Sleeping in My Jeans

by Connie King Leonard

  He wheels around. “What’re you brats staring at?”

  We’ve shared Mom with Darren for two and a half years, and I resent him for that. I look him right in the eye and say, “You worthless piece of trash.”

  Darren stalks across the room. He leans toward me until I gag at the smell of beer on his breath. I glare right back at him and refuse to show him one tiny bit of fear. Without a word, he puts his hands on my shoulders and shoves, sending Meg and me stumbling backwards to land against the couch.

  Mom leaps at him, screaming, “Don’t touch my kids!” Darren waves his arm as if he’s swatting away a fly. Mom gropes for a lamp on the end table—searching for anything to throw—but Darren is already out the door.

  I let go of Meg. She races across the room, burying her face against Mom’s chest. Mom sinks back against the wall and hugs her with one arm, her other hand pressed flat against the side of her face. “Are you hurt, baby?” she whispers. “Are you or Mattie hurt?”

  “We’re okay, Mom.” I step forward, afraid to know how badly Darren beat her. “Are you okay?” She turns away, hiding behind her hair.

  “Mom?” I step closer, reach over, and pull her hand away. The pale skin around her eyes is already turning purple and puffy. I take a deep breath and try to keep my voice from shaking. “You need ice, Mom.”

  “Grab garbage bags, Mattie.” Her words come out garbled, slurred together from pain and swelling. “Get you and Meg dressed. Pack clothes, but only what you both need.” She takes a deep ragged breath. “And all your blankets, baby.”

  “Mommy,” wails Meg. “What’s happening?”

  Mom gently pushes her away. “Go with Mattie, sweetie. Help her pack.”

  I race to the kitchen and yank a box of garbage bags out from under the sink, peeling off the last of the roll. I grab a sandwich bag out of the drawer, run over to the freezer, and dump in a bunch of ice. Meg clutches at Mom, but I pull her away and hand Mom the ice. “Come on, Megs.”

  I steer my sister into our bedroom and help her strip off her pajamas. She puts on underwear, jeans, and a sweater while I get dressed as quick as I can. But then I waste valuable seconds standing in the middle of the room, wondering where to start. Clothes. I throw open a dresser drawer. “Hold the bag, Meg.” I sort through Meg’s underwear, socks, t-shirts, and jeans, trying to pick out what we’ll need. When the bag is full, I tie the top shut and grab another one. Sorting takes too long, so I stuff in anything I can grab, cramming Meg’s dresses in with my jeans and sweaters.

  Mom comes in and grabs the first two bags. “Hurry, girls. Grab your blankets.”

  Meg scoops up her stuffed animals and jams them in with her pajamas. I glance around the room, wondering what I’ve forgotten. Drawers hang half out of the dresser with dribbles of clothes draped over their sides. The closet door stands open. Hangers litter the floor, jumbled together with old toys and beat-up tennis shoes. My books sit in perfect rows on our little bookshelf. Fantasy. Classics. Trashy romances. All mine. All carefully collected. The garbage bags are full, so I can’t take them.

  Mom sticks her head in the door. “Girls!”

  Meg and I throw on our backpacks. I hand Meg the pillows, scoop blankets off our beds, and push Meg toward the door. We hurry out of the apartment, and there’s Darren standing on the sidewalk with a can of beer in one hand and a whole six-pack in the other.

  He laughs when he sees us. “Where’re you going?”

  Darren’s right. Where are we going? It’s the middle of the night. The sky is black, the air misty and cold. The other apartments are dark and so quiet they could be empty. Despair hangs over the building like a shroud.

  Mom turns away from the man she’s shared her life and family with and herds us toward Ruby, our beat-up Subaru station wagon.

  Darren reaches out and grabs Mom by the arm, spinning her around. “I said where d’ya think you’re going?”

  Mom jerks her arm away, leans in, and glares. “You knew when I moved in that I don’t live with druggies or drunks or abusers.” She pulls back. “And I sure don’t live with guys who knock my kids around.”

  Darren throws his beer can against the apartment building. It hits with a splat, sending a spray of beer streaming down the siding. Mom uses the garbage bags in her hands to push Meg and me toward Ruby. I stuff our blankets and bags in the back, wondering where we’re going. It’s the middle of the night. Can we find a motel? A room? Are places even open this late?

