The Good Nearby Read online

“Fool!” The word came out in a rush of air, barely audible, yet shouted just the same.

  With a sharp shake of her head she vowed to be a fool no more. As of right now, Margery was starting fresh in this pretty red-and-white room with a quilt on the bed and the moonlight streaming through the windows. The house at 9600 . . .

  Her number: 96. It had been a long time since she’d allowed herself to think about it. Her entire childhood had been filled with ninety-six. It had seemed important to her then, driving her, guiding her like a beacon of light leading somewhere (but who knew where?)

  Margery turned on her side and snuggled into the pillow. It smelled of spring flowers and was soft against her cheek. The mattress was heaven compared to the seat of the car.

  She was in a good place now. A better place. It was time to think ahead, not wallow in the present or worry about the past. What did she have to lose by embracing normal?

  Maybe it would lift her up where she belonged.

  15

  The righteous person faces many troubles,

  but the LORD comes to the rescue each time.

  PSALM 34:19

  He had the prettiest smile.

  The kid was a couple years older so I was happy he paid any attention to me at all. The fact that we met while Dumpster diving made our relationship special from the very beginning. Weird, but special just the same.

  I was at the Dumpster first, when he strolled up, his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Want a boost?” He cupped his hands, creating a foothold.

  I eyed him a moment, sizing him up. He looked harmless enough. His clothes were pretty clean even though his hair was greasy. If I’d seen him in school, I would’ve talked to him. If I ever went to school. I hadn’t been for over a year now, not since I’d run away. “Sure,” I said. “You boost me up and I’ll hand things over.”

  “Deal.”

  I was hoping to find a ton of goodies in the Dumpster to share with him, but the pickings were slim. After getting a half-eaten burger and fries in a Styrofoam carryout box, and a box of Cheerios that was still a third full, I climbed out.

  “This isn’t much,” he said, examining the burger.

  “But it was on top, meaning it’s not too old. Probably last night’s. Split it. I’m hungry.”

  With another look under the bun, the boy shrugged and tore the burger in two, giving me the bigger half. We sat on some crates to eat, but didn’t talk much. I’d learned most runaways didn’t want to talk much at first. I was okay with it. Just being around another teenager—with a pretty smile—was good enough. So much was good enough now. . . .

  When we finished he tossed the trash back in the Dumpster. He wiped his palms on his jeans. “I need sweets.”

  “Sorry, there wasn’t anything in—”

  “Come on.” He walked out of the alley toward the street. He looked back to see if I was following. “You coming?”

  Of course.

  We went into Brady’s Grocery. I used the restroom there sometimes when they were really busy and the clerks didn’t have time to notice me, but I’d never been in there to shop. You need money to shop. But if he had money and was willing to spend it on me . . .

  He stopped at the candy aisle. It had been a long time since I’d had candy. Snickers was my favorite.

  But then, suddenly, he crammed two candy bars into the front of his T-shirt and shoved two toward me.

  “Run!” he said.

  I should’ve dropped the bars, but I didn’t think that fast, and stuffed them in my pocket and ran out.

  Just as a cop was going by.

  I was arrested for stealing two Zagnut candy bars—that I didn’t even like.

  The kid got away.

  My arrest led me to the Department of Children’s Services. I wasn’t sure when I made the decision to tell them my parents were dead, but when they asked, that’s what came out of my mouth. But when I heard the lady on the phone mention care in a foster home, I panicked. I’d met plenty of kids on the street who’d been in foster homes—some of them in many foster homes—and I didn’t want that.

  A kid named Sherwood had told me he knew about a family who collected kids and kept them in closets just to get the money from the government. Sherwood said his foster father had daddled with him. And another kid said he’d run away from his foster home ’cause they’d tried to feed him poison and had even killed one of the girls living there. Another true story had a family selling the teenage girls to a sex-slave operation in Thailand. I couldn’t go to a foster home. I wouldn’t.

  So I jumped out of my chair near the lady’s desk and yelled, “No! I won’t go!”

