So B. It (7 page)

“Are you going to study home ec at college, like your mom did?” I asked Georgia.

“No, I’m going to major in psych,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“Psychology. What makes people tick.” She tapped her temple twice with her long pointer finger. I loved to watch Georgia’s hands. They were graceful and pale, and when she talked, they moved around her like birds flying. “I either want to be a social worker or maybe a shrink.”

“What
does
make people tick?” I asked.

“Lots of things. A brain is like a watch. Did you ever see inside a watch or an old clock?”

I shook my head.

“My dad showed me once. There are all these moving parts. Gears and cogs and screws
and springs, and they all have to work together perfectly or it won’t keep time right.”

I thought about Bernie saying Mama was like a machine with broken parts. I’d always pictured a washing machine for some reason, but now I imagined Mama with a clock inside her head, one that didn’t keep time.

“Do you think there’s any way to fix somebody’s brain if it’s not working right?” I asked.

“Sometimes,” she said.

“How?” I asked.

“You can see a shrink,” she said.

“What do they do?” I asked.

“Ask questions. Talk about your dreams. I took psychology as my senior elective last year, but truthfully, I don’t remember a lot of it that well. Except the stuff about body language. I think that’s just so fascinating,” she said.

“What’s body language?” I asked her.

“Well, like, see that guy over there, three seats up in the red shirt? See how he’s leaning away from the woman who’s talking to him? He doesn’t like talking to her, and even though he’s not telling her that with words, he’s telling her that with his body. That’s body language.”

I looked at the man and saw that he was kind of leaning away from the woman sitting next to him.

“Maybe she has bad breath,” I said.

Georgia giggled. I liked that I’d made her laugh. “Maybe you should give her a Violet,” I added.

She laughed again.

“Know what this means?” Georgia asked me as she intertwined her fingers and put her arms behind her head.

I shook my head.

“It means you’re a confident person,” she said.

“How come?” I asked.

“I’m not sure—they just say it does. And they also say if you touch your face a lot, especially your lips, when you’re talking to someone, it means you’re attracted to them. Also most people do something weird and obvious when they’re lying. Twitch or blink or cough or something. It’s called a tell.”

“Really? Do I have a tell?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Tell me a lie and I’ll tell you if you do,” she said, looking closely at my face.

“Shirley Temple taught my grandmother how to bake,” I said.

“Really?”
said Georgia, her eyes going wide.

“No, you said I should lie so you could see if I do anything weird,” I said.

“Oh, I forgot to look, I got so interested in your story. I love Shirley Temple movies. Try again.”

“Shirley Temple taught my grandmother how to bake,” I said, looking Georgia right in the eye.

“Well, I didn’t see anything weird, but maybe that’s just because you told it twice, so you got used to it or something.”

I didn’t tell her I’d actually told that lie three times.

Later I would add two things to my “Things I Know About Lying” list—

I tried Bernie at every stop we made after Cheyenne, but the lines stayed down. I was
worried, but I was sure that Bernie was even more worried than me. I knew she was at home in Reno with Mama, but for the first time ever, Bernie didn’t know where I was.
Fly under the radar
, she had said to me all those times, but now I was out there without any radar to fly under.

I showed Georgia the photographs of Hilltop and told her all the things I hoped to find out, and she never once made me feel like I was crazy to want to
know
.

“I’d be just like you,” she said. “I’d want to know everything. I’d have to.”

Y.D.

“I’ve always been like that,” she went on. “Haven’t you noticed how many questions I ask? My father says I’m one of those people who leave no stone unturned.”

Before I’d left Reno, it had seemed to me that the whole world was filled with people who knew exactly who they were, where they were going, and why they were doing what they were doing. I saw them everywhere I went. Walking down the street, standing on corners waiting to cross, mailing letters.
People who knew. Georgia was one of those people too. She knew all those important things about herself that I wanted to know. The difference was, unlike those other people, the ones I envied and maybe even hated a little bit for knowing, I was happy for Georgia. I was glad that she knew.

