by Randy Mason
He leaned back. “Yes—unless there’s something you want to discuss.”
But she promptly sat down and opened her loose-leaf to start her homework. He lit a fresh cigarette with the spent one and continued watching her. She could feel his eyes, like two hot beams, boring into the back of her head.
“I found the package from Macy’s,” he said.
“So?” She continued writing.
“So I’m going to have to open it. You understand that, don’t you?”
She shrugged. “Go ahead.” Half under her breath, she added, “I bought the damn thing for you anyway.”
“What?”
Twisting around, she threw her arm across the back of the chair. “I said I bought it for you anyway.”
“But you must’ve changed your mind.” When she went back to writing, he added, “Why don’t you return it? You still have the receipt; you could get your money back.”
The chair scraped loudly against the floor as she pushed herself away from the desk. She went over to the dresser, yanked open the complaining drawer, and pulled out the bag. With a flick of her wrist, she tossed the box onto the table, where it only narrowly missed the saucer full of ashes and cigarette butts. “Just open the damn thing already.”
Baker steadied himself. There was a lot of emotion flying around, and, for once, he was wise enough to know that none of it was what it seemed. He stubbed out the barely smoked cigarette. Best poker face in place, he tore the wrapping off the box. Considering how little she’d paid, whatever was inside wasn’t going to be too nice. In fact, it might be quite hideous. But when he removed the top and folded back the tissue paper, he caught his breath: the tie looked way more expensive than it was. “It’s very nice,” he said, and stood up. “Thank you.” He took a step toward her.
But she backed away and shrugged. “Yeah, well, whatever.”
With great force of will, he shut down the smile that was forming: she would think he was laughing at her. He put on his jacket and gathered his things while she watched him very closely, two deep creases between her eyebrows. Paused in the doorway, he thanked her again before he left.
She went back to her desk and closed her books. She just about never did homework on Fridays.
chapter 18
ALMOST OUT OF BREATH, Micki was racing up the stairs after gym—everything always seemed so much harder on Mondays. The staircase itself was empty, most kids already at their next class. But she could hear voices ahead on the second-floor landing: Rhonda and Sonya along with Sonya’s boyfriend, Reese Parker, a loud-mouthed troublemaker who’d been left back to repeat his senior year.
She was about to open the door when the boy called out, “Hey—Micki!”
Eyeing the little group that was casually leaning against the wall, she wondered if their smirks were permanently plastered across their faces.
“Word’s out,” he said, “you spent time on the street.”
She turned and reached for the handle.
“Word is,” he continued, “you used to do guys for money.”
She dropped her books and faced the boy as he approached. Rhonda and Sonya’s grins grew broader: Baker was coming down the stairs from the third floor.
“So, like, here’s a buck,” the boy said, pulling a dollar from his pocket and letting it fall to the floor. “Why don’tcha go down and do me.” And he tugged at his crotch.
He was still pulling at his groin when Micki hooked him with her left fist. A solid connection, it sent the boy spinning and stumbling backward toward the stairs while Rhonda and Sonya’s snickers dissolved into gasps and shrieks. Rushing in with outstretched arms, they barely kept him from tumbling down.
Micki felt Baker’s grip on the collar of her shirt. He slammed her into the wall next to the staircase and cuffed her hands behind her. The late bell rang a shrill condemnation.
“You stay put if you know what’s good for you,” he said. And while he hailed Warner on the walkie-talkie, he hurried over to check on the boy’s condition.
Reese’s right eye was swelling shut, the surrounding flesh proud with the engorging blood. Underneath was a deepening crescent of red. Still dazed, the boy did nothing more than moan and groan loudly while Baker did a superficial examination.
Rhonda pointed at Micki. “She started it!”
“What? I—”
“Shut up, Micki!” Baker barked over his shoulder.
Warner arrived with the nurse.
