Have Mercy (Have a Life #1) (25 page)

I was so exhausted, I slept the entire next day until three o’clock in the afternoon when I was awakened by women’s laughter coming from the kitchen.  Marjewel was teaching Captain Kirby Spanish.

              “No, no, no, Janet, that’s not how you pronounce it.  Not
moo-jar
! Like this:
moo-hair.  Moo-hair.
Say Moo and Hair”

              Captain Kirby puckered her mouth and said it over and over. 
“Moo-hair, moo-hair, moo-hair.” 

              “What does
that
mean?” I asked.

              “
Mujer
means woman,” Marjewel said, glancing at me. Now that she had a definite date

when I was leaving she seemed willing to accept my presence. She even smiled at me when I parked myself on a stool at the island.

              “Janet is fixing something to eat before the concert,” Marjewel said.  “This is scrumptious, Janet.”  She held up a piece of goat cheese wrapped in arugula and handed it to me.

              “Splendiferous,” I said.

              “We had a cook growing up so I never learned how,” Marjewel said.  “She would throw me out of the kitchen when I wanted to watch.  But Maria comes in twice a week so Isak doesn’t starve.”

              “What do you mean you had a cook?” I asked.   

              Captain Kirby gave me one of her come-on-already looks.  “She doesn’t mean she had a restaurant, Mercy.”   

              Marjewel laughed. “My father was very wealthy,” she said.  “My mother was very spoiled.  Me, too.”

              It didn’t seem fair that Marjewel grew up with a cook and a father who spoiled her while Jane grew up with Granny O’Reilly. For that matter, it didn’t seem fair that Isak had a mother who worried about him starving to death while my own mother paid so little attention to the stove she never noticed that the clock on it was six hours off.

              “The bus will pick us up at seven then go to the studio and pick up the band,” Marjewel said.  “Can you
mujeres
be ready?” 

              “The
bus
is picking us up?  The
band
bus?” 

              “The Griffin thinks it’s
muy
dramatico
to enter with an entourage,” Marjewel said.  “
Muy
means very, Janet.  The vowels are everything in Spanish.  If you get those right people forgive the consonants.  I am sure there are courses on the internet.  Ask Isak. He will know. You have a very cute accent. Carmen will find it
muy adorable
.”                

              Captain Kirby had certainly charmed Marjewel into thinking she was
muy adorable
. 

              “Hey,” Captain Kirby asked me, “Are you going to put something cool on for the concert?”                  

              “Isn’t this cool?” I asked, pinching the sides of my dirty jeans and curtseying.  “Since it’s formal, I might put my bra on.  How about you?”

              Captain Kirby looked down at her black chinos and black tee shirt.  “I want to stay in character.  I think it’s important for your brand to have a consistent look.”

              “So you’re a
brand
now?”

              “Did I say brand?  I meant
band
.”

              Captain Kirby was on the exit ramp, on her way to another adventure.  I could see her tail lights.  We would have school together next year, but things would never be the same.  Captain Kirby was right:  you can never go back.  Maybe I would have to start having my own adventures.

              “I can loan you girls some clothes, if you want,” Marjewel said.

              We checked out her silk shirts and designer jeans and high-heeled sandals—they were in a walk-in closet that was as big as my bedroom—and said, “No!” at the same time.

              “Thank you, though,” Captain Kirby said.  “Ma’m.”

              “Suit yourselves.  Seven o’clock,” Marjewel said, shooing us out of her closet.  “At least make yourself presentable.  You look awful. Use the bathroom off the kitchen.  Just make sure you leave things as you found them.”  She forced herself to give me a little nod and the teensiest of smiles. 

                The bathroom was like a spa.  We showered and put on some clean clothes before heading back to the kitchen to finish off the rest of the food that Kirby made. 

              “She’s not so bad,” Captain Kirby said, “For a step-mother.”

              “I suppose
you’ve
had worse?”

              “What do you mean by that?”

              “Everything that happens to me, you’ve already gone through it.  It’s kind of boring.”

              “Is that how I sound?”  Kirby actually looked hurt.  I’d never seen her be anything but cool before. Being in love was making her sensitive.

              “I’m sorry.  It’s just that Marjewel doesn’t consider me a step-child.  She considers me an
accident
.”

