Can't Get There from Here (13 page)

“They watch you?” I asked Spyder.

“All day and all night.” She shrugged like she didn’t care. “You’ll get used to it.”

The other girls changed into pajamas or baggy T-shirts, but I had nothing to sleep in.

“Here.” Spyder tossed me a black Megadeth T-shirt.

“Thanks.” I undressed and pulled it on and got into the bunk bed. The blanket and sheets were old but smelled clean. It was the first time I’d lain in a real bed since I’d left home. As I pulled the blanket up to my chin, and my head sank into the soft pillow, I felt myself relax. It wasn’t only that the bed was comfortable. It was the feeling that I was safe for the night—a feeling I’d forgotten. I listened to Spyder and the other girls talk for a little while, but I fell asleep pretty fast because the next thing I knew, the room was filled with sunlight and Laura was in the doorway saying it was time to get up.

Still tired and wanting to go back to sleep I pulled the pillow over my head. A hand touched my shoulder.

“You have to get up now,” Laura said.

“I’m tired.”

“It’s time for breakfast. Aren’t you hungry?”

My stomach felt empty, so even though I wanted to sleep, I got up and went downstairs. I sat next to Spyder at the round table and had cold cereal and juice for breakfast. Then it was time to sit in a circle and talk about our lives. Laura said I didn’t have to, but she urged me to join in. All I could think about was that soft pillow and those smooth warm sheets.

“I want to go back upstairs,” I said.

“That’s not allowed,” Laura said. “If you have to sleep, you can sleep down here.”

A bunch of kids gathered in a circle to talk. Most looked a few years older than me. Like Spyder, they had tattoos and piercings and dyed hair. They sort of looked like street kids, only cleaned up. All the chairs and spots on the couch were taken so I lay down on the floor and tried to close my eyes. It wasn’t easy to sleep with everyone talking, and it wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the bunk bed upstairs. Then they turned on the TV and watched until lunch. Only I wasn’t hungry.

“You still have to sit with everyone at the table,” Laura said.

After lunch they wanted us to do an art project with feathers and string and pieces of wire. Laura said I didn’t have to, so I just sat there. Spyder smiled, but the other kids mostly ignored me. By then I was hungry again and wanted something to eat, but Laura said I had to wait until dinner.

I waited until she left the room. Then I took a black ski jacket from the closet and left.

It was getting dark when I got back to the bridge. OG had hung the blue tarp again and Pest, Maggot, and Jewel were inside. Jewel was rocking back and forth and staring up at nothing. Someone else was in the orange sleeping bag. My heart jumped for a second at the thought that it might be Rainbow. I looked closer. It was Tears.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey.” Her answer was as hollow as her eyes.

“Where you been?” I asked.

“Nowhere.”

“That night at The Cradle,” I said, “I came back to look for you and you were gone.”

Tears turned her face away and pulled the sleeping bag over her head.

“Where’ve you been?” Maggot asked me.

“Rainbow got picked up by the cops and I went with her,” I said. “Anyone seen her?”

No one answered.

“Then they sent me to the Youth Housing Project,” I said.

“Did you enjoy the accommodations, my dear?” Jewel suddenly asked.

“I liked sleeping in a real bed again.”

“Then why’d you leave?” Maggot asked.

“Too many rules. And they watch you all the time. Even when you sleep.”

“So it’s not just about their state funding, right?” Maggot asked.

“I don’t see why the state would care when I eat or sleep,” I said.

“It’s all about decorum, darling,” Jewel said as he rocked.

“It’s all about fear of anyone different,” said OG.

“It’s all about brainwashing you to fit in,” Maggot said.

It got dark and the temperature must have dropped twenty degrees. Like animals, we burrowed into our nests of blankets and newspapers and plastic bags, and
curled up close to each other to stay warm.

But I hardly got to sleep. OG coughed. Then Maggot coughed. Jewel sneezed and mumbled to himself. Tears coughed and cried. They were all sick. The cars roared above. In the moonlight jagged hunks of snow-covered ice floated down the river like icebergs. I watched the sun come up. The tops of the buildings started to glow. Bursts of red morning sunlight reflected off the windows. The murky green-brown river turned a lighter shade.

Maggot sat up. “I have to get some cough medicine. Anyone have any money?”

“Plenty, darling,” Jewel said, still rocking back and forth and staring off. “As much as you need. The family comes from royalty, you know. It’s all in offshore accounts. Those rumors about us being Eurotrash are so nasty.”

Maggot rolled his eyes. “Anyone
else
have any money?”

“Just the squeegee,” OG said and coughed so hard he had to put his hands on the ground to brace himself.

We took turns trying to get drivers to pay us for cleaning their windshields. When you stood out in the traffic, the icy wind blew right through your clothes. The streets were slippery, and you had to be careful not to fall and get run over. When it was my turn I waited on the corner until the light turned red, then picked up the bucket and walked between the cars. No one wanted his windshield washed. Here and there a driver gave me a quarter anyway. One man in an expensive-looking car
rolled down his window and thrust a dollar out.

“Just don’t wash my windshield, okay?” he begged.

The light turned green and I hurried back to the corner, trying to avoid the cars. Loose sheets of newspaper blew past and the traffic lights above swung like fruit on a tree. It was so cold my nose and ears stung. The drivers passed and didn’t even look. I was nothing. A creature without a name who nobody cared about. One of the unlucky ones who got left behind when the big bus of happy families pulled out of the bus station. There wasn’t even room for me on the big bus of unhappy families. There wasn’t room, period.

The dirty water in the bucket froze into a brownish block. I went back to the bridge and crawled into my nest and lay there quivering. OG left and came back with a metal garbage can he stole from a nearby building. He tried to start a fire in it, but the newspaper burned up so fast it was gone before we could get warm.

“We have to find some wood,” Maggot said through chattering teeth. “I think I saw some at a construction site up by the park.” He and OG went to look for wood. Tears and I stayed behind with Pest, who lay inside my nest with me. Over the river the sea gulls slowly flapped their wings higher and higher, then glided in circles back down. I heard sobs coming from the nest Tears had made for herself.

“Hey, Tears,” I called. “What’s wrong?”

“I wet the sleeping bag. It’s cold.”

“Come over here with Pest and me. You’ll feel warmer.”

“But I’m wet.”

“Who cares?”

She crawled out of the sleeping bag and into my nest of blankets and papers. We lay on our sides with Pest between us. I wondered about Rainbow and felt an ache when I thought of Officer Ryan and that other policewoman taking her away.

Tears shook so hard she made the newspapers around us rattle. Her teeth chattered. She started to cry again. “I want to go home.”

“You can go over to the Youth Housing Project,” I said. “That lady Laura could help you.”

“I can’t. Not as long as he’s there.”

“Your stepfather? Maybe he’s gone. When was the last time you talked to your mom?”

“I don’t know. A long time ago.”

“Maybe you should call her.”

“How? I don’t have any money.”

“Collect.”

“Last time I did that she got mad and told me not to anymore. I don’t want to make her mad because then she won’t want me back.”

I knew if we went to the Youth Housing Project Laura might let Tears use the phone. But I also knew that Laura might give Tears a hard time about going back to the street. It’s one thing when you’re fifteen or sixteen. You’re halfway to being a grown-up, and if you want to be on the street, they know they can’t stop you. It’s different when you’re twelve. Then they think you’re still a kid.

I had another idea. “There’s a place where you might be able to make the call,” I said. “We could go see.”

“Let me get a little warmer first, okay?”

I opened the black ski jacket and tried to pull some of it around Tears. That seemed to help. When her teeth stopped chattering we got up and headed for the library.

When we got there, Bobby was outside wearing a heavy red plaid shirt under a green down vest. He had a blue cap with the earflaps down and a bright green bucket under his arm. Using a plastic cup he scooped white crystals onto the library steps to melt the ice. I stopped on the sidewalk.

“Aren’t we going in?” Tears asked, hugging herself to stay warm.

“We better wait,” I said.

Tears looked at Bobby. “It’s him, right?”

I nodded and felt sad. Tears was turning into a street kid. She was starting to get that street sense of who was dangerous and who wasn’t. In my head I could hear the words of that detective:
“You’re running out of time. Pretty soon there’ll be no going back.”
How soon was pretty soon? Were we already too late? We stood in the cold and waited. Bobby didn’t look in our direction. After a while he went back into the library.