  Mom slides behind the wheel. I shove plastic garbage bags out of the way, settle Meg into the back seat, and jump into the front. Mom starts the car and backs out of her parking spot. We drive away from Darren’s apartment, away from our life of nearly two years. Where do we go from here?

  Mom leans forward, clutches the wheel with both hands, and drives extra slow. If I were behind the wheel, I’d peel out in a squeal of tires and burned rubber. That way, Darren would know I was so glad to be leaving that I couldn’t get away fast enough. But maybe Mom’s driving slowly because she’s got two kids in the car, her hands are shaking, and tears are running down her battered face, clouding her vision.

  The streets in our neighborhood are dark and lonely. No one is out walking their dog in the middle of the night. No one is driving to the store for milk. The whole world feels like it’s lost or destroyed, with Mom, Meg, and me the only survivors, cocooned in rusty old Suby Ruby.

  The windshield wipers flick back and forth, clearing away the mist. Mom drives to Beltline and takes the eastbound on-ramp. A few cars cruise by, their headlights brightening our way. She drives a couple of miles before turning south into a quiet neighborhood with tall trees and wide front lawns. I wonder what she’s doing. We don’t know anyone who lives here, and there aren’t motels where we could get a room for the night. When Mom parks Ruby beside a clump of trees near a small park, I get it. We’re sleeping in the car. No bed. No bathroom. Just the three of us camping out on the street, hoping to survive the night.

  I lean toward Mom and whisper. “Can’t we get a motel?”

  Mom shakes her head. “They’re too expensive. Plus, we’ll only be out here a few hours.”

  Meg is so tired she doesn’t question why we shove garbage bags around and fold the back seat flat to make a bed. Mom and I spread out the blankets without saying a word. She takes Meg over to the bushes to go to the bathroom. I should go too, but I’m not about to bare my butt this close to civilization.

  Meg and I crawl into our makeshift bed. Mom covers us with quilts before she slides into the driver’s seat and pulls a blanket around her shoulders. I wrap my arms around my baby sister and hold her until her breath settles into a slow, steady rhythm. It’s only then that I hear Mom crying into her pillow.

  I should comfort her—pat her shoulder and tell her we’ll be okay—but all I can do is stare into the dark. How safe is it for girls to sleep in a car, anyway? Mom locked the doors, but women joggers get nabbed even during the day. We’re out here in the middle of the night when creeps could be lurking behind the bushes or around a corner, ready to pounce on their next victims.

  Fear gnaws at me, eating up my self-control. Do predators sniff out their quarry, like lions stalking the weakest in the herd? Do they know where to look and when their prey is most vulnerable? Even protected by Ruby’s sturdy body, sleeping in the car makes us easy pickings for any scumbag that happens along.

  Somehow, I fall asleep.

  Chapter Three

  A garbage truck rumbles by and wakes me to the early gray of morning. I close my eyes, take in a long, deep breath, and blow it out, slow and steady. We survived.

  Mom drives us to one of those all-night gas stations near the freeway. The three of us race to the bathroom, past truckers paying for fill-ups and fistfuls of Twinkies. Mom takes Meg in one stall, and I almost jerk the door off another in my hurry to get my jeans down.

 
We clean up in the grime of the gas station. Yellow lights over the dirty mirror turn my skin a dull, sick shade of brown. I dab at my face with a wet paper towel. Mom says my skin is my best feature, next to my brown eyes. I try to believe her, but I’ve spent my life as one of the only black kids in school, so I can’t help feeling different.

  My hair sticks out in a halo of dark frizz, and I realize my hairbrush is back at Darren’s apartment. Mom has a comb in her backpack, but it’s for straight hair like Meg’s and Mom’s. Not masses of curls like mine. I hunt through the bottom of my backpack until I find a rubber band and gather my hair into a clump on the back of my head. While Mom goes to the car to get us clean underwear, I pull the comb gently through Meg’s hair, wishing mine were half as smooth as hers.

