“Where’s Rae? Where’s Taylor?” I demanded.
“Oh, they had another appointment,” Skip said. “They told me to tell you, don’t worry. They’ll be back.”
“What? Be back? What are you talking about? Where are they?” I demanded, and tried to look past them.
“Hey,” I heard Grog call from the little room, “I’m ready!”
“He’s ready,” all the boys chorused.
“What’s the matter, Phoebe?” Ashley asked, stepping closer. “Expecting someone else?”
“Let me outta here,” I said, feeling I was snared in some spider’s web that was partly my own making. I tried to push past them, but they held fast, not making any space for me.
“Don’t tell me we didn’t pay you enough,” Ashley said. “You don’t get this much on the street, plus benefits.”
They were all looking lustfully at me, their eyes burning with pornographic fantasies. I backed up. This was really a trap, and I had walked right into it, arrogantly, confidently, stupidly. There were no policemen; there was no sting operation. What kind of girls would do this to me? The boys stepped forward, moving in a clump.
“Tell you what,” Ashley said. “For another hundred, we’ll all be able to watch. What do you say?”
I spun around. Grog was in the doorway behind me, his pants and shirt off.
“Bastards!” I screamed at them, scooped a small statue off the desk, and held it like a club.
“Put that down,” Ashley ordered.
Panicked now, I swung it and hit Skip Lester, who was moving up on my right. I caught him on the side of his forehead, the small pedestal of the statue cutting deeply and quickly into his skull. Blood spurted instantly, and all the boys washed back like a wave at the sight of it. Skip staggered and fell toward them. I saw my opportunity and ran past them through the office doorway.
I heard them screaming after me, but I didn’t hesitate. I went right to the front door and out, charging down the steps.
“Get her and bring her back here!” Ashley ordered the others from the open doorway.
I ran as fast as I could down the driveway, almost slipping on the slickness from the drizzle, and then I cut across the lawn and into some bushes and trees. I heard the boys’ footsteps clacking behind me on the driveway. I continued to charge forward, bushes catching my dress and tearing it, but I didn’t stop until I was out on the road. I could still hear them shouting after me. I kept running until I reached a street corner and paused to catch my breath and listen.
They had stopped chasing me. I no longer heard them. After a few minutes, I continued walking quickly until there was nothing behind me but the darkness and a bad memory.
6
The Best of Nothing
I walked for hours because I didn’t know where I was going or how to get home. First fear and then rage filled me with energy, my fury carrying me along like some magic carpet on the wind. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on that Rae and Taylor. Their meanness in conspiring with those boys was lower than anything I could remember. I had never been so betrayed. How could I have been so trusting, so gullible? I blamed myself for wanting to believe in them, for being desperate to have friends.
Despite the rage boiling inside me, I was a lot calmer because of the distance I had made between me and Ashley’s house. Now, as I walked, I felt the ache in my calves and thighs and some sharp pain on my right side where a bush branch had slapped against me. I realized my feet were muddy and wet, too. The slight drizzle had stopped, but my hair was wet, soaked from the rain and my own sweat.
Finally, I stopped at a fast-food store and got some directions. I didn’t realize just how far out of my way I had gone until the counter girl explained the directions back to my uncle and aunt’s home. Grudgingly, I started out again, worried about every car I saw pass me by, half expecting some of those boys to jump out and attack me.
By the time I turned into my aunt and uncle’s housing development, it was close to midnight. I was tired, damp, and dirty, and there was that long rip through my skirt. Aunt Mae Louise was surely going to raise the roof, I thought. How was I going to explain all this?
What caught me by surprise, however, was the sight of a police patrol car in our driveway. I stopped to think. Why would the police be here? Did it have something to do with what happened tonight, or did it have something to do with Mama? A part of me wanted to turn and run again, but my curiosity was strong, too. I had no reason to run, I told myself. I didn’t do anything bad. Bad things were done to me.
Before I could decide which way to go, the front door opened and the policemen stepped out, with Uncle Buster beside them. They all saw me standing half in shadow, half in the light at the foot of the driveway.
“Phoebe?” Uncle Buster called. “That you, girl?”
“Yes,” I said.
“You come right up here,” he said sharply.
I walked up the driveway slowly. He turned and shouted into the house.
“She’s home, Mae Louise!”
I heard her running up the hallway to the front door.
“Where have you been, Phoebe?” Uncle Buster asked me.
“I got lost,” I said, looking from one policeman to the other.
“Everyone’s been looking for you, girl,” Uncle Buster said.
Aunt Mae Louise came up behind him.
“Where you been?” she shouted at me.
“She said she was lost,” Uncle Buster said.
“Oh, she’s lost all right, but unlike the prodigal son, she’s not lost and found, no, sir. Not by a long shot. How could you do something like this now? With your daddy not even cold in his grave, how could you be so bad?”
“What did I do?” I moaned. I looked at the scowling policemen and realized they weren’t here about Mama. They were here about me. Those boys had told some other lies. I began to babble. “They’re the ones who deceived and trapped me. They’re the ones who lied.”
