Blue (10 page)

She tried Skyping him in the airport in Kabul, got no answer, and e-mailed him before her flight took off. She tried again during her layover in London. But he wasn't answering on Skype, and had sent no response to her e-mails. Wherever he was, he was keeping very quiet. She wondered if he was back in the shed. It was early April, and it wouldn't be too cold, so she wasn't panicked. But she wanted to find him as soon as possible, and to know how he was, and why he had left school. And after she found him, she had promised Becky she would visit her father in L.A.

She fell asleep thinking of Blue on the flight back to New York, and still was when she woke up. She could see him in her mind's eye, with his mischievous glance and his most serious expression. She was wide awake when they landed. And as soon as she got to her apartment, she dropped off her bags, and then walked to the shed. But he wasn't there. The city had reclaimed it and put a padlock on the door. And with the shed no longer an option, she had no idea where he was.

She went to Houston Street the next day, without stopping for breakfast, and met with Julio Fernandez. He said Blue had never really adjusted, and had gone back to the streets, as some of the kids did. That life was familiar to them, and in some cases, easier for them to deal with, despite the discomforts and the risks. He wished her luck trying to find him.

She called his aunt Charlene, who didn't know where he was, either. She hadn't heard from him while Ginny was away, and hadn't spoken to him now in seven months. And she reminded Ginny that she had warned her he would run.

Ginny looked for him in other shelters, and in places where she was told homeless kids hung out. She went to drop-in centers, and finally at the end of the week, she gave up. All she could do was wait to see if he'd show up at her apartment. She had sent him several e-mails telling him she was back, all of which had gone unanswered, and she posted a message for him on the site for homeless kids, in case his laptop had been stolen or got lost. There was nothing else she could do. And she was upset when she went to the SOS/HR office to turn in her report. They knew all about the sniper and were relieved that she hadn't gotten hurt. So was Becky, who had heard about it on the news. Their father was continuing to do better on the new medication, although they knew it was only a temporary reprieve. Eventually, he'd get worse again. The medication would keep the Alzheimer's in check for only so long. Ginny had offered to talk to him on the phone when she got back to New York, but Becky said he still got confused on the phone.

Ten days after she got back, she was shuffling aimlessly around her apartment, wondering if she'd ever see Blue again, when the office called her. They said they needed her to attend a Senate hearing in Washington, D.C., about the situation of women in Afghanistan, and they felt she was the perfect person to speak since she'd been there so recently. Normally, she would have been enthusiastic about doing it, but after her fruitless search for Blue, she wasn't in the mood. She had lost one more person that she cared about, and although he hadn't been in her life for long, he had a place in her heart now and she was depressed about not finding him, and hoped he was all right, wherever he was, and hadn't gotten hurt, or worse.

The Senate hearing was the following week, and she spent the weekend preparing her speech about the plight of women in Afghanistan. Very little had changed despite the many human rights organizations that had been there. The old customs were nearly impossible to change, and the punishment for violating them severe, often including death. She was going to report on two women who had been stoned to death, in both cases for crimes men had committed against them. Their culture was a prime example of what needed to change. But effecting those changes was a battle they had not yet won, and probably wouldn't for years.

She was due to make the speech on Monday afternoon at a subcommittee hearing on human rights. There were to be two other speakers, and she was going to be the last one. She was planning to take the Acela to Washington, and would arrive shortly after noon.

Ginny went to Penn Station and was wearing a dark blue suit and high heels, a radical change of dress for her. She was carrying a briefcase with her speech in it and her laptop, so she could work on it some more on the way down and make last-minute changes. She was just boarding the train when she happened to turn around on the platform, and saw a group of young kids run past her. They jumped off the platform and headed across the tracks to a cutout in the tunnel. She could see other kids camped out there in sleeping bags. It was a dangerous place to be if they crossed the wrong set of tracks, but the kids were clever about concealing themselves, and the security guards in the station were unaware of them.

And suddenly in their midst, she saw a familiar figure. He was wearing the old parka she had given him the night they met. And glancing to see that no one was looking, she jumped off the platform, stumbled and nearly fell, and called to him as she made her way across the tracks.

He turned at the sound of his name, and when he saw her, he looked like he'd seen a ghost. Everything in that look told her that he had never believed she was coming back. He had thought he would never see her again, and now she was shouting his name, and making her way across the tracks toward him in high heels. He stood rooted to the spot and then walked slowly toward her. His expression was blank as they stood face-to-face next to the tracks. There was no train coming, and she was breathless from running after him, and unsteady in her shoes.

