1

The rumble of the bus faded as it turned the corner. White Converse sneakers scuffed the cracked and uneven sidewalk as Cali started the familiar trek to the house. Her lips twisted. House. The new school counselor would’ve pounced on her lack of connection and belonging. Her lips twisted in a sneer on the words. Not every house was a home. It might take a few months, but the neighborhood would strip away the woman’s naiveté. If she was lucky, she would come out of it with the beginnings of a shell, something to help her survive. If not … Cali shrugged.  

Streetlights broke the night in hazy circles. Their glow seemed to shrink as the hour grew later and the darkness of humans encroached. Music poured through an open window entertaining a group of guys drinking beer on the porch. Four, maybe more. Sharp whistles and lewd compliments broke the air. Her muscles twitched at the rattle of a gate. She hitched her backpack higher on bony shoulders. Trying to lengthen her strides without being obvious, her ears strained for the telltale tread behind her.

“You know better than that.”

The five little words came out of nowhere, chiding, but the tone gave them menace. The threat at her back fell away. Not bothering to search the shadows, she hurried on. She’d thank her tattooed savior later. Laughter and protestations of innocence replaced the catcalls. She rolled her eyes at the fading excuses. It was all a joke until the night Lucky wasn’t around. Her stomach flip-flopped. Or the night her former foster brother demanded payment for his protection.

The blocks fell away and rounding the corner she zeroed in on the third house down. The hum of a window air conditioner warned the old man was home on a Friday night. That meant money was tight. The roll of her stomach intensified. Slipping through the gate, Cali locked it behind her and took a deep breath. The blare of the television seeped through closed windows and doors. What was the likelihood the White Sox were winning? She grimaced, but then couldn’t contain a snort. At least Benny wasn’t a Cubs fan. Skipping the rotting bottom step, she bounded onto the porch and inside before she lost her nerve.

Air in the house was stale, hanging heavy with the smell of past meals, cats, and body odors. Almost ten years and she’d never gotten used to it. On the rare occasions Benny and Carol both left the house it didn’t matter the season, she’d send the little one’s scattering to open windows and air the place out. It was never enough. Standing silently behind the two recliners, she rubbed her arms against the air conditioner’s chill and waited for a commercial. A whiskey bottle sat on the table between the two chairs. Benny reached over and poured himself another one as she watched. She couldn’t tell by the shake of his hand if he was just getting started or too far gone. One was just as dangerous as the other.

Carol muted a used car salesman’s tired spiel on the flat screen and eyed her expectantly.

“My paycheck was one fifty seventy-eight this week,” she said picking up a pen to sign the back before tossing it next to the whiskey bottle. “I made thirty-six bucks in tips tonight, but I need some things.”

“And we have bills to pay. Money’s short this week,” Carol snapped, shooting her husband a disgruntled look.

When wasn’t it? Pulling the cash out of her pocket, Cali reluctantly dropped it on top of her check.

“At least give me ten. I need … I need female things,” she said, purposely stumbling over the words.

Benny grimaced, but plucked the ten from the folded bills and handed it to her over his shoulder. Carol shot him another look.

“Thank you.”

A crash upstairs preempted a response. The following silence was broken by a child’s wail.

“I’ll take care of that,” she said, spinning to jog up the stairs.

Stepping into the first bedroom she scooped up the toddler whose distress had already faded to soft whimpers. Two other boys jumped off the bed, dancing around her and clamoring for attention.

“What happened?”

The chorus of answers was unintelligible. She held up her hand for silence and pointed at the one without anything to say. “What happened, Tyler?”  

“James wouldn’t get off the top of the toy box.”

“So, knocking him off was the answer?” Cali asked, giving the five-year-old a hard look.

He hung his head confirming her suspicions. Wiping away the toddler’s tears, she kissed his plump cheek.

“You’ll be okay, tough guy.” Putting James back on his feet she reached out and palmed the top of the culprit’s head, tilting his face up to meet hers. “You, don’t be a bully. We have to look out for each other.”

Peace restored, Cali made her way down the hall to her room. Like anything else in the system, it wasn’t exactly hers. As the oldest, she’d been there long enough to claim a single bed, but shared the room with the revolving occupants of a set of bunk beds on the opposite wall. Currently, there was only one other girl in the house. With her roommate absent, she stole the moment of privacy. Shutting the door, she toed off her sneakers and retrieved a twenty from her sock. Snatching one of the shadowbox frames that spelled out her name above the bed, she opened the back and slipped the cash into a black velvet bag sandwiched securely between two pieces of matting. Rehanging the frame, she straightened it and breathed easy for the first time since coming through the gate.

Lying to Benny and Carol was always risky. Foster parents for a lot of years, their bullshit meters were pretty sharp. Reopening the door a crack, she nudged her discarded shoes neatly under the edge of the bed and swung her backpack into her lap as she settled down cross-legged. Six more weeks. The thought terrified and exhilarated her at once. In a month and a half, she would graduate and the checks from the state would stop. She would be on her own. Already eighteen, she’d been granted an extension to finish up her schooling. With all the budget cuts and recent changes to the system, she considered herself lucky. Still, it had taken every bit of willpower to force herself to stay under this roof. She shuddered. Six more weeks.

