Girls in Trouble (49 page)

Anne found her wallet, and slid the photo into a pocket. She put her
wallet back in her purse and returned to bed, and shutting her eyes, tried to sleep.

At school, everyone just thought she had been out sick. “Feel better?” one teacher asked, and Anne shrugged, because the truth was, she wasn’t sure. She didn’t wear the red bandana in her curls anymore, the way Sara did. She didn’t dress the way Sara had, but she didn’t dress the way she used to, either. Her clothes felt wrong. She felt wrong, so she ended up belting an old dress of hers with the red bandana. She clipped back one side of her hair and let the other be wild, and then staring into the mirror, she felt as if she were transformed again, only she wasn’t sure into what. In the cafeteria, Flor flopped down beside her, picking at the hot dog school lunch.

“No food for you?” Flor said. “Are you on a diet?”

Anne shook her head.

“Did you have the flu that’s going around?” Flor asked her. Anne shrugged, because how could she explain anything to Flor that Flor’d understand?

Flor waved her fork thoughtfully at Anne. “Girl, snap out of it,” she advised.

Anne couldn’t snap out of anything. She dreamed through her classes, sneaking peaks at the photo in history class, and then again during math, and every time she looked, instead of feeling comforted, she felt more and more confused. She couldn’t concentrate, not in English, not in gym, not even when she was called to the guidance counselor’s office to talk about college. The counselor pushed brochures of colleges at her. “Is going away to college something you’re interested in?” the guidance counselor probed. It was the second time someone had mentioned that to Anne. Anne studied the first brochure, a brick building covered with ivy, a bunch of kids with their heads thrown back, teeth as even and boxy as niblet corn, laughing as if they had heard the funniest joke in the world. “Writers don’t have to go to college,” Anne said. “They just have to live.”

The guidance counselor blinked at Anne. “You don’t think going to college is living?” she said. “Believe me, some people go just for the experience rather than the education.” She pushed the brochures toward Anne.
“How do you think you’ll write if you’re waitressing all day long? It sounds romantic, but believe me, it’s not.” Anne thought of going away, of being so far away she’d never have to come home, and then to her amazement, she felt a sudden clip of fear, as if there were nowhere now where she might feel at home, no people whom she might really belong to. “Take the pamphlets,” the guidance counselor said. “You never know how you’ll feel about this later.”

That night, Anne couldn’t sleep again. The college pamphlets were in her purse. She hadn’t even been able to take them out and put them on her desk. The letters and photos were still on the floor. She sat at her desk and tried to write but couldn’t. Everything coming out of her pen sounded fake.
“Write about what you know,”
her teachers told her,
“that will make it real.”
But she suddenly felt as if everything she had ever known had been wrong, that she didn’t really know what was true anymore, and maybe no one else really did, either. She crouched down and dug out all the letters Eva had given her and sifted through them. There, at the bottom, she pulled out a notebook. A journal. “I felt her kick today. I am in love.” Sara’s writing. Anne put the pen down and padded into the kitchen, glancing at the clock. Two. She picked up the phone and dialed.

“Hello?” Sara’s voice was groggy with sleep, and as soon as Anne heard it, she gripped the phone tighter.

“It’s me. It’s Anne.”

She couldn’t believe she was doing this. She didn’t even know what she wanted to say.

“Anne! Are you okay?” Sara said. “Is everything all right?”

“You want me to call another time—”

“No, no—don’t hang up. Please don’t hang up!” Sara interrupted.

No one spoke for a moment. The wires hummed.

“I read your letters,” Anne said. “The ones you wrote to Eva when you were pregnant with me. I read the ones she wrote you, too.”

“The letters—” Sara said, her voice full of wonder. “She kept the letters—”

“She gave them to me.” Anne’s lips were dry and she licked at them. “Why did you lie to me?” Anne finally said. “Why did you act like you were going to be a part of my life?”

“I didn’t lie. I’m still a part of your life!”

“How? How are you a part of it? You don’t live near me. I thought you came down here for me!” Anne felt a fresh flare of anger. She breathed hard. “You didn’t have the right to just show up! To say things you didn’t mean, to screw everyone up!”

“I never meant to hurt you,” Sara said. “I needed to find you. I couldn’t think about anything else.”

