The Benefits of Being an Octopus

by Ann Braden

  “Will you drop me off downtown on the way home?” I ask. “I think I need to see Fuchsia.”

  “Because we don’t have enough going on already, right?”

  I give my mom a look.

  “Fine. I’ll drop you off nearby,” she says. “It would just be easier if problems happened one at a time.”

  When she pulls the car up to the falling-apart building downtown where Fuchsia lives, she leans over. “You know I can’t waste any gas coming back to pick you up, right? The only way I could justify the trip to J & H Supermarket was the sale on beef.”

  “I know. I’ll walk.” Then I add, “It’ll be good practice.”

  My mom rolls her eyes and shifts back into drive. “Right. As if we’re ever going to make this happen.”

  The door to the building with Fuchsia’s apartment is only partway closed, and I push through it and head up the rickety stairs. Someone at one point tried to paint half of the stairway bright green but then gave up. As though all this place needed was a new coat of paint to freshen it up.

  I knock on the door to their apartment, and a few moments later I hear Fuchsia’s voice. “Who is it?”

  “It’s me. Can you let me in?”

  A lock is undone, and the door opens to reveal Fuchsia with her hair all squirrely like she’s just gotten out of bed.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Did I wake you up?” I ask as I step inside.

  “Naw,” she says, “but what’s the point of getting out of bed?” She closes the door behind me.

  “Where’s your mom?”

  She wraps her pink hoodie tighter around her. “Saturday morning shift at the bakery.” She peers out the window through the slats in the broken blinds. “You know, I’ve decided to call that DCF person.”

  “You have?”

  Fuchsia leans against the window frame. “Just haven’t done it yet.”

  I nod. “I know you say you like your alone time, but I figured I should be here with you, whether or not you decide to call.” I take my coat off and hang it over the one chair that’s pushed to the side of the room. “Sometimes it’s better to have someone at your side.”

  Fuchsia eyes me. “Thanks,” she says slowly.

  “How are you going to make the call?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like what phone are you going to use?”

  “The lady across the hall lets me use her phone for emergencies,” she mumbles—but she doesn’t move.

  “Oh,” I say. The air in the apartment is cold, and I pull my coat back on.

  “Are you going already?” Fuchsia asks.

  I shake my head and sit down in the chair, tucking my hands underneath me. I stare at Fuchsia. Without her makeup on she looks about as scared as Aurora did when she was surrounded by all those honking cars.

  I keep my voice low. “You know, you can get a protective order to keep someone away from you. You could get one against Michael.”

  “Yeah,” Fuchsia smirks. “Then I can be all: ‘Sorry, Crystal, I can’t move in with him because then he’d have to be arrested.’ That’d be hilarious except for the part where she’d kill me herself.”

  “But if you tell her about what Michael did?”

  Fuchsia shakes her head. “She wouldn’t believe me. She’d kick me out.”

  “Is that really any worse? You’d just end up calling the DCF lady after that.”

  She glares at me. “Yeah, it’s worse. You want to try and convince me that it’d be fun to get kicked out by your mom? To have her choose some angry troll-man over you? No. I’m going to be the one who gets to call the shots. Not her.”

  Fuchsia peers over the top of the hoary frost on the window pane to look outside and then goes to the fridge and pulls the door open. As soon as she does, a small ball of black-and-white fur zips in from the bedroom and starts weaving between Fuchsia’s legs.

  “Oh my gosh,” I say. “Is that Jane Kitty?”

  Fuchsia pulls out a quart of milk and closes the fridge behind her. “She can be totally asleep, but the sound of the fridge opening gets her every time.” She pours a bit of milk onto a plate and places it on the floor.

  Jane Kitty immediately starts lapping it up. “You and I aren’t so different, are we, Jane Kitty?” Fuchsia says, stroking her little furry back. “And I’m going to lose you no matter what I—”

  Fuchsia’s voice cuts out early, and she turns away from me. She doesn’t want me to see her cry again.

