Lock and Key

  I’d expected to sleep the same way I had at Poplar House— barely and badly—but instead woke with a start the next morning when Jamie knocked on my door, saying we’d be leaving in an hour. I’d been so out of it that at first I wasn’t even sure where I was. Once I made out the skylight over my head, though, with its little venetian blind, it all came back to me: Cora’s. My near-escape. And now, Perkins Day. Just three days earlier, I’d been managing as best I could at the yellow house, working for Commercial, and going to Jackson. Now, here, everything had changed again. But I was kind of getting used to that now.

  When my mom first took off, I didn’t think it was for good. I figured she was just out on one of her escapades, which usually lasted only as long as it took her to run out of money or welcome, a few days at most. The first couple of times she’d done this, I’d been so worried, then overwhelmingly relieved when she returned, peppering her with questions about where she’d been, which irritated her no end. “I just needed some space, okay?” she’d tell me, annoyed, before stalking off to her room to sleep—something that, by the looks of it, she hadn’t done much of during the time she’d been gone.

  It took me another couple of her disappearances—each a few days longer than the last—before I realized that this was exactly how I shouldn’t react, making a big deal of it. Instead, I adopted a more blasé attitude, like I hadn’t even really noticed she’d been gone. My mother had always been about independence—hers, mine, and ours. She was a lot of things, but clingy had never been one of them. By taking off, I decided, she was teaching me about taking care of myself. Only a weak person needed someone else around all the time. With every disappearance, she was proving herself stronger; it was up to me, in how I behaved, to do the same.

  After two weeks with no word from her, though, I’d finally forced myself to go into her room and look through her stuff. Sure enough, her emergency stash—three hundred bucks in cash, last I’d checked—was gone, as were her saving-bonds certificates, her makeup, and, most telling, her bathing suit and favorite summer robe. Wherever she was headed, it was warm.

  I had no idea when she’d really left, since we hadn’t exactly been getting along. We hadn’t exactly not been, either. But that fall, the hands-off approach we’d both cultivated had spilled over from just a few days here and there to all the time. Also, she’d stopped going to work—sleeping when I left for school in the morning, sleeping when I returned and headed out to Commercial, and usually out once I returned after all the deliveries were done—so it wasn’t like we had a lot of chances to talk. Plus, the rare occasions she was home and awake, she wasn’t alone.

  Most times, when I saw her boyfriend Warner’s beat-up old Cadillac in the driveway, I’d park and then walk around to my bedroom window, which I kept unlocked, and let myself in that way. It meant I had to brush my teeth with bottled water, and made washing my face out of the question, but these were small prices to pay to avoid Warner, who filled the house with pipe smoke and always seemed to be sweating out whatever he’d drunk the day before. He’d park himself on the couch, beer in hand, his eyes silently following me whenever I did have to cross in front of him. He’d never done anything I could point to specifically, but I believed this was due not to innocence but to lack of opportunity. I did not intend to provide him with one.

  My mother, however, loved Warner, or so she said. They’d met at Halloran’s, the small bar just down the street from the yellow house where she went sometimes to drink beer and sing karaoke. Unlike my mother’s other boyfriends, Warner wasn’t the meaty, rough-around-the-edges type. Instead, in his standard outfit of dark pants, cheap shirt, deck shoes, hat with captain’s insignia, he looked like he’d just stepped off a boat, albeit not necessarily a nice one. I wasn’t sure whether he had a nautical past and was pining for it, or was hoping for one still ahead. Either way, he liked to drink and seemed to have some money from somewhere, so for my mom he was perfect.

  These days, when I thought about my mom, I sometimes pictured her on the water. Maybe she and Warner had gotten that old Cadillac all the way to Florida, like they’d always talked about doing, and were now on the deck of some boat, bobbing on the open sea. This was at least a prettier picture than the one I actually suspected, the little bit of denial I allowed myself. It wasn’t like I had a lot of time for fantasies anyway.

