Girl in Pieces (41 page)

In Albuquerque, Tanner takes the backseat, falls asleep. Linus shoves the bag of pork rinds in my direction. I pour some into the palm of my hand.

“Linus,” I say softly. “Why are you helping me? You don't even know me, and I've been so selfish. Like, I've never even asked you anything about yourself. And I'm sorry. That was shitty.” I take a breath. It's what I wanted to say.

Her cheek is fat with food, like a squirrel's. She swallows. “I drank my kids away from me. All those years I spent trying to get sober, they stayed with their dad and they didn't want to see me, and rightly so. I did some truly horrible things that still make me want to puke with shame when I think about them.”

She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “Life without a mom is pretty shitty. They're mad. They're coming around, but real slow. They're good kids, though, which makes me think they had some kindness along the way, little kick starts of help and love. So that's what I'm doing. That's why I'm helping you. I don't know the story of your mom, but I have to believe she's hoping somebody is looking out for you.”

I crush the rinds in my hand, lick the pebbles from my palm. “My mother doesn't think like that.”

Linus is quiet for a long time before she answers.

“Yes. She does. Someday? If you decide to have kids, you'll know what I mean. And it'll knock you damn flat on your ass.”

It's late when Linus drops me off in front of the building. The street is quiet, the liquor store closed for the night. I shut my eyes when we passed Twelfth Street. I didn't want to risk looking out and seeing his robin's-egg-blue house.

The foyer light is dim, but the first thing I notice is that the railing and floor have been repainted a light peach color; the entry door is a fresh, crisp white. The hallway smells like lilacs, clean; the walls have been painted a quiet, light blue. I approach the door to my apartment. I can hear music from the room and my heart sinks. Leonard must have already rented the apartment. Did he save any of my things? Maybe he put them in boxes in the basement. But where's Blue? And where am I supposed to go? My heart starts to beat very fast. As I turn to go, the door inches open.

The bruises on Blue's face are fading, but the ring around her eye is still swollen and purple-yellow. There are red lines with small dots left over from the stitches.

Blue breathes in relief. “Charlie. I'm so glad to see you.” She opens the door wider. “Are you talking? Are you okay? I thought you might go back to being quiet for a while.”

The room is neat as a pin, no more ashtrays, and there is a new, plain wood dresser to hold Blue's clothes. The linoleum has been ripped up and the wood beneath it sanded and painted a rose color. I realize that the linoleum would have been soiled from my blood; I feel a surge of guilt. Blue bends to run a hand across the wood. “Fir,” she says softly. My slashed futon has been replaced with a double bed covered with a fluffy, inviting comforter. Blue has installed plain metal shelves in the kitchen and filled them with stacks of pink dishes and cups, jars of sauces and jams, cans of food, crackers. Another thick shelf sports a microwave. A shower curtain with a map of the world hangs from the ceiling around the tub. A cloth curtain with irises surrounds the toilet.

“I like it here,” she says with a shy smile.

Blue has made the apartment more of a home in six weeks than I did in the six months I was here.

On the card table, a painstaking project: Blue has been taping together the contents of my ripped sketchbook and the torn Land Camera photographs of Ellis and me. Some of the pieces are tiny; Wendy was very thorough.

Blue stutters. “It—it was Jen S. She called me after you left for work, about Louisa, and, Jesus, Charlie, I just lost it. I found Riley and we went to that girl's house. I just wanted to get high, you know? I didn't…I didn't know it was going to be that stuff, but I couldn't stop myself. Jesus, Charlie, did you know about him?”

The little crystalline bags. The plastic smell the first morning I came to wake him up. I look at Blue and start to cry. Her eyes widen in alarm. “Charlie,
what?
”

I tell her I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but that I lied, that I bought drugs for Riley, that everything was horrible, and that I was drowning, and that I don't want to be underwater anymore.

Blue shakes her head violently. “I'm out, Charlie. I'm really done. I'm not gonna do that stuff anymore. I promise. I
like
it here. It's fucking
nice,
this town. My God, the
sun.
”

I press my forehead against the wall, suddenly exhausted all over again, emptied, now that I'm back.

She says, “That person I was at Creeley, that wasn't really me. Sometimes with people, you just become something, like, your role happens
to
you, instead of you choosing it. I let that happen when I got here. I let it slip over me, even though I didn't want to. I don't…I'm not that, Charlie. I want to be friends. I think we could help each other. I like you so
much.
”

Her hand on my back is warm through my shirt.

“I don't want to be Louisa,” she whispers. “I don't want to die. I don't want to be that, ever. Help me not be that and I'll help you.”

I believe her. She says my name. She says Louisa's, over and over. We cry like that, for hours, together, me against the wall, Blue pressed to my back. Holding each other, like you're supposed to.

The green screen door slams shut behind me. Everyone turns around; everyone's face closes up. I hang my backpack on the wall peg, walk to the dishwasher, tie on my apron, jerk out the dish rack, and start to unload plates and cups. When I turn around with a clean dish tray, they're staring at me: Randy in her saddle shoes, Temple busying herself with the coffee urns, silvery ankle bracelets tinkling.

Randy dumps an armload of cups into the soapy water, splashing my apron. She knocks me in the shoulder lightly.

“It's about fucking time,” she says. “We've been reopened for three days already and wondering where our favorite disher was.”

My second night back at work, Julie pulls me into the office. I don't look at the couch. I try not to look at anything except my water-pruned hands as Julie tells me what I already mostly know. That Riley and Wendy totaled Luis's car; Wendy broke three ribs, cracked her collarbone, and punctured her intestine. That Wendy attacked Blue at the apartment when Blue tried to get her to stop destroying my things.

Julie twists the rings on her fingers, her voice wavering. “Riley came out with bruises, a DUI, driving without a license, a possible robbery charge for stealing the night deposit, and the theft of an automobile.” She lays a hand on the bowl of lapis lazuli.

“He was in jail. Now he's up north at a men-only rehab. It's not his first time in rehab, but you probably guessed that.” She clacks the stones together. Her eyes well up. “I've been doing a lot of thinking, you know? Maybe some of this is my fault, always helping him when he fucks up. He can't come back here, ever, to work. He can't. And legally, holy hell. If he wants to stay out of jail, he has to complete a yearlong work-rehab program and stay clean. And am I supposed to press charges about stealing my money?” Tears run down her cheeks. “The world is so fucking awful sometimes and then you have to really start thinking, what's my role in this awfulness? Did I make some of this awful?”

There's a heavy weight inside me. I have to get rid of it.

“Julie,” I say. “I knew, I mean, I think I knew, but I didn't want to
know,
that he was stealing from the register. And…I helped him. I…bought stuff for him. And I'm sorry. And I understand if you want to fire me.”

Julie shakes her head, wiping her eyes. “You bought stuff for him?”

I nod, my face burning with shame. I wanted him to love me.

I say it aloud, but very quietly.

Julie reaches out and takes my hand. “Love is a real shit show, Charlie, but it's not that. It's not buying drugs for someone. You don't deserve that, honey. You just don't.”

I try to let her words just sit in me, rather than rejecting them. It's hard, but I do it.

I keep going, my words spilling out fast. “Linus said Grit is in real trouble. We talked about it on the way back from New Mexico and I've been thinking, well, Linus and I have been thinking, and talking, and we have some ideas about how to get Grit on track, if you want to listen.”

Julie blinks, snuffling. She finds a pen and opens a notebook.

“I'm listening,” she says. “Fire away, because I'm dying here.”