My Name Is Venus Black(7)

Pretty soon, he didn’t even need my help. I could just lie there in the blue light of my lava lamp while Leo counted the stars and chanted the planets. Now and then I’d drift off to sleep, leaving Leo and his naked eyes alone to roam the universe.



* * *



—

LEO PLAYS IN the sandbox. He uses two fingers of one hand to slice through the sand, and then he makes two slices across with the other hand. Each time, the sand glitters and shifts the way Leo likes.

His mother and the curly lady come outside, and he can feel them watching him. He is getting used to the lady with curly hair called Shirley. But he still cries for Venus and his mom. His mom comes to see him and sometimes she stays for a while. But then she leaves again and she won’t take him home.

This time, she sits by Leo in the sandbox and says, “Your father is gone now, Leo. I’m so sorry.”

“Where?”

“I’m afraid your father is dead, Leo. You won’t see him anymore.”

Leo doesn’t understand dead. “What color is dead?”

“Oh, Leo,” she says. “Dead means you never wake up again. So maybe it is black. It means he went away and won’t come back. But he is in a good place.”

Leo grunts. “I want Venus. Where is Venus?”

“She had to go away for a while. You won’t see her very soon, but she is not dead.”

“She’s not black?”

“No, Leo. Venus isn’t black.”

“Do you like the sandbox, Leo?” She leans closer to him. Her smell is familiar.

“Can I go home?”

“Oh, Leo,” she says softly, “I’m sorry, you can’t. Just a little longer.”



“I want curlers,” he says. When his mom’s voice is soft this way, she says yes almost every time.

The curly lady laughs and his mother starts talking again. He blocks out their voices. He plays with the sand. When he hears his mom say, “Goodbye, Leo,” he almost yells, “Stay!” But his attention is caught by a rock that sparkles like stars.





That evening, I decide I might need a friend on my side, because a couple of large Indian girls from Marysville keep looking at me like they want to beat me up. Not for any good reason, but just because they can tell I’m not really like them. Like maybe they think I’m stuck up.

So at dinner I scan the cafeteria for a girl named Truly. When I spot her sitting alone at a table, I walk in her direction, trying my best to look bored. I pick her because she seems harmless and she reminds me a little of Leo. She’s super skinny and has fuzzy, short blond hair that shows through to her scalp.

With Leo, unless you keep his blond hair super short, he tugs and pulls on it until his scalp bleeds and gets bald patches. That means every few months we have to give him a buzz cut. The worst part is when Raymond sits him down near the kitchen counter, where the cord will reach. Leo knows exactly what’s coming and he screams the whole time like you’re killing him.

It’s one of my least favorite things about being Leo’s big sister. But you have to do your part. So while Raymond holds him tight enough to leave bruises, I use the clippers, trying hard not to nick his pale little head. Inez is the one who insists we go through this. But then she always refuses to help and goes to another room.

That’s just like Inez, to want to look the other way.



Now I plop down across from Truly, hoping she’ll notice and start talking to me. But she doesn’t. She acts like I’m not there, like it’s cool to ignore people. She eats her spaghetti super slow, sucking each noodle and then patting her tiny pink lips like she doesn’t have a care in the world or she’s eating in a fancy restaurant.

I’m tempted to get mad, but I decide to go first instead. In my best casual we’re-all-in-jail-together voice, I ask her what “got her in here,” which is how I’ve heard the other girls strike up conversations.

Truly takes another bite of spaghetti and slowly sucks another noodle and I think she’s going to ignore me, until she pauses and says in this sweet but husky voice, “Stealing stuff. Stuff I needed.”

“Oh. Cool,” I answer, not at all sure if it’s supposed to be. I have never understood how people can shoplift—because it would feel so scary, and if you got caught, how embarrassing! I go red just thinking about it.

“I already know why you’re here,” Truly says, finally turning her gold-brown eyes on me. “But, then, everyone does.”

I nod, uncertain how to answer. And then it dawns on me that maybe the other girls are more scared of me than I am of them.





I’ve already had one lawyer, Mr. Dutton with the nostrils. Now they have switched it to be a woman lawyer. I bet they changed lawyers because they think I’m more likely to open up to a female. But they’re wrong. I’m ready to throw my white sheet over my mind the second she goes near that night.

On the bright side, the first time I meet with Betty, I can tell I’m going to like her. She’s heavy and round, wears lots of makeup, and reminds me of a sassy waitress in a southern diner. She pumps my hand with her plump one, and then she asks me to sit down and make myself comfortable.

She tells me to call her Betty. She explains that she’s court-appointed, which means I get her for free. I know it’s because Inez doesn’t have money. And even if she did, I doubt she’d spend it on me now.