Dark Companion (27 page)

“Where! What’s happening?” she said as she looked around frantically.

Through the doorway, I saw a man yanking on his pants and picking up a shirt. I looked back to Wilde, who had a red welt across her cheek.

She stared at the candlestick in my hand. “What the hell are you doing, Mousie?”

“Are you all right, Wilde?” I moved to her side, still gripping the candlestick and keeping my eyes on the man. My childhood memory felt as real to me as this scene and my heart beat fast—because I had the insane idea that my mother was in Wilde’s bedroom.

That she would step forward and say … what would she say to me?

But it was Wilde who stepped in front of me, glowering. “Is that what this is? You
shoulda
knocked and asked. Actually, you shoulda just kept out of my business!”

The man jammed his feet in his shoes and walked through the living room. He sneered at Wilde. “You’re not getting paid, bitch.”

Footsteps pounded in the stairs and Wilde’s pimp, Junior, blocked the doorway. He looked from the man to Wilde and me and back to the man again. “What’s going on?”

“The deal was special treatment and then this … this stupid kid screams fire,” the man said as he squeezed by Junior.

“Hey, you gotta pay first!” Junior followed him down the stairs and their voices got louder and angrier.

Wilde grabbed a pack of cigarettes and lit up. “You’ve caused me a whole lot of mess.”

I set down the candlestick. “I thought he was hurting you. He
was
hurting you. You shouldn’t let him do that.”

“I get paid for it, and now I won’t get paid!” Wilde paced around me, jabbing the air with her cigarette. “You always think you know everything, don’t you? You always think you’re so damn smart.”

“I’m not. I just try really—”

“Don’t give me
that
line. You talk about people being fake, but
you’re
a phony. You fake that you don’t think you’re smarter than everyone in Hellsdale, and I bet you fake with all those rich bitches, acting like you don’t think you’re better than them, when you do because you did it on your own.”

I wanted to slap her and I wanted to cry. My voice shook when I said, “I’ll talk to you when you’re not wasted.”

She laughed an ugly laugh. “Oh, yeah, Miss Holier-than-thou, that’s another thing I’m
sick
of. Not partying and not putting out doesn’t mean you’re any better than me—it means you’re
boring
. You’re just jealous that I have a boyfriend and get lots of action, and no one wants a
boring
priss like you.”

I stepped forward and stared disdainfully at her. “Because you’re
so
interesting when you’re passed out on the sofa, or rambling about what you’re going to do
someday,
how you’re going to get straight
someday
. You’re
so
interesting when you’re talking about your boyfriend when he’s nothing but a cheap, nasty pimp who sells your body and keeps you hooked.”

Her expression softened and her lower lip quivered the way it used to when her father didn’t show up on his visiting days. The welt on her face was darkening into a bruise.

I looked around at the depressing apartment with its flimsy pay-by-the-month furniture and stained shag carpeting. I saw the cigarette burns on the tables, the faded silk flower arrangements, and a goldfish bowl half-full of murky water.

“You’re better than this, Wilde. You can have a better life.” I went to get ice from the freezer, but the plastic trays were empty. I took a can of frozen juice and handed it to her. “For your cheek.”

She opened her hand, letting the can roll off her fingers and drop to the floor. “I
like
my life. Not all of us want to be Hosea. There was only one of him and you’re not it, so get out!” Wilde pushed me toward the door. “Get the hell outa here!”

I almost tripped on the steps as I heard the door slam shut behind me. I stumbled into the night, looking for a place to hide.

I ducked into the carport, finding the deepest shadows behind a minivan on blocks, and pressed back against the rough wall. I slid down the wall and wrapped my arms around my knees. The misery was all too much to bear.

I could still hear the slap, as brief and forbidding as a thunderclap.

I turned my face to my hunched-up shoulder, and Wilde’s injured face suddenly became my mother’s face.

My mother had been so much smaller than my hulking stepfather. She’d held her arms over her head to block his fists. There was blood on his hands, her face, and he was raging at her.

Blood splattered onto the yellow floor that she kept bright and shiny.

I crouched under the kitchen table, terrified and whimpering. I smelled whiskey and sweat and burned food.

