The Princess of Las Pulgas (14 page)

In my mind, I trace the
purple line that snakes down her neck, across her collarbone, and
disappears under her T-shirt, then trails from under the sleeve and
down her arm.
What route does the orange
one on her leg take? That has to drive guys nuts.

“How is she ever going to
get a job?” Mom’s voice startles me as if I’ve been caught snooping
somewhere I shouldn’t.

“Mrs. Edmund.” The
uniformed policeman behind the counter calls out and motions us
over. When we get to the counter, he hands Mom some papers to
sign.

“Will he have to go to
court?” Mom asks.

“Yes. And a parent will
have to be there.”

“Do you know how much the
damages will cost?” Mom asks.

“That’s up to the school
and the judge.”

Keith doesn’t look up when
he comes out. With his head down and his hands stuffed in the
pockets of his sweatshirt, he shuffles toward us. I wait as Mom
goes to him and reaches to brush his hair back from his forehead.
He jerks his head away.

Is she just noticing he’s stopped getting
buzz cuts?

“Let’s go. . .” Mom leaves
the sentence incomplete.

Even she can’t say the
word,
home
when
she’s referring to our apartment.

Without making eye contact,
Keith walks ahead of her and brushes past me as if I were a piece
of the furniture.

When we return to the
apartment, Keith goes directly to his room and closes the door. Mom
doesn’t try to stop him. It’s as if she’s watching a ghost,
something she has no control over.

“I haven’t done anything.”
Her voice is a whisper. “I signed loan papers I didn’t understand
and I lost our home. I’m the reason we had to move to this—,” she
looks around her, “—this awful place we don’t fit into.”

“I told you Las Pulgas was
a rotten idea.”

“Not now,
Carlie.”

“Then when? After a gang
member beats me up because my brother’s a jerk?”

“That’s not going to
happen.”

“Oh, yeah. Right!” I hurl
myself onto the couch and burrow into the cushions.

Mom leans against the
living room wall, her hands covering her face. She's not crying.
It’s more like she needs to shut me out.

I stomp into the kitchen,
shake two Tylenos into my palm, and fill a glass with water. With a
single swallow I wash the pills down.

“Give me two of those.” Mom
slumps into her chair at the table and unfolds copies of the papers
she signed at Juvenile Hall. “How am I supposed pay for
this?”

That’s another question for
Dad.

Her face takes on that look
of a storm in summer. “It’s time I stop asking someone who’s dead
for help.”

That catches me in my
chest. Mom never sounds like that when she talks about Dad. She
never uses the word, dead, when he’s the topic.

I refill my glass, and then
go to my room and close the door. Quicken stretches up into her
Halloween-cat impression to greet me. I take my journal from my
desk and hold it against my chest, then lie down next to her cat
warmth, stroking her fur and listening to her gentle
purr.

“Now what, Dad? What do we
do now?”

When he doesn’t answer I
get up and go to the closet, where I put the on the top
shelf.

Mom and I both need to stop
asking him for help.

Chapter 25

When that woman in 147
isn’t smoking, she’s screaming at her husband, so I keep those
earplugs in anytime I’m in my room. Between secondhand smoke and
the reality show rehearsals, trying to study anywhere in the
apartment ranges from challenging to impossible.

I figure I have about five
minutes before the fireworks start next door, because Quicken has
already scooted between my legs and into the kitchen. She seems to
know when it’s time to escape.

I log on to my computer and
open my email.
Why doesn’t Sean email
me?
I’ll shoot him a quick message. No. I
shouldn’t look too eager. Maybe he’s got a girlfriend at Channing.
I mean I’m not there. And I can’t bring him here.
“Merde!”

The only message I have is
from Lena, who’s written again about her dress for the spring
dance. “When RU coming to Channing to see it? Or can I, Lena, the
one who’s supposed to be your BFF, bring the dress over? Oh, and
did Nicolas call yet about the dance?”

I’m about to answer Lena
when a door slams and rattles my window. The woman in 147
screeches, “I told you we were out of money and look what you went
and did. I’m sick and tired of having your lazy ass around
here!”

The wall explodes with the
sound of shattering glass and I clap my hands over my ears as
another thud from the apartment next door sends a tiny seismic
tremor into my room. I gather my books and flee into the kitchen
where Mom sits with a stack of bills and her checkbook. She’s still
in her brown and gold uniform. It reminds me of what women wear who
clean toilets at ballparks.

I drop my books at the end
of the table. “Our neighbors are killing each other in the next
bedroom.”

Mom rubs her eyes and says,
“I’ll talk to the manager.”

“Our ‘manager’ won’t do
anything,” I tell her. “We've complained about the neighbors at
least ten times by now. We've begged for the blasting music to stop
by ten, and when the manager puts up signs one day, they're
shredded and floating in the pool the next.

Mom’s face crumples, and
she looks old, like pictures of my grandmother that I remember from
our old photo album. “Carlie . . .” She sips from a cold bottle of
water and picks at the label with her thumbnail, then goes on. “. .
.this won’t be forever.”

“It’ll just seem like it.”
I’m sorry I’ve said this as soon as the words are out of my mouth,
but I don’t apologize. I have no energy for it after all that’s
happened today—the nightmare of seeing my brother dragged off by
police, being jumped by Chico and having the confrontation with
K.T., and then going to the police station—I can’t handle anything
else. Even my hopes for any kind of relationship with Sean are
fading fast.

Mom rubs her eyes. “I know
it feels like it, but nothing’s forever. You should know that by
now.” Her voice is so low I barely hear what she says. Suddenly
she’s up from her chair and shoves her books away. She stands with
both hands on the edge of the kitchen counter, not looking at me.
In a moment she sits down again, and with a sigh, draws the books
to her again. “I think I did okay on that test today. I’ll know by
the end of the week.”

