel Page 28