The Dream Where the Losers Go (8 page)

“I’ve got a marker,” said San, appearing in the crowd.

Skey flashed her a grin and took it. A silence fell on the kids crowded around Lick’s desk.

“Now,” Skey said in delicate tones. “You promised me you would never wash this off, didn’t you?” She paused for dramatic effect, then added, “Didn’t you, Lick?”

His body jerked again. “Relax, Lick,” she soothed. “This won’t hurt a bit.”

Uncapping the marker, Skey placed it on his skin, about to draw something no one anywhere would ever live down. But under her touch, his arm began to shake. Glancing at him, she saw he was shaking all over, small quick shakes like a cold dog. Suddenly his bare forearm looked stripped, something hauled out of the safety of the dark into the vicious light of day, and she had trapped it, a prisoner for everyone to mock.

Without speaking, Skey bent toward Lick’s face and touched the marker tip to the end of his nose. His eyes crossed as he looked at his nose, then they uncrossed and he glanced up at her face. She watched his fear retreat as he saw the smile on her face. Wary and silent, he waited.

Slowly, Skey drew a huge pair of kissing lips that extended wrist to elbow over the words on his forearm. Then she capped the marker and handed it back to San. Girls giggled shrilly, guys hooted and began making predictions. Motionless, Lick sat staring at his forearm, which continued to rest on Skey’s lap. Their eyes met.

“Promise?” he asked.

Skey handed back his arm. “Just don’t wash it,” she said.

“Never,” he vowed. A tiny grin convulsed his mouth.

C
HAPTER
S
IX

W
HEN
J
IGGER TOUCHED HER
, she found out what skin meant. Every time he touched her, it meant something different. Jigger touched her, and she found new places deep within that came swimming to her skin to be touched by him. All last summer, she had sat staring through wired-over windows at a world in full bloom, and there had been no colors, the air without scent, absolutely still. Then San had visited, and placed Jigger’s photo in her hands, and the colors in his picture had been so intense, they had burned her fingers. Nobody knew, nobody knew how Jigger touched her. “Skey,” he whispered, and she came alive in her skin.

When he dropped her off Wednesday after school, he parked half a block from the gate and watched until she passed through it and was out of sight. Then he started up the car, revving the engine heavily as he drove past the grounds. As the sound of the car faded, Skey felt it take some part of her with it, pulling her into the distance to be with him. Colors, sounds, feelings.
Meaning
. Slowly she approached the lockup’s side entrance, its heavy wood door so old, it looked as if it opened onto another century. Ringing the
bell, she waited until a staff peered through the wired-over window. With a groan, the door opened onto the inside, with its set of stairs leading upward, past Administration on the first floor, Unit A on the second, Unit B on the third and Unit C on top of it all.

After the outside light, the stairwell seemed dark. Silently Skey trudged up the stairs after the staff, listening to the sound of girls’ voices and the stereo coming from Unit A. At the next landing, she turned and followed the staff into the entrance hall that led into Unit B. Over her head, circles of light shone from implanted ceiling lamps. The first door in this short hall opened onto the Back Room, a small room into which a girl was placed if staff thought she couldn’t handle things on her own. If she went stark raving mad, a girl was taken over to the school and put into one of several padded rooms that were opposite the gym. Viv had already spent time in these rooms, but Skey had never seen the inside of any of them. Continuing along the hall, she passed the girls’ tub room and the door that opened onto the office. Here, the entrance hall ended and the unit’s open area began. All she had to do now was cross it without anyone noticing her, and disappear into her room.

“Skey,” called a voice, and she turned toward the office to see a tall male silhouette standing in the brightly lit doorway. Skey blinked, trying to make out the face. It got so dark in this place that sometimes it was difficult to see the most basic things. Raising a hand, she traced the air in front of her face. Was there a carving here? If there was, would it tell her where she was, what she was supposed to be doing with her life,
why
?

“Ready for our meeting?” the voice continued heartily. “Your mother’s waiting.”

Abruptly, the darkness faded and Skey saw her social worker, Larry Currie, standing in front of her, waving his usual cheerfulness like a flag. As always, it brought out a savage anger in her, made her want to punch her name right off his lips.

