Andy’s eyebrows shoot up. “Yeah?”
I nod, and Andy tosses a quick look over his shoulder. Convinced he’s in the clear, he walks to the fallen sign and tries to jam it back into position, an action that he lacks either the strength or the cunning to accomplish. Possibly both. Leaving it sloping and crooked, he collapses next to me on the bench. “So, Grace Cochran,” he says, grinning idiotically at me for a moment, like he’s mulling over my last name’s endless dick-joke possibilities, “you’re back in town.”
“Yup,” I say.
“Cool. For how long?”
“Indefinitely.”
“No shit?”
“I shit you not,” I say.
I wait a couple of ticks for Andy to ask why I’m living here. Or else mention Janna. But he doesn’t. All he says is, “So you’ll be going to New Harbor High this year?”
I wince mentally. The thought of walking up and down the hallways in Janna’s school makes me slightly nauseated. “Yup.”
He rubs his palms together. “Need a date for homecoming? Happy to oblige.”
His question seems so abrupt, so odd, that I almost laugh. Is he joking? He doesn’t seem to be. He’s looking at me intently, awaiting my answer. “I’m not much for school dances,” I say finally.
Not exactly a no, but he shrugs good-naturedly, appearing to understand the subtext. “So. Senior year,” he says, crashing back against the bench, a small smile on his face. “Can’t wait to graduate and get out of New Harbor.”
I raise my brows at him but don’t comment, because all I want to do is stay. All I want is to find a way to be comfortable here. New Harbor — it’s home to so many happy and horrific moments. It’s the happy ones, though, that have the most pull. Family has magnetic properties, it seems, and foster kids know this attraction more than anyone else.
Exhibit A: Mia, who lived with the Marios for a short time and whose mother was a train wreck — drugs and violent boyfriends and God knows what else — yet Mia always yearned to go back home.
Exhibit B: Me.
Andy and I are silent for a moment or two, and then he reaches down to brush a bit of sand from his leg. The motion causes his wallet to slide out of his pocket and slip through the slats in the bench. It lands soundlessly in the sand beneath him.
I jab him with my elbow and gesture to it. Because I have strict rules when it comes to thievery. The first one is nonnegotiable. The victims have to be assholes. Not just run-of-the-mill assholes, either — they have to be the infuriating, exasperating, greasy sort of asshole who looks down your shirt or up your dress or otherwise makes you feel completely naked. Second, the victims cannot be wealthy. Also unconditional. Stealing a hundred dollars or more is considered a felony, and while, admittedly, I’m a lot of things, I’m not a felon. Third, there has to be zero risk of getting caught. If I can’t get away with it clean, it’s not going to happen. I would not survive two seconds with the sort of kids who populate juvenile hall. I know this without a doubt, because I’ve lived with those types of kids in foster care, and the only thing that stopped them from kicking my ass on a daily basis was the fact that there were too many supervising eyes. And lastly, all of the money I take, every last cent, must be donated to my charity of choice.
There are other conditions as well. I have to be wearing my pink sundress, because it makes me appear roughly twelve. The innocence of youth is important when it comes to these things. And the lucky agate necklace Dad gave me — I need to have that on, as well. Baseball players aren’t the only ones who clutch their superstitions like life preservers. Thieves are as superstitious as they come.
So honestly, it takes a lot for all these things to line up. The perfect storm rolls in, say, probably only once or twice a year, which is exactly why I’ve acquired only three wallets to date, netting a grand total of — wait for it — twenty-three dollars.
The first wallet came to me on its own. It was Owen’s. I didn’t steal it. Not really. It slipped out of Owen’s pocket without his knowledge and he left it behind. Initially, I kept it with the intention of using it as a projectile — you know, hurling it at his head right before kicking him in the balls — but that moment never came. Instead, a couple of months later, I calmly took the eight dollars out of his wallet, sealed the cash up in an envelope and sent it to the Hillsborough County Women’s Crisis Center. Which, at the time, was the only thing that made sense.
Nine
The time I spent with the Marios was fairly painless.