  When she left, it was mid-August, and I still had nine months before I turned eighteen and could live alone legally. I knew I had a challenge ahead of me. But I was a smart girl, and I thought I could handle it. My plan was to keep the job at Commercial until Robert, the owner, caught on to my mom’s absence, at which point I’d have to find something else. As far as the bills went, because our names were identical I could access my mom’s account for whatever paychecks—which were direct-deposited—I was able to earn. I figured I was good, at least for the time being. As long as I kept out of trouble at school, the one thing that I knew for sure would blow my cover, no one had to know anything was different.

  And who knew? It could even have worked out if the dryer hadn’t broken. But while my short-term plans might have changed, the long-term goal remained the same as it had been for as long as I could remember: to be free. No longer dependent or a dependent, subject to the whim or whimsy of my mother, the system, or anyone else, the albatross always weighing down someone’s neck. It didn’t really matter whether I served out the time at the yellow house or in Cora’s world. Once I turned eighteen, I could cut myself off from everyone and finally get what I wanted, which was to be on my own, once and for all.

  Now I did the best I could with my appearance, considering I was stuck with the same pair of jeans I’d had on for two days and a sweater I hadn’t worn in years. Still, I thought, tugging down the hem of the sweater, which was about two sizes too small, it wasn’t like I cared about impressing the people at Perkins Day. Even my best stuff would be their worst.

  I grabbed my backpack off the bed, then started down the hall. Cora and Jamie’s bedroom door was slightly ajar, and as I got closer, I could hear a soft, tinny beeping, too quiet to be an alarm clock but similar in sound and tone. As I passed, I glanced inside and saw my sister lying on her back, a thermometer poking out of her mouth. After a moment, she pulled it out, squinting at it as the beeping stopped.

  I wondered if she was sick. Cora had always been like the canary in the coalmine, the first to catch anything. My mother said this was because she worried too much, that anxiety affected the immune system. She herself, she claimed, hadn’t “had a cold in fifteen years,” although I ventured to think this was because her own system was pickled rather than calm. At any rate, my memories of growing up with Cora were always colored with her various ailments: ear infections, allergies, tonsillitis, unexplained rashes and fevers. If my mother was right and it was stress related, I was sure I could blame myself for this latest malady, whatever it was.

  Down in the kitchen, I found Jamie sitting at the island, a laptop open in front of him, a cell phone pressed to his ear. When he saw me, he smiled, then covered it with one hand. “Hey,” he said. “I’ll be off in a sec. There’s cereal and stuff on the table—help yourself.”

  I glanced over, expecting to see a single box and some milk. Instead, there were several different boxes, most of them unopened, as well as a plate of muffins, a pitcher of orange juice, and a big glass bowl of fruit salad. “Coffee?” I asked, and he nodded, gesturing toward the opposite counter, where I saw a pot, some mugs laid out in front of it.

  “. . . yeah, but that’s just the point,” Jamie was saying as he cocked his head to one side, typing something on the keyboard. “If we’re serious about considering this offer, we need to at least set some parameters for the negotiations. It’s important.”

  I walked over to the coffeepot, picking up a mug and filling it. On Jamie’s laptop, I could see the familiar front page of UMe.com, the networking site that it seemed like everyone from your favorite band to your grandmother had gotten on in the las
t year or so. I had a page myself, although due to the fact that I didn’t have regular access to a computer, I hadn’t checked it in a while.

  “But that’s just the point,” Jamie said, clicking onto another page. “They say they want to preserve the integrity and the basic intention, but they’ve got corporate mindsets. Look, just talk to Glen, see what he says. No, not this morning, I’ve got something going. I’ll be in by noon, though. Okay. Later.”

  There was a beep, and he put down the phone, picking up a muffin from beside him and taking a bite just as there was a ping! on the screen, the familiar sound of a new message in the UMe inbox. “You have a UMe page?” I asked him as I sat down at the table with my coffee. My sweater rode up again, and I gave it another tug.

  He looked at me for a second. “Uh . . . yeah. I do.” He nodded at my mug. “You’re not eating?”

  “I don’t like breakfast,” I told him.

