Getting Somewhere

by Beth Neff

  Jenna set herself apart, leaving a bigger space between the edge of her body and Sarah beside her, letting her hair fall down along the side of her face, effectively blocking her view of the rest of them, and theirs of her. And Lauren realizes now that, in an odd way, by setting herself apart, Jenna had made herself the center. It was as if the wall that she erected was a comment on them all, a strategy that Lauren has seen so many times before among girls who think they are tough, too full of themselves to realize what total losers they are.

  And Ellie is just the type to get totally drawn in by it, to feel like she has to close the distance and pull Jenna into the fold. She’ll believe herself the white-horsed hero, ready to scale the wall or find the opening that will let her inside. Just thinking about it now, Lauren feels thoroughly convinced that it will become all about Jenna, that the rest of them will be left in the dust, expected to flounder along on their own while Jenna gets all the attention as the pet headcase.

  Lauren has heard enough for one night, is just about ready to sneak away and climb the stairs back to her room, when she hears Ellie say, “Dinner was great, Donna. The girls actually ate something tonight. Even Lauren. I guess we made them hungry.” Ellie laughs.

  “That Lauren. She’s going to be a tough nut to crack.”

  “You think so? I don’t know. I don’t think she’s much different from the others. Just needs some affection, to know that someone really cares about her.”

  There is a short pause and then Lauren hears the scrape of their chairs and the groan of the swing as the women get to their feet. She jumps up and scrambles through the darkness, barely missing the corner of an end table with her knee, dashes up the stairs and into her room, shutting the door.

  Lauren dives into the bed, pulls the covers to her chin, and lies with her eyes open.

  Just like the others, huh? She is shaking with fury. There is no way, no fucking way, she wants one single thing that woman has to offer. Affection? God, the woman is just fucking sick. Lauren has got to get out of here.

  Lauren’s eyes are still open, but she is not seeing the shadowy room around her. Instead, she pictures the scene at the river, Ellie, the other girls, Jenna and Grace.

  Jenna and Grace. Ellie and Grace. Lauren’s mental wheels are turning. Oh yeah, she could just take off, find some way out of here. But wouldn’t it be fun to bring them down first? And she can do it. Absolutely no problem. They’ve already given her the weapon. Now all she needs is a little ammunition.

  THURSDAY, MAY 17

  THIS IS GOING TO BE EVEN WORSE THAN JENNA thought.

  She is standing between Cassie and Lauren, and they are watching Grace emerge from the little shed tacked to the end of the barn. In one hand Grace is holding one of those giant plastic bats, blue, in this case, and in the other she has cradled two Wiffle balls.

  Jenna thinks Grace has to be kidding. She hasn’t played Wiffle ball since she was about ten at some church picnic a foster family made her attend, and she doesn’t remember it being all that much fun even then. She can hear Lauren beside her, muttering at first then saying the words louder and more clearly, “No way. There is no fucking way.” Jenna can’t say she disagrees.

  This must be some therapeutic strategy they teach you in psychology school: build rapport, establish relationships, learn sportsmanship by playing some stupid game together. Jenna figures she could probably write one of those textbooks just with all the lame tools she’s seen used on her own supposed behalf. Jenna has learned a lot from these activities—how to keep her distance, when she can escape without attracting too much attention, how to give them just enough of what they want to keep them off her back.

  Grace is heading directly for them, and Jenna wishes Lauren would shut up, takes a step away from her, having already decided that there can be no benefit in an association with this girl. Accidently, she bumps into Cassie who she forgot was standing rigidly beside her, a look of sheer terror on her face.

  “Sorry,” Jenna mumbles and Cassie’s face instantly transforms, brightly lit by a smile that makes her, well, absolutely beautiful. Jenna quickly looks away, her stomach instantly queasy with how pathetic this one is, so completely thrilled to have simply been spoken to. To avoid further interaction, Jenna leans forward just enough to see Sarah standing a little way off, intently chewing the cuticle of her thumb.

  Grace drops the bat, balls, and the pieces of rubber matting Jenna didn’t notice at first tucked under her arm on the ground at their feet and says, “You guys want to help me lay these out? Small field. That’s why we play with the Wiffle ball, so it doesn’t go too far into the gardens.”

  Jenna wonders who “we” are, imagines with a bit of a smirk Grace and Ellie and Donna coming out here after supper, just the three of them, playing a stupid kids’ game for evening entertainment.

  Grace picks up a mat and hands it to Cassie, who clearly has absolutely no idea what to do with it. Before she can say anything, Lauren has announced, “I’m not playing,” and begins to stalk off toward the house. Grace completely ignores her but Ellie, who has just arrived in the yard, trots after her and the two of them carry on a conversation that Jenna can’t quite hear but that involves Ellie smiling a lot and moving her hands like she is demonstrating the motions to a graceful dance and Lauren shaking her head emphatically.

  As Jenna watches furtively out of the corner of her eye, she sees Lauren finally throwing up her arms in exaggerated submission and stubbornly following Ellie back over to where the rest of them are standing. If Jenna had been going to protest or refuse to participate herself, she certainly can’t do it now.

