Then I picture Maisie standing at the door of her second-grade classroom as all the other moms come with soccer uniforms and homemade muffins and whisk their precious babies away. And Evan, stuck with the Donkey until Child and Family Services is called. Shipped off to some foster home where they keep him in the basement and feed him Wonder bread and water three times a day. Or worse. My cousin Jacquie spent six months in a foster home a few years back and said the wife couldn’t keep her hands off her, beating her black and blue. The husband couldn’t either. No way I’ll let that happen.
The heat starts rising in my gut again, so when Mr. Talmage opens the door and peers down at me, I’m ready to scratch out his eyes too.
THREE
In his office, he gestures for me to sit on another rock-hard chair, then settles behind his desk in a cushy leather one. Reclines. Stares. I know this trick well—the I’m-just-going-to-stare-at-you-for-a-while technique, used to arouse shame and discomfort. Sorry, buddy, but have you got the wrong girl. Two can play this game. I lean back in my wooden chair and try to appear as comfortable as possible. Which is a feat. I smile and look around, like I’ve never been in a nicer place. I even manage to work in a sigh of contentment.
Mr. Talmage raises two beefy fingers to his lips and continues his contemplation. He looks like an ex-NFL player gone to seed. His hulking body barely fits in the chair. Square jaw beneath the jowls. Wisps of gray in his sideburns. A comb-over that’s downright embarrassing.
“Do you want to tell me what happened?” he says. Ah, the kind-counselor approach, waiting to pounce on an admission of guilt.
“I defended myself,” I say, staring straight into his eyes.
“From what I heard, you were the only one doing the punching.”
“She came at me to hit me.” My voice is a little edgy now.
He stops and does some more staring, which is starting to unnerve me more than I’d like to admit. “Is it possible she was just going to say something to you?”
As he says the words, I’m forced to admit the truth that comes bubbling to the surface. Something akin to guilt starts to dampen my anger. I push it away. If she wasn’t going to hit me at that moment, she would at another. That look doesn’t just fade away to nothing. I’d pay sooner or later.
“It didn’t look that way from where I was standing,” I say.
Mr. Talmage takes a deep breath. “Miss Bennett,” he begins, and I know this is where kind counselor turns into parole officer, “I don’t know how things were at your last school”—when he says last school, his lip curls slightly—“but here at Glenn Eastbeck, we don’t just whack someone when they look at us in a way we don’t like.” He pauses, either for effect or to let me respond. Which I don’t.
“I’ve tried to reach your mother,” he continues, examining my face. “Any idea where she is?”
“Sleeping it off,” I say. I can tell by his scowl that he doesn’t believe me. Which is why I said it.
“You want to try that again?” Still the parole officer.
Well, he didn’t believe the truth, so I try a lie. “At work.” The standard answer for what most adults do during the day. No one seems to question that one. When he asks me where she works, I tell him it’s a sports bar, and I don’t know the name or phone number because it’s a new job. Ironically, the more honest I am with this man, the more I seem to annoy him.
“You don’t know the name?” he says. I shake my head. “Well, Isabelle, I will be talking to your mother personally. And you”—he takes a breath to make sure he has my attention—“you have a two-day suspension to think about your actions.” He runs his tongue over his fat lips. “Consider this your final warning. If we meet again under these circumstances, it will be to discuss your expulsion.” He raises his bushy eyebrows, nodding slowly to give me time to digest his words.
I try not to smile. He threatens me with my mother—who’s nearly impossible to catch both awake and sober at the same time—and gives me two days off school. I don’t want to push things at this point though. I nod back—slow, serious.
“Wait outside my office until I can reach her,” he says, gesturing to the door. He turns back to his computer before I’ve even left.
This is the real punishment, having to sit around listening to everyone else’s stupid conversations while my butt goes numb. The admin assistant talks to the custodian about her nephew’s new baby boy, who is just so extremely precious, as though people don’t have babies every day.
