Burn Girl (7 page)

“I feel like a crazy person,” I admitted as we drove up North Main.

“No, you mean you feel normal,” Mo corrected me. “This is how it feels when you don't have to worry about your mother getting high or if you have enough money for rent.”

I winced at her words. She was wrong. It had been a messedup sort of normal to be with my addict mother, sleeping in our car, living by our own rules. Sitting in classrooms all day, auditioning for a choir, making friends—those things didn't even approach normal.

“Let's not talk about Mom now, okay?”

She glanced over at me. “Sorry. You know what I mean. I want all this to feel normal now … for you to feel good.”

“It's just been weird for me. All of it. Especially school.” I fanned my flushed face, which felt taut from salty tears. “And on top of it, I'm living in a trailer with someone I just met.”

“You haven't
just
met him. And from what you've told me, Frank sounds like a good guy.”

“He is a good guy.”

“It's only been a couple of months. Get to know him better and it won't feel weird.”

Mo stopped the car in front of Frank's trailer, but I didn't get out.

“I'm trying,” I said. “What more can I do? I feel like he watches my every step.”

She hugged me fiercely and I remembered why I'd fought so hard not to push her away. I needed Mo.

“I know you're trying,” she said. “I didn't mean anything. Except give yourself a break. You did something pretty courageous today. It's all about the baby steps, girlfriend.”

“Frank should pay you instead of my therapist. I swear you do me more good.”

“I think you need both of us.” She licked her thumbs and rubbed the mascara smudges from beneath my eyes. “Now pull yourself together or Frank will give you the third degree.”

“I'll text you later,” I said and got out of the car.

“Yep, I want to hear what Cody thought of your performance,” she said.

“Cody?”

“Don't play dumb. I know you like him. You just won't admit it. But now that you're in choral together, who knows what will happen.”

I felt a new sensation in my stomach, one that was wonderful and unbearable at the same time. Yet I didn't want to admit to Mo how much he occupied my thoughts. She would just try to convince me that Cody and I could be more than friends. She'd try to tell me he wouldn't care about my physical scar.

But she could never convince me that Cody or any other guy would be able to look beyond my other scars—my mom's addiction, her suicide, and the ugliness of our lives these past years. Those things would be with me always, keeping my dreams small and unspoken.

CHAPTER 7

THREE MONTHS AGO—GOOD-BYE, MOM

Mom didn't have an off button. Asleep, drunk, or high, she made noises without even knowing it. Snorts, snuffles, mumbles, cries. Not today. Today, she was the absence of sound.

I'd been with Mo all day and had just returned from buying groceries to find Mom lying on the bedspread, her face to the wall. I stared at the bottoms of her feet, cracked and dirty from walking on the black asphalt in the motel parking lot. She rarely wore shoes, even in winter.

“Mom?” I placed the bags of groceries down on the table and sat in a chair. I didn't call out her name again because her body no longer rose with breath. Instead, I grabbed my phone to call Mo, but then set it down again. I didn't want Mo to see this. I was supposed to see this. No one else.

I took a few deep breaths and mentally went over my to-do list: flush anything flushable; throw the rest in the dumpster. Lately, she'd been smoking more than shooting up, but today a half-filled syringe and a spoon were on the bed. On the floor were her glass pipe and a small, open plastic bag of rock meth. Why both and why so much?

I carefully wrapped everything but the meth in a pillowcase and then stuffed the bundle in a trash-can liner before tossing it in the dumpster. Next I flushed the meth.

I watched hundreds of dollars go down the toilet, wondering where Mom could have scored the cash needed for that amount or if she had a new friend who liked to share. But even that friend would have taken the rest of the dope once he realized Mom was dead. Had someone helped her end her life, or was this just an ugly accident?

Nothing made sense. For the first time in my life, I wanted someone to tell me what to do next. I could leave. Leave Durango. Someone would find her eventually. Other long-term motel guests would tell police she had a daughter, but no, they hadn't seen her in days.

