Where the Stars Still Shine(51)
She kisses my forehead. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Her face goes soft with sleep, and it’s here in this moment I’m overcome with love. She can’t handle jail. She needs to go to that imaginary someplace where she can settle down and not be looking constantly over her shoulder. I think for a while about the money I have stashed in the guitar. I doubt it’s enough to buy even a cheap car, but there is enough for bus fare and some food. If I give it to her, she can leave.
We can leave.
I dream I’m locked in a jail cell with thick iron bars across the front like a cage, at the end of a long gray hallway. The concrete floor is cold under my bare feet, making my toes go numb, and my too-short Hello Kitty nightgown offers no protection from the shivers that shudder through me. In the corner of the cell is the dark form of a person I can’t identify. All I know is that I am afraid.
At the other end of the hall is a door, and I can hear distant muffled conversation coming from behind it. It’s white noise, a continuous and steady sound that doesn’t waver when I call for help.
“I don’t belong here!” I shout, wrapping my hands around the bars. “I want to go home.”
The door opens and the chatter grows louder, spilling into the hallway as my grandma comes in. She’s speaking Greek as she walks toward me, but I understand every word.
“This is your home now, Callista,” she says. “We are your family.”
She morphs into my mother as she continues down the hall, the tap of her footsteps echoing off the smooth, sterile walls. Mom is carrying my guitar case and the brown tweed suitcase I threw away after it broke. Her lips are painted bright red, making her teeth look so white, and she’s wearing the sparkly barrette in her hair that she always says makes her feel like Courtney Love.
Behind her, the door swings open a second time and the chatter gets louder again for another moment as Alex enters the hall. He’s wearing his old-fashioned dive suit without the bell helmet, and his footsteps boom as his metal shoes meet concrete, the sound bouncing off the walls and hurting my ears.
“Callie, wait,” he says. “Wait for me.”
Mom stops. When he catches up to her, her arm slithers around his waist and she snuggles up against him.
“No!” Panic rises up inside me as I realize he thinks she’s me. “I’m here, Alex. I’m right here.”
“I’ve got the money.” Mom lifts the guitar case, indicating she knows where I’ve hidden my stash. “So we can leave whenever you’re ready. Go someplace nice. Maybe Colorado. You can learn to ski.”
“Alex, please.” The words come out as a whimper. A plea. “Don’t leave me.”
Without even looking in my direction, they turn back in the direction of the door. Alex walks out of his heavy boots, leaving them in the hall. His dive suit falls away, crumpling like a hollow person on the floor.
They disappear behind the door and I’m alone with my fear. Until I feel Frank’s hand on my shoulder. His smoky breath whispering that he’s going to make me feel so good.
I wake up the third time when the first light of morning squeezes through the crack below the curtain and warms the back of my eyelids. My cheeks are tight with the dried tears I shed in my sleep. It’s barely seven and my mom is gone again.
I get out of bed and open the closet where I keep my guitar. It’s there. I open the case, remove the instrument, and shake it until the rubber-banded bundle of cash appears behind the strings. My insides go soft with relief and then tighten again with guilt for thinking the worst about my mom. I get annoyed all again when I spy a yellow page, torn from a phone book, with an ad for a pawnshop circled in red. It’s lying on top of the built-in dresser between my hairbrush and a tube of lip balm. I was hoping she’d get my computer back, not make me go buy it.
Joining my dad, Phoebe, and the boys for breakfast is comforting after an unhappy night. The heat from the stove cuts the chill from the air, and Tucker’s nonstop chatter sweeps the darkness like cobwebs from the corners of my brain.
“Big plans for your day off, Cal?” Greg asks.
The pawnshop ad is tucked in the pocket of my jeans. Even though I know I’m going to have to pay for my own computer, I’m getting it back. I pour syrup on my plate of waffles.
“There’s a first-aid class at the Methodist church. I might check that out.” It’s a half-truth. I saw a notice for the lesson in one of the free weekly papers we have on the counter of the shop, but wasn’t planning to attend until after I take the GED exam.
“Good idea.” Greg takes the syrup bottle from me. “I was thinking that tomorrow night we’d go get a pizza—just the two of us—and then go take a look at the house. They’ve made a lot of progress this week. Almost done.”
A bit of waffle stumbles on its way down my throat and I cough, my heart beating in double time at the thought of him finding Mom at the new house. And I realize—I have no way to warn her. I can only hope that she won’t be there when we arrive.
Chapter 16
The pawnshop is close enough for me to ride my bike. It’s a hole-in-the-wall kind of place, with a doorbell that sticks on the first of two notes and the dry, burnt-toast smell of old, dusty things. Inside, it’s as if someone erected a building around a yard sale: shelves and aisles overflowing with stereo systems, power tools, televisions, lawn mowers, bicycles, and musical instruments. Handguns and rifles hang on the wall behind a glass counter filled with rows of watches, rings set with a variety of gemstones, and dozens and dozens of gold necklaces. I step over the handle of a leaf blower as I look for the computer aisle, imagining my mom in this place trying to charm the broker into giving her more than he thinks my laptop is worth. She’s always loved places like these. Says they have character.