Getting Somewhere (36 page)

THURSDAY, JULY 26

AT LEAST IT'S NOT A BUS THIS TIME, THOUGH JENNA
would be hard-pressed to decide which is worse—arriving or leaving.

A few minutes ago, Maureen Detweiller came in a car driven by a man Jenna assumes must be one of the detention officers, though no one has introduced him. Maureen went directly into the office with Ellie, and now the man is leaning against the car door gazing out at the gardens, the smoke from his cigarette lifting lazily into the air around him. Jenna is trying to decide if she should take her stuff out to the car, having already said her good-byes to the girls upstairs and Donna in the kitchen, or wait in here. Instead, she wanders into the living room, stands in front of the sliding glass doors that no one actually uses and gazes out at the garden herself.

She's pretty sure she'll never come back here, and tries to identify whatever feelings she might have about that. It feels already in the past, the exact sensation of it having slipped into memory mode, softened around the edges. She thought she'd have more time, another two months. If she had just known that the days would not keep happening, one after the other, she might have tried harder to capture them while she had the chance. As it is, they are more like scraps of film on the cutting room floor, victims of an editor's eye, no chance of making it into the final version of Jenna's life.

And yet, she doesn't quite believe that. There are things that have happened here that she will never forget, that have become a part of her. She's not sure what all of them will be but she knows some include the feeling of warm soil between her toes, the sound of the river lapping at the bank, and a girl who came to get her not because of the trouble Jenna had caused (there was no arguing that) or to get her out of it (because no one could do that), but simply because she cared.

J
ENNA IS ACTUALLY
smiling when she turns to see Ellie standing in the doorway. She quickly reconfigures her features but can't quite land on an appropriate expression. She realizes she has absolutely no idea how she feels about this woman or, in fact, what Ellie thinks of her. She'd been convinced Ellie hated her, but finds herself feeling sorry for her in a way that she has never felt about anybody, and she finally understands that what passes for hostility in her head is actually guilt in her heart.

Last night confused Jenna, Ellie's reaction. When Jenna and Cassie had walked through the front door, Ellie had run out of her room, gasped with instant tears running down her face, and said, “Thank god. Oh thank god. Don't tell me. Just . . . save it for tomorrow. I'm just so glad you're safe, you're both safe.” Jenna had actually been afraid Ellie was going to hug her, but instead she just reached out her hand. Jenna had taken it and squeezed back when Ellie did, waiting to let go until Ellie seemed ready.

While a part of her has wished this already over, Jenna realizes she's been waiting. They meet about halfway across the room and, this time, Ellie takes Jenna in her arms with no hesitation.

Her voice is almost a whisper when she says, “I wish it had been me who found you.” When Jenna pulls back, Ellie smiles but she is crying. “Just so you could have known how much I wanted you back.”

Jenna nods, doesn't know what to say.

“It's funny. I spend the whole summer trying to teach you guys to forgive yourselves for your feelings, and now I'm discovering how incredibly hard that really is to do.”

Jenna nods again, still silent.

“I know you've heard ‘I'm sorry' a thousand times in your life, and it kills me to be just another person saying it. But I want you to know that, in this case, it's a beginning, not an ending. If you thought that a little stretch at juvenile detention was going to mean a permanent escape from us, just know that you are very, very wrong.”

Ellie pauses, searching Jenna's expression. “Okay?”

Jenna tries to smile. “Okay.”

“No, it's really a question. It's your choice. We all want to keep you in our lives. Is that okay?”

Jenna is just pretending when she hesitates. “Yes, that's okay.”

In the backseat of the car, her worn backpack on her lap, Jenna realizes that she actually hopes Ellie is telling the truth.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 3

AS LAUREN STRUGGLES TO CLOSE HER SUITCASE OVER
the last few items retrieved from the bathroom, she looks up to see Ellie standing in her doorway.

“Just about ready?” Ellie asks.

Lauren nods, turns back to the zipper, her hands shaking a bit.

Ellie takes another step into the room. “I'm sorry I've kind of been avoiding you the last week or so. We're all pretty angry with you, Lauren. I guess you know that. But before you go, I need you to know, too, that, no matter what, I still care about you, care what happens to you.”

Lauren lifts her head and faces Ellie, unsure what to make of this. She is searching in her mind for some kind of retort, maybe about how she couldn't care less what Ellie thinks of her or something like that, even opens her mouth, but nothing comes out.

With another step, Ellie is standing right beside her, close enough to lift her hand to Lauren's shoulder, which she starts to do and then changes her mind.

“And I have one more thing I wanted to say. I was thinking”—Ellie pauses, seemingly a little unsure of her own words—“that maybe you'd consider getting in touch with your brother when you get home.”

