Maybelline was working again. She slid me a cookie when I bought my Coke and said, “Where you been?”
“Nowhere,” I said. “It’s been boring.”
She said, “You’d better be boring while you’re here.”
I flashed my book at her.
“Huh,” said Maybelline. “That’s short. It won’t take you all night.”
She don’t know how slow I read. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll have time to help you wipe the tables.”
She looked around the deli. “Be a while till we get to that. Wait until people clear out.”
A customer come up and wanted half a pound of Havarti cheese, sliced thin. No, thinner than that, no, not that thin. Nobody wants cheese sliced that thin. Then a pound of sliced turkey. No, not the smoked turkey. Wasn’t there turkey on sale this week? It was in the paper, cheap turkey.
After the customer left, Maybelline motioned me over. I got up, hoping for another cookie. Instead she said, “Hasn’t anybody ever told you to use conditioner on your hair?”
“What’s conditioner?” I asked.
She walked out from behind the deli and crossed the store to Health and Beauty next to the pharmacy. She plucked a bottle off the shelves. “Here,” she said. “Slather this on your head after you shampoo. You won’t have so many tangles to rip out.”
That’d be a nice change. I looked at Maybelline’s hair. Beautiful, all braided and done up in soft waves like wings.
I said, “I wish my hair was like yours.”
She looked at me like she thought I was being sarcastic, or mean, but then she saw I meant it, and she smiled. “Thank you,” she said.
I took the bottle of conditioner. It cost $3.99. I wasn’t buying it with my 10 percent, but maybe I could sneak it into Francine’s groceries without her noticing. “Thank you,” I said. It felt good, to have somebody care about my hair a little bit. “It’s nice of you.”
Maybelline said. “Every once in a while, I’m a nice person. Wipe down the deli table, now, will you? Then after you fill the saltshakers I’ll set you up some mac ’n’ cheese.”
* * *
■ ■ ■
I ought to tell you why Suki and me are such fans of mac ’n’ cheese. Once, long time ago, I was hungry and there wasn’t any food in the house at all. Suki took me over to Teena’s house, next door, and Teena got out a box of macaroni and cheese and showed Suki how to cook it. You had to stir milk and margarine in with the packet of orange cheese powder, but if you didn’t have milk you could use water, or extra margarine, or both. We sat on the step eating bowls of macaroni ‘n’ cheese. Teena said, “Next time somebody goes to the grocery, make them buy a bunch of boxes of mac and cheese. Then hide some of them. That way you always have something to eat.”
We did. On the night we ran away from Clifton’s house, I bet we had three dozen boxes of mac ’n’ cheese under our bed. And already at Francine’s we’ve got five or six.
* * *
■ ■ ■
Boxed mac ’n’ cheese is good, but the kind they serve at Food City is even better. I was just scraping the last bits of cheese sauce off my plate when I heard someone say my name, quiet. “Della.” I looked up, mostly expecting Nevaeh although I wasn’t really, of course.
It was Teena. At last.
18
I jumped up. I threw my arms around her and squealed. She tried to pick me up, and I tried to pick her up, and we almost knocked over a table full of pies.
“Shh,” Teena said, laughing. She looked over her shoulder toward the checkout lanes. Suki couldn’t see us from where she was working, I knew that.
“Why?” I said. “Why should we be quiet? I missed you!” I buried my head against her belly. Teena had the best soft belly.
She dragged me back to the table I was sitting at. “Suki let it slip at school that you were here with her last Friday,” she said. “I thought I’d see if you were here this week too.”
“How come you didn’t just come to Francine’s?” Teena could drive her mom’s car to get there as easily as she could to Food City.
Teena made a face. She looked good, really good—flashy earrings and green eye shadow and some pretty lip gloss. Nice painted fingernails. Teena always took care of her looks. She said, “I don’t know where Francine’s house is. Suki won’t tell me.”
“But you do see her. She keeps telling me you don’t.”
“Course I see her. We’ve got English together. Every day.” Teena fiddled with one of the sugar packets from the table. “How are you, Della?”
“I really missed you,” I said. “Everything’s changed, like, twenty times. Twenty times in a row.”
She nodded. “People taking good care of you?”
“Yeah. We’re with this lady called Francine.”
“I’m glad.”
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, sure,” she said. “My mom’s working. I might try to get a job, but, you know, we’ve only got the one car.” She was smiling, but she also looked ready to cry, and I didn’t know why.
“Why’s Suki mad at you?” I asked. “She won’t talk to me about it.”
Teena hesitated. “I figured out her bad secret,” she said, “the one she doesn’t want anybody to know.”
I didn’t know what she meant by that, but before I could ask, she grabbed my hands. “Look, like I told her, you can’t be ashamed of Clifton, okay? Everything that happened—it was on him. Okay? Not your fault and not Suki’s—”
Suki said, loud and cold, “Get the snow out of this grocery store.”
I jumped. She was standing right next to us, looking fierce.
