The Best American Short Stories® 2011

by Geraldine Brooks

  Her mother, Yvette, had no trouble with numbers. She was a blackjack dealer at the Casino Royale. You had to be smart, and you had to think fast—you had to know what the hell you were doing—to be a blackjack dealer.

  Counting cards. This was forbidden. If you caught somebody counting cards you signaled for help. Yvette liked to say that one day soon she would change her name, her hair color, and all that she could about herself, and drive out to Vegas, or to some lesser place, like Reno, and play blackjack in such a way that they'd never catch on—counting cards like no amateur could do.

  But if Lisette said, "You're going to take me with you, Momma, okay?" her mother would frown as if Lisette had said something really dumb, and laugh. "Sweetie, I'm just joking. Obviously you don't fuck with these casino guys."

  Vegas or Reno wasn't where she'd gone this time. Lisette was certain of that. She hadn't taken enough clothes.

  In seventh grade, Lisette had had no trouble with math. She'd had no trouble with any of her school subjects. She'd got mostly B's and her mother had stuck her report card, open like a greeting card, to the refrigerator. All that seemed long ago now.

  She was having a hard time sitting still. It was like red ants were crawling inside her clothes, in her armpits and between her legs. Stinging and tickling. Making her itch. Except that she couldn't scratch the way she wanted to—really hard with her fingernails, to draw blood—and there was no point in just touching where her skin itched. That would only make it worse.

  The ridge of her nose, where the cartilage and bone had been "rebuilt"—a numb sensation there. And her eye—her left eye, with its tears dripping out. Liz-zette's crying! Hey—Liz-zette's crying! Why're you crying, Liz-zz-zette?

  They liked her, the older guys. That was why they teased her. Like she was some kind of cute little animal, like—a mascot?

  First time she'd seen J.C. (Jimmy Chang—he'd transferred into her class in sixth grade), she'd nudged Keisha, saying, "Ohhhh," like in some MTV video, a moan to signal sex-pain, though she didn't know what that was, exactly. Her mother's favorite music videos were soft rock, retro rock, country and western, disco. Lisette had heard her in the shower, singing-moaning in a way she couldn't decipher—was it angry or happy?

  Oh, she hated math class! Hated this place! Sitting at her desk in the row by the windows, at the front of the classroom, made Lisette feel like she was at the edge of a bright-lit room looking in—like she wasn't a part of the class. Nowicki said, "It's to keep you involved, up close like this," so Lisette wouldn't daydream or lose her way, but it had just the opposite effect. Most days Lisette felt like she wasn't there at all.

  She swiped at her eyes. Shifted her buttocks, hoping to alleviate the stinging red ants. Nearly fifteen damn minutes she'd been waiting for the teacher to turn her fat back so that she could flip a folded-over note across the aisle to Keisha, for Keisha to flip over to J.C., in the next row. This note wasn't paper but a Kleenex, and on the Kleenex a lipstick kiss—a luscious grape-colored lipstick kiss—for J.C. from Lisette.

  She'd felt so dreamy blotting her lips on the Kleenex. A brand-new lipstick, Deep Purple, which her mother knew nothing about, because Lisette, like her girlfriends, wore lipstick only away from home, and it was startling how different they all looked within seconds—how mature and how sexy.

  Out of the corner of her eye she was watching J.C.—J.C., stretching his long legs in the aisle, silky black hair falling across his forehead. J.C. wasn't a guy you trifled with. Not J.C. or his "posse." She'd been told. She'd been warned. These were older guys by a year or maybe two. They'd been kept back in school, or had started school later than their classmates. But the beer buzz at the back of Lisette's head made her careless, reckless.

  J.C.'s father worked at the Trump Taj Mahal. Where he'd come from, somewhere called Bay-jing, in China, he'd driven a car for some high government official. Or he'd been a bodyguard. J.C. boasted that his father carried a gun. J.C. had held it in his hand. Man, he'd fired it!

  A girl had asked J.C. if he'd ever shot anybody and J.C. had shrugged and laughed.

  Lisette's mother had moved Lisette and herself to Atlantic City from Edison, New Jersey, when Lisette was nine years old. She'd been separated from Lisette's father, but later Daddy had come to stay with them when he was on leave from the army. Then they were separated again. Now they were divorced.

