Unprotected (15 page)

“Oh, my God, Amanda, what was that?” Lucy’s eyes were wide. “You know Jake?”

“I did know him five years ago. I can’t believe you know him.” Amanda paused. “Have you been spending time with him?” Jealousy flickered as Amanda wondered when Lucy and Jake could have spent time together, and why Lucy wouldn’t have invited her too. In college, Amanda and Lucy had been inseparable, and any social outing that involved one of them always included the other.

“Will talks about him a lot, and we’ve hung out a few times since graduation. But, Amanda, how do you know him? You’ve never talked about him.”

“Actually, I have. He’s ‘the guy.’” Amanda whispered even though the door was locked, and they were at the end of a long hallway. “The guy I met in the hospital when my mom was really sick.”

Lucy looked at her blankly.

“The guy whose family I lived with all summer? Trix was the mom. Jake was the guy.” Lucy still just stared. “I can’t believe you don’t remember this story. He was kind of a big deal.”

“Of course I remember,” Lucy said, awestruck. “You mean Jake is the one?! The one you lived with? Your
first
?” Lucy whispered the last sentence and completed her transformation to adolescence. “This is like destiny.”

Chapter Eleven

Their staff meeting that Monday morning after Thanksgiving was relatively uneventful until Maddie, the front desk receptionist, poked her head in the door. “One of Patty’s clients is here and said she’s scheduled for a drug test.” Patty worked with many of the drug addicts and alcoholics. She had just had surgery so she was out for at least a month. The rest of the social workers were dividing her duties until she returned.

“Gotta be Amanda’s turn,” Roberta said. “Especially if it’s Roxy.”

Maddie was young, energetic, and unfailingly kind, so she simply nodded and grinned.

“Oh, it’s definitely your turn, rookie.” Leah raised her eyebrows and grinned. “Have fun.”

Amanda worked hard to keep her face neutral. “You mean a urine test?”

“Oh, yes,” Zoe said. “I’ll take you back to get a test kit.” They walked past the front lobby where a very tall, angry woman leaned against the doorway. Zoe patted her arm. “Excuse me, are you Roxy?”

The woman had a few rotting nubs where teeth used to be, and her face was full of healing sores and scars. She had dull blonde hair and amateur tattoos down both arms. “Where’s Patty?” she asked in a voice full of gravel and smoke.

“She’s on a medical leave, so this is Amanda, and she will be doing your test.” Amanda tried to look authoritative in a non-threatening way.

“New girl. Whatever.” Roxy started to follow them, but Zoe said that they would get the test and come back to the front to head to the bathroom. “Patty is working with Roxy on a voluntary child protection case. Roxy was arrested for driving while high on meth, and her kids were in the car. She completed treatment and her kids are back home with her. Patty actually really likes Roxy, but she’s pretty gruff.”

“Super. Just the person I want to follow into a bathroom stall.”

Zoe pulled out a cardboard box and opened the test kit. “You need to fill out this form with her, put these two identifying stickers on the cup, and then give the cup to Roxy. After she fills it, you put the cap on tightly, put a sticker across the top, and seal it in this plastic bag. Put the form and the bag in the box, and add the box to outgoing mail.” Amanda nodded, still working hard not to groan out loud. “And, Amanda, you have to really watch to make sure she hasn’t brought in urine.”

“Brought in urine? How could she …”

“Women can, um, insert a balloon or a plastic vial.” Zoe raised her eyebrows with a grin.

“Oh, my gosh, seriously?”

“Yep. One time Patty was doing a test, and there was a loud plunk and a splash. Patty thought she had pooped or something. But when the woman tried to flush the vial, the toilet plugged and overflowed.”

Back in the lobby, Amanda asked Roxy to follow her back to the restroom, which in their ancient building was actually a row of private bathrooms that were dark, damp, and smelled like a locker room.

“Could I get your information?”

“Want me to just fill it out? Just give it here.” Roxy started to grab the form, but Amanda held tight to it, thinking that she shouldn’t hand it over in case there was some sort of protocol that didn’t allow clients to fill out their own paperwork.

“That’s okay,” Amanda said with a pathetic, nervous laugh that made her cringe. “I’ve got it.”

“Okay, new girl.” Roxy repeated her information and signed and initialed the form. Amanda added the stickers and handed her the cup. “You comin’ in?” Roxy asked with the door half open and her pants unzipped.

