“Your cheek is better. It had a big bruise. Remember?” Rose said.
“Look at this,” the girl said, putting down her spoon and lifting up her mop of hair to reveal a large gash on her forehead. “A gift from the wrinkly bumhole who turned me in.”
Rose let out a little gasp.
“We’re not allowed to cuss,” Maxine explained.
“You’re shitting me,” said the girl, stuffing half her bread into her mouth and not for a second understanding what she’d just done.
“Aren’t you going to eat your apple?” Maxine asked Rose, attempting to change the subject.
“Not right now,” Rose answered, tapping her apple four times and looking off into the dining room.
Rose was lying.
Alice shifted on her bench but said nothing.
“Saving it for later, huh,” said the girl. “I never do that. Someone could swipe it from you. But they can’t steal it if it’s in your gullet.”
“I’m saving it for later,” Rose said, echoing the girl.
Another lie.
Rose didn’t usually lie, and she never lied to Maxine. Alice held her breath, waiting for Rose to say something… else. To explain why she wasn’t telling the truth. To explain the apple, and the dress, and the money slowly adding up in the vent.
Instead Rose chatted away to the girl.
“Why is your name ‘London’ and not ‘Betty’ or ‘Dorothy’ or something?” Rose asked.
“Don’t know,” the girl said. But Alice could see that she did.
“Where’d you get that book?” Rose asked London.
“The Count of Monte Cristo.” Maxine read the book’s spine.
“The yellow-haired nurse gave it to me,” London replied.
“Why?” asked Rose.
The girl shrugged.
Again Alice could see that London did know, but this time Alice wished she’d answer. It was curious that Mrs. Vetter would give the girl a book. And such an important-looking book, with its deep-red cover and the title in silver lettering that you would be able to feel if you ran your fingers over it.
“Can you read?”
London looked up at Alice in surprise. Alice was a little surprised too, and it took her a second to know that she’d actually spoken that out loud.
“Yes.”
It looked like the girl wanted to add something more, but didn’t. Instead she kept eating, ladling the soup from the bowl to her lips in short, loud trips.
Alice could read, but not very well, certainly not well enough to read a book like that. She’d been a high-grade moron when she’d first tested at Fernald, but her latest test had showed that she’d slipped to a low-grade. Alice despised the names, and the tests. But the truth was, she could feel herself slipping, unlearning things she’d once known. Stitching hems and washing bedsheets didn’t help you learn. Mrs. Vetter would never have handed her a book.
“Where’s your sandbar?” Rose asked next.
“That means ‘Where are you from?’” Maxine explained.
“Eastie.”
“By the airplane field?” Maxine asked.
Alice was annoyed that the girl had said something to interest Maxine.
The girl nodded.
“Have you ever seen an airplane take off? From the ground, I mean, and not just fly overhead. Our math teacher, Mr. Ragno, he’s been up in one.”
Maxine was now facing the girl on the bench, even leaning in toward her like she wanted to be closer to her next words. Although, the only thing that fell from the girl’s mouth was soup, dripping down her chin. The girl ate like she was starving, lifting the bowl and sucking down the dregs of soup, and then wiping her face with her sleeve. A soupy sleeve that Alice would be washing tomorrow, along with a thousand other soupy sleeves.
“Sure I have,” she finally said. “Jeffrey Field isn’t far from where I live. They make a big deal when they take off. But I’d never go up in one of those rickety heaps of shit.”
No one bothered reminding the girl of the swearing rule.
“I’d go up in one. In fact, I am going up. One day,” Maxine told her.
“I doubt it,” London said. “Some Irish bim at the hoses says you never get out of here.”
“What are the hoses?” Rose asked.
London chugged her milk instead of answering.
Maxine stiffened, startled by the reality of London’s response. This was why Alice didn’t like anyone around them. They all knew Maxine was never going to fly in an airplane. Maxine knew it too. She was also never going to be a singer, or see the ocean. Or get married. Or have children. Or do a lot of things. But no one had to say this out loud. There was nothing wrong with a little dreaming. Nothing.