If I called the police, I'd no longer be invisible. I'd be a sixteen-year-old who didn't go to school. A child without a guardian. I'd lose everything and nothing. Mom had always hoped Mo's family would take me in if something happened to her. Mo's mother might have agreed, but her dad would never welcome me into their home. After he found out Mom used drugs and that I didn't go to school, he thought of me as a bad influence on Mo. That wasn't giving either of us any credit.

The numbers on the digital clock challenged me to hurry up and make a decision. I closed my eyes, trying to ignore it and my mother's body.

“Fuck!”
My voice rang out in the silent space.

Leaving was my only real choice. I packed a small duffel bag; a suitcase would have looked suspicious. Jeans, underwear, my Doc Marten boots, a map of Colorado, and the nonperishable foods I'd just purchased. Where did I think I was going with these basics?

I reached behind the television and groped for the envelope that was taped there. I opened it—only forty dollars remained in our emergency fund. I folded the two twenties in half and stuffed them inside the bottom of my sneaker. Maybe I should have kept the meth and sold it. I'd need more money wherever I was going.

I looked back at Mom. I couldn't leave her like that. In the bathroom, I ran the hot-water tap until it steamed the mirror above it. I held a threadbare washcloth under the stream until it burned my hands, then wrung it out.

My mother's body shifted slightly when I sat on the bed near her legs. Gently, I washed the grime from her feet, returning to the sink to rinse the cloth when it became soiled.

I turned her onto her back, straightened her arms at her sides, and pulled down her sleeves to cover the needle marks. I lifted her denim skirt and checked. Yep. Panties were in place.

Her mouth hung slack. I didn't want others to see her stained, crumbling teeth, so I pushed her chin up to close her mouth. It opened again, no matter how many times I tried. I smoothed her hair and tucked still-tangled strands behind her ears. She'd left a pair of gold hoops on the nightstand, so I fastened them to her lobes. I'd bought them from Walmart three years ago for her birthday, and she wore them almost every day. I think she knew I'd shoveled more than a few driveways to be able to afford them.

The clock read 4:30 p.m. when I'd finished.

I wondered if I should stay the night and set out in the morning. It'd be safer here than on the streets, but I couldn't bear the thought of falling asleep in the same room as my mother's body.

I could knock on Dora's door. Maybe I could stay with her a while. She could help me call the police and find out what had really happened to Mom.

I sat back down on a chair and my brain finally checked out.

When my head snapped forward, I sat bolt upright, headachy and disoriented. The clock told me it was 5:30 a.m. My neck ached from awkward sleep. Then I remembered.

She lay there in silence. No sighs or grunts or whispered dreams.

I was so tired. Too tired to run anymore. Too tired to hide.

I waited for sunlight, then picked up the motel phone and dialed 911. Whatever waited for me couldn't be as bad as what I'd already been through.

CHAPTER 8

My therapist stared at me so intently that I wanted to knock the glasses off her face and stomp on them. Not exactly the smartest move if I was trying to prove how well-adjusted I was and that life was now all sunshine and unicorns.

“I sense you're pretty angry today,” Jane said.

“Wow. You're good at your job.”

“Thank you,” she deadpanned. “So, if I'm doing my job, why aren't you doing yours?”

“Which is?”

“To show up. Be honest. No matter how painful it might be.”

Jane had spent the better part of an hour pressing me to tell her what had happened this past week to cause my anger. Didn't she realize it wasn't one thing? That perhaps it was the thousand-and-one things that had changed since Mom died?

“Nothing is the same,” I finally said. “Mom had no expectations of me. Now I'm expected to suddenly be okay with living with my wacky uncle in a silver tube. I'm expected to go to school and be a normal kid. I'm expected to come to therapy and bare my soul so you can tell the courts I'm not a freakin' basket case.”

“I've never asked you to bare your soul. And I've never thought you were a basket case,” Jane said. “In fact, I've thought the opposite. That you've held everything together for so long you don't know how to ask for help.”