Scenes of my early years in foster care rushed at me: a filthy house with rats that scurried out at night, a man who said to call him “uncle” and tickled too much, a woman who locked me in my room while her boyfriends visited.

I gasped, stunned that I’d finally
remembered
a few things. Could I have even more memories hiding within me? Could I remember who I’d once been?

I thought of what Wilde had called me, fake, and how I’d come back here to be my real self. Well, this was my real self—frightened and confused and lashing out at my oldest friend.

Suddenly I wanted to be in the grove and hear the wind and the trees whispering
shush, shush, shush
. I wanted the green to wash away the pain. I wanted to be with Lucky, who’d made all my senses come alive.

And I realized that my real self was someone who’d rejected the violence, cruelty, and ignorance of Hellsdale. My real self was also someone who sat in chem lab, happy with a big book, formulas on chalkboards, and knowledge of how the world worked. And my real self was someone who didn’t give up even when she had to say, “I don’t understand. Can you explain it to me?” and hear others laughing at her.

*   *   *

I awoke at dawn when a car door slammed and someone drove out of the carport. I was stiff and shivering, smelling of exhaust fumes. I went upstairs to Wilde’s to get my things.

She was sitting on the sofa and surfing through channels on the TV. Her dilated pupils showed only a narrow rim of gray iris, and a bruise marked her pale face. “Hey, Mousie! Whoa, you really freaked out. I should have warned you that I had a hitter coming.” She jittered a leg and cut out a line of white powder.

“I’ll just get my stuff and then I’ll be out of here.” My bag was in the corner. I folded up a t-shirt and put it inside, aware that Wilde was watching me.

“You were going to throw down for me, weren’t you?” she said seriously. “You’re a good friend, Mousie. I’m sorry for all that drama. I didn’t mean those things.”

“I’m sorry, too, Wilde Thang. I try not to judge, but I worry about you.” I wished the apologies would make everything okay between us, but I knew things were more complicated than that. “You’re right. I am fake. I act nice to adults to get what I want.”

“That’s not fake. That’s part of your school business.” Wilde wiped her nostrils. “Just like for my business, I act like whatever fantasy the client wants. It doesn’t mean I’m fake.”

I dropped on the sofa beside her. “Wilde, you know what you said about me doing a runner and coming here?”

She had to think awhile. “Oh, that. Yeah, you were a runner before I met you. What did the Baby Snatchers call you?” The Baby Snatchers was our nickname for Child Protective Services because they swooped in to take babies from dangerous situations.

“They used to call me incorrigible. It was stamped right on my file. Well, I guess now I’m
corrigible
. I’m not going to run from things anymore. I’m not going to bail on an opportunity like Birch Grove even if the people there are a little twisted. I’ll figure out the rules of their game, I’ll play to win, and I won’t give up who I am.”

“Now that’s the Mousie Girl I know! What did you say their kink was?”

Mr. Mason had said that the Family needed secrecy. “Nothing. They’re normal.” I reached out and put my hand on Wilde’s knobby knee. “I don’t want to leave you like this.”

Her gray eyes wandered before focusing on mine. “It’s not like you can take me with you, is it? Be real—we never wanted the same things. I know what you think about Junior, but we’ve got something and he takes care of me.”

“If he cared for you, he wouldn’t pimp you out and keep you using. Pain isn’t love.” Even as I spoke the words, I thought of Lucky cutting me … but he always asked permission and he had a biological need. “Maybe Junior calls it love, but that kind of love can get you killed.”

“I know what I’m doing.” Wilde’s hand was shaky as she opened a bottle on the table and finished the last two inches of alcohol.

“Thanks for letting me stay, Wilde. If there’s anything I can do … when you decide to leave this—and I
know
you will—I’ll do whatever you need to get out.”

“Hey, I’m good. We can catch up later … when I’m straight and you’re settled. I’ll cut your hair for free.” Wilde smiled her gap-toothed smile, and in the next moment her dark eyelids closed and she slumped back against the sofa.

