The Blueprint (3 page)

Karen was taken to the home as a toddler
and didn't know anything about her family. But she was sure her parents were famous because that would explain why she was so pretty.   She was convinced Julie Andrews was her mother and Andy Williams was her father, but the week before she thought Elvis Presley was her father and Marilyn Monroe was her mother.  When someone tried to explain all the reasons why the matches she came up with didn't work, Karen just shrugged it off and moved on to pairing up different famous people. 

It was Amy’s turn to tell her story, but she didn’t want to.  Instead, Jenny and Karen filled me in when Amy walked off to put some pots away.  Her parents were in jail charged with the murder of her baby brother.  The day the police found her brother dead in his crib they examined Amy and found her
back was covered with cigarette burns.  She was four then and still has bad dreams.  They told Amy’s story like it was no big deal, but I couldn’t decide if I was more sad or scared.  Amy rejoined the assembly line but didn’t try to join the conversation even though we changed subjects as soon as we saw her coming back.  I bet she knew the girls told me and wondered how I would respond.  I knew why she looked so sad all the time and figured she didn’t need me adding to it.  So I smiled at her and did my best to convince myself that how she got here didn’t matter.

As we finished up the dishes, I decided to never bring up my daddy again.   I felt like a jerk bragging about him coming back when none of them wo
uld ever see their parents.  I figured I’d just ruined any chance of them staying my friends.  We left the cafeteria and headed for the activity room and the whole way there they drilled me with questions about Daddy that I hated answering.    

Jenny asked, “Does your daddy smoke cigars?  My daddy did.  I remember."

“No, but he smokes cigarettes.”

Karen wanted to know, “Is your Daddy tall like George Hamilton or short like Davey Jones?”

“He’s tall.  I’ll probably be tall too.”

“Is he big and strong and wear a mustache?” asked Amy.

"I’ve never seen him with a mustache.   Look, can we talk about something else?  I don’t want you to think I’m bragging.”

“We don’t think you’re br
agging.”  Jenny stopped walking and the other girls lined up like dominoes. “We’re happy for you.  Everybody wants to get out of here and we’ve never heard of anybody getting to before they’re sixteen.  So maybe if you get to leave, somebody will come get us too.”

“There’s paper in the activity room.  You could draw us a picture of him,” Karen
added through a mouthful of hair.

“All right, if that’s what you want.”

We entered a large rectangular room with high ceilings and tall windows.   Mismatched furniture in shades of dirt and grass were grouped together around an old TV that didn't appear to work.  Clusters of tables of different sizes and more mismatched chairs littered the rest of the room.  I saw Dani huddled together with older girls talking and fiddling with each other’s hair in the farthest corner from the supervising adults.  She waved at me and returned to campaigning for the office of leader of the big kids.

I drew a picture of my daddy and told the girls about ho
w silly he was at the restaurant that morning.  They seemed to like the story, but then it got quiet and weird, so I changed the subject to school.  Ms. Sweaney had said I’d be starting school in the morning.  They all agreed that their teacher, Mrs. Fox, was nice and recess was the best part of the day.  They said the food at lunch was okay and they almost never had homework other than some spelling words to memorize.  I asked about the other kids in their class and they started acting weird again.

Jenny explained, “The other kids won’t talk to us or play with us because we’re from the home.
  So Mrs. Fox lets us sit together in class."  She shrugged.  “You get used to it.”

Karen leaned toward me with her face pinched in anger. 
“The girls from town whisper and point at us, but we act like we don’t notice." She pushed her sleeves up and gripped the magazine she was holding. "But the meanest person at school is Bobby Davis.  He pulls our ponytails and spits on us. 
And
he never gets in trouble for it---
ever
.”

“I
hate
him,” Amy grumbled.

“They won’t like you either once they find out you live here.
"  Jenny gave me a hard look and waited for my nod of understanding.  "But we’ll be your friends.  We promise.” The others agreed. 

