We always dressed up for our school grad. Just the same as if we were teachers in some ivy-covered prep school in the suburbs. Robin dutifully trotted out his one and only suit, a navy, double-breasted, pinstriped number with shiny, bare patches under the arms. Probably a genuine vintage piece straight from the streets of sixties Carnaby Street in swinging London. From before his beach bum hippie phase. Everyone else did their best.
I’d shopped long and hard for my dress. Spent nights at the mall trying to calm the turmoil inside me. Walked around sucking in the fruity, tropical scent that reminded me of everything clean and safe. That’s how I’d felt as a kid. Sloping around the polished hallways in my hoodie, chewing on my hair, breathing in the aroma of clean and happy and bright things. The scent of possibility, of what I could be if I just kept my head down and pushed forward. If I could graduate then I’d have the key to all the glittering secrets the mall promised me.
That’s what I hoped for Dane and Carla. Dane would actually graduate from my class along with Hailey who’d been accepted into a nurses’ aide program, Clarence who’d start auto mechanics at the local tech college and Viola who’d already applied to become a cop. I’d convinced Dane to check out some graphic design schools and he was floored when he heard back from a couple.
I found the perfect dress after four hours of wandering. Just right for afternoon tea. Acceptable at even the swankiest college prep school. A fifties-inspired flared white cotton skirt printed with brilliant blue cornflowers, topped with a white, glazed cotton shirt, with starched wing collar and three-quarter sleeves – all tied together nicely with an indigo cotton sash. I scraped my hair into an Audrey Hepburn pleat, slipped on some pearl earrings, applied a final slick of scarlet lipstick and twirled around in front of the mirror. The tulle petticoat rustled and crackled underneath the cotton glaze. I felt beautiful. I’d achieved success in my job and I had a beautiful, safe home. A wonderful, gentle man loved me and I loved him back in my own limited way. My heart swelled with joy.
If only it could always be this way, but it wouldn’t. Birdie was always there in the background. The memory of her needling at me like an itch that couldn’t be scratched. The vengeance still to be exacted thrumming like a discord in the harmony of my new life.
“You’re a vision,” said Guy sweeping into the room. “Did you ever consider a modeling career?”
I snapped out of my dream. Adoration burned in his eyes. I could barely look at him.
“You could say I was a late bloomer.”
It was a crevice, a crack in the armor, enough to entice him. He caught my hand and kissed it. “Tell me what you were like as a kid. I want to know. Did you have a dumb hairdo or zits on your chin?”
The drawbridge clanged shut. All entries barred. “There’s nothing to talk about,” I said, turning away. “It’s all in the past now.”
He touched the stiff points of my collar, a playful smile on his face. “You know I’m a patient guy, Anna. I’ll wait and whenever you’re ready you’ll tell me.”
I wondered what I’d ever done to find someone like Guy. Then I remembered. I’d made it my business to find him. Why pretend to myself I hadn’t? It was time to be honest with myself. To quit the lying and self-deception.
“You’re a good man,” I said, kissing him on the lips. “A good guy. Guy.”
He caught me around the waist. “I always feel so happy around you. So complete. Something about you is so real, so familiar. As if we’ve met in another life.”
“Don’t get all cheesy on me,” I said, looking at my reflection in the mirror next to his. If only he knew.
We had met in another life.
On a day when two very different lives collided on a street. Me tracing the sharp edge of a key with a nicotine-stained finger, the stink of days’ old sweat on my clothes. Him standing by a gleaming BMW, shiny hair and clear skin like a young prince. The look of panic in his eyes. Tell me what you said, he screamed as I ran down the alley, away from the scene of my sister’s undoing.
“Maybe we did,” I said, wiping the smudge of lipstick from the corner of his mouth. He smelled like lemon and shaving soap. I could have lapped my tongue into the crevices of his neck. He was mine. All mine now. What would his father say if he knew? It would tear him up inside. Make him sweat a little at the thought of someone so close knowing all his dirty secrets. But I caught sight of the time and remembered Robin’s obsession with punctuality. “Gotta go. It’s grad day.”
“Dinner tonight. Somewhere special,” he said, catching me around my waist.
“A rare steak and some blood-red wine by candlelight,” I whispered.
He kissed behind my ear. “Then I’ll bare my neck to you, my favorite, sexy vampire.”
