Losing Francesca (2 page)

Lindsey shakes her head at Sean, her mouth still filled with burger as she protests. "I was not! She's lying! Why would I ever want to be around those jerks? I bumped into them as I was coming off the bridle trail, that's all. They ride their damn mini-bikes all up and down our trail. Scared the shit out of Pepper, and I spent all freaking day getting her used to the trail and they come along and ruin it."

"You owe me a dollar," Sean says calmly.

"What for?"

"You said the s-word."

"Did not!" she protests.

But all the other kids agree and she shuffles through her shorts pocket for a bill and then hands it over.

"That's my lesson money, you know."

"So don't swear and you won't have to part with it."

Lindsey's gaze falls on me and I squirm a little with the attention. "Don't think he's a nice guy, Chessie. He's an arse." She smiles at her word and I smile with her. "That's not a swear word in America, in case you didn't know." She thinks about this as Sean shakes his head and then blurts, "Hey, now Chessie here can teach me how to swear in Italian!"

I breathe out when I realize I'm smiling. They all notice it at the same time and I feel their satisfaction in breaking down my walls a little. They are fun and I'm sure they are nice, but I don't want to get attached to anything here. Nothing. I'm holding out hope that next week when Mrs. Marco comes she'll listen to reason and get me another court date so I can go home. Or at the very least, see my father and beg him to make something happen. He is powerful in our world. He's very powerful. And it stunned me to realize that his power was not transferable here.

Everywhere I go I am untouchable. I am rich, I am privileged, and I have been given every opportunity a kid could have on this whole green earth.

But here in America… I'm worse than nobody, because here, I'm Fiona Sullivan.

Chapter Two - Francesca

Aimee, the littlest girl, takes me upstairs after dinner to see my room. The parents never even approach me. I guess they figure I'm doing OK with the kids, or maybe they always let Sean handle the new kids. Who knows.

He explained the situation at dinner. They take in kids who have no homes or who have bad parents. He and Fiona were the first foster kids they adopted. Fiona was a newborn baby, but Sean was already two when he won the Sullivan lottery. His words, not mine.

The oldest girl, Lindsey, was adopted nine years ago, the two boys, twin brothers named Jake and Quinn, have been here for five, and Aimee is the newest addition. She's been here two years.

The house is massive, brick, and situated on the western edge of an expansive piece of property that has several very large barns to keep their horses. The house has a lot of rooms. All the girls are upstairs and the boys and the parents are downstairs. Sean lives in some kind of carriage house apartment out back. Apparently the Sullivans own a very popular and successful show barn and they typically have boarders and lesson kids milling about at all hours of the day, but since it's been raining for two days, no one was around to gape at me as I was delivered.

Thank God for small favors.

The upstairs is laid out in a U-shape with a balcony that surrounds the stairs on three sides. Lindsey and Aimee both have very large bedrooms that face the front of the house. Aimee swings the doors open for each to show them off. They both share a bathroom that connects the two rooms.

Lindsey's room is a mess, but her bed is big and her walls are red. Aimee's room is the perfect little girl room with a mural of jumping horses painted on the pale yellow walls, and gauzy white netting floats over her bed, like she lives in the tropics and needs protection from the bugs.

She points to another large room next to Lindsey's. "Usually, when we get a foster, they get that room. No one ever gets this room, but since they think you're Fiona, Dad wanted you to have it."

She says it like it's nothing.
Since they think I'm Fiona
.

She twists the handle on the door and opens it. It's a small room with large floor-to-ceiling windows and the walls are painted a light gray color. The curtains, the rug, and the bed covers are all a light shade of pink. There's a dresser and a mirror and a night stand. A desk is situated on the far end and it's got a few packages on it and some pencils and paper. There's a closet on the other end and past that there's a private bathroom. Aimee opens the closet and it's filled with clothes and boxes of shoes. "Angela, Lindsey, and I went shopping for you, Francesca. I hope you like what we picked, but if you don't, we can always take it back."

Angela is the girlfriend who lives here with Frank the father. Apparently the mother, I forget her name, went missing when they were on vacation in Italy all those years ago. She had Fiona with her at the time and no one has seen them since. It's a tragic story and I sincerely feel bad for them, but no one seems to care that my life was torn apart with these accusations.

"OK," Aimee says when I just stand there. "I'll leave you alone. We have breakfast at eight every morning. And we all usually help out, but you're new. So you don't have to. I get it. It's hard, isn't it?"

I nod down at her.

"Yeah, I remember what it was like when I first came here. I was scared too. So it's OK. You can be scared. And you don't have to help with breakfast or the chores. But if you do, just come outside in the morning and I'll let you help me do mine." She smiles at this thought, like she can rope me into being her little helper.

"
Grazie
," I say.

"
Prego
," she quips back. "We've all been trying to learn a little bit of Italian to make it easier for you. I don't know much, but I know that."

And then she backs out of the room and finally, after months of being scrutinized and questioned and forced to sleep in institutionalized beds with scratchy covers, I am alone.

If I was strong I'd stick to my plan of liking no one, appreciating nothing, and withdrawing from the world to show all of them just how angry I am. Just how hurt I am. And just how much they've damaged me.

But I'm actually a very weak person and I'm not very good at making decisions, let alone following through on things, so I'm just too tired to put up the pretenses. I shuffle through drawers until I find some soft pajamas, take them into the bathroom, and soak myself in a tub filled with hot water and bubbles. When I'm clean and feeling almost normal again, I slip into the bed covers and even though it's barely seven PM, I listen to the rain fall on the roof and I meet sleep with no tears for the first time since I came back to America.

When I wake it is still dark. I know where I am immediately, like I've been sleeping here forever and didn't just meet this room a few hours ago. The clock on the desk says two AM and I guess that's what happens when you go to bed at seven.

