Contaminated (16 page)

“Yeah, but …” Tony shudders. He swipes a hand across his mouth. “That’s gross, Velvet. How could you do that? I mean, you have to, like, what, help her go?”

“You’d do it for your mother,” I tell him.

I see in his eyes that he doesn’t think he would. Maybe he’s right. Maybe Mrs. Batistelli’s smothering of her little boy hasn’t created the obedient little robot drone she intended, and besides, this kind of care can’t really be taken on out of obligation. You have to really want to help the other person, I think suddenly. I’m not sure I’ve ever known Tony to really help anyone else. I don’t think he’s ever had to.

“So. The ride. Can you give us a ride to my house, Tony? I have to be out of here in time to get there and then pick up Opal at school … and crap! Work, I forgot about work.”

I’ll have to call off. I’ve never called off before, but I did ask for the day off yesterday, which won’t work in my favor. My boss, Ms. Campbell, is okay, but she’s not my friend. I think about how many other people could probably use my job, and my stomach again leaps and twists. At this rate, I’ll get an ulcer before the month is over.

“I can’t drive you.” Tony says this so flatly, so firmly, I almost give up right then and there.

Defeated, I put my hand on the back of the kitchen chair and hang my head. “Please, Tony. You said you’d help me.”

“That was before.”

“Before what?” I ask, looking at him. “Before you knew my mom would be with us?”

“Yeah,” Tony says.

I want to cry but there’s no time for that. Also, I can’t cry anymore. I don’t have the tears, I can’t give in to them. I have to get me and my mom and our stuff to someplace safe. I have to pick up my sister. And I have to figure out how to keep my job. I don’t have time to worry about saving Tony’s feelings.

“Then get out,” I say, already heading for the phone to call my boss.

“What? Wait! Velvet!” He follows.

I can’t believe it, but Tony pushes down the button on the phone to keep me from calling out. I glare at him, but he takes the phone from my hand. I don’t want to break it, so I let him.

“Don’t be like this,” he says.

“Tony, I don’t have time for this. Really. I need to call my boss. I need to figure out a way to get us where I need to go. I’m … Tony, I’m getting ready to lose everything here. If you won’t help me—”

“You’re not going to lose everything,” Tony says as he takes my hand. “You still have me.”

“What?” I stare at our fingers, linked, in disbelief.

“I still want to be your boyfriend, Velvet. That other girl wasn’t anything.”

“You … I …” I am speechless. I can say nothing. I can only stutter.

I do have enough gumption in me to pull away when he tries to kiss me again, though.

“I want to be your boyfriend,” Tony repeats.

“No way. Wow.” I shake my head. “Unbelievable. You won’t help me out when I need you. I really need you to do this—”

“I can’t drive that far and get back. My mom will find out!”

My shoulders slump. “Tony, just go. We’re not getting back together. You’re not my boyfriend.”

“I love you!” He whispers this fiercely and looks over at his shoulder toward my mom, who’s still staring at the blank TV.

“No, you don’t. If you did,” I tell him, “you’d already be driving me where I need to go. Don’t you get it, Tony? This
isn’t a game or something. I’ve been kicked out of here. I have to find a place for us to live. I have to take care of my mom and my sister and me. I just … I have this life, Tony, that you can’t even begin to understand. You have no clue, okay? So if you’re not going to help me, then you need to leave so I can figure out what’s going on.”

Once, before the world spun out of control and we all spun with it, Tony and I had gone to a homecoming dance. He’d worn a suit and tie. I had a new dress and shoes to match. My mom had let me wear some of her perfume. I’d pinned a carnation on his collar and he’d given me a wrist corsage. The DJ had played a lot of popular slow songs and we’d danced together, one after the other. At the end of the night, he’d asked if I wanted to be his girlfriend, and I’d said yes.

That was the first time he kissed me, and I would always remember it.

Too bad I want to forget the last time he kissed me.

“Velvet …”

I ignore him. I pick up the phone, already dialing. I hear the door open and shut behind him, but I’m already on the phone with Ms. Campbell.

She isn’t happy to hear that I need another day off. “Velvet, this is really inconvenient. I wish you’d given me more notice. Are you sick?”

I think about lying, but don’t. “No. I’m sorry. It’s my mom. I need another day home with her.”

