Grace (3 page)

It's been said that parents should give their children roots and wings. That was a perfect description of my parents. Even in a wheelchair, my father was a dreamer with his head in the clouds and my mother was the roots with both feet planted firmly on terra quaking firma. My mother was always afraid. Afraid we didn't have enough money, afraid her health would give out, afraid something might happen to one of us. Pretty much afraid of life. When my father got sick I think it was for her vindication that the gods really were out to get us.

Shortly after our arrival in Utah, my mother got a day job working as a cashier at Warshaw's Food and Drug. Her job didn't pay much, but she brought home damaged canned goods and day-olds from the bakery, which helped with the grocery bills. For years I thought that all soup cans came with dents in them.

For most of her life my mother had struggled with depression, and our situation didn't help much. People didn't talk as much about depression in those days; in some religions it was still regarded as a sin. Science made people less sinful with the wonder drug Librium.

My mother worked all day, then came home at night, physically and emotionally spent. My father just kind of moped around the house, dreaming up get-rich-quick schemes while he slowly regained the use of his limbs. Joel and I learned that if we spent much time in the house, Dad would think of errands for us, so mostly we just hid out in the clubhouse. Then summer ended.

Life at Granite Junior High School was dog-eat-dog. Even though I was a ninth grader, and higher up the food chain, it was still miserable. I wasn't big like the jocks or especially smart like the geeks. I had acne and a bad haircut, which, when my dad got partial use of his hands back, was once again administered with his Ronco electric hair trimmer. The hoods, who gathered outside the north doors after school to smoke, took notice of me and made my life even more miserable. They tripped me, knocked books out of my hands, and generally harassed and humiliated me. And I worked at a burger place that paid sixty cents an hour and made you wear a paper cap. That time in my life nothing was worth remembering. That is, up until the day I found Grace in a Dumpster.

FRIDAY, OCT.
12

About ten yards behind the Queen, on the other side of the drive-thru lane, were two small structures. One was a sheet metal storage shed where we kept supplies like napkins, cups, industrial-sized cans of tomato sauce, and the five-pound bags of spiced soybean filler we'd mix with the beef to stretch it further; the other was a walk-in freezer. My first night working at the Queen a co-worker named Dean sent me to the freezer for a bag of frozen Tater Tots and locked me inside for nearly a half hour. I think he only let me out because it got busy and he needed my help.

It was nearly eleven
P.M
. and the end of my shift when I went out to the shed to restock our shelves. With the exception of a street lamp at least fifty yards away, there was no lighting out back, and I was always a bit leery of going out there at night. Gary told me that a few years earlier one of the evening workers had been mugged by a couple hoodlums hiding out back. As usual, I looked around before I stepped out, then slid a rock under the door to prop it open. I quickly ran to the freezer, unlocked the door, retrieved a bag of lard, closed the door and snapped the padlock shut. I was walking back when I heard something. My heart froze. I looked around but saw no one. Then I heard the sound again. Someone was definitely behind the Dumpster. No.
In
the Dumpster.

I quietly walked backward toward the Queen, keeping an eye on the Dumpster. Suddenly, a girl popped up; she was as surprised to see me as I was to see her. She was holding a hamburger, which she quickly dropped. She looked familiar.

After a moment she said nervously, “I dropped something in here. I was just looking for it.”

I realized how I recognized her; she was in my seventh period Spanish class. I didn't remember her name; she sat in the back corner of the room and never raised her hand and only spoke when the teacher called on her. I knew she was Dumpster diving but I didn't want to embarrass her.

“Do you want help finding it?”

“No, I'm okay.”

She pushed herself up with her arms and swung her legs over the metal edge so that she was sitting on the flat rim of the Dumpster, then dropped down to the asphalt. She had short umber hair and beautiful large brown eyes—almond-shaped like my mother's. I remembered seeing her for the first time at school and thinking she was pretty, but then she just kind of faded into the background. She was small, a few inches shorter than me. It was hard to tell what her figure was like because she wore a coat that was too large for her, but she seemed to be more developed than most of the girls my age. She stooped and lifted her schoolbag, then flung it over her shoulder.