I mean, “painless” is a relative term — and my expectations were low after the Nose Fiasco. So the correct statement here would probably be: I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t have to hide in the corner of my room with a paper bag over my head.
The first several weeks with foster families are a bit awkward — or at least they were for me. I was that stray puzzle piece that had been left out on a porch for a few days. The humidity and sun had warped me, and I couldn’t quite slide into place. I combated this by saying absolutely nothing. This is not a gross exaggeration. For a good three weeks, I did not speak at all. Mrs. Mario found this colossally sad, and — a fan of clichés — she’d pat me on the hand, her eyes a duet of sorrow and worry, and say, “Just take it one day at a time, dear.”
Which is probably the most nonsensical saying in existence. Know who else is taking things one day at a time? Everyone. Because that’s how time works.
I started talking right around the time that Mia arrived. Mia, who was also temporarily without a family, stayed with the Marios for roughly four months. At the tender age of thirteen, she had more street cred than most professional gangsters, so naturally she found me about as remarkable as Minute Rice.
Mia used to always call me The Mathlete. Only problem with this was that my school didn’t even have a math team. Nor was I particularly good at math, for that matter. Fact is, I just looked like a mathlete.
Here, in New Harbor, though, I’ve mostly been known as Janna’s Friend, because Janna’s personality is so large that it eclipses everything else. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s a thing, and now, as I walk back to Rusty’s without Janna by my side, I feel strangely exposed, particularly when New Harbor High’s track team jogs past me on the beach, led by their coach, Janna’s dad.
Mr. McAllister’s eyes snag on me, his gait hitching a little and his mouth falling open in shock. After a beat, his lips curve up in a tentative smile and he cuts over toward me, signaling the team to continue running.
For the record, I’ve always adored Mr. McAllister. I’d likely donate my right lung to him if he needed it. So even though Janna and I are shitty, and Owen and I are even shittier, I’m not about to project any of it onto their parents, particularly their father.
“Grace June!” Mr. McAllister hollers, calling me by both my first and middle names, something only he could ever get away with. Not just because he always makes me laugh, and not just because he’s a complete pushover, but because he’s awesome without even trying to be awesome — with his horn-rimmed glasses and messy hair and gangly limbs. Built like a Pez dispenser, he’s tall and straight from neck to foot, so when he wraps me in a hug, lifting me up and squeezing me hard, he has to really bend over to set me back down. “You’re back in town!” he says, tipping his head toward me as he waits for my reply. Because of a firecracker incident when he was a kid, he’s nearly deaf in one ear, so he has this habit of tilting his good ear toward you during conversation, giving him the appearance of a puppy that’s just heard an interesting sound.
“Yup, here I am,” I say, holding both arms out as if to present myself. “What are you doing, holding a practice in the middle of summer?”
He wipes the sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his T-shirt, which is adorned with a large seven-pointed star — his way of broadcasting to the world that he used to be a world-class sprinter in Australia but now l
eads a mundane existence here on the Gulf Coast of Florida, teaching kids how to hurdle and sprint and throw the javelin and whatever. He says, “Gearing up for a big tournament. The track world does not sleep, m’dear.” He pauses for a moment, just smiling at me. “God, it’s been forever, hasn’t it? How’ve you been? Do Janna and Owen know you’re here?”
“Not sure about Janna, but Owen does,” I say, leaving it at that.
“How long are you in town?” he asks.
Here we go.
“Indefinitely, I guess?” He gives me a strange look, so I gesture down the beach, toward Rusty’s house, and say, “I moved in with my uncle yesterday.” I try to swallow. The motion is incomplete. The rest of my words work their way up my throat slowly and painfully, like they’re physical things, almost too heavy to move. “Because my dad died a couple of years ago. From a heart attack? Rusty’s actually my only living relative. So, you know …”
His face blanches a little. “I had no idea. I’m sincerely sorry.” I can see all the dots connecting in his head — forming the Where have you been living? and the Why did it take you so long to move in with Rusty? questions — but Mr. McAllister is nice, and nice people don’t ask those sorts of questions. So instead he reaches an arm around me and gives me a squeeze. “I’m sure Rusty is honored to take care of you,” he says, which is funny, in an unfunny sort of way, because in truth, Rusty doesn’t take care of anybody but himself. And he doesn’t even do that very well. Mr. McAllister’s arm springs free from my shoulder, and he says, “Let me know if you need anything, all right?”
