by Sarah Healy
The placement exams were to be administered in a few days. The girls spent the rest of the day doing what little they could with the money they had. They bought some groceries. Mary put gas in the Blazer. They were coming back from the beach when they passed a house with two bikes out front. There was a cardboard sign on them. FOR SALE.
Mary pulled over.
“Look,” said Mary, nodding toward the bikes. One looked like it would fit Hannah. Mary unfastened her seat belt and opened the truck door. “I’m gonna see what they want for it.”
Mary knocked on the door. Two minutes later, she was pushing one toward the car.
“Get the back!” she called to Hannah.
Hannah scrambled out of the Blazer and pressed hard to pop the heavy tailgate of the truck.
“You like it?” Mary grinned as she reached the truck. “It’s your new bike.”
Hannah looked at the bike. It was metallic green, with long antennae-like handlebars and a big white banana seat. Hannah laughed, her hand running over the top of her head. “It’s crazy.”
“Okay, try and get it in the truck. I’m going to go get the other one.”
“What do you mean?”
“It needed a sister,” said Mary, without looking back as she marched toward the house.
As the girls drove away, Hannah watched the bikes bounce and shake behind her. “How much were these things?”
“I got ’em both for twenty bucks.” Mary joined Hannah in looking at their new acquisitions in the rearview mirror.
Hannah leaned back in her seat, crossing her arms over her chest. “We should name them.”
“No,” replied Mary, patting the dashboard. “The Blazer would be jealous.”
“You . . . are so weird,” said Hannah, smiling.
WITHOUT A TABLE OR CHAIRS, the girls ate dinner that night on the floor, resting the once-frozen French-bread pizza on the torn-in-half box that it came in.
Mary took a bite. “Don’t open the door,” she instructed, wincing against the scalding cheese. “Ever. When I’m not here.”
Hannah swallowed down a more diminutive bite. “I know, Mare.” She had been through all this before. Hannah had been spending nights alone since she was six. “I’m not stupid.”
Mary looked around the barren room. There was no television. No phone. Just two sleeping bags on the floor, a clock radio that had been left in the apartment, and some of the girls’ paperbacks. “If something happens, just go to the grocery store. Someone will be there.” Hannah was reading the box she was using as a plate. “Bunny?”
“I know, Mare,” Hannah said, positioning her pizza in front of her mouth for another bite. “Go to the grocery store.”
Mary was always like this when they first arrived in a new place. She left for work that night as Hannah was in the bathroom getting ready for bed. “I’ll be home before you wake up,” she said, loitering in the doorway, watching Hannah brush her teeth.
“I know,” Hannah said, her mouth full of foam. She waved. “Good luck!” Then Mary stepped into the hall, shut the door, and the sisters were apart.
On her way to Sea Cliff that night, Mary rolled the windows down and drove the distance as fast as the roads would allow, feeling the wind animate her hair. The windows in the houses she passed glowed yellow in the dark, and the temperature was dropping. Mary turned on the heat, hearing the low growl of the vents as they burst with hot air, feeling it hit her before it rushed out the windows and became part of the night. She loved driving with the windows open and the heat on. It was, to her, an unrivaled indulgence.
When she arrived at Sea Cliff, she parked and looked at herself in the rearview mirror. Then she pulled out her makeup bag. With the interior of the Blazer illuminated only by the lights from the parking lot, Mary drew a dark thick line with an eye pencil along her lashes. It made her look exotic, like some ancient queen. She brushed her hair, stroking it roughly with a pink bristled brush until it was smooth and glossy.
The doorman opened the brass-and-glass door for her when she arrived, nodding cordially. “Good evening.” She introduced herself at the front desk and was ushered to the night manager. He gave her a uniform. He gave her a name tag. She was taken on a tour and introduced to various staff working the night shift. The hotel operated with a skeleton crew at night, which was part of why Mary liked it.
