Chapter 30: Time Spent Poolside

Maria came out of the house carrying a cordless phone. "Laura, your daughter."

I thanked her and watched her walk back to the house. If it had been Susan who'd brought me the phone I'd have thought nothing about it. My, how different your perspective becomes, when you pay for something!

"Hello, Susan," I said into the phone.

"I told her that she shouldn't bug you, if you're tired."

"That's all right, Susan. I'm tired, but otherwise okay."

"That girl too?"

I sighed. "Susan, you are going to have to get used to some things. The woman who answered the phone is Maria. The girl who's been sick is Rachael."

"I think I messed up," Susan said, evidently wanting to get all of the bad news in at the same time.

"How is that?" I asked.

"The other day you told June that we were going to have a pool party this Saturday. We invited people."

I wanted to laugh. The hanging, unasked question was should she call up her friends and cancel? With all the apologizing that entailed... not to mention the occasional question. On the other hand, I could ask her to postpone a week -- then maybe I could kill two birds with one stone.

"No, that's okay. We'll have it there," I told her. "Then, say just in time for your birthday, a housewarming here."

"You know we've already had more parties in the last month than we had in the last couple of years back in New York."

I admired Susan for the breezy way she said that, as if New York didn't carry any particular baggage for her.

"The weather has something to do with it, I think," I replied.

"It's nice. It's kinda warm in the afternoon, but the pool makes it nice," she agreed.

"Is Sherrie there?" I asked.

"Soon, she said about five."

"How about you getting out dinner fixings? Surprise me."

"Dinner for how many?" she asked.

My prosaic Susan! I'd taught her well!

"You and Sherrie, Elena and I and I'll see if Rachael wants to come. She's not up to eating much just yet. Fix chicken."

"I thought it was going to be a surprise?" There was a pout in her voice.

"Oh, all right, surprise me. But nothing heavy, okay?"

Susan laughed. "As if! When do you want to eat?"

I looked at my watch. It was after five. "Call it seven thirty."

"Okay, it'll be ready!"

I picked up my glass and carried it and the phone back to the house. I had to ask Maria where the phone went, and then I went to check on Rachael.

She was still sleeping, but Elena arrived just then, burdened with a half dozen shopping bags from a couple of different stores. The rattle of the bags, I think, woke up Rachael.

"What's that?" she asked.

"New clothes," Elena told her. "Well, I hope they are new clothes -- that's assuming they fit you."

Rachael looked at her in disbelief. "You went out and bought clothes for me?"

Elena laughed. "I've bought clothes for all my friends. I work in a boutique."

"I'm hard to fit," Rachael said, a little petulantly.

Elena laughed harder. "I hate shoes!" She kicked hers off. For the life of me, I had no idea what she intended. She dropped the bags; that covered the slight dip as she flexed her knees a little. Abruptly she jumped straight up, flipping upside down as she moved, then put her feet on the ceiling for an instant as if she was standing upside down, before landing with a light thump, her knees bending and her hands returning back to her sides.

"I can," Elena said with a straight face, "do a lot of things you don't expect."

"Jesus fuck!" Rachael exclaimed, stunned.

Elena laughed again and nodded at me. "Right now, I'm waiting for Laura to take you to the woodshed for language."

"This house has a lot of things," I said, trying to repress my own surprise... that and an urge to giggle. "But no woodsheds. I've told Rachael about how I don't like that particular form of exclamation mark. In this case, I'm reminded of another kind of punctuation." I bowed slightly towards Rachael. "Ditto."

Rachael shook her head in wonder. "You're f..." she stopped and coughed. "You're weird, really weird."

"Yep!" I turned to the main point of my interest. "If you feel up to it, I'd like to take you over to the other house for dinner. You can meet my daughter and my boarder. You'll see a lot more of them in the next few days."

"I'm much better now." Rachael sniggered. "But yeah, I can probably not puke tonight. I'm not sure how much I can eat."

"As little or as much as you want. Your stomach is probably still tied in knots."

"The ginger ale helps," Rachael admitted. She waved at the bags. "Whatcha got?"

Elena put the bags on the bed, and we went through the things she'd bought. I grabbed up the sales receipts and promptly wrote Elena a check while Rachael went through the things. Then she went into her bathroom and Elena and I went into the living room.

