The Girls of No Return (4 page)

She pulled out the unicorn notebook. I blushed and played with the seam on one of the couch cushions.

“What's most important to us, however, is your safety. Only after that has been established can we focus on the areas of your personal growth.”

She took out the underwear, the socks, the rain poncho, the flashlight. She took out first one hiking boot, and then the other. She took out the sock that I had stuffed in the second boot, and pulled out the cigarettes, and then the knife. These she placed in her lap.

A long, silent minute passed.

“We understand that you may have come here with old ways of being, old patterns of behavior, old habits.”

Bev lightly tapped the cigarette pack with her index finger without looking down at it.

“But some behaviors are not appropriate for this environment, and will not be tolerated.”

She picked up the cigarettes and, with an almost imperceptible flick of her wrist, pitched them cleanly across the room, where they landed softly in a trash basket.

“Other behaviors, those that might endanger yourself or others, are cause for immediate expulsion, if not also police involvement.”

She held the knife in front of her face and stared at me until I met her gaze. It was unflinching. I nodded.

Bev placed the knife next to her on the chair and repacked my bag. Then she stood up and held out her hand. “Welcome to Alice Marshall,” she said.

Margaret and I stood up. I cleared my throat. I was afraid my voice would crack, but I managed to shake her hand rather firmly. “Thanks,” I whispered.

 

“Congratulations,” Margaret said as we walked away from the director's cabin, my bag a bit lighter on my back. “You have successfully used up your Get Out of Jail Free card during the first bag check.” She stopped suddenly on the trail and turned to me. “Listen, Lida. That really was your only pass. If we ever find anything even remotely like a knife in your belongings again, you'll be sent home before the excuse is even halfway out of your mouth.”

“Okay.”

“More than okay.” Margaret was glaring at me, and I didn't like it.

“Fine,” I said. “It was my only one, anyway.”

“Good.” She smiled. “Clean slate, Lida. Everyone deserves one at least once in their lives.”

“Are there lots of bag checks?” I asked.

“Weekly,” she said, “and unscheduled ones as well.”

“Do you find things?” I'd felt pretty brave packing the knife. Apparently, I wasn't the only one.

“You wouldn't believe what we find.” Margaret stopped walking and turned to me. “While Alice Marshall certainly isn't a school for delinquents — we're no prison, you know — the girls who live here have usually acted out in some way or another. Parents choose Alice Marshall because they know their daughter will be free from the dangers she faced at home — and those include the ways one can be a danger to oneself.” She raised her eyebrows at me. “Everyone brings their own baggage,” she said. “It's our job to help them unpack it.”

“Okay,” I said. “Whatever.”

The path that led away from the director's cabin eventually opened onto a clearing where a number of larger structures stood clustered on a carpet of pine needles. Through the trees beyond, I could make out the inky blue line of a lake. Margaret led me past a group of buildings that looked exactly alike: dark wood siding, wraparound porches, a kind of Swiss ski chalet feel. She named each one as she passed, but I wasn't paying attention. I doubted I'd ever find my way around this place without some sort of guide dog or Sherpa.

“. . . Math and Science Building,” she was saying. “And over there's the Rec Lodge. That's where you'll find me most of the time.”

“Why?”

“I'm the Outdoor Ed instructor,” she said. “I'll be taking you on all of your backwoods voyages.”

“Sounds great,” I said. “Is there some way to test out of that?”

Margaret laughed drily. “Funny,” she said. “No, there's not. Our most popular program at Alice Marshall involves a solo camping trip. The parents love it, and many of the girls look forward to it,” she added, looking at my expression. “It's a chance to really test your knowledge of the woods . . . and of yourself.”

“Jesus,” I muttered quietly.

“It was all in the pamphlet,” she said, her mouth curling up at one corner.