Teena whipped around too. “Hey, Suki,” she said, “I was just checking on Della. I wanted to check on you—”
“Out,” Suki said. “Get. Out.”
“Suki, it’s a Food City,” I said. “You can’t make her leave.”
“Don’t worry,” Teena said to me, “I’m staying.”
Suki shouted, “OUT!”
“Suki!” I said.
From the corner of my eye, I could see Maybelline coming toward us, faster than I thought she could move. Even before she reached us, another voice said, “Ladies. Is there a problem?”
It was Tony. He didn’t look like Coach Tony, or the friendly guy who made jokes about creamer. He looked in charge.
He looked angry.
I took a step back.
Suki said, “She needs to leave. She needs to quit talking to my sister. I don’t want her—”
Teena said, “It’s a free world, Suki. This is a grocery store!”
“GET OUT!” Suki shoved Teena’s shoulders, hard. Teena stepped backwards, tripped over a chair, and sprawled across the floor.
Everyone went silent. Everyone in the entire store, or at least that’s what it felt like to me.
Then Tony spoke again, his voice clipped and hard. “Suki, you’re done for the night. You need to clock out and leave right now.”
19
Suki ripped off her name badge and threw it onto the floor. She stalked into the office and came back a moment later, slamming the office door. She grabbed my arm. “C’mon, Della.” She pulled me out of the store.
Over my shoulder, I saw Teena and Maybelline and Tony all in a little group, watching us leave, and also all the other checkout clerks and a lot of the customers, silent and staring, like they couldn’t take their eyes off us. Friday night fights at Food City. Some people consider anything entertainment.
Teena put her hands up to her chest, fingers folded, making a heart shape.
“Suki,” I said, “I don’t want to—”
“Come on.” Suki yanked me out by the arm.
In the car, she leaned her head against the steering wheel, breathing hard and fast. Her hands shook. I stared at her. I hadn’t seen her
this upset since—well, since we were getting into the back seat of the cop car. Back at Teena’s house, the night we ran.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
She took a deep breath. “There’s nothing to understand.”
“But—”
She lifted her head. “Della, shut up, all right? Just shut up.”
My sister never once in her life had told me to shut up.
“No!” I said. “You told me you never saw Teena anymore, and you’ve seen her every single day. I miss her! I was worried she didn’t want to stay friends with us. I was worried she didn’t care enough—”
“STOP TALKING!” Suki started the car. She stomped the gas and the whole car thumped, up, then down, front wheels, back wheels. We hit something. Or someone. I screamed.
“It’s just the curb!” Suki said. The tires squealed as she yanked the car around a corner.
She was squealing tires in a Food City parking lot.
“Lemme out,” I said. “You’re driving crazy.”
She braked hard. I tried to open the door, but she jabbed a button and the door locked. “Calm down,” she said. “You’re fine. Put your seat belt on.”
“Why were you lying to me about Teena?”
She inched forward to a stoplight and didn’t look at me. “I wasn’t.”
“Snow, you absolutely were.” When she didn’t respond, I said, “She said it’s because she guessed your secret.”
Her eyes flicked over to mine, then back to the road. The light changed. She swung the car onto the parkway.
She looked trapped. Panicked. “Don’t,” she said.
“What’s the secret?” I said.
“I don’t have a secret,” she said. “But if I did, it’d be a secret, right? So, none of your business.”
She sped up, then had to slam on the brakes to keep from plowing into a pickup truck. “You’re fine, all right? Let it go. I’m taking care of you.”
“No, you aren’t—”
“SHUT UP! Okay? I’m doing my best. Don’t wreck things.”
We pulled into Francine’s driveway. Suki said, “At midnight we’ll go pick up Francine. You be quiet about tonight, all right? Pretend it didn’t happen. Francine doesn’t need to know.”
We went into Francine’s house. Suki went into our bedroom and shut and locked the door. I knocked and called her name, but she ignored me.
My stomach hurt.
After a while, I turned on the TV. I lay down on the couch and fell asleep.
At midnight, Suki woke me. We got back in the car and drove downtown. Francine was waiting outside O’Maillin’s with two of her friends, all laughing like they’d had a fun night. She got into the car still laughing. I was sitting in the back seat, fiddling with my seat belt.
“You girls good?”
“We had a great night!” Suki said, in such a fake cheerful voice, I was sure Francine would know she was lying.
If she did, she didn’t say anything. Neither did I. Suki drove us home, pulled into the driveway, and parked the car. We all got out. Francine walked around to the trunk.
Suki was already halfway up the front steps. Francine said, “Click the trunk, Suki. We need to grab the groceries.”
Suki’s face fell. “Oh. Snow. I forgot about the groceries.”
“We didn’t get them,” I said.
Francine turned to me. “You spent the entire night at the grocery store and forgot to buy groceries?”
“Teena showed up,” I said, “and Suki got mad.”
“Ah.” Francine studied us. Then she went inside, took off her jacket, and sprawled across the couch. “Y’all want to tell me what happened?”
Suki told the whole story, standing just inside the front door, fists clenched.
