Sweet Water (26 page)

Still—given the alternative . . .

“She wants to meet you,” Jack says.

“Who?”

“Vivian Daly. The old lady. She wants you to come for—”

“An interview. I have to interview with her, you’re saying.”

“It’s just part of the deal,” he says. “Are you up for that?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Sure. You can go to jail.”

“Molly!” Dina barks, rapping on the door. “Out here right now!”

“All right!” she calls, and then, to Jack, “All right.”

“All right what?”

“I’ll do it. I’ll go and meet her.
Interview
with her.”

“Great,” he says. “Oh, and—you might want to wear a skirt or something, just—y’know. And maybe take out a few earrings.”

“What about the nose ring?”

“I love the nose ring,” he says. “But . . .”

“I get it.”

“Just for this first meeting.”

“It’s all right. Listen—thanks.”

“Don’t thank me for being selfish,” he says. “I just want you around a little longer.”

When Molly opens the bedroom door to Dina’s and Ralph’s tense and apprehensive faces, she smiles. “You don’t have to worry. I’ve got a way to do my hours.” Dina shoots a look at Ralph, an expression Molly recognizes from reading years of host parents’ cues. “But I understand if you want me to leave. I’ll find something else.”

“We don’t want you to leave,” Ralph says, at the same time that Dina says, “We need to talk about it.” They stare at each other.

“Whatever,” Molly says. “If it doesn’t work out, it’s okay.”

And in that moment, with bravado borrowed from Jack, it is okay. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. Molly learned long ago that a lot of the heartbreak and betrayal that other people fear their entire lives, she has already faced. Father dead. Mother off the deep end. Shuttled around and rejected time and time again. And still she breathes and sleeps and grows taller. She wakes up every morning and puts on clothes. So when she says it’s okay, what she means is that she knows she can survive just about anything. And now, for the first time since she can remember, she has someone looking out for her. (What’s his problem, anyway?)

Molly takes a deep breath. The house is bigger than she imagined—a white
Victorian monolith with curlicues and black shutters. Peering out the windshield, she can see that it’s in meticulous shape—no evidence of peeling or rot, which means it must have been recently painted. No doubt the old lady employs people who work on it constantly, a queen’s army of worker bees.

It’s a warm April morning. The ground is spongy with melted snow and rain, but today is one of those rare, almost balmy days that hint at the glorious summer ahead. The sky is luminously blue, with large woolly clouds. Clumps of crocuses seem to have sprouted everywhere.

“Okay,” Jack’s saying, “here’s the deal. She’s a nice lady, but kind of uptight. You know—not exactly a barrel of laughs.” He puts his car in park and squeezes Molly’s shoulder. “Just nod and smile and you’ll be fine.”

“How old is she again?” Molly mumbles. She’s annoyed with herself for feeling nervous. Who cares? It’s just some ancient pack rat who needs help getting rid of her shit. She hopes it isn’t disgusting and smelly, like the houses of those hoarders on TV.

“I don’t know—old. By the way, you look nice,” Jack adds.

Molly scowls. She’s wearing a pink Lands’ End blouse that Dina loaned her for the occasion. “I barely recognize you,” Dina said drily when Molly emerged from her bedroom in it. “You look so . . . ladylike.”

At Jack’s request Molly has taken out the nose ring and left only two studs in each ear. She spent more time than usual on her makeup, too—blending the foundation to a shade more pale than ghostly, going lighter on the kohl. She even bought a pink lipstick at the drugstore—Maybelline Wet Shine Lip Color in “Mauvelous,” a name that cracks her up. She stripped off her many thrift-store rings and is wearing the charm necklace from her dad instead of the usual chunky array of crucifixes and silver skulls. Her hair’s still black, with the white stripe on either side of her face, and her fingernails are black, too—but it’s clear she’s made an effort to look, as Dina remarked, “closer to a normal human being.”

After Jack’s Hail Mary pass—or “Hail Molly,” as he called it—Dina grudgingly agreed to give her another chance. “Cleaning an old lady’s attic?” she snorted. “Yeah, right. I give it a week.”

Molly hardly expected a big vote of confidence from Dina, but she has some doubts herself. Is she really going to devote fifty hours of her life to a crotchety dowager in a drafty attic, going through boxes filled with moths and dust mites and who knows what else? In juvie she’d be spending the same time in group therapy (always interesting) and watching
The View
(interesting enough). There’d be other girls to hang with. As it is she’ll have Dina at home and this old lady here watching her every move.

Molly looks at her watch. They’re five minutes early, thanks to Jack, who hustled her out the door.