“I've been looking everywhere for you for two weeks,” she said, looking at him intensely, as his bright blue gaze met hers. “Where were you?”

“I was here,” he said simply, waving toward the platform where the others were gathered. They were a nest of homeless kids living together.

“Why did you leave Houston Street and drop out of school?”

“I didn't like it. And school is dumb.”

She wanted to tell him that he was, too, if he thought he could get by with an incomplete eighth-grade education for the rest of his life, but she didn't say it. He knew what she thought.

“It was a stupid thing to do,” she said angrily. “And why didn't you answer my e-mails and tell me where you were? Do you still have the laptop?”

“Yes. I thought you'd be mad at me.” He looked sheepish.

“I am, but that doesn't mean I don't care about you.” She heard them announce her train for the final call, and she couldn't stay, but at least now she knew where he was. “I have to leave. I'm going to Washington. I'll be home late tonight. Come to the apartment tomorrow, and we'll talk.”

“I'm not going back there,” he said stubbornly, and she didn't know if he meant school or Houston Street, but she didn't have time to discuss it with him. She looked at him a last time, then reached out and hugged him, and he hugged her back.

“Come and see me. I'm not going to yell at you,” she reassured him. He nodded as she took off across the tracks. When she got back on the platform, she turned to wave at him, and he waved back, and then she ran to the Acela as fast as she could, and got in just as the doors closed. She stood watching as they pulled out of the station, and she saw him in the tunnel with the other kids. He was talking and laughing with them in the strange life that was familiar to him. He had been back on the streets for over two months while she was away, which was a long time at his age. She wondered if he'd come to her apartment. Maybe he had decided that he didn't want to be part of her life.

She was feeling disheveled as the train picked up speed. Her jacket had come unbuttoned, and she had scraped one of her shoes. She tried to calm down as she read her speech again, but her heart was pounding. She was elated that she had found him, and all she could think of now was Blue.

The senator who had invited her to speak to the subcommittee on international human rights had arranged for a car and driver to meet her at Union Station in Washington. She had just enough time to stop for a sandwich on the way. She wanted to hear the other speakers, and she was ushered into the building when she got there. They were expecting her. She took her seat in the audience, and was deeply moved by the first two speakers. Both reported on atrocities against women in Africa and the Middle East. The chairman called a recess, and she had time to comb her hair and put on lipstick.

Then it was her turn, and she was led to a podium facing the committee, who were seated on a raised platform. She read the speech she had prepared about the deeply troubling state of human rights for women in Afghanistan. None of it was new information, but her delivery was powerful, and the examples she gave upset everyone in the room. She spoke for forty-five minutes, and when Ginny was finished, there was total silence as people tried to recover from what she'd said.

It felt good to do something well, and for an instant it reminded her of her years at the network, when she had enjoyed her career as a reporter. She had put all those skills away and buried them, and now she was someone else, a person who went to troubled countries, lived in miserable conditions while she was there, and tried to heal the ills of the world to the degree that it was possible. But for those few minutes in her navy blue suit and high heels, she was part of a different world again. And as she left the podium, it felt good. She was sorry Blue hadn't been there to see it. It would have been interesting for him to experience the excitement of the Senate in action and see how it worked. And speaking in front of a Senate hearing wasn't something she did every day. It even impressed her.

The chairman of the subcommittee thanked her, and she went back to her seat. A few minutes later, he thanked everyone for being there, and they were all dismissed. Several press photographers took her picture as she left the room. Outside the building she found the car waiting to take her to the station, where she boarded the Acela for New York.

She fell asleep on the train, and was back in her apartment at ten o'clock that night. It had been an exhausting day, and after she took a bath, and thought about everything that happened, she climbed into bed, wondering if Blue would show up the next day. She was afraid he wouldn't, and she was considering if she should go back to the station to talk to him again if he didn't, or just let him be. He had a right to the life he wanted, and she couldn't force him into a better one. The final choice was his.

The next morning, she was drinking a cup of coffee and reading the news online, when the bell from downstairs rang. She had been reading coverage in
The New York Times
about her speech the day before. It had gone over very well. She walked over to the intercom, hoping it was Blue, and she was thrilled to hear his voice. She buzzed him in, and the elevator brought him up a moment later. She was waiting at the door for him. He was still wearing her parka, and he looked taller to her, and slightly more mature than he had three months ago. Going back to the streets had changed him. He looked slightly less boyish and more adult. He hesitated for a minute, and she waved him to the couch where he had slept. She could see that he felt awkward in the apartment, as he took off her parka and sat down.