A few minutes later Rachael came out, wearing a simple pair of jeans and a t-shirt with hot air balloons floating over the Grand Canyon. She looked at me and I looked back at her. Finally Rachael turned to Elena. "Thanks."

Elena nodded. "And you're welcome."

"You two are gay, right?"

"Happy and carefree, anyway," Elena told her.

"Does that bother you?" I asked Rachael, curious.

She shook her head. "No. Except they aren't supposed to put foster kids with gays."

I considered that for a second. Was Sanchez just stupid or setting me up? I decided it didn't matter, because I'd never been asked and had been forthright about our relationship when I'd asked for forms for Elena to fill out.

"I don't think it came up," I told her. "The question now goes back to you. Is it going to bother you?"

"Are you going to convert me?"

I chuckled. "No. A year ago I was a happily married woman. Then, abruptly, I was a widow. I moved here because New York City has too many bad memories for me. Now..." I smiled at her. "I am what I am, with no apologies. You are quite safe here."

Rachael shrugged.

"Rachael... my daughter is gay, her friends, most of them, are gay. My boarder was, but recently discovered guys. Most of my friends, these days, are gay. You, Rachael, are you. Just that. No one's going to try to convert you."

"That's because of the clap, right?"

I stared at her in mild disgust. "I'll grant you, that's not a selling point. You're not ugly, Rachael. Gain a few pounds, start talking a little better and you'll have people following you around, their tongues hanging out."

"All the same to you, I'd just as soon stop fucking."

"By all means," I told her. "Rachael, I have things I want for you. School and learning top the list. The 'clap' is something that the doctors will treat."

"What if I had AIDs?"

I sighed. "It's treatable. Life, Rachael, isn't a bowl of cherries -- at least, not all the time. We have good times; we have bad times. We have to learn to deal with it."

"Like, you learn running away from problems?" she said, staring at me. "Your husband dies and you can't stand to be there anymore?"

"He was killed on 9/11," I said. I realized I'd made a mistake as soon as I spoke.

Rachael walked up and stood in my face, pushing her face right up to mine. "Listen, lady! People I knew died all the time! Friends! At least, what passed for friends! Not every day, but often enough. Run away? Where would I go? How would I get there? Why? What would be different about someplace else?"

She waved around her. "This place, it's like a dream. But you know what? I have no faith, none. All my life, things have gotten good, then gone to shit. Things have been shit, and then turned good. Mostly, things were what I made of them... but since I didn't give a fuck, I got what I got.

"That's what scared me the other day. I realized I didn't care any more. One day or another... what was the difference?

"Well, here I am! I can tell the difference!"

"Can you tell I want to help?" I asked her.

"You want to help people because you can't think how to help yourself. It's a cheap fix, one you don't have to think about."

I started to lift my hand to slap her, but realized what my intent was almost the instant I moved. I turned on my heel and walked away, appalled at myself for thinking about hitting her, even for the millisecond I'd thought about it.

Behind me Rachael called to my back, "Run, run, run!"

I stopped.

I turned around and walked back. I stopped a few steps away from Rachael. I regarded her without talking for several seconds.

"Going to hit me?" she asked. She gestured at Elena, who'd been standing mute throughout all of this. "You going to hit me, eh? Dissin' your honey?"

Elena chuckled. "Girl, you are barking up the wrong tree! Laura can take care of herself. Me? I learned about faith from my father. He's a priest."

"Right!" Rachael said, laughing.

"No, he is," Elena told her. "I have a favor to ask of you, Rachael."

"What? Lay the fuck off?"

"No, nothing like that. Next time you decide to talk to Laura like that, I'd like to sell tickets." Elena came up next to me and rested her hand on my shoulder. "I'll bet on Laura and make a mint!"

"Real soon now," I said with as much control as I could muster, "my daughter is going to wonder if we're coming for dinner or not."

Rachael stared at me. "You were angry, a second ago."

"I was," I told her. "Then I realized you have been watching me like I've been watching you. The worst person to lie to, Rachael, is yourself. I bet you have a lot of practice... but then, you've pointed out that so do I. I'm not a puppy or a kitten, but the lesson works just the same: have your nose rubbed in it, and you pay more attention."

I felt Elena squeeze, and I looked at her and made a silly face.

"I love you," Elena said quietly. "In so very, very many ways."

"You're still runnin' away," Rachael said darkly.