  Meg studies me in the mirror over the sink. “I hope Mommy gets us a real house.” A smile tilts up the corners of her mouth. “One that has a yard so I can play right outside our door, and we can have a dog and a cat and a gerbil—maybe even a bunny. I really, really, really want a pet bunny. I really, really do.”

  The hope in Meg’s eyes hits me so hard I have to turn away to keep from bursting into tears. I know that dream of the three of us in our own house, with the white picket fence and the dog and cat and gerbil. It was my dream too, but along the way I traded in fairytale castles for goals big enough to get me somewhere. A big part of my plan is to earn enough money that I never end up like Mom, digging milk money out of a dumpy old sofa.

  While Mom drives us across town, Meg and I munch on an apple, trading it between us, and eat crackers we dip into a jar of peanut butter. Meg’s school starts before mine, so we go there first.

  Mom parks next to the curb in her usual drop-off spot. Meg leans across the seat to give us goodbye kisses before she hops out and yells, “Bye, Mommy! Bye, Mattie!”

  Mom and I sit in Ruby and watch Meg walk toward the front door, her pink polka-dot pack bumping against her back. She spent half the night sleeping in a car, yet she marches off to school like it’s an ordinary day.

  Columbia High School sits on a side street in north Eugene, not far from Meg’s school. A one-story brick building, it sprawls back from the road with the gym and auditorium poking up on one side. I hop out of Ruby, grab my pack, and walk to the door, past huge evergreens standing tall and straight like sentinels.

  It’s my second high school. The first was across town, and you wouldn’t think moving to a different school in the same town would be so traumatic, but it was. By the time I started Columbia High, halfway through freshman year, the cliques were well established. Any friends I made were new kids like me. I walk through the door and tighten my grip on the strap of my pack.

  Sleeping in my jeans brings a whole new paranoia to showing up at school. In middle school and high school, clothes become this super big deal, especially for girls. Like, if you show up in baggy jeans when the style is ultratight, you’ll be labeled a freak, and the sharks will attack, ripping you to shreds before you can scream for help.

  I guess it works the same way for guys. If a boy wore khaki pants pulled past his belly button, a dress shirt tucked in all neat and tidy, and anything but flip flops or tennis shoes, he’d probably get beaten up in the boy’s locker room.

  I weave my way through the halls and do nothing but worry. Do I stink? I hate that. Some people smell, and no matter how nice they are, you don’t want to be around them. It’s Monday, so at least nobody knows that my jeans and t-shirt are the same ones I wore yesterday.

  A tall, gangly guy lounges against my locker, playing games on his phone. I can’t squeeze behind him, because the girl in the locker next to me has her boyfriend crawling all over her. I didn’t get my morning shower, I’m grumpy from lack of sleep, and I’ve got a Spanish test hanging over my head like a hammer. I’m in no mood to mess around.

  I glare at the guy filling up my space. “That’s my locker.”

  Avoiding boys is the first rung on my climb to the top. Maybe at twenty-five I’ll start looking around, but the guy has to have prospects. Education. Money. Plus, he’s got to be calm, loving, and stable. All the qualities Mom searches for in a man but never seems to find.

  Clear blue eyes flick at me for one nanosecond before going back to his game. I scowl. “I said that’s my locker. What I meant was get out of the way. Please.”

  The corners of his mouth tip up. He lifts his head and looks at me, making a dramatic tap on the screen with his thumb. Sandy blond hair spills over his forehead with a casual messiness that frames his face. He’s handsome. Crazy handsome. But there are bucketloads of boys with such perfect looks your body melts and your breath hangs up in your mouth so much that you can barely talk. It’s how they act that counts.

  He shoves his phone into the pocket of his jeans, but he doesn’t get out of the way. Instead, he folds his long arms across his chest and keeps looking at me. I tilt my head to the side and raise my eyebrows.

  His smile spreads. “You’re kinda cute.”

  I sigh and roll my eyes. “And you’re kinda in the way.”

  He still doesn’t move. Just grins.

  I narrow my eyes, and my voice takes on this razor-sharp edge that’s guaranteed to squelch male egos. “I’ve got class. Now move.”

  He peels his body off the front of my locker and steps to the side, just far enough for me to squeeze in. His body moves in long, fluid motions, easy and loose. He’s tall, like basketball-scholarship kind of tall. “Where’s your class?” he asks.