“You found me. Then you left me!” Anne cried.

“I didn’t leave you! I just had to leave Florida. That’s different.”

Anne sat down on a chair by the phone, resting her head against the counter.

“What does that even mean?” Anne said. “Are you coming back here to visit? Are you inviting me to come there?”

“Would you want that? I’d be there now if I had the money to get there,” Sara said slowly. “And I’d invite you in a flash if your parents would allow it.”

“Why is it up to them?”

“Because they’re the ones who got to raise you. They get to make the decisions.”

Anne shut her eyes.

“Would you let me call you?” Sara asked. “Could I write you? Or you write me?”

“I don’t know,” Anne said. “Maybe. Maybe I will.”

“Anne?” said Sara. Her voice was like the skip in one of her father’s old records. “We all always loved you.”

Anne quietly hung up. Never had she felt so far away from everyone. From Sara. From her parents who were sleeping in the bedroom.

The kitchen felt so empty that when she turned around, she was startled to see Eva, in robe and bare feet, a sheet of paper in her hand, and then Anne couldn’t move. “Have you been here the whole time?” Anne asked, and Eva nodded. “You heard what I said?” Anne asked, steeling herself. Eva nodded again, but she didn’t look angry. Instead she just stood there. “I read the letters,” Anne said. “Why did you save them?”

“I saved everything.”

“Did you reread them?”

Eva shook her head. “No, I don’t think I can.”

“Then what’s that?” Anne asked and Eva lifted up the paper. “I did my own rereading,” Eva said, and then Anne saw Mr. Moto’s scrawl on the page.

“That’s my story,” Anne said. “The one you both hated. But I threw it out.”

Eva shook her head. “I took it out of the trash. I thought maybe you could read it later, compare it to what you were writing now and see how you’ve improved—an old teacher’s trick.” She folded the page carefully, as if it were something to be treasured. “It’s wonderful, Anne. I should have seen how wonderful it was. I was so wrong—”

Anne started to cry. Eva slowly walked over to Anne and put her arms about her, but she didn’t say anything. She didn’t even move except to keep her arms about Anne, so warm and steady, Anne felt herself softening, and she finally rested her head against her mother’s shoulders. Eva held Anne for as long as Anne needed to be held and for the first time, too, Eva let go of Anne first.

George left work after half a day. One of his patients, who arrived two hours late, complained that she had to reschedule. “Maybe I should find another dentist,” she said.

Ordinarily, he’d have put his smock back on. He’d have his hands back in her mouth, examining her jaw, taking film. He’d care about his practice more.

“I can recommend one, if you need,” George said, and left his dental smock hanging on the door, and the woman’s mouth slowly closed.

He drove home to his daughter. Let his patient reschedule. Let it all go to hell. He wanted to see Anne.

He was always surprised to find her there. He didn’t know what he expected anymore. That the house might explode. That Sara would come back. He pulled into the drive. There was Anne reading on the porch. “Anne!” he called and she looked up at him, wary.

“Come drive,” he told her. And then Anne put the book down and shyly got into the car. “Drive and you can go anywhere,” he said, the same
words he had said to Sara when she was this age, too, and he was hoping Sara would learn to drive away from them, that she’d have so much fun, the thought of coming to their house would seem an imposition on her. Anne lifted her chin, her eyes shining. She took a right turn. “Like a pro!” George told her. “Keep going! Keep going! Soon you can take the car on your own.”

“Really? You’d let me do that? You’d trust me?”

He stroked her hair, amazed that she let him. He loved her, God how he loved her, and now, he was giving her permission to leave him, and hoping, with all his heart, that she’d find her way back.

Anne woke up, shivering from a dream, not sure where she was. The room came back into focus. This is my house. My parents are here.
My mother saved my writing.

She could hear a lawn mower roaring outside. Swinging her legs over the bed, she went to her bureau, pulling open her sock drawer, digging for two pairs that matched. Her fingers touched paper and she pulled something out, a folded slip of blue. She opened it, and there in Eva’s handwriting was a fortune.
“Lucky are the parents who have a one-of-a-kind daughter.”
She laughed out loud. She folded the fortune over, and held it in her hand.

