“But I know she’s a good kid, all appearances to the contrary. I wish something more permanent would’ve worked out for her.” I could hear the sympathy in Mr. Petersen’s voice. It pulled at my chest, making it hard to breathe.
“Maggie Mae, since you don’t seem to be hungry, would you like to see your room?” Mrs. Carpenter asked, her voice soft and gentle.
I let out a breath that had been stuck in my lungs. “Yes.” I grabbed my duffle and followed her past a flight of stairs and down a hall to the other side of the barn house. At the end of the hall a door led to a small, cluttered room.
It had stark white walls, a small chest of drawers, a little CD player, a closet half filled with a hundred different kinds of fabric scraps, and against the far wall beneath a small window, a foldable camping cot with a homemade purple patchwork quilt draped over it. Smack in the middle of it all was a table that took up most of the room, with a sewing machine and a half-sewn quilt on top of it.
“I’m sleeping in the sewing room?” I asked.
“It’s temporary. I have an empty stable hand’s room above the barn, but John says you need to be in the same living space with me until you come of age. Your birthday’s just around the corner, right?”
I nodded.
“Why don’t you unpack your things while John and I finish your paperwork.” She turned to leave, but stopped. “I almost forgot! The laundry room is just down the hall, there. Across from it is the bathroom. It’s all yours, so feel free to use the drawers for your toiletries.” Her cowboy boots clip-clopped on the wood floor as she walked back to the dining room.
Toiletries? I didn’t have any toiletries except my toothbrush, a little bag of drugstore makeup, and a hairbrush. I didn’t even own a tube of toothpaste. Tears threatened my eyes, but I forced them to stay put. When Mr. Simms used to hit me, it was all right to cry. But tears over a tube of toothpaste?
I pulled my nicotine-scented secondhand clothes out of the duffle bag and shoved them into the drawers—jeans in the bottom drawer; T-shirts and tank tops in the middle; panties, a bra, and a nightshirt in the top. Next I hung my jacket in the empty half of the closet surrounded by a handful of waiting hangers. There—I was unpacked.
Clutching my “toiletries” to my chest, I darted down the hall to the bathroom. It, unlike the rest of the house, was empty. The vanity drawers were empty, the shower was empty—no soap, no shampoo. Even the shower curtain was a plain, foggy clear. I arranged my things in a drawer and went back to the sewing room.
Easing down onto the cot, I stared at the ceiling and wished I had a CD to drown out the quiet mumble of Mrs. Carpenter’s, Mr. Petersen’s, and Ollie’s voices. Only a few words stood out of the many, but they weren’t good words.
Sneaking out. Police. Nude. Arrested. Almost an adult. Prostitute. Convicted.
I pulled the pillow over my head.
A little while later I heard a quiet knock. I took the pillow from my head and stood. “Come in.”
Mr. Petersen stood in my doorway, a frown on his face. “Hey, Maggie Mae. This is good-bye for us. You call me if anything goes wrong. And I mean anything.” He held out his business card. “You’re a good kid. Take care that you turn into a good adult.”
I stood motionless and stared at him. Finally, with trembling fingers I took his business card and tucked it into my jeans pocket. He nodded, turned, and walked down the hall.
I wasn’t sad to see him go, but he’d been more constant throughout my life than any of my “families” had ever been. It felt as if he were taking a part of me away with him. Who else would remember what I was like as a child, before all this strangeness started to happen to me?
I don’t know how long I stood in the doorway, staring down the hall and feeling empty. It wasn’t until Mrs. Carpenter came bustling toward me, speaking as if she and I had been holding a conversation, that I snapped out of it.
“School starts at seven forty, so I recommend you get to bed as soon as possible,” she said, pressing a soft, fresh-smelling bundle into my hands. I stared at it. “It’s an extra blanket. In case you get cold. The cot’s not all that warm,” she explained. “You act like you’ve never seen a quilt before.
“My room is upstairs. If you need anything, just holler. I’ll hear you.” She stared at me for a minute. “ ’Night,” she finally said.
I shut my bedroom door behind her and undressed. From the top drawer, I got my nightshirt—an old oversized Michelin Tires T-shirt that used to belong to Jenny Sue’s husband. I slipped it over my head and padded across the hall to the bathroom.
I washed my face and brushed my teeth with lukewarm water, used the toilet, and then stared in the mirror. Without makeup covering it, I could still see the faintest shadow of gray beneath my left eye—the last evidence of the fight with the prostitute. I looked older than seventeen. When did I begin to look so old? So tired? So hopeless?
I flipped off the light, crossed the hall, and eased onto the rickety cot.