The ten Benny had given back joined a handful of singles in her wallet. With what she skimmed off her tips, it would get her through the week. Closing her eyes, she fell back against her pillow. Everything came down to the almighty dollar. When the state stopped paying, mommy and daddy stopped caring. She snorted at the titles and emotion, but the bottom line was just a part-time job waiting tables stood between her and the streets. The caseworker had told her some assistance was available in finding an affordable place and getting started. It was something. She didn’t have a bowl or a beanbag to her name. Her secret savings wouldn’t go far. Unless she could get more hours at the restaurant her paycheck might cover rent but everything else was up in the air.

“Can I come in?”

Opening her eyes, Cali shifted her backpack to look at the girl shyly hugging the door jamb.

“Of course, you can, silly. Your name is on the wall.”

Mindy’s smile lit the room as she skipped across the floor to crawl onto the bottom bunk. She scooted up to touch the sparkly purple letters on the wall at the head of the bed. Cali’s shadow boxes had started a fad in the house. Originally created for a school project, she’d surrounded the letters with bits of memorabilia from her life, school, and city, like a varsity letter, ticket stubs and snapshots of Lake Michigan. When the other kids in the house had begged her to make their names she’d been forced to go a less elaborate route. Buying the cheap letters, she’d helped them decorate them with a paint, glitter, scraps of fabric, whatever style suited the child. The results now hung over each bed and were very special to the kids.

“What were you thinking about?”

The question caught Cali off guard. When Mindy had first come to the Johnson’s, she hadn’t said a word for three months. No one had bothered to tell them what trauma had locked her voice away, they just accepted it. Then one night after an encounter with Benny in the bathroom, Cali hadn’t been able to hold back tears at a cocktail of pissed off and pain. A gentle touch in the dark and a rusty voice promising her it would be all right had been the last thing she’d expected.

“The future,” she answered honestly.

Arms wrapped around a stuffed panda, Mindy rested her chin on its plush head. Her dark eyes were much older than her twelve years.

“Have you found a place?”

“Not yet. Miss Amy said she’d check some places she knows of and we’re supposed to meet next week.”

Mindy nodded at the mention of the caseworker. “I wish I was older.”

Cali didn’t have to ask why. “Me too. You’re the best roommate I’ve ever had.”

The other girl smiled at that. “Right back at you.”

Neither of them said anything for a couple of minutes. Mindy continued to hug her black and white friend. Taking a deep breath, Cali shook off the dark cloud and rolled off the bed to unlock her footlocker.  

“If I don’t get my homework done I won’t be graduating,” she said, lifting her laptop from its nest.

“Then you would be stuck here with me forever,” Mindy said, dragging out the last word with an evil giggle.

“It’s not you I object to, Minion.”

Mindy’s grin widened at the nickname. “Do I get three guesses?”

“If you need three guesses, I’m talking to your teacher,” Cali said raising an eyebrow in the girl’s direction. “Now, let me get my homework done and we’ll watch a movie.”

“With popcorn?”

“What would movie night be without it?”

Dramatically zipping her lips, Mindy flopped over on her bed to wait. Cali drummed her fingers as the computer went through startup. The used Dell was her most prized possession. She ran her fingers over the smooth keys. An escape artist cat had led Cali to Mrs. O’Donnell’s front porch not long after she’d been placed with the Johnsons. Soft sugar cookies and Shadow had kept her going back for years. She’d come to love that ornery Siamese almost as much as his owner. The laptop had been a gift from Mrs. O’Donnell’s son for helping his mom with housework, running errands and listening to her stories. He hadn’t understood that the moments of peace in her home had been payment enough. God, she missed that old woman.

Retrieving the assignment requirements and her notes out of the backpack, she propped pillows against the headboard to get comfortable. Immersing herself in history wasn’t easy. There wasn’t much about her personal past she wanted to remember. America’s early growing pains weren’t much better and she wasn’t a big fan of the government. Her views comparing modern laws to the founding father’s intent in the constitution might not be popular. She shrugged it off and let her fingers fly. She’d never marched to their drum before. Why start now?

The screen went black and Cali smothered a yawn glancing around the room. The eyes that were still open to see the end of the movie were drooping. Freeing herself from the warm little bodies in her bed, she ejected the DVD and shut her computer down. Stacking the empty popcorn bowls on top of the dresser, she hesitated. Everyone looked cozy with their blankets and pillows. Tomorrow was Saturday. What was the harm in letting them camp out? Making sure everyone was covered, she turned out the light and wiggled back into bed.

Her earlier worries tried to press back in, but after school and six hours of waitressing, she was exhausted. Tomorrow was soon enough to figure out her future. Right now, she just wanted to sleep. She was drifting, mind blank and limbs heavy when she heard the creak of the door. Years of practice kept her body relaxed and still. Knowing the hall light would pick up the glint of her eyes she resisted the urge to slit them open to see Benny’s expression at being cock blocked. The door closed. Six more weeks. After that, if she had to stay at the shelter or in a damned cardboard box, she was out of here.

The bang of a headboard followed the wall up from the master bedroom on the main floor. Blocked from what he wanted, Benny had apparently decided to exercise his marital rights. Asshole. Carol would be in a foul mood tomorrow, meaning she’d make everyone else’s life hell. It’d be a good day to go into work early. She needed to talk to the manager anyway.