Before my momma left and we had to move out of our house, I attended school and loved it.  Mrs. Reynolds was my teacher and she was super pretty and super nice.  She had a piano in her room and on days when everybody behaved she would play and sing songs to us as our reward.  She even knew some Beatles
songs
,
and she'd let us sing along
. 
I hugged her every morning when I arrived at school and again before I left to go home for the day.  Each student had a piece of paper where she put gold stars for good work and good behavior.  I had the most stars in the class with twenty-five.  I tried to get Momma to come up to school and meet her.  I always thought Mrs. Reynolds would be a good friend to Momma and help her feel better like she did when I fell off the slide and bumped my head, but Momma told me to go away and stay out of her business.  I cried for a week when Daddy told me I wouldn’t be going back to school.  The whole time we were driving around staying with different people the thing I missed the most was school.  It was safe and predictable unlike Momma or traveling.

With a roar from one of the night supervisors, we were told it was time for my group to get ready for bed.  We were sent back to our rooms to get our toiletries and then off to the bathroom.  Thankfully, I wasn’t expected to shower again.  Like everything else there’s a routine to this many girls all doing something at the same time, so I watched and followed along. 

I was sharing a sink with Karen
when she warned with a mouthful of toothpaste, “Always use the potty last.  Johnny, the late night supervisor, is really creepy.  None of us leaves the room after lights out.”  She spit, rinsed, and whispered, “Every once in a while an older girl will run away, but nobody can prove that it wasn’t Johnny that got her.  When we go back to the room, he’s usually waiting outside our door.  You’ll see how scary he is.”

Sure enough, Johnny was standi
ng at the door gaping at us as we walked past.  Tall with a pudgy belly, he seemed close to my daddy’s age, early forties.  Although he wore the same uniform as everyone else, he looked sloppy like he’d just woke up.   Buttons were pushed through the wrong holes in his navy shirt, and his undershirt peeked out where his belt struggled to keep his pants up.  Whether he slicked his hair back or it was just greasy, I couldn’t tell, but I could guess. 

I kept my head down and tried
sneaking by, shielded between Karen and Amy.  But he spotted me and drawled, “Hey little girl, I haven’t seen you before.  You come out to take a pee after lights out and we’ll get to know each other better.  It gets lonely sitting out here all night.”  He finished with a wink that made my stomach churn.

Amy, held up behind me, shoved my petrified body through the door.  She walked with me to my bed and pleaded, “Never use the bathroom after lights out!”

“I know, Karen already told me.”

“If you have to go, we’ll all go together.  He can’t hurt us, if we’re all together.”  

I couldn’t help it.  The minute the lights went out and all I could hear was the soft breathing of the other girls, I started to cry.  I tried not to sniff and used the sheets to wipe my face.  I think having the boogie man lurking outside my bedroom door was the last straw.  My daddy was gone, my sister was beat up, Ms. Sweaney hated me, and tomorrow I was supposed to start a new school where I already could be certain no one would like me.  And I'd met the boogie man, and he was waiting for me in the hall.  Tears soaked my pillow as I worked to control my breathing so I didn’t make squeaky crying noises.  I focused on the light slipping through the cracks of  the door and told myself again and again it would only be a couple of weeks and then Daddy would rescue me.

I didn’t notice when Kimmy slipped out of bed and sidled up next to me.  She patted
me on the shoulder.  I turned and listened as she whispered, “The first couple of nights for new kids are always the worst.  You’ll get used to it.  Everybody does.  Here.”  She handed me a wad of lumpy material shaped like an oversized egg.  “I made myself a sock puppet stuffed with mismatched socks.  Look.  I even drew a face on it with a marker.  It’s supposed to be a bunny, but I’m not a very good drawer.  See, its ears aren't right," she giggled softly.  "I keep it hidden under my pillow so Ms. Sweaney and the other girls won’t find it.  I’ll let you use it, if you want.  It might help you feel better like it does me sometimes.”

“I’m okay,” I lied.