“Can I collect my stuff from my locker?” I ask her. She’s done an excellent job of ignoring me up to this point. She gives a furtive look toward Mr. Talmage’s closed door. When she doesn’t answer, I tell her, “I’ll come right back.” Trying to sound as innocuous as possible. She nods.
I get my books and jacket from my locker and return to my jail chair in the office. At least I have some reading material now, in the form of my English textbook. I spend the rest of the third block—supposed to be Biology—reading about some fool getting buried alive, one brick at a time, behind a cellar wall.
Mr. Talmage sticks his head out the door right before the last bell and tells me to get my mother to call him. I take it he couldn’t get her out of bed to answer the phone. “You won’t be returning to school until I have that conversation,” he says, as if that’s a threat. Like there aren’t a hundred other crappy schools in this city to choose from. He starts to say something else, but the bell cuts him off mid-word. I get up and walk away before he can repeat himself.
Across the street, Maisie’s waiting in her classroom like I told her to. She hops up from a circle mat and runs to my side. She shows me a craft she made with cotton balls and pipe cleaners. I have no idea what it is but tell her, “That’s really nice! Now get your sweater. Evan’s waiting.” She waves goodbye to Mrs. Williams, who’s lost behind an enormous stack of papers on her desk.
On the bus to day care, I ask her about her first day of grade two.
“I made a friend. She’s called Emily, and she has a loose tooth.” Maisie raises her hand absently to her own very intact teeth. “But I had to sit by another boy who was pokey.”
“What do you mean, pokey?”
“He poked me in the arm with his finger,” she says. “I didn’t like it.”
“Well, if he ever does it again, give him a smack and tell him to cut it out.” I know I should be giving her some motherly advice about talking through conflict, using words to express her feelings, or telling a grown-up. But I give her the advice she’ll actually need to survive eleven more years in this jungle. “And if he doesn’t,” I add, “tell him your big sister’s coming after him.”
Maisie considers this and nods.
Evan brightens at the sight of us in the doorway. It seems that he and his buddy, Patrick, are in the middle of a squabble over the best truck in the room, and we’re his reinforcements. As usual, Elaine hasn’t helped at all. Too busy cutting out apples from construction paper in the corner.
“C’mon, Evan,” I call. “I’ve got to get to work.”
Evan lowers his chin and stands his ground. He knows that to leave now is to concede and lose it all.
“Now!”
He comes slowly, dragging his feet across the carpet. “I bet you can play with the truck first tomorrow,” I say as we head down the hallway to his cubby. He doesn’t believe me and makes me put on his shoes and sweater without lifting his arms and feet to help.
I half-drag Evan and Maisie, one in each hand, down the block to our apartment, through the lobby, into the elevator. They start fighting over who gets to press the button for our floor, so I do it myself. Which makes them both sulk.
I pause outside our apartment door. What I’ll find on the other side is like a choose-your own-adventure story. I turn the key and push the door open, standing in front of Maisie and Evan.
Mom’s in the kitchen, drying her damp hair with a towel, a ratty bathrobe stretched across her generous hips and chest. She smiles. I exha
le.
Maisie and Evan run to her. “My teacher let us use the paints!” Maisie says.
“Patrick took the best truck.” Evan tugs on her terrycloth belt.
As she starts to ask them about their day, I say, “You’ll make them supper?” She nods. I grab a piece of bread and dash for the door. She calls me back.
“What?” I say, sounding like a cat getting stepped on.
She pushes her face close to mine—coffee breath this time. The skin around her light blue eyes is puffy, creased by crow’s-feet. She finger-combs her damp platinum hair, a shock of mousy regrowth at the roots.
“Well,” she says, “how was your first day?”
“Oh, fine. I got the classes I wanted.”
“Good.” She brightens and shifts away. I feel a twinge of guilt. Just for one second.
I say goodbye to Maisie and Evan and jog down to the convenience store right beside our apartment building. I started working there three weeks ago, just a few days a week. Two hours after school, during rush hour, before Mom leaves for her shift. I stock the shelves and clean up. They’ve started training me on the till too, except for lotto and cigarettes.
