“I don’t know. It’s not proper procedure otherwise.” A long, dread-filled silence. “Really, though,” the woman said, “you need to gather your things.”
Allie pulled a deep breath and stood. It seemed to work. Her body apparently remembered how to stand. She took a few steps toward her open bedroom doorway.
“Where are you going?” the social worker asked.
“To get suitcases.”
“We’d like you to put your things in the bags I brought.”
She didn’t say exactly who comprised “we.” Was she speaking for the entire county of Los Angeles? Nothing seemed out of the question.
With a flip of her chin, she indicated two folded plastic garbage bags that had been sitting on the bedroom rug. Allie had noticed them, but could not imagine their relevance to her life. Not even her horrible new one.
“But I have suitcases.”
“This is standard procedure.”
“But it doesn’t make any sense. Fine. Bring trash bags with you to a kid’s house. I get that. If the kid doesn’t have any suitcases he can use the bags. But I do. So why can’t I use them?”
“Not all the girls you’re about to meet are as fortunate.”
“So I’m supposed to pretend I’m too poor to have suitcases so nobody else will feel bad? My stuff is not garbage. I don’t want to carry my stuff in garbage bags.”
Allie paused. She ran her comments on a quick instant replay and decided she didn’t like the sound of them. She wasn’t snotty or insensitive to others. At least, not as a rule. Not under normal circumstances. But since normal circumstances had never evaporated on her before, everything would be a surprise now, including her own character. Including the person she would prove herself to be.
She set off in a different direction, with more of an effort to be clear.
“Look. I’m having the worst night of my life. My parents were both arrested. I have no idea why. I have no idea when they’re coming back. You can’t even tell me when I’ll be able to talk to them on the phone. I’m on my way to live in a totally strange place with total strangers. And I don’t blame any of that on you. Everything bad that’s happened to me so far tonight . . . there’s nothing you could’ve done about any of it. But this last bit about the garbage bags is too much. It’s too awful. And this is the one part of the horribleness of this night that you can do something about. So give me a break here, all right? It’ll be the only break for me in this whole lousy . . .”
Then she realized she didn’t have a word for what was happening to her. For what it all added up to. Besides, it hadn’t all added up yet. That was the scariest part.
She looked up to see Polyester Lady staring right into her eyes with a look that suggested she cared, except to the extent that she was exhausted from caring. For her these disasters were anything but breaking news.
“It’s not the only break you’re getting tonight. I’m also going to bend the rules and take you to that group home instead of juvenile detention. I hope I don’t lose my job for it. But . . . well, okay. Very well. Go get a couple of suitcases, and then I’ll help you pack your things.”
Chapter Ten
Getting to Know Fear. Getting to Know All about Fear.
Allie sat in the kitchen of the group home with the tiny elf of a woman who supervised the place. It was late, possibly after midnight, and Allie and her social worker had rousted the woman out of bed.
Allie heard the click of the front door closing and knew it was her social worker letting herself out. Surprisingly, it brought back that breath-killing chest constriction of fear. Who would have imagined that by the end of this horrible night Polyester Lady would be her closest tie with familiarity? That it would scare Allie to hear her go?
Allie felt a pang of longing deep in her belly. She wanted her mother.
The kitchen was illuminated only by a soft light over the stove. Everything else in the house was dark. Unseen. Unknowable. A cocoon of potential surprises.
“Where are we?” Allie asked.
“We’re at New Beginnings for girls.”
“Yeah, I know that part. But where? It was dark and the neighborhoods kept getting less and less familiar. But it felt like we were going downtown.”
“Pretty much. We’re right outside downtown L.A. Where did you come from?”
“Pacific Palisades.”
“Oh. I see. You are a long way from home, aren’t you?”
It was a statement that worked on a couple of levels. Nearly poetic. Certainly symbolic. Definitely more than geographic.
Allie didn’t answer.
“So,” the woman said, and then paused. As with the social worker, Allie had already forgotten her name. “There’s a lot you need to know about this place, and living here. There are rules, and they’re important. I ask the girls to sign a paper stating that they understand the rules and agree to abide by them.”
“What if I’m only here for a day or two, though?”
Allie watched The Elf blink in the soft light. She had curly hair bordering on frizzy. Carrot red. It reminded Allie of a wig a circus clown might wear.
“That would be unusual. Why would you think you’d only be here a day or two?”
“In the morning they’ll have to bring my parents in front of a judge. Right? And the judge will probably set bail. And they can afford bail.”
The Elf turned her eyes away. Looked over at the light on the stove. As if something significant were happening in that direction.
“Even so . . . ,” The Elf said. Then she faded for a time. “Even if your parents came home on bail tomorrow . . . once you’re in the system . . . they’d have to do more than just come pick you up. They’d have to file to have you placed back in the home again. There’d be factors to consider. When they go to trial. The charges. Whether their . . . activities . . . ever endangered you.”
Allie felt no emotion in response to the news, because the only emotion available to be felt was crushing disappointment, and Allie refused it.
“When can I talk to them?”
“Well, I don’t know. That’s something your social worker will tell you.”
Allie had asked. Of course she had. Multiple times. But Polyester Lady hadn’t known yet. Allie realized she had been foolish to think The Elf would somehow know more.
“I know you must be tired,” The Elf said. “I know this was a hard day for you. So let’s just get you to bed and we can worry about the rules and the orientation after breakfast tomorrow.”
“Breakfast,” Allie said.
Most of the rest of this new world fell down around her ears. Just all at once like that. A ceiling that had been crumbling and shedding plaster and then let go.
“How am I going to eat here?” she asked, not sure if she was addressing The Elf or talking to herself.
“I’m not sure I understand the question.”