  The DCF lady stood up too. She was a big lady whose breath smelled like coffee. “Sit down, Gigi. Now.”

  I took hold of the back of my chair and shoved it over. “No!” I couldn’t believe I’d done that. But then I started swiping and shoving everything. All the files on the lady’s desk, the pencils in a cup, the plant in the corner—which was dying anyway . . .

  The lady screamed for help and two men came running. They stepped over the stuff on the floor and grabbed hold of me. Hard.

  “Let go! Let go!”

  The more I struggled, the tighter they held on. One guy’s grip pinched my skin and I knew it would leave bruises. With my arms out of commission, I used my feet—both of them at the same time. Which sent me toward the floor, dragging the guys with me. One guy fell and hit his head on the corner of the desk, but the other one held on, pulling me up. “Call County!” he said. “We need to ninety-six her.”

  Ninety-six?

  I stopped fighting. I didn’t know what ninety-six her meant but I knew everything was going to be all right.

  But it wasn’t.

  * * *

  Turns out ninety-six her meant putting me in a loony bin for ninety-six hours for observation. My screaming fit was to blame. But if it stopped them from sending me to foster care it was worth it.

  Maybe.

  After seeing all the certifiable crazies in the hospital, I decided to cooperate real fast. No more fighting. No more screaming. I even threw in a few “Yes, ma’ams” and “No, sirs” like Grammy used to have me say.

  Actually, other than the patients, it wasn’t that bad a place. Truth was, I was tired of the streets. Tired of never knowing where or what I was going to eat, or who to trust, and finding that a lot of the time I didn’t much care. So the clean soft beds of the hospital, with real pillows and blankets—and plenty of time to sleep without being afraid? It wasn’t a bad thing. And when I woke up? There was real food that wasn’t leftovers or from a dented can. There were doctors and nurses in bright-colored outfits who talked in quiet voices, smiled a lot, and asked me about my life. One of the women had a red smock printed with smiling frogs. Hey, Frog. Plus the floor was black-and-white checked, just like Grammy’s kitchen.

  I kept my parents dead in my stories, and added Grammy’s and Susie’s deaths to make the doctors feel sorry for me. A regular doctor—a lady—looked me over and said I checked out okay. I knew that. I wasn’t sick. And I hadn’t been daddled with—though there had been the one time when a junkie yanked me behind a Dumpster and nearly raped me. I’d hit him over the head with a piece of wood and run like crazy.

  I didn’t tell them anything about that ’cause I wasn’t sure if I’d killed the guy. I didn’t need them looking into that and arresting me. This place, surrounded by sickos, was bad enough. Jail, surrounded by criminals, would be worse.

  So I picked and choosed what I told the doctors. But when I heard the psycho doctor talk to a nurse about foster care again, I made a quick decision and “undeaded” my parents.

  “Your parents aren’t dead?”

  “No, sir. I made that up.” Best to come clean.

  “Why’d you tell me they were dead?”

  I shrugged, not wanting to let him know I was scared of the whole foster thing. Government places probably didn’t like to hear kids talk bad about other government places.<
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  The doctor crossed his legs, and the heel of the loafer on his hangy leg slipped off. With a quick move of his ankle, he snapped it back into place. “Tell me about your parents.”

  I knew the truth would never work. I thought of Susie’s parents and started talking. “My dad is a teacher.” Susie’s dad had taught math.

  “And your mother?”

  “My mom stays home and takes care of me.” Oh, I’ll take care of you, all right, Gigi.

  “So why did you run away from home?”

  Another partial truth. “I wasn’t doing too good, and then Susie died. I loved Susie. She was my best friend ever.”

  “I’m sorry you lost her.”

  I nodded, then said, “Can you call my mom now? I want to go home.”

  His face lit up like he’d won a prize. “I think we can do that. What’s her name and number?”

  I looked at it this way: I’d had a nice vacation at the hospital, and the bill that was due had to be paid by going home.

  I could always leave again and find my other family on 96th Street. Look for another house with a red door. I knew I could make it on my own. I wasn’t a kid anymore.

