“Okay,” I said, “but it’s three bucks! And see, I take off the sleeves and the bow and hem it, and it’ll look—”
“Like a weird thing an assistant principal would wear. Muir. You’re perpetually annoyed at old people but then you’re determined to dress like one. Please let me show you the ways of bargain hunting for stuff that was made in this century.”
It was too humiliating to explain that a bargain for her would be two weeks’ worth of allowance for me. Never had I wanted clothes that might draw, if not attention, then at least appreciation for not being the same thing I’d worn the day before. And the day before that.
I would never say it out loud, not to Kira, not to Francine or even to Joellen, but I wanted to feel like Kira did every day; the way pretty girls feel and take for granted. Wanting that embarrassed me. I shouldn’t need it. That kind of external validation is not what an independent person requires. But I wanted it.
My plastic wallet featured a picture of Disney’s Bambi. He and I, just two orphans looking to figure shit out. It was full of some cash I was willing to part with. But it had to stretch far.
“You just need some stuff to mix in with the clothes you already have. Like, okay, jeans but then not the sweater-vest. T-shirts but maybe with a skirt. Get kicky. You’re seventeen. We’ll never look this good in our lives again, ever.”
I sighed. “Okay. One regular store, but if it’s too much we’re coming back here.”
She tossed the blue blouse on the rack and pulled me out the door to run three blocks to the shops on Main Street.
“Here,” she said, pushing past tourists to a rack shoved in the corner of a tiny boutique. She held a beautiful pale pink sweater under my chin. “Try this. And this.” Skirts, jeans, three tops, and the sweater.
“Did you even look at the tags?” I whispered.
“Yes! I know what I’m doing, get in there.”
In the dressing room I read the tags and felt like crying. Everything was as expensive as it looked. Jesus, Kira. My eyes predictably welled up.
“Do your math,” she called through the door of the room next to mine. “Seventy-five percent off. Nothing will fit, but you can fix that, right?”
I sniffled. “Seventy-five?”
“Yes! They’re last season’s, returns, but it’s all new and cute. There may be a stain or a small hole, but they’ll give us a bigger discount for it, and it’s all workable.”
Hope crept back in. “You are magic,” I said.
“Not magic, it’s that I’m not made of money, either,” she said, yawning. “I’ve been at Blackbird since five this morning.”
I stepped out of the dressing room and knocked on her door.
She opened it, wearing a black tank dress that was hanging off her, and I put my arms around her small shoulders and hugged her.
“Oh, Muir,” she said. “It’s just clothes.”
“I love this sweater.”
I’m going to miss you when I go.
Back at Francine’s I washed everything and carried Terry Johnson up the stairs to the big room, where he lay on the bed to watch me pin and hem and sew.
My suitcase was open on the floor. None of this new stuff would fit in there. I would have to get rid of a lot of things.
The blackbird-collection pillowcase took up prime real estate. I pulled it out. Held it. Wished I had the tangled chain to work on.
If I got rid of my clothes and kept only the new ones, I’d be back in the same stupid situation, three or four outfits on rotation, day after day. If I kept what I had, like Kira said, and mixed things in, I’d have an entire extra week of combinations.
I looked at the dresser. Wide, empty drawers waiting to be filled. Unpack! Move in, get comfortable. I’m all yours.
The pillowcase went back in its hiding spot beneath the socks.
I folded everything new as it was altered. A nice, neat stack on top of the dresser. Not in.
* * *
I carry with me a sewing thimble. There is an urban legend that Albert Einstein, in an effort to save his brainpower for only crucial science and math thoughts, eliminated the daily decision-making of what to wear by buying a whole bunch of the same outfit: ten white shirts, black coats, pants, socks. A life uniform. This has been proven total nonsense. Plenty of photographs show the guy in swanky vests and sweaters, even sandals in later life. It’s just a made-up story, like the one about him telling Marilyn Monroe he wouldn’t have a baby with her in case it got his looks and her brains (a bullshit, sexist story; Marilyn supposedly had a super-high IQ but unfortunate taste in men).
Anyway.
I like that idea, not having to think about what to wear every day. I like eliminating being sad or mad if I lose something, when someone takes my stuff, steals my shirt, my shoes, I lose my socks in a new house’s washing machine or in a rushed move. So I took some saved allowance and work money to the mall and bought myself an Einsteinish wardrobe: three blue and three gray scoop-neck T-shirts, three pairs of jeans, one pair of black pants. One pair of shorts. Indoor shoes. Outdoor shoes. Done. All replaceable. Any of it can be worn with anything else, and most of all, it is a wardrobe that, like my entire existence, stays safely beneath the radar: utilitarian, muted, inoffensive, breaks no rules, draws no attention.
Clothes one loves and chooses because they fit and look good are the luxury of a free person, a person who depends solely on herself, who can decide where they live and with whom, and can screw up and break rules and get in trouble, with only herself to answer to. A wardrobe a person really loves is for someone who has somewhere to keep it—a closet, in a place where she can stay as long as she wants.
