“What happened the last time you spoke to her?”
“She said she was busy and couldn’t talk. She said she’d call me back but she didn’t. Not ever again.”
“How did that make you feel?”
“Angry. Disappointed. Mad.” It was obvious Clara had been asked to discuss her feelings on the situation more than once.
“Do you write to her?” Rick had seen many envelopes filled out by students to their friends and family.
“No, I don’t write. They tell us what to put in those letters anyway. If we don’t put in our letters exactly what Mr. Royal writes on the blackboard, then they don’t get sent.” Clara exhaled loudly. “Besides, I don’t think my grandmother would read it even if I did send her a letter.”
“I can feel the anger you must have for your grandmother.”
“I’m not mad at her. She’s old and has a lot of shit to do. I’m mad but not at her.”
“Who are you mad at?”
“Everyone. The people here. My father. Definitely my mother.” Her fists tightened and her eyes narrowed when she said the word mother.
“Do you want to talk about her?”
“Who?”
“Your mother.”
“No!” Clara looked up at him as if expecting an argument.
“You don’t have to then.”
“You’re not going to make me?”
“No.”
“Good. Because I don’t want to.”
Rick suddenly had an idea, or a revelation, of sorts. Even though Clara insisted her anger was not directed at her grandmother, it was obvious she had frustrations toward the woman, stemming probably from a lack of communication. Rick felt Clara needed to hear the voice; she needed to speak with her grandmother.
Rick opened the large bottom drawer of his desk where the caseload files were kept. He removed Clara’s file and opened it to the emergency contact number. He scanned down the list for the phone number that would solve so many problems. Although he acknowledged his experience was not extensive, in more ways than one, he believed this was a good idea. In fact, he was surprised no one else had thought of doing this before.
Rick suddenly found himself frozen over with what was written in large red ink. His eyes widened as he reread the message in her folder to make sure he read it correctly the first time.
“What are you looking at? Is that about me?”
“Um…it’s nothing,” Rick answered, slapping the folder shut.
“Is that my file?” Clara reached over the desk. “Let me see it.”
“No, back off!” Rick yanked the folder out of her reach and shoved it between the other files in the open drawer.
His response was very forceful and caused Clara to instinctively pull her hands back. She folded them into fists of frustration in her lap. He had not known he was capable of such power in his voice. He could tell Clara hadn’t expected it either.
“I’m sorry,” Rick stated in a much calmer tone. “It’s just…you’re not allowed to read the files.”
“But isn’t it about me? If it’s about me, why can’t I see it?”
Rick thought carefully. He didn’t want to lie to this already distrustful teenager. If she realized he was lying, the relationship he was trying to forge with her would be over before it began. On the other hand, he could not tell her the truth, the note on her file made that clear.
“It’s all bad stuff about me, isn’t it?”
“It’s just the rules, Clara. I’m sorry.”
Rick could see the dissatisfaction on her face and was wondering how to respond when the sound of Janet’s voice over the room divider diverted his attention.
“Come on, get up there.” she yelled.
The strange comment caught Rick’s attention as well as his curiosity. He stood up and sprinted around the divider to see what his officemate was involved with. Clara followed, showing an equal curiosity.
Janet stood on a rolling chair in front of her bookshelf. She was trying to place a book on the top shelf. The chair shifted from side to side as she maneuvered her hips to keep her balance.
“Miss Murphy, can I give you a hand?”
Janet turned her head. This proved to be a mistake. She lost her balance. The chair rolled forward and Janet fell backward, screaming as her body plunged to the floor. The side of her head slammed hard against the edge of the desk.
“Janet!” Rick shrieked and ran to his colleague’s side.
He dropped to his knees and placed his left hand underneath Janet’s head. Her eyes were closed, but she seemed to be breathing normally. Blood dripped down her cheek from a gash on the right side of her forehead. He needed to get help, but didn’t want to leave Janet alone.
Rick turned to Clara, who out of nowhere, burst into uncontrollable laughter. To his amazement, she pointed toward Janet and dropped to the floor, her laughter turning to a high-pitched cackle that filled the entire room.
Rick found himself frozen in place. It was the first time he had seen Clara show a positive emotion, and it couldn’t have come at a more inappropriate moment. Even more upsetting to Rick was the fact that her reaction to tragedy triggered a sense of déjà vu in him, an emotional recognition without a memory attached to explain it. It made no sense. Rick felt confused to the point he almost forgot about Janet’s condition.
Chapter Ten
“You’re firing me?” Jake asked.
He found himself sitting across from the University’s Dean of Internal Affairs, also the man in charge of many campus conveniences, such as the custodial staff. The news this man gave him was completely unexpected, although Jake probably should have expected some sort of consequence if the frat boy complained, which he did. Still though, fired?
“What can I do here, Charlie?” Paul Gonzalez asked.
Paul wasn’t particularly tall or terribly bright, but he was decently built. Jake always found him to be a very low-keyed person who usually handled problems in stride. This time, however, Paul was visibly upset.
“You threatened to kill him,” Paul pointed out.