  The streets had taken care of that.

  16

  People are born for trouble as readily as sparks fly up from a fire.

  If I were you, I would go to God and present my case to him.

  He does great things too marvelous to understand.

  JOB 5:7-9

  The bagel popped up in the toaster. Margery hummed as she spread strawberry cream cheese on top. Her cinnamon-apple tea steeped in a cup on the breakfast table next to the morning paper, next to a blooming pink African violet, next to a napkin holder created by two halves of the leaning Tower of Pisa. On the wall was a black-and-white poster of the Eiffel Tower as seen through two open French doors leading to a balcony with a fancy black railing. Come out. Relax. See the world.

  Forget the world of Paris and Pisa. Margery liked this world, right here.

  Very, very much.

  She sat at the table and ate her breakfast. During the last three days Margery had been living a dream. When Gladys had told her she was leaving town with King to go to her mother’s funeral the morning after Margery arrived on her doorstep, Margery had been floored. For Gladys to let her stay while she was leaving town, while she was going through such a sad time . . . it made Margery even more determined to make Gladys proud.

  Left alone in Gladys’s house, going to work at the store with Bernice, taking care of things while Gladys was gone . . . it was a great feeling to be trusted. And it was a great feeling to live in such a nice house. It wasn’t a big house. Not fancy. There wasn’t a single chair Margery was uncomfortable sitting in—or that wasn’t comfortable to sit in. She’d tried each and every one. The rooms were small and full of furniture and things from around the world. Like Gladys’s poster-papered office at work, it was impossible to not know that the home’s owner liked to travel. There were wooden East Indian elephants on the bookshelf in the living room between a plate on a stand picturing the Golden Gate Bridge and a book that featured the Sistine Chapel. India to San Francisco to Rome. Not a hop, skip, and a jump close to each other. How wonderful to have been to all those places, to have touched and smelled and heard . . .

  Margery had never been much of anywhere. She’d moved around a lot, but never to anyplace exotic. She had been to St. Louis once, but that didn’t count because she couldn’t remember anything but having an ice-cream cone and getting in trouble for dripping it on her shirt. In ten years of marriage she and Mick had never taken a vacation. Neither one of them had ever been at a job long enough to earn any paid time off—not that places like the Chug & Chew cared much about employee benefits. Margery felt lucky to have health insurance through Mick’s job at the garage—that is, if he still had that job.

  Seeing him the other night at the trailer . . . she closed her eyes and pushed past the image of him taking off his shirt and tossing it across the room, and zeroed in on the fact that he was even there. There, meaning not in jail.

  What had happened to the drug charge against him? Had he gotten a lawyer? Had he gone to court yet? Was he cleared? Was he innocent?

  She snickered and wiped a crumb off her lip. Innocence was not one of Mick’s character traits. Never had been.

  So why am I with him?

  Ninety-six.

  Odd how she’d thought about that number twice in the past few days after so many years ignoring it, avoiding it. But it was true. She’d first been attracted to Mick because he had the number 96 on his football jersey. Margery had been actively looking for the number back then, and though she’d discovered it wasn’t always associated with good things, it had never been bad.

  Just confusing.

  Like the year she tried to stay at 96 pounds, nearly starving herself to do it.

  Like the time in sixth grade when she kept getting 96s on her tests in school.

  Like the time Mick had gotten a speeding ticket for going 96 in a 65-mile-per-hour zone.

  Some good things. Some not so good.

  Which category did Mick fall into? Had she been so caught up in the ninety-six business that she’d married the wrong man? The fact that they’d graduated, married, and were on their way to having a baby in 1996 had added to her certainty that being Mrs. Mick Lamborn was meant to be.

  So why had things turned out so badly?

  The timer on the oven buzzed. Gladys was due home today and Margery had made her a fruit-cocktail cake. It was one of Grammy’s old recipes. As she took it out of the oven the room filled with a luscious smell of fruit and spices. She would frost it with broiled coconut frosting when she got home from work.

