by K. S. Thomas
“Colorado,” I mumble, “I don’t care what you think. I want to see snow.”
“Colorado it is then,” he agrees. And we walk, pretending to have a destination, but knowing our aim hasn’t changed any from the last damn time we ran away. We’re not really going anywhere, we’re just trying to survive.
CHAPTER THREE
“Jane Cooper?”
That’s me. I get up, I start moving, following the voice who said my name. It’s all on autopilot. The voice is different. The long, dark corridor is different. Even the plastic chairs were a different shade of puke green this time, but the process, it’s always the same. You get busted. You get dragged in, shoved in some corner and then, eventually, someone shows up to drag you back out and onto the next place. Sometimes I recognize the person who picks me up, sometimes I don’t. I’ve been in the system my whole life and I’ve been passed around between social workers from the get go. No one’s wanted to be stuck with me. Not from the moment I was born. Even before I could make my own bad choices, I had my mother’s working against me and the stigma of being her child followed me for years.
There’s an exchange between the adults as I’m passed off, but I’m too busy staring at the floor and wondering where Gun is to care. I haven’t seen him since we were cuffed and crammed into the back of that cop car. No one will tell me where they took him once we got here. No one cares. I’m a minor. And we’re not related. They don’t get that we’re the only family the other’s got.
We step outside and the bright sunlight blinds me. I’m suddenly woefully aware that I’ve lost all track of time. It was dark when we got here. Was it last night? Has it been longer than twenty-four hours?
“You hungry?” A man’s voice. It’s familiar. Curiosity gets the better of me and I look up. All sense of familiarity disappears again. He’s Korean with a nice face and wavy black hair he keeps longer than any social worker I’ve ever dealt with. He’s young too. Maybe in his thirties. Probably late twenties. Even when he’s just staring at me, waiting for me to respond, there’s an uncanny kindness about him I don’t fully know how to process.
“Who are you?” It was probably mentioned at some point back inside, but I was too preoccupied being pissed off about Gun to listen.
“My name is Bon-Hwa Amante. I run the Whaler’s House.” He smiles. And I know why I thought I knew him. I have heard his voice.
“You’re Mr. B.” Hope blossoms slowly in my chest. “Where’s Gun?”
He seems slightly disheartened. “They’re not being as cooperative as I’d like. I’m afraid Gun’s going to have to spend another night here, but don’t worry. I’m taking care of it.” His hand meets my lower back and he begins to usher me away from the building. “Trust me, I’ll have him back home just as soon as I can.”
“You’re letting him come back?” He has to know Gun stole that money.
He nods. “Of course.”
I laugh, not because I find him funny. Because I find him naïve. “Is it a Jesus thing?” I ask snidely.
“Excuse me?” He releases his hand from my back and we part ways at the passenger side door to a large SUV. I guess this is his ride.
“You know, forgiveness, turn the other cheek, save the children and all that jazz?”
He chuckles. “All good things, but no, that’s not what I’m in it for.”
I lift the handle until it clicks and opens. Mr. B mirrors me on the other side and we face each other again inside the vehicle as we slide into our seats.
“Then what?”
Smiling, he places his key in the ignition and starts up the truck. “You never answered me about food. But I know what those places serve up. How do you feel about Italian?”
I frown, skepticism keeping me at bay. “I’d rather just get this done and over with. I know I’m not staying at your place. Where are you taking me?”
He shifts into reverse, still grinning. “Italian food it is.”
I’d argue, but he’s clearly not listening to anything I say.
Since talking isn’t getting me anywhere, I resort to staring out the window. Mr. B doesn’t seem to mind a little awkward silence. He just turns up the radio, singing along to nearly every song. Sometimes he gets the lyrics right. Sometimes he doesn’t. It’s almost like he’s most committed to belting as loudly as he can when he knows he’s butchering the words. He’s funny. Which I find a little annoying. I don’t want to be amused right now. I don’t want to go eat Italian food. It’s all wrong. Gun should be sitting in this truck with him, not me.