I nod, even though I know that I won’t. I’ve been dealing with Dad’s death for nearly two years. The therapist thing? I’ve done it. I took all my loss and all my guilt and all my sadness, and I handed it to my therapist in a little box. We opened it together and examined everything inside. The five stages of grief? I’ve gone through them. I denied and blamed and cried and screamed and punched pillows. This isn’t to say that I’ve gotten over Dad’s death. You don’t ever get over losing someone you love. Grief isn’t something you can hurdle. It’s something you carry on your back. You just find a way to cart it around without letting the weight of it fold you in half. You learn to live with it, because you don’t have a choice.
What Owen did — I shoved that into a box as well. But then I sealed it up with duct tape and hurled it into the deepest, darkest ocean. Problem is, the tide brought it right back to me.
Ten
“Relationships are like yard sales. They look good from a distance, but once you get up close, you realize that all they offer is a bunch of crap you don’t need.”
The quote is stuck in my head like lyrics from a song.
I can’t remember who wrote it, only that Eleanor read it out loud several years ago, from either a magazine or a book, and then she crowed like it was genius. At the time, I rolled my eyes. Now, though, I might nominate the author for a Pulitzer.
So I’m in the kitchen the next morning, waiting for the coffee to brew, counting the relationships in my life where the yard-sale quote applies and also spraying Lysol all over Rusty’s grimy counter, when an unfamiliar blonde woman pads into the kitchen, wearing nothing but Rusty’s oversized pajama top, which screams last night’s hookup.
Ew.
She’s right up Rusty’s alley — early thirties and pretty, with a waterfall of shiny long hair and a quick, breezy smile.
“You must be Grace!” she says, wholeheartedly friendly, which is sort of alarming. “Wow. I feel like I know you already. I’m Faith.” She says her name as though I’m supposed to be familiar with it. When she realizes I’m not, she clarifies easily, “Rusty’s girlfriend?”
Ah. A girlfriend.
Rusty has forever been looking for The One, and forever finding her.
“We’re practically family,” she says, beaming widely, closing the distance between us and throwing her arms around me in a hug, all skinny arms and boobs and hair. Almost as soon as I realize I’m in the hug, I’m out of it, both without any contribution on my part. “Is it nice to be back in New Harbor?”
After a considerable pause, I say, “Um. Yeah. I guess so.”
She nods, unaware of my lack of enthusiasm, and then leans against the counter, barefoot and casual, like she’s hung out in this particular spot every day of her life. She says, “I’d love to grab lunch with you sometime. Just to get to know each other?”
I hold back a sigh. This is Rusty’s doing, no doubt. He’s always pushed his women on me, probably because he thinks I’d benefit from a female role model, given that my mom died so early in my life. I glance up at Faith, who’s waiting for me to reply. Suddenly I feel as though my mouth has been packed full of thumbtacks. “Okay.”
Her face breaks into yet another spontaneous, carefree grin.
I smile back.
Jesus God. This is exhausting.
“Rusty will be out in a minute,” Faith says with a quick glance down the hall. “You know your uncle — he’s weird about getting dressed and combing his hair before he sees anyone in the morning.” Is she actually talking about Rusty? The guy who wanders around the house in underwear that resembles a baggy gray sail ripped off an old pirate ship? Evidently she is, because she leans toward me and whispers, “Rusty’s just thrilled to have you here, you know. Between you and me, he can’t stop talking about you.”
Which is sort of interesting, because at that exact moment, Rusty shuffles into the kitchen, stopping short when he sees me. For a couple of ticks, he looks surprised — like he forgot I moved in. Suddenly my stomach feels uncomfortable, as though someone just inflated a blimp inside it. And then Rusty recovers. “Mornin’, G,” he trumpets.