  Lisette liked to name the places where her mother had worked. They had such special names: Trump Taj Mahal, Bally's, Harrah's, the Casino Royale. Except she wasn't certain if Yvette still worked at the Casino Royale—if she was still a blackjack dealer. Could be Yvette was back to being a cocktail waitress.

  It made Lisette so damn—fucking—angry! You could ask her mother the most direct question, like "Exactly where the hell are you working now, Momma?" and her mother would find a way to give an answer that made some kind of sense at the time but melted away afterward, like a tissue dipped in water.

  J.C.'s father was a security guard at the Taj. That was a fact. J.C. and his friends never approached the Taj but hung out instead at the south end of the Strip, where there were cheap motels, fast-food restaurants, pawnshops, bail-bond shops, and storefront churches, with sprawling parking lots, not parking garages, so they could cruise the lots and side streets after dark and break into parked vehicles if no one was watching. The guys laughed at how easy it was to force open a locked door or a trunk, where people left things like, for instance, a woman's heavy handbag that she didn't want to carry while walking on the boardwalk. Assholes! Some of them were so dumb you almost felt sorry for them.

  Lisette was still waiting for Nowicki to be distracted. She was beginning to lose her nerve. Passing a lipstick kiss to J.C. was like saying, "All right, if you want to screw me, fuck me—whatever—hey, here I am."

  Except maybe it was just a joke. So many things were jokes—you had to negotiate the more precise meaning later. If there was a later. Lisette wasn't into thinking too seriously about later.

  She wiped her eyes with her fingertips, like she wasn't supposed to do since the surgery. Your fingers are dirty, Lisette. You must not touch your eyes with your dirty fingers. There is the risk of infection. Oh, God, she hated how both her eyes filled with tears in the cold months and in bright light, like the damn fluorescent light in all the schoolrooms and corridors. So her mother had got permission for Lisette to wear her dark-purple-tinted glasses to school. They made her look cool—like she was in high school, not middle school, sixteen or seventeen, not thirteen.

  "Hell, you're not thirteen—are you? You?" one of her mother's man friends would say, eyeing her suspiciously. But, like, why would she want to play some trick about her age? He'd been mostly an asshole, this friend of her mother's. Chester— Chet. But he'd lent Momma some part of the money she'd needed for Lisette's eye doctor.

  This morning Lisette had had to get up by herself. Get her own breakfast—Frosted Wheaties—in front of the TV, and she hated morning TV, cartoons and crap, or, worse yet, "news." She'd slept in her clothes for the third night in a row—black T-shirt, underwear, wool socks—dragged on her jeans, a scuzzy black sweater of her mother's with TAJ embossed on the back in turquoise satin. And her boots. Checked the phone messages, but there were none.

  Friday night at nine her mother had called. Lisette had seen the caller ID and hadn't picked up. Fuck you, going away. Why the fuck should I talk to you ? Later, feeling kind of scared, hearing loud voices out in the street, she'd tried to call her mother's cell phone. But the call hadn't gone through. Fuck you. I hate you anyway. Hate hate hate you!

  Unless Momma brought her back something nice, like when she and Lisette's father went to Fort Lauderdale for their "second honeymoon" and Momma brought back a pink-coral-colored outfit—tunic top, pants. Even with all that had gone wrong in Fort Lauderdale, Momma had remembered to bring Lisette a gift.

  Now it happened—and it happened fast.

  Nowicki went to the classroom door, where someone was knoc
king and— quick!—with a pounding heart Lisette leaned over to hand the wadded Kleenex note to Keisha, who tossed it onto J.C.'s desk. J.C. blinked at the note like it was some weird beetle that had fallen from the ceiling, and without glancing over at Keisha or at Lisette, peering at him through her tinted glasses, with a gesture like shrugging his shoulders—J.C. was so cool—all he did was shut the Kleenex in his fist and shove it into a pocket of his jeans.

