by Alice Quinn
I started to wonder whether this freak had followed us home, but I tried to control my extra-strength paranoia. Cool it, Rosie. He’s just a nobody. It’s a coincidence and nothing more. This fella must live around here and that’s all there is to it. I’m loony for trying . . .
Sabrina ran to the guy and helped him pick everything up. She’s such a helpful little angel, that one.
We were nearly home.
“Come on, my girl!”
13
It was just as we were approaching the trailer that I spotted a miserable-looking teen, as lanky as they come, sitting on the cinder blocks that were supposed to pass for steps leading up to my front door. And he wasn’t alone. A few feet away, a few other teenage boys were playing soccer with an empty beer can.
Oh, gee whiz! I’d totally forgotten to pick up Léo.
I spotted an empty bottle of vodka on the ground. Unacceptable! And these buddies of his seemed like a little bunch of losers. Riffraff! Check out my language . . . I’m getting old now.
The twins ran to Léo. They’re both so in love with him. It’s kind of cute. He’s a real pretty boy, despite the fact that a smile almost never crosses his lips.
They jumped onto his lap and clung to him. There was no escaping.
“Hey there, Léo!” I shouted. “You been waiting long? It’s nice of you to come and keep us girls company awhile!”
I was trying to joke with him, but he didn’t laugh. He grumbled something and stood up with all the grace of a gangly adolescent. He was just your average high-schooler—mute, shy, and in a permasulk.
The other young fellas stopped kicking the can and stared at us. They didn’t have anything to say either.
“Hey! Your moms never taught you to say hello, huh?” I asked them with a sunny tone, smiling ear to ear.
A few of them mumbled, “Hey.”
One of them, the smallest, flexed his muscles, or what he obviously thought were his muscles. He must have considered himself the head honcho.
“And your problem is what exactly?” he asked me aggressively.
Léo appeared embarrassed.
I didn’t know how to respond, so I came back with the same thing. “What about you? What’s your problem?” He was attempting to outstare me, so I added, “Do you want my goddamn autograph, you little dope?”
He scoffed. “Autograph? You’re a freak show, woman! You been on The Voice or something? You don’t even know who you’re talking to!”
“Sure I do! I’m talking to a little ratbag! Piss off, dickwad! Go have your fun someplace else. And don’t let me catch you around here again.”
He found that hilarious. He wasn’t going anywhere.
The others talked to him. “Come on, Dorian. Let’s leave this bitch and her scrubby little kids alone and go see that package lugger. You know, that little wreck of a thing. We can punk her! It’ll be awesome!”
I noticed that Léo pressed his lips together when he heard this last remark. His fists were balled up.
I had no idea who or what they were talking about. Wreck of a thing? Package lugger? Was this newfangled streetspeak? Whatever it was, Léo looked agitated to the max!
I unlocked my front door. Pastis was giving us the eye from the little kitchen window. He gave me the impression that nothing in the world could possibly worry him. As cool as a cat, like they say.
The twins ran into our little house as soon as the door swung open, and Sabrina hopped to my side. Since he looked like he didn’t know whether he was coming or going, I told Léo to follow me in.
“Léo, come here!” Sabrina said.
“What?” snapped Léo.
“I’ve got a thecret. I know a man called Pirate Anorak! He wearth a coat and he hath loth of matcheth and lighterth. That’th real dangerouth, ithn’t it? Léo? I thaw he hath a bag thing for them! A cathe! Very dangerouth!”
“What are you saying there, sweetie?” I asked.
She quickly replied, “Nothing, Mommy. I didn’t thay a word!”
“Come on in, then. I want you all inside now. Hop to it! Twinniebobs, you already said hello to Léo, didn’t you?”
In chorus, they said, “Heeeelllllllooooooo Léééééééooooooo agggggaaaaaaiiiinnnn!”
“Good girls! OK, so we’ll all have a snack and then it’s homework time!”
I put a big crusty loaf down on the table with a tub of margarine. I took a box of powdered milk out of the cupboard and put my red kidney beans to soak.
