Compromised (3 page)

I sigh.

Beulah points to the rec room on my personalized orphanage tour. “You can play cards, read, just take it easy. Tomorrow we'll have some answers—or some direction, at least.”

She slips a gnawed pencil behind her ear. Her nails are ragged, chewed down to the skin. It has to be a really hard job, taking kids away from their parents. She leads me back to my room.

I lie down on my bunk. Midday light glints off the polished floors.

Dad's in jail. I'm stuck at some orphanage. And for the first time in my life, everything has spiraled out of control. There isn't going to be a nighttime “escape” or frantic rush to the train station. Dad isn't going to surprise me at school midday to pick me up because we were going on an “adventure.”

I'm screwed.

I clutch my stomach and wonder how hard it would be to stage a prison break. Step one: State your purpose.

Yeah. Like that's a normal thing for a fifteen-year-old to be considering.

S
tep two: Hypothesis. The hypothesis, though, is based on prior knowledge and observations. It's not just some random shot in the dark.

I try to think about ways to research prison and orphanage breaks—neither of which seem plausible outside the realm of Hollywood and Charles Dickens's novels.

I'm not a big fan of either.

Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron
…I finally fall asleep when I get to the Lanthanide series.

“The freak's back,” a husky voice rasps. The room smells like cheap perfume. “And we're stuck with her in here.”

The bedsprings groan as somebody flops onto the bottom bunk. She sniffles to the count of five. One, two,
three, four, sniffle. One, two, three, four, sniffle. “They say she went on a hunger strike and they had to force food into her.
Sniff
.”

“Fucking cracked. And the worst part is she never shuts up.”

“I know. Her mouth is on total rerun mode.”

“Just blow her off. Everyone else does.”

I peel my eyes open and turn over on my side. “Hi,” I venture. “I'm Maya.” I'm not what you would call socially gifted to begin with, and have no idea how one goes about introducing herself in an orphanage.

Two girls stare at me. The one bathed in drugstore perfume wears tight black jeans and a leather dog collar. I refrain from telling her that our noses are always homing in on potential mates, and with her stench, her breeding possibilities are slimmer than mine. (My lessened reproductive chances are due to the fact that my hair looks like a Brillo pad and I have way underdeveloped mammary glands.) The one on the bunk below me blows her nose on a ragged Kleenex stuffed in pudgy hands. Folds of milk-blue skin stick out from the top of her jeans.

Just then a girl walks into the room and the other two get real quiet, looking right through her, like she's invisible.

I recognize that look.

Dark circles ring the girl's black eyes. Her arms are scarred and bruised. She stares at me, then turns her attention to the dog collar and Sniffles.

“I'm back!” Her face transforms, and she cracks a smile, throwing her bag on the bottom bunk. “Move your shit, Jess. I get the bottom.”

Jess glares and climbs up to the top bunk.

The girl stares at the poster on the wall and rips it off; Sniffles winces. “What is this, Shelly? Another one of your ‘Dream Big' posters?” She shakes her head. “Fucking psychobabble bullshit.”

“Yeah. You'd know about that, Nicole,” Jess says.

“Sure thing. I'm just a regular Vincent Gigante. This time they declared me depressive with thought disorder.” She laughs. “Last time it was manic depression. I have a list a mile long of cool diagnoses.” And she goes on about this guy Gigante—aka The Chin—and how he snowed over thirty-four psychiatrists over the years. She's on number eight.

Jess flips open a book and puts in earphones, cranking up music on an MP3. Shelly noisily rolls up the poster Nicole took off the wall, smoothing it out where it was torn.

And Nicole keeps talking, taping up a poster of Marlon Brando. “Now that's style. He didn't do motivational speaker crap—he fucking lived.”

I clear my throat. But nobody pays attention. Finally I say again, “Hi. I'm Maya.”

The three turn to me and Jess flicks out her earphones. “Fuck,” she says. “We've got ourselves a greeter here.”

Shelly says, “Oh. I'm Shelly. This is Jess”—she points to the one with a dog collar—“and Nicole,” motioning to the girl who just walked in. “Nicole just got back.”

“Yep, from the loony bin,” Nicole says, and laughs—forced. Hollow.

“Good thing we got the introductions out of the way, Shelly. Maybe you can show her where we play shuffleboard on the Aloha Deck,” Jess sneers. She looks me up and down. “Why don't you just go back to your sweet dreams about designer jeans? Nobody here gives a rat's ass who you are.”

