LALA SIPS HER TEA. “I talked to your guidance counselor, Mr. Jackson, yesterday. He called. I wish you’d told me you left school.” Her voice is firmer than I’m used to.
The oatmeal is chunky in my throat. I gag, avoiding LaLa’s eyes. I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open. I wonder if this is it, if she’s going to yell at me, finally, be that foster mom.
She sets her cup down on the table. “Mr. Jackson spoke to your teachers, and the principal, and everyone thinks that school might be a good idea, like, the routine of it, but that maybe you should start slow. Half days. Take it easy. See how it goes.”
I think about yesterday, and the kids staring at me. Me shouting in the hallway. Maybe I don’t want to go back.
“Do I have to?”
“You don’t have to, but it might help. Mr. Jackson mentioned some sort of counseling group for some of the kids, too.”
GG. Grief Group. The card I threw away.
“He thinks you should attend at least one session. I can’t make you, but Karen thinks it’s a good idea, too, and will discuss it with your sister.”
My sister. Yesterday, she was looking glum and on a plane, which was supposed to take eight hours.
“About that,” I say. “Where is she? When is she getting here? Does anybody know?”
LaLa shrugs. “She’s ‘en route,’ is how Karen put it. I’m not sure what that means. I know it’s hard, with everything up in the air.”
Thaddeus slumps into the kitchen, his long hair tangled over his shoulders. He yawns. “You coming to work with me today?”
LaLa waits for me to answer.
Part of me really wants to see the horses again. It felt peaceful out there, watching them. If I stay here, it will just be me and LaLa. She’ll be in her room, sewing something, and I’ll be…on my bunk bed, sleeping again. I feel like if I sleep any more, I’m just going to sink somewhere I won’t be able to crawl out of.
Maybe I should try school one more time. I can not look at anyone, keep my head down, like usual. At least I’d get to see Cake. Have a tiny piece of normal.
There is no normal, snorts the girl-bug.
“I guess I’ll try it again. Maybe today will be better.”
Thaddeus nods. “Sure thing. Let me shower and I’ll take you on my way.”
LaLa clears her throat. “Speaking of showers, I have to be honest. The dress situation is getting a little unsanitary. It’s not that I don’t think you should wear it. I think I can intimate your reasons for wanting to wear it. But if you choose to keep wearing it, especially to school, you should keep it clean. The last thing you need is kids making fun of you, you know?”
“They made fun of me before, even when my mom wasn’t dead.” I stare at her.
LaLa gives me a long look.
“You need protection,” she says finally. “Come with me.”
In her room, she opens the double doors to her closet. It’s stuffed with cool-looking clothes, like shimmery flapper dresses and shiny alien costumes. “It’s my other job,” she tells me. “I design costumes. I have a lot more in storage, but we should be able to find something in here.”
She sorts through some boxes. “They shoot a lot of Westerns out here, natch, so I’ve got tons of cowpoke stuff. Here. Let’s start with a hat. This goes perfectly with that dress. It’s a replica of the one Blondie wears in the Clint Eastwood movies. I used it for this movie about a girl who gets work at a ranch after her parents die. The lead girl stole the original, but I can’t blame her.”
She holds it out to me. The leather is soft in my fingers. “Great, huh?” She places it gently on my head. It feels snug and perfect.
She tugs at the brim. “This little peak here, it’s called a telescope crown,” she says, tapping the top of the hat.
“I started making clothes and costumes when I was about your age,” she says. “I liked being different people. Dressing up my friends, watching them become brave inside costumes, become new people. It’s amazing how just a little bit of fabric can change your life.”
LaLa rustles around the bottom of the closet, pushing aside boxes and bags until she finds what she’s looking for. “These should do it. Get rid of those yucky old sneakers.”
I pull on the pair of thick black socks and the thick brown boots she hands to me. When I stand back up, the boots feel good and solid on my feet.
In fact, I feel like I could kick the whole world to smithereens in these boots.
LaLa says, “This hat looks perfect on you. Suits your bone structure.” She smooths my hair over my shoulders.
I get a funny, sad feeling then.
This is the sort of stuff a mom says and does. Picks out clothes, smooths your hair.
“You’ve got a great face,” LaLa says. “And a real spirit. I can feel your essence.”
Embarrassed, I look down, pick imaginary lint off the dress.
Down the hall, Sarah calls for LaLa.
LaLa murmurs, “Be right back.”
In the full-length mirror in her room, the hat on, the tie pulled tight under my chin, the solid boots, and my dress dirty and ragged, I try to imagine myself as some sort of desert warrior. A pained, sad, awful-looking desert fighter girl, so different from the quiet girl in the hippie skirts and faded T-shirts featuring rock bands no one listens to anymore.
That girl is gone. She was softer and hopeful. Maybe this girl will get me through.
My phone buzzes. Cake.
Thinking about you. On computer, looking up your mom and dad.
I type back. Did you find anything out? I’m trying school again today.
YAY. I found out your dad was a history teacher.