Rupa’s at the counter. Her husband, Arif, is nowhere to be seen. Rupa’s all right, but Arif constantly scrutinizes me, peeking around chip displays. Like he expects to catch me shoplifting any second. Their son, Hasan, works there too sometimes. He’s eighteen and way too good-looking to be trusted. He smiles at me and volunteers for “training,” which usually prompts me to rearrange the cooler or reclean the bathroom. Something about his white teeth and dimples makes me start dropping things and tripping over my own feet.
In a lull between customers, Rupa asks me about my first day of school. I smile, shrug and tell her it was good—everything oh-so-normal. I’d rather die than look this woman in the eye—her warm, open face—and tell her I’m one step away from foster care, homelessness or prison. Those kinds of conversations don’t exactly build employer-employee relationships. There’s something else about her too. Like, I could picture bringing her a test where I got an A and waving it around, like Maisie does with me and her drawings.
Rupa has me stock the cooler and then asks me to find Arif to see what he wants done. I’m not surprised at all when he hands me a toilet brush and a pair of gloves and sends me to clean the bathroom. They must save this for me. I hang the Closed sign on the doorknob and get to work.
I grit my teeth and scrub at the urinal. It looks like half the city passed through today and took turns missing. I consider putting a Cheerio in the bottom for aim, like I do for Evan. The toilet is even worse. By the time I finish it and haul out the garbage, which has a nasty diaper or two, I’m sweaty and in no mood for Hasan’s winning smiles. I barely say hello to him and ask Rupa if I can work the till for a while. She stands next to me, in case I get stuck. At the end of my shift, I buy a box of cereal to take home and a few five-cent sour candies for Maisie and Evan.
I know as soon as I open the apartment door and see that Evan and Maisie have pulled out a box of crackers for supper, leaving a trail of crumbs between the kitchen and living room. The television is blaring.
I don’t even know why I ask, “Where’s Mom?”
“She’s sleeping,” Evan says slowly, knowing that for some reason this answer always makes me mad. Maisie just looks at me and waits.
I storm into the kitchen and toss the bag with the cereal on the counter, tipping over a coffee mug, which smashes on the floor. I pick up one of the large pieces and hurl it into the sink, where it shatters into tiny shards. Evan begins to cry. Maisie stands still, watching me.
Charging down the hall, I throw open the door and flick on the light. There she is, half dressed for work, on her belly, snoring. One empty bottle is tipped over on the dresser, and there’s another one on the floor by the bed.
“Get up!” I shriek. “Your shift starts in less than an hour!”
She doesn’t even stir. And in her stillness, I want to pick up an empty bottle and beat her senseless with it. Shake her, slap her, scream. I want to sink my nails into her limp arm to the point of drawing blood and make her respond to me.
Instead I turn off the light, shut the door and find Evan. Holding him in my lap, I stroke his hair and tell him it will be okay. I smile at Maisie and tell her I’ll make supper soon. When my voice is steady enough, I find my mom’s new work number on the fridge and call, telling them she’s deathly ill with food poisoning and won’t make it in tonight. They’re still too new to know that this will happen again. And again. And again. Until someone catches on and, in a humiliating scene, fires her. Then we’ll pack what little we have and move to some other dump or shelter or friend’s basement to start it all over again.
I know one thing tonight, with Evan’s hair against my cheek and Maisie waiting for me to feed her: I’ve had enough of the wooden chairs, concrete floors, suitcases and bedbugs. The lying, laundry, excuses, hunger, dirt and piss. My fingers tremble as I touch Evan’s hair. I’ve had enough, and I’m getting out.
FOUR
Every time I start to drift off on their bedroom floor, Maisie scratches at her legs, like she always does in her sleep. Evan hasn’t even stirred. I let them stay up late to watch a rerun of The Wizard of Oz on TV. Cable is a recent luxury, and we only have it now because it’s a rental incentive for the apartment. Our television’s not pretty, but it works. And it’s tough. Uncle Richie, Jacquie’s dad, once chucked an empty vodka bottle at the screen, offended by the weather forecast. It didn’t even chip.
I could get up and move to my own bed or sleep on the sofa. I’m supposed to share a room with Mom. I have a camping cot set up next to her bed. Most nights, though, especially lately, I can’t even stand to hear her breathing next to me. On those nights, I pull the cushions off the sofa instead and drop them on Maisie and Evan’s floor. Something about watching them sleep makes me feel less like beating Mom with a tire iron.
On nights like this, I pull out my notebook. It isn’t a journal, exactly—more for writing stories, poems, things I don’t want to say out loud. I’d rather douse this entire building with gasoline and light a match than have this discovered and read by another living soul. I’ve found a pretty good hiding spot for it too—inside my suitcase. I slip it in where the lining is ripped and maneuver it to a place near the base, where it’s not visible. Not that anyone’s looking.
I drag my suitcase off the shelf in their closet and start to root around for it. It has slipped past the spot I usually leave it. There’s a moment of panic while I grope around, imagining that Evan has found the notebook and covered it in crayon. Or worse, that Mom has. My poetry would trigger a binge for sure. There, I’ve found its hard corner. I work it out through the frayed lining, the pen tucked tight in the coil binding. Then I tiptoe into Mom’s room—she’s still out cold—and grab my flashlight from under my cot. She doesn’t even twitch.
With a pen in one hand and the flashlight in the other, I wait for the words to come. After a minute I flip to a story near the back and pick up where I left off. Abby, my protagonist, is making a suicide pact with her twin sister. If their mother goes ahead and marries her abusive boyfriend, they’ll drink poisoned Kool-Aid. Her mother has just announced the wedding date. I’m not sure if I’ll off Abby or not, but I’m pretty sure the sister will at least become a heroin addict. I only scribble another paragraph, though, before the heaviness of the day creeps back. I try to push it away, but it nags at me and blocks my words. I lay my cheek on the pillow, pushing the notebook aside.
It’s been a bad week. Mom hasn’t come out and said it, but I know this is the one-year anniversary of when Claude—Maisie’s and Evan’s dad—left. I did a happy dance myself, but I hear her crying at night sometimes. And the way he did it: empty apartment, kids’ piggy banks cleaned out, not even a note. What a douche.
I drift off this way and have restless dreams about the tinkling of bottles like tiny bells. Being closed up in muffled darkness, one
brick at a time. Small voices whimpering somewhere I can’t reach.
I wake to Maisie crouching over me, her hair dangling down and tickling my eyebrow. “What’s that?” she asks. My eyes snap open. My notebook has fallen to the floor beside me, its pages splayed.
I snatch it up and tell her, “Homework.” I tuck it on their high shelf, behind a box of winter clothes.
Evan is already mucking around in the kitchen, having pulled a chair over to the counter to reach the loaf of bread. I take the bread from his hand after he’s had a bite or two. “Do you want me to toast this for you?” He nods. I must have really been out of it to miss all of this. It’s 9:23 AM. Bus left. Bell rung. Class started. There’s no way I can pull it off this morning. I call Maisie’s school and tell an ancient-sounding admin assistant that Maisie is sick and won’t be in today.
Evan, standing at my elbow, says, “We’re not going to school today?”
“There is no school today, Evan. School’s closed.” He seems to accept this, since often things he’s interested in are closed—the toy store, the swimming pool, sometimes the park. “You’ll be home with me today, okay?” I say.
“And Mom?”
I pause. “Maybe. We’ll see. I guess so.” I mean, technically she’ll be in the apartment, right?
She stumbles out around noon, just as I’m getting out of the shower. The kids are watching TV. Her hair is puffed up on one side; she must have passed out while it was still damp. “Why didn’t you wake me up last night?” she says, reaching for the water jug in the fridge.
I give her the look.
“I was just having a bit of a nap before you got home.” She rubs her temple. “You should’ve woken me.”
“I had to call in for you again.” I can’t even look her in the eye.
“Why, Isabelle? You should’ve woken me,” she says, pouring a tall glass. I’ve started down the hall to grab my notebook and take off when the phone rings.
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