I’ve been zoning out for a while when we stop and I have no choice but to check back in with reality. There’s no restaurant in sight. We’re in a neighborhood. Old houses, most of them the size of small castles, line the street in both directions. Right across from us is a lake. It has to be a lake, we’re nowhere near the coast, but it’s so damn big I can’t see land on the other side.
“I thought we were going to get food,” I point out, following his lead and getting out of the vehicle. I have to hurry to catch up when I’m out. He’s already halfway up the walkway leading to the door.
“We are. Best Italian around.” He winks at me over his shoulder, then knocks. And walks right in. “Ma?” he calls out into the stone paved hall. It echoes. The place is huge with a gorgeous, warm Mediterranean theme all throughout. If this is the house Mr. B grew up in, I don’t know what in the hell he finds appealing about the Whaler’s House for Boys. This place is like something right out of a fairy tale.
We’re just barely turning the corner into the next room when I hear voices. A lot of them. All ages. Kids. Babies. Men. Women. Then, a woman old enough to be my grandma, I’m guessing, I don’t have a grandma, comes hurrying out to greet us. She’s got thick black hair, laced with grey and white streaks, resting on her head in big, wavy curls. Her olive complexion is flawless and if it weren’t for her mannerisms and the way she dresses, I’d have struggled to place her age wise.
“Bon-Hwa,” she gushes, squeezing his cheeks and kissing his forehead. “You don’t come see your mother enough.”
I’m a little lost. This tall Korean man did not come out of that little Italian woman. I don’t think anyway. I mean, I guess it’s possible.
“Ma, this is Cooper,” he introduces me while I’m still busy gaping all around the room as two kids with curly blonde hair and whiter than white skin race past me. “Cooper, this is my mother, Nadine.”
“Hi.” I grimace attempting to smile. “You like a lot of people.”
She laughs heartily. “You could say that. Come on.” Where her son was delicate about guiding me along, she just reaches right in, arm stretched around my waist, hand resting on my hip while the other squeezes my arm. It’s the most loving gesture I’ve been exposed to in a long time and my throat clenches at her actions.
Whether she notices or not, she doesn’t show. She just keeps right on talking as we make our way through the house, Mr. B following a few steps behind.
“Wait until you try my lasagna. It’s my mother’s recipe – all from scratch, fresh tomatoes and basil from Gianni’s garden. She waves at an older gentleman standing out on the back porch as we pass by. He shouts an enthusiastic greeting through the open glass doors but we’re already entering the kitchen by the time I have it together enough to answer.
“Uh-huh,” I mumble as she somehow places me into a chair on her way to the stove.
“I hope you like mushrooms, my oldest makes the best stuffed mushrooms,” she goes on as she opens the oven and a wave of hot garlic comes wafting in my direction. I don’t like mushrooms, but there’s a pretty solid chance I’ll eat those things anyway.
“Your oldest?” I finally manage more than some non-verbal syllables again. “How many kids do you have exactly?”
Two oven mitts placed safely on her hands, she bends down and briefly disappears before making a reappearance with two baking sheets laden with cheesy, garlicky mushrooms. “Birthed two, collected eight and borrow
ed twenty-three and counting.” She looks absolutely delighted by her own announcement.
“Collected?” Can you collect kids?
“Adopted,” Mr. B fills me in quietly on his way to snag a mushroom.
“Oh.” Going along with that terminology, I suppose it’s safe to assume the borrowed ones are fostered. And counting. So, they’re still taking in more kids. I turn to Mr. B, trying my hardest to catch his eye so I can practice my mental telepathy skills and inquire about my status in this kitchen. Am I passing through for dinner? Or a highly-desired collector’s item.
I’m about to burst out into complete sentences, when a woman walks in. She’s wiry like me, big hair that seems to go from too much attention to none at all based on the overgrown bangs and three inch roots showing off a stark contrast between her coffee colored hair and the fiery red she died it once upon a time. She’s got resting bitch face down pat and even her overall body language screams of fuck off. She’s definitely something they collected.
“Magdalene!” Nadine tosses her arms into the air dramatically and embraces the pissed off stick figure who seems somewhat immune to it.
“Hi, Ma.”