The kiddies forced Léo to sit down and butter their bread for them. He sighed, but I could tell he was enjoying it.
14
Weirdly, Pastis stayed by the window. He didn’t want to take part in the little feast we had going on.
“Why isn’t Pastis over here begging us for milk today?” I wondered out loud.
“It’th nothing, Mommy,” garbled Sabrina before whispering something in Léo’s ear.
“What?” asked Léo, which obviously bothered Sabrina. She couldn’t handle not being listened to properly. “What are you talking about, Sabrina?”
She stared at Léo reproachfully.
Emma blurted out, “Léo, it’s true what Sabrina is saying! There is a Pirate Anorak! He’s for real!”
“Enough’s enough with all this storytelling. It’s time for you to get out your homework. What have you all got today?” I turned to Léo. “What about you? Do you have homework to get on with? How does that stuff work in high school? Do you have a notebook I need to sign?”
He murmured something and I didn’t understand a word of it. I cleared the table and everyone got out their pencils and notebooks and got on with their work. This was great stuff happening here! Sabrina, as always, showed just how studious she was and applied herself 101 percent to her assignment. The babas drew circles and lines and colored the spaces between the words. Léo had a couple of worksheets with some math problems. He was definitely sulking, but he was at least making attempts to solve them in between pressing buttons on his phone.
I turned on the radio and set about peeling some onions. Soon enough, along came a couple of tears.
“You crying again?” asked Lisa as she started to cry herself. In sympathy maybe?
“Oh, it’s nothing! It’s the onions again! It’s normal. I’ll have pretty eyes afterward! You just wait and see! Who wants to try some?”
Loud screams and shrieks of protest filled the trailer as I shoved onion slices under their little noses. They howled like hyenas.
I went back to my little kitchenette and started browning the onion with some garlic in the pan. After a short while, a delicious smell filled the room. I added two mugs of rice and drained the beans.
“So do you have problems in math?” I asked Léo, trying to pull him out of his silence. “Shitty grades?”
As I shuffled past him, I tapped him on the head with my spatula. He shook his head and gave me a begrudging grin.
“Hey, don’t mess with the hair! I’m not five years old, you know?”
“Oh, you can straighten it back up! No probs! So, your math isn’t too hot. What about your French? Where are you at with that?”
“I got a D.”
“There you go! Better than math, then!” I said, hoping he’d feel encouraged. I rolled my eyes, so he’d know I was just kidding around, but he didn’t take it too well. He turned a bright shade of red and pushed away his books.
“I’m sick of all this bull. I don’t like school! I can’t handle it!”
The twinnos stopped tittering and watched him carefully. Sabrina was still sulking and wouldn’t even look at him. He started to play with my kitchen knife while I hunted down a couple of coriander seeds Ismène had given me and were kicking around in a jar somewhere.
“You’ll just have to concentrate a little more, that’s all.”
“That’s exactly it, though! I can’t! I’d like to get better grades. Of course I would. I’m not doing this on purpose. But my teacher doesn’t seem to care whether I understand this stuff or no
t. If I ever ask a question, he says I should’ve been listening. What kind of teaching is that? The crappy kind, that’s what.”
“Listen, I’ll go have a word with him. I’ll go with Mimi and we’ll see if he’s as bananas as you say he is.”
“Oh no, please don’t go. We’ll look like the Brady Bunch!”
“Well, I reckon Mimi would rather you were a Brady Bunch kid than a bonehead. I’m sorry I can’t help you more with your work, but I’m not much use at all when it comes to math. All I can do is add up my change when I have some at the end of the month.” And it’s never as easy as I was making out.
“So you don’t get it either? Your brain’s fried too?”
“If I’d been more attentive in school, I wouldn’t be where I am today. The only job I can get is as a replacement maid for a girlfriend. Still, I gotta do what I gotta do! And fish is what gets fried, by the way . . . fish, potatoes, mmmm! But not brains, OK? Not mine, anyhow. Not even with math! My French is pretty good—at least, I think it is, even though I had to repeat tenth grade four times. But I’ve read a lot of comic books, and I think that helps.”
