“Yes, uh-huh.” What if she showed up during the home study interview?
“Well, I was over there, near your house, I think, but I didn’t know which one it was, what number.”
“Well, we’ll have to do that. I’ll come get you sometime.” She shifted into gear and started slowly ahead. “See you!” She waved out the window but stared straight ahead so she wouldn’t have to see Jada still watching her drive away. At the corner she glanced back. Jada was crossing the street.
Sometimes you just have to keep going,
the voice assured her.
You have to help yourself first. She’s not your responsibility. The world is filled with girls like her. Nobody else is breaking their neck to help her so why should you?
She pulled into her parking space and turned off the engine but couldn’t get out of the car, didn’t have will enough or strength. Why did there have to be such pain in the world? “Why? Why?” Her fist made a dull thud on the wheel. Why, when she was so close to fulfillment, was there this emptiness, this loss, as if the child had been already plucked from her arms? The rusty fire escape on her building spanned four stories but ended on the second floor. In a fire, the only way down to the street would be to jump. “Unsafe emergency egress,” the home study worker would surely note in the report. It wasn’t just adultery and a convicted killer in her life, but knives in the kitchen, scalding water in faucets, loose treads on the stairs, trucks that tipped over, tornadoes in the night, rabid bats in the attic, stray bullets, toxins in the water, in the air, and all the invisible hazards of loving too much, trying too hard, and never knowing what was enough or when to stop.
Jada opened a Coke and lit another joint. Nothing hurt this way, not even hunger or fear. But here she was safe between the two doors as long as she could keep them closed, one leading into the street, the other into that silence where the mound under the sheets was her whole life. At first she kept checking in the hope it was another drug-deep stupor and when it wore off her mother would begin to stir. Except for last night’s buy, Jada had spent most of the last few days sleeping on the couch. Every time she tried to think about walking to Uncle Bob’s, she got exhausted and fell back to sleep.
She crawled back onto the couch. Pretty soon she’d have to tell someone. Delores had taken off too fast, as if she knew and didn’t want to be told. There was enough food for a couple more days. She wondered how much a bus ticket to Florida cost. She could always sell the extra crack. She figured she had sixty dollars’ worth, anyway. She had packed some clothes in an old suitcase Inez had thrown out. But leaving took more energy than she had right now, even though she knew she had to get far away before Social Services got here.
Someone was banging on the door. Polie. Last night she had almost told him, but then she’d been afraid of what he might do to her, so she went downtown like nothing was wrong and passed some rocks for them. She opened the window instead of the door. “What is it?” She leaned dizzily on the sill.
“You gotta come. Ronnie just got a call.” He gestured back at the idling Navigator.
“I can’t.”
“Twenty-five bucks he says he’ll give you.”
“Where?”
“The South Common.”
“Forget it.” She closed the window and locked it. She’d almost been arrested there last time. That’s how little she was worth. Better her than their other runners. He was banging on the window. A long, white car pulled up behind the Navigator. Polie was yelling for her to come out, there wasn’t much time. Delores came up the steps behind him. He spun around. Jada pressed her ear to the door.
“What’s wrong?” Delores demanded in a high tone.
“What the hell do you care?”
“I’m a friend of Jada’s,” Delores said, and Jada’s grin felt as if part of her face were leaking down the door. “Is she in there?”
“Look, just get outta here, will ya?”
“Are you serious?” Delores laughed.
“I gotta talk to her about something important.”
“Well, so do I!”
“Look, I don’t think you understand. I don’t have much time here, and I gotta see her, so get the fuck outta here before something happens.”
Delores took another step, hands raised as if to ready herself for whatever came next. “Are you threatening me?”
“No. I’m fucking telling you,” he said, coming toward her.
She put her cell phone to her ear. “Nine, one, one,” she yelled, still dialing as he grabbed it and smashed it onto the porch floor. He ran down the steps.
“Delores!” Jada opened the door as Polie got into the Navigator and drove off. She hurried out, picked up the cracked phone, and listened, afraid a voice in her ear would demand to know what the problem was and where. When she came back, Delores stood just inside the doorway, trying to catch her breath. “It doesn’t work.” Jada held it out. She kept glancing past Delores, as if at any moment the bedroom door would swing open.