I’m not going to tell her I’ve been kicked out. I’ll have to
tell someone there eventually, to get my address changed, but not right now. She sighs. I hear the shuffle of papers.

“We’re seriously understaffed today, Velvet. I really don’t think I can give you the day off when you already had yesterday off. If you’d asked for both days off, I might’ve been able to swing it.”

“I didn’t know yesterday!” I hear myself sounding too desperate and force myself to calm down. Ms. Campbell has a low tolerance for whiners. I’ve always tried to make sure she never regretted hiring me, even though I’m young. “I’m sorry. I mean, I didn’t realize. And something’s come up, I can’t just …”

“You can’t leave her alone? There are problems?” Like everyone else, her interest seems to perk up at the thought that everything they say on the news is true. “What’s going on? I thought you said she was taken care of that way.”

Ms. Campbell ought to know better than anyone else I’ve dealt with about what it must be like. Connies have been compared to patients with Alzheimer’s disease, and not everyone with that diagnosis acts the same. There are all sorts of levels of ability. She was the one who gave me the lecture about never assuming anything about anyone based on what a doctor had written on their charts.

“She is. She’s fine. I just can’t leave her here. I … um … well, we’ve decided, that is, my sister and I want to take her back home. I think it will be better for her to be in a familiar place.”

“You can just do that?”

“Yes.” I say this out loud to make it true. “But we live pretty far out of town, and it will take some time to get her there, get set up, stuff like that.”

“Velvet, are you sure that’s what you want to do? Move out of town? You live in assisted housing right now. You know you’ll lose that income if you move.”

I might do my best to make sure Ms. Campbell doesn’t think I’m too young for the job, but she apparently never forgets my age. “I know. But we won’t lose our food assistance. That will be okay.”

I hope. I’m not actually sure about all the rules. They changed a bunch of times, and though they send a pamphlet with every check detailing what exactly has changed, I haven’t read the last ten or so.

Ms. Campbell sighs, long and hard. “Is this going to affect your work here?”

“No!”

“Because you know I took a real chance in taking you on full-time, and that was just last week, Velvet. It’s not that I don’t think you’re doing a good job. Our patients really enjoy you, and overall I don’t have any complaints with you in a part-time capacity. But with this move and the additional responsibilities with your mother, I’m not sure full-time is going to work out for you.”

“I’ll make it work, Ms. Campbell.” I have to. We’ll need the money. We need the benefits. Opal qualifies for the
new youth health programs, but again, now that I’m an adult, I don’t. Neither does my mom. If we get sick, we’re in trouble.

“You’re not doing a very fine job of it so far,” she says.

This is so mean, I bite my lip. I want to say something sharp, but I bite extra hard so I don’t. “I’m sorry.”

She sighs again, louder this time. “I expect you back at work tomorrow, no excuses. Do you understand? You’re still in the probationary period.”

“I understand. Thank you. Thank you so much.” I hang up before she can say anything else or change her mind. Before I can get myself into trouble.

I look at my mom, sitting so quietly. There’s still the problem of getting us where we need to go. I sink into the chair and put my face in my hands. Not crying. Not even really thinking. Just trying to cope.

I startle at the soft touch of her hands on my hair, and I look up to see my mom standing over me. She’s not smiling, but her eyes don’t look quite as blank as they have in the past. This seems a little easier, all of a sudden.

My mom always believed in me, always told me I could do whatever I set my mind to. It’s time I start believing her.

FIRST, I SHOVE EVERYTHING I CAN POSSIBLY fit into two big backpacks I found stuffed way back in the closet and never thought I’d use again. I pull out all Opal’s stuff, lay it on the bed. I know she won’t be happy that I’m leaving some of it behind but I hope, with fingers crossed and toes, too, that her old things will still be at home.

Of course, they probably won’t fit her anymore. They might be ruined. Everything might be. It’s a chance we’ll take.

I cram clothes and books and things into each backpack and lift one. It’s heavy, but not too bad. I have muscles built up from lifting heavy laundry baskets and also shifting patients around, though we’re never supposed to do that by ourselves. Now I can put one of these packs on my back and not stagger beneath its weight, and still lift the other. I heft it, testing how long I’ll be able to carry them, because I’ll have to do it myself. It’s my mom I’m worried about. She’s not strong.

“Mom, can you carry this?”