  “That’s crazy talk.” He pushed back his chair, walking over to grab two bowls out of a nearby cabinet, then stopped at the fridge, pulling it open and getting out some milk. “When I was a kid,” he said, coming over and plop-ping everything onto the table beside me, “my mom fixed us eggs or pancakes every morning. With sausage or bacon, and toast. You gotta have it. It’s brain food.”

  I looked at him over my coffee cup as he grabbed one of the cereal boxes, ripping it open and filling a bowl. Then he added milk, filling it practically to the top, and plopped it on a plate before adding a muffin and a heaping serving of fruit salad. I was about to say something about being impressed with his appetite when he pushed the whole thing across to me. “Oh, no,” I said. “I can’t—”

  “You don’t have to eat it all,” he said, shaking cereal into his own bowl. “Just some. You’ll need it, trust me.”

  I shot him a wary look, then put down my mug, picking up the spoon and taking a bite. Across the table, his own mouth full of muffin, he grinned at me. “Good, right?”

  I nodded just as there was another ping! from the laptop, followed immediately by one more. Jamie didn’t seem to notice, instead spearing a piece of pineapple with his fork. “So,” he said, “big day today.”

  “I guess,” I said, taking another bite of cereal. I hated to admit it, but now I was starving and had to work not to shovel the food in nonstop. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had breakfast.

  “I know a new school is tough,” he told me as there were three more pings in quick succession. God, he was popular. “My dad was in the military. Eight schools in twelve years. It sucked. I was always the new kid.”

  “So how long did you go to Perkins Day?” I asked, figuring maybe a short stint would explain him actually liking it.

  Ping. Ping. “I started as a junior. Best two years of my life.”

  “Really.”

  He raised an eyebrow at me, picking up a glass and helping himself to some orange juice. “You know,” he said, “I understand it’s not what you’re used to. But it’s also not as bad you think.”

  I withheld comment as four more messages hit his page, followed by a thwacking noise behind me. I turned around just in time to see Roscoe wriggling through his dog door.

  “Hey, buddy,” Jamie said to him as he trotted past us to his water bowl, “how’s the outside world?”

  Roscoe’s only response was a prolonged period of slurping, his tags banging against the bowl. Now that I finally had a real chance to study him, I saw he was kind of cute, if you liked little dogs, which I did not. He had to be under twenty pounds, and was stocky, black with a white belly and feet, his ears poking straight up. Plus he had one of those pug noses, all smooshed up, which I supposed explained the adenoidal sounds I’d already come to see as his trademark. Once he was done drinking, he burped, then headed over toward us, stopping en route to lick up some stray muffin crumbs.

  As I watched Roscoe, Jamie’s laptop kept pinging: he had to have gotten at least twenty messages in the last five minutes. “Should you . . . check that or something?” I asked.

  “Check what?”

  “Your page,” I said, nodding at the laptop. “You keep getting messages.”

  “Nah, it can wait.” His face suddenly brightened. “Hey, sleepyhead! You’re running late.”

  “Somebody kept hitting the snooze bar,” my sister grumbled as she came in, hair wet and dressed in black pants and a white blouse, her feet bare.

  “The same somebody,” Jamie said, getting to his feet and meeting her at the island, “who was down here a full half hour ahead of you.”

  Cora rolled her eyes, kissing him on the cheek and pouring herself a cup of coffee. Then she bent down, mug in her hand, to pet Roscoe, who was circling her feet. “You guys should get going soon,” she said. “There’ll be traffic.”

  “Back roads,” Jamie said confidently as I pushed back my chair, tugging down my sweater again before carrying my now empty bowl and plate to the sink. “I used to be able to get to the Day in ten minutes flat, including any necessary stoplights.”

  “That was ten years ago,” Cora told him. “Times have changed.”

  “Not that much,” he said.

  His laptop pinged again, but Cora, like him, didn’t seem to notice. Instead, she was watching me as I bent down, sliding my plate into the dishwasher. “Do you . . . ?” she said, then stopped. When I glanced up at her, she said, “Maybe you should borrow something of mine to wear.”

