something to cuddle.”
It took me a moment to process this idea that parents didn’t have the right. It suddenly seemed blaringly true. My mother didn’t own me just because she had given birth to me. Sending me to boarding school because the spirit moved her. Maybe this was a better way, even though it seemed alien. To be part of this amorphous group, believing love could come from any direction. So you wouldn’t be disappointed if not enough came from the direction you’d hoped.
—
The kitchen was much darker than outside, and I blinked in the sudden wash. All the rooms smelled pungent and earthy, some mix of high-volume cooking and bodies. The walls were mostly bare, except for streaks of a daisy-patterned wallpaper and another funny heart painted there, too, like on the bus. The window sashes were crumbling, T-shirts tacked up instead of curtains. Somewhere nearby, a radio was on.
There were ten or so girls in the kitchen, focused on their cooking tasks, and everyone was healthy looking, their arms slim and tan, their hair thick. Bare feet gripping the rough boards of the floor. They cackled and snipped at one another, pinching exposed flesh and swatting with spoons. Everything seemed sticky and a little rotten. As soon as I put the bag of potatoes on the counter, a girl started picking through them.
“Green potatoes are poisonous,” she said. Sucking her teeth, sifting through the sack.
“Not if you cook them,” Suzanne shot back. “So cook them.”
—
Suzanne slept in a small outbuilding with a dirt floor, a bare twin mattress against each of the four walls. “Mostly girls crash here,” she said, “it depends. And Nico, sometimes, even though I don’t want him to. I want him to grow up free. But he likes me.”
A square of stained silk was tacked above a mattress, a Mickey Mouse pillowcase on the bed. Suzanne passed me a rolled cigarette, the end wet with her saliva. Ash fell on her bare thigh, but she didn’t seem to notice. It was weed, but it was stronger than what Connie and I smoked, the dry refuse from Peter’s sock drawer. This was oily and dank, and the cloying smoke it produced didn’t dissipate quickly. I waited to start feeling differently. Connie would hate all this. Think this place was dirty and strange, that Guy was frightening—this knowledge made me proud. My thoughts were softening, the weed starting to surface.
“Are you really sixteen?” Suzanne asked.
I wanted to keep up the lie, but her gaze was too bright.
“I’m fourteen,” I said.
Suzanne didn’t seem surprised. “I’ll give you a ride home, if you want. You don’t have to stay.”
I licked my lips—did she think I couldn’t handle this? Or maybe she thought I would embarrass her. “I don’t have to be anywhere,” I said.
Suzanne opened her mouth to say something, then hesitated.
“Really,” I said, starting to feel desperate. “It’s fine.”
There was a moment, when Suzanne looked at me, when I was sure she’d send me home. Pack me back to my mother’s house like a truant. But then the look drained into something else, and she got to her feet.
“You can borrow a dress,” she said.
—
There was a rack of clothes hanging and more spilling out of a garbage bag—torn denim. Paisley shirts, long skirts. The hems stuttering with loose stitching. The clothes weren’t nice, but the quantity and unfamiliarity stirred me. I’d always been jealous of girls who wore their sister’s hand-me-downs, like the uniform of a well-loved team.
“This stuff is all yours?”
“I share with the girls.” Suzanne seemed resigned to my presence: Maybe she’d seen that my desperation was bigger than any desire or ability she had to shoo me off. Or maybe the admiration was flattering, my wide eyes, greedy for the details of her. “Only Helen makes a fuss. We have to go get things back; she hides them under her pillow.”
“Don’t you want some for yourself?”
“Why?” She took a draw from the
It took me a moment to process this idea that parents didn’t have the right. It suddenly seemed blaringly true. My mother didn’t own me just because she had given birth to me. Sending me to boarding school because the spirit moved her. Maybe this was a better way, even though it seemed alien. To be part of this amorphous group, believing love could come from any direction. So you wouldn’t be disappointed if not enough came from the direction you’d hoped.
—
The kitchen was much darker than outside, and I blinked in the sudden wash. All the rooms smelled pungent and earthy, some mix of high-volume cooking and bodies. The walls were mostly bare, except for streaks of a daisy-patterned wallpaper and another funny heart painted there, too, like on the bus. The window sashes were crumbling, T-shirts tacked up instead of curtains. Somewhere nearby, a radio was on.
There were ten or so girls in the kitchen, focused on their cooking tasks, and everyone was healthy looking, their arms slim and tan, their hair thick. Bare feet gripping the rough boards of the floor. They cackled and snipped at one another, pinching exposed flesh and swatting with spoons. Everything seemed sticky and a little rotten. As soon as I put the bag of potatoes on the counter, a girl started picking through them.
“Green potatoes are poisonous,” she said. Sucking her teeth, sifting through the sack.
“Not if you cook them,” Suzanne shot back. “So cook them.”
—
Suzanne slept in a small outbuilding with a dirt floor, a bare twin mattress against each of the four walls. “Mostly girls crash here,” she said, “it depends. And Nico, sometimes, even though I don’t want him to. I want him to grow up free. But he likes me.”
A square of stained silk was tacked above a mattress, a Mickey Mouse pillowcase on the bed. Suzanne passed me a rolled cigarette, the end wet with her saliva. Ash fell on her bare thigh, but she didn’t seem to notice. It was weed, but it was stronger than what Connie and I smoked, the dry refuse from Peter’s sock drawer. This was oily and dank, and the cloying smoke it produced didn’t dissipate quickly. I waited to start feeling differently. Connie would hate all this. Think this place was dirty and strange, that Guy was frightening—this knowledge made me proud. My thoughts were softening, the weed starting to surface.
“Are you really sixteen?” Suzanne asked.
I wanted to keep up the lie, but her gaze was too bright.
“I’m fourteen,” I said.
Suzanne didn’t seem surprised. “I’ll give you a ride home, if you want. You don’t have to stay.”
I licked my lips—did she think I couldn’t handle this? Or maybe she thought I would embarrass her. “I don’t have to be anywhere,” I said.
Suzanne opened her mouth to say something, then hesitated.
“Really,” I said, starting to feel desperate. “It’s fine.”
There was a moment, when Suzanne looked at me, when I was sure she’d send me home. Pack me back to my mother’s house like a truant. But then the look drained into something else, and she got to her feet.
“You can borrow a dress,” she said.
—
There was a rack of clothes hanging and more spilling out of a garbage bag—torn denim. Paisley shirts, long skirts. The hems stuttering with loose stitching. The clothes weren’t nice, but the quantity and unfamiliarity stirred me. I’d always been jealous of girls who wore their sister’s hand-me-downs, like the uniform of a well-loved team.
“This stuff is all yours?”
“I share with the girls.” Suzanne seemed resigned to my presence: Maybe she’d seen that my desperation was bigger than any desire or ability she had to shoo me off. Or maybe the admiration was flattering, my wide eyes, greedy for the details of her. “Only Helen makes a fuss. We have to go get things back; she hides them under her pillow.”
“Don’t you want some for yourself?”
“Why?” She took a draw from the
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