  I take a deep breath. Maybe I can’t give Fuchsia a bright pink headband, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help a different way. “What if I were here with you when you did it?” I ask. “If I were here when you told your mom about Michael?”

  “You mean, so she can kick you out, too?”

  “Sometimes people are different if someone else is there.” I shift on my hands. “And, if she kicked us both out together, then you wouldn’t be alone.”

  I expect Fuchsia to smirk and maybe throw something at me, but she doesn’t.

  “Okay,” she whispers. She keeps petting Jane Kitty and doesn’t look up at me.

  “Did you say ‘Okay’?” I ask. “Like you’ll really tell your mom what happened?”

  “If you’re going to be here for it.”

  I watch as Jane Kitty finishes lapping up the milk and Fuchsia scoops her up into her arms. Fuchsia, who doesn’t care if she has asthma, but is going to love that furry ball of kitten anyway.

  Like how the cold air feels like nothing when you’ve just stood your ground and told off the whole debate club.

  And how even the most organized trailer with nice curtains and a nice lamp and an alphabetized DVD collection is worth nothing if …

  I stand up. “When’s your mom going to be back?” I ask.

  Fuchsia looks at the clock on the stove. “Probably an hour? I don’t know—why?”

  “The woman who lives across the hall. Do you think she’d let me use her phone, too?”

  Fuchsia cocks an eyebrow at me. “She will if you tell her how much you love her birds.”

  “Her birds?”

  “She’s got like a hundred of them in there. Who do you need to call?”

  I’m already halfway to the door. “I’ll be right back.”

  As soon as I’m at the door to the neighbor lady’s apartment, I hear the birds, and it only gets louder once I get inside. The neighbor lady is a bit old and stooped and has a small parrot hopping around on her shoulder with about another two dozen birds in cages behind her squawking up a storm, probably all arguing that they should get shoulder privileges, too.

  “Just keep it short,” she says over the racket of cheeps when I ask her if I can use her phone.

  I follow her into another room, one that has even more birds.

  “Your birds seem really sweet!” I say. Or enthusiastic.

  The smell that hit me when she first opened the door into the apartment only gets stronger in the next room. I can’t really place it. It’s like damp newspapers but more funky. I’m pretty sure it’s the smell of Too Much Bird.

  Still, the little parrot hopping around on the neighbor lady’s shoulder and burrowing its beak into its feathers is pretty cute. The lady grabs a little yarn ball from a pile on a small table as she passes it and tosses it up to the bird, who grabs it in its beak. Like a tiny dog with feathers.

  The neighbor lady stops at the old-fashioned kind of phone. Not only is it the big kind that isn’t a cell phone, but it’s got a loopy spiral cord that’s connected to the wall.

  “Thank you,” I say over the chirps.

  I dial my mom’s cell number.

  “It’s me,” I say when she picks up.

  “You better not be calling asking for a ride.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Good,” she says. She drops her voice. “Because Lenny is already suspicious about why I had to drive all the way up to Route 14 for groceries. The ground beef sale calmed him down a bit, but he’s still a
cting funny. It’s like he knows!”

  I cover my other ear to try to block out the bird sounds. I can barely hear her. “He doesn’t know,” I say.

  “But I haven’t told him yet that I would quit my job. He knows I haven’t said that. I can tell. It’s like he’s watching me, waiting to strike. I know he’s never hit me before but … ”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He went over to Slider’s to help him move a couch.”

  “Did they take the car?”

  “No. Slider came by and picked him up, but I told you I’m not giving you a ride. I know he’s going to check the mileage on the car as soon as he gets back, and I don’t—”

  “Mom,” I cut in. “How much do you have saved up for rent?”

  “Well, I didn’t pay Lenny the rent I owe him yet, but that’s the other thing—I think he knows about that, too. I told him I didn’t have time to get to Walmart to cash this week’s paycheck, but I’ve never been a good liar and—”

  I try to ignore the panic in her voice. “Okay. So you have the money from this week’s paycheck,” I say. “That’s something.”