The girl slammed her empty glass onto the table. “Unless you bust out of here. You could always bust out of here.”
“Yes,” Rose said, “unless you run away, Maxxie. Then you can fly in an airplane. There’s a map in the hallway outside Mrs. Vetter’s office, and the airplane field is right on it. Miss Barrett showed me the pictures of all the tiny planes. You could run away and climb onto the first airplane you see.”
Alice watched London stop eating for the first time since they’d sat down. She was obviously taking in the information about the map. Alice noted with satisfaction that this girl was planning another elopement. The sooner the better. Alice had enough to worry about.
“Thinking of running, are you, Rosy?” Maxine joked.
Alice choked on her soup.
“Are you okay, Alice?” asked Maxine.
Alice shook her head.
“She doesn’t talk much, does she?” London said.
“Sure, she does,” Maxine said, defending her. “When she feels like it. Which just isn’t that often.”
Alice warmed with joy at Maxine’s defense of her. If they had been allowed to touch, Alice would have pressed her knee up against Maxine’s in thanks. Although, just thinking about this made Alice glad that she couldn’t.
London picked up her bread. “I get it,” she said.
Alice saw that she did get it. But this still didn’t mean Alice wanted the girl to stick around.
* * *
That night was a Miss Sweeney night. So Alice lay with her head at the bottom of her bed and let Maxine rub her bad foot. She rarely thought about her foot, though it ached all the time. On the nights when Miss Sweeney watched over them, Maxine would rub away at the pain until Alice drifted off to sleep. Sometimes, when it got dark, Alice would let the tears slide out of her eyes the entire time Maxine’s warm hands kneaded the knots from her sole, until her thin pillow was soaked through.
Before lights-out, Alice noticed that Neddie had an apple. She knew it must be Rose’s. Rose often stole fruit and gave it away to Lizzie or Sarah or anyone who looked like she’d had a bad day. This, along with the absurdity of the idea that Rose was collecting money and clothes to elope, made Alice feel better. Rose would never run.
Maxine’s hands kneaded, kneaded… and slowly, with each squeeze of her fingers around Alice’s tired foot, everything began to feel better. There was the problem of their birthdays. But this was an old worry, and one she had time to figure out. There remained that one small niggle, deep in Alice’s belly. Rose’s lie.
Maxine kept rubbing, and soon… that niggle rubbed right out.
London had lived in a lot of lousy places, and even she had to admit to herself that this was not even close to the worst of them. You were fed three times a day. There was a mattress… pissed on or not, it was still better than the floor. In the dormitory there were even blankets. And she’d been given a book! She’d never been given shit before, not even by the old lady. Although, it was because of the old lady that London had been given the book.
After a week inside what the girls here called the cages, she’d been brought to the head lady. London had met her kind before. Smarter than most of the people around her and more than a little frosted about it because she’d never get the res
pect that the two tie-wearing knobheads did who sat in the larger offices on either side of her. Women like Mrs. Vetter were tough to chisel. London was sure she’d have been back in the cages if it weren’t for the book.
It had been sitting on the desk. London had first noticed it because it was bright red, but then couldn’t take her eyes off the name on the cover. Dumas. Like the old lady’s name. The nurse, seeing London’s interest, had asked if she could read.
London had given her the truth. “I love to read.”
Mrs. Vetter was shocked by her answer, and London saw instantly how charmed the nurse was by her honesty. The woman shocked London back by plucking the book from her desk and offering it to her, telling her she could borrow it for as long as she liked. At the same time, Mrs. Vetter informed London that she would be returning to the dormitory.
London was thrilled, and she gingerly accepted the book from the nurse’s hand.
