Brave Girl, Quiet Girl: A Novel Page 7

  It was like that.

  Then I was more awake and my mother was gone and the cardboard was still over us, and the baby girl was still fast asleep. But it was morning, I could tell, because a little thin line of light was coming in under the edge of our cover.

  I lifted up the cardboard just the tiniest bit, an inch maybe, and looked down at the street.

  There was a man walking by. A big man with big broad shoulders and a blue work shirt, and I knew then that people would go by on their way to work because it was morning. Actually most people drive in this city, and not too many people walk or take the bus and walk from the bus stop—but here was one guy going by, so probably there would be others.

  The reason I figured that mattered was because he was pretty much past us by the time I saw him.

  But then I got scared that maybe nobody else would go by, so I wanted to catch him and ask him to make that call for us. But I didn’t know whether to wake the little girl up and take her with me or sneak out real quiet and go after the guy. I didn’t want to leave her alone, but I also wanted her to sleep as much as possible, because I know about little kids and I knew if she woke up and she still wasn’t back with her mommy she was going to get weepy. And how could I even blame her? And even if I did catch the guy and he did make the call for us, we’d still have to hide while we waited for the police to come, and a lot of crying could be a very bad thing for our situation.

  So I was trying to decide, but I was getting all frozen up in the deciding, because the whole thing was just too stressful for me.

  Finally I figured the guy was getting away, and nothing was more important than that phone call to the police, so I unwrapped myself from her real carefully, hoping she wouldn’t wake up.

  And I got extra lucky, too, because she didn’t.

  I ran down the hill to the street, and ran after the guy in the work shirt, and yelled real loud to try to stop him. But the thing is, I didn’t start yelling “Hey!” until I got down onto the sidewalk, because I didn’t want my yelling to wake the baby. Because if she woke up all alone in that hole and I wasn’t even there to comfort her, holy cow would she ever be scared. I figured she would scream bloody murder if that happened.

  So I was yelling to this guy but he was already at the end of the block, and I felt this really desperate thing, this desperate feeling pulling me toward him, because he could make a phone call.

  But then there was this other desperate thing pulling me back toward the hole, toward our hiding place, because I shouldn’t have left the little girl alone, not even for one second. And, let me tell you, it made me feel like I was being ripped apart right down the middle of me.

  I got panicky then because he wasn’t hearing me, so I put all my panic into one great big shout.

  “Hey!”

  He stopped and turned around, but right away I wanted to run back up the hill in case I had woke the little girl and she was up there all alone. But I didn’t. I stuck it out for a second because we needed that phone call. We just desperately needed that phone call.

  It was a lot of stress for me and I don’t think I’m built for that much stress. Or maybe nobody is, I don’t know.

  I waved my arms to him and yelled, “Call the police! Please! I need the police to come here, because I found this baby. Call 9-1-1 and send them here, okay? Will you? Please?”

  I know it doesn’t make sense after all that trying to be quiet, but it’s just what came out of me, because of all that panic.

  He was all the way at the end of the block by then and I didn’t know if he heard me. I kept expecting him to come closer or give me some kind of sign to let me know if he heard me—if he understood what I needed him to do or not.

  He just looked at me, though, like he wasn’t sure what to make of me, and like he thought I might be crazy. I know that sounds like a lot to be able to see from the end of the block, but let me tell you, things have a way of coming through. People have a lot of ways to show you what they think of you—if they think you’re worth paying attention to at all.

  Then he just turned and walked away. And I had no idea if he’d heard me or even believed me, and no idea if he was going to make that call for me or not. But I just ran back up the hill because I had to, because I couldn’t leave that little girl alone any more than I already had. I shouldn’t even have left her alone that long and I knew it.

  And I realized then how much I’d been really stupid to yell so loud about finding that baby, because I didn’t know where those boys were, and whether they could hear me.

  But what was I supposed to do? There was no phone in that hole with us, and I had no way to make a call, and it didn’t look like Bodhi was coming back. If he could’ve come back, he would have—you know, already. But I couldn’t leave her alone to go find a phone, but I also couldn’t bring her out into the light with me because those boys could still be out looking.

  Every idea I had just ran into a brick wall in my head, and I had no clue what to do, and the stress was too much for me. A sixteen-year-old kid is supposed to be worrying about stuff like tests at the end of the semester and not anything like this. It was hard enough just taking care of myself, and that was when I had Bodhi here to help with that.

  The whole thing just kind of came down on my head as I was running up the hill, and I could hear the baby fussing, gearing up for a good cry. Even though there were thousands of cars thumping on the freeway over our heads, with everybody going to work and all, but still I could hear her.

  And it was all just too much for me.

  I sort of fell apart running up that hill, because of how it was all just too much for me, but in another way I didn’t fall apart, because I couldn’t, because I had to hold myself together for that baby.

  So I sort of broke into a million pieces but didn’t let the pieces all tumble apart. Like I tried to just be cracked all over but not shattered.