                Captain Kirby gathered up the dirty dishes and put them in the sink.  I started washing them.  Just like home.

              “You know, Mercy, I’m gonna check this thing out with Carmen.  See if I, if we, can make it stick.”

              I held a dish up for inspection. “The prep is as important as the cooking, right?’  

              “Like, how many times do you find love in a lifetime?” Kirby asked.

              “You haven’t had a lifetime yet.  You’re only seventeen,” I said.

              “Almost eighteen.” 

              “Do you think it’s possible to find the someone who’s going to be right for you forever at eighteen?  What if at twenty someone better comes along?” I asked her.

              “The odds are that someone else
will
come along.  If not for you, for your partner. I don’t really know.  All I know is, I never felt like this before and I have to see where it goes.”

              “People change,” I said, thinking of Tim.  Was I in love with him?  He had changed. How would he feel when he saw that I had changed? 

              “What if you finish growing up and you’re so changed that Carmen doesn’t like what you’ve become?”

              “I’ll deal with that when it happens.  But, hey!  You never know, maybe me and Carmen will be one of those couples who stay together forever.”

              “You never know,” I said.

              “I have a very strong loyalty streak in me.”

              “I know, Captain Kirby.”

              “And anyway, wherever this takes me it’s not like you and I won’t be friends anymore.  We’ll always be friends.  And school next year.”  She laughed her low “hehehehe” laugh. 

              It sounded like a demotion.  Kirby and Tim were the first friends I ever really had and I had to let them both go.  Now I saw what happens when you let people out of their boxes.  They run away. 

              Captain Kirby frowned.  “I just hope Carmen feels the same way.  She is so
together
.  And I have a lot of loose ends.”

              It was the first time I ever heard Captain Kirby express any self-doubt.  “How could she not love you?” I asked.  “You charmed Marjewel, you charmed Mrs. Valliere. Granny O’Reilly said you were street smart and I never heard her say anything nice about anyone. 
Everyone
loves you.  Even I love you…as a
friend
, of course.  So what’s your problem? 

    “I didn’t start out completely honest with Carmen, and I’m worried she’ll think I’m a complete bullshit artist when I tell her the truth, and I’ll have to sooner or later, and maybe she’ll never trust me.”

Kirby was the most up front person I’d ever met so I couldn’t imagine that it was anything game-changing.  “So, what did you lie about?” 

“I told her my name was Janet Kirby and that me and my ma were on our way to New York when we stopped in Milltown to visit some friends and she got a great job as a make-up artist and that’s why we stayed.”

I repeated what she said in my head.  “So, which part is…”

“A lie?”

I nodded.

“Most of it.”

“But your mother is a make-up artist…”

“
Was
.”

“And you
do
live in Milltown…”

“But we didn’t stop there to visit anyone. You know that.  We stopped there because my mother kidnapped me.  The court said she was an unfit mother and gave me to my father.  I mean, it’s ridiculous because he didn’t want me.  I bought us phony ID from some Mexicans I knew in East L.A.—boy are they good—and we changed our name to Kirby.”

“So your name isn’t ….”

“No.  I mean my dad doesn’t care, which is the funny part.  But we’re both in the system, and if I used my real name the FBI would be all over us and my mother would end up in jail.  Technically, she abducted me, even though it was my idea.  I just have to stay hidden till I turn eighteen.”

We sat on the island stools for a long time.

“So, did you actually call your father about Jonah’s and Zina’s TV show…?”

              “Oh, yeah, that was real.  He’s real.  He was totally on board with it.  He wished me luck with my new life and said I could count on him for help.  Pretty funny, huh? It’s kind of too bad that Zina screwed that up, but I’ll find something else.  You will, too. There’s always something
else
.”

“So,” I said, “What am I supposed to call you?”

“Look, Mercy, can you forgive me? I didn’t know I’d get so involved in your life or I would have been straight with you from the beginning.  It was a mistake and I know it. And I made it with Carmen too.  I never had any real friends before.  No one but you knows that me and my mom lived in a freaking funeral home. You’re more like me than anyone I ever met.  I mean, your mom is a nut job and your dad likes you as long as you don’t come within a thousand miles of him. I knew I could trust you. I was going to keep it just me and my mom until I turned 18. I thought I could wait till I was 18 to start being a human being.”

