Then Gloria’s face is right in my face. I see her teeth and her eyes and then my brain makes me say, “Please no!” like I used to and cover my head with my hands.
She grabs my wrists and pulls me up again. “Ginny,” she says, “we have to get out of here! We have to leave! No matter how awful you might think I am right now, we have to leave. Now!”
My voice won’t do what I tell it so with my eyes still covered I shake my head.
Gloria looks around the parking lot and across the street and when she looks back at me her face is mad, mad, mad. “Get in the car!” she yells. “Just get in the car! I didn’t come all this way to relive every mistake I ever made! You think I want to act like this? I came to make things right! Now, are you coming or not?”
While she talks she hits the top of the car. She hits it again and again and each time I jump.
I try to say something but Gloria is making so much noise I can’t find a place for my voice. It is hiding deep in my brain again so I close my eyes and pull my hands and arms down and then I make a place for it.
“We do not yell!” I say. “We do not yell or hit! We say I’m too mad to talk! and then we go get some air! So you just stop it, Gloria! You stop yelling at me!”
Because it’s all true. That’s how we do things at the Blue House.
When I open my eyes again Gloria isn’t yelling anymore. She is quiet. When she starts talking her voice is scratchy and low. “I can’t keep going like this.” She laughs but it isn’t a funny laugh. “It’s way past time for me to go. You turned into a real piece of work, Gin. A real handful. We can make it work, if you still want it to. But you have to want it to.”
I lower my head. “I don’t want it to,” I say.
She hits the car and at the same time says my name. Then, “So this is it? After all this, you’re just going to call it off?”
Slowly I shake my head but then I start nodding. My brain is scared and it doesn’t know what I want anymore. “Yes,” I say but the word scares me. Because I don’t know what comes after it.
“Krystal?” says Gloria. She bites her lip and wipes one of her eyes.
“Mom?” says Krystal with a K.
“Get in the car.”
Krystal with a K gets in the car. She doesn’t say goodbye. Then Gloria says, “I’m sorry, Ginny. I’m so, so sorry. I love you, but I’m not going to stand here and get caught. Not today.”
I don’t say anything.
“The cops will be here any minute,” she says. “Maybe look me up when you’re a little older, all right? When you’re eighteen. We’ll be in Quebec. Until then, try to take care of yourself and...and have a nice life. Okay?”
She hugs me and I don’t recoil. Because I want her to now. Her whole face is wet, wet, wet. She squeezes so tight it hurts but I’m okay with her hurting me now because I know as soon as she stops she’ll leave.
Then she stops.
And gets in the car. The engine turns on and the car backs up and the car drives to the edge of the parking lot. It stops for approximately one second and then the tires turn so fast they squeal and make black smoke. I cover my ears and crouch down low and when the noise is gone I open one eye and stand.
85
EXACTLY 7:57 IN THE MORNING,
TUESDAY, JANUARY 25TH
Gloria’s car isn’t in the parking lot anymore. I am alone behind Cumberland Farms without my Baby Doll or anyone. I am alone on the other side of the giant equal sign. I don’t know if I can get back to where I came from.
I am scared and anxious. Gloria is gone. She isn’t going to kidnap me. She tried but I said no.
I said no.
I look to see if there are any cars coming and then I walk across the parking lot. I look across the street and see my school. I could try to go back across but I don’t belong there. Where I belong is where I’m nine years old and my Baby Doll is still a baby but now it’s six years old. The math I was using doesn’t add up. Plus Gloria said I was a real handful. Crystal with a C said that too.
I look down at my hands. I am still holding the picture of me and Krystal with a K. Of me and my Baby Doll. Both of them have faces.
I put the picture in my pocket. Then I pull my thumbs out of the thumb holes in my mittens and start to pick at them with my other fingers.
There’s nothing for me this side of Forever and there’s nothing for me on the other side either. I’m not Ginny LeBlanc anymore and I don’t know how to be Ginny Moon. My Baby Doll doesn’t need me. No one needs me at the Blue House. I don’t belong anywhere anymore.
Because I am (-Ginny).
I’m guessing this is what it feels like to be a ghost. Or not to have a face. No one knows me and I don’t even have a house or a car or a suitcase to hide in.
I look across the street. A truck comes by fast. I feel the wind on my face and I recoil. But when it is gone I look at my watch and stand up straight again.
I look down the road to the right. There are a lot of cars on it but the sidewalk keeps going. I know that it’s safe to walk on sidewalks. So I start walking.
I walk down the sidewalk until I come to a corner. I can go across the street or I can take another right. The noise of the cars is loud and the air is cold and my backpack is heavy. I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know where a girl who doesn’t belong anywhere should go.
Mostly I think I need to find a place to live. But no one is here to help me do that. I need to find one on my own. I don’t know if it will be a house or an apartment. I don’t know if it will be in the city or the woods. Right now I’m guessing the city because that’s where I am and I don’t see trees or the woods anywhere.
The cars are moving fast and I am anxious. So I turn right again. Ahead of me I see a lot of buildings made out of bricks. I see signs that say Credit Union and Books and Jewelry. There is a church and a store called Boss Furniture and a Chinese food restaurant.
I walk past all of these. Then I see a movie theater and I remember that I don’t have my DVD player with me because I brought a gallon of milk for my Baby Doll instead. So I say, “Well dang!” as loud as I can because no one is around to hear me.