Find Layla

by Meg Elison

  “Where’s the mop? I’m going to mop this floor.” She looks all around the room.

  I don’t think we have one. I can’t remember what the kitchen floor looks like. I don’t say anything.

  Andy is quietly throwing up in his trash bag. When he’s done, he goes back to filling it. He knows better than I thought.

  Friday 2:38 a.m.

  She stops yelling around midnight, after she takes the third noise complaint by phone from one of the tenants nearby. I hear her saying she’ll go over to the apartment making the noise and give them a talking to, threaten to call the cops.

  I wish somebody would.

  She stops having Andy take bags of trash out the window when someone almost sees him.

  I wish somebody had.

  We did make a dent. We got most of the wet newspaper out of the hallway. There’s a path through the living room, and a lot of the kitchen is cleared out. I can see black mold blooming up one wall in the bathroom, now that Mom took all the old towels out of there and bagged them up to be washed later. I’m just gonna throw them away when she’s not here. I know how that will end.

  We both know we’re not allowed to quit until she says we can.

  She realizes she’s out of cigarettes and is gonna wake up without one. “I guess you two can go to bed now. I know you won’t keep working once I’m gone. I can’t expect that much from you. That’s way too much to ask.”

  Andy gets up immediately, tying up his bag, so tired he can hardly stand. “Okay, good night, Mommy. I’m sorry. I love you.”

  She doesn’t say anything.

  She goes through the window, barefoot and wordless. I take a deep breath.

  “Andy, wash your hands before you go to bed. There’s soap in the kitchen.”

  He goes to do it and I follow him. We both wash up and climb into bed. I’m hoping he’ll just pass out, but he’s full of questions.

  “Why does she get like this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where does she go when she leaves?” He’s mumbling now.

  “Work, most of the time.”

  “What about at night?”

  “I don’t know.” I really don’t.

  “Where do you go when you leave?”

  “Not far. Just out,” I tell him.

  “Is this gonna happen again tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know. Probably not. Remember, last time it only lasted a day. And it’s been a while.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Go to sleep, Andy.”

  “I love you, Layla.”

  I don’t say anything.

  Friday 6:00 a.m.

  Here’s the problem: Andy won’t get up. Three hours of sleep isn’t enough for anybody. Even if I’m willing to give it a shot, he’s not.

  If I don’t go to science today, I can’t get my permission slip in to borrow a camera until Monday. The project is due next Friday, and I want to have the weekend to get some filming done. If I go to school during lunch, I can slip into my afternoon classes.

  Mom’s asleep on the couch. Staying home is not an option.

  Getting Andy dressed when he’s this tired is the worst. He’s limp, he’s whiny, and he lies back down if I turn away for one second. I get him into a pair of pants and pinch him for trying to lie down again.

  He starts to cry for real, and I grab his face in both hands. “She’s asleep on the couch, you moron. Shut up!”

  He shuts his mouth, but his little baby tears go on.

  I finally get myself dressed, and we tiptoe past her together. She’s turned toward the back of the couch, facing away from us. We go out the window as quietly as we can. She doesn’t even stir.

  “Okay, listen. Listen. Are you listening?”

  He’s sniffling and looking away from me as obviously as possible.

  I grab his shoulder hard and turn him toward me.

  “Do you want to listen to me and get more sleep, or do you want to be a butthole?”

  He looks up at me, his eyes red and his nose running.

  Roughly, I wipe his nose with the edge of my sleeve. “Don’t go to your classroom. Go to the nurse’s office and tell her your teacher sent you. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Tell the nurse you have a headache. Not a tummy ache, not anything else. A headache. Say it.”

  “I have a headache.”

  “Okay, good. The nurse will call Mom, but Mom won’t answer. Tell her you don’t want to go home, you just want to lie down for a while. Get up at lunchtime and tell her you feel better. Eat lunch and then go to class. Tell your teacher you had a doctor’s appointment. Okay? Say it.”