He stood up in a sudden burst of action.
“No more! I can’t do it! I wanna quit school!”
“Oh, no chance of that, bud. You have to go. The law says so. Don’t sweat it, we’ll find someone to help you out with all this. I’ve got some good friends. Some pretty cute ones too! I’m sure one of them can get you all hot and bothered about math!”
He was kind enough to crack a smile at my sorry attempt at humor. Good kid. Deep down. I took this moment of light relief to ask, “So what were your friends saying about a package lugger? What does that even mean? What sort of packages? And a wreck of a thing? What’s that? Can’t I even kick it with the kids anymore or what?”
He gave me a suspicious look.
“Why are you asking me this all of a sudden?”
“Oh, I’m a busy Nelly! A nosy bee!” I could tell he didn’t like my out-of-the-blue grilling, but I continued all the same. “And dizzy bodies like me can lend a hand with these sorts of things, usually . . .”
“Oh, really? How’s that?”
“I don’t know, because you won’t tell me what’s going on!”
There was a loaded silence. The little ones were still watching us. Sabrina was examining Léo—every word he spoke, every move he made. It felt like a secret was about to be let out of the bag.
“Oh, it’s nothing. Just a chick.”
“Well, is it nothing? Or is it a chick?”
He chuckled again.
“It’s a girl. We see her sometimes after school, usually on the way back to our cribs, see? She dresses kinda all screwy. Like some old gramma. But I don’t think it’s really her fault. And she’s so gorgeous, it doesn’t really matter, anyway.”
He blushed crimson as all the details fell from his lips.
This was love! A high school romance! Could it possibly be that young girl from yesterday? She did dress horribly. Like a tramp—I mean tramp like a homeless person, not a hooker. And she was so pretty, it’s true.
Pastis interrupted this intimate moment of sharing and caring and jumped heavily onto my neck. So typical. My little Sabrina got all jellybags and came over to join us. She wanted some attention from Pastis too and tried climbing up my back to get it.
“Did you finish your homework, precious child?”
“No, but I want Pathtith to give me a quick cuddle. Why doeth he alwayth climb on your neck and not mine?”
“Because my neck is bigger. Pastis could easily fall off your neck, couldn’t he? And you know he’s super smart, right?”
I sat down and put Sabrina on my knee. She nodded with me, but I could see she was still upset. I think she was jealous that Léo and I were having a serious conversation that didn’t include her, and she was just using Pastis as an excuse to sulk about it.
Emma had to have her input too. “Pastis jumped on you because he doesn’t need to keep watch now! Pirate Anorak has gone!”
“What’s with all the pirate stuff? Did I miss something?” I asked.
“Oh, jutht ignore her. Emma maketh it all up ath the goeth along!” Sabrina said as she stared wide-eyed at her little sis.
“Not true! Not true!” Emma protested. “I never make things up! It’s you! You’re the one who told me about the pirate!”
Sabrina grabbed hold of Pastis’s ears and pulled them. Apart from a little meow, Pastis didn’t react.
“Naughty cat! Don’t thcratch!
“Sabrina, leave Pastis in peace! And be careful—he will scratch you if you annoy him! He’s a real-life cat, not a stuffed toy!”
“Naughty cat! Don’t scratch!” repeated Lisa.
“No, Litha. He didn’t really thcratch me! You thaw that he didn’t!”
“Be careful, Sabrina! He’s scratching Sabrina!” shouted Emma, making everyone laugh. She hadn’t followed what had happened, but wanted to protect her sister.
This unfaltering loyalty snapped Sabrina out of her moany-pony episode, and she stretched over the table to grab her books and resumed her homework from the comfort of my lap. I could tell she still had one ear open, though, to listen to me chat with Léo.
Léo had clearly thought all the cat-scratching business had gotten him off the hook, but I turned my attention back to him.
“So the packages?”
