I sat on my cot in that closet for a little bit, but I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t have any books or music like I had at home in Utah, and even when I was out on the street with nothing I could keep busy by walking all over the neighborhood picking up recycling, which stays interesting because recycling is money. I mean, not much of it, but still. It’s like a reward built in—find enough of it and you get to eat.
I found the lady in the kitchen, because I didn’t know what else to do.
She had on a gray sweat suit with an apron over it, and her hair was up in curlers. There was a man living there, too, lying all sprawled out on the couch in the living room, but I didn’t know if he was her boyfriend or her husband. I’d just been introduced to him as Roger, and she’d told me he was on disability for some kind of work accident, which I guess is why he was just lying in front of the TV with no shirt on and with part of one hand shoved down on the diagonal into the waistband of his jeans.
“Can I walk down to Ventura Boulevard?” I asked her, because if I’d had anything at all to do, that would’ve helped.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “I’m responsible for you and I have to know where you are at all times.”
She was smoking one of those electronic cigarettes, and it was hanging at the corner of her mouth—no hands—and now and then she puffed out this big cloud of steam that didn’t smell like cigarette smoke. It didn’t smell like much of anything.
“So what do I do?” I asked.
She said, “Anything you want, as long as I know where you are,” which was so not helpful I could hardly stand it.
I walked away to see if I could find the other two girls, because the social worker had told me there were two other foster girls, but I hadn’t seen them with my own eyes.
I started to go through the living room but then Roger raised his head and looked at me and I stopped, because I wasn’t too sure about him. You know, what kind of a guy he was. So I just looked at him and he looked at me and then I looked over and the lady was standing next to me, staring.
“Come back in the kitchen,” she said. “There’s something I need to give you.”
I followed her back in and I could smell something cooking, which was good, because my social worker had managed to get me over there just late enough that I missed lunch. I probably should’ve said something, but I’d let the moment go by. So far as I could tell, the only thing about the place that was better than the way I’d been living with Bodhi was the idea that they would feed me a little better here, so I thought it was too bad that I got off to such a lousy start with that.
She handed me a bus pass and a folded piece of paper. I opened the paper, and it was a hand-drawn map with street names and the numbers of the bus routes written along them.
“Tomorrow you go to school,” she said. “The day after that you stay home sick. You’re going to be sick on Wednesday and Thursday.”
“How do you know I’m going to be sick?” I asked, because I totally didn’t get what she was all about yet.
“Wow, you’re not very bright, are you? I mean we say you’re sick, and you stay home and take care of Lisa.” Lisa was her five-year-old who couldn’t be bothered to share a room with somebody as dangerous as she figured I must be. “The girls take turns. I have to go to work. I have to make a living, you know. And the social worker is not to know about that, either. If she asks, you’re having stomach trouble.”
“Okay, fine,” I said, because what did it really matter? I’d missed months of school, so what would a few more days hurt? But underneath all that I thought it was pretty crappy to take in foster kids and put them in closets just so you get more free babysitters. I mean, who does that?
“One more thing,” she said as I was trying to walk away again.
“What?” I said, and I stopped.
But stopping wasn’t good enough for her. She wanted me to walk right up to her and she wouldn’t say it until our noses were practically touching. She just kept motioning me in until there was no more closer to go.
“A warning about Roger,” she said, and it iced my stomach down, because I thought she was telling me he was dangerous. But it turned out that’s not where she was going with this warning at all. “Nothing gets by me in this house,” she said. “So don’t think for a minute I don’t see the way you look at him. You just watch your step, little missy.”
I took a step back without even meaning to.
“I didn’t—”
But she wouldn’t let me get a word in.
“Don’t you even lie to me. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s when a girl looks me right in the eyes and lies to me.”
“But I’m not—”
“Don’t say another word. Just be careful of what I said and things will go fine around here.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, because I was figuring out that there was no way to really argue with her and besides, I just wanted to get out of the kitchen and get away.
I found the other two girls in the backyard. The grass was kind of overgrown, but I could hear them talking so I followed the sound. I found them lying on their backs in the grass with their hands behind their heads, looking up at