We passed the Bathhouse and the dining lodge (“also known as the Mess Hall,” Margaret said), and then we turned left and walked through more pine trees (though never in a straight line, I noticed — this place must have been designed by a drunk) until we came to a cluster of nine or ten smaller cabins. There were noises coming from inside these cabins: giggles, whispers, coughing, talking, jarring exclamations. Whenever we passed a particularly noisy cabin, Margaret would rap once on the door and everything would go silent. The ground sloped down from the path for about sixty feet until it met a thin strip of sand and grass, and then the water. There was a fire circle next to the water, halfway between the Mess Hall and the first small cabin, and rough wood benches were placed neatly around it. From where we stood, I could see more mountains rearing up across the water to the north, all stone and granite and jagged corners.

Margaret stopped in front of one of the cabins, about three-fourths of the way down the line. “Good timing. It's Toes-Up.”

“Toes-Up?”

“Heads down, toes up,” said Margaret. “A period of rest and relaxation. You'll be able to meet your cabinmates all at once.”

Lucky me
, I thought.
Lucky, lucky, lucky me.

Here's what the cabin looked like on the outside: rickety. Kind of weathered. Built from knotty pine logs that came together at the corners like the Lincoln Logs I used to play with. It didn't look big enough to fit any more than one or two people. It certainly didn't look like any place I would have ever chosen to live.

“Lida?”

“Right.”

Margaret sighed. “Gets pretty cold here at night. You'll at least want your sleeping bag unrolled.” She opened the door.

A word here about my hair. No, three words: stringy pulled pork. That's what it looked like to me, at least. Something you might find inside a rather unappealing sandwich that you bought at a greasy BBQ joint next to a rest stop along the highway. My hair was the end result of concentrated not-washing and a dedication to the art of fingercombing. It wasn't a masterpiece, not yet, but it had potential. What I'm trying to say is, it was my choice. I wanted it that way. Stringy pulled pork.

That's why, when Margaret pushed open the cabin door, my hand was stuck in my hair. I'd been twirling the strands with my right index finger (a nervous habit since sixth grade), and I guess I became overzealous, because I kind of twisted a knot around my finger and couldn't pull it out. So when that door opened and the faces of my new cabinmates turned toward me — not eagerly, exactly, but almost as if they had all recognized a disconcerting smell at the same time — I was jerking my hand around in my hair.

I'm not certain — I didn't have a stopwatch or anything — but I'm pretty sure nobody said a word for six or seven years.

“Oh,” said Margaret, finally catching on to my predicament. “Here, let me.”

As she reached over and started lifting strands of hair away from my hand, a low voice came from the back of the cabin like a slow-motion slap.

“Another genius joins the ranks.”

There was laughter then, but I couldn't say if it was one person's laughter or four. My eyes were trained on the tops of my black Chuck Taylors, which were kind of shuffling back and forth of their own accord.

Margaret ignored the comment. Having freed me from my hair in less time than it took me to get stuck in the first place, and also having managed to usher both me and my bag inside, shutting the door behind us, she straightened and addressed the cabin.

“Folks, this is Lida Wallace. Please welcome her
kindly
.”

I looked up.

Here is what the cabin looked like from the inside: pretty much as inspiring as it had from the outside. There was a set of bunk beds along each of the two sides and one along the back wall, with dressers at the foot of each one. From where I stood, I could see no chairs, no desks, and no pictures on the walls. Well, that's not exactly true. A calendar hung off the foot of the bunk bed on the right side of the room. The picture for the month of June, all neon blue and orange, was the outline of a man with a tail, playing some sort of flute. The days of the month that had already passed had been marked off with big, black Xs. I noticed that today's date already had one diagonal line drawn through it.

What else? Dirt. A shoe here and there. The room was pretty much empty, aside from a small pile of clothes in the middle of the floor.

And on four of the six beds, there were girls. I tried not to look too closely at their faces, but a swift scan revealed that yes, there were four of them and no, they were not smiling. At least not the ones I could see clearly. The light was angling in through the window in such a way that one of them was hidden in shadow on her bunk.

Margaret went on as though oblivious to the fact that the temperature had dropped about fifty degrees since we entered the cabin. “We've lost a couple of girls in the past few weeks,” she said.

I wondered what she meant by
lost
.