A mom I lived with when I was twelve had a sewing room. An entire room dedicated to fabric and a sewing machine, and she let me play with a needle and thread and scraps of cloth. She didn’t exactly show me how to do it, but I figured out that if I found something to wear at a thrift store that would work for the Einstein wardrobe but that maybe was too small or too long, I could fix it. Make it fit. She gave me all the thread and needles I needed.
But what I really wanted was her brass thimble. I loved how it kept her fingers safe from needle pricks, how shiny the brass started and how warm the patina after she used it for a while. She had a ton of them, like a person with a bunch of reading glasses lying around the house. She was nice. She never yelled at the kids; she always had many types of bread for toast. I liked to sit and listen to the hum of the sewing machine when she worked on patterns for dresses for herself or the little girls. I began to like living there with her.
So I called Joellen, who came to take me to a new house, where, she confirmed, no one knew how to sew.
As I carried my suitcase out to the curb, there in the dust near the baseboard in the hallway was a lone thimble. I picked it up and took it. Protection from hurt.
THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY, after a week of successfully avoiding Natan at Salishwood and unsuccessfully sneaking in any decent time with Sean there or at school, I raced off to the bus to get to Francine’s so I could spend the next four hours obsessing over Oh my God, we are going on a date.
Terry Johnson trotted out to watch me hose the mud off my walking shoes and place them neatly on the porch. He followed me to the kitchen, where Francine stood peeling potatoes at the sink. “Look what I found!” she said. On the table was a phone.
“You found this? Where?”
“At the phone store!” She wiped her hands on her apron and sat with me to unbox and figure it out. “So this is what they call Android, and I don’t know what that means, but you can text and call and there’s maps, too. And I like to take pictures with mine. You can press this thing and take a picture of yourself!” She leaned near to me, held the phone up, and took a picture of her smiling, me trying not to laugh.
“Francine,” I said. “I know how phones wor
k; I just don’t want one.”
“Too bad. Look, I put my number in, Kira’s number, her parents’ number, Sean’s mom’s number—”
“I haven’t even met her!”
“You will; you’ll love her. Now, look, this is what’s called an app….”
“Francine.” She put the phone down. “Have I been bad at contacting you? Have I been late?”
“Of course not,” she sighed. “This is for me. And you. I get a stipend from the state every month, you know that. It’s for your care and necessities, and I’m deeming a phone a necessity. I need to know where you are. I need to be able to get to you if you need help, and Joellen does, too.”
“Yes, but—”
“And don’t you want to talk to your friends?” She slid the phone to me.
“I can’t have a monthly bill and a permanent number. I’ll get all that someday, but being with you is temporary. I’m nearly out—I need to save the money I’ve got. Please.”
“The stipend is your money. Your allowance comes from it. All of it belongs to you. Your job is going to school, the state of Washington can pay for the phone.”
“Yes, for now, then in a few months I age out and I’m stuck with a bill before I have a job that can afford it; I’ll miss the payments and ruin my credit.”
She looked at me so sadly. “Listen,” she said. “Listen to me now. This thing is in my name. I won’t let your credit be touched.”
She knew better than that. Kids in care get our credit stolen and screwed with all the time. Birth parents, random CPS workers—they have our Social Security numbers, everything. I check mine twice a year on free websites at the library. Thankfully, still nothing.
“I don’t know.”
“Muiriel. Somewhere along the line your mother needed help. But instead of getting help, she was trapped into an impossible situation and made the only decision she knew to make. Now, if the government that we all pay taxes to had deemed helping your mother a priority, things may have turned out differently.”
God, she gets it. She knows.
“Okay. So that means I have to have a phone?”
“It means they’re pitifully reimbursing you on the back end. This money is the government saying, Sorry we didn’t help your mom take care of you in the first place, but here’s some money so someone else can do it, and part of being taken care of means you having a phone, so here you go. You kids get screwed around every which way, and a little money for a phone to keep you safe and let you text an emoji to your friends once in a while is a small consolation, but it’s all they’re ever going to offer, so I say take it.”
She was as angry as Joellen. Mad. Maybe as mad as me.
I could not stop the warm rush of affection that surged into my chest.
Still, the idea of the constant connection, this obligation, made me nervous.
“But everyone will have my number, and when I leave I’ll have to get a new one. That’s just confusing.”
“And that is you being ridiculous. Quit grasping at straws—it’s a phone, not a tracking device.”
“It kind of is. I’ve heard about Find My Friends.”
She got up and brought me a bowl of tomato soup and buttered toast.
“People can learn new numbers. I won’t make anything worse for you. I promise.”
Normally that word makes me preemptively furious. Promise.
It didn’t sound so bad when Kira said it.
Sounded okay from Francine, too.
In the bedroom I unlocked the phone and opened the photos.
Francine and me at the table. Then twenty-three close-ups of Terry Johnson napping.
* * *
—
The movie theater was small and old, near the water and walking distance from Francine’s, so we did. Sean and I. To go out. Not a date. He came to pick me up wearing jeans and a gray sweater. I was nervous in my new pink one, black leggings, and a skirt. Hair up. Eye makeup from Kira. Francine hugged him, asked how his mom was doing (Great, thanks), and put Terry Johnson in his arms.