Shelly blushes and mouths, “Sorry.” She blows her nose.

I feel an urge to mark my space and half wait for their claws to come out and tear me to shreds. That's something I really like about the animal kingdom. It's direct. Every
animal knows the rules. They're genetically designed to know the rules.

Humans change the rules.

I stare Jess down and sit cross-legged on the bed. I've had a pretty crap day so far and am not in the mood for a territorial war in some dorm room.

Jess glares and turns to Nicole. “So? You done with that Gandhi shit?”

Nicole pulls herself up on the windowsill and takes out a clove cigarette, inhaling the sickly-sweet smoke and blowing it out the crack in the window. She wears a T-shirt with some guy's mug shot.
LUCKY LUCIANO
is written in bold letters below his picture.

“I mean, you eating now?”

“No, Sherlock, I'm just here on fumes. What do you think?” She looks at a trash can filled with little candy papers and sighs. “Dude, Shelly, what's with that? You hoarding again?”

“No,” Shelly says.

“Fuck, Shelly.” Nicole shakes her head. “Who's your shrink now?”

Shelly shrugs. “I'm back with Dr. Jenkins.”

“Figures. Fucking ‘Dream Big' poster.” Nicole turns to
Jess. “And where have you been the last nine months?”

“Fuck you. You think you're the only one with problems? Your biggest problem is not going through with it.”

Shelly blanches. “Jess,” she whispers.

Jess hugs a pillow and mutters, “I hate it here.”

“Then leave.” Nicole inhales. Smoke curls up from her cigarette.

Jess turns, staring straight through Nicole. “Why don't you? Oh yeah. I forgot. You can't even read where the buses are going.” She lowers her voice. “You can't even kill yourself.”

Nicole tenses. Nobody speaks. I can almost smell the alarm pheromones.

Jess and Shelly won't even look at her.

Nicole faces me. “What are you looking at?”

“You,” I say.

She flinches, then glares at me, her eyes narrowing. Then she smiles again. But it's not real.

I hate when that happens, when the observer becomes the prey. I wonder how I'll deflect the attack when I blurt out, “This is definitely an issue of territorialism.”

The three of them stare.

“You know,” I say. “When an animal stakes its claim to
an area. It has to suss out its possibilities to win the battle, depending on the size of the other animal, maturity, which one already possesses the territory, and value of the territory in relation to other available locations.” They continue to stare, so I continue to talk, never taking my eyes from Nicole. It's like we're in some kind of staring contest.

I won't lose.

So I talk. This has often been a problem of mine in social situations—either I talk too much or not enough. And when I talk, I spew out scientific facts that most people really don't care about. Most people don't get the beauty of science. “The classic scientific example to illustrate territorial possession is the hawk and the dove.” I clear my throat. “Humans aren't all that different.”

Nicole's eyes come to life for just a second before they turn off again. “What? If you can't beat 'em, bore 'em, Jeopardy? Jesus, where did you come from?” She finally looks away. I win.

Jess mutters. “Why don't you just stay at the bus depot with the street trash where you belong? Or better yet—” Jess motions to the scars on Nicole's arms.

All I can think about is Mom. And my stomach gets that achy burn feeling.

Nicole turns and flicks her cigarette butt at Jess, grazing her ear.

I cringe, afraid the whole place will go up in flames from Jess's generous use of flammable hair products.

Nicole jumps from the windowsill and brushes past Jess, pausing for just a second to stare her down. Jess turns away.

Nicole leaves the room. And I don't say anything. I just slink back into the corner.

Nobody breathes.

“Jess.” Shelly sniffles when the silence gets too heavy to bear. “How could you? I feel so bad.”

Jess rolls her eyes. “Jesus, Shelly. She's a freak. She's a total waste of oxygen. And Christ, what do you have to feel bad about? You'd probably take the blame for the next fucking world war. Stop saying sorry for shit you don't have anything to do with. It bugs the hell out of me.”

“I'm sorry,” Shelly says, pulling out more tissues.

Guilt. That's one of the easiest human emotions to play on. A dirty trick, really. But if you find somebody like Shelly—someone who feels permanently responsible for global warming and other apocalyptic stuff, you have the perfect target. I hate watching people with a hyper sense
of guilt squirm around like Shelly. Dad says those who feel guilty about something are the first to confess, then, more importantly, pay. That was during his Preacher Tent Days—before he went white-collar.