“Andrea and Desiree had both been here for a year. They left within a week of each other.” She smiled, as though to say
See? Not a prison!
I wasn't convinced. “Anyway,” she went on, “this is one of the less-populated cabins right now, so you all have some extra space. Your bunk, Lida, is here.” She walked over to the top bunk along the back wall, directly across from the door. Margaret patted the bare, plastic mattress.

Good,
I thought.
I'll be the first thing anyone sees when they walk in. Maybe that'll keep the number of visitors to a minimum.

“You'll share the dresser with Karen. Right, Karen?”

The girl lying on her back on the bottom bunk waved one of her feet in a lazy circle in response. I couldn't get a good look at her — she had draped one dark arm over her eyes — but her foot looked nice enough. Some sort of trail-running shoe. Small. Neatly laced.

Margaret began to walk back over to me, but stopped next to the pile of clothes in the middle of the floor. “Whose are these?” she asked. She bent down and fingered a T-shirt. “Gwen, are these yours?”

A small girl on a top bunk with black hair and perfectly razored bangs shook her head, just as the low voice, the one that had called me a genius, spoke up again.

“I wouldn't get too close, Margs. We're just starting our laundry pile, and Jules walked through some poison ivy yesterday.”

It came from the bottom bunk on the right. I strained my eyes to see the girl behind the voice, which despite sounding bored and nonchalant nevertheless sent a chill across my shoulder blades. I could see now that she had her back turned to the rest of the cabin and was talking to the wall. I wondered how she had managed to braid her hair in such a long, even, black rope so that it stretched perfectly all the way down her back. More than that, though, I wondered how she knew what Margaret was doing without looking at her.

“Ah,” said Margaret, rocking back on her heels and releasing the T-shirt. “I see.”

“Thought I'd warn you.”

Margaret straightened. She came over and stood next to me, placing one hand on my shoulder. “Well, Lida,” she said, “I think you're in good company here. These girls —” She paused and looked at each girl on each bed for a long moment, staring longest at the girl with her back to us. She cleared her throat and started again. “These girls are strong, able, thoughtful, smart, and, though they might not want you to know it yet, kind. They're the best that Alice Marshall has. I'm sure they'll treat you how they would like to have been treated when they first got here.” She kept staring at the girl's back. “I'm sure of it.” Margaret took her hand from my shoulder and walked out the door.

There was a long moment of silence. No one moved; no one spoke. I shuffled my feet a little more and then shrugged. “Well, maybe I'll just . . .”

The door opened again quite suddenly, before I had even managed to pick up my bag. Margaret stuck her head in. “Two things I forgot to mention,” she said to the room at large. “One. Lida, shower times are between six and seven in the morning, and between seven and eight at night. Bev expects you to shower at least three times a week, and she'll check up on you. Two. Whatever is under that pile of clothes had better be spilled, buried, scattered, or otherwise disposed of before Bev does her night rounds. That's all.” She shut the door.

This time there was noise. A couple of groans, a long exhalation as though someone had been holding their breath, and a minor explosion of swearing.

“Shit,” said the girl with the bangs —
Gwen?
— as she leaped down from her bunk. “Shitshitshitshitshit.”

“At least she didn't confiscate it this time,” said another girl. She was blond and a little chubby, with a sunburn on her forehead and nose. “At least she didn't report us.”

“Not yet,” said Gwen. She pushed the clothes out of the way to reveal a half-empty bottle of whiskey. From where I stood, still rooted to my spot by the door, I could see that it wasn't the cheap kind either.

Gwen shook her head sadly. “What a waste.” She glanced over at the prone figure with her back to us. “Maybe if you hadn't said anything, Boone . . .” Her voice trailed off.

Boone?
I thought. What kind of a name was that?

The figure stirred. Slowly, the girl turned over on her back and swung her legs over the side of the bunk. They were long legs, I could tell that much, and they were connected to an even longer girl. A girl with jet-black hair and cheekbones you could dive off of. Gray, steely eyes swept across the room, passing me by as though I was just another piece of furniture. She stood up and walked over to Gwen and the bottle of whiskey. I didn't even hear her feet hit the floorboards.