Really? I try to imagine this, but it’s hard. I don’t even know what Dusty Franklin looks like. All I can picture is a disembodied head with a striped tie and brown pants standing in front of a whiteboard, but that doesn’t help with the other picture, the one of a crumpled guy in a gray jumpsuit sitting on a cot in a cinder-block cell.
Yeah. I found some articles about the accident. The thing. That.
Oh. The drunk-driving accident that sent him to the correctional facility in New Mexico.
So I guess he was kind of an alcoholic. He had a lot of priors. That’s what the articles say. “Priors.”
My mom drank wine sometimes, but always just a glass, and always with her friend Bonita after a long day. She told me, “I like the taste. I don’t overdo it. It’s a social thing, but it’s not something I want you doing, ever. You have to trust me on that. We’ll talk about it when you’re a little older.”
I guess I can guess now why she didn’t want me to drink. Maybe that’s why I never got to go to anybody’s parties. People asked Cake, and Cake asked me, but Mom always said no, and I was too afraid, or maybe just relieved that I could always blame it on her. Eventually, Cake stopped asking.
A history teacher, I type.
Yeah. I’ll print out some of the articles at school if you want and save them for you. Gotta go. See you soon.
After Thaddeus drops me off, I keep my eyes straight ahead, ignoring the sidelong looks and whispery giggles as I walk to the front doors of Field. The desert warrior needs no one. She walks a path of loneliness and heartache. Head straight to my locker. Put the brown bag LaLa shoved into my hands inside. It’s weird to bring a lunch. I got so used to Cake bringing me something to eat.
I tense up, listening for any whispers behind my back, but there’s nothing. Just the sound of kids shuffling around, sneakers squeaking on the floor. Maybe the hat and the boots are protecting me, after all. A shield.
In zero, Lupe isn’t there, and I feel relieved. Kelsey Cameron leans over. “What was up with you in that car? Taran says you went to a foster house. Is that true?” Before I can answer, Tina Carillo puts her hand on my arm and says, “I’m really sorry about your mom.”
Besides Walrus Jackson, she’s the first one at school to say something nice to me about my mom and it takes me by surprise. I knit my hands together super hard, super hurtful, so that I can stop the swell of tears behind my eyes. “Thanks,” I say softly.
Ms. Perez claps her hands together. “Okay, people. Hats and hands, hats and hands.” That’s our cue to take off ball caps and whatever else is on our heads, to put our phones away, and put our hands on the tables. I drag off the hat LaLa gave me and slide it onto my lap. It feels good to hold it, to have something to concentrate on, because all of a sudden, I can feel Mae-Lynn Carpenter’s eyes on me from across the room, hard and dark, and her voice from my mom’s viewing rings through my brain.
Welcome to the Big Suck.
It isn’t until I’m halfway to Bio that I remember Kai will be there, and I stop up so short in the hallway a couple of kids bump into my back. I mumble, Sorry, and drag myself the rest of the way to Bio, slinking close to the lockers lining the walls.
Kai’s rickety stool is empty. I slowly sit down on mine. Taran Parker whirls around in front of me. “I saw you. At the food place. That car. Where you at now? It was only you and your ma, right? I’m sorry about that.”
His face is super serious and it occurs to me that I don’t think I’ve ever seen him not smiling. He looks, I’m sorry to say, like someone died.
Funny, says the girl-bug. Aren’t you a comedian.
“I don’t know. I mean, with a lady. A person. Like, a foster mom.” I decide not to say anything about my sister.
My face flames up. I look at the clock. Three minutes until the start of class. Where is Kai? I just want to get this over with.
Taran nods gravely. “Is it cool there? Is she nice? My…I’m…”
His voice drops off. He pulls at the buttons on his flannel, not looking at me.
“I’m really sorry. That’s all.”
He spins back around.
I’m not used to a non-sarcastic Taran Parker, and so I don’t notice Kai at first, standing in the doorway, one hand holding the strap of his backpack, staring at me.
My heart jumps right into my throat as we lock eyes. Then he looks away, walks to the front of the classroom, taps Marshall Gleason on the shoulder, and nods in my direction. Marshall gets up and lumbers back to the stool next to me, sliding on with a sigh. He opens his Mad magazine and ignores me.
I stare at the back of Kai’s head.
My lips sting where once they tasted sweet with his mouth, with sugary cookies. With thinking the summer would be full of kisses. When I thought I was going to be one kind of girl for the summer.
I grit my teeth. Laizure starts writing on the board.
Beside me, Marshall Gleason whispers, “Dude, I am sorry about your mom, and about whatever is up with that Kai guy, but please do not cry, because that is way beyond my skill set.”
Welcome to the Big Suck, chortles the girl-bug. Not so funny now, huh?
Cake waits for me in the hallway after class, her face grim.
“What now?” I ask.
“I’m sorry,” Cake says. “The funeral home called my mom, because she’s the one who paid for the services.” She puts her hand on my arm.
My heart sinks.
Cake’s eyes get wet. “Your mom. She’s ready. They said…they said we can come and get her ashes.”