Pieces of Me (15 page)

Lucy smiled. “Sure, bring him along.” She leaned down. “I'm Lucy,” she said.

“I'm Dylan,” he said. “And Fred is in the backpack.”

Lucy frowned and looked up at me.

“Bear,” I said.

She nodded and looked at her watch. “We better get going.”

We clomped down the steps. Outside on the sidewalk, I set Dylan's train down and he climbed on and grabbed the sides.

“That is extremely cool,” Lucy said.

We headed in the direction of the university. “What kind of stuff will there be?” I asked.

“You name it, you'll probably find it,” Lucy said. She was wearing her hair off her face, pulled back with some kind of stretchy headband. “Franz—the tall guy with the black-framed glasses—he found a tv at the end of winter term. Got some detergent, some dishes, that cooler I loaned you. I think Alicia got some chairs for her place.”

She tipped her head back toward Dylan. “One of the residences is for students who have kids. You'll probably find some toys and stuff for him.”

The same group of people was waiting when we got to the university. Alicia smiled and came over. “Hi,” she said to Dylan.

“Your hair is blue,” he said.

I frowned at him. “That's rude, kiddo,” I said.

He got that stubborn look on his face. “But it
is
blue,” he said.

“That is so neat,” Alicia said, looking at the wheeled platform. “Could I pull him?”

My arms were tired from hauling him all the way up the hill. “Uh, sure,” I said, handing over the strap. The others were already headed toward some buildings. We followed, Alicia making horse sounds, which made Dylan laugh.

There were two big green Dumpsters at the side of the first building we stopped at. They were so full, the covers couldn't even close. Yellow-hair—Franz—climbed up on the side and started handing things down to the others—a black wooden chair, a desk, something that might have been a dvd player. The desk looked like it was brand-new.

In the end, I got some dishes, laundry detergent, two boxes of Pop-Tarts, a small folding table, a windup train for Dylan and, the best thing of all, a cooler on wheels.

“I'll get your cooler for you,” I said to Lucy when we'd gotten everything upstairs. She'd carried my folding table, and Dylan had held her bottle of detergent on his lap.

I unlocked the room, hoping Q would be stretched out on his bed.

But he wasn't.

“Thanks,” I said to Lucy.

She smiled. “It was fun.” She felt in her pocket. “Here.” She handed me a lime-green iPod. “The music all seems to be French.”

“Are you sure you don't want it?” I said.

She nodded. “Yeah. I already have one. Would you believe all Spanish music?” She picked up her detergent bottle. “If you want to come Monday, it's the same time as last week.”

“Yeah, I'll try,” I said.

“See you,” she said. She waved at Dylan. “Bye, Dylan.”

“Bye, Lucy,” he said.

The only way I could get Dylan in the bathtub was to let him set his train on the top of the toilet tank. He went to sleep with it set beside his bed. I had a fast bath and washed my hair. I tried to wait up for Q, but I was just too tired. I woke up when he came in and banged into my new table.

“Oh, Maddie, hey, I'm sorry I woke you up,” he said.

It took me a second to realize there was someone behind him. I got up, wrapping the blanket around me. “Q, who is this?” I said.

He looked back at the person standing by the door. “His name is Leo,” he said.

“What's he doing here?” I asked. I didn't really care if Leo knew that I was pissed.

“It's okay,” Q said. “He's just here for tonight.”

Dylan moved in his sleeping bag behind me. “Why?” I said.

Q didn't say anything. I took a step toward him and slugged his arm. “Why?” I repeated.

“I kinda won the kid in the game.”

Kid
?

I hobbled to the bathroom and flipped on the light. I could see that the person standing by the door was just a kid, older than Dylan, eleven or twelve, maybe. He looked thin and scared, his arms crossed over his chest.

“What do you mean you won him?” I said to Q.

He rubbed his face. Even with the distance between us, I could smell that he had been drinking. “It's complicated,” he said.

“So uncomplicate it.”

He took a step closer to me. “We'll figure something out in the morning.” He lowered his voice. “He doesn't have anywhere else to go.”