“It’s slow, your shift,” the night manager said, as he loitered by the front desk, his hands in his front pockets. “Just you and Curtis most nights.” Curtis was the bellman who stood at the entrance to the lobby, his right arm bent and contorted, his hand resting in his pocket. His left shoulder sunk slightly, and his back curved into an unnatural hump. His uniform hung loosely on his thin, twisted frame. But his eyes, though shadowed, were quick, and they darted around the room with a facility that his body surely couldn’t.
“Oh, okay,” Mary said. Oh, okay. As if she didn’t know. As if she hadn’t grown up at the Water’s Edge. They used to lock the office at night. Put up the closed sign. Anyone arriving later than ten o’clock could fend for themselves or knock until Diane rushed from her bedroom, wrapping her robe tightly. I’m so sorry. We thought all of our guests had arrived.
The night manager nodded toward the girl next to Mary. “Sam can tell you,” he said, as if Mary doubted him. “She’s been on this shift for months.”
“Yeah, no,” said Mary. “I bet.”
When the manager left, Sam and Mary stood in silence. Sam was supposed to be training Mary, but Mary kept finding her sneaking glances, looking at her in the way that women sometimes did, with a desire and eagerness that wasn’t sexual but was desperate all the same. Sam wanted to be her friend.
“Where are you from?” Sam asked.
Mary gave her a glance, then turned her gaze back to the vast lobby, with its marble and columns and big beautiful flowers. “Back East.”
“How did you end up here?”
“I drove.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
Mary chuckled quietly. “No.”
There was a brief stretch of silence, and Mary picked up a pen from beside the computer’s black and green screen.
“I’m moving to second shift tomorrow,” the girl offered, hoping to interest, to impress. “I’ll get off at ten from now on.”
But Mary was silent, her pen winding gracefully over a Sea Cliff notepad. She was drawing Curtis the bellman, drawing him with a cloak and staff. As he sensed her eyes, his chin lifted and he pulled his body ever so slightly straighter, ever so slightly heavenward.
As guests checked in, he slunk up behind them, cart in hand, hauling their bags onto it before they could refuse. Even those ready to voice protest, about to insist that they didn’t need any help with their luggage, seemed unable to refuse him—the bent man ready to offer his service.
On his way back from one such delivery, he passed by the front desk. His eyes met Mary’s only briefly. “Welcome to the Hotel California,” he said, as he hobbled by like some ruined prince.
Mary and Curtis worked in silence those first few nights, each of them assessing the other. And Mary kept waiting for Curtis to sit, for him to sink into one of the plush club chairs that lined the lobby. But Curtis remained upright, though Mary could see that fatigue burdened his body more than it would most.
On the fourth night, during that dark dead span of time when nothing in the hotel seemed to move, when the bar adjacent to the lobby had gone dark and all the guests that were going to arrive had come, Mary’s eyes settled on Curtis. He noticed at once, she could tell, but he kept his stalwart gaze straight ahead for as long as he could. Finally, he looked at her. They stared at each other in silence until Mary asked, “How long have you been here?”
Curtis’s brows lifted in mischief or amusement or some combination of the two. “Eight years.”
“Why are you still on the night shift?” No one stayed on nights for longer than they had to, always moving to days when someone left and their sched
ule became available.
A small smile started at the corners of Curtis’s lips, and he nodded toward Mary. “Why are you on the night shift?”
Mary’s head dropped to one side as she looked at Curtis. And without thinking about why, she knew she could trust him. “Because no one’s really watching us,” she said. It was a sentiment she knew Curtis would understand. He didn’t like to be watched either, though for different reasons. She picked up a pen and began to draw. “I’m drawing you,” she finally said, her eyes focused on the paper. “Do you want to see?”
Hannah was still asleep when Mary arrived home that morning. She crept through the empty apartment, which was just beginning to brighten in the early-dawn light, and crawled into the sleeping bag next to Hannah. Without waking, Hannah rolled against her, closing the space between them. And there, with her body again part of Hannah’s, Mary fell asleep. Her uniform was still on and her name tag still pinned to her jacket, but the rest she found was deep and dreamless. The sort from which you never wanted to wake.
