At breakfast Guy reminded me we were invited over to his research assistant, Brian Metcalf’s place for supper, but I barely registered the information. My mind was stuck on Earl Rafferty and Birdie and my meltdown in the social worker’s office.
How things can change so drastically in fifteen years.
This was my life now. Friendly but casual dinner parties, reading the papers in bed on Sunday, a bowl of fresh fruit balanced on my lap and fresh-ground coffee steaming on the night table beside me.
My thoughts drifted to Brian’s place, and I imagined a quaint one and a half story craft style bungalow complete with Dad, Mom, new baby in eco-friendly hemp or bamboo cloth diapers. A front garden filled with lavender bushes and Spot the dog prancing around like a trusted old friend. No snarling pit bulls or hissing feral cats ready to carve your eyes out if you messed with their territory.
I knew I’d have to get to the mall at some point that day to calm myself down, but there was no need to dress up in a fancy new outfit, with the likelihood of a rancid stream of baby vomit on the shoulder. Instead I’d scour the stores for lovely baby gifts. Guy beamed at the mention of it. He tossed the rest of his coffee back, leaned over and stroked my hair.
“Maybe it’ll give you some ideas,” he said.
The sun broke through a cloud and lit up the kitchen. “Meaning?”
He shrugged. “You know, baby stuff. The maternal instinct.”
My mind went numb. Like cold water had trickled into my head. I shrugged. “Maybe.”
“No pressure,” he said, backing off. I wanted to hug him for his sensitivity, but I dug my nails into my palms instead. He stood up. “See you back here at five. I’ll get the wine.”
“Thanks,” I said, my voice husky with the tide of emotion I was holding in check. He was so good to me and so good for me. I didn’t deserve him and all the loveliness he’d brought to my life. The sun on his hair, the gleam of the orange juice jug, the velvet mounds of peaches in the bowl. All now so familiar to me, I could’ve burst out in song right then. Instead I reached up and caught his fingers, traced the smooth edge of the wedding ring, took in the calm contours of his mouth.
“See you at five,” I said, relishing the certainty of it.
At school I went to see Robin again. Asked him what was being done about Carla and Rafferty and the whole sickening mess. He shook his head and gave me a bloodshot, mournful look.
“I’ve talked to the cops, Anna. They assured me they’re looking into it. Seems they’ve had their eyes on this sleaze, Rafferty, for a long time now, but they can’t get anything concrete on him. Every time they get close enough to flush him out of his rat hole, all their witnesses clam up. He’s got too many friends in high places. Probably has so much on them, they won’t spill a thing.”
I studied the crêpey pouches under his eyes, the thinning strands of hair plastered across his crown, the frayed collar on his faded plaid shirt. Maybe I could pick up a couple of new shirts for him. Get him a haircut. Spruce him up a bit then the cops would take him more seriously. I’d learned long ago that appearances count for a lot in our screwed-up society.
He shook his head, scratched at his wrinkled ear. A tide of sympathy washed over me. After all these years of dedication he deserved to be sitting on some California beach soaking up the sun for this last chapter of his life. Every ounce of his energy had been drained trying to fix a corrupt, screwed-up system.
“I wish I could do more, but I’m only one voice in the grand scheme of things and I’m afraid it carries very little weight. So I offer a Band-Aid to a bleeding system. If I save only a few kids I’m happy. I’ve done my bit.”
I left his office so agitated I almost forgot how to get to the exit doors. Then I reached my car without even realizing how I got there. Thoughts cranked through my head like an endless film reel. Nothing was being done about Rafferty, which meant I had to do something. And besides, I’d made a promise years back. At night on a bridge – streetlamps throwing cones of light onto the sidewalk, river foaming beneath me, freeway traffic roaring by in the background, the concrete trembling underneath my feet. I’d be the one to take Rafferty and all his cronies down. God only knew how I’d do it, but I would.
For Birdie. For my twin sister. Who’d vanished from the face of the earth.