“Remember: eye contact,” he says. “And be sure to smile.”

“You are such a
mom
.”

“You know what your problem is?”

“That my boyfriend is acting like a mom?”

“No. Your problem is you don’t seem to realize your ass is on the line here.”

“What line? Where?” She looks around, wiggling her butt in the seat.

“Listen.” He rubs his chin. “My ma didn’t tell Vivian about juvie and all that. As far as she knows, you’re doing a community service project for school.”

“So she doesn’t know about my criminal past? Sucker.”

“
Ay diablo,
” he says, opening the door and getting out.

“Are you coming in with me?”

He slams the door, then walks around the back of the car to the passenger side and opens the door. “No, I am escorting you to the front step.”

“My, what a gentleman.” She slides out. “Or is it that you don’t trust me not to bolt?”

“Truthfully, both,” he says.

S
TANDING BEFORE THE LARGE WALNUT DOOR
,
WITH ITS OVERSIZED
brass knocker, Molly hesitates. She turns to look at Jack, who is already back in his car, headphones in his ears, flipping through what she knows is a dog-eared collection of Junot Díaz stories he keeps in the glove compartment. She stands straight, shoulders back, tucks her hair behind her ears, fiddles with the collar of her blouse (When’s the last time she wore a collar? A dog collar, maybe), and raps the knocker. No answer. She raps again, a little louder. Then she notices a buzzer to the left of the door and pushes it. Chimes gong loudly in the house, and within seconds she can see Jack’s mom, Terry, barreling toward her with a worried expression. It’s always startling to see Jack’s big brown eyes in his mother’s wide, soft-featured face.

Though Jack has assured Molly that his mother is on board—“That damn attic project has been hanging over her head for so long, you have no idea”—Molly knows the reality is more complicated. Terry adores her only son, and would do just about anything to make him happy. However much Jack wants to believe that Terry’s fine and dandy with this plan, Molly knows that he steamrollered her into it.

When Terry opens the door, she gives Molly a once-over. “Well, you clean up nice.”

“Thanks. I guess,” Molly mutters. She can’t tell if Terry’s outfit is a uniform or if it’s just so boring that it looks like one: black pants, clunky black shoes with rubber soles, a matronly peach-colored T-shirt.

Molly follows her down a long hallway lined with oil paintings and etchings in gold frames, the Oriental runner beneath their feet muting their footsteps. At the end of the hall is a closed door.

Terry leans with her ear against it for a moment and knocks softly. “Vivian?” She opens the door a crack. “The girl is here. Molly Ayer. Yep, okay.”

She opens the door wide onto a large, sunny living room with views of the water, filled with floor-to-ceiling bookcases and antique furniture. An old lady, wearing a black cashmere crewneck sweater, is sitting beside the bay window in a faded red wingback chair, her veiny hands folded in her lap, a wool tartan blanket draped over her knees.

When they are standing in front of her, Terry says, “Molly, this is Mrs. Daly.”

“Hello,” Molly says, holding out her hand as her father taught her to do.

“Hello.” The old woman’s hand, when Molly grasps it, is dry and cool. She is a sprightly, spidery woman, with a narrow nose and piercing hazel eyes as bright and sharp as a bird’s. Her skin is thin, almost translucent, and her wavy silver hair is gathered at the nape of her neck in a bun. Light freckles—or are they age spots?—are sprinkled across her face. A topographical map of veins runs up her hands and over her wrists, and she has dozens of tiny creases around her eyes. She reminds Molly of the nuns at the Catholic school she attended briefly in Augusta (a quick stopover with an ill-suited foster family), who seemed ancient in some ways and preternaturally young in others. Like the nuns, this woman has a slightly imperious air, as if she is used to getting her way. And why wouldn’t she? Molly thinks. She
is
used to getting her way.

“All right, then. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me,” Terry says, and disappears through another door.

The old woman leans toward Molly, a slight frown on her face. “How on earth do you achieve that effect? The skunk stripe,” she says, reaching up and brushing her own temple.

“Umm . . .” Molly is surprised; no one has ever asked her this before. “It’s a combination of bleach and dye.”

“How did you learn to do it?”

“I saw a video on YouTube.”

“YouTube?”

“On the Internet.”

“Ah.” She lifts her chin. “The computer. I’m too old to take up such fads.”

“I don’t think you can call it a fad if it’s changed the way we live,” Molly says, then smiles contritely, aware that she’s already gotten herself into a disagreement with her potential boss.

“Not the way
I
live,” the old woman says. “It must be quite time-consuming.”

