I'll Let You Go (44 page)

She continues her locomotion to the redundant oasis of Moorpark Park, but the grown-ups notice when she sits on the bright orange slide for a while—then off again, ashamed and horrified that she left her post and might miss her ride as nightfall comes.

T
here she is! There! There! There!”

Headlamps light her up. Amaryllis stirs, half asleep in the bushes behind the blue dumpster, on the lip of the hillock that dips down to the river. Kristl is grabbing at her, and suddenly she finds herself in the enormous, slippery backseat of an old El Dorado. There's even a pillow back there and a chewed-up dog bone on the carpet.

“We kept
looking
for you. My mom was gonna leave!”

Tina is at the wheel. Her long, squeezed-together face reminds Amaryllis of the
Scream
masks, but more pretty than scary.

“This is
so
fucked-up, Kristl Ann! Honey, I am on
parole
.”

“But she's my
friend
—”

“You can
never
say I picked up this girl, Kristl Ann,
never
.” She turned back to Amaryllis. “You can
never
say I did this, OK? Because that's kidnapping!” To her daughter: “I'll tell you one thing, she is going back
tomorrow
.”

“Mom!—”

“And you are, too
—
”

“You can't!”

“Well that's just the way it's going to be!”

Kristl started to talk, but her mother said, “Shut up!” and they drove in silence along Ventura Boulevard until rattling onto the 101. Once they were on the freeway, Tina got calmer but yelled more.

“Do you even
know
what they'll do to your mother if they stop me with the two of you? Throw me in
jail
, that's what. That's right. And jail is
not
a place I want to be,
huh
-uh.
Been
there
done
that
no
way.”

“I'm
sorry—
”

“We can't even go back to
Lawndale
. I can't even put you with your grandma—she's too sick. Though I may have to … don't you think I'm the
first
one they will call? Huh? Don't you
know
that? Well, you're fucking right. Probably called
already
. I may be in violation just by not checking the messages! And Grandma? Would you really want to do that to your grandma? Would you, Kristl Ann? She'd call the cops on you for
sure
—you know Grandma don't put up with no shit. And why should she? That's why we're gonna be with Mike in Topanga. We can't go back home! I can't believe I'm out here in the dark with you two fugitives on my way to fucking Topanga! I had to break away from
business
to come get your friend. I'm getting my real estate license, did you know that?”

Kristl shook her mortified head.

“Do you think that's easy? Do you think
anyone
can get a real estate license? They just hand them out like candy? Here, Tina! Here's your license! You are free now to go and sell yourself a mansion! I wish. One mansion and I could buy a house. I was doing
business
, Kristl; that's why Mike had to come. You love your friend so much but not enough to say she was with you. Why didn't you say you were with your friend when you called? Huh? Huh? The
only
reason I'm here—the
only
reason, Kristl Ann—is because I know how
loyal
you are to your friend, because I
raised
you like that. And that's a nice quality. But I was doing mother-fucking
business
, do you understand?” Back to Amaryllis: “Excuse my language. I don't usually talk that way, but sometimes the situation demands it.” To Kristl: “Do you
know
what kinda bills I have to pay, Kristl Ann? With your daddy in the penitentiary? He can't
help
, I'm telling you. He may
want
to, but he
can't
, OK? So it's on
me
. And, honey, you do
not
want to see your mama back in that jail either,
believe
me. I
know
she's your friend and she's real cute, but I can't be an accessory! Do you know what an accessory is? Because what you two have done is committed a crime. MacLaren Hall is an
institution
, and to leave an institution without permission as
minors
is a
crime
. They put their trust in you not to do that. They're not all bad people. Some of them care; I know they do. 'Cause they weren't
all
bad, even in jail. There's always a few rotten apples, but there's people who care, too. People that help you. Did you think I could just walk out of Central if I felt like it? It is
not
a perfect world. Do you think I could walk out of New Beginnings or
wherever
just because I didn't like the way the sheets smelled? Or the food? Or because they made me mop the damn floor?
No, I couldn't
. Because they gave me a trust and that is a
sacred
trust. And you know what? As far as the law stands, you may as well have robbed a bank and I'm the getaway.”

“Mama—”

“
That's
an accessory, OK? I can't
be
that for you, do you understand, Kristl Ann? Do you ever want to come home?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn't hear you.”

“I said
yes
.”

“That didn't sound like someone who wants to come home. That sounded like someone who doesn't
give
a shit about their mom, who's risking her
freedom
to pick up her daughter and her daughter's
friend
, who the mother doesn't even
know
—”

“Mom, I
do
want to come home—”

“Well then, act like it! And don't violate a sacred trust!
We
have a sacred trust—mother and daughter. Do you remember when you and Dakin were with me on a trial basis? And we had the dispo and they said you could stay with me? How happy you were? I worked my ass off for that! Do you think it was
fun
for me to go to school at night and hear some fucking fool who's probably molesting his kids tell me how to parent? Well it wasn't! But did I walk out? No I didn't. I maintained a stable home, Kristl Ann! I peed in a bottle for those people, OK? I did that for
you
. Would you and your friend pee in a bottle for
me
? Do you think that's fun?”

Kristl laughed and Amaryllis smiled and so did Tina, but then she got mad again.

