Nobody's Child (Georgia Davis Series) (8 page)

V
anna knew by the “yeahs” and “uh-huhs” that her mother was talking to the school. School officials waited until evening to call when there was a problem, figuring there would be a better chance of finding a parent at home. In her case, however, it didn’t matter. Her mother had been fired—again—and was home all day.

Rather than wait for the storm she knew was brewing, Vanna went outside for a smoke. The truth was she had cut school. She’d spent the day getting high with Dex. Then his friend Freed came over, and, well, they were all high on meth, and she let them tear her clothes off and fuck her. It was only the three of them; you couldn’t really call it a party. But it beat school. She just didn’t see the point of sitting in class wondering where her next hit was coming from.

She stubbed out her butt and squared her shoulders, ready to go back into the shabby garden apartment they rented. Opening the door, she was greeted by a frigid silence that pummeled the air and filled the cracks in the walls. Vanna repressed a shiver. She wished her mother would just let it out. Confront her with a torrent of screams and yells. But that wasn’t her style. When she was upset with Vanna, which seemed to be all the time now, her mother would withdraw. Act as if she wasn’t there. She’d been that way as long as Vanna could remember; in fact, everyone had called Vanna a daddy’s girl when she was little. With good reason. It was her father who gave her affection and love. But after he was mowed down by the eighteen-wheeler, her mother grew even more remote. Her body was present; her shadow, too. But her heart and soul had frozen into tiny bits of ice. Vanna started to call her the Snow Queen.

Vanna heard the oven door squeak. Dinner—if you could call TV dinners that. Her mother claimed she bought the good stuff, but it all tasted like shit, and they put enough chemicals in the crap to give you cancer. She remembered as a kid watching some inane TV commercial about the guy who said he’d be over by five to help the family eat their lasagna. At the time she’d actually believed he would show up on their doorstep. Now, though, she couldn’t imagine anyone coming to visit them voluntarily.

She wanted to avoid her mother, but she had to pass through the kitchen to get to the bathroom, and she needed to pee. She hunkered down in the front room—the parlor as her mother called it, as if they were rich, cultured people who said such things with an offhand shrug. She sprawled on the pullout couch they’d rescued from somebody’s front yard and fished out her cell. Another metallic squeak from the oven door. Then,

“Savannah, we need to talk.” Her mother’s voice wasn’t loud, but its dead, icy tone made it sound like a shriek.

“I’m in here.”

“And you need to be in
here
. Right now.”

Vanna hesitated. She always pushed it. She couldn’t help it. Her defiance controlled her. She knew it was just to elicit a reaction from her mother. Any reaction, even an angry one. Supply heat and light and maybe the icy shell would melt. But it never worked. Her mother ignored her rage, refusing to deal with it head-on. It was as if Vanna, in all her purple self-righteous fury, was invisible.

Why couldn’t she just be yelled at and grounded like other kids who whined about losing the car keys and missing a party at Joe’s? As if being grounded in a house with cable, Internet, and a fridge full of food was cruel and unusual punishment. Not like this arctic reality, all endless dark nights with no morning sun. A life sentence with no parole.

She edged into the kitchen.

Two tinfoil pans containing pasty beige-and-green glop sat on the counter. They looked barely defrosted.

Her mother stood at the stove, arms crossed, still holding the cell in one hand. “You know who that was.” Her mother’s chin jutted out toward the phone.

Vanna didn’t reply.

“They said you haven’t been in school all week.”

Her voice still had a southern lilt, Vanna thought. Even after all these years. She shrugged.

“I suppose you’re not going to tell me where you were,” her mother said coolly.

Vanna tilted her head. Better to play offense. Strike the first blow. Maybe this time her mother would be different. “What do you care? It’s no sweat off your back.” Money was tight since her father was gone, and her mother had started to complain how expensive it was to raise a child. Especially a girl. “I wasn’t mooching off you.”

“No. I guess you weren’t,” her mother said after a pause. “You were probably in someone’s backseat working for your lunch.”

Vanna sucked in an unsteady breath. This was different. Was her mother actually putting up a fight? Vanna decided to test it. “Like I said, why do you care?”

“I’ll tell you why. We’re running out of cities to live in. Why do you think we’re always moving?”

“Because ever since Daddy died, you can’t keep a job.”

“We’re not talking about me.” Her mother’s expression was calm. “You can’t seem to keep your legs closed. Or your head clear. Your juvie file is getting pretty thick. I wouldn’t be surprised if the cops gave us a personal escort to the edge of town.”