Alone by the wall, a forgotten bystander outside the whirl of activity, Micki stopped listening to the lies Rhonda and Sonya were telling, their voices becoming little more than the whining, meaningless static of a broken radio. But the heavy aching in her heart made her want to wrap her hand around the goddamn thing and squeeze until it couldn’t feel anything anymore. All it ever did was hurt.
She turned her head, eyes falling on the stairwell window. Large and imposing, rising from the landing below, the glass was brimming with light behind the grimy wire mesh. Presiding with a gritty, urban majesty, it was like a permanently gated portal to a bright and shiny world she’d never know. She shifted her gaze to the metal railing. Even without her hands, she could probably manage to get herself over—
Baker grabbed her by the arm and pulled her downstairs after him. Twice she nearly fell, only to be hauled upward by his painful grip. As soon as they were in the office, he said, “Do you have any idea what the fuck you just did?”
She stared into his chest.
“Huh?” he demanded.
“He said—”
“He said? He SAID? You fucking hit him. He nearly fell down the stairs—could’ve gotten killed.”
Eyes flashing, she said, “I’m sorry he didn’t break his fuckin’ neck.”
The back of Baker’s hand found its mark, and she lost her balance, the worse because her hands were still cuffed. “Maybe I ought to give you a black eye,” he said. “How would you like that, Micki? Huh? How does that sound?”
“Go ahead!”
Handfuls of her shirt in his fists, he pulled her forward, then slammed her back against the file cabinets. “What’s it going to take to get it through that thick skull of yours that you can’t go around hitting people just because you don’t like what they say?”
She couldn’t believe those words were coming out of his mouth. She almost laughed. She said, “Oh, so he gets t’say whatever he wants, and I’m supposeda just take it?”
“Do you know how close you are to getting kicked out of this school?”
“Like I’m the only kid ever got in a goddamn fight?”
Baker lowered his voice. “It’s gotten around that you’ve done time upstate. Somehow, some of the parents have found out, and they’re not too happy about it. Do you know what they spent most of last week’s PTA meeting talking about?” He paused as if she might actually answer. “You,” he continued. “One of the teachers filled me in because I wasn’t there. Parents are outraged that you’re going to school with their kids. One mother wanted to know why the city was dumping its garbage in her backyard—those were her exact words. That’s what people think of you, Micki. And by pulling shit like this, you’re proving just how right they are. They want your sorry ass out of here, and, quite frankly, I don’t blame them.”
Vacant and dull, her eyes had drifted down to his chest.
Warner stuck his head in the door. “The boy’s going to be all right; he’s in the boys’ emergency room with the nurse.” He paused before adding, “The assistant principal wants to see you both in his office while he’s waiting for Mrs. Parker to arrive.”
“Be there in a minute,” Baker responded.
Warner left.
Baker removed the handcuffs. “You realize you’re going to be suspended this time.”
The shrug was
almost imperceptible.
♦ ♦ ♦
THROUGH THE SCRATCHED AND weathered glass of the bus’s window, blocks full of houses passed by—some pretty, others not so much. But Micki was no longer thinking about what it would be like to live in one of them. As the scenery swept past like a strip of old and faded film, she kept hearing what that woman had said: that she was garbage being dumped in their nice school, in their nice neighborhood. They wanted to get rid of her. And Baker didn’t blame them.
She descended into the subway, where it was dark and dirty, the assistant principal’s words coming back to her as a train pulled into the station: “We won’t tolerate any more behavior like this … Your being here is a privilege that can be taken away …” When he’d finally gotten around to asking what she had to say in her defense, she’d said nothing. Baker, looking puzzled, made her leave and wait outside the office so he could talk to the assistant principal alone. When he called her back in, Mr. Hillerman informed her she was suspended for the rest of the day and for Tuesday, as well, leaving her with only one day of school before the holiday. Of course, Baker had made sure she understood her suspension wouldn’t be a vacation; she’d spend it in the security office, doing homework and making up the class work she’d miss.