“Suki,” Francine said, “calm down. We’ll get groceries tomorrow. Next time something happens, just tell me straight up.”
Right. Because if we caused enough trouble we’d be living somewhere else.
“Think you’ve still got a job?” Francine asked.
Suki shrugged. “Doubt it.”
“What on earth were you thinking?”
“I told Teena to mind her own business,” Suki said. “I told her to stay away from Della, and me—”
“Suki,” I said, “what happened?”
She whirled on me. “What do you mean, ‘what happened?’ You know what happened! Our mother went away and left us with a monster! We had to live with him! For five years! That’s what happened. You know it, Della. You were there.”
I wouldn’t have used the word monster. Not until the night we ran.
Suki went out the front door. Francine went after her. Suki was sitting on the front step, her head in her hands. She was crying.
Francine said, “I think I better talk to your caseworker. I’ll call her Monday. When are you scheduled to work again?”
Suki grimaced. “Monday.”
“Okay.” Francine touched Suki’s shoulder. Suki flinched. “Come inside and go to bed. This’ll pass.”
* * *
■ ■ ■
While I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth, I pulled a deli napkin out of my hoodie pocket. As soon as Suki’d gone into the office, Teena’d whipped a pen out of her purse, scrawled something on a napkin, and thrust the napkin at me. I’d stuffed it in my pocket, quick, before Suki came out.
Now I unfolded and looked at it. A phone number. Teena’s phone number.
I sat down on the toilet seat and read the number over until I knew it by heart. Then I wadded the napkin up and stuck it in the back corner of the cabinet under the sink, behind a stack of toilet paper, just in case.
I went into the bedroom. Suki was in the upper bunk, on top of the blankets, still fully dressed. She was staring at the ceiling. “Do you mind sleeping in the bottom bunk tonight?”
I minded. Of course I minded. “Why?”
“I just want to be by myself. I want to be alone.”
I didn’t. But I crawled into the lower bunk anyway. I could hear my own heart beating. Francine’s house didn’t seem safe anymore. Neither did my sister.
20
In the morning when I got up, Francine was already in the kitchen, drinking coffee. “Hey, kiddo,” she said.
“Hey.” I poured myself some raisin bran and sat down to eat it.
“You want milk with that?”
“No.” I like my cereal crunchy.
She sat down at the table next to me. “Don’t panic,” she said. “We’re all okay.”
“How much trouble is too much trouble?” I asked. “For you to keep us.”
Francine shook her head. “Way more than this.” She said, “Nobody gets put in foster care for happy reasons. It’s always hard. I understand why you and Suki might be angry.”
“I’m not angry,” I said.
“Whatever you feel.”
“I’m fine.”
When Suki got up, we all went back to Food City. Francine drove. When we got there, Francine and I started shopping and Suki went into the office. When she came back to us, her face was blank.
“Well?” said Francine.
“Nothing,” Suki said.
“No job?”
“No consequences,” she said. “None of the day managers even knew anything had happened. Tony didn’t write me up.” She shook her head. “I’m still working after school next week. But he took me off the schedule for next Friday.”
Francine said, “He’s giving you another chance.”
“Why would he?”
I said, “Maybe because he’s the nicest man in the world.”
Maybelline wasn’t working the deli counter, but when we walked through Health and Beauty, I remembered the conditioner she told me to buy. I pulled it off the shelf and showed it to Francin
e.
“That’s fine,” Francine said. “Whatever it is you think you need.”
“Even though it costs three ninety-nine?” We weren’t getting any 10 percent treats this week. Suki only got a discount during her shifts.
Francine sighed like she’d had about all she could take of Suki and me. “I told you I was doing this for the money,” she said.
“So you don’t want to spend any on us.”
“No. That is not what I mean.” Francine drew herself up a little. “I’m getting paid to do a job,” she said. “That job is to take care of you. That means getting you whatever you need. Clothes, haircuts, doctor, dentist. Lawyers, caseworkers. Therapists. Everything. If your hair needs special stuff, then it’s part of my job to see you get it.”
Suki grumbled, “Della don’t need special stuff.”
“My hair’s different from yours!”
Suki looked angry. “I always took care of you just fine.”
I took a deep breath and blew it out. “Just because you always did your best doesn’t mean I can’t use conditioner.”
Suki glared at me. I glared back. “It’s just conditioner,” I said. I ought to be allowed to say that.
* * *
■ ■ ■
At school Monday morning I made Nevaeh mad again. It started when I gave her back the book.
“Did you read it?”
I nodded. It was how I’d spent most of Sunday afternoon. Suki and Francine had hardly paid me any attention at all.
“How’d you like it?” Nevaeh asked.
“Eh. It was okay.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Just okay? It’s better than okay.” She sounded annoyed. “I loved it.”
“It wasn’t really a happy ending,” I said. “I mean, they didn’t have to live in their car anymore, and the dog was back home, but everything was still all unsettled. They might have had to go back to that car anytime. Those friends might not want to keep helping them. It wasn’t really better. Not permanent.”
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