"Walking, dear, walking," I told her. "Come to dinner, Rachael. Our problems aren't going to go away anytime some. They'll still be here later. At least we can feed our faces."

Elena chuckled. "You have adapted well to the Southwestern work ethic, Laura! Manana!"

"On the East Coast," I joked, "we call it the Wimpy factor: I'll gladly pay you tomorrow for a hamburger today."

I got solid hugs from Susan and Sherrie when we arrived, and then I did the introductions.

Then we sat down to eat what Susan had cooked. She'd fixed meatloaf, something I didn't normally fix because it took more preparation than I usually wanted to put into dinner. Moreover, Susan had shown a little whimsy, baking the meatloaf in a shaped cake pan that I'd inherited from my mother -- it was in the shape of an elephant. I grinned; my mother had used the one shaped like a camel for my fifth birthday and I'd hated it.

I looked at the meatloaf and laughed.

"I was going to use food coloring on the mashed potatoes," Susan told me. "Except Sherry wouldn't let me. I was going to make them blue."

Sherrie giggled. "You were not -- you were going to use yellow."

Sherrie turned to me. "I found it's really easy to make crummy cornbread."

I looked over the table. "I don't see any."

Sherrie grimaced. "I couldn't get it out of the pan in one piece. It's in a million pieces."

"Or ten," Susan shot back.

"Excuse me," Rachael said and stood up. "Is that the kitchen?" she pointed at the door to the kitchen and I nodded. I wished she'd asked about a bathroom, but I guess if you gotta go, you gotta go. She walked slower than I would have expected and went through the door.

"I hope you left it neat," Elena told Susan.

Susan lifted an eyebrow, then Rachael came back and sat down, passing a small bowl filled with corn bread crumbs to me, after taking some for herself.

I took some and handed it off to Elena.

"Cornbread's hard to do," I told Sherrie. "That and you need to put some oil in the pan."

"It says it's nonstick," Sherrie replied.

"Except for cornbread," I told her. "Once, I tried cupcake papers. The only way to eat the cornbread turned out to be to eat the cupcake paper, too. Ick!" I made a face and everyone laughed.

Rachael waved in the direction of the kitchen. "They cleaned everything up."

Susan giggled. "It's in the dishwasher, waiting for the rest."

"Except the cornbread pan, which is soaking in the sink," Sherrie added.

"I like cornbread," Rachael said simply. She waved a piece. "This is a little dry, but okay." She nodded at Sherrie. "Thanks."

Rachael turned to Susan. "Cool meatloaf!"

Susan grinned.

"You're sure about the pool party Saturday?" Susan asked out of the blue.

"I'm sure," I told her. "Here, not at the new house. Saturday afternoon. Sunday we'll start moving to the new house. Take clothes and stuff at first. Then anything else." I turned to Sherrie. "You can stay here or at the new house."

"You'd have trouble renting this place if I stayed here," she told me. "I don't mind. I don't have much here besides clothes. It will all fit in my car, one trip."

"Well, I was thinking you could stay here until I decide to rent or sell this place. Sort of a house sitter."

"I'd rather stay with you," Sherrie said, her eyes on me.

I sighed. Life was going to be much more... interesting... with more people around. It wouldn't be very smart to do all the bedroom swapping we'd been doing for the last few weeks, with Rachael and the staff around. Was I willing to give all that up, to help Rachael?

I checked over Susan's homework, then I gave Susan and Sherrie one last hug, told them that tomorrow they should plan on dinner with us at the other house and headed back.

We got there and Rachael was starting to nod off to sleep. I expected her to head straight for bed, but instead, she asked if we could talk.

We went in the huge living room, with it's view of the mountains and sat down in chairs, facing each other.

"Sometimes I want to pinch myself," she told me. "I wanted to get off the street. I thought it would be a lot harder. I thought I'd get detention or maybe a crappy foster home with twenty other kids. Instead it's like a dream. It seems too easy."

"You have a short memory then," I told her. "Or does the last few days not count?"

"It counts. Yeah, for sure it counts. Someday I'm going to be married to some guy in the suburbs, raising little suburb kids... and I will pretend this was all a dream. A really bad nightmare." She grinned slightly. "You have no idea how much I'm going to love those kids, talk to those kids, do things with those kids... you know, like you do with your daughter."