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  She bit her lip, looking right at the strip of exposed stomach between the hem of my sweater and the buckle on my jeans I’d been trying to cover all morning. “Just come on,” she said.

  We climbed the stairs silently, her leading the way up and into her room, which was enormous, the walls a pale, cool blue. I was not surprised to see that it was neat as a pin, the bed made with pillows arranged so precisely you just knew there was a diagram in a nearby drawer somewhere. Like my room, there were also lots of windows and a skylight, as well as a much bigger balcony that led down to a series of decks below.

  Cora crossed the room, taking a sip from the mug in her hands as she headed into the bathroom. We went past the shower, double sinks, and sunken bath into a room beyond, which turned out not to be a room at all but a closet. A huge closet, with racks of clothes on two walls and floor-to-ceiling shelves on the other. From what I could tell, Jamie’s things—jeans, a couple of suits, and lots of T-shirts and sneakers—took up a fraction of the space. The rest was all Cora’s. I watched from the doorway as she walked over to one rack, pushing some stuff aside.

  “You probably need a shirt and a sweater, right?” she said, studying a few cardigans. “You have a jacket, I’m assuming. ”

  “Cora.”

  She pulled out a sweater, examining it. “Yes?”

  “Why am I here?”

  Maybe it was the confined space, or this extended period without Jamie to buffer us. But whatever the reason, this question had just somehow emerged, as unexpected to me as I knew it was to her. Now that it was out, though, I was surprised how much I wanted to hear the answer.

  She dropped her hand from the rack, then turned to face me. “Because you’re a minor,” she said, “and your mother abandoned you.”

  “I’m almost eighteen,” I told her. “And I was doing just fine on my own.”

  “Fine,” she repeated, her expression flat. Looking at her, I was reminded how really different we were, me a redhead with pale, freckled skin, such a contrast to her black hair and blue eyes. I was taller, with my mother’s thin frame, while she was a couple of inches shorter and curvier. “You call that fine?”

  “You don’t know,” I said. “You weren’t there.”

  “I know what I read in the report,” she replied. “I know what the social worker told me. Are you saying those accounts were inaccurate?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “So you weren’t living without heat or water in a filthy house.”

  “Nope.”

  She narro
wed her eyes at me. “Where’s Mom, Ruby?”

  I swallowed, then turned my head as I reached up, pressing the key around my neck into my skin. “I don’t care,” I said.

  “Neither do I,” she replied. “But the fact of the matter is, she’s gone and you can’t be by yourself. Does that answer your question?”

  I didn’t say anything, and she turned back to the clothes, pushing through them. “I told you, I don’t need to borrow anything,” I said. My voice sounded high and tight.

  “Ruby, come on,” she said, sounding tired. She pulled a black sweater off a hanger, tossing it over her shoulder before moving over to another shelf and grabbing a green T-shirt. Then she walked over, pushing them both at me as she passed. “And hurry. It takes at least fifteen minutes to get there.”

  Then she walked back through the bathroom, leaving me behind. For a moment, I just stood there, taking in the neat rows of clothes, how her shirts were all folded just so, stacked by color. As I looked down at the clothes she’d given me, I told myself I didn’t care what the people at Perkins Day thought about me or my stupid sweater. Everything was just temporary anyway. Me being there, or here. Or anywhere, for that matter.

  A moment later, though, when Jamie yelled up that it was time to go, I suddenly found myself pulling on Cora’s T-shirt, which was clearly expensive and fit me perfectly, and then her sweater, soft and warm, over it. On my way downstairs, in clothes that weren’t mine, to go to a school I’d never claim, I stopped and looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. You couldn’t see the key around my neck: it hung too low under both collars. But if I leaned in close, I could make it out, buried deep beneath. Out of sight, hard to recognize, but still able to be found, even if I was the only one to ever look for it.

  Cora was right. We got stuck in traffic. After hitting every red light between the house and Perkins Day, we finally pulled into the parking lot just as a bell was ringing.