“Promise? You know I’ll suck you dry,” I said, tearing myself away to grab my purse. My face was so flushed I’d need a full blast of air conditioning to settle down.
Robin had invited a group of local musicians to the ceremony. They played a folksy version of ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ as the graduates filed in. Scented candles burned on the front table next to bowls of bright yellow daisies. We sat in a circle in the multi-purpose room, my skirt rustling with the slight trickle of air conditioning that blew from the aged wall units. The light tinkle of the tambourine and the heady, floral scent of candle smoke made my heart ache. For some strange reason they reminded me of my mother. For the woman I’d never known. When she was young and hopeful and full of life.
I wished I could have seen her then, but I rarely touched that hollow place, barely thought of the shadowy figure that was always out of reach, closing a door before I got to it, turning a corner when I was too far behind. I’d never know when and why she lost her way. But then the sounds and scents lulled me into a daydream and I found myself slipping back in time again to think about another graduation day. My own high school grad.
After the explosion at the Flatts’ place, the medics rushed me to hospital. Social workers, doctors and nurses flitted in and out of my room, discussing, conferring, trying to figure out why on earth I’d landed back at a known meth house.
I was malnourished, anemic, and I had a raging chest infection. I was also suffering withdrawals from a whole smorg of drugs. I lay in that cool, white bed and willed myself back to health. My body was so weak they had to feed me an iron-rich diet and pump me full of vitamins and antibiotics.
When I left that place, I was physically healthy but my mind was still a nest of dark, angry confusion. I could barely focus long enough on a thought to sort out what was real from what I’d imagined. Enter Rachel Levine. The first human being, after Dennis, to show me love, patience and real kindness.
Dealing with me at sixteen was like approaching a snarling dog. Stay back, hold out a hand, let the creature come to you. Don’t impose yourself. Wait till she’s ready. And Rachel waited. Sweet-faced, soft-voiced and firm. Always there. Just like Guy and Dennis – at the beginning.
I enjoyed two blissful years with the Levines. Their home became an oasis of calm. Birdie had disappeared from my life, sucked back into that nightmare world I’d narrowly escaped. I was free to concentrate on my studies, graduate with honors, win a bunch of scholarships and buy a sky-blue tulle prom dress. I’d finally let Rachel take me to a hairdresser, who struggled to get a comb through my tangled hair, then gave up and promptly cut it into a pretty, face-framing bob. After that I’d shrugged the hoodie off and emerged from my chrysalis to also discover it was okay to be pretty, to show my face and be proud, now the perverts and predators had been banished to the margins of my new middle-class life.
I didn’t think about Birdie again until my high-school grad.
Rachel and her husband were in the audience. I smiled at them as I crossed the stage, palms sweating, teetering on heels too high for comfort. I grasped that diploma like a talisman, beaming when Rachel pressed a bouquet of roses into my arms then steered me into the common room among the dizzy swarm of eighteen-year-olds feasting on party sandwiches, dainties and fruit punch. Hugs from school friends, breathless promises to stay in touch and plans for the summer made my grad day feel almost normal. Until I thought I glimpsed Birdie.
Outside the window.
A flash of denim and skimpy crop top. Bleached hair and hollow eyes, pushing a stroller. Inside a baby sucked on blue Kool-Aid from a bottle. She stopped and stared at me. Her eyes bloodshot, her mouth slack and drooling. I blinked and she was gone. Dropping my plate on the floor, I ran over to the window, placed my palms flat against the glass and searched for a sign. A plastic soother. Wheel marks in the dirt. Nothing.
“You okay?” said Rachel, taking my arm.
“It was her. I saw her.”
“You mean Birdie?”
I nodded. Rachel’s face was calm. Her voice soft enough to quiet every raging demon inside me.
“It’s natural that you’d want to see her here. To be proud of you today.”
I accepted her explanation and let her soft arm wrap around my shoulders to guide me back to the coffee table.
I told myself I must have imagined it.
I’ve often lied. Stretched the truth. Made things up. I’ve done it a whole lot of times. Like telling the cops it was Patti that told Lester to shake it, don’t drop it. Not me.
I didn’t think of Birdie again until my first year in college. I still went to the mall then, but to buy things rather than find shelter. I’d discovered guys. Found that I could actually be attractive if I dressed up and made an effort. Their sudden attention was a revelation to me after years of hiding behind a hoodie.
