My lucky break was that I was still seventeen at the time of the convenience store incident. And I think, deep down, the police believed me when I told them I didn’t know about the gun. I spent a couple of months at a juvenile facility—that’s where I began changing, started rewiring my brain—and I was released. I was sentenced to probation for the next five years, but all that meant was intermittent stints of community service and counseling. I was told if I did everything the way I was supposed to—if I didn’t screw up—my future employers wouldn’t be able to see my criminal record.
During those early years, I drifted. I lived in cheap apartments you could lease for six months or less and worked wherever I thought I could make my next buck. Honestly. I want to stress that part. I never asked for anything I didn’t deserve, and I certainly didn’t take.
I’d worked at five, maybe six, different places over the years when I got a job at Buster’s. It was a small eatery tucked between a few other nameless businesses in the downtown area. It was far from the Ritz, but it was in a nice enough part of town. There weren’t addicts and prostitutes camped outside the front door, like at a few places I worked before. The food was good enough that we had some wealthier customers drive to our side of town for our famous toasted Italian. A hidden gem, locals called the place.
I didn’t see Buster’s like that at first. It was just another room, another place for me to work and make rent. I’d served in restaurants before, but I’d never done the cooking. At Buster’s, I did a little bit of everything. Took orders at the register and shoved subs into the oven. Mopped floors and scrubbed the urinals after closing. It was more than I was used to doing, but it also paid better. A whole $1.25 more per hour than my last job, plus tips, and I didn’t have to fight for more hours like I did at other places.
That’s not what I liked the most about Buster’s, though. It was the first place where I felt I was rubbing shoulders with people like me. In most settings, I was the poorest girl there, or the youngest. At Buster’s, I looked around and I saw myself. People in their early twenties, a little rough around the edges, but willing to work, trying to smile. Just like me.
Jamie was the one who hired me. She was petite, looked like a cheerleader you would see somersaulting through the air, except she dressed like she was in a punk rock band and constantly smelled of cigarettes. There was a hardness to her that let me know she understood the world around us. When I handed over my application, she ignored my credentials, reading me instead.
“Drug problem?” she asked.
“No.”
“Guy problem?”
“No.” I didn’t have time for guys, not since I left Albert.
“Got a car?”
“I only live three blocks away. I can walk.”
She held my gaze a few more seconds, then nodded. It was as good as a handshake. Just like that, I was hired to work six days a week, open to close.
Jamie was the manager of sorts, which struck me as odd because she was only a few years older than me. Her uncle owned the place, although I never met him in all the years I worked there. Jamie had all sorts of family, as it turned out. They’d come in the restaurant sometimes, but they rarely spoke, and they all looked the same with their dark hair and black coats.
Most restaurants were like revolving doors. People worked a few shifts, then quit. Buster’s had a reliable crew. Tucker was our security. Sometimes he’d help us clean, but he mainly stood by the door and made sure no one got jumped for tips at the end of the night. There was a tall girl—I can’t remember her name all these years later—who worked only weekends. And there was Cliff. At twenty-five, he was a few years older than me, but his face still had that boyish charm. His spirit, too.
He was the cut-up of the place, the one pulling pranks and making others, even customers, laugh. During the day, we had all sorts of people visit. Students from the university across town. Lots of young moms with their babies. When Cliff wasn’t making the moms laugh, I’d make funny faces at the children. I loved watching them giggle.
As the mothers would strap their babies into strollers, I’d think to myself, that’s going to be me. I won’t be a screw-up anymore. One day, everything I’ve ever wanted will happen for me.
You have to know, from the start, that’s all I’ve ever wanted. Better for me, and the best for you.
4 MarionNow
Who is Baby Caroline?
That’s the only question in my mind. I’m back in that trance I found myself in at the time of Mom’s arrest. As though I’m uprooted, falling in the world around me, struggling to find stability. The blue patches of sky, lush greenery lining the sidewalk and the unmistakable scent of the ocean surround me, a kaleidoscope I find dizzying.
“Marion?”
It’s Carmen’s voice I hear. My tongue, a dry lump in my mouth refusing to work.
Who is Baby Caroline?
“Marion?”
I see her now. She’s kneeling in front of me. The dirty sidewalk will probably leave stains on her expensive pants, I think. She touches my arm.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“No. I don’t,” I say, shaking my head slightly. “The police have it wrong.”
“They’ve been searching for Sarah Paxton for