  “I had a doctor ’poitmet.” He’s wiping his own nose now.

  “Right. The nurse will turn the light off and let you sleep, as long as you don’t bother her or say the wrong thing, or cry like a stupid baby. Can you handle that?”

  He doesn’t answer, but he walks a little farther away from me.

  “What if Mom does answer?”

  I don’t say anything.

  My eyes feel like I just pulled them out of a microwave. The nurse’s office won’t work for me, I know that. At the beginning of the year, she was all sweet and concerned and giving me free pads from the sample box. Now she’s always telling me to go back to class and stop abusing the privilege.

  I’m going to have to use one of my riskier hideouts.

  I drop Andy at school and walk off like I’m going through the park to my junior high. Instead, I head down one of the side streets.

  It’s not quite light out yet. The brown mountains are lined with the glow of sunrise, but the sun hasn’t cleared them yet. I still have a little time.

  The last time I used this hideout was back in February. Mom had a big box of chocolates, and close to the end of the month she opened the box to find that most of them were gone. I honestly don’t know if Andy ate them or she ate them herself and then forgot about it. What I do know is that I didn’t touch a single one of her fucking chocolates.

  But I was the only one home when she found it.

  I woke up to her screaming, and like an idiot I came down the ladder to find out what was wrong. I had barely come around the doorway when the box hit me in the face. The two heart-shaped halves came apart in the air, and the last few candies flew out and pelted me, falling down my chest. The top of the box left a tiny cut in my forehead, and I just stood there, blinking.

  “Can’t I have anything—just one thing—that you don’t get into? Do you have to get into everything that’s mine? I just wanted some fucking chocolate.” Her eyes were so narrow they were like tiny pinches into the dough of her skin. Spit flew out of her mouth. I could see the cords in her neck pulsing, and I wanted so badly to just make them stop, just make her stop, to never wake up to this again.

  She went on like that for a while, but my ears were ringing and I couldn’t hear her anymore. I climbed out the window while she was still screaming, in my pj’s and with no shoes on. I don’t know what my plan was, but I found this place that night.

  This block is mostly old people. It’s not as nice as Kristi’s, or the ones on the other side of the school where a bunch of the teachers live. There are old cars sitting on flat tires in driveways, and people have sheets hung up as curtains in the windows. That first time, I knew I would be safe here.

  One house has sheets on all its windows except for one with a big faded American flag, right in the middle. In the driveway, penned in by a car, there’s an old motor home with a door on the opposite side of the house. The night of the chocolates, I found the door unlocked. It’s been that way every time since.

  Four flat tires, and the thing is packed with junk. I can hear mice shredding the old magazines and seat cushions to make their nests. Up above the driver’s seat, there’s a kind of attic. A foam mattress and a pillowcase-and-blanket set with cowboys and Indians all over it. It looks old.

  I climb in and shake everything, checking for mice. Any Peromyscus californ
icus? After a minute nothing moves, so I settle under the blanket and lie very still for a little while.

  The first time I got in here, I couldn’t sleep at all. I just lay in here, shaking. I don’t know if I was mad or sad or afraid of getting caught. I waited all day, and then finally slept at night. I heard the car pull in and people go into the house. I never even moved. I stayed there for two days, until I was too hungry to stay any longer.

  Mom never asked me where I had gone. I wouldn’t have told her.

  So today, the old yellow RV windows are slowly lighting up, and the mice are rustling, and the neighborhood is quiet. I fall asleep almost right away. I can’t believe how quickly this starts to feel normal.

  Noon

  My phone buzzes to wake me up, and I turn it off before its second vibration. Not moving, I listen hard to find out if anyone is around the RV. Emerging in the middle of the day is pretty risky—I prefer to come and go when it’s dark.

  I slide out of the little attic and peek through the window that faces out. Seems clear.