  Any other guy, he'd open the note to see what it was. But not Jimmy Chang. J.C. was so accustomed to girls tossing him notes in class, he didn't have much curiosity about what it was that the snarl-haired girl in the dark glasses had sent him—or maybe he already had a good idea what it was. Kiss-kiss. Kiss-kiss-kiss. The main thing was that J.C. hadn't just laughed and crumpled it up like trash.

  By now Lisette's mouth was dry like cotton. This was the first time she'd passed such a note to J.C.—or to any boy. And the beer buzz that had made her feel so happy and hopeful was rapidly fading.

  She'd had half a beer, maybe. Swilling it down outside in the parking lot, where the buses parked and fouled the air with exhaust, but the guys didn't seem to notice, loud-talking and loud-laughing, and she could see the way they looked at her sometimes: Lisette Mulvey was hot.

  Except she'd spilled beer on her jacket. Beer stains on the darkgreen corduroy, which her mother would detect, if she sniffed at them. Whenever she returned home.

  This Monday, in January—it was January. She'd lost track of the actual date like she'd lost track of the little piece of paper from the eye doctor that her mother had given her, for the drugstore, for the eye drops. This her mother had given her last week, the last time she'd seen her, maybe Thursday morning. Or Wednesday. It was some kind of steroid solution that she needed for her eye after the surgery, but she couldn't find that piece of paper now, not in her jacket or in her backpack or in the kitchen or in her bedroom—not anywhere.

  Nowicki was at the door now, turning to look at—who? Lisette? It was like a bad dream, where you're singled out—some stranger, a cop, it looked like, coming to your classroom to ask for you.

  "Lisette? Can you step out into the hall with us, please?"

  Next to Nowicki was a woman in a uniform—had to be Atlantic City PD—Hispanic features and skin color, and dark hair drawn back tight and sleek in a knot. Everybody in the classroom was riveted now, awake and staring, and poor Lisette in her seat was paralyzed, stunned. She tried to stand, biting at her lip. Fuck, her feet were tangled in her backpack straps. There was a roaring in her ears, through which the female cop's voice penetrated, repeating what she'd said and adding, "Personal possessions, please," meaning that Lisette should bring her things with her. She wouldn't be returning to the classroom.

  So scared, she belched beer. Sour-vomity-beer taste in her mouth and—oh, Christ!—what if the cop smelled her breath?

  In the corridor, a worse roaring in her ears, out of the woman's mouth came bizarre sounds. Eiii-dee. If you are Lisette Mulvey, come with me.

  Eiii-dee, eiii-dee —like a gull's cry borne on the wind, rising and snatched away, even as you strained desperately to hear it.

  Turned out there were two cops who'd come for her.

  The Hispanic policewoman introduced herself: Officer Molina. Like Lisette was going to remember this name, let alone use it. The other cop was a man, a little younger than the woman, his skin so acne-scarred you'd be hard put to say if he was white.

  Both of them looking at Lisette like—what? Like they felt sorry for her, or were disgusted with her, or—what? She saw the male cop's eyes drop to her tight-fitting jeans with a red rag patch at the knee, then up again to her blank terrified face.

  It wouldn't be note-passing in math class that they'd come to arrest her for. Maybe at the Rite Aid the other day—plastic lipstick tubes marked down to sixty-nine cents in a bin. Lisette's fingers had snatched three of them up and into her pocket, without her even knowing what she was doing.

  "You are Lisette Mulvey, daughter of Yvette Mulvey, yes?"

  Numbly Lisette nodded.

  Officer Molina did the talking. Lisette was too frightened to react when the policewoman took hold of her arm at the elbow, not forcibly but firmly, as a female relation might, walking Lisette down the stairs, talking to her in a calm, kindly, matter-of-fact voice that signaled, You will be all right. This will be all right. Just come with us.

  "How recently did you see your mother, Lisette? Or speak with your mother? Was it today?"

  Today? What was today? Lisette couldn't remember.

  "Has your mother been away, Lisette? And did she call you?"

  Lisette shook her head.

  "Your mother isn't away? But she isn't at home, is she?"

  Lisette tried to think. What was the right answer? A weird scared smile made her mouth twist in the way that pissed off her mother, who mistook the smile for something else.

  Molina said, "When did you last speak with your mother, Lisette?"