“Yeah yeah,” she mumbled. So, it was time for the mother-daughter bonding thing, strengthening the family chains. Fortunately only her mother had decided to attend these meetings. Mr. Mitchell had declared himself too busy to attend his daughter’s improvement sessions.

“Just a sec,” said Skey. “I have to dump my books.” Crossing the unit, she stepped into the moment of relief that was her room. Aloneness descended upon her and she stood staring out her window at the gray-wired sky and the slow-moving elm. Then a shuffle sounded behind her, and she turned to see Ann standing in the doorway. Skey nodded and she stepped in.

“Pencil case,” said Skey.

It was on the bed, out of the line of sight from the office. When two girls were in a bedroom, the door had to remain open at all times. Carefully, Ann removed the weed from Skey’s pencil case and slid it into her shirt pocket.

“Don’t forget the matches,” said Skey.

Without a word, Ann headed straight for the washroom. As Skey returned to the office, she saw Larry still standing by the door, watching Ann with a quizzical expression on his face. Skey swallowed the sudden hook in her throat. Had they been that obvious? If staff went after Ann now, she had better be smart enough to flush the weed down a toilet. Tomorrow Viv was just going to have to wait an hour for delivery.

“S
O,” SAID
L
ARRY
, as they walked along the entrance hall and started down the stairs, “how’s school?” Without seeming to notice, he stepped on and off the stair with the loudest creak between second and third floor. With a slight hiss, Skey skipped the stair. Within a few days of her arrival, she had assessed every stair in this place—which ones creaked, which ones whimpered, and which ones remained silent under the endless feet that came and went, pressing down on them.

“Fine,” she replied, following him into the first floor hall and its rows of social workers’ offices, each with several filing cabinets of files analyzing how stiffly a girl sat, how long she stared at one spot, when she blinked. For extra fun, dysfunctional parents were brought in and arranged in alphabetical seating plans. Then the social workers got down behind their metal desks and observed the ensuing crossfire: who got hit, who went down, who survived.

“Skey,” said a cool clear voice, and she saw her mother standing outside Larry’s office, graceful as a figurine. One light kiss on the cheek, the brief scent of Oscar coming and going—Mrs. Mitchell was delicate air, hardly there at all. Eyes narrowed, Skey looked her mother over. So, she was still working out, keeping herself whiplash thin. As usual, the colors of her face were carefully arranged, her clothing chosen to match the decor in Larry’s office. The first time she visited a place, Mrs. Mitchell always wore off-white and took careful note of the color of the walls and furnishings. On return visits, she dressed to match the furniture. Skey had figured out her scheme several years ago when they were visiting her father’s boss. The wife had ordered new carpet and furniture for the living room and had caught Mrs. Mitchell unaware, dressed in mauve and seated on a
chocolate brown couch. Mrs. Mitchell had twitched and jabbered throughout the entire visit, as if sitting on pins and needles.

Larry’s office offered quite a challenge to the fashion obsessed—one red-and-blue plaid couch, one lime green armchair, one sepia armchair, a dark brown carpet and orange-yellow curtains. As she entered, Skey saw her mother take a small determined breath and head straight for the couch. Her aqua blue dress called out to the blue in the plaid. They were an exact match.

Skey was wearing a red shirt and jeans. She plopped down in the lime green armchair and watched her mother’s headache begin. Calmly Larry settled in behind his desk.

“So, how’s school?” asked Mrs. Mitchell.

“It’s been fine since Monday,” said Skey.

Her mother gave her a long-suffering look.

“How’s your golf coming?” asked Skey.

“It’s November, dear,” said her mother.

“Oh, has it been that long since we spoke?” asked Skey.

Larry coughed delicately. Something lived in his throat, something he was perpetually trying to eject. “You’ve started working with a tutor at school?” he prompted.

“Yeah, she’s smarter than me,” said Skey.

“Than I,” her mother corrected.

“She’s probably smarter than you too,” Skey agreed.

Larry let out a heated Gulf Stream of air. “Skey,” he said. “You seem upset.”

