Don't Let Me Go (22 page)

“Oh, I think not,” Billy said, feeling as though these simple words were exhausting his last crumb of energy.

“Why not?”

“Don’t you think it’s a bit long?”

“I’ll ask him if he minds. I mean
her
. I’ll ask
her
if
she
minds.” Grace held the cat up to her ear, pressing her face against the soft fur of the cat’s side. “She says she doesn’t mind.” A long silence. Then Grace said, “She couldn’t even stay clean for three days.”

Billy said nothing, having no idea what to say.

“I meant my mom, not the cat.”

“I knew what you meant.”

“She knew I’d be gone again the minute she got loaded. And what did she do? She got loaded. I guess she loves drugs more than she loves me.”

“Addiction is a weird phenomenon,” Billy said, barely over a whisper.

“Have you ever been addicted to anything?”

“I’m addicted to staying inside my own apartment.”

“Oh. Right. But you just went out.”

“True.”

“Because my mom not hurting me was more important.”

“I guess so.”

“So why can’t my own mom do that?”

“I wish I knew.”

“It sucks.”

“It does. Yes.”

“Don’t tell Rayleen I complained.”

“I think she would agree that you’re entitled in this case,” he said. “Some things just require complaint.”

But, meanwhile, Billy was thinking, Sure, I broke my addiction for a minute or two. That doesn’t mean I could do it from here on out. But he didn’t say that out loud to Grace, because he didn’t want to strip away her last shred of hope. If she had one.

• • •

Billy looked up sometime later to see Rayleen standing in his living room, holding and hugging Grace. Grace must have let her in. Had he fallen asleep, or just slipped into a coma of emotional exhaustion?

“What’s wrong with Billy?” Rayleen asked Grace.

“He yelled at my mom, and now he’s all wiped out from it.”

“Billy yelled at your mom?”

“Yeah, but I don’t think she heard him or anything. But you should have seen him. He was plenty mad. I think even if she’d come to the door, I bet he would’ve yelled right into her face. And he knew he was out in the hall and everything.”

“Hmm,” Rayleen said, setting Grace down on her feet.

“Ow,” Grace said.

“You OK?”

“I hurt my hip. That’s what Billy was so mad about.”

Billy looked up to see Rayleen towering over him, looking down with a soft look of concern in her eyes.

“Are you OK?” she asked. “You look like you have the flu or something.”

“It just took a lot out of me,” he managed to say, the words mushy at their edges.

“Well, I would stay and tell you volumes about how proud I am of you. But my throat is starting to close up. So we’ll have to do this some other time. Come on, Grace, let’s go.”

“Don’t take Grace,” Billy said, at a surprisingly strong volume.

It startled everyone.

“Why not?” Rayleen asked.

“Yeah, why not?” Grace asked.

“Couldn’t you just leave her here for a while? I missed her. Oh, but that’s selfish, isn’t it? You probably missed her, too.”

“No, it’s OK,” Rayleen said. Billy could hear an alarming wheeze growing behind her voice. “I mean, yeah, I did. I missed her. Of course I did. But she can stay here for a while if you want.”

“Thanks,” Billy said.

“But aren’t you worried about…what if her mother…”

“I don’t care. I’m a kidnapper. Call the police.”

Rayleen stood a moment longer, looking down at him. He couldn’t quite read the look on her face, but it didn’t appear to be any type of insult.

“All righty, then,” she said, and turned to go.

“Don’t forget the meeting,” Grace called as Rayleen let herself out. “Tell everybody. We’re having another meeting. Soon.”

“You never told me what—” Rayleen began.

“That’s why you have a meeting,” Grace said. “To tell everybody what the meeting’s about. I told you that once already with the last meeting.”

“Yeah,” Rayleen said. “I guess you did.”

• • •

Grace sat on the couch with Billy for a few more hours, watching cartoons on his tiny TV, her head leaned on his shoulder, Mr. Lafferty the Girl Cat between them, where they could both pet her at any time.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” Grace said, without bothering to mute the volume on the cartoons. “I’m going to dance at my school.”

