Every Single Secret(22)
I stared at her, not understanding.
“What I mean is, you could talk to me. I’m not a professional, I know, but maybe that would be easier for you. To talk to a regular person first, before you go all the way with a doctor.” She smiled. “That came out wrong.”
I smiled back.
“I’m a pretty decent listener. You could consider it a practice run.”
I shook my head and thought of Heath. “I appreciate the offer. I really do. But it would be breaking the rules.”
“Technically, yes, but we already seem to be doing that.”
“I don’t know.”
She smiled. “Oh well. Just a thought.”
She moved to the edge of the cliff, then beckoned me over. “Look. He’s back.” She pointed at the hawk, wings spread, lazily looping above us.
“Oh my God. He’s gorgeous.”
“See how he’s not flapping his wings? He’s soaring. Using air currents to hold him up. He can stay up there for hours, wheeling and watching for prey, without even trying.”
I closed my eyes, feeling the sun and the dizzying height and the wind on my face. Picturing the wheeling hawk. I yearned to be like that, weightless and free, circling above the earth. Above my problems and my fear. And somehow this woman, this absolute stranger, seemed to understand that. I wasn’t fooling her. So what was I fighting against?
I snapped open my eyes. Filled my lungs with the brisk mountain air.
“My mom was a prostitute,” I said quickly, before I could change my mind. “When I was eleven, the state of Georgia transferred custody of me to a girls’ ranch.”
Chapter Eight
Aside from Chantal, no one took much notice when I arrived at the brown brick house that sat at the edge of the property known as Piney Woods Girls’ Ranch. Of course, later on I figured out why Chantal was so interested in me—finally something lower than her on the food chain had shown up on the scene.
I was a chubby eleven-year-old—legs bloodied from mosquito bites, bleary from bad sleep, nerves strung tight, nails bitten raw. It was an early September evening, and for the past week, I’d known something bad was on the verge of happening. My mother had been gone seventeen days this go-round, the longest stretch yet, and I’d finally been turned in to DFCS by Mrs. Tully because, she said, her husband was tired of having me around. She told the caseworker that, by God, she’d done her damnedest, but she couldn’t find one single relative to take me in.
Mrs. Tully had sent me into her shower, but my knees and elbows were still caked with grime. My long dishwater-blonde hair desperately needed a trim, and the few clothes I’d brought were stained and ragged. Nevertheless, I was there at the brown brick house and, on the whole, glad of it. I was scared but also relieved that I wouldn’t have to wait for my mother anymore. I was also more than a little excited about a warm bed, a meal, and maybe a bathtub with bubbles. It did occur to me—in a vague way—that I might have landed myself someplace far worse than my lonely apartment, but nothing in the house seemed amiss, so I tried to ignore the way my stomach constantly went from fluttering to tight.
There were three tormenters in the brown brick house—the Super Tramps, they called themselves, and whenever Mrs. Bobbie scolded them for it (their nickname, not the tormenting, which she seemed oblivious to), they screeched in outrage: “It’s just after the rock band! Mr. Al’s favorite group!” They weren’t wrong about Mr. Al loving Supertramp. He played that album all the time on the huge stereo system he had set up in the living-room built-ins, so much that “The Logical Song” ran maddeningly on a loop through my head anytime things got a little quiet.
Mrs. Bobbie hated that the girls called themselves after the band. I also think she hated that her husband liked that music so much too. She was just that kind of woman. She didn’t appreciate anyone enjoying themselves too much outside of church and school. Which was probably why she was forced to either ignore Mr. Al or be constantly, supremely annoyed with him.
He was a shambling man with a mane of shaggy blond hair and friendly, sleepy eyes. A stoner, even though I didn’t recognize it at the time. A man who did happen to enjoy himself on a daily basis and without one ounce of guilt, earning himself Mrs. Bobbie’s displeasure, fair and square. I didn’t pick up on any of those details at the time. I just knew I liked and trusted the man. He was master of the awkward side-hug, gentle ruffler of hair, bringer of fun. The father we all quietly—unwittingly—yearned for.
Even though the Super Tramps were technically right about the origins of their nickname, Mrs. Bobbie knew they were full of shit and just trying to get her goat, so she usually banished them upstairs. It wasn’t much of a punishment. They’d sashay up to the room they shared, slam the door, and giggle themselves limp on the three twin beds that they’d arranged in the center of the room. I heard everything through the walls, and every bit of it drew me in. I especially liked the sound of that laughter. It was throaty and nasty and knowing. I got the feeling these girls always somehow had the last say with Mrs. Bobbie.
The Super Tramps had been living in the two-story brown brick house at the end of the dirt road along with Chantal, who was fourteen, for a number of years before I got there. I didn’t know exactly how many. I wasn’t allowed that level of security clearance. To me, my new roommates imparted other, more pertinent, information, like: