“We’ll get you through this.” I patted his hand and smiled.
Behind me, someone tapped my shoulder, and I turned around, surprised to see Lilah.
“Hey, Lilah, what are you doing here?”
She looked at me with red-ringed eyes and made a follow me gesture with her head.
I turned to Carl. “Uh, Carl, Renee here will take you to the lab, and we’ll get started on you right away, OK? I’ll be up in a while to check on you.”
He nodded dumbly and let go of my hand.
I followed Lilah outside, and she pulled me further onto the grass beside the ambulance bay. She looked terrible, like she’d had a crying jag after I left her at the clinic. A spike of apprehension skewered my stomach. “What’s wrong?”
“Do you trust me, Ruby?”
“That’s never a good way to start a conversation, Lilah.”
Her shoulders sagged, and she wiped her nose with a wadded up tissue. “I have to tell you something, but if I do, I’m afraid things will get really weird.”
Not what I was expecting. “That’s, uh, what?” I put my hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “You know you can tell me anything, Lilah.”
“Well, its Dakota. I think he’s in trouble.”
It took monumental strength not to sigh. Of course he was in trouble. He’d flown into a tizzy over his missing chips the other night and punched a hole in the wall of her apartment. That kind of reaction wasn’t a pot smoker’s reaction.
I took Lilah’s hand in mine and patted it, reassuring her. “OK, well, we can get him into treatment again. I can make some calls.” I mentally ticked through places I thought might have an open bed.
“You don’t understand. I think he’s doing something at the clinic.” Lilah looked at me with pleading eyes.
My stomach fell. “But all the drugs are accounted for in the cabinet, Lilah. I checked myself today. How would he—”
“No, Ruby,” Lilah interrupted. She shook her head vehemently. “There’s nothing wrong with the supplies on hand. There’s something wrong with the supply paperwork. Its…off, somehow.” She shrugged, a bewildered look on her face.
“Lilah, you’re going to have to be clearer.” I let go of her and rubbed my eyes with both hands.
Lilah shifted from one foot to another and cried a little more. I was dumbfounded. She never acted the least bit out of sorts, and here she was falling apart. I didn’t know what to do. I bit my lip, worry wrenching my stomach.
“Ruby, I was going over the supply orders from the last batch and there’s something off about the weight of the shipment, the freight charges are wrong.”
“Wrong how? I don’t understand.”
“I don’t know quite yet.” Lilah sighed, frustrated. “Some of the charges are for more than what they should be, and some are for way less. I don’t get it myself, but something is going on.”
“Did you call the company? Maybe it’s just a computer glitch.”
“I did call them, and they said they’d look into it.”
“OK, then we’ll wait.”
“I didn’t want to talk about it earlier because this has to do with not only our gauze and medical supplies, but also our drug shipments. Lilah nodded and a nervous expression played across her face. “With Dakota just out of rehab, I-I just want to have a clear idea of what is going on before I hang my only kid out to dry.”
“We won’t hang him out to dry, Lilah. We’ll get him help.”
“But if this involves cross-state shipping…I don’t even know what he could be facing!” She wrung her hands together and tears slipped down her face again. “This is too complicated for a kid to be involved in, right?”
“We don’t even know that we have a problem yet,” I assured Lilah. “I think we should wait until the shipping company calls back before we start panicking.”
I quashed the worry bubbling in my gut. Dakota, if he was messing with shipping drugs, would definitely do some time. Not to mention that I’d fall under investigation, as would the clinic and Lilah. I hoped with all my heart it was a computer glitch.
“I know that you’re not really a religious person, Ruby, but I think that we could use some prayers right about now.” Lilah shuffled her feet and looked at me.
“I don’t suppose it would hurt to call your prayer chain.” Uncomfortable, I tried to shrug off her comment.
She nodded and let it go. I didn’t talk to Lilah about my faith, or the fact that I’d lost it long ago. I knew she went to the local church, she invited me often, but I always found an excuse.
“Thank you for not freaking out, Ruby,” Lilah said quietly. “You really are a wonderful friend.”
“I really do think that everything will be OK, Lilah. It’s actually pretty impressive you checked the freight.” I looked at her curious. “Why were you doing that, anyway?”
“Well, remember that shipment that got lost earlier?” She pulled out a tissue and blew her nose noisily.
“Oh, yeah.” I remember I’d tried to track the shipment down while obsessing…no, thinking occasionally, about Tom’s visit.
“Anyway, when it finally showed up, the truck guy said he had a hard time finding it ‘cause it was mislabeled. He said it might have something to do with the weight change.”
“Did he say why that would happen?”
“He said he heard that sometimes, supplies are packaged differently from the catalogues, like in bigger boxes, or smaller ones. They have to juggle the sizes at the shipping warehouse to meet our quantity orders.” Lilah knit her brows. “I just thought I’d check, since he mentioned it, you know? I didn’t know I was going to open up a can of worms for my trouble.”
No good deed goes unpunished. I felt for her. Dakota was the reason she worked so hard.
I reached out and hugged her. She leaned against me and sniffled. Looking into her worried face, I gave a final squeeze. “Don’t worry, Lilah. We’ll stay on top of it and sort it out. Like I said, it’s probably just a computer glitch. I mean, even more so now that you mention the quantity thing.”
“Yeah, it’s probably just a typo or something.” Lilah didn’t look convinced.
My heart ached. I didn’t know how to comfort her. I didn’t even know what was going on. “I have to get back to work, but don’t worry, Lilah. Everything will be OK.”
“Ruby...I was wrong to believe you’d think the worst.”
I stifled the guilty look that threatened to reveal that I did think the worst. “It’s OK. You’d do the same for me. Believe in me, I mean.”
She nodded silently, gave me a quick hug, and then left me standing on the crunchy brown grass. I watched her leave and wondered if I should have told her about Antonio’s visit. I touched my neck, and though it was sore, the bruise had faded to almost nothing.
“Everything all right?” Blaine poked his head around the corner, glanced at me, and the retreating Lilah.
“Yeah, just some mama drama.”
“So, you’re good?”
“Yes, Dad.” I teased him.
“Well, Carl’s upstairs asking for you.” He rolled his eyes.
“I’ll be right up.”
He left me alone and I stood there hugging myself, thinking. After work I needed to check on that paperwork. I also resolved to tell Lilah about Antonio’s visit when I got to the clinic tomorrow. Even though I didn’t want to add to her worries, she deserved to know that there was something going on. She deserved the truth, good or bad.
I never had the chance.
7
Dresden Heights Detention Center
Thirteen Years Ago
My first few days at Dresden were unbelievably miserable. No one spoke to me, and I was actually OK with that. The kids there had a hardness I’d never seen in people so young. I kept to myself, stayed silent in class, and went to the dorms whenever possible. The isolation and grief threatened to overwhelm me. I didn’t know how to crawl out from under it.
To make thing
s worse, I missed my foster mother’s funeral because my social worker was off and no one else was available to come get me. I cried through breakfast before walking out to my classes in a stupor. Passing through the quad, I wandered along the rusty chain-link fence to the lockers along the wall. Splotches of wadded up toilet paper dotted the cracked ceiling over them like in elementary school bathrooms. I grabbed my books from my locker, shoved them in my bag, and slammed my locker shut. My throat constricted painfully with the emotions I fought to keep at bay. Why would God show me the love and security of such a wonderful woman and then rip it away? I felt like the butt of a sick joke.
“Hey,” a voice called behind me.
I turned and saw the boy from my first day standing a few lockers down with a backpack slung over his shoulder. We all wore jeans and a white T-shirt, the uniform at Dresden, but Tom somehow wore it better than the rest of us.
“You OK?”
“Oh, yeah, I’m fine.” Wiping my cheeks, I tried to pull my expression into something less stricken.
“You don’t look OK,” he murmured. His gaze made me aware that he was very close. Heat rose up my neck. “You look miserable. Like a kitten in a rainstorm or something.”
Not exactly the impression I wanted to make on him.
“You’re, Tom, right?” I tried not to sniffle.
“And you’re Ruby.” He smiled and his dimples made me smile back despite myself.
“Yeah.”
“Let me help you with that.” He reached over, took my back pack, and slung it over his other shoulder. It seemed out of place, his chivalry, in someone so young. Sweet, despite the surroundings and the handcuffs I remembered from the first time I saw him.
“Uh, thanks,” I said and tried to keep from staring at his eyes, but not wanting to seem like I was avoiding his eyes, either. I think I just ended up looking like I had eye strain.
“Where’re you headed?” Tom didn’t seem to notice.
“I don’t know. I mean, I know where I’m supposed to go, but I don’t know if I’m going there,” I said brilliantly, and cringed inwardly. “I don’t…” I shrugged, feeling stupid.
Tom’s gaze bounced from my eyes, to my mouth, and then back. “You don’t want to go to class. Too sad?”
I bit my lip and nodded. He was right. I didn’t want to go to class. I didn’t want to be here at this prison-like school. I didn’t want to be afraid to go to sleep because my dorm-mates threatened to stab one another with pencils. Sorrow bubbled in my chest, and I blinked furiously, but the tears streamed down my face anyway.
“I just lost my mother,” I croaked, grief washing over me.
Tom froze, a puzzled look on his face. Then he did something unexpected. He pulled me to his chest and wrapped his big arms around me in a hug. I crumbled. I twisted my fingers in his T-shirt and cried. Sobbing silently against him, the furor of unspoken anger and loss tumbled out of me. I trembled in his arms and felt like I would fall into a pile of ashes if he let go. I didn’t mean to accost this nice boy in the locker hall, it just poured out of me. All it took was one act of compassion, one hug from a stranger.
Hey, you’ll get through this.” Tom held me and murmured softly. “You’re OK.”
I wiped my face, looked up at his striking eyes, and tried to believe him.
“I…she was my foster mother for over three years. She was the nicest person I’ve ever met. She was going to adopt me. We…we made plans.” I knew I was rambling but couldn’t help it. Stepping back, I dug in my jeans pocket for tissue, and wiped my eyes. I looked at the wet, tear-stained blotches on his T-shirt and nearly fainted with embarrassment. “Oh no, I am so sorry.”
He patted his chest. “Don’t worry about it.” Then he gave me a crooked smile and shrugged. “You kinda had a lot pent up in there, huh?”
“Yeah.” I looked up at him and smiled weakly.
“I heard she died suddenly.”
“Car accident.” I squeaked, and nearly started blubbering again.
“That’s brutal,” he intoned. “That’s how you ended up here?”
I nodded and looked out onto the quad. A security guard pulled two boys out of a fistfight over on the opposite side. He didn’t see us.
“I was on the honor roll,” I said suddenly.
“Your grades transfer, you know.”
“No, I mean, I’m not supposed to be locked up. I follow the rules.” I winced. Why couldn’t I say anything right? “I mean, not that you deserve to be here,” I tried to clarify.
“Yeah, I guess things don’t always go the way they’re supposed to.” Tom chuckled softly.
I nodded, folding and refolding the crinkled tissue in my hand. Glad that he hadn’t taken offence. Silent for a few seconds, I was afraid that he’d walk away, leaving me alone with my grief again.
“Hey, you know what you need?” He asked suddenly.
“What?”
“You need some time to get away from all of this.” He swept his arm over the scene.
“Sorry?” I was confused.
Tom took my hand and put his finger to his lips, shushing me. “Just follow me.”
Without thinking, I let him lead me along the rear of the building. Breathless, I gripped his hand with both of mine. He stopped when we got to the cafeteria’s back door.
“You have to swear not to reveal what I’m about to show you.” He said.
I didn’t care that I’d just really met him a few minutes ago. I only knew that he’d been there when I needed to be held together. That he was the one person who noticed me at all, this beautiful boy. I stared at the side of his face as he peered in the window of the cafeteria’s back wall. Turning, he grinned and pointed up with his index finger.
“There’s a hatch in the ceiling of the supply room that leads to the roof.”
“Huh?”
Tom put his fingers to his lips again. “I go up there all the time to be alone. There’s just no other place to go that isn’t crawling with troubled teenagers.”
“We’re troubled teenagers, Tom. And I don’t want to get into trouble.”
“What are they going to do? Take away your day pass?” Tom shook his head and chuckled silently.
“They have those?”
“No.”
Tom peeked into the cafeteria and then pulled his head back out.
“Norma takes a secret cigarette break this time every day,” he whispered.
I nodded as if I understood perfectly who Norma was. Tom peeked in the door one more time then grabbed my hand and pulled me into the rear of the kitchen. We sneaked past the prep tables, and I saw some kids dressed in plastic aprons rinsing off the breakfast trays with over-the-sink hoses. Tom crept us past the ovens and in through a door near the freezers. It was pitch black in the room, and I felt the first fingers of panic close around my heart.
What was I doing?
“There’s a switch on your side,” Tom said.
I ran a shaking hand along the wall and felt the switch. I flicked it on. We were inside a huge supply room lined with shelves. At least two-hundred cans and bags sat crammed on every available space. I took in a breath, then another, convincing myself to go with the adventure.
Trust him, I told myself.
Tom pointed to a ladder at the rear of the storage room. “Let me go first, the hatch is really heavy.”
He scaled the ladder and pushed with both hands against the square of metal. The rusty sides scraped against the edges but it lifted out and back. Tom climbed up the rest of the way and hopped out onto the roof.
I followed after him and onto the gravel surface of the cafeteria roof. He closed the hatch.
A Styrofoam cooler stood against the raised ledge. I peered in and saw cans of soda floating in water. A towel to the right of it had a flashlight, a candle, and a box of matches.
Tom went and sat with his back against the exhaust tower, his knees up, and put his hand out for me to sit next to him on an old lawn chair cushion.
&nbs
p; “Looks like you moved in up here,” I commented as I walked over and sat down.
“Yeah, well I’ve been back and forth to Dresden for years,” he muttered.
I felt the warmth of him against my side and tried to concentrate on breathing. Something about breaking the rules and hiding up here with Tom made my heart race. Not with fear, but with excitement and escape.
“So, you keep running away and get sent back here?” I turned, taking in his strong profile.
“I don’t know how to, uh, fit in with those families.”
I nodded and picked up a stray piece of paper nearby. I folded it into an origami lily, brooding. The momentary elation of our adventure was gone, waves of sadness crashed in my chest, and I struggled to breathe through my aching throat.
“I lived in a bunch of different foster homes, too.” Self-consciously, my fingers went to the scar at my temple, a remnant from a lost life.
Tom’s gaze followed.
My face flushed red and I smoothed my bangs down quickly. “I sometimes space out from an old head injury. It’s called a petit mal seizure. You can’t tell, I don’t shake or anything, but it freaks people out…so I’m kinda hard to place, foster-care-wise.”
“I heard about you.” Tom reached out and ran his finger along my scar, his eyes sad. His touch left a heat trace along my skin. “The teachers don’t realize how much their voices carry from the lounge.”
“Who knows about my seizures?” I asked, horrified.
“No one. I said they were talking about you in general.” He smiled suddenly and tapped his own head. “They also said you’re wicked-smart; like, really advanced.”
I shrugged off the compliment.
“Three years ago, a retired nurse, remembered me from—before, and she looked for me in the system and brought me home. She was really into education,” I explained. My heart ached when I thought of her. “She wanted me to go to college.”
Tom raised his eyebrows and blew out his breath slowly. “Not many cool people like that.”
“No, I know. Her name was Sheila McKinney.”
Tom picked up some gravel and tossed them at the cooler. I joined in. We sat together quietly for a long time. It was a comfortable silence.
Ruby Dawn Page 5