She crossed her arms, matching her mother’s stance. “Well then, won’t you be happy when I turn eighteen? You won’t have to deal with me anymore.” She paused. “Or me with you. I haven’t seen you sober for nearly a year.”

Her mother spent her days in a kind of trance, guzzling wine or rum until she passed out on the couch. A good day was when her mother waited until after dinner to start drinking.

“Alcohol is legal,” her mother replied.

“So it’s okay to be an addict? As long as it’s legal?”

Her mother swayed and grabbed the edge of the counter. Was she going to collapse? Vanna almost took a step forward to steady her, but her mother abruptly straightened on her own. A wave of humiliation rolled over Vanna. Why had she even tried? Her mother didn’t need her, didn’t want her, didn’t love her. Vanna was nothing more than a useless appendage.

But she didn’t know how to stop pushing. “What are you going to do? Lock me in my room? Then apologize and tell me how sorry you are when you let me out?” She let her arms fall to her sides. “Go ahead. I don’t care. I want to die.”

Vanna had no time to prepare for the sudden clap, the stinging flesh, the tears that involuntarily welled up when her mother slapped her across the face. Vanna’s hand flew to her cheek. “The fuck you do that for?”

“I wish you’d never been born,” her mother said.

Vanna massaged her jaw with her fingers. “I’ve known that for a long time.” But inside she was almost elated. She’d forced a reaction. Finally, after how many months, her mother had actually shown some emotion. It briefly occurred to Vanna how low they’d both sunk if provoking her mother gave her pleasure. She pushed the thought away. “Yeah, well, you should have died along with Daddy.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“You’re a shitty mother.”

Her mother pressed her lips together. Another show of emotion, Jobeth-style. This was a big night. Vanna shot her mother a defiant look.

“At least Georgia never talked back.”

Something registered. This was new information.

“Georgia? Who the fuck is Georgia?”

Her mother blinked. Then she bit her lip, as if she knew she’d said too much.

Vanna caught it. “Who the fuck is Georgia?”

“No one.” Her mother’s voice went flat. She turned away.

But Vanna was in no mood to let her mother skate. She closed in, grasped her mother’s shoulders, and shook her. Actually shook her. “Who is Georgia?”

Her mother didn’t flinch, and she didn’t turn around. “Pack your things. We’ll leave tomorrow. We’ll go to New Mexico.”

Vanna dropped her hands and tried to steady her breathing. “No. Not this time. I’m not going.”

Her mother shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Vanna spun around to the kitchen drawer where her mother kept the cooking stuff. She slid the drawer open, grabbed the biggest knife inside, raised it, and went back to her mother. “Turn around, bitch. Who is Georgia?”

This time her mother did turn around. When she saw the knife, she blanched. Fear shot across her face, but her voice remained chilly and dispassionate. “Put it down.”

“Who’s Georgia?” Vanna said sharply.

Her mother kept her mouth shut.

Vanna aimed the knife at her mother. “
Who is she?
”

Her mother kept her eyes on the knife for what seemed like forever. Then, as if she knew she had lost the battle, her entire body sagged. She averted her gaze, dropped into a kitchen chair, and covered her eyes with her hands. Vanna heard a long exhalation.

“Georgia—Georgia is your sister.”

“What?”

“Your half sister.” Her mother wouldn’t meet her gaze.

“I have a sister?”

Jobeth didn’t reply.

“
Look
at me.” Vanna brandished the knife.

Her mother raised her eyes to Vanna. Vanna didn’t know whether it was because Vanna had a weapon or because she had forced a confession. Still clutching the knife, she moved in. “Where is she?”

Still no reply.

“
Where?
”

Her mother swallowed. “I think she lives in Chicago.”

Vanna’s mother had lived in Chicago. She’d been married to a cop. Charlie Davis. But he’d been a drunk, and a mean one, her mother had admitted. He beat her regularly. But now there was a daughter. “You have another daughter and you never told me?”

“What difference would it have made? Do you think our lives would be any better?” Her mother’s lips curled up, but it wasn’t a smile. “Your father saved me. He made my life worth living. And now he’s gone and I’m back where I was years ago.”

“Why haven’t you talked to her? Called her? Had her come out and visit?”

“It wouldn’t make any difference. I haven’t spoken to her in twenty years. I don’t know where she is…” She shrugged. “She won’t want to hear from me, anyway. I walked out on her.”