In my first year I went on the pill and slept with three or four guys. All of them had money. I made them buy me stuff. Drinks, food, college T-shirts, school binders with gold crests, writers’ journals with gorgeous covers – and books. So many books. I impressed them with my reading list. Burroughs, Proust, Wallace, Melville, Munro, Atwood. I read them all. Even tried to discuss them, but none of them held a candle to Colby who, for some reason never made it to college. I heard from one of our ex-high school buddies that he’d taken a carpentry course at some community college and lived out in the sticks making garden chairs and kitchen cabinets.
So once they’d bought me enough gifts and I’d eaten my fill, I slept with them. Strange, they all seemed so grateful. And so persistent afterwards. But after I’d bared my body to them and abandoned all control, I couldn’t bring myself to look them in the eyes again. Then I hightailed it back to the mall in search of familiar ground and a new outfit to lure the next sucker. I’d become a slightly different version of Birdie. More educated, more respectable, but way more sly and calculating.
One afternoon I went there I used the back entrance. Walked by the benches where the deadbeats and junkies hung out. That’s when I saw Loni.
Or at least a cartoonish, used-up version of her. Caved-in mouth, broken nose and fried clumps of hair sticking up from her scalp. She was hunched over a bottle, pushing away some old drunk who was whining for a shot. She yelled at him and shoved him off the bench. I stood a few yards away. Far enough to bolt inside if I had to. Far enough to get to mall security if I needed them.
“Loni,” I said. Very calm. Very confident because of my shiny shoulder-length hair, nice jeans and Hollister hoodie.
She looked up and grinned showing yellowed stumps of teeth. “Well, if it ain’t the bitch sister.”
“Charmed to see you again. Where’s Birdie?”
She shrugged. “Hell if I know.”
A necklace of purple hickies adorned her neck. Who would kiss her now?
“Oh, but you do know,” I said, despising her as much as I always had. Maybe more.
“Could be up in Duluth on the ships. Can’t say. I got out before it killed me. Or maybe she went to some pussy palace near Vegas. I heard they like ’em young there.”
“She still with Earl?”
She squinted up at me like I was an idiot. “You’re a real dumbass. Earl never lets go. Until he don’t want you no more. I guess he’s done with me. Can’t blame him. Nobody wants me now.”
That was when she started to cry. Big, gulping sobs until the old drunk nuzzled at her neck while she took a long swig from the plastic bottle. She handed it to him and he kissed her full on the lips. Told her he loved her.
I’d seen enough. I left.
Sabrina, who’d forgiven me for my bitchy comment about our relationship, nudged my shoulder and I came to just in time to see Dane cross the stage to receive his diploma. My eyes were misty. He’d taken the first step in a long journey towards a good and decent life. When he passed by my seat, I held out a bunch of red roses.
“You did it,” I whispered, daring to hug him for the first time. “I knew you could.”
He wiped a sleeve over big, teary eyes and said, “Thanks, Anna. For everything.”
After a long burst of applause, he gathered himself up to walk back to his seat.
Carla looked shell-shocked when she walked across the stage. Like she didn’t belong there wearing that mortar board and gown. And when I pressed the flowers into her arms she blinked and said, “It’s so unreal. All of this.”
“Believe it,” I said, letting her go. “It’s the beginning of a new life.”
She was set to take culinary arts at the nearby community college, then go to live with an auntie in the country who owned a bakery. She was safe. Every year it was like this. I lost a couple, saved a couple. But it was all worth it. Maybe it made up a little bit for not rescuing Birdie.
But it didn’t.
With all my education and reading and scheming I couldn’t save the one person who mattered to me the most. What kind of sister was I? A failure. That was the real story of my life. I couldn’t tear my sister away from the man who ruined her. Who blew the whistle to Earl. I imagined his call.
Hey this little whore gets pregnant and expects me to play happy families with her. What kind of game are you playing, man? You expect me to pay premium dollar for this kind of trouble?
So Earl takes care of it. Gets rid of the precious baby and exacts a punishment.
You belong to me and you don’t mess around with VIP clients. They don’t give a damn about you and your baby and your dreams. I bought you. I sell you. You’re a product. I have to protect my clients.
His client.
Not a man. A coward. A predator. A monster.
I cursed him until my head ached.
The man who led Birdie on with false promises, who sucked the life from her then threw out the carcass.
I cursed him until my blood burned. Go back to your shiny house and wife and son.
I will find you.
I have found you.