It was heavy, and the cloth covering it was soft and an even brighter red when it was held close. London turned it on its side to read the name again, Dumas, and found that it was written in silver, and not white like it had looked when the book had been sitting on the desk. She ran her finger along that name, feeling the letters under the tips of her fingers. And then she looked up at the nurse in earnest and placed the book back on her desk.
“They’ll take it from me. The attendants. I can’t have it.”
Mrs. Vetter stood so abruptly from her desk that her chair scraped the hard floor.
“No one will take this book from you. You can be sure of it. The matron will be informed.” She picked it back up and stretched it out to London, smiling a powerful, conspiratorial smile.
* * *
Getting a book, getting fed, sleeping off the ground, it was all good, but London couldn’t forget the word the pretty Irish girl had used. “Hereditary.” London didn’t know its exact meaning, but she understood that whatever they said she had, it was stuck to her, and she couldn’t get rid of it.
She looked over at Rose, sleeping less than a foot away from her. The girl was goddamn adorable. London had to give her that. She was all curled up and snoring lightly while she held on to her stick like it was some sort of baby doll. Rose had signaled to London before falling asleep. She’d pointed at the vent between their beds and then pointed at the window that London had climbed out of a little more than a week ago now. Obviously, there was something in the vent, and this girl was going to help London. Again.
London settled onto her cot. She hadn’t planned on running right away. She wouldn’t make the same mistake twice, running out into the woods, not knowing where in God’s piss hole of a world she was. She needed to see the map outside Vetter’s office that Rose had mentioned. She needed to know which way to run.
London twisted around on her cot. She couldn’t sleep. It was way too early in the day.
“Cut the noise,” someone growled from across the room. Most likely that brute with the bangs.
“Kiss my crack,” London whispered, plenty loud enough for the brute to hear.
Maxine’s head popped up from behind Rose’s sleeping face, and Alice’s head from behind Maxine’s. They both stared her down.
London stared back. She understood they were trying to help her, but she didn’t need their help. Although, she might need Rose’s. She turned her back to them… loudly, daring that brute to say another word. She didn’t.
Although, now London lay there in a lather. She should just break open that vent tonight after all these mollies fell asleep. Keeping out of trouble wasn’t something London did well, and she knew it. Maybe she’d beat the sausage out of that bitch tomorrow, get it over with, and be sent back to pick up shit for another week. That wouldn’t be so bad. She reached for her book and pulled it close to her, just like Rose had done with her stick. They’d take the book away from her for sure.
She’d let the banged bitch keep her face arranged the way it was, for now. She’d hang out with Rose, and Maxine, and Alice. She’d be patient.
Maxine was all right. A little loopy. London didn’t agree with making wishes about shit like flying in airplanes. It got you thinking that things might be different, and that life wasn’t crap. London wasn’t sure yet about the black girl. Alice. She knew Alice didn’t like her because she thought London was trouble. She guessed Alice was right about that. The girl was protective of Maxine and Rose. London had to hand it to her, she’d chosen two hard ducks to protect, a Mongoloid and her gooseberry sister. Anyway, it didn’t look like Alice had much of a choice—London could easily see that the girl was in love with the gooseberry.
Falling in love was crap.
* * *
London allowed herself to be swept into the routine of the institution. Waking before the sun. Sitting on the toilet for thirty minutes. Dressing. Walking. Eating. Working. She got to know which attendants left the longest butts in the ashtrays. How to secure seconds at meals by getting in the front of the line, and then having Sarah or Neddie watch her first plate while she reentered the line for a second. And to be especially sweet to the kitchen staff so she’d be placed on dish duty each afternoon instead of laundry, because the laundry room was as hot as hell. All the while she carried her book wherever she went, and no one said a word. Although that dora with the bangs made eyes at it now and then, and every time she did, London floated it out toward her… just a teensy bit, with the lightest of Go ahead thoughts, because London itched to jump that bitch.
The girl’s blue-eyed ghostly pal never looked London’s way. She was obviously the smarter of the two mugs.