  Margery put her breakfast dishes in the dishwasher and swiped a cloth one more time over the counter. She would not abuse Gladys’s kindness. Last night she’d even vacuumed and had taken out the garbage. She’d earn her keep.

  This house at 9600 was a good place. It was a good sign of better things to come.

  * * *

  Talia put a fresh supply of toddler diapers in her son’s diaper bag. She spoke to Nesto as he sat in his recliner behind her. “There’s tuna salad in the fridge, and open up a can of soup if you want. I set your medicine on the counter. I might be a little late getting home after work because I have a doctor’s appointment and they’re doing an ultrasound and—”

  “Do me a favor,” he said.

  His voice was weak, causing her to turn toward him. His color wasn’t good this morning and his breathing was heavier than usual. Why hadn’t she noticed until now?

  “Are you doing okay?”

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Just do me a favor.”

  She lifted Tomás onto her hip. “If I can.”

  “Find out the sex of the baby.”

  “But we agreed we didn’t want to know. We want to be surprised.”

  He held out his hand and smiled so wistfully she felt compelled to go to him. “I want to know. Now.”

  Her throat tightened. “Nesto, you’re scaring me.”

  He closed his eyes and slowly opened them again. “I want to know if it’s a boy or a girl, so I can imagine the future.”

  Tomás squirmed in Talia’s arms. She let him down and knelt beside her husband, pulling his hand to her chest. “You don’t need to imagine. You’ll be here. Years and years you’ll be here.”

  Nesto nodded, but she knew it was for her benefit. Suddenly all the to-dos and selfish thoughts fell away and she was forced to once again face the possibility of life without him.

  She dropped her head onto his knees and he stroked her hair. “I love you, meu amor,” he said.

  Which is exactly why the pain was so great.

  * * *

  King took a box of her mother’s things to the car, leaving Gladys alone to say good-bye to Aunt June.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to come back with me?” Gladys asked. “I have a spare bedroom.” Or I did have . . . />
  “Thanks, but no. My life’s here. What’s left of it anyway.” June gripped the wood armrests of the tapestry chair the Terrible Trio had found in an antique store in Edinburgh. Martha Quigley had bought it because the arms curved into swans’ heads. She’d laughed with joy upon seeing it and had not quibbled one bit about the price. This one piece of furniture was very much like Gladys’s mother, flowing and delicate yet functional, with its own unique style and grace. It held a place of honor in the small room June had shared with Martha, right next to June’s sturdy morris chair.

  Yesterday June had offered to have the swan chair shipped to Gladys. But from the way June was stroking the arms now, Gladys knew she’d made the right decision in declining the offer. She wondered if June would ever sit in her morris chair again.

  “The service was nice, don’t you think?” It was the fourth or fifth time June had asked.

  “Yes, very nice.”

  June began humming the song that had been sung, a beautiful piece called “Where Your Glory Dwells,” which spoke of being in the presence of God in heaven. It had brought Gladys to tears more than anything else at the service.

  Gladys looked toward the door. King was waiting outside, being the kind, considerate man that he—

  “He loves you.”

  Gladys blinked. “What?”

  June pointed toward the door. “King. He loves you.”

  Gladys laughed. “I don’t think so. I’m fifteen years older than he is.”

  “So?”

  “That’s a lot of years. I’m not . . . I mean I never . . . I don’t need—”

  June crossed her arms, giving Gladys the challenging smirk she’d seen her entire life. “Certainly you weren’t going to finish that sentence by saying you don’t need love?”

  Certainly I was. Gladys closed her mouth with a snap of her teeth.

  June motioned Gladys closer, extending her hand until Gladys took it. The veins in the top of June’s hand were three dimensional. “Over the years your mother and I discussed how we might not have done right by you, bringing you up in a household of women who weren’t in any hurry to find men to fill their lives—not that any were beating down the doors once your father left, mind you, but you might have gotten the idea that needing, loving, and committing to a man was a bad thing. It isn’t.”