“What are you talking about? They lied? Talk about lies. You said you were going to that girl’s house when you were going to a party with lots of boys instead,” Aunt Mae Louise said sharply. “You don’t know how to do anything else but lie and you’re still doing it now.”
“That’s not true,” I moaned.
“You hurt a boy real bad tonight,” Uncle Buster said. “He’s in the hospital. You know that?”
“He deserved it. They all deserve to be in the hospital.”
“Oh, just listen to her,” Aunt Mae declared to the policemen. “She’s much too much for us to handle.”
“You’ll have to come with us to the police station,” one of the policemen said. “Serious charges have been lodged against you, miss.”
“Charges? What about what was done to me?”
“You’ll have your chance to tell your side of it,” he said.
“Oh, sure. I’ll have lots of chances,” I snapped back at him.
“Come along,” he said, moving to take my arm.
“Uncle Buster, it’s not what they say. I was fooled into believing something else was going to happen tonight. They were all out to get me.”
“You better just go with them for now, Phoebe. I’ll be along,” he said in a tired, skeptical voice.
“But—”
“This is very, very serious. Just do what the police want you to do, Phoebe.”
“Right. Just do what they want,” I mimicked. A lot of good it was going to do me appealing to him for any help, I thought.
“Let’s go,” the policeman said, moving me more forcefully toward the police car. The other patrolman opened the door, and they practically pushed me into the car. Aunt Mae Louise stood on the stoop shaking her head at me and mumbling some prayer under her breath.
“It’s not my fault! I’m not lying!” I screamed back at her.
The policemen got in, and we started out of the driveway. I looked back and saw Uncle Buster arguing with Aunt Mae Louise, and then we made a turn and headed out of the de
velopment. Fuming, I sat back and glared straight ahead. Daddy sure made my life more miserable bringing me here, I thought. I would have been better off living in the streets of Atlanta.
When we arrived at the police station, they put me in a room by myself. It was brightly lit, with bare walls and a mirror. They sat me at a long table, but no one came for so long, I fell asleep with my head down on the table. Then I felt someone nudge me, and I raised my head slowly and looked at a policewoman. She had short, dark hair, beady eyes, and a small mouth. There was a small bump in the bridge of her nose. I had seen policewomen before, but she looked too small and fragile to be one.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s hear your side of this.”
I stared down at the table, my arms folded under my breasts.
I didn’t want to talk to anyone. What good would it do? What good did it ever do?
“You had better start talking. That boy, Skip Lester, he has a concussion and fifty stitches. He’ll have a scar. His parents are pretty angry,” she said calmly. “They want us to charge you with more than just assault and battery. They think you tried to kill him.”
“If I was trying to kill him, he’d be dead,” I said.
“An inch or so to the right, and you would have hit him in the temple and done just that,” she shot back at me. “I don’t think you should be such a smartass, girl.”
I pouted, still fuming too much to speak.
“Now, if you don’t tell us your side of it, all we’ll have is their side, and that doesn’t look too good for you. There’s an assistant district attorney coming here soon to decide how to charge you and what to do with you now. You don’t have to be charged as a minor if it’s a serious felony. You could go to adult court, Phoebe. That’s your name, right, Phoebe?”
“Yeah, that’s my name.”
“Well?”
I took a deep breath and sat forward, wondering just where I should begin. Perhaps I should start with the day Mama left me alone when I was only four and I accidentally pulled a pot of boiling water off the stove, scalding my hand and wrist and screaming so loud, I brought neighbors to the door. Mama yelled at me and shook me so hard, I thought my teeth would fall out. From then on it always seemed to me it was me against the world. This was just another in a series of attacks, attacks that would never end until I did.
“I got into some trouble in school,” I began, and told her the story from start to finish, right to the moment I walked up to my aunt and uncle’s driveway. She listened, which was more than my uncle and aunt were willing to do. After I was finished, and actually as I was speaking, I had the sense other people were watching and listening. The mirror on the wall was probably a one-way window, I thought.
“Okay,” she said when I stopped speaking. “You want something to drink?”
“Some water.”
She got up and a few moments later, brought me a bottled water.
“Just relax awhile,” she said.
“Am I going to jail?”
“We’ll see what’s what soon,” she told me, and left again.
Nearly another hour went by before she returned.
“Okay. For now you’ve been released back to your uncle and aunt’s supervision,” she announced.
I looked up, surprised.
“I am?”
“Yes. It’s not like you’re on bail, but your uncle has vouched for you and promised he would make sure you came to the court when you have to come. He could get into trouble if you don’t listen or try to run away. He’s going to take you home now,” she said.
“What about the charges against me and such?” I asked.
“They’ll decide about all this in court later,” she explained. “For now, go home, listen to your uncle and aunt, and keep your nose clean.”
When I walked out, Uncle Buster was sitting with his head down in the lobby. He looked up at me and then rose.
“This wasn’t all my fault,” I told him in a hoarse voice.
“Let’s just get home and get some sleep, Phoebe. It’s been a long, long night,” he said, looking almost as exhausted as I felt. “Your aunt’s sick over worrying about you.”