Lauren's eyes open wide, her mouth agape with astonishment. Her brother? Where in the world did that come from? And how dare she . . . But before Lauren can say anything, Ellie is speaking again.

“I realize this is a difficult subject for you, and it probably feels like you don't have any choices about it, but, really, you do. I know it's hard to believe, but sometimes the people who can understand you the best are those who have been hurt in the same way that you have. Does that make sense to you?”

Lauren shakes her head hard, takes a step back. Who in the hell does this woman think she is? How could she know anything about how Lauren's been
hurt
? She opens her mouth to speak but has to clamp it shut again in order to control the choking feeling in her throat, the stinging behind her eyes. She turns abruptly away and begins to line her suitcases up next to the bed, her back bent to Ellie in the only snub she seems to be able to manage. With her back turned, though, Lauren recovers herself a bit, says just under her breath, “She wouldn't have run away if she wasn't guilty.”

There is a long pause, and Lauren can't help but turn around to see Ellie's reaction. Ellie's face has blanched white, but her expression is unperturbed. “Is the same true for you as well?”

Lauren frowns. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you were trying to leave, too. If you really believed what you were saying, you wouldn't have tried to run away.”

“How—how did you know? I thought . . . with Grace gone . . .”

“No, Grace didn't have to tell me. I thought I had heard something and then, when I checked your rooms that night, I saw all your stuff packed up. Sarah's, too. Did Grace catch you?”

Lauren nods lamely. “Will Sarah get in trouble?”

Ellie studies Lauren for a long moment, forcing Lauren to lower her eyes in discomfort. “Well,” Ellie says, “that's between me and Sarah, isn't it? And just so you know, Grace has come back.”

Lauren feels a surge of panic, then quickly realizes that it doesn't matter. She's leaving and there's nothing anyone here can do to hurt her now.

She doesn't look at Ellie when she hears her sigh deeply, turn toward the door. Ellie pauses, finally says, “Well, I'm just sorry it all worked out like this. The next year is going to be difficult for you, and I hope you use the opportunity to digest some of what you experienced here.” Her voice has gotten a bit deeper, slow and even, so forceful that Lauren feels compelled to listen in spite of herself. “I know you're not interested in anything I have to say, Lauren, but next time you have a chance like this, I hope you decide to take it.”

Lauren takes a deep breath, closes her eyes. When she opens them again, Ellie is gone. Though she is resisting any effect from Ellie's words, they do remind her that she has one more thing she needs to do.

W
HEN
S
ARAH WAKES
up this morning, it's not so different from how it was on the street. She has to lie there for a minute and get her bearings, think what might have changed in the configuration of the world around her, what happened yesterday that she needs to be prepared for today. It's a kind of accounting of what has gone and what remains.

Which, of course, leads her thoughts directly to Jenna, the memory of where she is and how she got there. Sarah can hardly bear to think of Jenna in detention, tries, instead, to picture her at the river or bent in the garden or . . . just about anywhere else but there. The exercise does nothing to relieve the burden of sorrow and regret pressing on Sarah's chest.

At least Jenna isn't dead. Gone is one thing, even if you never see a person again. Dead is totally another. And the guilt. Yeah, well. There's always that.

Sarah is just about ready to push herself up out of bed when there is a light tapping on her door. She calls, “Come in,” but the door is already open and Lauren is standing in a shaft of light from the window, her face made up as it was when she arrived here and her hair cut off at the shoulders so that just the tips are still blonde, the rest a rather mousy brown that is similar in color to Sarah's own thin, straight locks. Sarah thinks it's a little weird that Lauren would cut her hair to go home, dress up like she's going to meet new people or go out on a date.

Lauren has left her suitcases out in the hall, steps into Sarah's room, and shuts the door, but doesn't come any closer. “I'm not mad anymore.”

Sarah shakes her head. So much for the niceties of conversation.

But Lauren misunderstands the gesture. “No, really. I was mad—really, really mad—but I'm not now. It doesn't matter anyway. I'm going.”

When Sarah doesn't respond, Lauren stands uncomfortably for a moment and then shrugs. “Well, I guess I just wanted to say good-bye,” she says with a little laugh.

Sarah feels kind of vulnerable or something still lying in the bed in just her T-shirt and underwear so she sits fully upright on the opposite edge so only one side of her face is toward Lauren. “Okay. Bye.”

“Geez, now it seems like
you're
mad. You're not, are you? I mean, I think we gave it a pretty good shot, don't you?”

