Almost Home (3 page)
Tracy asked if I had enough to buy us donuts in the morning but she hasn’t invited me to spend the night, which is weird. We keep going toward West Hollywood so I think that must be where she lives but she hasn’t mentioned it and I don’t know what I’m supposed to ask and what I’m not. Also I would think she’d have her license since she looks at least as old as Brian but we just keep walking everywhere and my feet are starting to get blisters on the bottoms.
Finally when the sky starts to turn from pink to blue I ask her where we’re going. It comes out sort of mousey-sounding and right away I wish I hadn’t asked but it’s too late, she’s already answering. “This guy I know over by Fairfax. Probably we can crash there, plus Whole Foods throws the bread out when they close at nine.”
“Aren’t we going home?” I ask her. She looks at me like I just talked to her in Japanese.
“Home?” she goes. “What do you mean ‘home’?” She pronounces the word like Linda says “curriculum,” like it’s separate from all other words and special.
“Aren’t we going to your house?” I say and right away I can tell it’s the wrong question. She looks at me like she looked at Jenny and the JV guys and the sidewalk sort of moves under my feet.
“You want to hang out with me or not?” she asks and of course I tell her yes, which is the absolute truth, her yellow hair is beautiful and the way she scares me is brand new and so much better than how Brian does or the idea of going home so late, having to see his face after he probably saw me naked in the parking lot. “Okay, then,” she says. “We can probably crash with this guy. Otherwise it’s warm behind Whole Foods and they almost never bust you.”
The bottom of my stomach feels like at the top of the first hill of the roller coaster just before you tip and go down: wanting to get out but knowing there’s no way so it just fills you up till you can feel all your veins and your blood and your insides lift up like something is about to happen and you just hope the bar over your lap holds. Tracy is talking about sleeping outside. I would never be allowed to do this, no way not ever. Sometimes Brian stays out past midnight but they always know where he is, and this isn’t one in the morning it’s all night; it’s not some soccer team kegger, it’s outdoors. I never even heard of sleeping outdoors besides camp. And this is not camp, it’s Hollywood. Somewhere underneath the feeling in all of my skin and stomach and veins I can tell that for about one more minute I could decide to go home, and I’d probably get yelled at but I’d be inside my house where it’s warm. But then I think about Brian maybe seeing me in the parking lot trying to cover up, him hearing everybody laugh, and somehow that makes him coming in at night not just a secret, now they all can see it, all those people sitting on the bus and watching me, their eyes are all so big and I am little like an ugly dirty bug. And then Tracy turns around and looks at me and makes all their eyes shrink down to tiny because when Tracy looks at me she sees an entire different thing. “Okay,” I say, and hurry to catch up.
The next morning before sunrise the sky turns the color of jeans; the light wakes me up before the traffic starts. It’s quiet back here by the Dumpster and the gravel in my back reminds me of the feeling of pebbles on a camping trip, except I don’t have a sleeping bag, just a T-shirt Tracy gave me. Her friend wasn’t home last night even when we came back to knock four times so we wound up here behind Whole Foods. I thought it’d take me forever to get to sleep but when I looked over and saw Tracy’s eyes still open, watching the alley around us, I must’ve stopped being scared because I don’t remember anything after that.
Now it’s the other way around: my eyes are open, she’s still sleeping. It’s cold so I take her T-shirt from under my head and put it over me, trying not to make any noise. When Tracy’s awake I can’t watch her the way that I want to: I know she’d catch me. But now she’s sleeping so hard it barely seems like she’s breathing and I put my eyes on her and it feels like a kind of rest, like if I wanted to I could drink in some of her and make it part of me.
It seems like forever that I lie there watching her eyeballs twitch from dreaming and her eyelashes move against her cheek. I think this is what dawn is, the part right before sunrise when the sky isn’t black but it isn’t blue yet and it isn’t orange either. After a while the cars start getting louder and the sky gets brighter too; it happens slow so I have a chance to get used to the idea that a day is going to start. In my head I say good-bye to Tracy sleeping and the dawn and the quiet, and then I hear myself and realize what a loser I must be.