  “And I still have a little bit left from my tips from the week but even then it all only adds up to one hundred and sixty-seven dollars.”

  “What if I was able to get someone to rent us an apartment for that much?”

  “There’s no way,” she scoffs. “Rent for one hundred sixty-seven dollars? Have you lost your mind?”

  “There’d just be one catch,” I say.

  “What? That it’s a garbage can, not an apartment?”

  “It just might come with people already living in it.”

  “Who?”

  I take a deep breath. “Fuchsia,” I say. “And maybe her mom if she wants to stay.”

  My mom sucks in her breath. “Oh, honey. You know what Crystal’s like. Don’t fool yourself into thinking she’s changed.”

  “I know, Mom.” I say. “But you know what happened to Fuchsia, and if that’s happening to Fuchsia then what’s happening to Crystal when no one’s around to see?”

  She’s quiet for a long time, and all I can hear is the muffled cries of all the birds around me.

  “It might be messy,” I finally say, “but the only way we’re going to have a chance is if we stick together.”

  CHAPTER 25

  It took all the convincing I had to get my mom to put Hector, Bryce, and Aurora in Lenny’s car and drive over to Fuchsia’s apartment, so she can see the place and talk to Crystal. As soon as I open the door for Mom, she’s at my ear whispering, “If he gets home before we do, I just know he’s going to call the cops and tell them I stole his car.” She shifts Hector onto her other hip. “And even if we do get back in time, he’ll see the odometer. He’ll know we went somewhere. What am I supposed to tell him?”

  “Blame it on me,” I say. “Tell him I was freaking out because my friend needed help and that it wouldn’t have been right to ignore her.”

  My mom shakes her head. “As if that’s going to be enough.”

  Bryce and Aurora have been standing in the doorway looking nervous. They know who Fuchsia is, but she’s never been that nice to them. It’s not like she’s been particularly mean either, but she just hasn’t been around little kids much. Even the foster families where she’s stayed all had older kids, and it’s like whenever little kids are around she gets itchy.

  Which is one of the reasons why I just mentioned that maybe it could be good to have even more people around when she tells her mom—and why I haven’t told her about my other idea yet. She’s not necessarily going to be a fan.

  Fuchsia pokes her head out of the bedroom, and I almost think she’s about to slip back into it and pretend she never saw us, but then Jane Kitty zips out between her feet and leaps onto the windowsill.

  “A kitty!” Aurora exclaims, forgetting all about how nervous she felt. She makes a beeline for the windowsill with Bryce right behind her, and soon you can’t even see Jane Kitty because of all the pets and kisses being heaped onto her. Aurora isn’t like other little kids that would yank a cat’s tail, but she is going to get right in its face and tell it how “bootiful” it is.

  I cross the room to where Fuchsia is watching her kitten get smothered in love.

  “Aurora and Bryce will be really gentle,” I say.

  Fuchsia nods but she doesn’t look convinced. “Remind me again why your whole family had to come?”

  “My mom and I are just here to back you up when you tell your mom about Michael—and … ” I take in Bryce and Aurora, who are still wearing their big puffy winter coats and look like dirty Oompa Loompas. “And they just have to go wherever we go.”

  When Crystal shows up twenty minutes later, she’s pretty surprised to find all of us here, too.

  “What the—” she starts, but stops when she sees the little kids.

  “Come on,” I whisper to Bryce and Aurora. “How about you bring Jane Kitty to Fuchsia’s bed in the other room and keep playing there.”

  The magic of Jane Kitty means that they don’t care where they are, as long as they get to keep petting her head and rolling balls of tin foil at her belly for her to fend off like a spastic ninja. When I come back out to the main room, my mom and Crystal are staring at each other like they’re in a full-on showdown.

  “I thought I told you I didn’t need your pity,” Crystal is saying.

  My mom crosses her arms. “I am not here because of some pity party for you.”

  “Yeah, you with your great boyfriend and great place to live. So, what are you here for then? Because I don’t need you to tell me you’re better than me to know you think it.”