I looked over at the kid, who was edging toward the open door. I thought about all the scary things that were out there on the dark street. I thought about all the scary people. I went over to him. He took a bunch of steps backward, bumping into the door frame.

“Your name is Leo?” I asked.

He nodded. He was skinny, like he hadn't been eating enough.

“You hungry?”

He gave an indifferent shrug.

What did I have for food? An apple. Peanut butter. Some juice. The boxes of Pop-Tarts from tonight. Q had knocked the Pop-Tarts on the floor when he'd bumped into the new table. I bent down to pick them up. “How about a Pop-Tart?” I said. I took one out of the box and held it out to Leo. He hesitated and then took it from me. He made me think of this old dog that used to hang around Pax House—jumpy, hungry, but it wouldn't come close enough most of the time to get food.

“Come in,” I said. He looked from me to Q. I couldn't see his face clearly with just the bathroom light on, but he seemed scared and at the same time trying to pretend he wasn't.

“I'm not doing stuff,” the kid said. “Not with him and not with you.”

Just like that old dog, he was about to run and maybe I would have let him, except I got it then, what he meant about stuff. “You don't have to do anything with anyone,” I said. I pointed at Q. “Not him. Not me. Nobody. Got it? That's not how we do things.”

I turned around and gave Q a shove. “You stink,” I said.

He went into the bathroom and closed the door. All we were left with was the light from the street coming in through the window. It was enough to see the kid, Leo, still by the door.

I could taste something sour at the back of my throat. What kind of person bet a kid in a poker game? “Leo,” I said softly. “Come in. No one's going to touch you, I swear.”

He took a couple of steps into the room. I moved around him to shut the door. Then I handed him a bottle of juice. “Eat something,” I said.

I leaned against the wall, still half wrapped in my blanket, while he ate. He watched me and the bathroom door. I gave him a second Pop-Tart, and he ate that too. Okay, so where was he going to sleep? The only space was in front of the door. That meant he might take off, but maybe if he felt he could go, he wouldn't.

I dragged Q's air mattress across the floor, setting it by the door and put one of his blankets on top. “You can sleep there. No one will touch you. No one.”

He stood there, arms wrapped around himself, and I figured he'd just take off the second I moved. “If you want to go, you can,” I said. “But if you want to stay here, it's safe. Better than out there in the dark. And you can have breakfast in the morning.” I didn't know what else to say. I'd never managed to get the dog at Pax House to come to me, and one day it just stopped hanging around. Was I doing the same thing all over again?

Leo moved toward the door, and I held my breath. Slowly he sat down on the mattress, pulling the blanket around himself. Q came out of the bathroom then.

He looked at the space where his mattress had been. Then he looked at me, stretched out on my own bed. He wasn't stupid enough to try and sleep with me. He rolled up in his blanket on the floor, folding his arm under his head for a pillow.

I watched Leo sitting there in the darkness for a long time. He was still sitting there when I fell asleep.

I figured Leo would be gone when I woke up, but he was still by the door, slumped over sideways, asleep. I went into the bathroom, and when I came out, he was standing by the door, the blanket neatly folded on the air mattress.

“Hi,” I said, finger-combing my hair. “You hungry?”

The shrug again. I handed him two of the plates we'd found last night and a knife. “Wash these, please,” I said, jerking my elbow in the direction of the bathroom. “There's stuff for washing dishes and some paper towel in there.” I figured he'd either do it or he'd go, and I needed to know which it was going to be.

He did it. I used Q's folding knife to cut up an apple. I broke a blueberry muffin pretty much in half and got juice for him and water for me.

Leo came out of the bathroom and handed me the clean dishes. I spread peanut butter on the pieces of apple and made a plate for each of us. “Here,” I said. “Let's go sit on the stairs so we don't wake these guys up.”

I sat on the top step and set my plate on my lap. Leo stood there for a moment. I started to eat. He leaned against the wall by the top of the stairs and slowly slid down into a squat. I watched him out of the corner of my eye as we ate. He had dark hair that fell into his eyes, which were blue. The knuckles on one hand were scraped like he'd been in a fight, and there was a bruise, almost faded, on the side of his chin. He never stopped watching, looking around, looking for what I didn't know, but I'd seen Q do the same thing.