I should say
something—congratulations, great job. But I don’t.

Keith scuffs past us to the
refrigerator. “No milk?”

I want to strangle the
graffiti criminal.

“I knew I forgot
something,” Mom sounds like she’s just failed her test, not passed
it. “We need something for dinner, too.”

I grab my jacket. “I’ll go.
What should I get?”

She looks as if she doesn’t
understand the question.

“Never mind, Mom. I’ll
figure it out. But I’ll need some money.”

Mom fumbles inside her
wallet and hands me five crumpled dollar bills. We won’t eat steak
tonight.

“Go with your sister,
Keith. It’s getting late,” she snaps at my brother.

He doesn’t answer or look
at her, but he does leave the kitchen and the front door opens and
closes, so I guess he’s at least doing what she asked. We haven’t
talked since his arrest this morning, but I plan to say a lot once
we’re alone.

As I step outside the sound
of someone running come from behind me and the balcony bounces
under the pounding of feet. I turn to face a lean male figure
bearing down on us. He whips past, shoving Keith so hard that he
falls against the wobbly railing, and for a second I'm sure it will
give away under his weight. I grab Keith’s arm.

Without stopping, the
runner flips us the bird, scrambles down the steps to the pool area
and disappears out the gate, letting it clang shut behind
him.

Keith yanks away from my
grasp. “Let go!”

“He almost pushed you off
the balcony!”

“I’m okay,” he says
sharply. “Mancuso’s an Olympic sprinter wannabe—and Mancuso hates
my guts." Keith juts his chin toward the apartment house. “And just
happens to be a neighbor.”

“Anthony Mancuso?” I ask
him, but now it all makes sense.
Cassio—
that’s where I’ve seen him.
He was in the apartment with the guy in the orange jump suit the
day I went out looking for Quicken.
“He's
in the play.”

Keith shrugs.
“Whatever.”

“What? Are you so used to
dealing with hoods now that you’ve been in lock up?”

He shoves me away and
buries his hands in his pockets.

I walk alongside him,
matching his steps. “So say something.”

Keith doesn’t break his
pace and he doesn’t look at me.

“You think you’re the only
one in this family who’s hurting? I’m taking the heat for what you
did, you know. How’d you like to not being able to walk into class
without looking over your shoulder?” Stepping in front of him, I
put my hands on his chest. “Huh?”

“What do you want me to
say?” Anger flares across his face.

“How about why you did
it?”

“I—” His anger vanishes,
and all I see is the pain takes its place. “Las Pulgas track
sucks.”

He’s suddenly younger,
looking the way he did in grade school. I almost forget what he’s
done to make my life at school hell. He doesn’t have to say the
rest of what he’s thinking. He doesn’t want to run on a team that
his Channing friends think is a joke.

“The good news is Las
Pulgas will kick me out. I won’t be in that rat hole again.” He
steps around me and walks down the street.

Chapter 26

The next morning I’m
burrowed under my sheets, considering how to barricade my room when
Mom knocks and comes in. I feel her put Quicken aside and sit on
the edge of my bed. She waits until I poke my head out.

“You could stay home if you
want, but you know what I’m thinking,” she says.

“I know. I know. Putting it
off is only going to make it worse.” She’s always told me that, as
long as I can remember. It’s something she’s passed on to me from
some great-grandmother who crocheted afghans.

“You decide, okay?” She
strokes my hair and leaves.

How can I stay home
now?
I haul myself out of bed, and on my
way out I pause to pick up my Jack-in-the-Box and whirl the crank.
I wish it had the power to put itself back together. I need one
thing in my life that works the way it should. Quicken purrs
between my legs. “Thank you fur person for being here.”

After feeding Quicken, I
head to the bathroom. At least this morning Keith isn’t here before
me. He’s shut away in his mole hole.

“Carlie love, you’re strong enough to take
on that whole school.”

I turn on the shower, then
reduce the flow before stepping under it and letting hot water wash
over me. I don’t feel strong enough to stand under a pelting
stream, let alone take on Las Pulgas High today.

In Mr. Smith’s class, K.T.
only glares at me a little more than at everybody else, but once
I’m in the halls she and her gang of six are in my face or rapping
behind my back.

She the girl who got a
brudder.

He be paint-man with a
paint can.

Off to Juvie do he
go.

Carlie Edmund’s little
bro.

In each class I’m on the
lookout for Chico. He’s a safe two rows away from me in English,
but way too close in social studies. I’ve seen that face leering at
me for weeks, but he didn’t have the angry, spiteful looks he’s
giving me now. I ease into my desk and feel him glowering behind
me, sharpening his switchblade to plunge into my back as soon as
Mr. Burk turns the other way. If he makes up his final from today’s
lesson, I’ll be a junior again next year—I won’t remember anything
that went on today.

I avoid the cafeteria at
lunchtime. I need to memorize more lines, so I decide to go
outside. A quiet table or a tree would be good, but good just
doesn’t seem to happen at Las Pulgas High and I have to settle for
the steps to the auditorium. I’m focused on my tuna sandwich and
reviewing Act II when Juan sits beside me.

“‘
How do you, Desdemona?’”
His Othello voice fills the air.

“I’d say, ‘Well, my good
lord,’ if I could.”

“Rough today?”

“Pick another adjective
with more edges.” I have to talk through tuna and I’m sorry I chose
fish.

He has a bottle of water
and sips from it. “How’s the Desdemona part coming?”

“Okay. Lots of lines. Lots
of strange language.”

“Let’s see.” He thinks a
bit. “‘Give me your hand:’” He reaches for my free hand, but I pull
away. “You don’t know the lines yet, do you?”