  I slip out and latch the door. I walk around the front of the RV and straight into the mailman.

  I make a little squeaky noise and bounce off the tall man’s chest.

  “Whoa, hey! Sorry about that.” He peers into his bag and walks past me. My heart is pounding so hard that I can see it if I look down at my shirt.

  Shake that off. Get to school.

  I make it to school too late to get any lunch, so I just head over to Mr. Raleigh’s class.

  Kristi’s already in there.

  She’s sitting slumped at her desk, and she doesn’t look up when I walk in. Raleigh’s at his desk, so I head over to him.

  “Mr. Raleigh?”

  He looks up from smiling at his crotch.

  “Hey, can I give you my permission slip now to get a camera? I don’t want to be late for my next class.” I am not going to look back at Kristi. I am not.

  “Well, if I let you have a camera now, you have to promise me you won’t fiddle with it during class.”

  No, I’ll just fiddle with my phone, like everyone else.

  “I promise.” I pull the folded permission slip out of my pocket and hand it over.

  Kristi comes up behind me, holding hers. Raleigh puts a slick little video camera into my hand and follows it with a little neoprene case.

  “Keep it in there at all times. If you’re not filming, it’s in the case.”

  “Got it.”

  Kristi hands over her paper. “I’m going to film a freeway meridian, to see what lives there.” She says it just a little bit too loud.

  “Good idea, Kristi.”

  Yeah, amaze everybody with some Coccinellidae. Ladybugs. Exciting.

  When she turns around with her camera in its little case, I can see that she’s been crying. She looks at me just long enough to see I’m looking at her, and then away. Okay, then.

  We slog through class, but between almost everyone holding a camera and Raleigh’s obvious distraction, it seems like we don’t really get anything done. The bell rings, and I head to Honors English.

  Jane and Mackenzie are both tweeting when we walk in. Phones beep and buzz all over the room, and there’s a lot of low laughter and people make eye contact across the rows.

  I quit looking at anybody. I know this is about me. It’s always about me.

  I sit in my usual spot against the wall and wait for the bell to ring so that they have to stop.

  “There she is.”

  It’s Jane’s voice, confident and sure and so mean that it stings. I look up and they’re all watching Kristi walk in.

  She’s trying to ignore them, but she’s not doing a great job. She comes and sits beside me.

  “They’re all assholes. You were totally right about that, at least.” Kristi sounds like she’s been crying.

  “Oh, are we talking again?” I keep looking out the window.

  “Come on, Layla. At least just talk to me until the bell rings. I need a way to ignore them.”

  She sounds sad enough that I actually look.

  “What are they bothering you about?”

  She leans way over the desk to get close to me, and she whispers. “I tweeted my poem last night. Jane figured out who I was talking about and retweeted it at him. They’ve all been making fun of me since then. Emerson didn’t answer, but it doesn’t matter. Assholes.”

  “I’m sorry, Kristi.” I’m a little sorry. I’m a little sure that she got about what she deserved. And I’m so glad that this time it wasn’t me.

  She’s still leaning. “Can I come over after school today? I really just need to get away.” She looks so sad I can barely stand it.

  For half a second I think about my RV hideout. “I really can’t have anybody over, Kris. It isn’t personal. We could go to the library. Or hang out at the park.”

  She slips back into her chair, folding her arms. The bell rings.

  Outside, I can’t find Andy. I walk home alone.

  4:15 p.m.

  Andy’s there waiting for me.

  “They called Mom. She did answer. You were wrong.”

  I flop down onto the couch, kicking over a soda can. “So?”

  “So Mom told them to let me walk home. The nurse yelled at her.”

  I can totally breathe normally. Respiration. Exhalation. I’m fine.

  “What did she yell at her?”

  “I dunno. A bunch of big words.”

  “Did you walk home?”

  “Yeah,” he says. He still sounds tired.

  Not like there was another option. Not like we have a car.

  “Was Mom here?”