“What time is the movie over?” Francine asked.
“Ten-thirty.”
“Okay, so home by eleven.”
“Yes,” I said. “Home by eleven.”
“Call if you’re going to be even a minute late.”
“Okay.”
“Ooh, or you could text!” she said, her eyes lit with excitement.
“It’ll be a surprise.”
“Wait, you have a phone?” Sean perked up.
Francine rushed to give him the number, and then the phone buzzed in my pocket. “You kids stand there, let me take a picture.”
“Francine,” I whined. “Come on!”
“For Joellen!”
“No way.”
“Fine.” She took Terry from Sean to give to me. “Say goodbye to Terry Johnson at least.”
I held his face to mine and kissed his snout. “Wait for me,” I whispered. “I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.”
“Oh,” Francine said. “Got it! I’ll send it to Kira; she’ll love it. Look!” She held her phone to Sean.
“Awwww,” he said. “You two are in love!”
I put Terry on the sofa and pushed Sean to the door. “We’re going now. See you at eleven.”
Off the porch and safely at the road, he said, “Check your texts.”
you look beautiful in pink
Beautiful? I nearly passed out. “You…look beautiful in gray.” I struggled to get myself together.
“I’ve been told I’m an autumn.”
“By who?” We crossed the road and onto the path to the theater.
“Took a quiz in a Cosmo at the dentist.”
My phone buzzed again. Kira.
OMG YOU HAVE A PHONE HAVE FUN TONIGHT
I held the text up for Sean. “What is this?”
“That is…time to turn off your phone.”
The path opened to hug the shoreline, Sean leading the way, no room to walk beside him until we reached the sidewalk near the theater, and then he took my hand.
“Does your mom not like it when you’re out on a school night?”
He thought for a minute. “I’m not in the habit of going out a lot. With people.”
Does people mean girls? “You mean, besides bonfire parties?”
“I mean, just with one person.”
“Oh.” Why?
“Also my mom isn’t around a lot until December. She mostly lives at Rainier in the ranger cabins, but she’s back for winter soon.”
I stopped walking. “Wait—not around a lot, like she’s not home?”
“Yeah.”
“How much is ‘a lot’?”
“Well. She’s home from December until the first of April, then she’s on the mountain.”
My hands hung limp at my sides in disbelief. “What?”
“What what?”
“You live alone.”
“No, she’s just working.”
“Three hours away, on a volcano!”
“She comes home some weekends, at least once a month, and she’s home all of winter and some of spring….”
I caught up with him, almost to the theater.
“Do you live in a house?” I asked as we walked. “Do you have raging parties all the time? Do you cook? You do your own laundry?”
“Yes. No. Yes. Yes.”
“Huh,” I said. “Wow.”
What if CPS comes and finds you underage, living by yourself in a house?
“It’s a ranger’s dream assignment,” he said. “Kind of a miracle to get a job so close to home, and everyone wants Rainier. She had my grandparents stay with me while she worked in Utah and Montana and Wisconsin for a while, mostly being a guide in boring historic hous
es when what she really wanted was to be on a mountain. When she got Rainier a few years ago, it was winning the lottery. She came home after the first season and said, I’ll be here till I die. My aunt stayed with me for Rainier, when I was younger, but now I hold down the fort.”
I had stared for hours at library book pictures of Rainier’s grassy snow-dappled fields, evergreens and alpine wildflowers, hillside creek beds of crystal water splashing over rocks and tumbling down sheer cliffs in roaring falls and the gorgeous snow-capped peak, rising above a veil of mist I could see as I walked Seattle’s streets. It hurt, knowing how close it was and what it looked like, and I ached, wishing I could be there.
“I don’t blame her,” I said.
“Me, either. That’s why I want to go to UW for environmental science, and if Natan gets the hell gone, I can apply for their master’s program with Salishwood. Because then I might have a better chance for a mountain position near home, maybe even Rainier. What are you smiling about?”
“You in a ranger uniform on a mountaintop. I like it.”
He smiled back. “Hopefully. Where are you applying?”
“Applying?”
“College.”
“Oh,” I said. “I’m not.”
“You’re not?”
“Look!” I said. “No line.” The sidewalk in front of the box office was empty, a hopeful sign we’d have good seats. Except the movie had started twenty minutes earlier.
“We walked too slow,” I said. “I distracted us with my demands for your in-person AMA. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not.”
In the frozen yogurt place beside the theater, the only other thing open after 5:00 p.m., Sean demonstrated a sophisticated layering technique of yogurt, then gummy bears, more yogurt, Oreos, and so on. Recipe of an eight-year-old. Or a seventeen-year-old living without a parent around. I filled my cup with vanilla and strawberries and mint cookies and we walked to sit in the near dark on rocks at the water’s edge, but this time in the light of the setting sun, watching ferries cruise to and from Seattle.
What I Carry Page 13