  I dove back under the cardboard and I said, “I’m here, little girl, I’m here, don’t cry, I’ll take of you.”

  She kept fussing a little but she didn’t actually scream like I knew it would be so easy for a kid her age to do.

  I sang to her “Brave girl, quiet girl,” over and over and over, and I gave her some more apple juice and some goldfish crackers and that seemed to help.

  My mouth was so dry it felt like cotton and my tongue was sticking to my teeth and the roof of my mouth because I’d been giving apple juice to the little girl but not taking any for me. Because I knew we’d run out pretty soon.

  And my stomach was so empty it was cramping up, because all I’d had to eat for a whole day was that one banana, and I was saving the crackers for the little girl. I had an apple in my pocket still, but I was saving that for her, too, in case the crackers ran out.

  It’s more important for a baby her age. They can’t be without food and something to drink like we can.

  I sang to her and fed her and told myself maybe the guy really did hear me and really did call the police. I listened real close, and peeked out from under the cardboard, hoping to see flashing red lights. But at least an hour or two went by and nobody else walked by on the sidewalk under our hiding place, and the police didn’t come.

  And it was a lot of stress for me.

  Too much stress, let me tell you.

  I was sitting up under the cardboard, but way hunched over, because that hole we were hiding in was not very deep at all. It was deep enough for the little girl to sit up in, especially since I was holding the cover up a little bit on one side with my back. But for me it put me in a weird and uncomfortable position.

  I was facing the top of the hill—in other words I had my back to the street—because I had to leave the cardboard cover down on the street side. But this way some light and air got in, which was a very big deal for the little girl, because she was getting fussy and impatient and pretty scared.

  It was hard to blame her, really, because how long can you expect a little kid her age to just lie there holdi
ng perfectly still in the dark?

  It’s not a natural thing to ask a baby to do.

  We were playing clapping games. You know, like patty-cake, only for older girls. The kind that have a song or a chant, but I only just hummed it real quiet under my breath, and then you clap each other’s hands, or you clap your hands together, or you clap your hands on your knees. There’s a pattern to it.

  The baby was really sort of more pretending to know how to do it than actually doing it. She couldn’t get the pattern of when to clap where, because she was too little to learn a thing like that by heart. So she just sort of mixed it up and clapped wherever she felt like it, whenever she wanted.

  Except for one thing—when I held my hands out, she always clapped her hands against mine.

  And it just made me love her even more, because her hands were so tiny and perfect and warm, and it sort of broke my heart, especially because her little, helpless, delicate self was in such a bind right now, and she had nobody but me to sort it out for her. And I wasn’t enough. I was mostly frozen up and broken and too scared and confused to be doing her much good, and she deserved way better and I knew it.

  But it didn’t matter what I knew, because I was all she had and that’s just the way it was.

  She was too perfect and good to be in so much trouble, but that’s the world for you, I guess.

  Well. We were in so much trouble, I should say.

  The fact that she was bad at the game and really didn’t know the pattern at all made it easier for me to clap and worry at the same time, because there was nobody there who would notice if I made a mistake.

  Then all of a sudden I saw a lady about to go by. An older lady, but not like elderly old—more like maybe fifty. She had hair piled up on her head in this bright shade of red that nobody’s hair could actually be without dyeing it.

  I had the cardboard angled so I could see left and right a ways up the street, but just the tiniest bit—like I could see somebody’s head if they were coming, but the rest of them was blocked by the hill and the edge of our hole.

  I stopped clapping.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said. “I have to ask this lady to make a call.”

  I don’t know how many of those words the baby understood, but she got the general meaning of the thing, because she started to cry.

  “Oh, no, don’t cry, baby girl. I won’t go far at all, I just have to ask this nice lady to make a phone call so we can get you back with your mommy.”

  “Mommy,” she cried. “Mommy.”

  I told her, “Brave girl, quiet girl,” but I didn’t sing it. I said it kind of firm, like directions. Like, “I’m sorry but this is just what I need you to do.”

  She didn’t stop crying, but she did bring the volume down some.

  I slithered out from under the cardboard and ran a couple of steps down the hill.

  “Hello!” I yelled, and waved my arms like I was bringing in a plane. “Hello? Lady? I need you to help me. Please! I need you to make a call. Hello?”

  The reason I just kept yelling those things is because she heard me but she was pretending like she didn’t.

  She wrapped her arms tight around her own self and walked a whole bunch faster, and behind me I could hear the little girl crying even though the freeway was loud over our heads.

  “Please?” I yelled to the lady again, and I could hear how my voice was getting a lot more desperate. “Please just call 9-1-1 for me and send the police here to where I am?”

  I didn’t want to say why, because of the way I’d yelled something about finding the kid to that first guy who’d gone by, and then after I did I realized it was a really stupid thing to do because anybody could’ve heard me, even those horrible boys.