  Ellie says to Grace, sounding a little amused, “Lauren’s going to be full-time catcher, okay?” Grace scrutinizes Lauren for a moment or two, then proceeds to ignore her, continues explaining the game and giving instructions for how to place the bases.

  No big surprise to Jenna, the game is not competitive. They are supposed to rotate through the positions, including batter and pitcher, though it’s obvious to Jenna right away that if the bases get full, the fielders are at a pretty extreme disadvantage. Grace tells everybody to choose their initial positions and then heads for the center of the diamond, making it clear that she intends to pitch first.

  That makes Jenna more incensed than ever. She doesn’t want anybody thinking they need to show her how to pitch a fucking Wiffle ball. She’s pissed at the necessity for goodwill after Lauren’s outburst and pissed at having been trapped into playing this ridiculous game. She has a sudden image of herself running over homeplate and then continuing on running, out the driveway, down the road, through the forest of trees and past the little farms she saw on the way here. Maybe she’d just keep going, disappear into the jade wilderness, until it would, she is sure, open to a town, the edge of a city, someplace where no one would know a thing about her.

  Jenna jogs over to third base while the others are still milling around but doesn’t quite get there before she notices Grace motioning her over to the spot on the field pathetically designated as the pitcher’s mound.

  “Hey, do you mind batting first? Cassie has never played baseball before, and I want her to see how it’s done. Then we’ll have a stand-in runner for you if you don’t get all the way around so you can pitch to Cassie.”

  Jenna raises her eyebrows, concentrates on keeping the rest of her face expressionless. She has no idea why Grace is so sure she knows how to play or assumes she’ll hit the ball but nods dumbly and heads for home plate where Lauren is sitting on the ground, angrily plucking blades of grass. Lauren stands with apparent great effort and says to Jenna, “You’d better not let it get past you because there is no way I’m running after it.” Jenna doesn’t answer, just picks up the bat and positions herself at the plate, suddenly nervous.

  Grace calls out, “Can I have a couple of practice throws?” to which Jenna responds, “No,” but with a grin
she can’t suppress. Grace shakes her head in feigned disgust, grinning, too. “Okay, Lauren, this one’s for you.”

  The ball comes in straighter, and much harder, than Jenna thought possible, but she swings the oversize bat with an accurate swat, stands briefly stunned as the ball flies over Grace’s head and heads directly for Sarah at second base. Jenna tosses the bat and runs toward Donna, who has just in the last few minutes come out of the house to play and is now jumping up and down, clapping her hands and shouting encouragement to Sarah, who has run away from her base to capture the rolling ball. Jenna swings past Donna and runs for second, gives Sarah a little wave as she dashes by. Sarah is now holding the ball but is seemingly deaf to the shouts to “tag her, tag her,” and then “throw it to third, to Cassie.”

  Jenna is pretty sure Cassie won’t catch the ball, so she confidently rounds third and heads for home. She glances back at Ellie helping Cassie recover the ball, which has rolled into the weeds next to third base, and then turns in time to see Grace standing beside Lauren at home plate, her hands on her hips and a wide smile on her face. She holds out her hand for Jenna to shake, and Jenna takes it while Grace leans forward and whispers, “I just figured you’d show them how to do it.”

  BY HER THIRD turn at bat, Jenna has nearly forgotten her original resistence. The game is actually fun and, despite the absence of team loyalties or point totals, feels vibrantly competitive. She is just starting to relax into the rhythm of it when a stray pitch by Donna hits Lauren directly in the face, and she falls to the ground clutching her eye with a dramatic swoon. Everyone rushes forward, Grace arriving first from third base, but when she bends over to check the damage, touches Lauren’s arm with her hand, Lauren wrenches it away and screeches, “Don’t touch me! Don’t. You. Ever. Touch. Me.”

  Everyone is frozen, the air reverberating with the venomous fury of Lauren’s words. Grace turns sharply away, slowly but deliberately walking back to third base and standing there with her arms crossed while Ellie tries to get Lauren to remove her hands so she can see her eye. Not surprisingly, there is nothing to see, maybe a little redness on her forehead above her eye, but nothing that will even turn some lovely shade of black or purple. “Do you think you can still play?” Ellie asks, though Jenna knows what the answer will be even before Ellie is done asking the question.

  Jenna thinks they could have kept playing, even without Lauren, but all the enthusiasm is gone, the fragile veil of goodwill snatched away and dissolved into the growing darkness of night. Glancing back once to determine that the gathering of equipment is being managed by the adults, Jenna moves toward the house, is irritated to find that Lauren has fallen in beside her.

  “I guess I took care of that, huh?”

  Jenna doesn’t answer.

  “God, I hate this time of day. Especially out here—no lights, no cars or people, no nothing.” When Jenna fails to respond, Lauren adds, “It would be the perfect time though. You know how they always say it’s hardest to make out forms at dusk. And the road, it’s like right there and, with all those trees and stuff, they wouldn’t be able to see you like five feet away.”

  Jenna walks a little faster but Lauren just trots to keep up. “It would be so easy. There’s, like, not even any walls or fences or anything,” Lauren says, a little breathlessly.