At every stop Georgia and I got off and on together. The stations blended together after a while. Each time I would try Bernie, and each time Georgia would reassure me that eventually the lines would be back up.

“Just think how happy she’ll be to hear your voice when you finally do get through,” she said.

I had told Georgia about my lucky streak, of course, since I was telling her everything, but there were no slot machines around for me to prove it to her. It’s not that she didn’t believe me—she said she did—but I still wanted to show her. Finally in a bus station in Des Moines, I figured out a way to do it.

“Stand over here and don’t say anything,” I told her. “Just watch.”

I looked around the station for a minute
until found what I was looking for, sitting on a bench near the rest rooms, then I headed over to the newsstand.

“Two Quickscratch lottery tickets, please,” I said.

“Little young for gambling, ain’t you, half-pint?” the man said. “I can’t sell you tickets, you know.”

“Oh, these aren’t for me, sir. My mother asked me to do it for her. She says I’m luckier than her. She’s over there on the bench near the door. See?” I pointed to a woman sitting on a far-off bench by the rest rooms, busily digging around in her handbag.

“It’s okay for you to sell me tickets, so long as I’ve got an adult with me, right? She’s with me; she’s just over there looking for her glasses. She always loses them,” I said. “I tell her she should get one of those chains to hang them around her neck, but she always forgets to do it. Mama! Yoo-hoo! Mama!” I called over in her direction.

The woman kept pawing through her bag and didn’t look up when I called.

“She can’t hear when she’s not wearing her
glasses,” I explained (something Bernie had once pointed out had been true of her father). “Isn’t that weird?”

“Uh-huh. Okay,” he said, taking a last look at the woman on the bench before handing me two tickets.

I paid him and then used my fingernail to scratch off the silver squares over the numbers on the tickets. I won seven bucks on the first one and three on the second. He looked a little surprised.

“Look, Mama!” I called out as I waved the ten-dollar bill he handed me in the air. “We won!”

Georgia was very impressed. I treated us both to hamburgers, milk shakes, and fries with the ten dollars I won. I knew that Bernie considered that junk food, but I had a feeling she would forgive me. For the first time since I’d left Reno, I actually felt full.

“Do you think I’ll make a good shrink?” Georgia asked me as we pulled out of Des Moines and got back on the highway. “Frank says he thinks I’m too high-strung for it.”

I pictured a clothesline hanging way up high with long johns and nightgowns and Georgia hung up by the shoulders with clothespins, her long skinny legs swinging back and forth in the breeze.

“Who’s Frank?” I asked.

“Frank Gregory. He’s just a boy I like,” she said.

I had one of my jealous pangs.

“Frank is wrong. You’ll be a perfect shrink,” I told her.

We talked awhile longer, and then Georgia dozed off.

I took out my notebook and turned to a blank page to start a new list I’d been thinking about making.

Things I
know About Georgia
Sweet

I left a lot of extra space after
likes
and
dislikes
, because I knew the more Georgia and I talked, the more there would be to add to the list. I wished she would wake up so that I could find out what her favorite book was, and whether she liked Devil Dogs as much as I did. She stirred and I turned to look at her. The notebook fell off my lap, and when I leaned down to pick it up off the floor, it had flopped open to a page near the front of the book, to an old list with only one entry under the heading.

Thing
s I know About M
ama

Name: So B. It

How was it that I knew so much more about Georgia, a person I had only known for a day, than I did about my own mother? Bernie had told me to find someone who could be my mother. Someone who was safe. Sitting there beside Georgia, seeing her long arms crossed over her chest as she slept, I knew I had found the right person, but was
she like a mother? And when I really thought about it, was Mama?

On the fourth day of my trip we reached New York City. I was excited. I knew I was almost there, almost to Liberty. But I was scared. I had not spoken to Bernie since Wyoming, and now I would be losing Georgia, too. I wished she was coming with me.

“I hope you find
soof
,” Georgia told me as we got off the bus. “And your grammy. And everything.”