  Shyly Lisette mumbled that she didn't know.

  "But not this morning? Before you went to school?"

  "No. Not—this morning." Lisette shook her head, grateful for something to say that was definite.

  They were outside, behind the school. A police cruiser was parked in the fire lane. Lisette felt a taste of panic. Was she being arrested, taken to juvie court? The boys in J.C.'s posse joked about juvie court.

  In the cold wet air she felt the last of the beer buzz evaporate. She hated how the cops—both cops—were staring at her, like they'd never seen anything so sad or so pathetic before, like she was some sniveling little mangy dog. They could see the pimply skin at her hairline and every knot in her frizz-hair that she hadn't taken the time to comb or run a brush through, let alone shampoo, for four, five days. She hadn't had a shower either. That long, her mother had been away.

  Away for the weekend with—who? That had been one of Momma's secrets. Could be a new "friend"—some man she'd met at the casino. There were lots of roving unattached men in Atlantic City. If they won in the casino they needed to celebrate with someone, and if they lost in the casino they needed to be cheered up by someone. Yvette Mulvey was the one! Honey-colored hair, not dirtcolored like Lisette's, in waves to her shoulders, sparkling eyes, a quick soothing laugh that a man wanted to hear—not sharp and ice-picky, driving him up the wall.

  Lisette had asked her mother who she was going away for the weekend with and Momma had said, "Nobody you know." But the way she'd smiled—not at Lisette but to herself, an unfathomable look on her face like she was about to step off a diving board into midair—had made Lisette think suddenly, Daddy?

  She knew that her mother was still in contact with her father. Somehow she knew this, though Momma had not told her. Even after the divorce, which had been a nasty divorce, they'd been in contact. That was because (as Daddy had explained to her) she would always be his daughter. All else might change—like where Daddy lived, and if Daddy and Mommy were married—but not that. Not ever.

  So Lisette had persisted in asking her mother, was it Daddy she was going away with? Was it Daddy? Was it?—nagging at Momma until she laughed, saying, "Hell no! No way I'm seeing that asshole again."

  Her mother had gone away for the weekend. "I can trust you, Lisette, right?" she'd said, and Lisette had said, "Sure, sure you can."

  Alone in the house meant that Lisette could stay up as late as she wanted. And watch any TV channel she wanted. And lie sprawled on the sofa talking on her cell phone as much as she wanted.

  It was a short walk to the mini-mall—Kentucky Fried Chicken, Vito's Pizzeria, Taco Bell. Though it was easier just to defrost frozen suppers in the microwave and eat in front of the TV.

  The first night, Keisha had come over. The girls had watched a DVD that Keisha brought and eaten what they could find in the refrigerator. "It's cool your mother's gone away. Where's she gone?"

  Lisette thought. Possibly her mother had gone to Vegas after all. With her man friend, or whoever. T
his time of year, depressing cold and wet by the ocean—the smartest place to go would be Vegas.

  "She's got lots of friends there, from the casino. She's welcome to go out there anytime. She'd have taken me, except for damn, dumb school."

  "So when did you last speak to her?"

  The cops were staring at her now, waiting for an answer, as she was guiltily faltering, fumbling. "Could've been, like, just yesterday—or the day before."

  Her heart thumped in her chest like a crazed sparrow throwing itself against a window, like the one she'd seen in a parking garage once, trapped up by the ceiling, beating its wings and exhausting itself.

  Yvette Mulvey was in trouble with the law—was that it?

  The only court Lisette had been in was Ocean County Family Court. There, the judge had awarded custody to Yvette Mulvey and visitation privileges to Duane Mulvey. If something happened to Yvette Mulvey now, Lisette would be placed in a foster home. It wasn't possible for Lisette to live with her father, who was a sergeant in the U.S. Army, and, last she'd heard, was about to be deployed to Iraq for the third time. Deployed was a strange word—a strange sound. De-ployed.

  Daddy hadn't meant to hurt her, she knew. Even Momma believed this, which was why she hadn't called 911. And when the doctor at the ER had asked Lisette how her face had got so bruised, her nose and eye socket broken, she'd said that it was an accident on the stairs—she'd been running, and she'd fallen.