"You won't get bored?" I asked, knowing some would.

Rachael sniggered. "I've done exciting. Been there, done that... I got the little bugs wiggling in me to prove it. Better than a t-shirt, right?"

"No."

"You're right. I don't want to mess up, okay? It seems like it's simple, but it's not. A party? You want me to go to a schoolgirl party? I don't know how to act at something like that. The last couple of years when I went to a party, everyone got wasted and then fucked their brains out. I don't even know how to swim."

"You can go and watch," I told her. "Or you can sit with me and help with refreshments and the like. You could even stay here and pass on the whole thing."

"I'll try," she said quietly. "I need to learn things. I don't want to go back on the street; I really need to learn things. Which is what I really wanted to talk to you about."

I wasn't sure what she meant, and she waved vaguely at the outside. "I saw you looking over Susan's homework."

"I do that," I agreed. "It's not that I don't trust her, mostly I just check it over to see if I can spot any mistakes. To let her know I care."

"Yeah, well, when I was her age I didn't give a shit about school. I went, they made you go, pretty much -- but I didn't learn anything. I read some; mostly I watch TV. What do I have to do? I don't want to grow up stupid."

I shook my head. "I don't think you're stupid." I thought for a second. A prescription for failure would be to put Rachael in a regular classroom. It would have to be with kids much younger than her and that wouldn't be good for either the others or Rachael. The worst thing would be to try to put her with her peers.

"I'll ask some friends. They home school their daughters. My daughter wouldn't like that, she's too social... she wants to be a cheerleader."

Rachael made a face. "I just want to learn things, things I need to know."

"Well, like I said, I'll ask my friends -- their daughters are Susan's age. They are pretty smart, but much younger than you. Even so, you would get stuff aimed just at you. As fast as you can deal with it." I thought about it for a millisecond. "I think I'll help out, too."

I looked at her for a second; I could see wheels going around in her head. That was a good thing, I thought. Thinking about life and living is a good way to get ahead.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" I asked her.

She shrugged.

"You talk about getting married and living in the suburbs. Leading a dull life."

"Well, I figure life is what you make of it. I can maybe learn golf or something," Rachael told me.

I nodded. "My husband played golf, he kept talking about teaching me, but we never got around to doing it. Maybe one of these days, we can learn together. No, I was curious. You lived on the streets; I don't think I can begin to understand what that was like. You talked about waking up and realizing how badly you'd been abused. Everywhere, you said."

Rachael nodded again, her eyes on me. She wasn't wary; maybe curious was a better description.

"Yet you talk about getting married."

"You're wondering why I don't hate guys, right?" she asked.

"That's about it."

"I hate some guys. My asshole pimp; if I were to see him again, like as not, I'll try to kill him again. A couple of other mother fuckers like that. But if you think girls on the street were much nicer to me, you're crazy." She patted her leg, and I remembered her stab wound. "A guy didn't stick me, trying to steal my jeans. It was a girl, a stuck-up, self-important piece of shit, who wanted everyone to kiss her ass. I don't kiss ass, I don't take shit from anyone.

"I hate some people; most people I just don't give a shit about. You know, the ones that used to walk past me when I was on the street, their eyes averted, trying to pretend I didn't exist. There were a couple of people on the street I trusted. Some male, some female. I tried to hold up my end, too. It was tough, a lot of time.

"When you need the stuff... you gotta have it. You don't know what it's like. Most of the people out there would steal your stash when they got like that. My friends and me... we didn't steal from each other. If we had some stuff, and someone was hurting, we'd share it. There weren't many people I could trust like that, and sometimes they got hurting so bad, they didn't care who got fucked."

She looked positively gray and bleak. "I went through shit to quit. But if someone came in with some stuff right this second." She looked at me steadily, "I like to think I'd be strong and walk away. I don't know if I could, though. I don't want to go back, I swear to God I don't want to go back. But you get to wanting it so bad, it twists you. Twists you and twists you. Any excuse works. 'Just a little, then I'll stop.' 'Just this one last time.' 'I'll wake up tomorrow and never do the shit again. One last time is all.' There's a million excuses you give yourself. And one day turns into another, and it's all a blur."

Until, I thought, you "wake up bleeding from every hole in your body," one day and decide it was time to quit.

"I'll do everything, anything I can, to help," I told her.