“If you change your mind, let me know."  She glanced over both shoulders and leaned closer.  "But please don’t tell anyone else about my bunny or about my hiding place, either.  They might tease me, or worse... take it.”

I nodded and she
crept back to bed.

I must have fallen asleep soon after, because I woke
with a start as the shadow of a person sneaked toward me in the dark.  I knew right away it wasn’t Kimmy again or one of the other girls, because the shape was too big and moving from the direction of the door.  I pulled the covers up over my head and prayed I’d tricked whoever it was into thinking my body was just a bump in the blanket.  Then I heard the intruder whisper, “Lily, you’re not fooling anybody.  Scoot over so I can get under those covers too.”

“Dani.”
  I sat up and moved to give her room to climb in next to me.  She laid down, and I clung to her like we were falling and she was my parachute.  My head was on her shoulder and my tears wet her nightgown.  This time she didn’t scold me for crying.  I think she may have even joined me, but she’d never admit it. 

At our old house, Dani and I shared a room and a mattress on the floor. 
Daddy called it our shotgun house and Momma called it a bad word that also starts with "sh."  All the rooms were lined up one right after the other:  the living room, my parents' room, me and Dani's room, and the kitchen.  Because Momma needed the most rest, the walls and windows in her room were painted black.  Every time I walked through it felt like I'd crawled out of a hole.  I would've liked to sprint my way in and out, but Momma didn't do much cleaning and I was forced to pick through the mess so I wouldn't trip.  It was one of those rooms that feels wrong and dangerous like an old cellar.  It's no wonder that at 18 months I kept climbing out of my crib in the middle of the night.  Daddy found me curled up with Dani every time. 

So there I stayed and became
her responsibility. She'd play with me like the living doll I was, tending to all my real and made-up needs.  She bathed me, dressed me, entertained me, and fed me.  I'd never known anything different.

Anytime
Momma was around or awake, Dani and I would stay hidden in our room.  It seemed the safest place from her crazy moods. On nice days, we’d jump out the window rather than disturb her by leaving through a door.  Dani made up adventures for us like the ones she’d read in her
Nancy Drew
books, and I followed along like a puppy. Then when Daddy returned home from work he’d come find us, and we’d help him make dinner.      

Dani
cleared her throat. “I came here to get some sleep, not take a bath.”

“How did you get in here with that creepy Johnny guy out there on watch?
”

“I have my wa
ys.  Don't worry about it and don’t try and come to me.  I'll come to you.  Got it."  Her grip on my arm tightened until I agreed.  "I’ll try and get in here every night if I can.  Let’s get some sleep.  We start school tomorrow, and I want to look good.”

I woke the next morning to our door thrown open and all the lights flipped on
which was as jarring as walking out of a movie theater after sneaking into a matinee.  Instinct told me to cover my eyes, and as I pulled at my blanket I realized Dani was gone.  My brain took its time sorting out my location, rewinding through the drama. 

Kimmy skipped to me
with her long yellow hair bouncing along and chirped, “Today you start school.  We need to get ready before breakfast.  Come on.” 

Jenny, Karen, and Amy weren’t f
ar behind, and they tutored me through the morning ritual.  No one mentioned hearing me cry or seeing my sister in our room last night and I was grateful.  Had I gotten away with it, or were my friends just being nice?  Kimmy gave me lots of big smiles, but I couldn’t tell if that was because she knew my secret, or because I knew hers.  My sister and her friends sat with us at breakfast and this time nobody seemed surprised.  I felt dazed from a lack of sleep and all that had happened in the last 24 hours. The oatmeal was gummy and hard to swallow, but I discovered that wasn't the only reason my group was the last to leave the dining hall.

Karen sprung from her seat and called, "Let's go."

I was already in the habit of following these girls so I jumped up too.   We dumped our goopy scraps in the trashcan, stacked our trays, and scampered off in the direction of the activity room.  I asked, "What are we doing?" and was hushed with a force far louder than my words.  I took the hint and became a silent participant.