Skey crossed her arms and stared at the dark brown carpet. “I don’t need this place,” she said. “What am I here for? I don’t freak out. You don’t see me getting held down or put in locked rooms. I’m not on antidepressants, or crazy
drugs or whatever it is you feed the inmates. I’ve got a tutor now, I’ll catch up at school. So why don’t you just unlock your stupid doors and let me go?”

Larry settled back in his chair, observing her carefully. “I’m not sure you’ve resolved your issues,” he said slowly.

“My issues,” Skey mimicked angrily. “Just exactly what
are
my issues?”

Larry studied her as if she was in a cage and he had all the time in the world.

“You talking about this?” Pulling up one of her sleeves, Skey held up the scars. Larry nodded silently. Mrs. Mitchell turned her head and focused vaguely on the off-white wall.

“I won’t do it again,” said Skey. “I never even think about them.”

It was true. She caught glimpses of the scars when she bathed and changed her clothes, but they simply brushed past the periphery of her consciousness, a slight electric ripple in her brain. Other than that, she never thought about them. The scars were just there, something on her skin. Something she had done once upon a time, in a fairy tale long ago. In another life.

“Something led to it, Skey,” said Larry. “We need to know why you’re so angry.”

“Angry!” Skey’s mouth dropped and she stared at him. “Wouldn’t you be angry if you were locked up for five months?”

“I meant before you were placed here,” said Larry.

“I wasn’t angry before I was dumped here,” said Skey.

“Then why did you cut your wrists?” The question came from her mother, broad-siding Skey and wiping out her thoughts. Mrs. Mitchell didn’t usually join in on the attack, leaving the fancy-ass mind control to Larry.

Skey’s thoughts returned. “I thought I’d beat you to it,” she shot back.

Her mother gasped. Behind his desk, Larry coughed again, working the animal in his throat. With a hiss, Skey clamped down on the violence that shifted through her, longing to let loose on the two big fakes in this room, the jail-keepers that held the keys to her life. But that wouldn’t help her, wouldn’t get her out of this place. She didn’t want to become another Viv.

Closing her eyes, Skey gripped the arms of the lime green chair and waited. Darkness settled in around her, and then she heard the boy breathing close by. She let out a long string of swear words.

“I know what you mean,” said the boy.

“All I want is a day off,” she said. “From insanity. Theirs.”

“People are pretty partial to their own insanity,” the boy said calmly.

“Lock me up and stare at me,” she muttered. “Take digs at me, figure out all my problems. They’re just as bad, but I’m the one who gets locked up and they’re the ones taking notes.”

“So, take them for a ride,” said the boy. “A tangent.”

“A tangent going where?” she asked.

“Anywhere you want,” he said.

As she thought about this, some of her tension receded. “Yeah,” she said, and opened her eyes. “So,” she said, careful to keep her voice calm. “What were we talking about?” Relaxing her hands, she let go of the chair arms and stretched. Then she smiled at Larry, who had his eyes glued on her, his mind doing flip-flops to keep up.

“Oh yeah,” said Skey. “Anger. Well, I have a suggestion for something to keep me calm. I want to go out with my
friends from school. Friday night, just for a while. You let me out to go to school and I always come back on time, so I think you should let me out in the evening.”

“I’m not sure you’re ready for that yet,” said Larry. “I’d like to see how school goes for a while first.”

Skey locked him in a determined stare. “So give me a curfew of nine o’clock.”

“We wouldn’t consider an independent evening outing like that for several months,” said Larry.

The violence was back, rearing through Skey like a scream.

“Your mother and I have been discussing a home visit,” continued Larry. “A Sunday afternoon, perhaps a month from now.”

Shooting out of her chair, Skey took two steps forward and leaned over his desk. “No!” she screamed, the sound tearing her mind wide open. Then she turned and raced out of the office, down the hall and up the stairs to her room, where she slammed the door and locked herself into the small quiet space. Shaking, she was shaking. Arms tight around herself, Skey paced and whispered, paying no attention to the words that spilled from her mouth—words full of meanings she didn’t understand, didn’t want to understand, couldn’t listen to, wouldn’t hear herself speak.

Someone knocked on her door. “Skey?” called a voice.

She paced, watching the gray sky outside her window, calling the gray into herself—the calm, peaceful, full-of-nothing gray.

“Skey,” said the voice. “I’m going to unlock this door now.”