The long weekend, which had loomed ahead as an oasis of freedom, seemed tainted by the day’s events, as if a large, black cloud had cast a shadow over her. Every minute alone now would be a battle—and it had already begun. Her old friend—her only friend—was waiting for her to come back, calling to her from every cell of her body, out of the very darkness surrounding the train as it hurtled through the tunnels of the underbelly of the city.
At ten past noon, Micki emerged from the subway, fully submerged in her own little hell.
♦ ♦ ♦
HIS DAY OVER, BAKER left the school and drove to Micki’s apartment. Why she hadn’t offered any kind of explanation to the assistant principal, he didn’t know. But after he’d sent her out of the office, he’d taken it upon himself to tell what he’d observed. The result had been one less day of suspension for her, with a day of suspension for the Parker boy, as well. But considering the lynch-mob climate of the recent PTA meeting, the incident couldn’t have come at a worse time.
He parked his car and walked down the street, pausing in front of Micki’s building to take in the crisp, dry air. Autumn—his favorite season. Yet each year it seemed shorter, as though winter couldn’t wait to cloak the earth in shades of white and grey, leaving the colorful sprays of fallen leaves a brown and brittle remnant underneath. Today, however, the sky was a beautiful cerulean blue, wisps of clouds like soft-spun threads of cotton candy. The breeze shifted slightly, and he smelled the garbage in the pails lined up behind the fence at the foot of the stoop. He hurried inside.
At the top of the stairs, a new “ouT Of oRDeR” sign had been posted on the payphone, though he’d never even seen anyone using it—or fixing it, either. But as he made his way down the hall, his focus shifted, his heart pumping faster. When he turned the key in the lock, his hands were already cold and clammy.
He opened the door to find the apartment dark, the partially drawn curtains creating patches of light within the ambient shadow. He switched on the overhead fixture, and Micki blinked. Sitting on the floor, she was slouched against the wall between the dresser and the bed, one hand wrapped around the neck of a nearly empty wine bottle.
“You’re drunk,” he said.
Bruised left hand in the shape of a pistol, she closed one eye and aimed it at him. She mimed recoil—“Bingo!”—then put the bottle to her lips and took a drink.
“So you’re having a little party to celebrate your suspension?”
She scrambled clumsily to her feet, swaying unsteadily, biting the inside of her cheek to quash the fit of laughter welling up inside her. She had no idea what was so funny; just moments before she’d been in the depths of despair. “I dunno,” she finally blurted out, her speech so slurred it sounded like ahhdno. Lips pressed together tightly, she was struggling to suppress the silly grin that was bubbling to the surface.
Baker shook his head. “It’s just one fuck-up after another with you; you’ve got no respect for anything. You break rules like they don’t exist. Am I supposed to ignore this? I warned you about this, Micki; I told you nothing was going to change because of what happened.”
She tried to look serious, but it only made her giggle.
He shook his head again. “I don’t know why I bother with you. You’re a fucking loser, y’know that? A real—fucking—loser.”
And all at once, her eyes became sad. She slowly lowered her gaze, then smashed the bottle against the wall.
Baker felt an incredible rush. Every muscle taut, his eyes were riveted to the weapon she held. “Micki!” But she turned away and reached for the dresser to steady herself. Now in profile, the hand with the broken bottle was closest to the wall. He could charge her, but one small twist of her wrist and he’d be impaled. “Micki,” he ordered, “you put that down now.”
He might as well have not been there. Stepping back from the dresser, she switched her grip on the bottle’s neck and held it in both hands, one wrapped around the other.
Frozen to the floor, Baker looked on while everything seemed to slide into slow motion, Micki’s arms swinging up above her head in a long, graceful arc. But when the jagged glass reached its zenith—light glinting off the thin, sharp points—he sprang forward, throwing his entire body weight against her. She crashed into the wall, grunting as the air was knocked out of her lungs. Propelled from her hands, the broken bottle’s splintering landing was heard a moment later like an afterthought. Glass was everywhere, and Baker kept his body pressed into hers, which was now limp and lifeless. When she didn’t respond to his demands to stand up on her own, he bent his knees and threw her over his shoulder in a fireman’s grip. Careful where he stepped, he carried her to the table, then kicked out a chair and put her down.