  “No.”

  I make us each a package of ramen. Mom comes home before they’re finished cooking.

  “I hope you’re happy now.”

  I’m not even turning around.

  “You knew the nurse would call me. She woke me up. Ranting at me about some bullshit. Why did you send him to school? He could have just slept in, we both could have.”

  “I didn’t know if today was going to be a bad day for you.” I turn off the fire.

  She’s quiet for a minute.

  “It’s a bad day for me now.”

  I wish she sounded sad. I wish she was sorry. I wish I could tell that she felt anything other than inconvenienced.

  Also, that wasn’t what I meant, and she knows it. But I don’t know what words I should use. There aren’t any words for a lot of things.

  “Well, it’s the weekend. He has a couple of days before he has to go back. That should fix it,” I tell her cautiously. I don’t want to set her off.

  “It better. I don’t need any more shit from his school.” She’s headed to the couch, and even though she’s one person and there are four seats, there’s nowhere to sit.

  I drain the bucket in the bathroom and run myself a bath. I’m in it with a book when I notice the spider behind the toilet. It’s graceful and strange, working on its web. I can’t identify it from here; it’s a little too small.

  I start to wonder whether anyone else’s house has ever had this kind of biodiversity inside of it. My house is really like its own planet, with different biospheres. Swamps of wet newspaper growing exotic fungi. An enclosed jungle of teeming green life in the dead fridge. Fruit flies and tiny worms and the occasional mouse and this spider, just a few inches away from my face. Do any other humans live like this? Was this what it was like to be Dr. Jane Goodall, living with the chimps she studied?

  I’m considering the advantage of living in my own personal petri dish when the lights go out.

  Perfect.

  By the time I pull the plug and walk out with my clothes stuck to me, she’s gone and Andy is trying to light a candle. I light it for him and take him to bed. It’s not even dark outside yet, but I am done with the day.

  I lie there trying to hold it together until the day is done with me.

  Saturday 8:30 a.m.

  I remember the day we moved into thi
s apartment.

  It had been a little while since we had a real apartment. After the sheriff staple-gunned the notice to the front door, we’d moved out of the last place fast.

  Mom came to my bed in the middle of the night and told me to pick the most important things that were mine and put them in my backpack. I figured my school stuff was most important, and I packed some clothes around my books and pencils. I lost my hairbrush and most of my underwear that day. I’ve been planning since then how to do it right next time. Andy filled a bag with stuffed animals. I got yelled at for that later, even though I had no idea.

  We walked up the road for what seemed like hours. Mostly toward the grocery store, the one you could take carts from without the wheels locking down. A block or two before that, we turned and arrived at the Valencia Inn.

  I was twelve when we came to live at the Valencia, but I already knew a lot about it. We had been kicked out of three other apartment complexes in this town, but at least we didn’t live in this broke-down hotel. At least I had that over a few kids at school.

  But here we were.

  We only stayed at the Valencia for a couple of months, but it was long enough to get lice. Twice. Andy got his head shaved, but Mom said if we did that to my hair, she would get in trouble.

  My hair is nothing but trouble, so that didn’t surprise me.

  It’s always been kinky-curly, rough and ugly, and impossible to take care of. It’s not like Mom’s, not like Andy’s, not like any human hair I’ve ever seen. It’s like the hair on the dolls I’d find in bins at the thrift store: all matted into one gummy piece and unbrushable. It’s been a long time since that day in the bathtub with the knives, but it’s never easy. And it’s impossible to hide; we’re not allowed to wear hats at school, and I’m very jealous of those girls who wear veils.

  So when I got lice, Mom came home from the drugstore with a bag of special shampoo and a tiny metal comb and told me to sit in the bath until I had all the little eggs out. I cried until my bathwater was cold, then I rinsed with the vinegar she gave me. It stung in the places where the metal comb had poked my scalp, and the noises I made brought pounding from two different walls.