I got her into bed and kissed the cheek that wasn’t bruised. She was snoring and her breathing was even. On her night table, I left a thank-you note with my address and phone number, the $70 she’d given me, and the folder with information about getting a GED and beauty school. I took a final look at my broken friend and walked out of her apartment.

I was waiting at the bus stop with my sports bag when a silver Navigator slowed down. I stepped back, hoping there wouldn’t be trouble. The car parked a few yards up in front of a hydrant, and 2Slim stepped out. He wore a gray pinstriped suit with a pale lilac shirt and a dove-gray tie. “I thought that was you, Mousie Girl. Junior told me there was a commotion at your girl’s place last night.”

I nodded. “Yes, sir. I mistook the situation. I didn’t mean to cause any problems. I apologize.”

“Apology accepted. I’ll square things with Junior,” he said. “Where you going?”

“Back to Birch Grove Academy. My break is over.”

“No driver this time?”

“No, sir.”

“Why don’t you call someone for a ride?”

“I don’t have a phone.”

“I got someone headed north can give you a ride most of the way.”

“I’d appreciate that, sir.”

“Ain’t no thing, Mousie.” He raised his hand to signal to one of the men up on the corner. “But it’s for the best you don’t interfere with my affairs, because I can’t let that pass again, you get me?”

My stomach constricted in fear. “Yes, sir.”

“I used to see you with that boy—what was his name?—Rev, walking to school.”

“Hosea was his given name. They called him Rev for Reverend.”

“That’s the one. Me and my baby sister, Evie, used to walk to school like that, steering clear of any mess.” He stared off, but I could tell that he was using his peripheral vision to keep tabs on the street. “Baby girl got in the way of a drive-by when she was only ten.” Now he turned to me.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“I made a decision then and I got no regrets, but I’m mindful that things could have gone different.” He flipped his key chain in his hand. “No one here heard a squeak from you, Mousie, until that boy got sick. Then one night you started screaming bloody murder at that Prichard woman. I was standing across the way when the ambulance came and you climbed right in with Rev. They peeled you off and you threw yourself back in.”

I’d gripped Hosea’s hand, burning with fever, as they put him on a gurney. Hosea had opened his eyes one last time and found me in the chaos. He’d said, “Don’t be afraid, Little Sis. I believe. You got to
believe
.” Those were the last words he ever spoke.

I told 2Slim, “Mrs. Prichard said it was the flu and she wouldn’t get him to the ER. I had to grab the phone from her and call myself.”

“Same as yesterday. Here you are a scary-eyed little mouse, but you step up when your friends need you. That’s loyalty. If you’da been a boy, I would have recruited you then and there.”

A blue Acura rolled to the curb and 2Slim told the driver, “Take her near Greenwood and give her a burner.”

“Thank you, Mr. Blake.”

“Only use the phone in an emergency, Mousie. I didn’t keep your scrawny ass from being kicked every day at school so’s you can start trouble for me now.”

I’d thought I escaped beatings because no one noticed me, but the moment 2Slim said he’d protected me I knew it was true.

His genial expression vanished for a moment. “They say I’m sentimental. That just means if you even
think
to cross me, I’ll leave flowers on your grave.”

“You’re doing all this because I remind you of your sister?”

He laughed his gunfire laugh. “Hell, Mousie, you remind me of
me
.”

I was still staring, amazed, at 2Slim as I got in the car. He shut the door, and the guy at the wheel hit the gas.

The driver chewed gum as he sped on the freeways north. He dropped me off at the edge of town.

“Thanks for the ride.”

“No problem.” He pulled a cheap phone from his jacket pocket and handed it to me. The driver gunned the engine and was off the second I closed the car door.

My heart was full when I saw the lush green hills draped in fog. I caught the shuttle uphill and gazed out the window at the trees, the lawns, the greenness of the town.

When I opened the door to the cottage, the red light of the answering machine was blinking. I dropped my sports bag and then punched the play button.

Mary Violet had left gossip about the movie night, and girls from my Latin study group wanted to review chapters. Then there was a dead air sound that telemarketers leave when they get a machine. I was about to hit delete when I heard “Oh, hey, Jane, it’s Lucky. I wanted to know if we could do tutoring Thursday. Say five. See you.”