Barely conscious, she was unable to sit up without him holding her there. He placed her arms on the table and her head on top. Then he took a look around. Splattered on the wall, the wine had left a large maroon splotch with slender tendrils dripping down. Chunks, slivers, and tiny bits of glass had sprayed in all directions.
It was a lot to clean up.
♦ ♦ ♦
THERE WAS TOO MUCH glass on the bed to salvage anything more than the pillow from inside the pillowcase. Everything else went directly into the trash. Systematically moving back and forth across the hardwood planks, he thoroughly swept the floor. He wasn’t touching the wall.
Micki hadn’t moved since he’d set her down at the table. He picked her up in his arms and carried her over to the bare mattress, a stained and ratty-looking affair. Watching her lying there made him think of psych wards and insane asylums. In fact, right across Union Turnpike, only a few blocks from the high school, was Creedmore State Mental Hospital, its tallest building visible from far around. With its barred, silent windows, it was incredibly creepy. What if they wanted to lock Micki up in a place like that? Already labeled a psychiatric case because of her amnesia, they could just as easily say she’d become a danger to herself. Then again, she’d been drunk.
As if none of it would’ve happened otherwise.
Without thinking, he turned her onto her stomach. Maybe leaving her at Heyden had a good side to it. For one thing, she’d be under close supervision twenty-four hours a day without much opportunity for a repeat of this little drama. And she might finally comprehend what the consequences would be if she continued to disregard the rules surrounding her release. There was no way she could really want to go back to that place.
But he wasn’t fooling anyone: the closer the day of leaving her there became, the more he felt it was a mistake. And as for her safety, people in lockup who wanted to kill themselves, often succeeded despi
te the high level of surveillance and apparent lack of means.
He put on his jacket, took her homework assignments from his pocket, and left them on the table. Then he picked up the plastic bag full of broken glass and ruined bedding, and shut the light.
♦ ♦ ♦
IT WASN’T YET DAWN. Still asleep, Micki lay on her side, knees tucked to her chest, a spreading wedge of pale light stretching out across her face. Her eyes gradually opened to see a large silhouetted figure in the doorway. She jumped up, unprepared for the pain that shot through her head.
“It’s just me, Micki,” said the shadow. Baker switched on the light to see her in the same clothes as the day before, though she must’ve gotten up at some point to put on her jacket. The apartment was cold.
Squinting, she pressed her palms to her forehead. “What time is it?”
“Five past six. I’m driving you to school. How long will it take you to get ready?”
She thought about being alone in the car with him, in that intimate little space. “I can take the subway.”
He shut the door. “You wish. You’re not allowed to set one toe on school grounds today without someone being right there to watch you. You’re not even supposed to be there.”
“So let me stay home.”
“After what you did? Fat chance.”
“Are you really taking me to school?”
“Where else would I be taking you?”
She studied his face. “I’ll be ready in ten or fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll wait outside.”
♦ ♦ ♦
WHEN SHE GOT IN the car, her hair was damp. The sky was just beginning to grow light. Outside the windows, everything looked cold, sharp, and well-defined. Inside the Camaro, it was nice and warm.
Micki turned her head to look at him. “What happened to my blanket and stuff?”
Eyes on the road, he said, “There was glass all over everything; I had to throw it away.”
She faced forward again.
He stubbed out his cigarette and flipped on the radio, catching “It Don’t Come Easy”—probably the only Ringo Starr song he’d ever liked. When a commercial came on, he switched to the news while Micki put her colored pens in her jacket pocket and thought about the hours ahead—a whole day stuck in the security office.