Nadine must be used to this. Kisses fly from cheek to cheek and end in one last smack on top of her unkempt head of hair. “I love this mess.” She tousles the wild mane and laughs. “Suits you.”
Magdalene nods, her eyes flaring wide for a moment as they meet Mr. B’s. “B.”
“Mags.”
I can’t tell if they like each other or not. But then it’s hard to say whether this chick likes anyone at all.
“Marie pop yet?” She asks, plucking a grape from the massive fruit bowl at the center of the kitchen island.
Mr. B chuckles. “She wishes. Not due for two more weeks.”
“Finally pick a name?” She comes up closer to his side. “I sent you a list. All Mags approved.”
“I saw.” He bites his lip, like he’s trying to keep the rest of his thoughts from passing through. “Gotta tell ya, I don’t think Marie’s gonna name her baby ‘Smorgasbord’.”
She gasps, seriously affronted. “Why not? Are you kidding me?! That baby of yours is going to be a delicious variety of ethnicities bundled up in one sweet nibble of joy which will be devoured the second you roll up with him or her at this house. You see the way Ma is around chubby cheeks. I can’t believe Marie didn’t like it. That was one of my top choices.”
“God help us all if you ever reproduce,” Nadine mutters dryly, smacking her ass as she walks past with a tray of sliced tomatoes and mozzarella.
“No need to worry there.” Magdalene pretends to puke all over herself. Then pokes B, and almost laughs. “Can you imagine?”
“You as a mother?” He chooses this specific turn in the conversation to point to me. “Have you met Cooper?”
She marches up to me. “You the crack-whore baby no one wants?”
Never had anyone put it quite like that. “Uh-huh.”
“Sweet. Me, too.” She raises her hand up above her head. “High five!”
I do it, but only because I’m too confounded by this entire interaction to question it.
“Don’t call people crack-whore babies,” Nadine scolds. “At least not until they know you better.” She turns toward me, tilting her head apologetically, “She has a very dark sense of humor. Tried to love it out of her, but it didn’t work.” She shrugs. “Chocolate helps though.”
This family is so fucking weird.
“So, you, like, take in the crack-whore babies or something? Your mom collects a large variety, Mr. B gets the troubled boys, and babies are yours?”
“I could be the crack-whore baby mama. I can see why you’d think that. Buuut I hate kids, so no.” She lays nearly flat across the counter to stretch and reach the grapes I’d assumed were out of reach from where we’re positioned.
“Which is why it’s so handy you’re not a kid,” Mr. B chimes in with a frightening sort of enthusiasm.
“No, now I’m the crack-whore’s teenager. Or, suspected crack-whore. She wasn’t exactly forthcoming during labor regarding her crack-whoring tendencies.” I don’t know why I’m still having this conversation. Maybe it helps me deny what his statement was implying. I’m not just here for lasagna. I’m here to meet Magdalene. My new foster mom. Though she’s hardly old enough to be my mother. Maybe an aunt. Probably closer to big sister.
“She looks scared,” Magdalene observes bluntly.
“We’re all a little scared,” Nadine retorts. She comes back around, squeezing my shoulder, “She’s got a bad knee on the left. If she gets out of hand, one swift kick will take her right out,” she whispers loudly, making sure everyone can hear her.
I laugh before I can stop myself.
“Ma!” This time Magdalene’s outrage is purely for show. She’s smirking, no longer bothering to hide her amusement with this circus.
“It’s true,” Mr. B confirms. “Plus, she’s ticklish.” He jams his fingers up into her armpit and she squirms. “Right here.”
Magdalene squeals, slapping his hand away and running out of his reach while he chases her around the island until their mother intervenes. I’ve never seen anything like it. Ever. Family. Foster kids who made it. Who have a home to come back to. I thought my chance to find that for myself had come and gone, but sitting here, almost as if I belong, part of me can’t help but wonder if there’s still time after all.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Just talked to B,” Mags announces, having magically appeared in my doorway. I’ve been at her place less than forty-eight hours and I already know privacy’s not a thing around here. But unlike some of the other places I’ve lived, there’s no creep factor involved. Just no sense of boundaries whatsoever.