Mary didn’t know how many hours had passed when she finally woke up, only that the late-afternoon sun was pouring through the bare windows. She winced away from the light, rolling so that it warmed her back. With her arms above her head, she arched against it. From the tiny kitchen, not fifteen feet away, she heard Hannah singing along to the tinny music coming from the little clock radio. It was that Madonna song.
Still sunk into her sleeping bag, Mary smiled to herself and listened. From her spot on the floor, she called, “You sound like Mom.” She sat up and looked through the doorway at her sister, whose head was bobbing with the music as she pulled a jug of milk from the refrigerator. “She used to go nuts whenever Carole King came on.”
Hannah, for her part, continued on. Like a virgin. Ooo-ooo-oo-oooo, like a virgin.
Mary pulled her jacket off and tossed it. Then she again noticed the position of the sun. “What time is it?”
Hannah’s singing stopped only long enough for her to answer. “I think it’s like four.” She poured the milk into a bowl of cereal.
Mary eyed her purse, which sat slumped by the doorway to the bedroom. “Want to see what I got from work?”
“Okay,” Hannah replied, padding across the floor. She stopped at the doorway to the bedroom, tilting the bowl back into her mouth, swallowing down both Toasty-Os and milk.
Mary nodded toward her purse. “Hand me my bag,” she said.
Hannah picked it up, noting its weight, and tossed it over. It landed with an awkward thump. Mary reached inside. After pawing through it for a moment, she pulled out a spoon.
“Here,” she said, extending it to Hannah.
Hannah immediately sunk it into her cereal. “Awesome.”
“I’ve got four whole sets.” Then Mary dumped the contents on the floor by her sleeping bag and out spilled shampoo bottles, sugar packets, and tiny jam jars. Out came miniature soaps, cashews from the mini bar, and even a guest-room phone.
Hannah immediately reached for a jam jar and read the label. “These are really fancy,” she said, intimidated, if one could be, by preserved fruit.
“I know. They’ve got good stuff at Sea Cliff. We’re moving on up, Bunny.”
Hannah set the jam jar back down. “You’re not going to get in trouble for taking it, are you?” she asked. She wouldn’t want to invite trouble. She wouldn’t want to leave.
“No,” replied Mary. “It’s totally fine. They would never even know.” But what Mary knew, what Mary had always known, is that when you stay still, leg in a trap, trouble can find you.
Twenty-seven
1989
The girls flew, their hair waving behind them, their faces turned to the sun. “You’ll probably have to ride to school some days,” Mary called to Hannah, who rode behind her. The Chase girls were on their bikes. Their colorful, shiny, fantastic bikes, with spokes that glistened and wheels that hummed. On hers, Mary felt the joy of the kinetic, the profound relief of movement as she watched the sidewalk disappear beneath her.
“Isn’t there a bus?”
“Yeah, but the bus sucks,” replied Mary. She slowed to let Hannah pass her. “It’s all kids picking at their whiteheads and sucking on their egg-salad sandwiches.”
Mary remembered the boy who’d taught Hannah how to ride a bike. He worked as a mechanic, and he played in a band. He took Hannah to the parking lot of a chemical factory and put her on his sister’s old ten-speed, running behind her and holding on to the seat until she was doing it on her own. Later that night, he double-pierced Mary’s ear with a sewing needle, then slipped his grandmother’s ruby stud into the hole. Mary felt a trickle of blood run from her lobe down to her neck. Without hesitation, he licked it clean, sliding his tongue up from her collarbone, then wrapping his mouth gently around her tender and swollen earlobe. Three days later, the Chase girls were gone. They didn’t leave a note. And for years, the taste of Mary’s blood would come to the boy unbidden, and he’d feel his mouth go wet; he’d feel an ache in his groin. And he’d remember the taste of Mary Chase.
The girls rounded a corner, and athletic fields came into view behind a massive brick structure contained inside a chain-link fence. Hannah gripped the hand brakes and her bike slowed. “Is that it?” she asked, her face alert and cautious. It was bigger than she had imagined.
Mary squinted as she assessed it. “That’s it,” she said.
Hannah stopped and let a foot drop to the ground for balance, and Mary did the same. “Do you think these tests are gonna be hard?”