“You’re going to take the word of some punk kid on this?”
“That kid happens to be the President of the school’s most respected fraternity, not to mention the President of the Greek Council. You have no idea how much trouble you might have put us in, Charlie. Both his parents are well respected lawyers.”
“I see.” Jake folded his arms and shook his head in disappointment. “So this is all about protecting your own ass. You don’t want to get the school sued, because then they’ll make you a scapegoat.”
“This is the third time we’ve had a complaint about you threatening a kid. That’s why we moved you from the dorms to the frat houses in the first place. I like you, but let’s face it, Charlie, maybe you just shouldn’t be working around kids.”
Jake couldn’t argue the point. In fact, he couldn’t have said it better himself.
“Listen, I heard there’s a job opening in town. They need someone to clean and stock shelves at the Dollar Store. I could write you a reference.”
Jake was torn on how to feel about the offer. On the one hand, he had never felt more insulted in his entire life. On the other hand, though this little man meant well, he’d never understand why Jake would find this offer so insulting.
“Thanks for nothing, Paul.” Jake stood, turned, and strode out of the room.
He walked in the opposite direction of the shore, as well as the college campus, for what he hoped would be the last time. He was never a big fan of the beach or kids of any age. What an ironic coincidence that his witness protection program placed him in a location where he’d have to deal with both. Granted, he didn’t have to take a job with the college as a custodian, but with the campus being the main focal point of the town, and based on the fake credentials the program gave him, which really didn’t amount to much, there hadn’t been much of a choice.
The college campus made up more than eighty percent of the employm
ent in this small Florida area. Now, with limited choices, he had to figure out what he wanted to do for income next.
Of course, Jake knew exactly what occupation he was most qualified for, the job he held for eighteen years of his life. It was the career he had the most success with and the one that made him feel invigorated, even if it was considered illegal. How he missed his days as a merc.
As Jake wandered through town, he found himself doing what he had done literally thousands of times in the last seven years, he went over his life and how everything changed the day he accepted the deal from General Straker. If not for the promise he made his younger brother, he’d still be out there bringing people in, or executing them—for the right reasons and, of course—for the right price. Jake was never the type who would allow a simple promise to someone who was no longer even alive keep him from doing what he wanted to do. It did, however, work as the perfect excuse to stay where he was and not suddenly disappear from this annoying college town.
In truth, he didn’t want to admit the main reason he honored that promise was because if he reneged, he would be the one on the government’s “Most Wanted List.” That’s something he didn’t want, or need, as he’d seen what it entailed—the government hiring bounty hunters and mercenaries to come after him.
This led him back to the original question, what was he going to do?
Jake found that his walk brought him right in front of the parking lot of the Dollar Store. Paul had been right. There was a Help Wanted sign in the window.
From the sidewalk along the edge of the parking lot, Jake considered his next move. He lifted his left foot to begin his trek through the parking lot, but the foot turned of its own accord and took him toward the large store. Ironically, between the size of the store and the parking lot, it was the largest property in the small town, other than the college campus itself.
The glass doors goggled at him and Jake couldn’t help but picture a mouth, a mouth ready to open up and swallow his pride.
“Screw this!” He twisted his disloyal foot around and back onto the sidewalk.
Jake marched away from the store grounds, home. He lived in one of three apartments on the first floor of a three-story building. He had four rooms, including a kitchen and bathroom. It was quaint; all the rooms were small, a definite downgrade for a man who’d owned multiple houses in different states and two in other countries. All those had to be turned over to the United States government as part of his forced deal to have his record cleared.
Jake hated the mundane life. He truly wanted to escape, legally or not. The legal way would consist of calling the Witness Protection Bureau and requesting re-placement. Of course, he had made that call many times in the past and was always told to wait until they could come up with a new location for him.
He was still waiting.
****
At 9 a.m. the next morning, Jake found himself once again staring at the dollar store from the sidewalk along the edge of the parking lot. This time, he was able to put his foot on the parking lot grounds. He ambled toward the gaping glass doors that still looked like a big hungry mouth. The Help Wanted sign remained in the window. Well, at least he wouldn’t have to work with kids anymore.
In the store he found a clerk—who looked like he was barely out of his teens—standing behind the cash register reading a college textbook. God, would he ever get away from dealing with kids in this damn town? Jake cringed as he walked up to the register. He decided this would be a temporary situation until he could figure out for sure what he wanted to do. Of course, he’d said the same thing when he first applied to the college all those years ago.
The young man set the textbook down. “Can I help you, dude?”
Dude. Jake was really starting to hate that word.
“Yeah, you can.” Jake smiled, hoping this wouldn’t be as hard as he thought it would be. “I’m looking for a job.”
“Cool.” The clerk leaned a palm on his textbook and offered him a handshake.
Someday his life would get better, Jake promised himself. He was sure of it.
Chapter Eleven
“When I get out of here, my life is going to get better. I’m sure of it!” Clara stood in front of the window to the right of Rick’s desk. She gazed through the bars on the glass, at the facility’s farm.