He sighed. “Well, this one time, we followed her and saw that she was dropping off shopping bags filled with . . . something . . . at people’s houses. She’d go to a house or an apartment, knock, go in, and then come out minus a package.”
So now I was sure. It was the same girl. What was I supposed to do? Tell him that I knew where she lived? And that she lived with a nut job of a man who seemed like a maniac crook? I just couldn’t, could I?
“What do you think the packages are?”
“Dorian knows all about it. He’s always suspecting people of transporting packages. He’s been the same way since we were little kids—but he might be right this time. See, he delivers packages himself.”
“What do you mean?”
“He never looks inside them. The guy he works for told him never to poke around, and Dorian’s scared shitless of him, so he never does. Who would? He knows there’s some heavy shit in there, though.”
“And that’s a job?”
“Yes.”
“How well is he paid for that?”
“They pay him in dope. Shit. Grass. But he won’t share the work. I wouldn’t want to deliver packages, anyway. I saw how all that turned out for Jesse in Breaking Bad.”
“You couldn’t be more right, kiddo. That brain of yours is on fire! So, what’s this girl’s name?”
“Dunno.”
“Does she go to school near here?”
“Dunno.”
“Where does she live?”
“Du—”
“You don’t know much! Does she have friends she hangs out with?”
“She’s always on her own. But this one time, I was on my own too and I managed to talk to her. I asked her if she wanted to go to the beach and she said yes! But I dunno when.”
“Okey dokey. And let me just check that I got this right . . . Your buddies went to see her tonight? I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Me neither. They’re such a-holes. I’m worried they’ll do something to her. And none of them are replying to my text messages.”
I surveyed my fabulous little fam, my Mimi’s boy, the homework spread all over my table, my pots and pans bubbling away, my beans all cleaned up and ready to rock . . .
I switched off the stove and sighed.
“All right! If it’s the same girl I’m thinking of, I saw her yesterday!”
“That’th a thurprithe, Mommy!” declared Sabrina, who’d been following our every word, even the curses. “That’th life! Life givth uth unbelievable thurprithes! Ith it the girl we thaw yethterday, Mommy? Her daddy is a real nathty man.”
Léo’s face lit up. As for Sabrina’s . . . Well, her face was a picture! She loves going out on an adventure. Especially if it’s unexpected, and especially at night. As for Emma, she’d go to the end of the world and back for Sabrina. And Lisa just sticks like glue to Emma. So we were all in agreement.
It was June, which meant it wouldn’t get dark until much later. A hop, skip, and a jump and we were all outside, ready to take off.
15
Léo walked at a brisk pace and we had a hard time keeping up. I was in my heels, and the girls only have little legs! He didn’t want to go where I thought she lived. I don’t think he believed we were talking about the same girl.
“I’d rather we walked along her Tuesday route. I know it well,” he said.
We arrived at an intersection. There was a big round fountain in the middle with a ton of old candy wrappers and other bits of litter bobbing around in it. Léo stopped and pointed at a house.
“She often comes here on Tuesdays and drops off the biggest parcel.”
“And where are your friends?”
“Dunno.”
Suddenly, a door opened and a girl sprang out of the house—the same girl I’d seen the day before.
She was wearing rags. A total mess. She had on a long knitted skirt. A woolen skirt in this heat wave! The long-sleeved green shirt wasn’t exactly doing her any favors either. Nor was the weird headscarf she was wearing like a bandanna. Her hair was stunning, though! She looked like a Romany. But she must have been sweating her ass off.
She turned her head left to right before crossing the road.
Her almond-shaped hazel eyes appeared haunted. She bit her quivering lower lip. It was definitely the same hunted little gazelle I’d seen a day earlier. She was very pretty. She wasn’t all that tall and was as skinny as they come. All legs.
“It’s so weird that I noticed her yesterday, and she’s the girl you’ve been thinking about!”
I started to approach her, to talk to her, but Léo, a bright shade of scarlet by this point, pulled me back by the wrist.