“You're in my Spanish class,” I said.

She looked even more embarrassed. “Yeah.”

“What's your name again?”

“Grace.”

I was certain I'd never heard it before. “Grace?”

“Well, the teachers call me Madeline. My full name is Madeline Grace. What's your name?”

“Eric.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said, though I doubt she ever knew it. I could tell she was uncomfortable. I wondered if after I left she would climb back in the Dumpster to look for more food. The thought made me sad.

“We're just cleaning up. Do you want to come in and get something to eat?”

“That's all right,” she said hesitantly, “I've got to go.”

“You can have whatever you want. I get the food for free.”

She stood there, caught between hunger and pride, her breath freezing in the air in front of her. Pride isn't worth much on an empty stomach.

Finally, she said, “Okay.”

I led her in the back door past the stoves and stainless steel food prep tables, dropping the bag of lard next to the fryer.

Dean, who had locked me in the freezer my first night, was out front mopping the dining room floor. He had turned the radio to a rock 'n' roll station and King Curtis's “Soul Twist” blared throughout the lobby. We walked around to the front.

“Hey, Dean, this is Grace. I'm getting her something to eat.”

“Whatever,” he said without looking up, mindlessly making wide half circles with the mop.

Grace stood at the edge of the dining area, just short of the wet tile. “I don't want to walk on your floor.”

“Doesn't matter,” Dean said. Dean disliked Mr. Dick and to him any job done less than the boss wanted was a victory of sorts. Then he looked up at Grace and his expression changed. So did his voice. “Don't worry about it. Really.”

It was obvious that he liked the way she looked. I didn't know why, but his interest in her bothered me.

“What do you want to eat?” I asked.

She looked back at me. “I don't care. Anything would be nice.”

“We have, like, everything on the planet.”

“What do you like?”

“The pastrami burger, onion rings, baklava, the caramel cashew malt.”

“What's baklava?”

“It's this Greek thing. It has like honey and walnuts and it's wrapped in…uh, paper-stuff.”

“Paper?”

“Phyllo dough,” Dean said. “Idiot.”

I blushed a little. “It's good,” I said.

She smiled. “Surprise me.”

“The Eric Special coming up.”
Stupid thing to say
, I thought as I walked back to the kitchen. I wondered if she could tell that I never really talked to girls. I remembered that I still had my dopey paper hat on and quickly removed it. In ten minutes I brought out a tray crowded with everything I had mentioned and a bag of Tater Tots. Instinctively, I glanced out to the parking lot to make sure Mr. Dick wasn't spying on us.

Grace looked over the tray in amazement. “Wow. You didn't have to get me
everything.
”

“You don't have to eat it all.”

I set the tray down in front of her. She examined each item. “Is this the…bock stuff?”

“Baklava.”

“I'll save that for last,” she said. She took a bite of an onion ring.

I pointed to a plastic tub of sauce. “That's fry sauce. My boss invented it. It's like ketchup and mayonnaise mixed together. It's good.”

She dipped the ring in the sauce, then shoved the whole thing into her mouth. “Mmm…” Next she peeled back the yellow wax paper from a burger. She took delicate bites at first, each bite growing larger until she was practically wolfing the burger down.

Dean moved next to her, leaning against his mop handle. “How do you and Eric know each other?”

She answered with a mouth full of burger. “We've got a class together.”

“Cool,” he said, which is about as original as Dean got. “So you're what, like sixteen?”

“Fifteen.”

“You look like you're sixteen.” I could tell he wanted to ask her out but wouldn't because I was there. Not out of respect or anything; he just didn't want to be embarrassed in case she said no. Finally he said to me, “I'm outta here. You can lock up.”

“No problem,” I said.

“Come around again,” he said to Grace. “It's Dean.”

He walked out the back door. “That's Dean,” I said.

“Yeah, I got that.”

“He's kind of a jerk.”

She smiled wryly. “I got that too.”

