Even if what you said was true, that only makes it worse. Truth should be left in wrapped boxes for people to open when they’re ready. When it’s used as a blade, they vacuum-seal the pain somewhere deep inside, sealing the truth in with it, until it’s time to turn it inside out and cut someone else.
I tried to forget the way Teo backed up the stairs, and how young Gloria looked, the end of her nose pink from tears. But I couldn’t, and when it comes down to it, I shouldn’t.
Kids, please don’t try this at home.
? ? ?
With no phone, no other belongings, and no place to spend the night, I told the cabdriver to take me back to the Leishman Center. I was paid up through the end of the month, and so I guessed (correctly) that I’d be allowed back into my still-empty room without excessive bureaucracy. I had no things to unpack, so I just flopped onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. Dr. Davis showed up just before dinner, hovering gravely in the doorway. She looked older than I remembered, her sleek angled bob tucked behind her ears.
“I’m a little disappointed to see you back here,” she said.
“That makes two of us,” I said. I’d missed that bland voice.
“Do you want to talk about what happened?”
“Not even a little bit.”
Dr. Davis hesitated, running her fingers through her hair. “You’ll need to start arranging another place to stay,” she said.
I sat up. “Why? I can pay for a few more months.”
“You checked yourself out a week ago, Millie, and someone had his father on a waiting list for a private room. He’ll be moving in at the first of the month.”
Something squeezed at my insides, but I was too exhausted for full-fledged panic. “Where the hell am I supposed to go?”
“I still have your grandparents’ phone number on file, if you’d like to call them.”
“I don’t have a phone.”
“You can use one of ours.”
“To call Mississippi?”
“Under the circumstances, yes.”
I had only met my grandparents once as a child and hadn’t spoken to them in more than a decade. But there comes a point at which familial awkwardness seems like a fart in a storm.
In a dead-end backwater like Graston, Mississippi, the money I had left could last me a hell of a long time. Sure, I’d never taste another fresh avocado, or watch another decent film. But I shoved that to the back of my mind, because when you’ve lived in L.A. for eight years, the word “homeless” is no longer abstract; it comes with vivid sense-memories of people you’ve passed that day on the street.
It wasn’t eight p.m. yet in Mississippi, so I figured even old folks would still be awake. When someone picked up the phone, I was surprised at how instantly I recognized that dirt-and-worms voice.
“Hi, Grandpa,” I said. “It’s Millie.”
“I’ll be damned,” he said. I waited for more, but that was it.
I knew Grandpa wasn’t one for small talk, so I cut to the chase. “California isn’t working out too well for me, so I wondered if I could stay with you and Granny for a bit while I figure out what to do next.”
“You know your grandmother’s dead, right?”
“I—I didn’t. I’m sorry.”
There was another long silence, but I knew he hadn’t hung up, because I could hear a clock ticking loudly in the background. I remembered that damned clock, the way it had scared me as a kid.
“Would be nice to have somebody in the house again,” he said. He coughed, a sound like nails rattling in a drawer.
“I’d look for a job, of course, too,” I said. “I don’t want to be a burden. Do you know, is there any kind of work for a lady in Graston?” I was operating on the assumption that anything my grandfather considered fit for a lady was doable without legs.
“Billy’s had a ‘Help Wanted’ sign in the window of the market since Lela got herself in trouble,” my grandfather said. In trouble meant single and pregnant, but I had no idea who Lela was. “How old are you now?” he asked.
“Twenty-six.”
“Billy’d be tickled to have you show up. No one’s come about the job so far but schoolkids and Negroes.”
I stood there with the phone in my hand for a minute. Hearing casual bigotry from my flesh and blood was like turning over a rock in my yard and finding a swarm of white larvae. I felt filthy; I wondered how badly those mind-maggots had been gnawing away at my own thoughts of Tjuan, of Ellis and Inaya.
Inaya. My train of thought jumped to a new track and barreled right through the paralysis. My surge of hope wasn’t enough to make me say what I should have said to my grandfather, but it was enough to make me fake saying “Hello? You still there?” and hang up on the old coot.
I had one more card I could play, and if I played it right, I might not have to give up on L.A., or Valiant Studios, or finding Claybriar, or any of it.
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