Rick sat in his chair observing Clara’s behavior as much as he listened to what she said. It had been exactly twenty-four hours since they stood witness to Janet Murphy’s brutal accident. A stretcher had been brought for Janet while security rushed Clara back to her classroom. Rick had wanted to see how the incident affected her, but she appeared completely impassive and unbothered about the entire event.
“I know I’m smart enough to make it out there,” she professed. “I can be whatever I want.”
“What do you want to be?”
Clara turned from the window and looked at Rick. A smile danced across her face. “I want to be an actress, or maybe even a dancer or something.” Her dark eyes lit up and she glided her feet back and forth across the floor. Her arms wafted in the air in a parody of a bird flying. She talked as she danced. “I want to wear nice clothes, have my hair all done up, and be on stage with people cheering for me.”
The thought brought an even bigger smile to her face. She dipped and twirled in the small area.
“Have you ever been on stage before?”
“Yeah, in school, well…my old school. I always got the good parts, too. I loved being on stage. When I was up there, my behavior didn’t matter. Everyone was proud of me. I felt…I felt…” She stopped talking and concentrated on the dance steps in a deliberate diversion, probably a way to avoid talking about her emotions.
“Your family came to your shows?” Rick asked, adding a bit of stress to his tone.
Clara’s smile faded. She stopped dancing. She was silent for several moments, her back facing him. Rick searched his mind for something with which to prompt the girl, but finally she said softly, “My dad came to my second grade play. But right after that, he got locked up again. So he couldn’t come no more.” Clara spun on a heel and stopped in front of Rick’s desk. She began to tap dance in place while she spoke. “My grandmother…well, she usually couldn’t make it, but she came a few times. When we got home, she always said she was proud of me.”
“What about your mother?” Rick asked, introducing what he knew was a sore topic. “Did she ever go?”
Clara’s dance steps stopped. She stood before him, almost rigid. “No. She wouldn’t come.”
“What happened?” Rick tried to keep his question as open-ended as he could so she wouldn’t become defensive or feel like she was being forced into a conversation she didn’t like.
Clara dropped into the chair. She leaned her elbows on the battered desk and folded her hands. The quick nod of her head suggested she was ready to discuss what had previously been a taboo subject. “My mother hates me. She always hated me.” She shrugged. “But that’s okay. I hate her even more.”
“What makes you so sure she hates you?”
“She said so. I used to love her, when I was younger. I loved her even when she kept hitting me with the broom handle. Or when she held my head against a light bulb and burned me to punish me for being bad!”
Like lava erupting from a volcano, Clara’s long-stifled emotions boiled over. “What kind of a mother does that to her kid?”
Clara pulled her hands back toward herself. She stood straight up from her seat and wrapped her arms around herself, rocking back and forth from heel to toe. When she spoke again, her voice was so low Rick had to strain to hear. “My first grade teacher made me stay after school. I thought I was in trouble, but these people came in and looked at the bruises on my face. Then they said I couldn’t go home.”
Child Protective Services, Rick figured. “And they moved you into your grandmother’s house?”
“Yeah, with my grandma. Soon my father moved in with us. Until he…you know.” Clara flatten
ed her lips together, her chin low, resting on her chest. “My mother acted all okay about it. I think she was even happy. I visited her once a month…until she told me she didn’t want me coming no more.”
Clara’s head lifted. She looked at Rick with a glazed expression. Then she let out a deep breath and sucked in a sniffle. “I was ten when she told me she couldn’t love me because I’m high yellow and that’s not her taste.”
“High yellow? What does that…”
“It means I’m too light skinned.” Clara’s eyes watered. She squeezed them shut and a pair of tears rolled down each cheek. “My dad is half Puerto Rican. I guess I got the light skin from him. I don’t know, but she said I wasn’t black enough and she couldn’t love me because of that.”
Rick felt genuine frustration for Clara’s tortured life. He wanted to do something for her other than listen. A sudden flutter of dizziness told him he needed to contain his emotions. He could not overstep the bounds of his job. “When was the last time you saw her?”
The question seemed to enrage the girl even further. “About a year and a half before I came here. She called and asked me to meet her in downtown Brooklyn. My grandmother told me not to go, but I went anyway.”
“What did she want?”
Clara slammed her right fist on the desk and began trembling. “To tell me she was pregnant.” She swiped at her cheeks with the palms of her hands. “Not like she had to tell me. She was all fat and shit. She said she was having a little girl.”
Rick handed her a tissue from a box at the corner of his desk. She grabbed it and slowly patted her cheeks and eyes. He wondered why Clara’s mother felt the need to advertise the pregnancy to the girl.
“She said she would love this little girl and do everything for her that she couldn’t do for me.” Clara’s low-pitched voice suddenly turned into a violent roar. “SHE COULD HAVE DONE IT FOR ME!”
Rick placed his hand on Clara’s right shoulder. She jerked away, but then leaned forward, resting her right cheek on the desk. Rick put his hand on her back. He left it there in the only version of a hug he was allowed to give. Clara closed her eyes and breathed steadily in and out, a self-consoling technique all the kids were taught.
The Rasner Effect Page 8