And now you have
me
, Vanna wanted to say. It’s just you and me. But she didn’t. It wasn’t true anymore. There was someone else. Her sister. Even if she was just a ghost. Vanna would never have her mother to herself. The old familiar rage bubbled up. “I should kill you.”

Again her mother’s lips formed that weird imitation of a smile. “I wish you would. Neither of us has anything worth living for.”

But Vanna didn’t kill her mother. She did something worse. She decided to sever the cycle of hot rage and icy distance that ricocheted between them. It had given them both nothing but pain and grief. And now it would be finished. Vanna had an out. Another chance.

After her mother passed out, an empty bottle of wine on the floor, Vanna put a change of clothes into her backpack and lifted fifty bucks from her mother’s purse. She hoped it was enough for a bus ticket. If not, she’d have to work it off. She slipped the bills into her pocket and crept out of the apartment. Then she went back inside, opened her mother’s closet, and took out her peacoat. It would be cold in Chicago. She took one last look. Her mother was still sprawled on the sofa, unmoving. She wouldn’t wake up for hours. And when she did, Vanna would be a thousand miles away.

G
eorgia picked up the phone Monday morning.

“Is Georgia Davis there?”

“Speaking.”

“Hi, Miss Davis. This is Rick Martin.”

Georgia frowned. “Who?”

“Rosebud Restaurant Supply?”

Comprehension dawned. The roly-poly guy she’d visited down in God’s country. “Sure. How are you?”

“Good, good.” He giggled. Actually giggled. “Hey, I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve been doing a little sleuthing.”

She groaned inwardly. When a civilian got involved in an investigation, it usually blew up. They thought everything worked the way it did on TV. The evidence would be clear. The bad guys would be caught. Justice would be served. Then she reminded herself that, technically, as a PI,
she
was a civilian.

“I’m not sure that was a great idea,” she began. “You could do more harm than good.”

“I figured that’s what you’d say. But I couldn’t help myself. You know.”

She didn’t, and his presumed intimacy grated. She’d met the guy only once.

“You wanted to track down that sandwich wrap,” he said. “Right?”

“I still do.”

“Well then, I think we’re good.”

“We?”

“Well, you know what I mean.
You
.”

“Uh-huh.”

He cleared his throat. “I checked through my catalogues, and I found a couple of companies that were in the ballpark. They had paper and a design that was similar. I was about to call them when I found the exact wrap.”

“You’re kidding.” Georgia figured it was a long shot.

“Nope,” he chirped. “It’s a company right here in the Midwest. In Michigan.”

“You’re sure it’s the same?”

“Absolutely. It wasn’t in the catalogue. I found it online in a little corner of cyberspace.”

“Impressive.” She had to give him that. “Thanks, Rick. What’s the name of the company? I’ll give them a call.”

“Macomb Paper. But—um—you don’t have to call them.”

Her stomach tightened. “Why not?”

“I already did.”

“Why the hell did you do that?” She knew her tone was sharp.

Suddenly he sounded tentative. “I—er—I just knew you’d be looking for restaurants in Chicagoland that used their paper and I wanted to save you the trouble.”

That’s what you get when you deal with amateurs.
Georgia ran a hand through her hair, unsure whether to laugh or cry. She forced herself to breathe. To center herself.

“So what did you find out?” Her tone, however, veered toward acid.

“There were—are three.”

“Three what?”

“Three restaurants in the area that use the wrap from Macomb’s. Or did.” He paused. “I thought you’d want to know which ones.”

“You thought right.” She took a pen from an empty can of beer on her desk where she kept pens, pencils, scissors, and a matt knife.

“One is Tony’s, a joint in Joliet. But they closed six months ago. The economy, you know.”

“Go on.”

“The other is in Oakbrook. Susie’s Sandwich Café.” He paused again. “And the third is downtown. Just off Roosevelt Road. Benny’s Deli.”

“Benny’s? Really?”

Benny’s was a well-known lunch place, popular with Chicago power brokers as well as truck drivers. The owners claimed to have the best corned beef in town, and they were right. She’d been there.

“Yup.” She heard the pride in Martin’s voice. “’Course the wrap could be different than the scrap you saw. Place like Benny’s probably customizes theirs.”

She didn’t have the heart to scold him. Instead she thanked him. “But, Rick, don’t meddle anymore. It could be dangerous.”

“I guess that means you don’t want me to go with you to Benny’s.”

“That would be a good guess.”

He sighed theatrically. “Okay. But when they publish the book, I want to be in the acknowledgments. Okay?”