Don’t Let Me Go(82)

“Doesn’t matter how it’s spelled,” Grace said.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Billy ripping at a thumbnail, but she wasn’t sure how it would look to slap his hand in front of Ms. Katz. She wasn’t sure about any of the things you were or weren’t supposed to do in front of a county lady, and that was just the problem. Somebody should have given her lessons, but they hadn’t, and now it was too late.

“I don’t think I’ve met you,” Ms. Katz said, looking up at Billy.

Grace thought how it was a good thing Billy was dressed right now, and not in his raggedy old pajamas. Then again, he was almost always dressed these days, unless he was trying to take a nap, and Grace felt bad that she had only just now thought to notice.

“Billy…Feldman,” he said, and held out his hand for her to shake.

Too bad it was his right thumb he’d been chewing on, and now it had a little blood on it. Grace hoped Ms. Katz wouldn’t notice.

He opened the door wide and motioned the county lady into the apartment. Grace wished he wouldn’t. But, then again, she sort of figured Billy wished he wouldn’t, too, but probably he just figured he didn’t have any other choice. Grace wondered if Billy knew what you did and didn’t do in front of the county, or if he was just making it up as he went along, too. He looked scared.

Ms. Katz sat down on Billy’s couch and Mr. Lafferty the Girl Cat jumped right into her lap.

“She likes you,” Grace said.

“That’s nice,” Ms. Katz said.

She ran one hand down Mr. Lafferty’s fur, and the cat did that little “elevator butt” move that some cats do, raising her back end just as the hand got there. It made Grace like the county lady a little better, how she petted the cat instead of just shooing her away or something.

“That’s my cat,” Grace said. “She used to belong to Mr. Lafferty upstairs, but then he shot himself, and now she’s my cat.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Billy start back in on the same poor thumbnail.

“So she comes with you when Mr. Feldman babysits?”

“Mr….who? Oh. Right. Billy. I always forget his name is Feldman. I just call him Billy. Or Billy Shine, if I need a last name. No. The cat doesn’t come anywhere with me. She lives here.”

“Your cat lives here?”

“Yeah. My mom doesn’t want me to even get one. Cat, I mean. But I already got her. But she lives here.”

Billy jumped to his feet.

“Coffee!” he shouted, and it came out way too loud, and then he looked embarrassed about it. “Shall I make us a pot of coffee? I have real cream.”

“No, thank you,” Ms. Katz said. “I won’t be here that long. So. Grace. Do you live here?”

Billy had started to sit again, but then when Ms. Katz asked that question he just froze in mid-air, not standing, not sitting, his knees bent.

“Um. No,” Grace said, and Billy’s spell broke, and he sat down. “No. I don’t live here. I just come here after school for two hours.” She watched Ms. Katz nod and write notes to herself in a folder. “Unless Rayleen has a date, which for the last week or two is almost every night. Then I’m here for a lot longer. But mostly I live at Rayleen’s.”

A long silence. Long and also…not good. Grace ran back over what she’d just said in her mind, all fast and panicky, trying to figure out where she’d made a wrong turn. It had all seemed like reasonable stuff to say, but they were in a bad place now, and she could feel it. And somehow it was all her fault.

“You live with Ms. Johnson? You’re not living with your mother now at all?”

Grace’s throat closed up, making it hard to talk.

“It’s just for a little while,” she said. “Just till she feels better.”

The words squeaked a little on their way out, and it was very embarrassing.

“From her back injury,” Ms. Katz said. She didn’t make it sound like a question.

“Her what?”

“Ms. Johnson told me she’d had a back injury, and that’s why she has to be on so many medications.”

“Right! The back injury! Yeah!”

Ms. Katz sighed, and set down her folder, and looked right into Grace’s face. Grace felt all the blood, and probably the color, drain out of her own face, leaving it tingling and cold.

“Here’s where we run into problems, Grace,” Ms. Katz said. She was talking that way grown-ups do when they want kids to know they care. “I just had a talk with your mom. Well. I saw her. I asked about the injury. And she didn’t seem to know what I was talking about.”

Grace glanced over at Billy, whose face was so white it looked like he might’ve died since she last checked. Nobody said anything for a scary-long time.

“The other problem,” Ms. Katz said, being the only one who wanted to talk, “is that I was told this was a babysitting arrangement. But if you’re living here or at Ms. Johnson’s, that’s a very different situation, because neither of your neighbors are registered as foster families. When will Ms. Johnson be home?”

Grace opened her mouth to answer, but no sound came out.

“About five thirty,” Billy said. “Unless one of her clients ran a little late.”

He sounded normal, and Grace marveled at how hard it must have been for him to say a normal, reasonable thing to the county at a time like this.