October 2005
The house was one of the biggest I had ever seen. Thick columns held the front portico aloft while the red brick facade stretched all the way to the tree line. Leaves littered the yard and skittered in the afternoon breeze while the squeal of a school bus’s brakes carried through a thin copse of trees near the road. Two kids got off and walked across the street to an equally impressive home.
I looked at Mr. Ballard, my social worker.
“Is this the right place?”
He smiled and nodded. “This is it. You’ll be living with Christopher and Diana Hughes. They don’t have kids of their own, but they’ve been foster parents for years. They understand how things work. We’ve got one girl here at the moment. Her name is Emily, and she’s seventeen, so she’s a little older than you, but you’ve got a lot in common. Her younger sister, Megan, will join the house soon from what I’m told. A lot of young women have thrived here.”
I hoped he hadn’t lied to me. At fifteen, I couldn’t move out on my own for three more years. Foster care had been hard, but I had dealt with it for years as a child. Then, I hit puberty and grew boobs. My foster fathers watched me as I tied my shoes or bent down to pick things up. A few times they “accidentally” walked in on me while I was in the shower. One guy even kept trying to persuade me to go bathing suit shopping with him. He thought it’d be fun. Even the thought creeped me the fuck out.
My foster mothers were even worse. Most of them wanted a baby to hold and then give back when the baby got too old. Other foster moms, though, wanted a servant who let them sit on their asses. I didn’t have a problem doing the dishes or folding laundry, but I wasn’t Cinderella, which they learned quickly.
Mr. Ballard and I walked to the front door. Mrs. Shapiro, my previous social worker, had retired two years ago. I didn’t know her well, but she gave me a hug when she left. Mr. Ballard was okay. I called him every couple of weeks to tell him how things were going, and he listened when I spoke. When I had problems, he took care of them. Most of the time, he didn’t bother me. That was nice.
He knocked on the door, and I turned around to look at the yard. The grass looked like a golf course, and the shrubs were all trimmed and neat. I had lived in some nice foster houses, but none were like this. The governor should have lived here, and if not him, then somebody else important.
The door opened, and I turned around. A girl stood in the entryway. She had light brown skin, brown eyes, and brown hair down to her shoulders. A big dimple dominated the center of her chin. It looked like a butt. Her lips were thick and red, and she wore an angry smirk on her face. She looked at me up and down.
“What the fuck you smiling at, Cinderella?”
So that was how we’d start. Fine by me.
“Your face looks like a gym teacher’s ass,” I said. “It made me laugh.”
“Whoa, ladies,” said Mr. Ballard, holding up his hands and stepping between us. “You will live together, so you need to be polite.”
“So you’re the new girl,” she said, looking at me again. “Christopher said we were getting somebody new. You better watch yourself around here.”
“Is this where you tell me that snitches get stitches?” I asked. “Because if you are, don’t waste your time. I’ve heard it all. My last foster home had cable, and I’ve seen every episode of Scared Straight.”
“You think you’re funny,” said the girl, standing straighter and glaring down at me. “We’ll see how funny you are tonight.”
“That’s enough, Emily,” said a voice from deeper within the house. Mr. Ballard turned his attention to the new arrival. Emily drew in a sharp breath, and her shoulders slumped. She seemed to shrink, making her look like a dog fearful that its master would strike. Good. She deserved it.
The man joined us at the front door. He was a little under six feet tall, and he had a thin build and pockmarked face. He was ugly, but ugly in a way a lot of women might find attractive. My mom had taken a lot of men like him home.
“I’m Christopher Hughes,” he said, looking at me and holding out his hand. I took it and squeezed hard, just as one of my foster fathers had taught me years ago. He looked down and tilted our hands to the side. My fingers were tiny compared to his. “That’s a good grip. You must be Mary Joe.”
“Just Joe,” I said. “After Joe Montana.”
“Ahh,” he said, nodding. “I read your file. You were born in 1990, the same year he won his second MVP title. Was your dad a 49ers fan?”
“My mom was,” I said. “She told me Joe Montana was my father, but I’m pretty sure that was bullshit. She probably just fucked a guy who looked like him.”
Mr. Ballard gasped, while Emily laughed. Christopher looked at me appraisingly.
“Young ladies don’t use language like that, Joe,” said Mr. Ballard, looking down his nose at me. “It’s inappropriate.”
“Mr. Ballard’s right,” said Christopher, a crooked smile forming on his lips. “But that’s okay. I like this one. I think she’ll fit in here pretty well. You have a bag?”
“It’s in my car,” said Mr. Ballard.
“I’ll get that and fill out the paperwork,” said Christopher, looking to Emily. “How about you show Joe around and tell her the rules?”
“Okay, Christopher,” said Emily, her voice almost meek now. It was a sharp contrast to the young woman who had greeted me earlier. She knew how to play to a crowd. She looked at me and smiled. “Since you’ll be staying with us, I’ll show you the house.”
“I’ll see you before I leave,” said Mr. Ballard, patting me on the shoulder. He and Christopher turned to walk outside while Emily shut the front door. Her nostrils flared as she glared at me. The meek young woman had disappeared.
“Seems like you’re making friends,” she said.
I drew in a breath. “Sorry. Sometimes my mouth goes off before I give it permission. Can we start over? I’m Joe. I’ll be living with you for a while.”
Emily crossed her arms. “There ain’t no starting over.”
“Okay,” I said, taking a step back. “Can you show me the house?”
She gestured around the entryway. “This is the house. See it?”
I looked around for a moment. The entryway was oval shaped with a curved staircase that led to the second floor. There was a big dining room to the left and a living room to the right. Someone had painted the walls beige and the trim white. I couldn’t see far, but even the rooms I saw were bigger than the apartment my mom and I used to live in.
“I like the hardwood floors,” I said, looking down. “Are they original?”
“How the fuck should I know, Susie Homemaker?”
I ignored her and then walked into the dining room. The table had eight white chairs around it. A hutch along the far wall held silver-rimmed plates and crystal glasses. It looked like something from a magazine. I couldn’t believe a family who could afford that would house strays like me and Emily.
“So what’s the story with this place?” I asked, walking through the dining room to the kitchen. There was a breakfast room with a small table to the south and a big, two-story living room to the west. Everything seemed to have its own neat place. Someone had pushed a stainless-steel coffee maker against the wall beside the refrigerator while an immaculate red KitchenAid mixer sat beside the stove.
“What do you want to know?”
I held out my hands and raised my eyebrows. “Why do the people who own this house have us? Are we maids, or are we guests?”
Emily smirked. “Depends on how much Christopher and Diana like you.”
“They’ll like me,” I said, tilting my head to the side. “I’m lovable.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“I’m not sure fooling you is the difficult task you think it is,” I said. Before she said anything, I got up and walked to the breakfast table. There was no dust anywhere. “Christopher said something about rules.”
“Yeah, go to school. Curfew is midnight. If you’re out later than that, Diana locks the door, and you sleep in the garage. Dinner is at seven. You clean up after yourself, and you do your own laundry. Diana likes a clean house. Quiet hours are eight at night to eight in the morning. During quiet hours, you study or you sleep.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding. “Any other rules?”
“Stay out of my way. I’ve got another year here, and then I’m getting out. I don’t want you screwing anything up.”
I nodded to myself and looked around the breakfast room, evaluating the place. This would work out just fine. It seemed as if I had hit the foster kid lottery.
Of course, little in my life was ever as it seemed.