When We Were Sisters (20 page)

I swept my hand toward the stairway leading upstairs to the visitors' apartments. “What happens when a family fails to learn what they need to? Even with all the help you give here.”

“Thankfully we have enough staff to make sure a girl will be safe if she goes home. Our caseworkers aren't struggling with the heavy caseloads of some service providers, so we aren't easily fooled. If all else fails we document our findings so that the judge in charge will free a girl for adoption.”

“What happens then? Does every girl find a home?”

She didn't smile. “Teenagers are notoriously difficult to place.”

“Then some finish growing up here?”

“Although we do keep looking for the right family, some of our young women never find one. So we're their family. They remain here and go to college in Cookeville, or if they go farther afield they're welcome to come back for holidays or weekends. This is their home. We make certain it continues to be as long as they need it.”

“Alumni come to visit?”

“Frequently. And some of our employees are former residents.”

Those interviews were on Mick's schedule for later in the week.

Vivian brightened. “I think you ought to talk to a girl who will be brutally honest. She's been through the wringer. Most of them have, which is why they're
here
. But the girl I'm thinking about reminds me a little of you.”

I had to smile. “How so?”

“Not easily convinced. Not afraid to say so. She questions everything, and while the other girls like her because she stands up for them, the staff has to work harder to accept her.” Vivian tilted her head. “Does that sound familiar?”

I just smiled. When she'd introduced herself on camera Vivian had said she was a psychiatric social worker. I could believe it.

“Let me see what I can arrange,” she said. “We still have time today?”

“As far as I know.”

“Then let's make this happen. I'll go on ahead.” She opened the door and ushered us outside. The crew packed up to move, too. We have a second camera operator now, a recent film school graduate who's working cheap so she can work with Mick. Today, though, she looked like a baby bunny trying to outwit a pack of hounds. Everybody looked like they were ready for the day to end.

I was tired, too. Every film requires a lot of standing and waiting, and this one is no exception. Acting can be fun, but this isn't acting. It's even more visceral, which makes it harder.

Robin had been on the sidelines snapping photos. Mick called her over, and I saw them talking, then looking at me. He handed Robin one of his smaller cameras, which to my eyes looked similar to the one she uses, and nodded in my direction. She shrugged, but she took it.

“What was that about?” I asked when she joined me.

“He thinks more than two of us in the room will make the interview impossible. So he asked me to shoot some footage.”

“You can do it with that camera?”

“I could do it with mine. But this one's a little beauty, and it does both stills and video brilliantly. He introduced us when we were in Jamestown, and I fell in love. Of course it's just an experiment.”

By now we were following Vivian across a bluegrass lawn toward one of the brick cottages, each one a bit different from the others in design, like a real neighborhood. “Can you imagine growing up here?” I asked Robin.

“I spent my last four years of foster care in a group home, so it's not as hard for me as it probably is for you.”

“But yours was nothing like this one.”

“No, Live Oaks was more like a dorm with rotating roommates.”

The description was accurate. When eighteen-year-old me left Florida for New York, Robin moved to Live Oaks, a residential facility for twenty girls near Tampa. I visited her there whenever I could, taking the long miserable trip south each time I saved enough money for bus fare. There were four girls to a room, and Live Oaks overflowed. There was no place for me to stay, no welcome from the beleaguered staff. At the beginning I snatched sleep at the bus station or the all-night diner a mile away.

Robin's crowded bedroom had seemed familiar. By then I was living hand to mouth in Hell's Kitchen, piled into a one-room apartment with three other women. I had a folding cot, a shelf in a refrigerator that mysteriously turned itself off at midnight and all the cockroaches I cared to meet. But Hell's Kitchen had suited me. I already knew how to sleep with one eye open.

“You could have come to New York with me,” I said.

“You would have been arrested for kidnapping.”

“If somebody found us. Or noticed you were gone.”

“And where would both of us be today if we'd tried? Live Oaks worked for me. I made good grades, took photography classes at the local art center. They liked to show me off, so my spot there was secure.”

She stared into space, as if no matter what she said, she didn't like what she remembered. “But what I liked most? Nobody cared if I bonded to anybody else. There were too many of us, and girls came and went so often we all got lost. I saw a counselor, had a caseworker, but nobody had time to worry if I was making attachments or staying aloof. They were worried about funding, and overcrowding, and what to do with the girls who were stealing jewelry and selling drugs. I flew under the radar, and they loved me for that. My story in life.”

“Are you talking about more than the group home?”

“I've been flying under Kris's radar for years. One of the first things I worried about after the accident? Before the doctor told me Talya died? I thought, Kris is going to have to take time off to handle this, and he's not going to be happy.”

I didn't know what to say. Robin has never flown under
my
radar.

“It's not his fault,” she said. “It's mine. He loves me, or at least he did. But when I'm unhappy, I may not fall mute now, but I still make myself inconspicuous. What's the animal that rolls itself into a ball for protection? A hedgehog? I do that.”

“Not anymore. Not since this trip.”

“Kris got used to one bargain, and I'm insisting on another.”

“If he really loves you, he'll negotiate the terms.”

Vivian had bustled into one of the cottages and was already back. Now she waited for us to catch up. Then she started her spiel.

“Hayley's been here for two years. She's eleven going on forty. Her parents are out of the picture, and adoption hasn't worked out. She's a leader, but the adults in her life wish she'd choose better directions.”

I was almost too tired for this. I like kids fine. I love Robin's. But I wasn't sure I had the energy to cope with one with so many issues. I could ask the crew behind us to forget it. But what would that say about me? I'd been gung ho so far. I didn't want anybody to think I was scared a child would make a fool of me on camera.

“She knows who we are and why we're here?” I asked.