He picks up a banana and sniffs it, like it’s a foreign object or something. Rusty’s steady diet of junk food used to concern Dad to no end. Back when I was five, Dad bought Rusty a Salad Shooter for his birthday, hoping to prompt Rusty into eating healthier. Later that year, Rusty took the very same Salad Shooter, wrapped it in bright red paper and gifted it back to Dad for Christmas. I don’t know whether Rusty considered this a joke, his regifting it to Dad, or whether he’d simply forgotten who’d given it to him. Either way, it turned into a joke, because the Salad Shooter was passed back and forth between Dad and Rusty every Christmas from then on, clear till Dad died.
Rusty tosses the banana on the counter, crams his hand into the front pocket of his shorts, pulls out a wad of bills and says, “Been meaning to give you this since you arrived.”
I look at the money and then back at him.
Rusty says, “That caseworker lady — Sandra? Sally?”
“Sarah.”
“Right. Sarah said you need clothes somethin’ awful. Go buy yourself a few things, on me.” He puts his free hand on my shoulder and squeezes.
My vision blurs, and I blink several times.
Why is he doing this? Out of guilt? Probably. He’s never given me money in all my life. If he thinks he can just buy me a couple of outfits to erase what he’s done, he’s delusional. “My clothes aren’t that bad,” I say. An all-out lie. My wardrobe consists of a handful of smallish sundresses, a pair of shorts, a few state-issued T-shirts and a frayed pair of jeans.
Rusty says softly, “Yeah, they sort of are.”
Humiliation burns on my face. “I can buy my own clothes.”
Rusty stares at me for a long moment. The kitchen is so quiet that I can hear the refrigerator humming. “Look,” he says gently, his hand still on my shoulder, “I’m just looking to do something nice.”
My chest constricts, almost like I’m afraid of Rusty, but not quite. I’m afraid of him hurting me again. Afraid of him seeing what I’ve become. He’s so much like himself, so unaffected by everything that has happened, so charmed by the idea that we can somehow become a family now.
I mumble something about having to use the bathroom, and
then I spin around and walk out, turning my back on both him and his money. And as I hustle down the hallway, I feel strangely as though I just drove another wedge between us, faster than I knew we were standing close enough to be split back apart.
Eleven
They’re too young to be on the bus by themselves, and I’m half tempted to ask their names so I can alert social services. This is exactly the sort of thing that would infuriate Sarah — two unsupervised elementary-aged kids on a bus at nearly ten o’clock at night. While the older boy is taller and has shaggier hair than the younger one, both of them are scrawny and towheaded and freckled. You could draw a slanted, downward line between their two blond heads. They’re clearly brothers.
Now, I generally like to mind my own business. But they’re sitting directly in front of me, so I can’t help but see the older one repeatedly whacking the younger one in the leg, the younger one saying, “Ow,” and the older one saying, “Give me your arcade money,” and the younger one saying, “No,” while the older one smacks him yet again. Then the younger boy finally digs around in his pocket, pulls out a few bills and hands them over to his brother.
And I can’t take it anymore.
I lean forward, right next to the older kid’s ear. “Give him back his money,” I say in a low voice, “or I will sell your kidneys to the devil.”
It’s sort of hypocritical of me to threaten somebody for hijacking someone else’s money. But here’s the thing: I’ve never taken to be an asshole. I’ve never taken just to take.
This makes me feel rather superior to the kid.
The older boy turns around and glares at me over the top of his seat, surveying my short stature and my mathlete appearance and my bright pink shopping bag.
I stare him down. “Now,” I say. I’m cranky and exhausted and emotional, frankly miserable from walking around the mall in a neighboring town, trying to find clothing that doesn’t make me look … well, cranky and exhausted and emotional. In the end, I bought a ten-dollar sundress from the clearance rack, just to prove to Rusty that I don’t need his charity.
The Leading Edge of Now Page 5