“Can I ask you a question?” Allie asked her mom.
A silence, during which Allie could picture her mother squeezing her eyes closed. Because that’s what her mom did when she sensed something coming. Something she knew she didn’t want.
“I suppose.”
“Do we still have a house? When this is over, and you get out, and Dad gets out, do we even still have a house to go back to?”
“Yes. It’s not strictly official. Yet. Technically the investigation is still open. Still ongoing. The IRS found a bunch of unreported income, and they seized the boat and most of what we had in the bank to cover it. Technically they’re still looking for hidden income. But I happen to know there’s no more for them to find. So we should still have a house.”
“Oh,” Allie said. “Good. That’s good.” And surprising, she thought. She didn’t say it.
Neither one of them spoke for a strange and uncomfortable length of time.
“Mom?” Allie asked after what seemed like minutes. “Are you still there?”
“Yes, I’m here. But I don’t have much more time. I’m getting signals.”
“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” Allie said, tears suddenly brimming over and running down her face.
“Likewise. Honey, I have to go now. We’ll talk soon.”
“Right. Soon.”
Then the line was silent, dead, and Allie was holding the receiver at arm’s length, staring at it.
She hung up and followed the guard back into the cafeteria, head hanging, doing her best to think nothing at all. More importantly, to feel nothing at all.
She sat at a table, on the very end, one bench seat away from any other girls. The guard came and looked over her shoulder.
“Why aren’t you eating? Not hungry?”
“I’m starving to death, actually. But I’m a vegan. And there’s nothing here I can eat.”
The woman shook her head and wandered off.
So that’s it, Allie thought. I’m starving and no one cares.
What might have been three minutes later, or maybe five, just as the other girls began to clear their trays and shuffle out of the room, a tray appeared in front of Allie’s face. She turned to see the older girl who had tried to serve Allie lunch just before her difficult phone call.
On the tray was a plate with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on white bread, potato chips, and carrot sticks. Next to the plate Allie saw a glass of what looked like apple juice.
Allie hated white bread, and she avoided jelly because it was mostly refined sugar. And the addition of the potato chips and fruit juice made for a very high-sugar, high-carb meal. But none of that mattered now. Because she could eat this food. She could actually eat it.
“Thank you!” she said. “I can eat this!”
The girl smiled, at one corner of her mouth only, and set the tray on the table in front of Allie.
“Thank you!” Allie called again as she walked away.
Then she scarfed down every bite of the food. Every crumb.
Every last carb.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Actually . . . They’re Alpacas
Polyester Lady showed up with a dress in a paper bag.
“I want you to put this on for court,” she said.
She pulled it out and showed it to Allie, who immediately felt most of the blood drain from her face.
“Oh,” Allie said. “So that’s why you asked me my size.”
“I think it helps to dress up a little for the judge.”
“It’s so pink, though.”
And it has polka dots, she thought, but did not add. Truthfully, it was the most outrageously horrible dress Allie could ever remember seeing. But was she really going to go in front of a judge in jeans and a T-shirt—probably not even clean—or a prison-issued jumpsuit? Just because the dress was not her style?
“It won’t hurt you to look a little girly and innocent just for one day.”
“I guess not.”
Actually, Allie figured it would hurt plenty. But it wouldn’t kill her.
Polyester jiggled Allie’s elbow, which Allie took to mean her turn had arrived. She had been trying to listen to the proceedings—to the judge ruling on other cases involving other minors—but her brain would not hold still.
Then Allie was on her feet and walking toward the judge’s bench, her social worker at her right elbow. They stepped into a spill of sunlight from the one courtroom window. It made Allie wince and narrow her eyes, which she didn’t figure helped the girly, innocent look much. Apparently the dress would have to pull off the job alone.
“State your name for the court,” someone said.
It wasn’t the judge who spoke. She had been looking at the judge and his lips hadn’t moved. A bailiff, maybe? Allie turned her head to search for the owner of the voice, but the sun glared into her eyes, and she had to blink them closed.
“Me?” she whispered to Polyester Lady.
“Yes, you. Now.”
“Alberta Keyes,” Allie said loudly.
The judge had his gaze trained down, reading something on the desk in front of him. They stood in silence for what felt like several minutes, allowing him his time to read.
Allie’s heart pounded almost painfully, and when he looked into her eyes it skipped a beat.
“So. Miss Keyes. I’m getting the impression you feel you had extenuating circumstances that caused you to run away.”
“Yes, sir. My roommate at the group home was sort of . . . vicious. She was going to hurt me. A lot.”
“Didn’t you consider reporting this to the home supervisor, or your social worker?”
“I told the supervisor, and she asked if I wanted to report her to the police, and I did. Why do you think she wanted to hurt me so much?”
“Ms. Manheim?” the judge asked, raising his gaze to Allie’s social worker.
So that’s her name, Allie thought. How did I miss that?
“I really think, Your Honor, that if Alberta is placed in a proper foster home she won’t run away again. She had some pretty frightening experiences out there, and I think she understands now what can happen. She used bad judgment in a stressful situation—I’ll be the first to admit that—but she’s a smart enough girl to learn from her mistakes. That’s my opinion, anyway. And I want to add, Your Honor, that I share some of the blame for this mess. I couldn’t find her an emergency foster. I should have taken her to juvenile detention until I could. Or at least until I could check her into a group home more properly. But she was scared to go to detention, even for one night. She begged me to take her to the group home instead. So I did, thinking I was giving her a break. But I think I was wrong to do it. I think my judgment was off in this case. Because she was in the beginnings of this trouble before I could even come back the next day and check on her. I’d hate to see her suffer for my mistake any more than she already has.”
The judge sat back and scratched his mostly bald head, then smoothed his traces of hair, as if there were enough of it to be messy. He looked around the courtroom.
“Anybody else connected to Miss Keyes here today to speak on her behalf?”