Sara sat in her apartment staring at the phone. She picked it up and started to dial Anne and then slammed the phone down again. This was ridiculous. She had done this so many times since Anne’s last call that her wrist ached. “Control yourself,” she said out loud. She knew if she made Anne feel cornered, she’d lose her forever, and if she pressured Eva and George, they would turn away from her, too. Her hand hovered over the phone as if she could make it ring by sheer willpower.

She didn’t feel like sticking around the apartment.

* * *

Betty’s Books wasn’t very crowded for a Friday night. She wandered over to the magazine section, then when she’d had her fill, she went over to the fiction section, pulled out a book that looked interesting. As she passed the nonfiction section she pulled down a few books from there, too. A biography of the scientist George Fenyman, and a book on the psychology of desire. She sat down on one of the plush chairs to read for a while.

She was planning to read the fiction book first, but she started leafing through the psychology one instead, and was soon lost in a chapter called “Everyday Eros.”

“Excuse me, is that your newspaper?” someone said, and Sara looked up. A woman was standing, pointing to the paper on the floor by Sara. “Not mine,” Sara said, and then she looked past the woman, and there, staring at her, was Scott.

Flustered, Sara got up, and as soon as she did, she lost her place in her book. It tumbled from her lap onto the floor. “Scott,” she said, and he gave her a tight smile, as if he were biting down on something hard. “How are you?” she said.

“I’m good,” he said, and then another voice interrupted.

“Scott?” And a woman, tall and exotic looking, appeared, grabbing for Scott’s hand. “Honey, I want to show you this book,” she said, and Sara’s smile tightened, but the woman didn’t seem to even register Sara. She tugged at Scott, who lifted his brows at Sara and then let himself be pulled away.

It stung. She was surprised how much. Her heart drummed, sounding in her ears. She didn’t want to stay here anymore. Even though she couldn’t afford it, even though she’d be short of money all next week, she went to the checkout counter and bought both books. She walked home, twenty blocks, beginning to pant. If the books weren’t so heavy, she would have run. Before she even got the key in the lock, she heard the phone ringing. The key stuck, and then she was inside, grabbing for the phone.

“Hi, darling,” Abby said, and Sara sat down and told her about Scott. She knew Abby’d berate her for letting Scott go, but she knew she had
done the right thing, and she knew that all the disapproval, all the promises to take away the pain, wouldn’t change her mind about it. Abby didn’t say much the whole time Sara was talking, though Sara heard these odd clicks and catches in her mother’s throat, as though she were choking back-words.

“Well,” Abby said slowly. “Staying with Scott is something I would have done. But you’re braver than that.”

“You think I’m brave?”

“You went out there and found your daughter even though your father and I told you not to. You went even though it cost you Scott. I’m glad you didn’t listen to my stupid advice. I look at you and I’m amazed.”

“Mom?”

“I wish I had had it in me to be like you. But some people can’t. You’ve always risked everything, Sara.”

“And lost,” she said bitterly.

“No, you didn’t lose,” Abby said. “You found your daughter. You found you didn’t want to be with Scott.” Abby drew in a breath. “Tell me more about her.”

“You really want to know? After all this time?”

“I’m asking, aren’t I?” Abby said.

“I know, but why? Why now?”

“I don’t know. All these weeks you’ve been in Florida, I’ve thought of nothing but what a mess you were making. Then, when we didn’t hear from you, I started wondering what was going on, why you were there so long, what was happening. And then after you called us and told us, I couldn’t stop thinking about it all. Your father and I talked about it, and then I imagined all these scenarios, and then, as soon as I did that—” Abby paused.

“She became a person to me.”

“She is a person, Mom. An amazing person.”

Abby cleared her throat. “Did you know I held her? When she was newborn.”

“I knew.”

“You did?”

“I pretended to be sleeping. I heard you and Daddy talking.”

They both laughed. “Well, then,” Abby said, and then Sara heard another voice, her father’s. “Your father’s waving at me. He has something he wants to tell you.”

“How’s my baby?” Jack asked.

“Your grown daughter’s fine,” she said, then she noticed something oblong and brown by the refrigerator. A waterbug, the size of her big toe. Recoiling, she lifted her feet up.

Jack cleared his throat. “Sara, you know I didn’t think much of what I saw of your little job—”