Good Girls (3 page)

It's an orphan thing,
she muttered inside her head, standing there in the dark. She was talking to Jack and his unicorn horn, but the phrase was Joel's. Just one of the thousand things he had taught her during her four and a half years under his and Amanda's foster care at Halfmoon House.
That reluctance. That inclination toward solitude. You either have to learn to pay it no mind, or learn to mind it enough to do something about it. One or the other.

Like most of the things Joel and Amanda had taught her—most of Joel's things, especially, she had to admit—that idea had made more sense back when she'd lived with them. Had seemed so comforting. It made less sense these days, or maybe just seemed too simple, not at all helpful, now that she lived on her own, had a little rented room she called home, even if it didn't feel like home, yet. Not in the way she'd always assumed—been told—her own room would feel.

Stepping closer to the giant windows, Rebecca flicked on the lamp on Marlene's desk. And voilà, there she was, out there in the world. At least, there was her reflection superimposed over the path: little Chagall girl in a blue UNH-D hoodie, more pale-faced and mousy brown than glowing blue, but floating, anyway, up amid the lower leaves of the gum trees, her narrow face tinged green by the grass, blue by the moon.

Flicking off Marlene's lamp, she watched herself vanish, then retreated to her own desk, pulled up a chair, tapped her sleeping computer awake.

RebeccaRebeccaRebecCaCaCaCaRebecca.
Her name scrawled, and was still scrawling, across Joel's chat window, as though he were tagging her screen from inside it.

Hiya, Pops,
she typed.

Instantly, the scrawling stopped. The ensuing pause lasted longer than she expected. It lasted so long that she actually checked her connection, started to type again, then decided to wait. Around her, the whole building seemed to settle. Rebecca could feel its weight, hear its quiet.

Please don't call me that,
Joel typed.
I'm not your dad.

I know. Don't be ridiculous.

I know you know.

So don't be ridiculous.

Pause. If she closed her eyes, Rebecca could see him there so clearly: his coal-black skin even blacker against whichever filthy white work T-shirt he'd worked in this particular day, the light from his laptop the only light in that long room, at that long wooden table. His wife gone to bed hours before, without bothering to tell or even locate him. His current foster kids—just two, right now, though he and Amanda generally liked to keep four at Halfmoon House, because that helped it feel more like a boarding school, which was exactly how Amanda wanted anyone she brought there to think of it—upstairs in their beds, possibly sleeping, possibly sneaking reading or headphone time of their own now that Amanda-chores and schoolwork were over.

On the lake, less than a mile away through the woods, there would be loons, Rebecca knew. The night-loons.

How's Crisisland?
Joel typed.

Empty,
Rebecca answered, but didn't like how the word looked. She deleted it, started to type
Serene
instead—which wasn't quite right, either, just closer to right than “empty”—but Joel was faster.

SMACKDOWN??!!

Joel's enthusiasm worked like Jack's wiggling fingers, but was even more powerful, or maybe just more practiced. Or familiar, and therefore comfortable. And yet, what Rebecca typed back was,
How're my girls? How's Amanda?

Tiring. Fine. SMACKDOWN??!!
And then, before Rebecca could respond:
I mean, the girls are tiring. Testing us. Amanda's fine. I guess. Hardly saw her today, as usual. Working hard. Trudi still mostly talks to her socks.

Trudi was the newest Halfmoon House resident, one of the youngest Joel and Amanda had ever decided to bring there, barely ten.

She'll come around. You'll reach her, Joel. You always do.

Hey, R: maybe you could take her out rowing when you come tomorrow? Or—take her Human Curling!

Surprised, Rebecca straightened in her chair, her fingers on the keys. She thought about Amanda. Amanda would most definitely not be encouraging—or allowing—Rebecca to do any such thing with Trudi.

You know Human Curling?
she typed.

I invented Human Curling.

Liar.

Okay, I didn't. But you have to admit, I could have. It's something I would have invented if your man Jack hadn't.