“The battery’s dead,” Delores gasped, hand at her heaving chest. “What was that all about? What did he want? What was so important?”
“I don’t know. He’s just an asshole, that’s all.”
“Was it about your mother? Is she home?”
She saw the sweaty woman’s shrewd eyes move between the closed doors. Like her, Delores had that extra sense, she just knew things, things beyond the telling. “He had a buy he wanted me to do. But I said no and he got mad.”
“A buy. You mean drugs?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you hungry, Jada?” Delores asked, hugging herself.
“I think so. I don’t know, I forget.” She slipped the statues into her pockets.
Jada had eaten half her French fries before they pulled out of the McDonald’s lot. Delores hadn’t ordered anything. She felt sick to her stomach. The girl’s head kept nodding back and forth, her rabbity cunning distorted by this glassy-eyed euphoria. She was high, but there was something else, something that had filled Delores with dread the minute she had stepped over the threshold. It clung to her still, like grease on her skin. She shouldn’t have gone back. Now that she had, she barely knew what to say, much less what to do with the girl. “Do you need anything while we’re out?”
Instead of answering, Jada chuckled softly, like a hunched cat purring as it ate.
“Anything from the drugstore?” She pointed ahead. “I have to get shampoo.”
“Sure.”
Delores was done, but she continued to move slowly up and down the aisles, so that Jada wouldn’t think she was being rushed back home. Yet she had the feeling that they were both killing time, going through the motions, each waiting for the other to strike. Jada was still at the front of the store. Delores watched her pick magazines from the rack, stare at the covers, then put them back.
“Want one?” Delores asked, coming down the aisle, her basket filled with shampoo, a yellow plastic duck for the tub, coloring books and crayons for May Loo.
“Sure,” Jada said, then just stood there.
“How about this one?” She handed her a
Seventeen
magazine. Jada opened it and, squinting, brought it close to her face, then held it out at arm’s length.
“Here.” Delores grabbed a pair of reading glasses from the display next to them. “Put these on. Now look at the page.”
“Whoa!” Jada drew her head back. “It’s, like, a magnifying glass. I can even see eyebrows. All kindsa shit.” She laughed and turned the pages.
“Try reading words now.” Delores had her try three more pair with increasingly stronger lenses.
Jada read like a child, emphasizing each syllable. “ ‘Ever since she was a little girl, Marka Stanley has been wearing . . . ’ ” She pointed.
“ ‘Haute couture,’ ” Delores read. “It’s French for high fashion.”
“Jesus, you can even read French with these.” Jada looked around to see what else might be possible.
Delores had the clerk snip off the price tags. Jada put them back on when they got outside. “Jesus, how come everything’s so friggin’ blurry?” She grabbed Delores’s arm as she tripped on the sidewalk. Delores told her to take them off; they were just for reading. “Well, what about everything else?” she asked with a sweep of her arm. As they got into the car, Delores explained that distance required other lenses, which would have to come from an eye doctor. If Jada wanted, Delores could make an appointment for her. “If it’s all right with your mother, that is.”
Jada held the glasses in her lap and stared out the side window. Delores asked if there was anything else she needed before she brought her home. Annoyed with her silence, she asked again.
“I don’t want to go home.”
“Where do you want to go? It’s got to be quick, though. I’ve got tons of stuff to do at home,” she said, but Jada only grunted. “Well? You gonna tell me?” She slowed down. “We’re almost there.” Delores kept glancing over at her. Sweat ran down the girl’s face, and she grunted again. “What? What’re you saying?” She turned onto Clover Street.
“No. Don’t. Don’t bring me home. I can’t. I can’t go in there. No, don’t stop!”
Delores drove past the house. “Why? What’s wrong? Why can’t you go home?”
Jada wouldn’t answer. At first Delores thought she was trying not to cry, but now Jada seemed to be gagging. Was her mother mad at her? Was her mother okay? Was she there? Or had she taken off again?
“She’s dead.”