Amanda hustled in the door and pulled it closed behind them. Roxy pulled her pants down without any hint of shyness, and sat down. The stall was barely big enough for two people, so Amanda had to press her back against the wall to avoid bumping Roxy’s knees. Roxy reached through her legs and held the cup under her, and then just sat silently.

Trying to avoid eye contact, Amanda also didn’t want to miss it if Roxy attempted to alter the test by dipping the cup in the toilet water. She kept her head down but watched Roxy’s crotch out of the corner of her eye. Roxy stared straight ahead. Still no urine.

A full minute passed in awkward silence as Roxy shifted on the toilet. Finally, Roxy held the cup out to Amanda and said, “I can’t go.”

Keeping her arms at her sides, Amanda said, “Let’s give it another minute.” Amanda did not want to go back into her staff meeting urineless. She turned on the water in the sink. “Maybe the sound of water will help.”

“You think I’m three years old? Jeez!” She stuck the cup back between her legs, strained, and farted loudly. “You wanna get that in a cup too?” Roxy was getting angry.

“Um, no.” Like that required an answer.

Finally there was a slow trickle, and Roxy handed her the warm, wet cup with less than an inch of urine. Roxy pulled up her pants and walked out of the bathroom. Amanda looked in the mirror at her own bright-red cheeks and wide embarrassed eyes. She attempted to package the urine in the way Zoe had explained, and then headed back into the staff meeting, greeted by applause.

“Now you’re really a social worker,” Zoe announced with a grin.

“Fully initiated!”

“Did she fart? Patty says she always farts.”

At that, Amanda finally had to laugh.

“What a bunch of juveniles,” Max said with that presidential grin. “Anyway, Amanda, I’ve got another new case I’d like you to take.” He pulled out a green file and turned to the last section with the casenotes. “Jill just finished this assessment. Do you remember the report about the mom who spanked her three-year-old with a belt and left big red welts on his back?”

“Yep. The one with the infected nose ring?” With so many cases, they often boiled down families to one quick descriptor that stood out.

“That’s her. You up for another new one?”

“Sure.” The mother, Hailey Bell, was twenty-four and had been charged with gross misdemeanor malicious punishment for striking her three-year-old son, Charlie, with a belt numerous times. His preschool teacher discovered the welts when she put her hand on his back and he winced. He wouldn’t say what happened, but allowed them to lift his shirt to reveal at least ten raised, red welts, some of which were scabbed and bloody. The teacher called social services and the police, and Hailey was arrested, booked, and spent the night in jail before she was released on bail the next day.

“She cried through the whole interview,” Jill said. “She was pretty testy with me, but I think she’ll be pretty good to work with. Charlie is at Hailey’s mom’s house, and Hailey is more than willing to leave him there to avoid foster care. She’s coming in at 1:00 today to sign some forms, so Amanda, you can meet her then.”

That afternoon Amanda walked to the other side of the building to Jill’s office. Jill was in her forties and had three hockey-playing teenage boys, so she was always running out the door at the end of the day to drive one of them somewhere. She was also recently divorced, and Leah was reasonably sure that she was in a relationship with a woman, but Jill wasn’t talking.

“Come on in,” she said, snapping her phone closed. “Stevie has a game in Woodbury tonight but forgot his helmet. I told him he needs to track down his dad to bring it up to him because I am working, as my lovely children often forget. It’s hard to get the proper tone of disgust to come across in a text, but a mom can try.”

Amanda couldn’t help scanning her desk for photos of a forty-something woman or girlfriend, but all she had were the requisite hockey pictures. Maddie buzzed Jill to tell her that Hailey was out front.

“I’m going to introduce you,” Jill said, “and then I need to leave. You can use my office if you want.” Amanda nodded, suddenly nervous because she wasn’t prepared to meet with her client by herself.

Amanda also wasn’t prepared for a client like Hailey. She was Amanda’s age and very pretty, with a red hair cut short in a pixie haircut, freckles covering her cheeks and small upturned nose—still puffy but minus the infectious nose ring, and full pink lips. Her beauty was clouded by the shame that almost oozed from her pores.

“Hailey, this is Amanda.”