I figured after breakfast I'd take him to Hannah. She'd know what to do. I wouldn't tell Q until after, because he'd start with his foster-care speech. And maybe he was right, how the hell did I know? But I couldn't take care of Dylan and this kid and me. There wasn't enough space. There wasn't enough food. There wasn't enough anything. And I was just starting to maybe figure out a way that I could go to school. I couldn't be somebody else's mother; I already had Dylan to look after.

“You wanna get cleaned up?” I asked when he finished eating. He didn't stink exactly, but he didn't smell great either. We went back inside. Q was awake, sitting on my air mattress and eating a Pop-Tart. I gave Leo a towel and pointed to the bathroom. “You can have a bath if you want. The door locks from the inside.”

“Thank you,” he said softly. He took the towel and his battered backpack and closed the bathroom door behind him.

I waited until I heard the water running before I walked over to Q and kicked him. “What kind of a stupid poker game was that?” I said.

“I'm not going back.”

“He's just a kid, Q,” I said.

Q's face turned serious. “Why do you think I tried so hard to win him? What was I supposed to do? Huh? I didn't know it was going to turn out the way it did.”

Q needed a shave. He still didn't smell that great, and his hair was sticking up weirdly on one side, but I wasn't mad anymore. “You couldn't…you couldn't leave him, I get that,” I said. “Just please don't play with those people anymore.”

“How were things at the dump?” Q asked, a smile pulling at his mouth.

“Fine,” I said.

“You took Dylan.”

I picked up his blanket and started folding it. “I kinda had to, since you weren't here.”

He sighed. “You're going to keep doing this, aren't you?”

“Yeah, I am,” I said, tossing the folded blanket onto the mattress. “It's good stuff, and it's just going to end up in the garbage for real.”

Dylan woke up then. While he showed Q his train, I got his breakfast ready. Leo came out of the bathroom as I was spreading a blob of peanut butter on the last of the apple. His hair was wet, and he was wearing different clothes. I pointed at Dylan. “That's Dylan,” I said.

“Hey, kiddo,” I called to Dylan. “Here's breakfast. Pee and wash your hands. And…and this is my friend Leo.”

Dylan padded to the bathroom, watching Leo all the way. I offered Leo another Pop-Tart. He glanced toward the bathroom. I shook my head. “He won't eat one. He's on a peanut butter kick.”

Dylan came out then and walked over to me for his plate. He threw his arms around my legs, and I hugged him, pushing his hair back from his face. “Can we go to the swings today?” he asked. If we went to the park, we could do the soup line for lunch. Not my favorite place, but it would be hot and not junk. “Okay,” I said. “But we have to go to the laundry.”

“Can I bring my train?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said. “Now go eat.”

Leo had watched us the entire time. I bent down to look in my stash for something for my own breakfast. When I stood up, he was gone.

“Dylan, where did Leo go?” I asked.

“I dunno,” he said.

I leaned across the table to look out the window in time to see the kid run across the street. I pressed my lips together so I wouldn't swear in front of Dylan.

“He took off,” I told Q when he came out of the bathroom.

“Shit!” he said under his breath. “I was afraid of that.” He looked at his watch. “I have to go.”

I handed him a Pop-Tart and a chunk of apple. He leaned over to kiss me, catching the side of my mouth. “See you later.”

Dylan and I were on our way to the Laundromat when I saw Leo out of the corner of my eye, across the street. Dylan was being the little pain in the ass he could sometimes be. I needed the wheels for one bag of laundry, which meant he had to walk. I was carrying another bag and holding him by the hand. He had the stupid train—I had pretty quickly realized it was a bad idea to let him bring it. The bag fell off the cart for the third time at the exact moment that Dylan sat down on the sidewalk and said he was too tired to walk anymore. I'd figured out pretty quickly that snapping at him just made it worse. The only thing I could do was take one bag of dirty stuff back to the room.

I set down the bag I was carrying and reached for the one that had rolled onto the sidewalk.