“What?”

“Doing that to your hair.”

“Oh. It’s not so bad. I’ve been doing it for a while now.”

“What’s your natural color, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I don’t mind,” Molly says. “It’s dark brown.”

“Well, my natural color is red.” It takes Molly a moment to realize she’s making a little joke about being gray.

“I like what you’ve done with it,” she parries. “It suits you.”

The old woman nods and settles back in her chair. She seems to approve. Molly feels some of the tension leave her shoulders. “Excuse my rudeness, but at my age there’s no point in beating around the bush. Your appearance is quite stylized. Are you one of those—what are they called, gothics?”

Molly can’t help smiling. “Sort of.”

“You borrowed that blouse, I presume.”

“Uh . . .”

“You needn’t have bothered. It doesn’t suit you.” She gestures for Molly to sit across from her. “You may call me Vivian. I never liked being called Mrs. Daly. My husband is no longer alive, you know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No need to be sorry. He died eight years ago. Anyway, I am ninety-one years old. Not many people I once knew are still alive.”

Molly isn’t sure how to respond—isn’t it polite to tell people they don’t look as old as they are? She wouldn’t have guessed that this woman is ninety-one, but she doesn’t have much basis for comparison. Her father’s parents died when he was young; her mother’s parents never married, and she never met her grandfather. The one grandparent Molly remembers, her mother’s mother, died of cancer when she was three.

“Terry tells me you’re in foster care,” Vivian says. “Are you an orphan?”

“My mother’s alive, but—yes, I consider myself an orphan.”

“Technically you’re not, though.”

“I think if you don’t have parents who look after you, then you can call yourself whatever you want.”

Vivian gives her a long look, as if she’s considering this idea. “Fair enough,” she says. “Tell me about yourself, then.”

Molly has lived in Maine her entire life. She’s never even crossed the state line. She remembers bits and pieces of her childhood on Indian Island before she went into foster care: the gray-sided trailer she lived in with her parents, the community center with pickups parked all around, Sockalexis Bingo Palace, and St. Anne’s Church. She remembers an Indian corn-husk doll with black hair and a traditional native costume that she kept on a shelf in her room—though she preferred the Barbies donated by charities and doled out at the community center at Christmas. They were never the popular ones, of course—never Cinderella or Beauty Queen Barbie, but instead one-off oddities that bargain hunters could find on clearance: Hot Rod Barbie, Jungle Barbie. It didn’t matter. However peculiar Barbie’s costume, her features were always reliably the same: the freakish stiletto-ready feet, the oversized rack and ribless midsection, the ski-slope nose and shiny plastic hair . . .

But that’s not what Vivian wants to hear. Where to start? What to reveal? This is the problem. It’s not a happy story, and Molly has learned through experience that people either recoil or don’t believe her or, worse, pity her. So she’s learned to tell an abridged version. “Well,” she says, “I’m a Penobscot Indian on my father’s side. When I was young, we lived on a reservation near Old Town.”

“Ah. Hence the black hair and tribal makeup.”

Molly is startled. She’s never thought to make that connection—is it true?

Sometime in the eighth grade, during a particularly rough year—angry, screaming foster parents; jealous foster siblings; a pack of mean girls at school—she got a box of L’Oreal ten-minute hair color and Cover Girl ebony eyeliner and transformed herself in the family bathroom. A friend who worked at Claire’s at the mall did her piercings the following weekend—a string of holes in each ear, up through the cartilage, a stud in her nose, and a ring in her eyebrow (though that one didn’t last; it soon got infected and had to be taken out, the remaining scar a spiderweb tracing). The piercings were the straw that got her thrown out of that foster home. Mission accomplished.

Molly continues her story—how her father died and her mother couldn’t take care of her, how she ended up with Ralph and Dina.

“So Terry tells me you were assigned some kind of community service project. And she came up with the brilliant idea for you to help me clean my attic,” Vivian says. “Seems like a bad bargain for you, but who am I to say?”

“I’m kind of a neat freak, believe it or not. I like organizing things.”

“Then you are even stranger than you appear.” Vivian sits back and clasps her hands together. “I’ll tell you something. By your definition I was orphaned, too, at almost exactly the same age. So we have that in common.”

Molly isn’t sure how to respond. Does Vivian want her to ask about this, or is she just putting that out there? It’s hard to tell. “Your parents . . .” she ventures, “didn’t look after you?”

“They tried. There was a fire . . .” Vivian shrugs. “It was all so long ago, I barely remember. Now—when do you want to begin?”