Georgia didn’t have to catch another bus, so she walked with me through the giant station, up the escalators and over to the ShortLine gates, where I would catch my bus to Liberty. The Port Authority bus station was very crowded compared to everywhere else we’d stopped. There were stores and sit-down restaurants and even a bowling alley. I had tried Bernie from a phone booth but with no luck. Georgia stopped to buy a package of Violets at the newsstand. While she stood in line to pay, I wandered over to watch a Japanese man who was sitting on a stool playing beautiful, sad music on an instrument with one
long string. As I stood there listening, I felt a sharp tug on my knapsack, but when I turned around nobody was there.

At the gate Georgia helped me choose my next “mother,” a friendly woman named DeeDee Monroe. I got her chatting about the weather without much effort, and as we got on together, I turned and waved a last good-bye to Georgia.

“Who’s that?” DeeDee asked me.

“My sister,” I told her, and this time I knew I was lying because the truth was too hard to admit. A sister is someone you will always know, no matter what happens.

“Oh sure ’nuf,” she said. “I can see the resemblance.”

It was a gray day and it was dark on the bus. I turned on the little light over my seat, which sent a focused beam of buttery glow down into my lap. I opened the front pocket of my backpack, took out the packet of photos from Hilltop, and went through them one by one. All the faces were familiar by now. Strangers and at the same time not. When I came to the picture I’d torn in half, which
Bernie and I had later taped back together, I stopped. I set it on the top of the stack and stared at it for a while. Then I closed my eyes and tried to picture the smiling blond woman in the red sweater.

“Hello, Grammy,” I said out loud.

And I imagined her voice answering me, clear and bright and strong—

“Hello, Heidi. What on earth took you so long?”

The bus to Liberty took a total of two and a half hours, which meant I would get there around three o’clock in the afternoon. I sat very still in my seat the whole time, as though moving around might cause the fear inside me to spark and ignite. I imagined a huge hand pressing down on my anxiety, keeping it inside like the springy clown head of a jack-in-the-box.

DeeDee didn’t seem to mind my being quiet. She was busy knitting a long scarf for her nephew, who lived up in Albany where, she told me, winters are so cold thoughts freeze solid in your brain before you even have time to think them.

We made only one stop between New York City and Liberty. Monticello, where I would
change buses for the last time. I was hungry, so I found a stand selling hot pretzels and lemonade, waited in line, and ordered two pretzels and a small drink. When I went to pay, I discovered that the little side pocket of my knapsack was empty. My money was gone.

I found a phone and tried Bernie once more.

“Please,” I whispered, “please be there.”

But the call did not go through.

I felt panicky and sick to my stomach again. Bernie and Mama and Georgia—all gone, and now my luck had deserted me too. Why hadn’t I listened to Bernie when she had said to wait until I was older?

There was nothing to do but to get back on the bus and hope that somehow something would happen between there and Liberty to change things. I gathered what wits I had left and chose a new “mother,” Nancy. She was carrying a thick book with a bookmark stuck in about halfway through and she wore glasses on a chain around her neck. She didn’t say much as we got on the bus together, but she had a batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies
with her that she shared with me once we sat down. I ate one, but my stomach was too queasy to handle more. What would I do if I reached Liberty and still couldn’t get through to Bernie? It seemed as though my luck had disappeared right out from under me when I needed it most. I thought about asking Nancy for money, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I wanted Bernie. I wanted to be myself again. Lucky and happy and home.

Twenty minutes later the driver announced—

“Liberty! This stop is Liberty!”

My hands were shaking and my heart pounded in my throat as I stepped off the bus. As I pulled my little suitcase out of the baggage compartment and set it down on the sidewalk, it began to rain. The driver hitched up his pants and, without looking back, climbed on board. The door swung closed and he drove off, turning the corner and disappearing from sight.

The Liberty bus stop was no more than a bent metal signpost sticking out of a cracked square of rough sidewalk. There was no building or shelter. Within a minute everyone else
who had gotten off the bus was gone, picked up by smiling people who had been standing there waiting for them. As I stood alone on the main street of Liberty, New York, the wind blew right through me like I wasn’t even there. Faded American flags hung from the streetlamps along with torn bits of tinsel garland left over from old Christmas decorations.