Which was true, Rebecca thought sadly, staring at the screen. Human Curling was exactly the kind of thing Joel would have invented—and played, with everyone—if he'd had time. Or a wife who played with or even enjoyed him. As far as Rebecca had ever seen, Amanda just worked and taught her foster orphans how to survive the hands they'd been dealt and made rules. Like the one about seeing things clearly. Calling them what they were. And so,
not
calling Amanda “Mom” or Joel “Dad.”

Meanwhile, all unbidden, Rebecca's fingers had apparently been typing. And what they'd typed was:
Jack's not my man.

Too slowly, again, she moved to delete. Again, Joel was faster.

A man after my own heart, your Jack. I do like your Jack, by the way. Fine man, your J—

SMACKDOWN!
Rebecca typed, already opening the game site in a new window, calling up a string of letters for them to unscramble, make words from.
READY?

What, for you? I don't have to be ready for you, Rebecca. I barely have to be awake.

Rebecca grinned. Middle-of-the-night Joel. Checking in on his former charges, as he did almost every night, and which he had promised he would never stop doing until and unless he was sure they didn't need him anymore. Talking trash to his computer in the quiet dark of his house. As alone as she was.

Can you feel it?
she typed.
That rush of wind? That's me, surging past you.

You can't win, Rebecca. If you Smack me down, I will become more verbose than you can possibly imagine.

Laughing, she typed her name into the left-hand SMACKER 1 box on the game site, waited for Joel's name to appear next to SMACKER 2. Then the scrambled letters appeared, that awful, thudding cartoon hip-hop beat kicked in, the robot-Smackdown voice said, “
Lay 'em down. SMACK 'EM.
” And they were off. She got three words right off the bat, then a fourth, was typing a fifth, her fingers flying, when she realized her phone was ringing.

The Crisis Center phone. The one on her desk.

Joel, I've got to go,
she typed fast into their chat window, and then closed it. She couldn't have that open, didn't want to risk distraction. He'd see eventually, whenever he looked up. He'd know what had happened.

And anyway, her phone was ringing. First time in weeks.

Rebecca had been working the Center too long to rush or panic. She allowed herself a moment to get centered and comfortable on her chair and in her head. Out of habit, her eyes flicked to the Quick Reference charts pinned to the cubicle walls, with their
ALWAYS DO
and
DO NOT EVER
lists, not that she needed them, or ever had, really.

You're a natural,
Dr. Steffen had told her, the first time she'd left Rebecca alone on a night shift.
The best I've ever seen, at your age.

Switching off her lamp, settling into the dark, Rebecca picked up the receiver. When she spoke, her voice was the professional one she had mastered, had hardly had to practice: neutral, friendly, comforting, and cool. Anonymous. Almost exactly like her regular voice, she thought, then squashed that thought.

“Hello,” she said. “I'm so glad you called. To whom am I speak—”

“But should I?” said the voice on the other end. Sang, really. And then it made a sound.

Whistling? Wind? Was that wind?

Rebecca straightened, found herself resisting simultaneous urges to bolt to her feet and spin to the windows. Run from the room.

What the fuck?

“Should you have called?” Rebecca shushed her thoughts, commanding herself to relax as she leaned into the phone. “Of course you should have. It's great that you called.”

“So it's going to get better,” said the voice.

Was that a question? It hadn't sounded like one. And … shouldn't that have been her line?

One last time, Rebecca glanced at the Crisis chart. Then she turned away from it, relaxed in her chair. She was a natural, born for this if she'd been born for anything. “Starting right now,” she said.

Again came that sound on the other end of the line. Wind or whistling. Then, “I think so, too. Maybe you're right. Maybe it's time.”

“Time?”

“Is it good, do you think? Dying?”

Rebecca pursed her lips, made herself relax her hands on the tabletop. “Where are you?” she asked.

“High. Close.”

To the edge? To her? How would he know where he was calling, and why would she think that?

