Don't Let Me Go (10 page)

Well, he wouldn’t have gone in the first place. Let’s be real. But theoretically.

“Well, I was. Have you seen my daughter? Grace? Do you know Grace?”

“Everybody in the building knows Grace.”

“Do you know where she is?”

“I…know she’s OK.”

She shot him a skeptical look.

“If you don’t know where she is, how do you know she’s OK?”

“Because we have something of a schedule,” Billy said, wondering if he’d just revealed too much. “Grace is at school, and then somebody picks her up, and then somebody takes care of her until Rayleen gets home, and then she’s with Rayleen. So she’s either at school, or with Felipe, or with me, or with Rayleen.”

“But if she was with you, you’d know it.”

“So true!” Billy said, jokingly, making light of the gaffe as best he could.

“Hmm. I didn’t know about that schedule thing. I thought it was all just Rayleen. But that’s nice, I guess. That’s good. For Grace. I guess. Well, if you see her, will you tell her to come home?”

“I will. If I see her I will.”

“Thanks,” she said, and peeled away down the hall.

Billy closed and locked the door again, then stood with his back leaned against it, breathing out the excess stress.

He rejoined Grace in the kitchen. The girl was still halfway practicing stamps, but without ever lifting her feet.

Just shifting her weight and bending her knees. And having arms.

“Good arms,” he said.

“Thank you. It sucks that now I can’t dance. Why did it have to wake her up? Nothing ever wakes her up except maybe an hour a day. And it has to be now.”

“She wants you home.”

Grace sighed.

“OK,” she said. “This shouldn’t take very long.”

She unlaced and pulled off Billy’s tap shoes as if saying goodbye to an old friend.

• • •

Not two minutes later, she was back.

“She was already out again. I bet it wouldn’t wake her up this time.”

“Not willing to risk it,” Billy said.

“We could go outside.”

“
You
could go outside.”

“Oh, right. I forgot. Maybe we could just go out on your patio. Your patio isn’t right over my house.”

“It’s broad daylight, baby girl.”

“So?”

She waited for him to answer. For a surprising length of time. Billy was amazed by her patience. But, of course, she did give up eventually.

“You can’t even go out on the
patio
?”

“Let’s just say I choose not to.”

“But I saw you out there twice.”

“But the first time it was nearly dark. And the other time it was dusky. And I was slithering on my stomach, if you’ll recall.”

Once again, Grace didn’t say anything for a long time.

So long, in fact, that Billy began wishing she would. Almost anything she could say at that point would be better than nothing at all.

Finally Billy couldn’t stand it any more, and filled the silence.

“I never claimed to be normal,” he said.

“I guess that’s true,” she said. “Well. Whatever. I like you anyway. How ’bout if I go out on the patio, and you stand right here and watch me through the glass, and if I do something wrong you open the door and tell me so?”

“That could work,” Billy said.

• • •

By the time Rayleen got off work and came to get her, Grace had put in a solid hour of dancing with no break of more than a minute or two. Her face glowed red, her short hair dripped, but still she danced.

She not only had arms, but she returned to practicing her time step, slowly, and in proper order, and when she memorized it and brought it up to normal speed, she somehow managed to bring her arms along.

She could be a dancer, Billy thought. If she cared enough, and took the time, and didn’t get distracted by boys or ego or the world, or all of the above, she could. If she didn’t get beaten down by the savagery of the life, maybe. It made Billy ache — a fine line of pain through his solar plexus — just to think of it, but he couldn’t tell if the ache meant he was proud of her, jealous of her, or scared for her.

Probably all of the above.

When Rayleen showed up, Grace pulled her into Billy’s apartment and over to the sliding-glass door, and made her watch while she performed her time step out on the patio. Rayleen stood shoulder to shoulder with Billy, playing her role in their audience of two.

“Impressive,” Rayleen said. “You know she’s learning Spanish, now, too.”

“Good for her. I wish I knew more Spanish. So useful in L.A. Although…probably more utilitarian for people who go out of the house.”

Rayleen glanced over at him, then back at Grace before Grace could notice the shift in her attention.

“I owe you an apology, I guess,” she said. “I didn’t say it straight out, but…I had my doubts about leaving her here.”

“Sounds like normal thinking,” Billy said.

She glanced over again, eyebrows raised.

“Hey,” Billy said. “Just because I don’t think normally doesn’t mean I don’t know normal thinking when I hear it.”

She placed one hand on his shoulder. And just left it there. And so it happened again. The melting. Only this time it wasn’t appropriate to fall to his knees, and there would be no way to cover for himself if he did. So he worked hard at keeping his knees solid and unmelted.

A moment later Grace finished her dance with a broad flourish, and bowed at the waist. Rayleen took her hand back to applaud, and Billy was both relieved and disappointed to feel it go.

Then Grace launched into an encore of stamps and stomps, proving she knew the difference between the two, and could alternate smoothly.

“Her mom came by,” Billy said. “I didn’t let her know Grace was here. I wasn’t sure if she was supposed to know.”

Rayleen pulled a couple of deep, audible breaths.

“Yes,” she said. As if deciding and speaking at the same time. “She can know. It’s OK for her to know. I just decided. Grace is thriving here, and I dare anybody to challenge that. Anybody who has a problem with that can come take it up with me.”

“Thank God,” Billy said. “Because I really hate it when people come take things up with
me
.”

Grace

It was about seven in the evening, two days later, when Grace and Rayleen heard Grace’s mother calling her from the basement stairs.

“Where are you, Grace?” her mom shouted, like she was already madder than hell not to be able to find Grace, even though she’d only just barely started looking.

“You better go tell her where you are,” Rayleen said.

“But my eggrolls will get cold.”

“Tell her where you are, and then come back and finish your eggrolls.”