I’d screw them all over and destroy their miserable lives.
I didn’t shower for weeks after I went back to the Flatts’ place. I woke up in that beige bedroom with the two single beds, my head foggy from the drugs they’d given me to calm me down. I lay there looking at Birdie’s empty bed, its poster of Zac Efron tacked above the headboard, and realized how she’d felt all those days she was a drugged-up prisoner in this same room, while I went off to school and flirted with Colby. Guilt stabbed at my gut and I curled into a ball until the pain subsided.
The stink of leftover Chinese takeout and boiled hot dogs seeped through the space under the door and the spiderweb of cracks spread across the ceiling like a living fungus. I squeezed my eyes shut. Rules didn’t count in that house. Expect the unexpected at all times. The Flatts were opportunistic beasts disguised in sagging bodies, who’d successfully fooled the authorities into believing they actually cared about the lives of vulnerable children.
I squirmed onto my stomach and pressed my face into the pillow, vowing that Lester would never touch me like he touched Birdie. The only way I could be sure was to become so unkempt – so disgusting he’d steer clear away from me.
As it happened, I needn’t have worried. Their crack buddies, Tray and Anita, had become regulars at the house, so Lester was occupied in a downward slide towards addiction. Hence the urgency that I return to the family fold to help fund his growing habit.
At first I missed a few days of school. My brain was so blurred from the drugs they fed me, recommended by the helpful social workers who’d managed to check off another prickly client from their caseload. I didn’t speak. Just shuffled around in my hoodie and showed up at the kitchen table. Patti, now thin, courtesy of her cranked-up meth-fueled metabolism, usually slid a plate of burnt macaroni and chopped wieners towards me.
Her stained yellow fingers twirled a lock of her stringy hair. “Eat – don’t want you wasting away. Myself, I’m not hungry,” she said, placing her hands on her hips so I’d notice her skinny waistline. “But I wanna say, I’m glad to see you back on your own. Your sister was one big mess of trouble.”
I nodded and tried to eat. It was easier just to go along with her.
Lester and Patti fought a lot more. Seemed he wasn’t getting so many shifts at the mall. Not surprising considering the way his hand shook when he handled his revolver. No doubt some paunchy supervisor got panicked imagining the aftermath of a mass shooting at the mall. Emergency workers bagging up innocent victims, the whirling lights of cop cars and ambulances flashing in his eyes and some blonde news anchor shoving a microphone into his face while he blubbered to the cameras that he’d always thought Lester was a decent family man until he got into the drugs.
Lester screamed that his fucking boss had always been on his ass only now it was way worse and Patti should get a fucking job instead. See if she could handle the day in and day out of it. She yelled back that if she was out of the house he’d be shooting up from morning till night instead of waiting till after six.
“What difference does it make when I shoot up? I’m gonna do it anyway,” he said.
But when he suggested getting another foster kid I almost threw up my noodles. Patti was surprisingly astute for once and soon put him straight that they’d never qualify for a new kid. They only got me back because nobody knew what to do with me.
At night Tray and Anita showed up, more decrepit than ever, their faces pocked with sores, their eyes vacant and bloodshot. They’d graduated to shooting up rather than smoking. Lester and Patti were headed the same way but hadn’t registered that they too would be walking skeletons if they kept up with the junk.
When Lester wasn’t working they slept most of the day, so I usually smoked up a bit of their spare weed to prime myself for the outside world. Then I let myself out to go to school. I’d given up socializing there. Just soaked in all the lessons, did my homework in the library and if any do-gooder teacher tried to collar me and get me to open up about my problems I gave him or her the evil eye, pulled my hood over my head and clammed up. I got good grades so they all backed off eventually after three minutes of silence. Besides I probably stunk of days’ old sweat and in those heated, stuffy offices the stench soon spread like a pestilence.