2
I jumped awake. Years of living with strangers will do that.
I think I terrified Mrs. Carpenter as much as she terrified me. She cowered in my doorway, staring at me with wide eyes.
“We had better get you an alarm clock,” she said shakily. “You nearly stopped my heart. Did you sleep well, child?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You know, you are allowed to speak in my home. I appreciate the respect, but I wish you’d talk a bit.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied out of habit. I bit my tongue.
“Well. We need to leave for school in twenty minutes, so you’d better get ready. And dress warm. The wind’s still blowing.” Mrs. Carpenter turned and strode away with her hands on her hips.
Twenty minutes to get ready for my first day at a new school? I ran to the bathroom and took a shampooless, soapless shower. I brushed through my sopping hair, dabbed concealer on my black eye, and put a layer of black mascara on my pale lashes. In my room I put on a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt, pulled on socks with holes over both my big toes, then slipped my feet into Jenny Sue’s old running sneakers, which were a size too big. I got my jacket out of the closet and pushed my arms into the thin sleeves. There were three minutes to spare.
Mrs. Carpenter stood waiting in the kitchen. “Here you go, Maggie Mae,” she said, holding out a plate with two slices of bacon and two fried eggs shimmering with grease. I took the plate and sat at the table.
“Have you been raised with any particular religion?” she asked, sitting across from me.
“Yes. I’ve been preached to by everyone from Baptists to Catholics to Buddhists. When I was five, I lived with the Sharpwhites. They were Wiccan, or astrologists, or something.” I could hardly remember a thing about their religion, except on clear nights we would dance under the stars. Mrs. Sharpwhite always told me that when my stars lined up, my life would be in harmony. I’m still waiting for my stars to line up.
“Well, in this house I like to say grace at every meal. Do you mind?” Mrs. Carpenter asked.
I closed my eyes, clasped my hands, and bowed my head.
“Dear Lord, thank you for this glorious morning. And thank you for blessing me with the chance to foster this child. But please, Lord, let her keep her clothes on while she’s in my care. Because if she doesn’t, I might be tempted to spank her bare butt. And bless this food we are about to partake of. Amen.”
I unclasped my hands and stared at Mrs. Carpenter. She winked and grinned.
I ate like I was going to die—I was starting a new school. At least no one at my new school knew my past.
“We need to go,” Mrs. Carpenter said as I stuck the last bite of egg into my mouth. She grabbed her keys from a holder by the front door. I grabbed my empty duffle bag and followed her outside.
She was right about the wind. It tugged at my clothes and whipped my wet hair into my face. I hugged the jacket to my body and shivered. And that is when the quiet morning filled with snarling and baying.
“There must be a fox in the barn.” Mrs. Carpenter gasped, running toward a dark building on the far edge of the gravel driveway. She threw the door wide and the barking grew louder. Two shadows streaked out of the dark building and ran straight at me. A solid mass hit my chest and I was thrown to the ground. Muzzles snarled and snapped at my face, their breath hot on my cheeks.
I threw my arms over my head and rolled onto my side. The barking turned to whining and two slick, hot tongues began covering every inch of my exposed skin with slobber.
“Shash! Duke! Get off of her before I tan your hide!” Mrs. Carpenter demanded. She dragged the dogs from me, but I was too shaky to get up.
“Maggie Mae, I apologize!” Mrs. Carpenter said. “I don’t know what’s gotten into my dogs. They usually only bark like that around a wild animal. I thought they were going to eat you for breakfast, but it seems they like you well enough now.” One of the dogs, hardly more than a fluffy black-and-white shadow in the gloomy morning, slunk over and licked my face from my jaw up to my hairline.
“Shash, get back here!” Mrs. Carpenter ordered. The dog took a second long lick of my face, then turned and sat at Mrs. Carpenter’s feet, beside a long-eared, copper-colored dog. Finally able to move, I wiped the slobber from my cheek and pushed myself to a sitting position.
“My second husband was part Navajo. He taught Native American culture at the university, specializing in Navajo religion. He always said animals can sense a person’s true nature,” Mrs. Carpenter said, her shrewd eyes studying me. “If my dogs take a liking to someone, that is a sign that I should like them, too. I can see why my son sent you to me.”
“Your son?” I asked, baffled.
“My son, Dr. John Petersen, child psychiatrist and social worker. Your counselor. He called me up at the crack of dawn yesterday morning and asked if I’d take in someone special. Said he didn’t trust anyone else with this particular girl and wanted to give her a chance to graduate from high school and get her feet under her so that she might make something of herself.”