“Can we go in now?” Tears asked.

“I have to see something first.” I looked in the big windows. People were sitting at the computers. Anthony was standing behind a white-haired man who was frowning at a computer screen. Anthony said something to him.
Still frowning, the man typed on the keyboard. Something good must have happened because the man’s face brightened. Anthony smiled and started to move down the table. That’s when he looked up and saw me outside.

He waved like he wanted me to come in. I shook my head. He raised a finger as if to say, Wait one second. I went back to Tears, who was shivering.

“I’m cold,” she said. “Can’t we go in?”

“In a second, I hope.”

A minute later Anthony came out wearing a green coat. It was unbuttoned and he held it closed with both hands. “What’s up?”

“My friend needs to make an important telephone call,” I said.

Anthony didn’t answer right away. Finally, he nodded. He must have been thinking about whether he could let Tears use the phone. “Okay, come in.”

“What about Bobby?” I asked.

“Don’t worry about him.”

Anthony held the door. It was warm inside. Somewhere a radiator hissed. I looked for Bobby, but he wasn’t around. Anthony led us past the counter where the frowning people with the ID tags stood, then past a lot of bookshelves to a door in the back. Inside was a hall lined with more doors. Anthony pushed one open, and we went into a small office with lots of books on shelves and a desk with a computer and stacks of papers. A glass bowl was filled with jelly beans of every color imaginable.

“Hold out your hands,” Anthony said. He picked up the bowl and poured some jelly beans into our palms. While Tears and I ate them, Anthony pressed some numbers on the phone and waited. On his desk were pictures of two girls. One about Tears’s age and one maybe eight years old. In some of the pictures they were with a man and a woman who had reddish hair and freckles like Anthony, but not the blotches Anthony and I both had.

Anthony handed the phone to Tears. “I’ve got you an outside line. You can dial your number.”

Tears dialed and held the phone to her ear. “Mom? It’s Nikki. Hey, yeah, I’m okay. In New York. Yeah, it’s really cold. No, I’m warm enough. Oh, here and there. No, nothing like that. Yeah, I want to come home. Is he still living there? I told you why. No, Mom. He did. I don’t care what he says. No, I didn’t imagine it. Then he’s a liar. No, I won’t come home as long as he’s there. Jealous? I don’t think so. Okay, have it your way. Bye.”

She hung up and tears began to roll down her cheeks. She looked at me and shook her head. Then she turned to Anthony. “Thanks for letting me use the phone.”

“You’re welcome.” Anthony pulled a moist wipe out of a plastic container and wiped off the receiver before putting it back on the cradle. “I guess it wasn’t much help.”

Tears wiped her eyes with her hands, leaving dirty smears.

“We really appreciate you letting her try,” I said.

“Anytime,” Anthony said. “But now I have to get back to the computer tables.”

I looked nervously at the door and wondered if Bobby was on the other side. Anthony saw me. “Let me take you out.” He held the door and led us back down the hall. “You don’t have to leave, you know. You’re welcome to stay here all day. There are couches to sit on and books and magazines to read.” He opened the door to the main library, and we went out.

“What the hell?” Bobby came out from between a row of bookshelves. I jumped back and banged into Tears, who let out a cry. Anthony quickly stepped between Bobby and us.

“Is there a problem?” he asked Bobby.

“What do you want them in here for?” Bobby asked.

“This library is open to the public,” Anthony replied.

“But they’re not …” Bobby didn’t finish the sentence.

“Not what?” Anthony asked.

“You know,” Bobby sputtered. “Don’t pretend, Anthony. They’re just gonna make a mess.”

Anthony turned to Tears and me. “Are you going to make a mess?”

We shook our heads.

“Aw, for Pete’s sake,” Bobby grumbled. “Of course they’re going to say that.”

“I believe them,” Anthony said.

Bobby narrowed his eyes at Tears and me. “I’ll be watching you.” He turned and went away.

Anthony led us toward the front. “You can sit near the computer tables if you like. That way you can be close to me.”

Tears and me shared a look. We didn’t want to go back out into the cold, but Bobby scared us.

“We have to go somewhere,” I said.

The comers of Anthony’s mouth turned down, but he walked with us to the front doors. “Wait,” he said like he remembered something. He went back toward his office.