I lie there, trying to figure out what's different than when I fell asleep. The rain has stopped and the moon is shining brightly through the sheer pink curtains. My feet are up and crossing the small room and when I pull back the sheers to look out into the night I am surprised to see that this room comes with a terrace. The floor-to-ceiling windows aren't windows at all. They are French doors. I open one and the night breeze comes rushing in. The sweet smell of clean air after a summer rain fills my nose.

"Shit!" I hear a muffled voice say out past the large tree whose boughs practically hang onto the terrace. "Shit!" the voice says again. It's a deep voice and I can hear him grunting down below.

I walk over to the tree limb and try to see through the leaves, but it's no use.

"Dammit!" he swears again.

This is the back of the house and it faces a small dirt road.

A phone rings.

"Yeah." Silence, then, "No, I'm broken down outside the Sullivan house. Come get me, will ya?"

I strain to see him, but he's totally hidden by the tree. The bough is so big I clamber up and scoot across it, then stand.

"Renn, don't be an asshole, you're already up, you might as well just stay up so you can leave for the airport on time. Just come pick me up, you can sleep on the plane."

All I get a glimpse of is some light hair in the moonlight and a white t-shirt. I climb down and scoot out farther.

"Dude, if you make me walk this bike home I'll kick your ass."

He's talking about a dirt bike. This must be one of those Mason boys who scared Lindsey's horse.

"Fine," he says as he ends the call and turns the phone into a flashlight that he points down at the bike. "Fucking asshole."

I wait to see if he'll start to push his bike, but he goes back to work instead, messing around with whatever it is that boys who ride bikes mess around with when something goes wrong, the phone light clenched between his teeth as he works. He does that for several minutes and I'm ready to go back inside, but not sure if I should risk being seen, when he laughs.

"Gotcha, you piece of shit!"

He stands up and steps back a little, bringing him into full view. He's very tall, probably a little older than me, and is wearing light denim jeans now spotted with grease. He sighs and crosses his arms over his chest. "You thought you had me this time, didn't ya, you stupid, worthless, sorry excuse for a bike. I'm gonna sell you next time, you better remember that."

I laugh a little, I can't help it, and he whirls around—looking over the privacy fence into our yard. "Spying on me now, Lindsey?"

Oops. He's in plain sight now, which means so am I. All he has to do is look up. I stay very still and try not to rustle the leaves, hoping he'll go away.

But he doesn't go away. He searches the yard. "Lindsey?" He waits. "I'm hearing things."

He gets on his bike with a smug smile on his face and he's just about to kick-start it when he glances up and sees me standing in the tree.

"I'm not crazy," he says. "But you sure are. What the hell are you doing up there, Lindsey?"

I don't move and I don't answer.

He squints up at me. "You're not Lindsey." I stare back because he's got quite a face on him. His hair is blond, I can see that now, and he's got a little bit of stubble on his chin. Not enough to make him look dirty, just enough to show he needs a shave. And his eyes are an amazing blue color that I can see even in this dim moonshine.

We stare at each other for several long seconds, and then he breaks the silence. "Who are you?"

I bolt back the way I came. Scamper up the branch, then slide over until I'm on the terrace. I can hear him calling me names as I slip through my door and go back to bed.

Freak
. That's what he called me. And he's right, I am a freak. A freak stuck between worlds, looking down on rude boys from a tree limb. His bike starts up with a loud rumble and I listen to the sound fade as he travels down the road.

I lie there for hours, thinking about him, how his eyes looked in the moonlight, the shape of his face and the curve of his shoulders under his t-shirt. And I make a promise to myself to stay far away from this boy. Far, far away.

Chapter Three - Francesca

I wake early the next morning, but not early enough to beat the Sullivan family. They must start chores before the sun comes up, long before that eight o'clock breakfast Aimee talked about, because the whole place is bustling with activity, the chatter of Sullivan kids, and the thunder of galloping hooves when the horses are turned out for morning exercise.

I go to the closet to find some clothes. There are a bunch of things to choose from. Most are for summer, since it
is
summer, but there are a few winter sweaters and long pants, too. Like maybe they think I'll still be here when the humid Ohio summer turns into fall and winter.

I hold down a snort at that. I will be long gone.

The hanging clothes are all brand new and have tags on them. There is a stack of jeans on a shelf, all of which look used. The whole stack gets thrown on the bed and I start trying them on. Lindsey and I are not the same size, she's shorter than me, so the first three pairs are not only too short, but too tight as well. I get to the last pair, all ripped and faded with a button-fly and a hole in the knee, and they slip on and hang low on my hips the way I like my jeans.

I button them up and breathe a sigh of relief as I pull a tank top over my bra and go looking for shoes. All the shoes are new and are a variety of sizes that come pretty close to my own. There are sneakers and sandals, barn boots—both tall and short—and one pair of strappy heels. I guess the fancy clothes mean they will want to take me out in public.

Just the thought makes me a little queasy.

I opt for a pair of slip-on sneakers and pull them on just as a soft knock sounds on the door. When I open it Sean smiles at me. "Hey," he says. "Have a good night?"

My head nods as he eyes my clothes. "Oh, those fit you. Great. Those are mine," he says, laughing a little. The silence gets uncomfortable and he sighs out a breath of frustration. "Hungry?"

I simply nod and follow him downstairs. The place is a madhouse. There are kids here I didn't see last night, all wearing different versions of the same thing—riding clothes. Tall boots, short boots, breeches, chaps and summer tops. They are all girls. Not a single boy in the crowd. Most of them are younger than me, and Aimee chats merrily with several, like they are old friends. Lindsey is eating at the end of the table where Frank was sitting last night, talking to Angela. They notice me and Lindsey takes over.