High, as in on drugs? Or in the air?

“The end. Lonely Street,” the voice whispered.

No. Sang
.

“Is it beautiful there?” Rebecca heard herself say. Then she was staring, astonished, horrified, into the darkened windows, the shadowed summer leaves over Campus Walk. “I'm sorry, that was a really stupid question. What's your—”

“It
is,
actually.” And he sounded surprised, her caller. Small, lonely, and surprised. “You know, it really is beautiful here. Hear it?”

Rebecca clutched the phone, watching the window as though it were a teleprompter that would tell her what the
ALWAYS DO
answer to
that
might be.
Hear what?
Nothing about this conversation was going in the direction it was supposed to.

But she was sure of one thing, or almost sure: this guy wanted to talk more than jump. Or whatever the hell he had been thinking of doing. So that was something. She would talk.

“What makes it beautiful?”

“The roofs,” he said. And he made a whimpering sound.

This time, Rebecca actually lifted the phone from her ear and stared at it. She wondered, briefly, if this were a pop inspection, some new Crisis Center supervision thing Dr. Steffen had invented. Then she decided it didn't matter. Either way, she had a job to do.

“Roofs.” Nodding, though she had no idea at what, she leaned forward on her elbows. “That's fantastic. What about them?”

“How far they are from the ground. The beautiful ground, where my Destiny would have walked with me.” Then he whistled, low and mournful.

It was like a song, almost, less what he said than the way he said it. Sang it.
Was that why she had tears in her eyes?

“Listen. Why don't you tell me your na—”

“And they're all peaked! The roofs are. They have little attic rooms underneath, under the peaks. I just saw a little girl in one, with a night-light. She looked so alone up there in the middle of the night.”

“Yeah, well. Story of my life,” Rebecca murmured—as though she were dreaming—and realized she was blushing.
Jesus Christ, was she
flirting,
now? Maybe she'd better stick to the chart, after all.
“But no one has to be alone. Really. I should know. And I'm here with you.”

For answer, she got footsteps. Her caller, walking across whichever roof he'd picked to climb out onto. Then he whistled again, and went silent. As though …

Abruptly, Rebecca whirled in her chair, banging her knee on the desk as she took in the empty carrels surrounding her, the long, dark Crisis Center room, the linoleum corridor beyond it where the lights hadn't flickered and nothing had moved.

Nothing at all.

On the other end of the phone, she heard neither whistle nor whimper nor breath. Swallowing her panic, keeping it out of her voice, she said, “Are you still there?”

“I think she's gone to bed. Our little girl, in her attic room. All my girls have gone to their beds.” And there was that whimper again. Rebecca was almost certain he was crying, now.

“Except—” she started, but he overrode her.

“Except you
.
”

And suddenly—again—Rebecca had no idea what to say. Also for no reason she could understand, she wanted off of this call. And that made her feel like shit, and also rallied her. This guy wasn't creepy; he was desperate. “You know,” she tried, slow and gentle, “one thing I really have learned, talking to people who phone here: no matter how bad you feel, no matter what you think you've done, it's never too late to—”

“My Destiny killed my Mother.”

Rebecca stopped talking. She sat in the chair and waited. But her caller said nothing more. This was nothing new, she told herself, nothing she hadn't dealt with before. So often, what the callers said didn't make sense. And yet, the sense was there, if you listened. And the sense didn't matter much, anyway. Not at the crisis moment.

And so, when she sensed it was time, she said, “I guess destinies do that to mothers. Sometimes.” She was leaning on her elbows again, pressing the phone against her ear, her mouth to the receiver. It was almost as though her lips were resting right against her caller's ear. Her words didn't even feel like words she would say; they were someone else's words, pouring through her. “At least, that's what I've been told. It's what people told me about mine.”

Then she jerked, twitched her shoulders in alarm.
Never, ever, insert yourself into a Crisis conversation.
DO NOT EVER
rule #2, right there in bold at the top of the chart.