Do Not Become Alarmed(25)

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.” And she rolled away, wrapped in the cheap comforter and her pain.





13.



IN THE MORNING, there were clothes folded at the end of Penny’s bed: a too-big white T-shirt and a pair of red shorts. And a second set of matching clothes for Sebastian, who was still asleep. Penny leaned close to his face to see if he smelled sugary, a thing she had seen her mother do. He smelled like river water and cheese, and his breathing was deep and regular.

In the clean, white-tiled bathroom, she peeled off her swimsuit. There were grooves around her legs and over her shoulders, from the elastic seams. She peed and put the T-shirt on. It was as long as a dress, and she pulled the red shorts on under it. It felt weird not to have on underwear, but she didn’t want to put the swimsuit back on, and the shorts fit. She went out into the entryway.

The door to the outside was locked with a deadbolt, with the key taken out. Penny pulled on the knob a few times, but the door just thumped against the solid lock.

Then she went upstairs, and found a new man eating cereal at the breakfast table. He wore a white polo shirt, long khaki shorts, and a baseball cap that said Cal. He gave her a friendly smile.

“Trying to get out?” he asked.

Penny felt her face get hot. She sat down at the table. “My dad went to Berkeley,” she said.

“No way!” he said. “When?”

“I don’t know. He’s forty-one.”

“He was ahead of me, then,” the man said. “I’m George.”

“Do you live here?”

“Sometimes. Until my brother drives me batshit. Then I leave.”

“Is your brother the one with the white horse?”

George pointed his finger at her like a gun. “Smart kid.”

“You don’t have an accent.”

“We all have accents,” George said. “You, too, sweetheart.”

“I mean like your brother’s,” Penny said. “You sound American.”

“Raúl doesn’t want to talk like a gabacho. I find it useful. You want cereal? Or Maria can make you eggs.”

“Cereal,” Penny said.

George pushed an unfamiliar box toward her, and a bottle of milk. “So you got a little bit lost, I hear.”

“The river took us away from our parents.”

“Bad luck. Why’d you go to that beach?”

“The guide said it was nice. We were supposed to go zip-lining.”

“Huh,” he said. “Some guide.”

“I miss my parents,” she said. She picked up the cereal and studied the picture of the golden flakes. George’s hand dropped down on the top of the box. He had clean fingernails.

“Wait,” he said. “Are you allergic to nuts?”

“No.”

“I thought all American kids were.”

“You’re stereotyping,” she said. He let go of the box and she poured the flakes, watching them slide into the bowl just like they did at home.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Eleven.”

“What about the others?”

“My brother, Sebastian, is eight. Marcus is eleven, too. June is six. Isabel is fourteen.”

“Oh, man.” George rubbed his eyes with his fingers and thumb.

“We didn’t see anything,” Penny said. “We just saw the Jeep.”

He nodded, his eyes red where he had rubbed them. “So much trouble could’ve been avoided.”

The glass bottle was heavy when she picked it up. “It’s real milk?”

“Straight from the cow.”

She sniffed it. It seemed fine. And it was cold, so it couldn’t be straight from the cow. “Why was there a grave?”

“Stop being curious,” he said. “That’s how you ended up here.”

“It’s good to be curious.”

“Tell that to the cat.”

“What cat?”

“Never mind.”

“Oh!” she said. “I get it now.”

He drank his coffee, watching her. He had dark brown eyes and they looked amused.

“What’s a gabacho?” she asked.

George put his feet up on one of the kitchen chairs. “It’s an old word from Spain, for the people who lived in southern France. It means something like ‘diseased people of the north.’ It’s like gringo, but fancier.”

“So I’m a gabacho?”

“You’re a gabacha,” he said. “My mother was one, too.”

“I’m not diseased.”

“Of course not.”

“But my brother has diabetes,” she said. “He needs insulin.”

“Yeah, I’m working on that.”

“Like, he needs it so he can have breakfast. I don’t think that doctor understood that.”

“She does understand.”

“Why is she so nervous?”

“Because she’s a drug addict.”

“Oh.” Penny tried to make sense of this news, tried to square it with her understanding of doctors and her experience of the thin woman who had grabbed her wrist when she reached for her phone. “And the white-haired man is your father.”