After school some days I found my way to Birdie’s apartment to watch the comings and goings from behind a cedar bush on the opposite side of the street. I wanted to see if she was showing yet – make sure she was safe and maybe even catch the sugar daddy creep who’d screwed up her reasoning until she couldn’t think straight. Sometimes I brought a book with me.
One hot May afternoon when the sky was so blue I wanted to fly right up among the clouds, I cut school early and went to Birdie’s.
I was sprawled out on my hoodie in the clearing behind the cedar bush reading Zola’s L’Assommoir. I was totally blown away that someone in another country, living in a distant century, could capture the abject misery and squalor that addiction brings. I threw myself, full tilt, into a Zola phase. I vowed to work my way through every book he’d written. They made me feel I wasn’t alone in my misery. That other human beings had lived lives of endless suffering and Zola recorded it all in graphic detail.
A car pulled up and stopped outside the block. I flipped the book shut and craned my neck to see. I’d already watched a stream of people come and go but I had a gut feeling this one was for Birdie. Something about the way the car, a prowling BMW with tinted windows, purred to a gradual stop then sat there, its motor throbbing like a heartbeat. When the door finally swung open, a man with sleek reddish-brown hair, shiny cheeks and wearing a sharp navy suit hoisted himself out. He straightened his shoulders, adjusted his shades and checked around him like he didn’t want to be seen in that dumpy street.
He slammed the door shut and with a quick glance both ways, hopped up the steps and pressed the buzzer. The pink curtains on Birdie’s window parted for a moment revealing the pale flash of her face. Bingo, this was my guy. I heard the faint twitter of her voice over the intercom and then he was inside. My cue to check the car out and maybe key its brilliant black flanks. Carve out in crooked letters, I am a sick pedophile. My hand itched to get started.
I waited a few moments then picked up my hoodie, now dusted with dry grass and leaves. The air was stifling, heat shimmered like a curtain. But I still pulled my arms into the sleeves and flipped the hood over my curls, then shoved my hands into the pockets to touch the rough edge of my locker key. Sidling up to the car, I checked out the street. It was quiet enough. The busy cross street was way up ahead and late afternoon traffic din would drown out the screech of my key on the paintwork. I placed both hands on the smooth flank of the car, still warm from the journey across town. He must’ve really gunned it in his haste to get to his naughty little schoolgirl, led by the forbidden urges that scrambled his brain and coursed like a fever through his flabby, middle-aged body.
The key was out in the open now, its sharp edges poised above the slick shellac of the paintwork. I breathed deeply, almost afraid to defile its beauty. After all, I too lusted after something this gorgeous. I rubbed the sharp tip on the rear panel just enough to hear a scraping sound so high-pitched my teeth ached. A sudden swish made me jump backwards and shove the key back in my pocket.
“What do you think you’re doing?” said a clear young voice from the passenger window. “I’m calling the cops.”
I spun round, prepared to escape down the street and over the bridge when the door snapped open.
“I saw you,” said the voice. “I’ll call my dad. He’ll report you. You’ll go to jail.”
I was looking at a tall young guy about my age – wearing a navy school blazer with a crest. A rich snob with rosy hairless cheeks and a snow-white shirt. Did he know what his creep of a father was up to? What fake line had he given this kid to get him to wait like an idiot in the car?
“Your dad is a freakin’ john who diddles underage girls,” I screamed from the other side of the street. “Tell that to the cops.”
His face fell. The hand holding the cell phone dropped to his side. “Say what? Come back and say that to my face,” he screamed, his new man’s voice cracking into a girlish shriek. I glanced upwards to see the pink curtains shift and his father’s face look out onto the street. Who’d harassed his precious, shiny son? But I’d disturbed his sleazy session with Birdie and I hoped to hell he wouldn’t take it out on her.
“I said come back,” the boy shrieked again. So I gave him the finger and ran down the street, my hair flying out behind me, my body drenched with sweat under the hoodie. Away from that car and away from the poor little rich kid with the sicko dad.