“All the girls know. But she said she'd talk to you. Her room is interesting. You'll see.”

“Can't wait.”

Robin narrowed her eyes. She knew I didn't mean it.

We followed Vivian to a living area with cheerful yellow walls that sported framed artwork clearly done by children. The kitchen was straight ahead, painted a soft peach with green cabinets. The room was large enough for several people to work there.

Vivian saw my quick examination. “The girls take cooking lessons. They make dinner under supervision a couple of nights a week. In some of the other houses the older girls make nearly all the meals. We try to make dinner preparation a happy time, when everybody can share what happened during their day.”

This was all a little too Martha Stewart for me. “Does Hayley know she'll be on camera?”

“I told her we wouldn't show her face. She was disappointed.”

“Sounds like somebody I know,” Robin said.

I narrowed
my
eyes. “You can be replaced.”

She shot a photo of me sticking out my tongue.

We followed Vivian through a hallway lined with bedrooms. The first, a comfortable-looking suite, belonged to the house parents. Hayley's was at the back. Vivian knocked, then opened the door into a dungeon. At least a Dollar Store attempt at a dungeon.

“Wow.” I stepped inside and looked around. Angel hair cobwebs hung across windows, and black crepe paper streamers danced from a heat vent in the ceiling, or were trying to. Clearly they'd been there for weeks. Plastic skulls adorned two dressers, and both girls' headboards were draped in black. A ghost floated from a plastic hanger.

“Somebody doesn't want to say goodbye to Halloween,” I said.

“Boo!” A girl sprang out from the far side of the farthest bed. “It's the best holiday. Better than Christmas.”

“Bet you're Hayley.”

She was slight and dark-haired, with caramel-colored skin. Her ancestors could have hailed from any number of continents, and people who needed labels were probably anxious to pinpoint which one.

“Did I scare you?”

“I was too busy admiring the scenery.”

“Hayley, these streamers are collecting dust.” Vivian pointed overhead. “They need to come down. Tonight before bed, okay?”

The girl smiled sweetly, but when Vivian went outside to say something to our new camera operator, Hayley tapped the side of her forehead with her forefinger, then put two fingers to the front of it, jerked them away and closed them into a tight fist.

I laughed. Hayley frowned at me, and I slowly signed,
“I bet Vivian doesn't know what you just called her.”

The girl's eyes widened.

“Robin?” I said. Robin was cleaning her camera lens. She turned and I signed,
“How many curse words do you remember?”

She laughed and said out loud, “Most of the ones you taught me.”

“Have you taught this one to Pet?” I repeated Hayley's movements.

“Are you kidding?”

“Pet is Robin's daughter, and she's ten,” I said, turning back to the girl. “Robin thinks she's too young. So that probably means you are, too.”

“Where did
you
learn to sign?”

“I was a foster kid. Did they tell you that?”

Hayley shrugged. I studied her for a moment. She had a long face, expressive but solemn. By the time she reached her late teens either she would be a heartbreaker or her heart would be broken by constant rejection. So goes adolescence.

“Robin's my foster sister.” I nodded in her direction. “We took a class at a local church so we could sign to each other and nobody else would know what we were saying.”

“Except the other people who took your class.”

“We only used it at home. Drove our foster parents nuts. We just told them we were practicing so we could sign services at church.”

“You're not very good. You spell out too much.”

“Hey, we only took one class, and I don't have anybody to practice with anymore. Afterward the preacher's son gave me a special lesson in profanity. May I sit on your bed? This has been a long day.”

“It's not my bed. It belongs to CFF. I just use it.” She perched on the edge, and I joined her.

“Where did you learn to sign?”

“My mother was deaf.”

“Was?”

“She died. Do you want to hear my whole sordid little story?”

“I like a girl who uses words like
sordid
. It shows you listen in school.”

“Not more than I have to.”

“And how much is that? Where do you want to go after this?”

“Anywhere.”

I leaned back and turned to see her better. “I've been comparing CFF with the places I stayed. I've got to say, it looks better on the surface. Not so much?”

“It could be worse or better. How would I know?”

“Because you've probably been through worse. Remember your sordid little story?”

“Did they tell you I've almost been adopted three times and none of them took?”

I whistled softly. “Are you going for a record?”

“Stupid people.”

I held up my index finger. “One failure for me. I stayed with the family six months. How long did yours last?”

“If I tell you, you'll count months and think you won.”

“You must have been a monster to get turned around that fast.”

“What's the point of any of it? People get tired of you and they leave or make you leave eventually. I just saved everybody the trouble.”

I remembered we were supposed to be talking about CFF, but I really didn't care. “Believe me, I know.”

“At least here nobody expects me to get all huggy-kissy. And the food's good.”

“Yeah, good food means a lot. But not enough. The worst place I lived had the best cook.”

“How did you get famous after all that?”

I suspected that Hayley only rarely asked people about themselves. I'm no expert, but this conversation seemed like a good sign.

“I think I saw getting famous as revenge. I was trying to show everybody I was worth a lot more than they guessed.”

“Were you just lucky?”

“Luck has a lot to do with it. I figured out how to be a little different, and people were ready for what I had to offer. I made a few friends, and later they helped me get noticed. But I worked hard, too. Still do.” I sat up again. “Why Halloween? You didn't tell me.”

“Christmas is for families. The other holidays are, too. But people dying and turning into ghosts and skeletons? You do that all by yourself. You don't need a family.”

“That's probably why I always liked it. Only I never figured it out.”

“I thought you were going to be all ‘Oh, you're so cute, and I'm so glad you're living in such a sweet home for little girls.'”

I made a face. “God, I hope I'm never like that. But I've got to say, the fact that they let you keep those nasty streamers up as long as they did says something good about living here.”