Billy was too tired to listen to Grace and the cartoons at the same time. It was just too hard to separate out the sounds. But he was also too tired to say so, or to do anything to try to change it.

So he just asked, “When?”

“Three months.”

“Good. Because we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

She didn’t answer initially. In time Billy looked over to see that he had offended her, or hurt her feelings, or more likely both.

“I do a good time step,” she said, her bottom lip poking out a little farther than usual.

“Yes. You do. But I figured you’d want to do something more elaborate for a big school performance. A person’s first public performance is no small thing. It’s a defining moment. It’s something you’ll not soon forget, let me tell you. But it’s up to you. It’s your performance. Do you want to fall back on the time step because it’s easy and safe and you know it best? Or do you want to really shine?”

Grace stroked the cat’s back in silence for a moment or two. Billy felt as though he could look through her and watch the thoughts spinning in her brain. Tumblers waiting to fall into place.

“I want to shine,” she said at last.

“Good choice,” Billy said.

Grace

Grace stood at the bottom of the stairs, cupped her hands, and let loose with her best (or worst, depending on your prejudice in that area) Grace voice.

“Mrs. Hinman! Hurry up! Don’t be late to the meeting!”

She thought she heard a muffled cry from the stairs, and, in the silence that followed, something hard and noisy began bumping its way down the staircase, one thumpy step at a time.

Grace waited and watched until it came into view. It was a suitcase.

A moment later it was followed by a very spooked-looking girl. Well, lady. But a very young lady. Maybe twenty, or maybe only around eighteen. But definitely spooked. She had long blonde hair and big eyes, and she looked like a nervous horse listening for noises that would make her want to run away.

“You scared me,” the girl-lady said.

“Sorry,” Grace said, but apparently she said it too loud, because the lady jumped again. “Who are you, anyway?”

“I’m moving in,” the girl-lady said. “Upstairs.”

“Oh! You’re moving into the apartment where Mr. Lafferty killed himself!”

The lady’s eyes got wider and more spooked. If such a thing were even possible.

“Somebody killed himself in there?”

“Yeah. Mr. Lafferty,” Grace said, thinking it was weird that she should have to repeat herself so soon. Maybe scared people had trouble holding on to basic information.

“I didn’t know that.”

“And now you do. So, what’s your name?”

“Emily.”

“I’m Grace. Are you alone? Because if you’re alone, you should come to our meeting.”

“I don’t know what you mean…alone.”

“It’s pretty simple,” Grace said. “I thought everybody knew what it meant.”

“Alone…how?”

“Like, do you have a bunch of family and friends?”

“I have a family.”

“Oh. Good.”

“In Iowa.”

“Oh. Bad.”

“I have friends. Well. A couple. I guess.”

“In L.A.?”

“Not really, no.”

“You should come to our meeting.”

“I don’t even know any of you.”

“Duh. That would be the point, wouldn’t it?”

“I have to unpack.”

“Is that all your stuff?” Grace asked, pointing to the suitcase, still lying on the stairs at her feet.

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“So how long do you figure it’ll take you to unpack it? We could wait for you. We don’t mind.”

“I’m awfully tired.”

“Right,” Grace said, knowing by feel that it was time to give up. “We’re going to have a meeting every week. Maybe you could come to the next one.”

“Maybe, yeah.”

Just then Mrs. Hinman appeared on the stairs, causing Emily to jump again. She picked up her suitcase and ran upstairs, brushing by Mrs. Hinman before Grace could even introduce them.

Mrs. Hinman eased her way down the stairs to the spot where Grace was standing, and the two of them very slowly walked along the hall to Rayleen’s, because there was no point hurrying Mrs. Hinman, and Grace knew it.

“Who was that?” Mrs. Hinman asked.

“Her name is Emily,” Grace said. “She’s moving in upstairs, where Mr. Lafferty used to live.”

“Oh. I see.”

“Why is everybody scared of everybody else?”