“It’ll be kind of hard to walk.”

“Just don’t smoosh the cotton down too much. And keep your toes spread. Whatever you do. That way you won’t smear the polish.”

“I thought the cotton was supposed to keep my toes spread.”

“Keep them spread even more than that.”

“OK, I’ll try.”

Grace slid down from the hard wood chair and waddled to the door, one eggroll in each hand. Then she had to shove one of the eggrolls in her mouth so she could open the door. But she still had a little eggroll grease on her hand, and so couldn’t get the door open until she got smart and used her shirttail.

During all this, Grace’s mom called a second time, sounding even madder.

By the time she waddled out into the hall, to a spot where her mother could see her, she’d launched into the process of chewing the eggroll she’d been holding in her mouth, which made it hard to have a conversation.

“There you are,” her mom said. “Come home now.”

Her mom’s hair looked rumpled up, the way Grace’s had until just recently. She had dark circles under her eyes. She looked bad. But, of course, Grace didn’t say so. Wouldn’t have, even if she could’ve talked properly.

Some things you just don’t say.

“Can’t,” she said, but it just came out as a big noise, too rounded at the edges of the sounds.

“What did you say?”

Grace pointed at her mouth with the other eggroll, asking in pantomime for her mom to wait while she chewed.

“What are you eating?” her mom asked, not quite taking the pantomime hint, or maybe just pretending she didn’t.

Grace pointed and chewed a while longer, then said, “Eggroll. Which is not junk food.”

“Come home now.”

“Can’t. I’m eating eggrolls. And getting a footicure.”

“
Pedicure
. Who’s giving you eggrolls and a pedicure?”

“Rayleen. You know. My babysitter.”

“Right. Rayleen. She knows I’m not actually
paying
her to be your babysitter, right?”

“I don’t know. I think so. I’ll ask. But I gotta go now.”

“But I want you home. I had no idea where you were.”

Grace placed both hands firmly on her hips. Even the hand with the eggroll.

“Mom. You haven’t known where I am for
days and days
. It’s really more like you didn’t even wonder till just now. I don’t see why I have to give up my eggrolls and my foot manicure just because you finally woke up and figured out about how you don’t know where I am.”

“I was asking where you were just yesterday.”

“Yeah, but then you were asleep about a minute later, before I could even come tell you.”

These were all brave things to say, and Grace knew it. They came from some mad place, some leftover bad stuff. They were bundles of words wrapped around criticism, and a few hurt feelings.

She waited to see what her mom would do. In the old days, her mom would’ve gotten mad. That’s all Grace knew for sure.

“OK, fine,” Grace’s mom said, “but when you’re done eating and…well, when you’re done, come right home.”

“K,” Grace said, and stuck the other eggroll in her mouth.

Then she waddled inside and slid back up on to the chair so Rayleen could work on her toenails some more. (Even though the only part left was checking the polish for dryness and taking the cotton out from between Grace’s toes.)

When she’d finished chewing, Grace said, “Do you think I was too snotty to my mom?”

And Rayleen said, “No. Frankly, I don’t. I think you were perfect. Just exactly snotty enough.”

• • •

Grace padded, barefoot, shoes in her hand, down the basement stairs, looking forward to the idea of spending some time with her mom. For a change. She tried the door to her own apartment, but it was locked.

She knocked loudly, and called through the door, “It’s me, Mom. Let me in, OK?”

The door swung wide, and Grace’s mom stood in the open doorway, her mouth gaping open, jaw hanging.

“Oh, my God!” her mom whispered on an exhale of breath. “Grace Eileen Ferguson, what have you done to your hair? Did you cut it all off with scissors?”

Grace tried to answer, but never got that far. Her mom took Grace’s chin in her hand and pushed her head sideways, first one direction and then another, looking at the haircut from all different angles.

“No. You didn’t. You couldn’t have. This is a professional haircut. This looks like a real haircut. An expensive one. Who cut your hair?”

“Bella,” she said, yanking her chin back.

“And who’s Bella?”

“A friend of Rayleen’s, at the salon where she works. Why? Don’t you like it? Everybody else likes it.”

Grace’s mom never answered. Instead she took Grace by the hand and marched upstairs and down the hall with her.

While they were marching, Grace said, “You saw me already. Just before. You saw me standing out in the hall eating eggrolls with cotton between my toes. Why didn’t you say about my hair then?”

“I didn’t see it.”

“I was standing right in front of you!”

“You were way down the hall. I thought you just had it pulled back in a ponytail or something.”

“Don’t you like it? Everybody else likes it.”

They stopped marching in front of Rayleen’s door. Grace’s mom banged hard on the door, so hard it sounded like somebody trying to beat down the door with a battering ram, like the police did on TV.

Out of the corner of her eye, Grace saw Billy’s door open an inch or two, and she could see one of his eyes through the crack. She waved at him, but he put a finger to his lips, and Grace knew what he meant by that, so she started pretending she didn’t see him there at all.

Rayleen opened the door, and, when she saw who was knocking, stood with her hands on her hips, like she was getting ready to fight with everything except her fists.

“Isn’t this going a little too far?” Grace’s mom said. She sounded pissed.

“I have no idea what you’re referring to.”

“Don’t you? Look, I appreciate the fact that you’re letting Grace hang around. I do. Especially since I’m not paying you. You do know I’m not paying you, right?”

Rayleen didn’t answer. Just stood there looking stony, and Grace could tell that anything Rayleen said from this point on was going to be something she’d thought out very carefully first.

“But this is a little weird. This is too much. Because, she’s still my daughter. Not yours. You get that, right? I mean, I take a nap, and when I get up, you’ve decided to redesign her.”

A long silence. Stony. Grace was learning that, when Rayleen was mad, the madder she got, the quieter she got.