As with every time before, Sarah is dumbstruck by Lauren, can't think of a single comeback but is mortified by the thought that Lauren can interpret her silence as agreement. She is determined to think of something to say, something that will make Lauren understand that Sarah's not like her, doesn't hate these people at all.

Maybe that's it. Maybe that's all she needs to say. “Lauren, I'm not like you.”

Lauren actually throws her head back laughing. “Maybe not in the way you want to be but more than you think. Way more than you think.”

Sarah shakes her head, gritting her teeth. “When are you going?” She prays to hear tires on gravel, the honking of a horn.

“They're releasing me to the custody of my parents at eight thirty this morning,” Lauren intones as if reading from an official document. Sarah imagines that there is just such a piece of paper somewhere, if not here than in the office of that woman, the investigator—Nancy Bobbitt.

Home detention with intensive supervision. That's what Ellie told them Lauren's lawyer had convinced Lauren's social worker to recommend to the judge. Lauren had even bragged to Sarah that she'd gotten out of electronic monitoring, wouldn't have to wear one of those ankle bracelets at all, would instead just be reporting weekly, with her parents, to the surveillance officer and submitting an activities schedule for approval. “Think they'll approve finger-painting and Play-Doh on my schedule?” Lauren had teased wryly. Covering their asses. That's what Sarah thinks. Probably were afraid that Lauren would not only pursue her charges against Grace and the program but had maybe threatened the whole state welfare department as well. The only compensation Sarah can think of is that Lauren will probably find being stuck at home with her parents for the next year a pretty stiff sentence after all.

Mostly, Sarah tells herself she doesn't give a shit what happens to Lauren, just knows that, after an unbearable week and a half in which Lauren treated everyone else as if
they
were the ones who had slandered
her
, Lauren is finally leaving.

“Well, have a happy life.”

“Oh, I will. Sorry you're stuck here though. That's got to suck. Especially since Ellie knows all about us trying to run away.”

“How do you know that?”

Lauren shrugs, doesn't answer at first. “Even if she didn't already know, Grace will probably rat you out.”

Sarah lets out her breath. Lauren is lying, she's sure of it. “That would be a little difficult since Grace isn't even here.”

“What makes you think that?”

Sarah turns to look at Lauren, just her head, just a little bit, so she can quickly look away if Lauren is messing with her. But Lauren is looking perfectly serious, uses her eyes and head to motion toward the window. Almost against her will, Sarah gets up and crosses the floor. If she leans a little way out, presses her face against the screen, she can just make out the bumper of the little silver car parked in front of Grace's cabin.

“When did she get back?”

Lauren has recovered her victorious air, shrugs. “Hell if I know. What a wuss. Waits until I'm halfway out the door before she comes creeping back.”

“Lauren, why do you always think everything is about you? I'm sure she had no idea you were leaving today. I know for a fact that Ellie didn't even know where she was or how to contact her.”

Lauren waves her hand dismissively. “You know no such thing. Even if that's what Miss Prissy told you, it's probably not true. Now you think you can be all buddy-buddy with them, kiss everybody's ass, because there's no one here who's going to call you on it. I'd like to see how long you last with no ‘chemical assistance' at all, when your only friend, the only person who can even stand to be around you, is gone.”

Sarah has had enough. It's like someone has just supplied her with X-ray glasses, and she can see right through Lauren. What she is saying just isn't true. And this isn't friendship. Sarah may not know what friendship is but she certainly knows now what it isn't. It isn't this and it isn't people using each other and calling it loyalty and it isn't clinging to others out of fear and desperation either. Sarah actually feels herself smiling, shaking her head at Lauren just as the girl has done so many times at her.

“Thanks, Lauren,” she says, sounding half-amused. “I really appreciate that. Um, could you go now? I need to get dressed. We've got a lot of work to do today.”

Lauren is momentarily caught off guard, then shrugs again, puts her hand on the doorknob. She seems to be searching for something more to say, finally mutters, “See you,” and opens the door. Sarah says nothing, just waits for the door to close behind Lauren, then drops to the edge of the bed again. She sits until she's sure Lauren is long gone, then slowly rises and goes to her dresser, digging out a sort of floral tank top from the bottom of her drawer that Lauren told her in their first week here made her look like a baby and that has always been her favorite, pulls it determinedly over her head.

G
RACE IS SITTING
at her regular place at the breakfast table when Sarah comes in. Sarah gives her a little wave, says, “Hey,” and scoots through quickly into the kitchen, ostensibly to see if there's anything she can do to help. Donna has made an egg casserole and is just pulling it out of the oven when Sarah appears.

“Anything I can do?”

Donna smiles warmly at Sarah, places the casserole on the stove top and turns to face her.

“Like Grand Central station around here, huh?”