“Probably not,” replied Mary. Then she pressed her foot against the pedal and felt her bike respond by quickly gliding down over the concrete of the sidewalk. “They just want to make sure you know what you’re supposed to know.”
Mary let the bike gain speed as the hill sloped down toward the school, then she made a smooth turn into the parking lot. Mary stopped in front of a metal bike stand. Beside her, Hannah’s bike screeched to a halt, and she wobbled off. She was nervous, Mary could tell.
Mary swung her leg over, dismounted, and looked at Hannah. “You should pretend like something’s wrong with you,” she said. “When someone introduces themselves, you should just hug them. You should act like some total freak who just hugs everyone.”
Hannah chuckled—it was a nervous, jittery thing. “Do you think there are going to be other people?” Hannah asked, her eyes hopeful. “Taking this test?”
“Probably not, Bunny. School started a couple of weeks ago here.”
Hannah walked close to Mary as they entered the school, which was like any number of schools. Its cinder-block halls were painted a slick yellow and were lined with a series of handmade posters and trophy cases. The students were in class so the building seemed empty save for the windowed office with a view of the entrance. Mary pushed through the door. An older woman was seated at a desk behind a raised counter. She looked up as the Chase girls entered. “May I help you?” she asked.
Mary walked up to the counter and leaned against it. “This is Hannah Chase,” said Mary, nodding toward her sister behind her. “She’s here for a placement test.”
A phone receiver was lifted, and soon Hannah was greeted by a small friendly-looking woman with an ever-present smile who was all arm rubs and encouragement. “You’re just going to take some quickie tests for us, okay?”
Hannah looked at Mary, then looked at the woman and nodded.
“Good luck, Bunny,” called Mary, as the woman led Hannah to the testing room. Hannah looked back at her, and Mary mimed a hug. Hannah turned, the smile just visible on her face.
Mary waited as Hannah took her tests, her head resting against the wall behind her, her arms crossed in front of her chest. She felt her eyes drift shut. She had slept for only a couple of hours after her shift before they had to leave for the school.
“It’s going to be a little while,” the woman at the desk said. Her hair was wiry gray and gathered up on the crown of her head in a bun.
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“That’s fine,” replied Mary, still staring at the ceiling. “I’ll wait.”
A few more minutes passed. “Are you the mom?” the secretary asked.
Mary looked at her. “Excuse me?”
“There’s paperwork,” she said. The secretary extended a brown clipboard and gave it a bounce. “Needs to be filled out. May as well get it done now.” Mary stood, keeping her eyes on the woman as she took the forms. “Since you’re waiting.” The office phone began to ring, and the woman lifted the receiver. “William Brown Middle School. How can I help you?”
Mary sat back down and looked at the papers, at the black letters on the white pages. The school needed Hannah’s name, the date and place of her birth, the address of the last educational institution she had attended. They needed to know if she had any medical conditions or disabilities. They needed to know the name of her parents or legal guardians. Their places of employment. Mary Chase, she wrote. Sea Cliff. She brought the clipboard back to the old woman.
“Thank you, honey,” she said, taking it from her and setting it on her desk without giving it a glance.
Mary wasn’t quite sure how long she sat there. Long enough for the hallway outside to fill up and then empty, then fill up and empty again. Long enough for the woman at the desk to pull out a brown paper bag and eat a tuna-fish sandwich. Finally, Hannah was escorted out of the testing by the woman with the ceaseless smile.
“She did great,” the woman said, and Mary understood that she would say this no matter what. “We’ll be in touch with the results and placement.” Hands were shaken, and the efficient, pleasant woman went back from whence she came.
“How’d it go?” whispered Mary, placing her hand on Hannah’s back as she guided her toward the door.
“Good,” said Hannah, wincing away from Mary’s touch and scanning the hallways for peers.
From behind them, Mary heard the secretary’s voice. “Hey, ummm . . . girls?”
Mary’s and Hannah’s heads turned in unison.
The secretary was finally looking at the paperwork. “You forgot the dad’s name on here,” she said, as she flipped through the pages. Then she looked up at Mary and Hannah over her glasses. “You want to add him?”