She looks at me blankly. I had the bright idea of layering us both with as many layers as possible. Triple socks, shirts, sweatpants over a pair of jeans. I have to open all the windows in here to keep from passing out from being overheated, but Mom’s barely breaking a sweat.

I take out some things from one of the packs and stuff it into the other. I turn her, slip the emptier pack onto her shoulders. She staggers a little bit, but doesn’t drop it or fall over. I grab the heavier one. I expect to wilt under the weight, but I just shift it until it’s more manageable instead.

“Okay. Hold out your arms.” She does, but it’s not until I’m securing the wrist restraints that I realize I was expecting her to respond, and she did. I look at her. I’ve pulled the turtleneck up over her collar and the hood over her hair. I yank down the sleeves of her coat, which isn’t warm enough for this cold, over her wrists. “Listen, Mom. If we’re careful, nobody will know. Okay? We can catch the bus just outside here. It will only take us as far as the Foodland parking lot, but that’s better than having to walk the whole way. Okay? Can you … hear me? Can you understand me?”

She doesn’t nod, she doesn’t shake her head. She doesn’t even blink. I guess she can hear me, though, because she doesn’t protest anything. Then again, maybe whatever’s cycling around in her head just shut off for now. I have no way of knowing.

I can’t take her hand because of the restraints, so I hook an arm through hers and lead her out the door. I don’t bother
locking it. I don’t care if anyone gets in and steals anything, or wrecks it. There’s nothing left here that I consider mine.

Mrs. Wentling opens the door as we leave. “You! What are you doing?”

I don’t answer her. It’s none of her business, and a lot of this is her fault. Instead, I lead my mom carefully to the stairs. She’s still unsteady and the weight of her backpack is probably unbalancing her. She can’t really grip the handrail easily, either.

“Forget about this,” I mutter, and yank on the restraints to slip them off.

“You! Hey! You can’t do that! I know the law!”

I whirl to face her. “So call the cops, then! What are they going to do? Just make me put them back on. But what will they do when I tell them about the drugs Jerry’s been pushing? Or the fact he and his friends have been buying booze for minors? That’s illegal.”

Mrs. Wentling’s face goes bright pink. “You won’t do anything like that!”

“Not if you shut up,” I say.

Oh, it feels so good to be so rude. It feels strong and powerful and mighty. I like watching her mouth open and close like a fish. Beside me, my mom makes a small noise, but she’s not looking at Mrs. Wentling. She’s concentrating on not falling down the stairs.

“I’m glad you’re out of here,” Mrs. Wentling says.

I don’t pay her any more attention. The fact is, even
though I’m nervous about what we’ll find when we get back to our old house, I’m glad to be out of here, too. This place was never home.

At the parking lot, I take my mom’s hand. “Just stay with me, and keep quiet, okay?”

She doesn’t acknowledge me, but I think she knows. She doesn’t walk fast, and I try to be patient, not pulling her. I don’t want to miss the bus. It runs only once every forty-five minutes, and we’re already cutting the time close to me being able to get Mom home and secure, then get to Opal’s school, which luckily for me is halfway between our neighborhood and here, so the trip won’t be as long.

At the bus stop, an older woman I don’t recognize is waiting. She takes up most of the bench. I want to ask her to move over so we can at least put down our bags, but I don’t want to draw attention to us.

She sees us, though. “Here, I’ll scootch over.”

“It’s okay.…”

She’s already moving. She pats the bench. My mom moves, tries to sit, but has forgotten she’s wearing the huge backpack. It hits the back of the bench before her butt hits the seat, and she starts to fall forward.

“Whoops!” the lady cries, grabbing at my mom. She’s laughing. “Watch yourself!”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I say this over and over as we both struggle to get my mom upright.

We do, as the bus turns down the street, heading our
way. The lady gets up, her purse slung over her shoulder. She looks at my mom.

She knows, I think. She’s going to say something. Her eyes fix on the lump at my mom’s throat, the bulge under the turtleneck. Her gaze lifts to mine.

“She’s a little wobbly, ain’t she? She’ll get better in time.” Her smile is kind.

A breath of relief whooshes out of me, but I’m not sure what to say. Besides, the bus has come to a stop with a squealing, hissing grunt, the sound like the exhale of a dragon. The doors open. It’s not Deke, this isn’t his route. I tense, anyway, when I push my mom to board before me, but the driver says nothing, just watches as I swipe my card twice.