“Have you eaten?” He nodded, and she wondered if it was true, but she didn't insist. “So how have you been?” she asked politely, searching his eyes for the truth. Life wasn't easy on the streets. She saw that he had brought his schoolbag, and she assumed he had the laptop in it. He had nowhere to leave his valuables now, so he had brought them with him.

“I'm okay,” he said quietly. “I read about the human rights worker getting shot by the sniper in Afghanistan. I'm glad it wasn't you,” he said earnestly.

“I was with him. He was a really nice man,” she said, remembering Enzo. “They sent some of us home early because of it. I've been back for almost two weeks, looking for you.” Her eyes met his, and then he looked away, avoiding her gaze.

“I'm fine,” he said again. “It didn't feel right at Houston Street. I didn't like some of the kids.”

“I wish you had stayed there. And what about school? What are you going to do about that now? You know what I think.” He nodded.

“I don't know. Even the teachers didn't care if we did our homework. It just seemed so stupid, sitting there and wasting time every day.”

“I know it feels that way, but it's an important thing for you to do.” He almost groaned as she said it, although he knew it was true.

“I want to come back,” he said softly, barely loud enough for her to hear him as he met her eyes again.

“To stay with me?” She looked startled. She thought he had given her up, too, but he was here.

He nodded in answer, and then spoke more clearly. “I thought you were never coming back so it didn't matter what I did.”

“It matters a lot,” she confirmed to him. “I told you I would come back.” He shrugged in answer.

“I didn't believe you. People always say they're coming back and never do.” And he'd been terrified she might be killed, so he'd given up on all of it and gone back to the streets.

“And what do you want to do if you stay with me again? You can't just sit here and watch TV and play games on your laptop.”

“I don't know.” He hung his head for a minute and then looked up at her.

“If you stay here, you'd have to go to school, and not drop out again. You'd have to stick with it. I'll be going away again in a month. I'd want you at the shelter while I'm gone, so I know you're okay, and not in danger living on the streets. You can come back here, Blue, but only if we agree on those things, and you live up to the commitments you make. I don't want you lounging on my couch and doing nothing, because you're too bored and lazy to go to school.”

“I hate it there, the shelter and the school. But if you make me, I'll go.”

“You have to make yourself go to school. I can't run behind you like the police, and I don't want to do that anyway. If I ‘make' you do any of it, you'll just run away again. You have to want what it's going to get you in the end. And if we team up here, I don't want you loose on the streets while I'm away. I'd worry myself sick about you. I did this time, and there's nothing I can do from that far away and in the kind of places that I go to. I need to know that I can count on you to do what you say you will. Just like I do, when I tell you I'll come home.” He nodded with a serious expression, and she could see that he knew she meant it. She wanted to help him, and she was willing to have him stay with her, she wanted him to, but not if he was going to run away and drop out of school when she was gone. She needed him to be more reliable than that. “So what do you think?”

“I think I'll hate going back to school and staying at Houston Street,” he said seriously, then grinned at her. “But I'll do it for you, because you're a good person, and I don't want to give you any trouble. Now can I come back?”

The look of gratitude on his face made her smile at him, with tears in her eyes. She was all he had in the world. She thought she had lost him when he disappeared, but now she had an idea.

“Yes, you can come back. But you can't sleep on my couch anymore.”

“That's okay,” he said matter-of-factly. “I slept on the floor at my aunt's, and in the bathtub when her boyfriend was there. He was an asshole,” he added for good measure, which was the first time he had mentioned him. What Ginny knew about him, she had heard from Charlene. “I can sleep on the floor here.”

“That's not what I have in mind.” She beckoned to him, and walked him back to the second bedroom that had been full of unpacked boxes since she moved in. “I have a job for you—minimum wage of course. We're going to take this room apart, unpack the boxes, and set up a proper room for you, for when you're here. How does that sound?” His eyes lit up like a child at Christmas as he stared at her in disbelief.

“I've never had my own room before,” he said in an awed whisper. “Not even with my mama. We slept in the same bed, but I was little then. When can we do it?” There was urgency and excitement in his eyes.

“Well, let's see,” she said, pretending to think about it. “I've already read the newspaper. I've had a shower. I need to go to the grocery store later. Why don't we start now?” He let out a shout and threw his arms around her, and then she asked him where his things were. He said he'd left his little rolling suitcase and sleeping bag with a friend at the station, but he could pick them up anytime.

“Why don't we go out for breakfast to celebrate, pick up your things, and then come back and get to work? Tomorrow we can go out and get you a bed and a dresser and whatever you need.” She was thinking about IKEA, or a place she knew downtown that had decent furniture at reasonable prices, and she wanted to upgrade some of her own things as well. She was getting a little tired of the secondhand look, and she had already gotten three years' use out of what she'd bought for nearly nothing when she moved to New York. Suddenly, she wanted to warm the place up and turn it into a home for them.

They walked down the street together to McDonald's on a balmy April day, and the world felt like a good place to both of them. She had found him, and he was going to have his own room for the first time in his life. Both their wishes had been granted. And she told him about the camp in Afghanistan while they ate Egg McMuffins, and she mentioned the art and music high school to him again.

“Do you want me to check it out? Applications for the fall were due in September, and you're late for auditions, but I talked to them before I left. If you're serious about it, they might be willing to apply special circumstances, and accept an application now. It's a big deal if they do that. If they do, and they accept you, you have to be responsible about it, you can't drop out or run away. I'd be putting my word on the line to vouch for you,” she said solemnly, and Blue looked impressed. “And you'd have to audition, if they let you.” That shouldn't be a problem for you. Maybe you'd enjoy school if you were doing something you love.”

“If I can play the piano every day, I'll like it,” he said, stuffing another muffin into his mouth. He was eating as if he hadn't seen food in three months.

After breakfast they took the subway to Penn Station. She followed him down the stairs, then waited on the platform while he went to find his friends on the ledge where they all slept at night. No one was there except a boy who looked about sixteen. Ginny watched Blue pick up his things, and talk for a few minutes with him. Blue had told her that there were no girls in the group, and they'd been sleeping there all winter. No one bothered them, and it was a good place to stay when it was cold. He was back with her a moment later, with his bag in his hand, and his sleeping bag under his arm. It was looking tattered and dirty, and she suggested they get a new one. With that, he ran back and gave it to his friend, which touched her, as the other boy took it gratefully from him.

Then they went back to her apartment and got to work. Ginny turned an overhead light on and looked at the markings on the boxes. She had never bothered to before, and she suddenly realized how much of it was sentimental. There were boxes marked “baby pictures,” another one marked “wedding,” and other boxes Becky had packed that weren't labeled at all. She started with those, and was shocked to see photographs of herself, Chris, and Mark in silver frames, and some knickknacks from their living room, some of which had been wedding presents. There were some fur cushions and a beautiful cashmere throw. They were things Becky had thought she might use again. There was a beautiful antique tortoiseshell dresser set that Mark had given her for her birthday, leatherbound books she had given him, and a box of Chris's teddy bears and favorite toys, which made her gasp when she opened it, and she closed it immediately. Some things were still too painful to see even now. There was an empty closet she had never used in the front hall, where she was planning to put the things she wouldn't use, or was saving only out of sentiment, like the baby pictures and wedding album. But a lot of the other things she was happy to see again. Becky had chosen well.

They sifted through all of it by early afternoon, and among other things, she knew she wanted to buy a bookcase for her favorite books. She had taken several of the framed photographs out and put them around the living room. She felt as though she could live with them again. Blue's lively presence was a buffer against her loneliness and grief when she looked at them. He picked up each of the photographs carefully and stared intently at Mark and Chris's faces, as though trying to get to know them through the photos.

“He was really cute,” Blue said softly, as he set a photograph of Chris down gently on her desk.

“Yeah, he was,” Ginny agreed with tears in her eyes, and as she turned away, Blue patted her shoulder, and she turned to smile at him as tears rolled down her cheeks. “Thank you. I'm okay. I just miss them a lot sometimes. That's why I keep running away to crazy places like Afghanistan and Africa. I don't have time to think when I'm there.” Blue nodded as though he understood. He had his own way of escaping the memories, like dropping out of school and running away. But they both knew that you could never run far enough or fast enough to get away from the pain completely. It was always waiting nearby, and a sound, a smell, or a memory could bring it back to mind.

She looked at her watch then and decided they had time to go downtown. She had a sense of what they needed, and had measured the room. There was enough space for a single bed, a desk, a dresser, and a chair. She wanted the bookcase, too, and whatever else they could find. The place she wanted to go to was on the Lower East Side.