London’s favorite part of the day, other than reading for an hour on the benches before shitting and bed, was walking the circles. She liked the endless looping paths that brought her round and round, where she could walk and look out over the changing fields and trees. The leaves were gone now, and the sky had that stone-gray look of winter, but without the terrible bite of cold yet. The empty branches of the trees stood out, dark against the sky, like fingers running their tips through the low-hanging clouds. And the smell. London could honestly say that the earth was the nicest thing she’d ever smelled. She didn’t know what it was…. The dirt? The dying leaves? The bark of the trees? Or maybe it was the spitting rain that often fell while they were out walking so early in the morning. Whatever it was, she sucked it right in up to her eyebrows, making her… something. Happy, she guessed.
It was one of these mornings, walking the circles, when she thought she felt it for the first time.
She wasn’t sure. It could have been gas. The old lady had always complained of pains in her stomach. “Acid,” she’d say, all doubled over until it finally loosened up and came out. She was a noisy farter, Thelma Dumas. She was probably farting right this minute. Sitting in her chair and passing loud gas as she howled out the window at some poor boob. God, London missed that farting bitch.
She’d take her back, Thelma would. And the baby, too. She had to. London might or might not be a moron… like this place said. But she knew her baby wasn’t a moron. She wouldn’t let it be.
At that moment she reached for it, but then Rose skipped up next to her, and London dropped her hand quickly to her side.
“Hey,” London said in greeting. This one was growing on her like one of the barnacles lining the piles of the Clyde Street Pier.
Rose looked around, the smile on her face never changing, and she then leaned in toward London. “I’ve been stealing stuff for you,” she whispered. “Clams. A whole bunch of them.”
London had been waiting for this. She already knew what was behind the grate. A mounting pile of nickels, dimes, and pennies… and a dress. Of course she’d stayed up that first night and checked it out while everyone was asleep, and had continued to check on it any night when she couldn’t sleep, which was most nights. She knew Rose was gathering things to help her run, and this time successfully. But more than money and clothes, London needed to see the map. She couldn’t just run off into the w
oods and hope to find her way back to East Boston.
“Thanks for the help,” London said. And she meant it. “But no more stealing for me, okay?”
“But I like helping you,” Rose said.
“Then go see that map,” London told her. “The one with the airplanes on it. That would really help me. Ask that lady you like if she’ll show you the roads to the airplanes. And then remember them and tell me.”
“I’m great at remembering things,” Rose said. “Probably I’m the best person at remembering things you ever met.”
Rose had swagger, and London liked a tomato with a little swagger. “Can you remember last Christmas?”
“Of course,” Rose said. “That’s easy. We had a big dinner. With lots of biscuits. I love biscuits. And then we went to church for a long time of singing. The boys came. And visiting-day people.”
“Visiting-day people?” London asked.
“Yes,” Rose said. “A lot of people.”
“That’s the day I’ll run. Christmas.” It was about a month away, which would give her time to finish reading the book, and she still shouldn’t be showing by then. “What do you think?” she asked Rose.
“Run after the dinner,” Rose said. “Because of the biscuits.”
London laughed. “You know, Rose, you’re pretty smart.”
“I’m an idiot.”
Now they both laughed. Loudly.
Miss Sweeney called out, “Come now, dears. Quiet down.”
London looked up and noticed Alice watching her. She and Maxine were walking together across the circle. Maxine had gotten used to London and Rose hanging out. Maxine had even come to like London a bit, reminding her about the cussing whenever the attendants were nearby. But London knew Maxine would like anyone who was kind to Rose. Alice, though, still didn’t trust London. In London’s experience, black folks didn’t trust white folks easily, and for good reason. London wasn’t white like Maxine and Rose, but she wasn’t a Negro, like Alice and Mary. She was a dago. The word was nasty, but for London it brought to mind the smell of her father’s hair, and the feel of her arms wrapped around his neck.
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