“What did he say? Are they letting Gun out?” I’m off my bed and on my feet in no time. I don’t know why, it’s not like I’m going anywhere. I guess I’d just like to. My every instinct is driving me to move to wherever he is.
“We didn’t talk about Gun,” she says, as if the thought never even crossed her mind.
I feel like my jaw just dropped to the floor. “What?”
“What would there be to talk about?” Gun’s in my room. Smirking. GUN. IS. HERE.
I leap for him, body-slamming him into a rib crushing hug which he’s kind enough to reciprocate. “You scared me this time,” I whisper, my face buried in the crook of his neck. “That was too long, too close of a call.” I lift my head to meet his eyes. They’re serious. Tired. But there’s no anger in them tonight. “No more getting in trouble,” I say, hoping to take advantage of my clear vulnerability and back him into striking a deal.
“No more getting busted,” he agrees, nodding. He doesn’t really think I missed the underlying message of his statement. Not getting busted isn’t exactly like not getting into trouble. But, tonight’s not the night to get into that.
“Here,” Mags steps toward us, handing Gun a cookie. I don’t know where she keeps her sweets, but they’re always appearing out of thin air at the most surprising moments. “Eat it. You need it.” She’s not wrong. He looks pale and thinner than usual. Living on the streets wasn’t easy to begin with. A week and a half in juvy probably wasn’t the sort of vacation that was going to help him recoup.
“B’s downstairs ordering pizza. Shouldn’t take more than twenty before it gets here,” Mags rambles on, walking out of the room again.
Gun and I watch each other in silence as he chomps away at his cookie and we both listen for Mags to make her way down the stairs. When we hear her exchanging insults with Mr. B in the kitchen, we start to relax a bit.
“I can’t believe she’s Mr. B’s sister.” He shakes his head, placing the second half of his cookie on my nightstand. It must be really tasty if he’s saving me some.
“Did you know he was like us?” I ask, moving toward my bed to have a seat. Gun follows, plopping down beside me and laying his head back onto the mattress, his arms up and crossed behind his h
ead like a pillow.
“Thought maybe. He’s made a few random comments here and there, made me wonder.” He kicks off his shoes and stretches his long legs out as far as they will go. “What’s Mags like?”
“You.” I hadn’t thought about it until it shot right out of my mouth like a bullet.
“Come again?” He chuckles, as if I’ve made an unbelievable suggestion.
“She is. She’s sort of harsh and blunt in a lot of ways, but at her core, she’s like, the best possible person, you know?” I think back at our first conversation. “She called me a crack-whore baby and then high-fived me the first time we met.” I laugh, bouncing myself slowly back until I’m lying down beside him, both of us staring up at the ceiling.
“Guess she doesn’t pull any punches.”
I shake my head, the ruffle of my bedding in my ear. “Nope. Every thought seems to just sort of fall out of her mouth completely unfiltered. I like it. I never have to wonder with her. She doesn’t look at me as anything but me. She doesn’t think I’m trouble. She definitely doesn’t feel bad for me. It’s nice.”
His head turns and I can see him looking at me out of the corner of my eye. “She does give off a bit of a candy witch vibe though, doesn’t she? I mean, she shoved a Hershey bar in my hand before I even walked in the door. Then a cookie before she left. You’re seeing that, right? You’re not hovering around her oven or anything? Maybe just stay out of the kitchen all together.”
I elbow his side and laugh. “You’re ridiculous. And the witch winds up in the oven, not the kids.”
He rubs his side, pretending to be put out. “Seriously though, it’s a little weird.”
I shrug. “I think it’s just a very literal sweet side. And probably the only one she’s got.”
He returns his attention to the ceiling. “I’m glad you’re here. With her. And her literal sweet side.”
“Me too.”
His arm comes down between us until his hand finds mine and he twines our fingers together. We’ve been holding hands since we were kids. It’s never been more than a basic gesture of support. Of knowing we’re in this together. No matter what. And, as he squeezes his palm into mine, I remind myself, that’s all it still is. A gesture between friends. Best friends.