Then she pulled me away from the door. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I should go over there.”
“Are you crazy?” my mother asked, slapping my arm. “Don’t go over there! You don’t know nothing.” She pushed me away from the door, told me to go read in my room.
I couldn’t sleep that night. I wondered if Bobby had come back and retaliated somehow, maybe even hurt one of them. But Lucia’s mother’s voice hadn’t sounded panicked when shesaid “Yes?” into the intercom. She hadn’t been happy either. And she hadn’t been surprised. That meant she’d called them.
Because Lucia still hadn’t said anything. Because her mother felt so betrayed she called the police to report a pedophile.
I wanted to go over and tell Lucia’s mother what Lucia had said to me, but they were gone the next day. And the next, and the next. I didn’t find out until later that they’d gone to stay with a friend of Lucia’s mother’s.
The Saturday after school started again, Lucia knocked on my door. I was so happy to see her, I jumped into her arms.
“Wait a minute,” I said, putting on my shoes. We stood in the hallway. It was too cold to go outside. We headed to the back door of the building, which was hardly ever used. We went there if we needed to talk privately. We sat on the floor near the door, looking out to a small, grassy area that was covered with a glistening, undisturbed sheet of snow.
Already Lucia looked different. She’d gotten her hair cut into a short, shiny bob. She looked like someone who no longer lived at Hillside Apartments.
“Where have you been?” I asked her.
“With Marjorie,” Lucia said. “Over in Lawrence. And guess what. We’re moving to California!”
California was a dream to me. Big, sunny skies and happy, swaying palm trees. Lucia and I were going to move there when we grew up and live together, just like Laverne and Shirley.
“Did you tell your mom about Bobby?”
She hesitated. “Yeah, Bobby, we’ve talked a lot about him.”
“What did your mom say when she found out you lied?”
She crossed her arms. “Bobby is not a good guy.”
“I know,” I said. “I hope he’s not going to come back in the picture.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Lucia said. She sounded sure of herself.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because Bobby got arrested!” Lucia said excitedly, leaning forward. “The police went and got him and took him to jail.”
“What? But Bobby didn’t do anything!”
Lucia nodded emphatically. “He did. He did to me.”
I was completely lost. Had he?
“What did he do to you, Lucia?”
“A lot of inappropriate things,” she said. “I don’t like to talk about it.”
“But you told me before that you’d made that up,” I said. “Were you lying then, Lucia?”
“Yes,” she said. “In real life, he said things I didn’t like. He made me feel bad, made me feel uncomfortable.”
I didn’t know what to say.
We heard Lucia’s mother calling. “Lucia! It’s time to pack up your things, baby! Where are you?”
I went along with Lucia to help her pack. Hillside would never be the same without her, I said. I wished we were moving out too.
Lucia’s mother hardly registered me. The last few weeks must have been tough on her. Her hair was stringy and gray on top, and I realized with surprise that her red hair came from a box. At least that shade of it. She looked thin in her oversized sweater and baggy jeans. She was still beautiful though.
She worked without expression, taping boxes together and filling them, all the doors and drawers in the apartment opened, every surface crowded with disparate things. I filled garbage bags full of stuffed animals and tried to fit as many toys in each box as I could. Lucia moved around the room, picking things up and putting them down without noticing them. She chattered nervously about how she and her mother were moving to California. She talked about palm trees and drinking from coconuts and seeing movie stars and maybe even getting cast as an extra for The Love Boat. I could actually see her being on The Love Boat, I said to her, meaning it. I had no trouble imaginingseeing her on television, she was that pretty and sweet. With her new bobbed haircut, she looked like the skater Dorothy Hamill.
Then the reality of leaving Hillside appeared to dawn on Lucia all at once. She took her favorite bunny, Robert, climbed into her bed, pulled the gauzy curtains closed, and curled up deep in her covers.
When I asked her if she was all right, a small voice said, “I’m just tired.”
I went to find Lucia’s mother. She was in the bathroom, putting nail polish bottles into an empty tampon box. She looked up expectantly.
“I . . . heard Bobby was arrested,” I said.
She shrugged. “He’s been released. No evidence.”
Nonchalantly, she said, “Did you know about it? About what Bobby was doing? Did Lucia say anything to you?”
“No . . .,” I said. I chewed on my lip, and then blurted out what Lucia told me on Christmas Day.
Lucia’s mother stood up. At first she didn’t say anything. A storm of thoughts and emotions played out on her face. And then she took two steps forward and slapped me hard across my cheek.
“Shut up!” she yelled. “Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”
I was so surprised, I couldn’t think for a moment. I touched my hot cheek and backed away from her.
Lucia’s mother was sorry right away. Her hands fluttered around me, wanting to but afraid to touch me. “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
Tentatively, she touched my shoulders and turned me to face her, the nurse in her taking over. “Here, let me look at that.” She found a washcloth in a pile of folded towels in a laundry basket, and ran it under cold water. “Sit down,” she