Delores listened as Jada described the terror of these last few days, not knowing what to do, afraid to tell anyone. She had considered running away but couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her mother alone like that, because even if Polie or Feaster found her, they wouldn’t do anything. They’d just leave her, too.
“Oh, Jada, honey.” She reached out for her arm, but the girl cringed back. “You’ve had such an awful time. I’m so sorry for you. I am. I really am. And I’m going to help you. I promise. I swear I will. I’ll talk to people. We’ll find you a good home, a place where you—”
“I want to live with you.”
“Oh, no. I can’t. It wouldn’t work.”
“Why? I could, like, clean and help with the cooking and stuff. And I’d go to school, I would. Like, I’ve even got these, the glasses, now.” She put them on, and they were as crooked as her smile. She hugged herself, shivering.
“Honey, look, I can’t. But I’ll make sure you’re with really good people.”
“Yeah, in some home again for a few months until they say, ‘Pack up. It’s not working out,’ or I don’t fit in, or the foster mother’s gonna have a baby and they need my room, or the foster father goes and tells his wife I’m, like, tryna come on to him or something, when all the hell I’m tryna do is make him like me. That’s all, that’s all I ever try to do,” she said, teeth chattering. “And you, you like me. You already do, right?”
“Yes, I know, hon, but you see, I’ve got a little girl coming and—”
“Well, when she leaves, then.”
“No, she’s going to live with me. She’s coming from China. She’s going to be my child, my daughter.”
“But you don’t even know her. You already know me, and what if you don’t like her, then what?”
“I’ll like her.”
“What if she doesn’t like you? You can’t, like, just send her back, like you could me.”
“Jada.”
“It’d be a lot easier with me. The whole thing. You just call the caseworker. Sometimes they come right out, a couple hours, even, if it was real bad, if you wanted me out fast.”
“Look, Jada, this isn’t even the time for that. We’ve got to take care of other things first, your mother.”
“No! I gotta know about me first. You don’t fucking get it, do you? I’m all alone now. You know what that fucking feels like?”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t. No. I know you don’t.” Jada’s mouth twitched as if to suppress a smile. “I know who killed that old lady.”
“Who?”
“Let me with live with you, please.”
“Tell me who, Jada. Please.” Barely able to breathe, she eked out the words. “If it would help Gordon . . . oh, my God, that poor man, if you know something, please. I’ll do anything, please, I promise, just tell me.”
“I got proof.”
“What kind of proof?”
“These.” She held out two small statues.
“Hummels?” Her hands were slick on the wheel. Gordon had told her about Mrs. Jukas’s collection.
“They’re from her house.”
“Who gave them to you?” she asked, then suddenly understood, saw it as clearly as if she were there watching it happen. “It was him, wasn’t it? That guy Polie, the one on the porch. That’s what he wanted. That’s why he was so upset. No wonder you wouldn’t go out, you must’ve been so scared. And your mother, he gave her those drugs, didn’t he, the ones that—Oh, my God, no wonder he grabbed my phone. But it’s over, Jada. All of it, from now on. You don’t have to live like that anymore, with people letting you down and taking advantage of you.”
Delores kept talking as she drove slowly, erratically, braking, accelerating, coming in right angles, as always, spiraling into the center, gradually, directly, but as unobtrusively as possible without alarming the wild-eyed girl, all the while telling her how good life was going to be from this moment on. She could have pets and friends and a nice place to live, and all she had to do was want it badly enough.
Jada seemed almost amused. “Yeah? Well, if it’s that easy, then I should have the best life of anyone in this whole fucked-up world by now.”
“It’s not a fucked-up world.” Delores eased around the corner. “Believe me, it’s not.” The car was still moving when Jada opened her door and jumped out. Delores slammed on the brakes. The police station was three buildings ahead.
“Liar!” she screamed, heaving one Hummel and then the other off the side of the car. “You fat, fucking liar, you!”
She got out, talking all the while she advanced on the frantic girl. “All right, so maybe I’m fat, but I’m not a liar. I’m not like everyone else in your life. And you know I’m not, right? Because I don’t quit, I don’t give up ever, on anyone.”