“I think he likes you.”

“Lucky me.” She started on her malt. The back door shut and Dean revved his car three or four times more than usual, no doubt trying to impress her.

“Where do you live?” I asked.

“Just west of the school.”

“That's like three miles from here.”

“Yeah.”

“How are you getting home?”

“I'm not going home.” She spun her cup, and drops of condensation gathered on her fingers, which she wiped onto the table. “I ran away.” She let the cup settle. “I'm never going back.”

I wasn't sure what to say to that. I remembered that I hadn't seen her in class for a few days. “How long ago did you leave?”

“Monday.”

“How come you ran away?”

“For kicks.”

Eating out of Dumpsters didn't look like “kicks” to me.

“For kicks?”

“Yeah. I can do whatever I want. Stay out as late as I want.” She frowned. “I'm still figuring things out.”

“What about your parents?” I asked.

She took a long drag from her straw. Then she said, “They don't care.”

“Really?”

“My stepfather doesn't like me.” She looked down at her watch, an oversized man's Timex with a Twist-O-Flex wrist-band. “It's late. I better go.”

“I need to finish cleaning up,” I said. “But you should finish eating.”

“Okay.”

I was amazed to see that she finished everything. She threw away her trash and stacked her tray with the others, then she walked around to the kitchen where I was wiping down the stainless steel counters.

“Thank you. Maybe I'll see you around.”

“Hold on a second.” I filled a large sack with the leftover food we usually threw out and handed it to her. “You can have that for later.”

She looked in the sack. “Thanks.”

“Where are you going now?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I don't know. I guess I'll just walk around for a while.”

“It's supposed to snow again tonight.”

She didn't say anything, just stood there, holding the sack of food. Maybe it was how helpless she looked or how pretty I thought she was, but at that moment I said the most out-of-character and bravest thing I'd ever said. “You could come home with me. I live about six blocks from here.”

To my surprise she actually seemed to consider it. “Are your parents home?”

“Yeah,” I said quickly, thinking she wouldn't come if they weren't.

She frowned. “I better not. They might call someone.”

She was right about that. My parents didn't like anyone getting into their affairs and afforded others the same consideration. They'd be on the phone with her parents or the police before she got her coat off. Still, I couldn't let her freeze. Then I had a brilliant idea. “I know where you can stay. My brother and I built a clubhouse in our backyard. It's probably cold but it's better than nothing.”

“A clubhouse?”

“Yeah. It's pretty big. My brother and I slept in there almost every night last summer. It's got a mattress and everything.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“No one will see me?”

“Our house has five acres and it's way out back. You can't see it from the house. I don't think my parents even know it's there.”

“You have five acres? You must be rich.”

“Believe me, we're not.”

“You
sure
your parents won't see me?”

“My dad can't walk and my mother never goes out back. It's the perfect hideout.”

“Why can't your dad walk?”

“He has Guillain-Barré. It's this disease that paralyzes you.”

“Wow.”

“Well, they say it's not always permanent. He can walk with crutches now.”

“That's good,” she said.

“So are you coming?”

“Sure.”

We stepped outside and I pulled the door shut, locking it behind us. A light snow had started to fall. I got my bike and pushed it beside me as we started the walk to my home. I wanted to say something clever but had no idea what that might be. The silence became uncomfortable. Fortunately Grace was better at conversation than I was.

“So, do you work every night?” she asked.

“No. Usually just three or four times a week.”

“How's the pay?”

“Not good,” I said. “Like almost too small to see with a microscope.”

“Then why do you work there?”

“The cool hats.”

She laughed.

“And I can ride my bike to work.”

“That's a plus,” she said.

“Yeah.”

The walk home took us less than ten minutes. As usual all the lights at my house were off, except in the front room and on the porch. Still the moon was full and reflected brightly off the snow, illuminating the whole yard as if the snow crystals held radiance in themselves. I hadn't ever brought anyone home and I suddenly felt embarrassed by where I lived. A part of me wanted to just walk on by, which wasn't much of an option when you live on a dead end.