Marina is making a call. She sits at a white desk under a white lamp, her dark brows pinched as she listens to the receiver at her ear. Old, yellowed brochures from the Stanford University School of Medicine are spread out on the desk in front of her. The pencil she holds hovers over a white scrap pad monogrammed with a hot pink M—last year’s stocking stuffer from Dylan.
The room’s windows overlook the bougainvillea trellis that covers the front porch, and the raspberry color of those tissue-thin petals seems to have blown inside through the French-paned window. The white-on-white room has dark-pink accents: a pillow, a reading chair, a picture frame, the case she chose for her cell phone. A pink rack holds the remotes for the flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. Accessories hang neatly from a pink tree that grows atop a dust-free nightstand. Books she’s reading are stacked on the nightstand. All her clothes and shoes are out of sight, in the closet, where they are stored in bins and folded on shelves and ironed and hung and labeled. The recently vacuumed carpet shows off neat footprints.
Her friend Jade lies on the bed, a foot crossed on one knee, clashing with Marina’s controlled environment in a red tank top and turquoise shorts. Her fluorescent-green electronic tablet keeps her entertained. Jade’s floppy purse has spilled open on the floor, and Marina’s eyes keep darting to it while she talks on the phone.
“So you don’t treat patients?” Marina asks. “I thought you were a hospital.”
The answer is muffled.
“I see. Outpatient only. How long are—Yes, I can hold.”
She says to Jade, “They’re developing treatments for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, that sort of thing. Clinical trials.”
Jade sits up and swings her legs off the bed. “So does that make sense? Is that what your mom had?”
“I told you, I don’t know.”
“But don’t people have to volunteer for the studies?”
“Not for years at a time, locked up in a padded room somewhere. Is that what you meant, that my mom might be their hostage?”
Jade rolls her eyes and falls back onto the bed. “I’m only saying what you’ve been thinking.”
My daughter looks embarrassed. She hangs up before the person on the other end returns.
Jade turns onto her side and props her head on her fist. “This whole rabbit trail about finding your mom is a distraction, Marina. What you need is a way to earn some cash.”
My daughter presses her lips together. Jade’s theatrical head wobbling and hand motions underline just how out of whack her compassion-meter is.
“Let’s take a good look at the fantasy playground you’ve been playing on for the last twenty-four hours: you think your suicidal mom might actually be alive, and although she’s probably mental she must still be clearheaded enough to take responsibility for you and your brother. Or, in a different scenario, she might be too unstable to hold a job but rich enough to save this beachfront property. And she hasn’t sent you a birthday card for seventeen years, but when you show up she’ll care enough to kiss all your tears away. Do I have that right?”
By the time she’s done, her glossy blond hair is swishing around her goosey neck.
Marina is staring at her, strong as a sea wall. “Sometimes I wonder why I call you my friend.”
“Because I say it like it is. You used to do it too. C’mon, Marina—you know you’re chasing a ghost.”
“I’m trying to save this house for Dylan.”
“Well, maybe you can’t.”
Marina shakes her head. “If he has to leave it’s going to set him back. Maybe years. Maybe forever. There should be limits on how much stress a person has to face in a lifetime.”
“But it won’t kill him, right? Has anyone ever actually died of a panic attack?”
“Probably. In fact, maybe I’ll look into that, scare myself just a little bit more.”
Jade’s impatience comes out like a growl. “Leave it to the therapist—which I’m sure you can qualify for with some special program for low-income families.”
“Jade—”
“No, no.” Jade shushes Marina by sitting up again and scootching to the edge of the mattress. She leans forward and cranes her neck so she’s right in Marina’s face. “Here, listen to me, I know what you have to do. You have to start making some money, hard and fast. No more of this UNICEF-volunteer-dreamer stuff for you, Marina, not for a while. All your free hours—you work, you save. And Dylan had better start thinking about getting his high-functioning self out there to pull a paycheck too.”
“Says the slacker who wants a husband who can fly her to New York for weekend shopping trips.”
Jade grins at that. “But we’re talking about you.” She stands up and lays down a new track of flip-flop prints in the clean carpet. She paces around the back of Marina’s desk chair. “Look: remember my next-door neighbor? The one I used to go to elementary school with?”