There was a grimy pay phone bolted to the wall of a grocery store with boarded-up windows. I called Bernadette. I wasn’t hopeful, but I didn’t know what else to do.

“Collect call from Heidi,” I said softly.

And this time the call went through.

“Heidi! Oh thank God, Heidi.” Bernie started crying. “Where are you? Are you okay? I’ve been scared out of my wits,” she sobbed. “Oh, Heidi. Heidi.”

I knew I should tell her that I was fine, and that I had made it to Liberty in one piece, but the moment I heard her voice, I fell apart. The knot that had begun to form in my stomach way back in Cheyenne when the lines had first gone down, and had turned knuckle-white hard after I’d discovered my money had been stolen, began
to uncurl, and as it loosened, everything I had been holding back rushed to the surface. I stood there with my little suitcase clamped between my legs, bawling into the phone. I came completely unglued—no words, just sobs, and on the other end Bernadette was crying and at the same time trying to soothe me with her sounds.

“Baby, baby, shh-shh-shh…”

I clutched the phone, weeping inconsolably.

“Heidi,” Bernadette said when at last we’d both managed to calm down a little, “has somebody hurt you? Are you hurt, baby?”

“No, Bernie. Nobody hurt me, but—”

More tears.

“Tell me what’s the matter, Heidi,” Bernadette said. “Tell me what’s happened.”

I sniffed and coughed and sniffed again.

“Nothing’s happened. I’m here, Bernie. I’m in Liberty. But it’s not how I thought it would be. It’s all
different
.”

“Different how?” she asked.

“Like something’s ending instead of beginning,” I said.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“On the bus I felt like I was going somewhere. But now that I’m here, it feels like I’m nowhere. Nobody even knows I’m here.”

“That’s not true, Heidi. I know you’re there,” Bernie said. “Thank God I know where you are again. And I’m looking at the exact spot on the map where you’re standing right now. Li-ber-ty. Why, I can practically see you. In fact, I’m waving at you. Don’t you see me? I’m the worried one in the pink housecoat who hasn’t slept in two nights.”

I laughed a little—I couldn’t help myself. It was so good to have her back.

“That’s my girl,” Bernie said. “You have no idea how frantic I’ve been about you, baby, but without a phone I couldn’t even call the police. I don’t want to tell you the horrible things I imagined. Oh God, Heidi, if anybody has hurt you, I’ll never forgive myself.”

“Nobody hurt me, Bernie. But somebody stole all my money. I don’t have the cab fare anymore.”

“We’ll fix that. It’s not important,” she said. “Don’t you worry, baby. I can get money to you somehow.”

I heard Mama in the background calling for Bernie. She sounded upset. More than just rimply.

“What’s wrong with Mama?” I asked.

“She’s been having a time of it, poor thing,” Bernie said.

“What kind of a time?” I asked, suddenly on edge. “Mama’s okay, isn’t she?”

“Yes, baby, but her headaches have been really bad,” Bernie said.

Mama was yelling now.

“Dette! Dette!”

“I’m sorry,” Bernadette said. “I don’t know what to do. I should go to her before she hurts herself. She needs me, Heidi.”

“I need you too,” I whispered. But Mama was yelling louder by then and I don’t think Bernie heard what I said.

“Call me back in ten minutes,” she said. “I’ll try to calm her down. We’ll talk about the money and figure something out,” she told me. “I’ve got to go now. I’m sorry.”

“What if I can’t reach you again?” I said anxiously, but she was already gone.

I hung up the phone and wiped my nose on
the rolled-up sleeve of my red sweater. It no longer smelled of Bernie and home. I wanted to stand there and wait the ten minutes before calling her back, but what had begun as a light drizzle was fast becoming a rainstorm. My jeans were soaked through already, sticking to my skin, and my hair was dripping wet. It was much colder here than it had been in Reno. I looked around but didn’t see the taxi place anywhere, and there was nobody out on the street to ask. The town seemed deserted. Empty. There was a flash of lightning and a loud thunderclap. I shivered and pulled my hands up inside my sleeves. Seeing a little magazine store with a light on across the street, I picked up my suitcase and hurried across to it.