And then I remember it’s a school day. Which makes me realize last night was a school night, which makes me realize I never went home. And then my heart starts beating in my ears because what am I supposed to do? If I go home I’ll get killed and I’m sure Linda’s called the school by now which means the second I show up there they’ll call her in and then I’ll get killed too. I guess last night I just assumed I’d be in homeroom in the morning because that’s what happens every day but now I start thinking what kind of shit I’ll be in if I go back there, not to mention everyone will know what happened in the parking lot and my hoodie is still ripped. Not to mention Brian. And I start realizing that maybe I can’t go back to school today.
Except you can’t just not go to school. You get expelled, or else in such huge trouble I can’t even picture what it’s like. I start really wanting Tracy to wake up.
There’s sweat trickling down my sides from my armpits making me colder and my palms are all sticky but I tell myself Tracy will know what I should do and it calms me down a little. I roll onto my back and watch the sky, waiting. I count my breaths which almost always makes the time go faster; I know that from Brian.
Finally after at least three people have come around to throw stuff in the Dumpster and almost seen us, Tracy opens her eyes. She sits up and then turns to me and says “Oh yeah,” like she forgot I was there. I have all these questions I want to ask right away but Linda always bites my head off if I talk too much before she’s had her coffee and I think Tracy might be the same. Yesterday Tracy asked if I’d buy her donuts in the morning so I owe her; I’m hoping on the way she’ll say what I’m supposed to do before I have to ask.
The whole way to Winchell’s she doesn’t even talk except to ask me for five bucks to buy us breakfast. At the counter she leans forward on the white Formica and smiles at the guy, who doesn’t speak much English. She orders half a dozen, half jelly half glazed, and a coffee with four sugars and as he’s almost finished getting them she says “How about a discount” and sort of tilts her head. What’s weird is she kind of reminds me of Jenny Kirchner when she does that, but then the guy gives Tracy the donuts for only a dollar and she stuffs her pocket with the change, takes the bag and turns around and looks like herself again.
When we’re back out on the sidewalk she hands me a jelly donut and goes “So how does it feel to be playing hooky?” and grins at me totally different than the smile she gave the donut guy, showing all her ugly teeth. Inside the donut is raspberry and as soon as I swallow I say “Pretty good, I guess,” and that’s all we ever say about it.
After that she takes me to Rite Aid. On the way in she puts her hand on my back and pushes me in front of her. I don’t know where she wants me to go or what we’re even in here for, but she leans in over my shoulder and smiles and I can feel her breath on my face as she pushes me forward.
The lights are bright and there’s almost no one in the aisles, just bottles of things lined up and stacked to the ceiling. She pokes me in the back to point us toward the hair-dye section, where the boxes are white and all have girls on them that look the same except for different shades of hair. I wonder if they dye each girl’s hair with the actual stuff that’s in the box or if it’s just an imitation. Tracy wanders up the aisle a little with her hands out of her pockets and I stay where I am, reading the words
Herbal Essences
over and over till the H and the E look weird. Then Tracy comes back and stands really close to me and I feel a weight in my front hoodie pocket; when I turn around she looks at me hard. She goes “I’m thirsty, let’s go get some water” and then starts walking. All I know is I probably shouldn’t drop anything so I keep my hands cupped below my stomach.
Tracy gets the biggest size of Poland Spring from the refrigerator case and then heads toward the front. I follow her and my heart is beating again because she hasn’t told me to take the stuff out of my hoodie and we’re about to get to the register. When we’re there she still doesn’t say anything; I read the whole front of
People
about Drew Barrymore’s amazing new weight loss and move on to
In Style
while Tracy buys the water.
The register ka-chings and the lady goes “Have a nice day” in the boredest voice ever and Tracy takes the water jug and starts walking toward the door, which is a long way away. On the way there my heart weirdly slows down and I realize Tracy’s never messed up since I’ve known her. Maybe she just knows some stuff I don’t, I think, and all of a sudden that weird blurry nervous feeling goes away and it’s like I just leaned back in a big soft chair except I’m still moving. My breathing sinks down into my stomach as the automatic doors slide open and Tracy and I walk right through.
