by Alynn, K. H.
The woman frowned at this. But what I really noticed was Rudi, who was hiding her smile underneath her hand.
“No,” Mrs. Falcona growled, while trying hard to control her temper, “Ms. Goodwin has just adopted you.”
“I don’t want to be adopted!” I lied, before turning away from both women and crossing my arms.
“You don’t want to have a family and live in a nice house?”
“No!”
“Well, fortunately for you, you don’t have a choice.”
Furiously, I spun toward Rudi and hollered, “I hate you!”
But she saw right through me, just like she always did—and she said, “Why don’t we get you packed.”
Within an hour, the two of us—along with a plastic bag of all my belongings—were at Logan Airport, which was only a short distance from the home. And, about an hour after that, I was on my first airplane—to New Jersey.
“As soon as I can,” I told Rudi, as soon as my ears stopped popping, “I’m running away. Just so you know right now.”
“That’s exactly what I would do,” she matter-of-factly remarked. “I ran away a lot when I was your age. You have no idea how much you remind me of myself.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s true,” she insisted, not the least bit upset by my language. “It was obvious to me the moment I saw you. I was so much like you. Not just because I didn’t have a real family or that I lived in a place not that different than East Boston. I was also bitter and hated the whole world, much like you. I did lots of bad things, too. Even worse than you.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Rudi responded to this by reaching into her purse, for a worn black key chain—one without keys. And she said, “Do you know what this is?”
“A key chain,” I blurted out, with unrestrained contempt.
“It’s sobriety,” she retorted. “It means I’ve been clean for a long time. Though truthfully drugs were only the tip of my problems when I was young. I was slowly destroying myself, and only didn’t because of the love of strangers. That’s why I do all this, Aimee. Not just adopting you, but all my work with the foundation. It has nothing to do with ‘kicks.’ I’m simply paying a debt I’ll never pay off in full.”
I didn’t believe her, and didn’t say another word to her until we were in front of a huge three-story white house about twenty miles from New York City.
“This is where I’m gonna live?” I gasped, while looking up at the mansion-like place with eyes that I’m sure were as wide as apples.
“This is your house,” Rudi told me. “It’s as much yours as mine.”
“It’s so . . .”
“I thought the same exact thing the first time I saw it. You’ll get used to it, though. It’s much warmer inside.”
She then took my hand and led me into the house, where we were greeted in the hallway by a tall elderly black woman.
“This is Aunt Elizabeth,” Rudi said proudly.
“Aunt?” I muttered.
“Aunt,” Rudi replied, before lovingly putting her arm around the woman, who responded in kind. The woman also smiled at me. She smiled at me as if she really were my aunt.
“We’re one big family here,” Rudi continued. “Not always one big happy family, but we’re always a family.”
Rudi afterward took me into the nearby living room and introduced me to my new sisters, who seemed as nervous about me as I was of them.
The first one I met was Kamcha—a 19-year-old Roma girl Rudi long ago rescued from the streets of Prague. Kamcha was then a junior at Princeton, studying so she could one day join Rudi at the foundation, and she came home just to meet me.
Also visiting from college was Alea, who was a freshman at Brandeis. She was originally from Yemen, where she had been married at the age of six—and had only escaped her “husband” and a life of near slavery because of Rudi.
Then I met Lynette, who was 16 and from Compton. When Rudi came across her she was a prostitute, and hadn’t been to school in years. But now she was a straight-A student who would eventually graduate at the top of her class before heading off to MIT.
Finally, I met Vicki, who was a pretty blonde-haired girl my age. She was also Rudi’s only naturally born child—and I took an instant dislike to her, especially when I saw her sneer at me. I disliked her so much that I marched right up to her and growled, “You got a problem?”
Vicki smirked at this, and said to her mother: “She talks funny, Ma.”
“That’s how they speak in Boston,” Rudi explained. “She probably thinks you speak funny.”
“You’re gonna speak real funny,” I barked, as I lifted my fist to Vicki’s face—“after I give you a big fat lip.”
Before I could even blink Vicki grabbed my arm, and she effortlessly flipped me over her shoulder and onto the floor—and she smiled at me. Rudi also smiled a bit, before putting her hands on Vicki’s shoulders and saying, “That wasn’t very fair, honey. We haven’t trained Aimee yet.”
“Trained?” I uttered.
The training came soon after dinner, when we all got into karate robes and Rudi taught us moves in the basement—with the sounds of the Ramones blasting off the walls.
“Every woman should be able to defend herself,” she told me as she showed me how to properly throw a punch.
At this point, I really thought I had entered a madhouse, and I couldn’t wait to leave it. I even told myself I would do so that night—a night that began when Rudi led me and my bag of things up a big old-fashioned staircase.
Eventually, we reached the second floor, and I stopped. I stopped and looked up at a portrait on the wall—one of an elegant woman in her fifties with dirty blonde hair.
“Who’s that?” I asked, while pointing at the painting.
“That was your grandmother,” Rudi answered. “She actually adopted me. She was also the most wonderful woman there ever was.”
“Yeah? She doesn’t look it. She looks like a prig.”
“Prig? Where did you learn that word?”
“I don’t know. A book, I guess.”
“Well, she was a bit of a prig. But we all have dimension. Especially you.”
Ignoring this, I glanced at the picture next to the painting—a hand-drawn one set inside a black frame—of a handsome teenage boy with wavy hair.
“Who’s that?” I went on, after pointing at him.
“That,” Rudi said, with a sudden burst of emotion, “that was my husband Tommy.”
“Where is he?”
“He died. He died long before you were born.”
Just then, Rudi no longer seemed so tall. She seemed like a scared little girl, just like I was—and she quickly dragged me away and into my new bedroom, which was big and beautiful, with lots of antique oak furniture and even more warmth—the kind you can both feel and smell. But what I really noticed was that there was only one bed. It angered me, too—even if I wasn’t planning on staying there.
“Vicki and I have to share that little bed?” I cried out, with my hands on my hips.
“Vicki’s room is upstairs,” Rudi replied.
“You, you mean this is all mine?” I mumbled in shock, having never had a room of my own.
“That’s right,” she said, before pointing to a nearby bureau and adding, “Why don’t you get into a nightgown. You’ll find one in the top drawer over there.”
“I don’t wear nightgowns,” I insisted.
“Humor me, just for tonight.
I sighed, but did what she asked—and afterward she tucked me into bed, prior to grabbing a large hardcover book off the nightstand and sitting next to me with it.
“What’s that?” I asked, while pointing at the book without looking at it.
“Tom Jones,” she replied.
“I told you,” I barked, as I turned from her and crossed my arms—“I already read it.”
“I thought we might read it together. I haven’t read it in a long, long time. In fact, I had forgotten all about it until you
mentioned it. It’s such a beautiful book—way better than the movie. It’s not even close. There’s this incredible character in it—Sophia Western. She’s smart and strong and doesn’t let anyone stop her from getting what she wants, in spite of living in a time where women were not supposed to have any of these qualities. And you can be everything she was.”
“I already read it!”
“All right. Maybe we’ll start tomorrow.”
Of course, I was certain there wouldn’t be a tomorrow—and, once the house was dark and quiet, I got dressed and got my things together, and me and my plastic bag silently headed down the stairs. Though, as I approached the bottom, I heard a faint voice—Rudi’s. And, once I reached the ground floor, I looked around and saw the faint light of a single lamp in the living room.
“Tommy?” Rudi mumbled, from somewhere unseen.
I wanted to run from this. I wanted to run right out the front door. But instead I walked to the threshold of the living room and saw a teary-eyed Rudi asleep on a couch, listening to an iPod with the black key chain clutched in her hand.
Almost against my will, I stepped inside the room and came up to her, and I noticed a wedding album on the coffee table—along with lots of photographs. Photographs of a wild-looking punk rock girl marrying a boy much like the one whose picture I saw on the hallway wall—even if this boy was dying.
Strangely, I started to cry. I don’t even know why. I also sat next to Rudi on the couch and took off her headphones, which were playing an old romantic song—one I would learn was from the late 1930s and called “Moonlight Serenade.”
I knew then I had been right—that what Rudi had told me on the plane was bullshit. She didn’t adopt me because she was paying a debt. She adopted me because she needed love. She needed all the love she could get.
She needed me.
For the first time in my life someone not only wanted me but needed me, and it felt good. It felt so good that I leaned down and gently kissed my mother’s forehead. And I forgot all about running away.
I WEEP A bit as I think back to that day—the day I became human. But I quickly rub the tears away, as they aren’t gonna help me get out of this mess. And neither can my mother.
I have to help myself.
So, I think about my options, over and over—and finally decide I really have only one. So, I return up the fire escape, which is even creakier than before. It’s also shakier. It’s so shaky that I wonder if it could collapse.
This thought alone sends me shooting up the stairs and into Mark’s bedroom, where immediately I hear a conversation taking place outside the door—between Mark and someone who has a foreign accent I can’t quite place.
“The news has just been too distressing, Mark,” the man calmly says. “Your whole world has been shattered—and this along with all the jail time you’re facing is way too much for you to bear.”
“No one will believe it,” Mark retorts.
“People will believe anything. They’re nothing but sheep.”
Right then, I exit the bedroom and see a graying middle-aged man in an expensive suit holding a gun on Mark—a gun that looks as if it has a silencer attached to it.
At once the two turn to me, and—while pointing backward with my thumb—with lots of embarrassment I explain: “There, there are reporters in the alley.”
The gray-haired man responds to this by lifting his gun toward me—causing my jaw to unhinge. Which unhinges even more when he pulls the trigger.
Fortunately, Mark knocks his arm upward with his left wrist—and the gun fires into the ceiling, prior to flying across the room. Then, in the same motion, Mark flings his huge right fist into the man’s face—tossing him backward, first into a wall and afterward onto the floor. And I think that’s the end of him for sure, as Mark is way bigger and younger and obviously knows how to throw a punch. But the man jumps up as if nothing had happened, and he marches over to Mark—and knocks him off his feet with a roundabout kick to his face. He further pummels Mark’s head and stomach with his arms and legs, which are moving so fast that it looks like one of those bad kung fu movies—the kind where they speed up the camera.