  Jenna doesn’t want to be having this conversation, is annoyed less by the fact that Lauren is trying to have it with her than she is by the realization that she had these exact same thoughts hardly more than an hour ago herself.

  “Well, there sure are walls and fences at detention, which is exactly where you’d find yourself if you tried to run away from here,” Jenna says acidly.

  Lauren ignores her, sweeps her platinum hair back from her face. “How far do you think it is to the nearest town? You could probably catch a bus there, and nobody would ever have the faintest idea where you went. If we left right after bedtime, they wouldn’t even know we were gone until morning.”

  “We?”

  “Oh, don’t tell me you haven’t already thought of it. Wouldn’t be the first place you voluntarily excused yourself from, I bet.”

  Lauren is, of course, exactly correct, but Jenna would never give her the satisfaction of saying so. “Listen, Lauren, I don’t care what you do. Just don’t try to include me in your little plans.”

  “What, so you have to think of everything yourself? Okay, we’ll pretend like it was your idea.”

  Jenna stops and faces Lauren, though she can barely make out her features in the dusk.

  She swallows hard, angry at Lauren, angry at herself, furious at that tiny vestige of hope she always carries that the next place, or the next one, or the next, will be better. With Lauren’s privilege and her snobby attitude and her fancy clothes, she would never understand. For a second, Jenna imagines herself saying that some people don’t just run away from food and beds and apparent decency, no matter how annoying, because there’s just as good a chance that the next place might be even worse.

  Instead, she simply tells Lauren, “There is no ‘we,’ okay? Whatever I do, I do it on my own.” Jenna walks away, vowing to do what she always does, what she does best: stay on her toes, watch her back, and be ready for anything, which, in this case, is danger in the guise of friendship.

  TUESDAY, MAY 22

  SARAH HAS SIGNED UP FOR PACKAGING TODAY. THAT means she got to sleep later but will have to work right up to group, no break after lunch. Grace will do the pick-up by herself today, the first one of the season, but eventually, Ellie said someone will get to go with her. They haven’t signed up past this week yet.

  At first, Sarah wanted to go to town more than anything, her mind racing and vaulting to determine what might allow her to be the first. It didn’t take long for her to realize she doesn’t really want to go at all. It’s not like this is her town or she’d see someone she knows, be free to wander around, buy a Coke or sneak a toke. Town is just another promise that won’t pan out.

  Sarah frowns over the bag of salad mix she is filling, her hands a little rigid, clumsy with the repetition. She fumbles a bit with the little twist tie, embarrassed that it takes her a few tries to get the hang of it. Shit, who can’t put on a twist tie? She’d thought this was going to be easy. Her hands are still shaky, and she imagines the little electrical impulses traveling from brain to muscle as twinkling lights, Tinkerbell hopping and jingling along the strands of nerves, learning the route again after having been on a drug vacation. Vacation in the trenches, ambrosia for the wenches.

  Sarah smiles to herself, glances up to see if anyone is watching her. Grace is busy bunching together baby beets in neat little groups of five, the blood red–streaked leaves of the ones she’s already done sticking up from the edges of the forty-seven baskets she has lined up in rows on wooden pallets along the wall. Grace doesn’t seem that interested in her, in any of them really, and Sarah is almost glad about that. She’s tired of the attention, the vigilant scrutiny of the counselors at rehab. Sarah had seen her own chart, noticed the red stamp for “suicide watch.” She smiles again at that. She guesses it must have been the scars, though Sarah’s not like the real cutters who are addicted to it. It was just a game, something they did when the high wasn’t enough. She doesn’t need it, can stop, has stopped.

  And it never meant she was suicidal. They should know that cutters rarely are. They made too big of a deal out of it, asked her all kinds of questions. Sarah almost felt sorry for them, how important it was to them, so she told them what she figured they wanted to hear, parroted their own words back to them; said she used it as an escape, how everything was too painful to face, that the pain of cutting gave her a feeling of control. The woman counselors wanted to hear the emotional stuff. The men seemed to want to hear that you were punishing yourself, knew how bad you were and were repenting for how you’d hurt your parents or your siblings or the family dog.


  She doesn’t actually know why she did it, kind of wishes now she hadn’t. She took off her sweatshirt earlier today when it got so hot in the sun, but she’s put it back on because she feels uncomfortable when she’s in close quarters with someone else, when the red slashes, turned mostly white now like thin slices of the onions they pulled in the garden earlier, are so obvious, so . . . intimate. She doesn’t want to have to talk about it anymore, explain it again. She doesn’t know these people at all, but guesses they are just like the counselors at the Center or the people from the shelters who tried to round up the kids at night, promising food and a bed when they were just going to turn you in in the morning.

  The salad bags are supposed to read .53 on the scale, half a pound for the contents, .03 for the bag. Tare weight, Grace said. Sarah likes that. Tare. She likes the precision of it, aiming for the exact total, sometimes having to push in another handful, sometimes removing a few leaves until the digital numbers blink the right combination, like a ship loading ballast in the hold, a special word for the balance. She is becoming part of a new vocabulary. Mesclun, arugula, mizuna, CSA, humus, sycamore, pullet—a raft of girls floating on a new sea, a garden wind blows to set them free.