“The family that lost their home?”
“That one. They stopped paying the mortgage eighteen months before they had to leave. My mom used to go on and on about that—”
“You’re saying you think we could stay here for a while.” Marina’s mind is already running with this possibility, or maybe tripping over the question of why she didn’t think of it herself.
“Until they throw you out. Your attorney said you had some time, didn’t he? Might take years. And by then you strike gold, Dylan gets better, who knows? Remember I told you I met a guy who has the body shop in Goleta?”
“Waiting tables pays better. The tips alone. All I have to do is pick up a few more shifts.”
Jade’s earnest face melts into a sly grin. She reaches into the back pocket of those turquoise shorts and pulls out a dollar bill folded twice. Then she waves it in front of Marina’s eyes before unfolding it and flattening it out on that tidy, white desk. Money truly is a dirty-gray shade of green.
It’s not one bill but two. And each isn’t worth one dollar, but a hundred.
“For two hours’ work,” Jade announces. “You can’t make that in restaurant tips.”
Disgust wrinkles Marina’s mouth. She pushes back from the desk and stands up. “I don’t know what kind of body shop you’re talking about, but I won’t ever—”
“Chillax!” Jade laughs. “Seriously, it’s an auto body shop. And I assure you, I did this work with all my clothes on. Shoes too.” She puts a scandalous purr in her throat. “Even a jacket.”
“Forget it, Jade. I have trouble getting the hood of my own car unlatched. I can’t do that kind of work.”
“You can do this kind.”
Marina sighs and goes to her closet in the corner of the bedroom. “Tell me it’s legal and I’ll listen.” She pulls open the single door and reaches inside for some shoes.
“What kind of work is actually one hundred percent above-board these days, huh?”
Marina looks at Jade sternly while she leans against the closet’s doorframe and tugs on a pair of strappy sandals. “You forget I almost went to law school.”
“Well that opportunity’s gone, isn’t it?”
The girls are silent until both of Marina’s feet have shoes. I don’t like the whirling going on behind my daughter’s eyes. The anxiety, the sadness, the recalculating of her moral code. I know how the mind contorts until it can finally justify the choice it wants. The inconsequential choices and the life-changing ones sometimes look identical before they’re made, but the life-changing ones can’t be called back.
“Are you going to tell me or what?” Marina asks.
Jade perks up, energized by the chance that her friend might approve.
“He’s got us all over town, anywhere we might catch a sneak peek at a car’s registration—the car wash, the valet—there’s even someone at one of the lube shops who feeds him owners’ addresses. He has needs for certain cars, certain parts. He gives us a list, and if we find him a match, all we have to do is get him the owner’s address. Twenty per car, fifty if you’re willing to play with the big boys.”
“The big boys. Is that how they talk?”
“The repo team—”
“Are we talking about car theft?”
“It is such a rush, Marina.”
“Which part? Rifling through someone’s glove box for the registration? Please tell me that’s the only team you’re on. There’s a million ways to find out a person’s address. I could excuse you for just being nosy.”
Jade lifts her eyebrows, smiles, and tilts her head to one side.
“I don’t believe this. Do you know how dangerous that is?”
Her friend groans and rolls her eyes. “You’re supposed to be my friend, not my mom.”
“I’m sure your mom doesn’t know what you’re up to.”
“Exactly! And now I’m finally going to have enough money to get my own place, besides!”
“Maybe I should report you both.”
“Oh, stop pretending you’re better than me.” Jade stands up and starts scooping her phone, a pen, a lipstick tube, her car keys all back into the purse that has spilled out over the floor. “I’ll tell you why we’re friends, Marina. It’s because we know how to survive while the people who call themselves our parents stumble around like zombies.”
“What does that have to do with stealing cars for a chop shop?”
Jade slings the long strap of her bag over her shoulder, and the bag smacks the side of her bare leg.
“This: I’ve always known that I never had anyone to count on but myself. But you, Marina—you’re only just finding out that you never did either.”
That’s totally false, of course. So why does this mouthy girl fill me with shame?
Oh, my beautiful girl. Please don’t.
Marina follows Jade out of the bedroom. Please don’t. Almost a prayer. I can’t remember the last time I prayed.