  “Please, I need the police!”

  I shrieked it that last time, because I was totally losing it by then. Like really falling into panic, and the little girl could hear me and she got louder and more panicky, too.

  The lady broke into a trot and ran right by underneath me and just kept running.

  For a second I stood there and let it sink in. You know. Like what my situation really was right about then.

  I looked down at myself and I was filthy from lying in that hole. I had accidentally smooshed the apple in my pocket and now I had a wet spot on my pants that might have made it look like I peed myself, and probably my hair was all matted and disgusting because I hadn’t brushed it for more than a day.

  People don’t help somebody who looks like that, because they just figure you’re crazy. They either figure you’re not really in any trouble at all, you’re just crazy, or they figure whatever trouble you’re in is something you brought on yourself and they don’t want any part of it because it’s a crazy person’s trouble.

  That was the first time it hit me that maybe a hundred people could go by and nobody would help me or believe me.

  That hit me hard, let me tell you.

  Then out of the corner of my eye I saw that boy come around the corner. The worst one—the one who was quiet most of the time. I guess they had split up by then but they were still out looking.

  I moved faster than I ever have in my life, up the hill and under that cardboard, kind of all in one movement. It scared the heck out of the little girl, and she cried really loud, but I held her tight and sang her “Brave girl, quiet girl” in a whisper under my breath, and she did her best to cry quietly.

  We just lay there like that for a long time, my heart pounding, waiting to find out if he’d seen me or not. If he’d heard the baby crying over the noise of the freeway or not.

  I know she could feel my heart pounding, and it must’ve scared her to know I was so scared, but she did her best. She was the bravest, quietest girl she knew how to be at a time like that.

  A minute or two later I figured out that he must not have seen me, and so my heart calmed down a little. But I didn’t dare look under the cardboard, because he could be right down there on the sidewalk. He could be anywhere on this block still, and how would I know?

  So I didn’t dare look because I didn’t dare do anything.

  Plus, also, I had no idea what to do.

  I have no idea how much time went by like that. I think I already made the point that time is a hard thing to judge. Maybe not for people who live in a house with clocks, or who’re out walking around on the street with watches on their wrists. Maybe it’s not even that hard when you’re watching people walk up and down, and cars go by, and the way the sun moves and changes the spot where it sits in the sky.

  But when you’re in a dark hole with nothing but a baby you can’t properly save and a lot of fear, time is not as easy to judge as you think.

  I whispered stories in her ears so she would cry more quietly. Really silly stories that didn’t have good plots and didn’t go anywhere, but she didn’t seem to care.

  After a while she tired herself out from the quiet crying and fell asleep again. It might have been hours. Like I say, it was really hard to tell.

  I never fell asleep again.

  I just lay there in that dark hole with her, knowing I needed to do something, but not having any idea what it was, or how I could do it without losing her to those terrible boys.

  The hunger and the tiredness and being so scared for so long was making me feel like I couldn’t hold myself together. But I did anyway. Because, really, when you think about it, what choice did I have?

  If there was one thing I’d learned since leaving Utah, it was that you can’t really just give up. I mean you can give up on some specific thing, but you can’t just give up and not live.

  You can say whatever you want about being done, but after you say it, you’re still a live person. And you still have to do whatever you figure you can.

  Chapter Seven

  Brooke: Skinless

  After that breakfast, I moved into a period of time in which I felt like a person with no skin.

  It’s a disgusting simile, but it fits the feeling so perfectly t
hat I can’t help but use it. Every nerve in my body was exposed, and I was swimming through a sandpaper sea.

  That sums it up as well as any words can. It’s not really something that can be contained in words anyway.

  About an hour after I left the police station and Grace Beatty again, I woke up—figuratively speaking—on the front stoop of my ex-husband’s house. One hand poised to knock.

  I know that sounds unlikely. I know it would be more reasonable to report that some thought or logic had entered into my decision to drive there.

  I don’t know what to say. I’m reporting this horrible time as accurately as I can.

  I went ahead and knocked. Having apparently come all that way.

  Then I stood there for a strange length of time, waiting for him to answer the door. I knew he was there. His car was parked in the driveway.

  I had one hand on my brand-new cell phone. It was in my pants pocket. I had bought it just after leaving Grace Beatty. I had stopped at one of those stores specific to my cellular provider. I’d had my stolen phone taken off the account and this new one activated.

  It was cheaper and flimsier than my old phone. But I had maxed out my last credit card to get it, and I couldn’t have afforded even twenty dollars more.

  I kept touching it because I didn’t trust it to ring. I didn’t believe yet that its notification settings could be reliable. I thought Grace Beatty would call and I would miss it.

  David opened the door.

  At first I saw only the parts of him I had fallen in love with at the start. His long jaw and his lanky body. His hooded, almost aloof-looking blue eyes. I could actually see his legs, his bare legs, because he was wearing only a short robe. Their calf muscles. Their blond hair.