  My mom leans back against the wall. “I’m only here because Zoey asked me to come.”

  Crystal’s eyes find their way to me. I swallow. “Um … Fuchsia has something she needs to tell you.”

  “Does she?” Crystal drops her bag on the floor and comes around the table until she’s inches away from Fuchsia. “And you needed witnesses for it, eh? It’s that good?”

  Fuchsia glares at the floor. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  “Oh,” tsks Crystal, “but what’s the point of having an audience if you’ve got nothing to say? It seems like a real waste to—”

  “Stop talking to her like that!” I blurt out. “You don’t know what she’s been through.”

  Crystal whips her head around. “Oh, really. And I should listen to you because you’re her mother and you know what’s best?”

  “That’s my daughter you’re talking to,” my mom says.

  “Yeah, well she’s in my apartment,” Crystal snaps back.

  “Not for long,” Fuchsia says. Her voice is so quiet compared to her mom’s. “Aren’t we moving in with Michael this afternoon?”

  “Yeah, well, this is still our apartment until that happens, and I’m not about to have—”

  “Michael threatened me with his gun,” Fuchsia says. Her voice is still just as quiet, but it stops her mom cold.

  “What did you just say?” Crystal says.

  “He fired it, too,” Fuchsia says. “Not at me exactly, but not more than a foot away.”

  Crystal’s voice has gone hoarse. “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not.”

  “It’s a lie, and you’re a liar!” Crystal screams. “And I’m not going to stand here and—”

  “You’ve been in Michael’s car since Tuesday,” Fuchsia says. “There’s no way you could have missed the fact that his passenger door window isn’t there anymore.”

  Crystal’s face darkens. She opens her mouth, but no words come out. Instead, she just shakes her head.

  The silence that follows is so complete that I can make out the frantic chirps from the birds in the apartment across the hall.

  After a long, long minute, my mom speaks up. “If Michael has done that to Fuchsia, then it’s pretty easy to imagine what kind of stuff he’d do to you. And I say that,” she quickly adds when Crys
tal’s eyes widen, “as someone who … ” She takes a deep breath. “As someone who doesn’t have a great boyfriend—at all.”

  Crystal sinks down into the chair, glares at my mom, and then looks away. “So, things are in the pits for you, and you want company, is that it?”

  Crystal is like an unmovable rock. If the point of debate is to convince someone to see something in a new way, then it’s time for us to bring it.

  “What if you didn’t have to move in with him?” I say.

  “Because you’re going to find a way to magically lower the rent? And why are you even here? This isn’t your business.”

  I take a deep breath. “I know five people who are looking for a place to live who could help out with the rent.”

  Fuchsia cocks her head at me. “What? But you guys have that great trailer and …

  “You can’t be serious,” Crystal says with a laugh. “Seven people in a one-bedroom apartment?”

  I shrug. “Seven people and not a single one of them is an abuser.”

  “Seven people and one of them once called me a slut,” Crystal shoots back.

  “I never said that,” my mom jumps in.

  Crystal glares at my mom. “That isn’t what your boyfriend told me.”

  My mom crosses her arms. “Well, he told me you called me a slut and a whore, so was he telling the truth about that? Because I’m pretty sure he was just trying to destroy the only real friendship I had.”

  “That was a friendship? Mostly I think it was you telling me what I should and shouldn’t do—and this doesn’t seem all that different.”

  When my mom just purses her lips without saying anything, Crystal stands up. “You all have lost your minds. And I don’t know what you’re talking about with that ‘abuser’ talk. I told Michael that we’d move in this afternoon, and I’m not going to go back on that.”

  “Because you’re scared of him?” I say.

  “You know that right now I’m shaking in my boots that I’m here,” my mom says, “and that Lenny will see the gas mileage when he gets back and know I took his car.”

  Crystal looks at my mom, but she doesn’t say anything. Finally, she looks away and mutters, “I’m not scared of him.”