It was always just me and Jane, too.  We didn’t have to lie about our names, but we did about everything else, trying to make people believe we were normal.   “Sixteen. Eighteen,” I said, “What’s the difference, huh?  It’s a long time to wait to be real.”

Marjewel called from the front door, “If you girls don’t come out right now, the bus is going to leave without you!”

“Oh my god!  It’s gotten so late!” 

I stood up to go but Captain Kirby pinned my hand on the island under hers.

“So?” she said.

I wriggled my hand out from under hers.  “The only thing I couldn’t forgive you for is if you made me miss a ride to The Griffin’s concert on his band bus.”

The band bus was parked in the circular driveway with its engine running, speakers on the grill blaring out a song I’d never heard, probably one The Griffin just wrote.  The paintings of The Griffin, Bang, Raymond and Isak on the bus’s side looked brand new, like they’d just been detailed. 

              I asked the bus driver about the song as we boarded.  “He calls it
Plan B Black Hole
.  The Griffin’s on fire. This is a new beginning for him,” he said. “He wrote it yesterday.”

              Tim was already in the back. I sat down on The Griffin’s orange Barca Lounger. My heart was pounding so hard I put my hand over it to slow it down. Marjewel gave me a disapproving look as she walked by me.

              “I’ll get up when he gets on,” I said.  I wanted to be part of it all by osmosis even if the reality was that I wasn’t.  I squirmed around in the chair to rub some of The Griffin’s mojo off on my pants and shirt, which I knew I would never wash again.

              “You having a heart attack or what?” Captain Kirby asked, sitting down on the lounger’s arm.

              This seat was where The Griffin sang songs to me when I was little and he came to town.  This was where The Griffin sat to dole out Christmas presents, even if we didn’t get them till February.  This was where Jane probably sat on The Griffin’s lap while I was growing inside her.  It was even maybe where I was conceived.

              “Fine.  I’m fine,” I said.

              Tim sat down across from us.  He was grinning like an idiot.

              “Ready for your close-up, Tim?” Captain Kirby asked him.

              “Absolutely.”

              I could see he wasn’t nervous.  All the weird shit he’d gone through with his crazy survivalist father and grandfather, somehow it hadn’t taken control of him and somehow he hadn’t needed to take control of it.  He was honest and he wasn’t afraid. That was his secret.

              “You’ll be great,” I said. 

              “You’ll get your chance too,” he said. 

              “Maybe.” 

              Was
Mercy…Me!
a good song?  If you measure the worth of a song by its power, the answer was definitely yes.  I would get my chance, but I didn’t want to jinx it by saying it aloud. 

              I felt my phone vibrate and I looked at it.  It was a phone number from Pennsylvania.  Jane!

              “Mom?”

              “Mercedes!  I was hoping you’d pick up.  Put it on speaker, I can’t hear you, there’s a lot of noise in here.”

              “Is something wrong?” I asked her.

              “I was feeling lonely and wanted to hear your voice, that’s all.  Silly, right?  Dutton let me use her cell phone again.  She’s a really good person.”

              “You’ll be okay, Mom,” I said. 

              “Do you think so, Mercedes?  Really?”

              “I’m leaving tomorrow.  I’ll be there for your sentencing, Mom.”

              “Where are you?  What do you mean you’re leaving tomorrow?  How come you’re calling me mom?”

              “You’ll never believe this. I’m in Houston!  I’m on
The Griffin’s bus
!  We’re going to his concert!”

              “How did you get to Houston?”

              “It’s a long story.  It’ll have to wait.”

              “I guess I have no choice.  Be careful, honey.  You know what happened to me when I was sixteen.”

              “Don’t worry, Mom.  I’m cool.”

              Jane sighed.  “You are.  You really are.  We’re the Two Cool Society, right?”

              I laughed.  I would explain to Jane when we were finally together that the Two Cool Society was disbanded, that you can’t go back to how things used to be, like Captain Kirby said.  But here’s the thing: why would you want to?  “I’ll record the concert for you on my phone.  As much as I can get on it.”

              “Dutton wants her phone back.  I’ve gotta go. I love you, Mercedes.”

              Captain Kirby had been listening in.  When I paused she kicked my foot. 

              “I love you too, Mom.”