“When someone says OK you can keep your kids, but first you have to go pee in a bottle and take these classes at night … when you're already tired because you have to work during the day—then they turn around and say, Hey, we're takin' your kids away anyhow! Because your daddy paid a visit and he wasn't supposed to!
I
didn't ask him over. I ain't no fucking p.o.! I ain't no police, either. What'd they expect me to do, handcuff him? Citizen's arrest? The man like to kill me. Hell, I'm afraid of that man. And he shows up and what am I supposed to do? I told the judge that, I told the lawyer that, I told the social worker, hell I stood on a street corner and shouted it. Do you think anyone gives a shit? Your father stayed on the porch, do you remember? For thirty minutes!
You
were there. It was
totally
supervised, do you remember? Thirty uninvited totally supervised minutes on the porch and that's enough to take my kids away? And the Court of Appeals
agreed
with me, did you know that? I never got any damn reunification services, I got
family maintenance
. The law says there's a
difference
between maintenance and reunification, a
big
difference! They say I already
had
my eighteen months, and that's a
crock
. But you are
not
going to blow this for me, Kristl Ann! Everything I worked for to put this family back together! I am
not
going to let it happen! I have
business
, Kristl Ann, I have business at
home
and now I can't even go back—and all because you got it in your head to shit on a mother and daughter's sacred trust. You can't just waltz in and make me an accessory! They will
not
give a real estate license to an accessory! I'm doing you and your little friend a
major
fucking favor here and I want points for that, do you understand?
Kristl you answer me—
”

“
Yes yes yes, I understand! All right? OK?
Take
your fucking points, all right? Goddamnit! You can have your points! Fucking take them take them take them!”

I
t was dark by the time they reached Topanga—another canyon. Kristl convinced her friend it wasn't anywhere near “Tunga,” but only after Tina and her boyfriend concurred.

Amaryllis lay in a moldy sleeping bag on the open-air tabernacle of the deck. There were tons of insects, and the sound of animals was all around. The sky was a puddle of black ink and the discrete brilliance of galaxies confounded her. An old mangy dog, no bloodhound indeed, sniffed at them but couldn't be bothered.

Mike had his little girl with him. She was about four and slept outside with the runaways. She had a talking doll called Amazing Amy. Mike said the doll had a computer chip, so it always knew the time. At eight o'clock each morning, Amazing Amy said she wanted breakfast and if you tried to give her a little plastic pizza slice that came with the set she'd say, “Not
pizza
for
breakfast
!” Mike said there were sensors embedded in the pizza slices and in Amazing Amy's mouth, too. Sometimes she got a temperature and asked for aspirin. If you gave her pizza instead, she got mad. Mike said she cost $90.

The girls got up early and whispered awhile. Amaryllis asked if her mom was really going to call MacLaren, and Kristl said probably not, but if she did, it wouldn't be before noon. She never got it together before noon. Kristl said that maybe they should split. Then she said maybe her mom wouldn't snitch if she had “business”—if her mom was busy with business, she might not have time to deal with anything else and it would probably be easier to just let them stay in the Canyon and help with chores instead of hassling with driving them all the way back to El Monte. But Mike would have to agree, because it was his house—Kristl said Mike was on parole too, so that probably wouldn't happen, because he would get in trouble if anyone found out two underage AWOLs were staying at his house. He'd be an accessory, big-time. Amaryllis asked what parole was, and Kristl said it was when you got out of jail but still had to live by jail rules.

They went to the kitchen to look for food and, Amazing Amy aside,
did
have pizza for breakfast. They cackled and whispered and Tina
shushed them from the bedroom. The little girl came in the front door with her doll and the mangy dog. The latter, casting a rheumy eye on garbage and grotty dishes, turned around and sauntered out to the deck.

For some reason, watching him go struck the girls' funny bones, and they laughed some more, then Kristl broke a glass; they winced and grew still. Her mother sprang from the bedroom. Amaryllis stared—her bush was the center of a giant spiderweb tattoo that spread across thighs and stretch-marked stomach. Tina fastened on to Kristl's arm and shoved her into the bedroom. She started screaming and Kristl screamed back and Amaryllis heard Mike tell them both to shut the fuck up. The doll said it wanted breakfast.

Amaryllis saw money and a pack of cigarettes on the floor next to a beanbag chair. She grabbed them, crept through the front door and bolted down the long gravel drive.

Shutting its sticky eyes in sleep, the old dog listened to her steps recede.

I
t has been written that after many a summer dies the swan, but plenty happens in the seasons preceding such a lyrical demise. To wit: the heavy-bodied bird must shed its feathers before finding a mate. That is what renders it flightless.

During most of
his
season, Will'm nested. Though he never ventured to Northern California, he did take the other half of his friend Fitz's advice, trimming the wild oak tree of a beard close enough to skin so that it looked inadvertently modern (or nearly so). His accent too was shorn, the notes still melodious yet steeped in less juice; anachronisms came fewer and further between, while contemporary phrases and intonations grew like sprigs from pavement cracks. There was no explaining that. Our fugitive ruefully discarded his telltale tweeds and took to wearing a Smart & Final Iris windbreaker. He did not want for money, thanks to the deathbed bequest of the late, lamented Geo. Fitzsimmons; in the envelope that graced the blouse of the suicide lay $6,000, which Will'm did nothing to flaunt.