I didn't really have a reason to hold it together anymore. I no longer had to worry about Mom getting beat up by her latest boyfriend or burning down our motel room by smoking meth in bed. I no longer had to slog to the food bank or shelter to get us food. I didn't have to pack up our things and load the car in the middle of the night so we could skip out on our past-due motel bill and find another Durango motel that'd take us.

Frank made me breakfast every day—a real breakfast that I couldn't taste, but that I still appreciated. Mo picked me up for school. I sat in class and took notes. I studied and got good grades. I sang in a choral group.

“It's make-believe. All bullshit,” I said.

She stared, obviously wanting more. “What's real in your life, Arlie? Just name one thing.”

I didn't hesitate. “Mo. She's never let me down.”

I felt a stinging pang of guilt that I didn't trust my best friend enough to tell her I liked Cody. And, more importantly, that I wanted Cody to like me.

“What about your uncle? Do you trust he's here for you?”

This same question popped into my head from time to time, but I never let it linger there for long. Frank had given me plenty of reasons to believe he cared about me and that I could count on him. Yet a little part of me suspected that I'd arrive home from school one day and his Suburban and Airstream would be gone, leaving only an empty lot and my belongings in a heap. The image rarely stressed me out. Some days, I ached to be alone. I knew I could survive on my own again.

“Do you feel safe now?” she asked.

“Yes,” I admitted. No Lloyd. No drugs. No worrying where I'd be sleeping.

“Does that feel good or scary?”

“Safe can be scary too.” That sounded weird to say aloud.

“Can you tell me more?” she probed.

“Don't you think I'd be better off just getting on with my life and leaving the past as past?”

“Because it's too difficult to talk about?”

“No, because it won't change anything. I'm fine. I've always been fine.”

As much as I liked Jane, I hated when she resorted to psychobabble. And I saw through her attempts to put me at ease with her casual stance.

“What do you want, Jane?” I asked. “Should I scream and tear out my hair? Do you want me to curse Mom for destroying my chances at a normal life?”

“I don't want anything, Arlie, except for you to have a full, happy life. But you've lost your mother. You have a new guardian and are experiencing all the normal stressors of teenage life, with the added stressor of being physically different. So, yeah, I think you have some emotions to sort out. Maybe ones you haven't even allowed yourself to feel yet.”

I played with a hole in my jeans, avoiding Jane's stare. Mom had done the unforgivable in leaving me. And it frightened me to think I hated her more than I loved her.

“I think it's time for me to be going,” I said. “I'll see you next Friday.”

Before I could leave, Jane reached out and touched my elbow.

“Your mother didn't destroy your chances at a normal life,” she said. “Only you can do that.”

CHAPTER 9

Frank lugged a bundle of two-by-fours on one shoulder without breaking a sweat. When he saw me, he dropped the wooden planks to the ground and they bounced noisily.

“How was school?” he called out.

“It's Monday. What's there to say?” I mumbled and made my way over to the Airstream trailer.

“It's Monday. What's there to say,” he mimicked in a high-pitched voice. “Get over here and tell me how your day went.”

He sat down on the edge of the smooth concrete foundation. I sat down beside him and offered him the rest of the water in my Nalgene. He downed it and wiped droplets from his thick beard.

“It's a warm one for April,” he said. “You wearing sunscreen?”

Both he and Mo were overprotective of my burn scar. Or maybe being a redhead made Frank unusually concerned.

“Yes,” I said. “Want to inspect the tube I have in my backpack?”

“You don't always have to be a smart-ass.”

I shrugged.

“Hey, I borrowed that new Karen Russell book from your room,” he said. “I'm sure you're probably working on several others.”

He was right. I usually had four or five books going at once. If I got bored with one story too easily, I liked to have choices. And since we didn't have a TV, I was reading more than usual lately.

“You almost done for the day?” I looked at the chaotic construction site. No matter how cluttered it seemed, by the end of each day, Frank always had his tools in order and locked away in a storage shed. Scrap materials found their place into the dumpster.