 

Once, after a heated revival in some dusty old town, Dad came up to me and said, “Religion is based on one thing. What do you think that is?”

“God,” I said, happy to know the answer. That day I had seen no fewer than eighty-seven miracles performed by my daddy's own hands. I studied them, soft and manicured, not understanding why he couldn't have done the same for Mama.

He cupped my face in his miracle hands and grinned. “Even better. Guilt.”

What about God? What about all those people who believe?
I wanted to ask him but couldn't say the words. (Later I learned about neurotheology.) I couldn't let him know that I had believed, too.

I don't anymore. Not unless it's written up in some science journal with facts to back it.

The last day of the revival, he winked and said, “It's time to ease these people's minds and give them a chance
to mend their ways. Ready for some miracles?”

We left Arizona thousands of dollars richer and ate dinner at the Sizzler buffet instead of Denny's. But I lost some part of Dad in Arizona. That part that all kids worship. Dads are heroes, right? But do heroes steal? Do heroes lie?

I don't think so.

 

Shelly looks up at me apologetically. Dad could easily clear her life savings, though I'm quite sure it wouldn't be worth the effort. Shelly sniffles. Major postnasal drip. Probably chronic rhinitis. She rubs a near-disintegrated Kleenex on her raw nose. “I have a runny nose,” she apologizes.

Yeah. It is pretty annoying having somebody always apologizing for stuff.

Shelly slumps back onto the bed, rocking the frame. “I was kinda hoping she wouldn't come back.”

“Major Spam,” mutters Jess.

“Spam?” I ask. “As in computer crap?”

“No. As in unidentifiable meatlike substance crap. She's been in the system so long now that she's been here more than in regular foster care. Long shelf life. Nobody wants her.”

“Oh,” I say. “
That
spam.”

“Yeah, she's had a couple of good shots with good families, but she blew it.” Shelly shrugs. “Anyway, she's just got Kids Place now. She runs away every other month, but she never really leaves.” Shelly wipes her hands on her jeans. “They had her on suicide watch a couple weeks in the hospital when she did that hunger strike thing. She does that.”

“Does what?”

“You know. Try to kill herself. Freaked out one of her foster moms a few years ago. Slit her wrists. Almost died.”

I nod.

Jess glares. “She's wacked. Like this bigger-than-life person who doesn't even want to live. She'd probably be better off dead.”

I wait for Shelly to apologize again. But this time she sucks in her breath and lies down. She pauses, then says, “Nicole's just kind of, um, different, you know?”

What's wrong with different?
I wonder. But it's not like I'm on any homecoming court, either. Different doesn't work in high school. If I can make it to college, then things will be okay.

Maybe that's all Nicole needs, too. Get to the magic number and be whoever you want. It's like we're all stuck
in Cloneville until we're eighteen.

Shelly rubs some Vicks on her nose. “First time?” she asks.

“First time what?”

Jess turns over on her bunk. “First time at Girl Scout camp, genius.”

I nod. “Yeah. First time.”

“Well, you won't want to miss the evening bonfire and marshmallow roast.”

“Have you lived here for a long time?” I ask both of them.

Shelly blushes and gnaws on her fingernails. “Kinda.”

Jess pulls a history textbook out of her backpack. “What's it matter to you?”

“It doesn't,” I say, and I mean it. I won't be like them.

For the first time all day it really registers that I'm in a children's home. I swallow and take a deep breath.

“You got a mom?” Shelly asks.

 

We buried her in a lonely cemetery. I remember the day as if it were a drawing—a Crayola-blue sky with cutout construction paper clouds. I looked up at the cold December sun, pasted on the blue sky. Just like Wild Blue Yonder—my favorite crayon color, only a nub left. A spindly
tree threw off a sad shadow. Dad shivered and we watched the men pile frozen clumps of dirt on the pine box. Their rusty shovels pierced the frozen ground, a tip snapped off, ringing, falling on Mom. I clapped my hands over my ears. Nobody came. Just Dad and me.

I threw away Wild Blue Yonder that afternoon, crushing it under my polished black shoes. I still hate the color blue.

 

I shake my head. “Just my dad,” I say.

“He a good guy?”

“He's not the president of the PTA or anything. But we do okay, you know?”

“So where is he?”

“Jail.” I sigh. “He always manages to talk his way out of stuff, though. So I kinda figure he'll either be set free or made warden by the end of the week.” I try to laugh and ignore the acid that works its way up my esophagus. I wish I had my Pepto.