Mark’s just staggering from the blows—blows he can’t return, and he finally falls to his knees. At the same time, I realize I should be doing something, especially after all those years of training I got from my mom. But I’m just too scared. I’m too scared to do anything.
“Are you ready now for your suicide, sir?” the man smilingly asks Mark, who looks as if he were about to keel over.
But he doesn’t. Instead he thrusts his right hand up into the man’s groin—and the man loudly gasps, just as Mark lifts him into the air and rushes into the kitchen screeching.
Unable to take my eyes off this, I take a few quick steps forward and watch Mark slam the man into a cabinet—splitting the wood apart, along with lots of dishes.
But Mark doesn’t stop there. He swings the man around headfirst into a wall. He swings him so hard that his head goes right through the plaster. He also drops the man, who collapses onto the floor unconscious. Actually, he looks dead. Worse than dead.
“What, what’s going on?” I mumble, as I nod toward the motionless man, while feeling strangely excited. Not a frightened excited, either—but a good excited. For some reason I like what I just saw.
“I don’t know,” Mark growls.
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know! The whole fucking world’s gone crazy!”
“Mark?”
“Those people out there,” he says, after pointing out the window—“they’re not after you. They’re after me. They think I’m some fucking prince. This idiot, too.”
“A prince?”
Mark doesn’t answer. He just takes a phone from his pants pocket and dials a number, and I walk up to him while it rings.
“Yes,” he then says into the device, “I want to report an assault.”
Suddenly, fright crosses Mark’s face, and he utters, “What do you mean, you’re on your way? I haven’t told you where I live!”
Mark listens to the response, but he doesn’t like it—and he howls, “Fuck you! You hear me—fuck you!”
He subsequently chucks the phone into the wall, smashing it into pieces—which reminds me of something I really don’t want to be reminded of. He also tells me: “We gotta get out of here.”
“What?” I mutter.
“Now!” he yells as he grabs my hand and drags me toward the bedroom. Then, once inside it, he yanks a shirt out from the dresser—and, as he hurriedly puts it on, we head toward both the window and the shaky fire escape I never wanted to see again.
chapter six
Mark
I DRAG AIMEE out the bedroom window and onto the fire escape, while wondering if I should just leave her in the apartment, thinking she might be safer without me—even with the police on the way.
But I don’t leave her. And I’m not sure why—or at least I try to believe I’m not sure. Instead I take her hand and quickly lead her down the stairs, trying to ignore the faint sounds of police sirens, which are getting less faint with each step I take.
“You sure this thing will hold?” Aimee asks, with lots of fear in her voice.
“What thing?” I ask back.
“The fire escape—it’s creaking and shaking!”
“All fire escapes do that.”
Of course, just as I say this, the fire escape breaks off from the building wall in some places, and the whole thing starts teetering.
“Fuck!” I scream.
“I thought you said—” she utters.
“—Just move!”
We rush faster, and I can both hear and feel the escape breaking in more and more places.
Eventually, we get to the last level, and I tell Aimee: “Jump!” But she pulls her hand away and leans against the wall, with her eyes closed and her head and just about everything else shaking.
“What’s wrong?” I cry out.
“I�
�m scared!” she screams. “I’m fucking scared!”
Again, I think about leaving her—but I pick her up in my arms, right as the fire escape starts to fall. And I jump.
Then, with lots of pain—the very last thing I needed—I land hard on the street, at about the same time the fire escape crashes—partially onto the hood of my Camaro.
“Fuck!” I holler. “What else can fucking happen?”
“It’s the prince!” some guy replies, from not far away—and I turn around and see a bunch of reporters running toward us, snapping pictures and taking video.
“Come on!” I yell at Aimee, as I drop her onto her feet. “Get in the car!”
She does, and so do I—and I hurriedly start the engine, with a dozen idiots in front of us, screaming all sorts of stupid questions at me.
Ignoring them, I shift into reverse and floor the gas. But we don’t go anywhere—not with the weight of the escape holding us down.
“Fuck!” I howl.
Though this doesn’t help at all—and, to make matters worse, the police sirens now sound as if they are no more than a few blocks away.
Trying not to panic, I put the car into first and drive forward—and the heavy iron budges just a bit. And, while it does, I quickly go back into reverse and slam the accelerator.
The metal is still holding us, but not as much as before—and I keep my foot down.
“Come on,” I beg—“Come on!”
Suddenly, we’re out from underneath the fire escape, and I speed backward toward Sunset Boulevard, from which come another bunch of reporters, who head toward us like zombies, unconcerned that I’m just about to run them over.
“Move, you fuckheads!” I scream. “Move!”
But they don’t. So, I honk my horn furiously and often—and they just jump out of the way as we enter the road. Which is just before a car smacks into Aimee’s door and almost through it—causing her to scream and jump into my lap.
“It’s okay,” I tell her without meaning it, and—once she’s mostly back in her seat—I turn the car around and fly up the street toward Santa Monica Boulevard, swerving through traffic—with two police cars behind us and gaining.
“They’re following!” Aimee screeches.