“I’ll bet she’s worrying about me,” I said.
I followed him out to the car.
“You can’t go anywhere but to school and back,” he told me when we got in. “Otherwise, you could end up right back here and things will go very bad for you when we do go to court, Phoebe. It might be a lot different here than where you lived. They don’t see as much of this sort of thing, and they might be a lot sterner.”
“I don’t know why I’m the one who has to go to court. They’re the ones who tried to rape me!”
“Let’s not talk about it anymore,” he said.
“Let’s not.”
I fell asleep again with my head against the side of the car and woke up when we pulled into the driveway and then into the garage. Wrapping her bathrobe around herself, Aunt Mae Louise came out of her bedroom when we entered the house.
“Don’t say anything more now, Mae,” Uncle Buster begged her before she could begin. “Let’s all just get some rest. You want to be up early for church and make those corn muffins for Dad.”
“Seems we all oughta be up early for church,” she muttered, her eyes fixed stone-coldly on me.
I didn’t reply. I went into my room and without even taking off my clothes, went to sleep. Collapsed was more like it, because I didn’t even take off my muddied shoes.
I heard my door opening in the morning, but I kept my eyes closed.
“She doesn’t even have sense enough to get undressed for bed,” Aunt Mae Louise said.
“Just let her rest, Mae,” I heard Uncle Buster tell her. “She’d only fall asleep in church and embarrass us both and you’d be more upset.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” she replied, and the door was closed.
I lay there listening to them move about the house, Aunt Mae Louise snapping orders at Barbara Ann and Jake and even Uncle Buster until they were ready to leave. When the door closed and the house grew silent and I was absolutely sure they were gone, I rose.
I took off my clothes and had a hot shower. Then I dressed in a pair of jeans, a blouse, and a light leather jacket. I slipped on some running shoes, ran a brush through my hair, and then packed my suitcase, taking only the things I absolutely wanted. I dug out the hundred and fifty dollars I had taken from Grog in school. I had buried it in a drawer under my panties. I scooped up my purse and put the money in it along with the fifty I had kept from the night before.
On the way out, I drank a glass of orange juice. I wasn’t very hungry, but I thought I had better take a piece of bread anyway. I paused in the doorway.
“Good riddance to you all,” I told the house. “I’m not hanging around here to see whether or not I get put in jail or something.”
I closed the door and walked out of the housing development. First, I thought I would just go back to our apartment in Atlanta, hoping it was still ours and the landlord hadn’t moved Daddy’s things out yet. But as I rode the bus toward the city, another thought entered my mind. When we reached the bus station, I stood considering for a while before deciding to take the next bus to Macon.
I decided I was going to see Mama. Maybe if I went to see her, she would be encouraged and want to start her life anew. Maybe we could be together after all, just up and go somewhere we had never been and be a mother and a daughter for once and for all. She can’t want to stay in a detox ward, and she might be disgusted enough with her choices to see the light and want to be with me.
For all I knew, she didn’t know about Daddy, too. Perhaps that would affect her. She would realize I had no one now and she would care, especially when I complained about her sister, my aunt Mae Louise. Mama never liked her own sister. She’d understand why I was so determined to get away.
Sure she would. She would have to, I thought. The more I thought about it all, the more excited I became, so excited, I wis
hed the bus would go faster. When we pulled into the station in Macon, I practically knocked people out of my way to get off. Then I found a taxi stand and had the driver take me to the place I knew Mama was being kept.
After I spoke with the receptionist, she made me wait in a small lobby, but I didn’t wait long before a tall, thin African-American woman in a lab coat came out to see me. Her hair was a thin reddish brown, and she had freckles on her caramel cheeks, a long but nicely shaped nose, and lips that were almost orange.
“I’m Doctor Young,” she said, extending her long arm and thin fingers at me.
I took her hand and stood.
“I want to see my mother,” I replied.
“You’re Charlene Elder’s daughter?” she asked as if she didn’t believe Mama had a daughter.
“Yes.”
“We’ve been trying to locate her husband. Where is your father?”
“He’s dead,” I said. “He was killed in a car accident recently.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. We actually tried contacting…” She paused to look at her clipboard. “Contacting a Mrs. Mae Louise Howard, but she hasn’t returned any calls. That is your mother’s sister, isn’t it?”
“She’s probably trying to forget she’s related,” I said dryly.
“Well, who do you live with?”
“Nobody,” I said, not hiding my impatience. “I just want to see my mother. Can I see her?”
“Yes, yes. I think it might do some good. Come along,” she said eagerly. “What do you know about your mother’s condition?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said. What was I going to do, tell her my life story?
“Your mother has been suffering from serious substance abuse and is still in a period of withdrawal.”
“How did she get here?” I asked as we continued down the corridor.
“As far as I know, she was dropped off at the emergency room, but whoever did that didn’t hang around. It’s quite common,” she added quickly as if she thought I would get hysterical over it.
“Is she going to be all right?”
“These things take a lot of time,” she replied. “They require a great deal of therapy and a willingness on the part of the patient.”