  The guy obviously didn’t pick up on my get-lost message, so I ignore how close he stands and step up next to him. “Nowhere you need to be.”

  I open my locker, stuff in my algebra book, and pull out my English papers. The guy shifts his body so he can rest his shoulder against the locker next to mine and study me.

  A lot of girls’ eyes would sparkle with excitement and anticipation. They would smile and flirt, hoping to impress him enough to snag a date to the next dance or even walk to class with him. Maybe I’m in such a foul mood because I spent half the night sleeping in a car, terrified out of my mind. Or maybe it’s that I don’t like being the focus of anybody’s attention. The real reason, though, is that I won’t let myself waste time and energy on boys. Not now, maybe not ever.

  I slam my locker door and take off for class. The boy’s whole body jerks back, like he didn’t expect me to walk away.

  I keep moving. He slaps the guy making out with his girlfriend and says, “Later,” and falls in step beside me with three quick strides. “Did I creep you out?” I don’t respond. “That was supposed to be me flirting.”

  He leans down, peering into my face. “Was I cocky? Arrogant? Bigheaded?”

  “Conceited,” I add, making sure not to look at him.

  “Brash. Smug.”

  “Revolting,” I throw at him.

  “Revolting? Oh, man. Was I that bad?”

  He wants me to smile. To say some cute little nonsense thing that lets him off the hook. Girls do it all the time. Smart girls. Going-places girls. Girls of every shape and size. But not me. I extend my stride, but his long legs keep up.

  “I’m sorry. I really am.” He pauses, waiting for me to respond. “It was stupid of me to come onto you like that.”

  I don’t say a word, but he keeps pushing. “I’m Jack.”

  Now I’m supposed to giggle, smile, and tell him my name. That’s how the whole boy-meets-girl game works, but I don’t give out my name to just anybody. My name means too much to me to have people tossing it around without thinking how I feel or who I am. I turn into my classroom without giving him a glance.

  I’m halfway across the room when he yells, “And you’re not just kinda cute. You’re really cute.”

  I spin around, rooted to the floor with my eyes wide, my mouth hanging open. Jack rests both hands high on the doorframe and leans into the room. The grin on his face sp
reads to his ears. Twitters of laughter erupt from the class. I turn away, stomp down the aisle, and throw myself into my chair. I could rip off his head.

  Class starts and I don’t give the locker guy one second of my time. Plenty of boys have noticed me before. Once I show Jack he’s not the center of my universe, he’ll drift off—like every other boy—and look for a girl that gives him what he wants. I settle into my classes and work on keeping my 4.0 GPA.

  At noon, I stand in the cafeteria line to get my free and reduced lunch. That’s another part of high school that’s hard. Everyone with a shred of extra cash eats off campus. That leaves us poor unfortunates who can’t afford McDonald’s every day of our lives waiting in line for rubbery hamburgers and slimy hot dogs.

  My friend Lilly sits at a table with her boyfriend, Tanner. She waves, and I wave back. Lilly and I came to Columbia High at the same time, so we became friends. We used to eat lunch together and hang out sometimes after school; we even went to a couple of movies and school plays together. Then Tanner asked her out, and that was the end of Lilly and me. We’re still friends, but we only talk when we’ve got a class together or text each other once in a while.

  I take my tray to a table, plop down, and prop open my algebra book. High school would be a lot more fun if I had more friends. It’s not that I don’t like people or can’t get to know them. It’s just that every time I make a connection, something happens, like Lilly falls in love with Tanner. Or my friend Finn starts smoking weed and hanging out with a bunch of potheads until his mom packs him off to live with his dad. Life seems to get in the way.

  I’ve only gotten one problem done when Jack slides in across from me. He’s got a Burger King bag in his hand and a grin on his face that won’t quit. I ignore him and go back to my homework. He reaches over and flips up the cover of my notebook so he can read my name.

  “Mattie Rollins.” He says it soft and slow. Like he’s digesting it. Memorizing it. He extends his hand across the table. It’s so big he could pick up a basketball one-handed without even straining. “Hi, Mattie Rollins.”