The man behind the counter was reading a paper. He looked up when I came in, pushed his glasses up onto his bald head, and waited.

“Can you tell me where ABC Cab is?” I asked.

“Two doors down,” he grunted, nodding his head just hard enough to knock his glasses down onto his nose.

I went back outside. Another flash of lightning split the sky, followed by a boom of thunder so loud, it rattled the windows behind me. Rain was coming down hard and fast at an angle, and I had to jump over several large puddles to get to the tiny little storefront two doors down with a faded cardboard sign in the window I hadn’t noticed before. ABC CAB.

“How much to Hilltop Home?” I said, shutting the door behind me and wiping the water off my face with my wet sleeve.

“Hilltop?” the man behind the counter said, giving me a slow, long look. “I thought that place was closed down.”

“It’s not,” I said.

“If you say so. It’s quite a ways from here though. Cost you fifteen.”

I knew that already, of course, but I was stalling for time. I was supposed to call Bernie back in a few minutes. Maybe if I called her from here, she would be able to talk the man into driving me up to Hilltop for free somehow. I looked around for a phone, and that was when I noticed the jelly-bean jar on the counter filled with ancient candy, faded and
crackled. The sign taped to the side of the jar said, GUESS HOW MANY—WIN THE BEANS, PLUS A FREE RIDE!

“Can I hold the jar?” I asked the man.

He jerked his head toward it as a way of saying okay. “Feeling lucky?” he asked.

Was I? When I’d played the slots in Reno and bought the lottery ticket with Georgia, I hadn’t
felt
lucky. Luck didn’t
feel
like anything; it was just there. Like air. Then when the phone lines had gone down and I couldn’t reach Bernie and my money had been stolen, I felt like my luck had deserted me. Left. I could feel its absence, like when you lose a tooth and there’s an empty space there that you can’t help touching with your tongue because it feels so strange.

The man watched me as I picked up the jar and turned it slowly all the way around. All the colors in the rainbow, just like Mama’s shoe box full of crayons. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Suddenly I was home, sitting in the kitchen having “school” with Bernie. Books and papers lay on the table in front of us.

“Blue!” shouted Mama happily from the other room.

“You go, Picasso!” Bernie called out to her. Then she turned to me and smiled.

You go, Picasso!

“One thousand, five hundred twenty-seven,” I said.

When I opened my eyes, the man was staring at me. “That your guess?” he asked.

I nodded, and he opened the cash register drawer and pulled a little piece of cardboard out from under the money tray. His jaw dropped. He looked at it carefully, as though he couldn’t believe his own eyes, and then handed it across the counter to me. The number I’d guessed was written there in small black handwriting.

“I’ll be a son of a—How in blazes did you do that?”

I smiled. Turns out my luck hadn’t deserted me after all. I stood there with that big jar of jelly beans in my arms, thinking just because you can’t feel something doesn’t mean it’s not there.

“Can you take me to Hilltop?” I asked.

The man shook his head and clucked his tongue.

“Like I said, I thought the place was closed down, but hey, it’s up to you where you wanna go. You won the ride fair and square. Ha, fair—
fare
—get it? My shift’s done anyways. I’ll take you up myself.”

The “cab,” an old dented station wagon, its back bumper tied on with rope, was parked in the lot across the street near where the bus had let me off. I got in the back with my suitcase, backpack, and the jar of jelly beans. I was supposed to call Bernie back, but it was still raining hard and I decided it would be better to get up to Hilltop first and to call her from there.

“Somebody ’specting you up there, are they?” the man asked as he started up the engine and set the wipers on high speed. “’Cause this free ride ain’t a round trip, just so’s you know. I hope they’re waiting with a big towel to dry you off with.” He chuckled, looking at me in the rearview mirror.

I looked out the window and caught sight of a young girl standing in the rain, her long
tangled wet hair framing a narrow, serious face. For a split second I wondered who she was and what she was doing out there all alone, and then our mouths fell open at the same time as I realized I was looking at myself reflected in the window glass. She was me, Heidi It.