As soon as we’re away from the Rite Aid, the laughing starts. It all comes out in an explosive burst and then keeps itself going in my head and mouth and it feels so good I don’t want it to stop. Tracy kind of smirks at me. “Not bad,” she goes and then she reaches into my pocket and pulls out what she put in there. She holds up a blue plastic box with no pictures on it that says
Lightening Power
; in the other hand she has a box of Afro Sheen hair dye on it with a black lady’s picture that looks like it’s really old, like from the ’80s. Her bangs are kind of sculpted into curves and her hair is magenta. “I thought this color would look good on you,” Tracy says, and I start laughing again.
We run around the corner to a Laundromat that’s about from 1950; nobody’s in it except for an old guy sleeping in one of the yellow plastic chairs. We both sit down on the sidewalk in front of it and Tracy starts ripping open the Lightening Power package. There’s a piece of paper inside with teeny tiny directions. Tracy turns the box over and pulls two plastic gloves off the back and puts them on, and then she opens the blue box and mixes a powder into a little bottle that came inside. She says “Close your eyes” and squirts the bottle all over my head. It smells like floor chemicals and my scalp feels cold and then starts stinging but I stay there with my eyes closed while Tracy covers my head with the bleach. She says “Sit there for a while” and the sting turns to burning and my eyes feel hot, but then I remember how I felt on the way out of Rite Aid and it almost makes me laugh again.
After about forever Tracy goes “Okay” and tells me to bend over forward and keep my eyes shut tight. She rinses the bleach out with the water jug she bought, running her fingers through my hair; her plastic gloves on my scalp come in where the burn was. When she’s done she dries me off with the bottom of her T-shirt and says “Open your eyes and stand up.” In the reflection of the Laundromat window my hair is yellow just like hers.
I feel like a kid in a Halloween wig, but then I touch my hair and it’s mine. Tracy starts opening the Afro Sheen package with the magenta dye and I almost stop her. I kind of want to stay blond. But the reason why is so we’ll have the same color hair and I know how dumb that is so I don’t say anything, I just keep looking at myself in the window for as long as I can.
After that I have purple hair. I look awesome. It makes me feel like one of the JV guys walking down the street, or even bigger, and I stick out my chest and sway my shoulders like a football player when I walk and this time Tracy doesn’t say I look stupid. Every time we pass a window I stare at myself: my eyes lock on my reflection like they locked on Jenny Kirchner that day she looked so perfect and I can’t stop watching the girl I see, except now she’s me.
Tracy and I spend a bunch more nights outside by Whole Foods; it gets easier and easier to sleep through rush hour and the third or fourth morning I realize I sleep better out here than at home because there’s no door for Brian to open halfway through the night. There’s only Tracy, and as long as I’m next to her I’m safe.
After about a week my allowance runs out. I get twenty-five a week for cleaning my room and we’ve made it last pretty good: Tracy taught me how to Dumpster-dive plus she’s really good at that trick with the donut guy so he gives us lots of stuff cheap. Once a day we get tacos or something else salty and the rest of the time it’s apple fritters, day-old glazed or whatever we can Dumpster. But then one morning I reach for the wad of ones and fives in my pocket and it’s not a wad anymore, it’s just a dollar. I’m not sure how to tell Tracy; I’m a little afraid she’ll get mad.
She takes care of everything except for money; that’s my job. Once she pulled a hair band out of her pocket and I saw a little corner of green come out too but she stuffed it back down fast and didn’t mention it. The next time we went for donuts I waited for a second to see if she’d pull it out but she didn’t. It was fine with me.
But now I’m almost out and it’s only morning and I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do. I want to tell her before breakfast so she can plan ahead: I wait till she rubs her eyes and spits and sits up and then I say “Um, Tracy?” and she says “Yeah?” and I tell her. My heart is beating super fast like I did something wrong and I’m about to get caught. She doesn’t look at me or talk, which makes it beat faster because I can’t tell if she hates me now or not. After a long long time she turns to me and says “Okay. So where’s your house?”
We wait until the clock at Winchell’s says ten because some days my dad goes in late to work, and then start walking up toward Beachwood Canyon. Of course it sounds easy: I know where the key is under the fake plastic rock by the doormat, and I know where the food is in the pantry, and I know where Linda keeps spare twenties in her bra drawer and that she won’t miss a few. But as the hill starts getting steeper and we get closer to the 101 I’m feeling more and more like throwing up.