“Hmm. A good question. One of those mysterious aspects of the human condition, I guess.”

“You sound like Billy,” Grace said, making it clear by her tone that it was no compliment in this case. “What did all that mean, what you just said?”

“I suppose it’s a fancy way of saying some things just
are
.”

Grace sighed noisily, thinking that was a terrible answer, but not wanting to insult Mrs. Hinman by pointing it out.

“I guess maybe we can talk more about that at our meeting,” she said.

• • •

“Who wants to go first?” Grace asked. Then, before anybody could answer, she added, “Billy, can you hear us?”

Grace, Felipe, Mrs. Hinman and Rayleen were gathered in Rayleen’s apartment, the door standing wide open. Billy sat on a chair across the hall, just inside his open doorway. Sitting on his hands. Probably to keep from biting his nails, Grace figured. She’d already caught him at it once, and put a stop to it.

Billy wouldn’t come over to Rayleen’s, for obvious reasons, and Rayleen wouldn’t go over to Billy’s because of the cat. So, silly as it seemed to Grace, this was the only way to make a very important meeting happen.

“I’m fine,” Billy said.

“That doesn’t answer the question, Billy.”

“Well, I heard you ask, didn’t I? Or I wouldn’t have answered.”

“Oh. Right,” Grace said.

“Go first and say what?” Rayleen asked. “We’re still not too sure what this meeting’s all about.”

“It’s about how people shouldn’t be alone. Especially when there are so many of us. Look at all of you. You’re all alone, and there are four of you, and that’s really stupid, because there are four of you. So why be alone?”

“So what are we supposed to say when it’s our turn?” Felipe asked.

“You’re supposed to say why you’re alone. All except Mrs. Hinman. She doesn’t have to go, because she’s only alone because she lived longer than her husband and all her friends.”

A silence fell, during which Mrs. Hinman cleared her throat and shifted uncomfortably on Rayleen’s couch.

“Well, that’s not entirely true,” Mrs. Hinman said.

“But I heard that from
you
.”

“I know. Yes. I know you did. But what I’m saying is…really, if I were being completely honest, it’s not entirely true.”

Another long silence. This was the other thing Grace had noticed about grown-ups. In addition to being afraid of each other, it was hard to wring any information out of them. At least, if it was information about
them
. If it was about what kids ought to do, then they were nothing but words.

“Marv and I were very close,” Mrs. Hinman said, her voice quiet. Probably too quiet for Billy to hear. “And, even though I don’t suppose I would have seen it this way at the time, I might have used that as an excuse to let some of my friendships go. Some very old friends, too. I just let them drift away. Can’t even say why, for a fact. It was just so much easier. Just me and Marv seemed like less trouble. Fewer arguments and hurt feelings and misunderstandings and whatnot, all the things people bring into our lives. But then, at the end, even Marv and I weren’t as close as we used to be. Oh, I don’t know. I guess in some ways we were. On the outside you wouldn’t have seen that anything had changed. But there was something missing in there somewhere. Something hollow about it. I don’t know how to explain it any better than that.”

The silence that followed seemed to make everybody uneasy except Grace. Rayleen looked at her fingernails, and Felipe bounced his knee up and down. Grace looked across the hall at Billy, and he had that anxious, stressed look on his face, even though Grace was pretty sure he hadn’t heard most of Mrs. Hinman’s speech.

Mrs. Hinman sat weirdly upright, hands clasped in her lap, a shocked look on
her
face, as if someone else had said all those things, and she hadn’t approved of any of them.

“This is a good meeting so far,” Grace said, to correct anyone who might be thinking otherwise. “Who wants to go next?”

No one made a sound.

So it startled everyone, even Grace, when someone appeared in the open doorway and banged hard on the door, causing it to slam back against the wall.

Grace looked up to see that it was Yolanda, and that Yolanda was pissed.

Rayleen said, “Oh, hi, Yolanda,” and stood up to greet her.

And Yolanda said, “What’s this I hear about you taking Grace away from her own mother?”