Hailey shook Amanda’s hand limply and sat in the chair across from her desk, hanging her head. Jill briefed Hailey on the process of ongoing case management, had her sign a few forms, and then left for her son’s game.

Amanda asked Hailey a few questions and started to fill out some additional forms. Hailey wouldn’t look up and answered her questions in a near whisper. After several minutes, Amanda put down her pen.

“Hailey, I just want to get a few things straight. I don’t think you’re a horrible person. I know you love your son. And we are going to get this figured out.”

Hailey looked up at Amanda. “I’m just so sorry.”

“I know you are.”

“Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. I’ll do anything to make it up to him and bring him back home.”

Hailey had done terrible things to her son. Amanda had seen the photos of those bloody welts and could only imagine how her son screamed and cried when she beat him. But Hailey wasn’t a monster. The surprises in this job just never seemed to end.

* * *

That afternoon, the experiential education began.
I’m going to ask for a raise
, Amanda told herself, as she worked her way backwards out of a makeshift igloo. In one day she went from collecting urine to interviewing a devastated mom to making snow forts with teenagers and calling it education. Amanda was shimmying backwards on her belly, trying to stay low so she didn’t cause any more snow to collapse. A bunch of snow slid up inside her jacket onto her bare skin, and she yelped.

“Were you talking in there?” one of the boys asked her. His face was pierced in at least five places, including a ring in his nasal septum, and Amanda constantly had to fight the urge to grab the ring and yank.

“I was wondering why I went back in, leaving my back exposed to the five of you,” Amanda said, plopping down in the snow outside the igloo and tossing a handful of snow in the boys pierced face.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to say stuff like that,” a boy with orange and black hair told her.

“Do you find my negativity offensive, Chad?” There was that sarcasm again. In the two weeks since she and Madge had started their experiential education program, Madge had talked to her several times about her sarcasm, which came across as negativity to troubled kids. Madge reminded her that it was their job to model a positive attitude. She was sure that Madge was questioning why she got stuck with someone like Amanda for this project. Amanda was wondering that herself.

In all fairness to herself, Amanda had to remind Madge that she had been very open to trying many of the projects Madge suggested for their first unit. But when they received fifteen inches of snow in the first week of December, they changed course because Madge insisted on winter survival as their first unit.

“I
hate
doing things in the snow,” Amanda had told her. “I’ll do just about anything but this, especially for our first group.”

“Oh, Amanda, but think of the enthusiasm we can harness if we get out and play in the first snow of the season.” Madge’s eyes always lit up when she talked about experiential education.

“Oh, Madge, but think of how cold we’ll be.”

Madge won, partially because Amanda didn’t have any better ideas. They spent a week reviewing curriculums, and decided on a group igloo-building project. They would each lead a group that had to build an igloo that would hold all the group members. They were given a few tools, but otherwise had to come up with the design on their own.

Her group consisted of five students at risk for failure or expulsion due to truancy and behavior problems. They were all freshmen, fourteen or fifteen years old. Among the five of them, Amanda was aware of seventeen body piercings, although she was only able to visually confirm thirteen.

During her high school years, Amanda had very little contact with peers of this sort. If she hung out with anyone, it was usually her teammates. Since she could only base her expectations on stereotypes, she assumed the kids in her group would be dumb, angry dope heads. There was some truth to this. The three boys were serious dopers, and all of the kids in the group were intensely angry about any number of life issues that had brought them to this point. But the surprise was that none of them were dumb. Even Chad, the boy with the Halloween hair who had achieved straight F’s for the past three years, was much savvier than she had expected. He was the one who recognized the challenge of building a snow structure that could hold the five of them without collapsing on top of them. He didn’t have any ideas about how to prevent the collapse, but he correctly predicted that it would.

Actually there were lots of surprises about these five adolescents. The two girls in her group, Brittany and Katelyn, had been on and off friends for years. Neither of them wanted to do anything in the snow, so they stood on the sidelines for the first week absolutely refusing to touch the snow or any of their snow tools. But when Chad had announced that none of Amanda’s suggestions were going to work, Brittany came to her rescue and had some ideas. Brittany wanted to build a mound of snow, pack it down, and burrow tunnels through the middle. Unfortunately, this was the system they were using when the entire thing collapsed on top of Katelyn and Chad. Amanda went back in for their hand shovels, the realization dawning that she was assigned to this group because she was the new girl and couldn’t say no.