Don't Let Me Go (20 page)

“Well, at least she squeezes you out something.”

Billy laughed.

“My parents are rolling in it,” he said. “Filthy. Rich in the filthiest possible sense of the word.”

“Oh.”

The longest pause in the history of pauses, Billy thought. He did not fill it.

“So…”

“Don’t tell me,” Billy said. “I’ll guess the question. If I come from money, what am I doing in a place like this?”

“None of my business, but yeah. That’s what I was wondering.”

“I think they figure if they give me just barely enough to stave off my literal death, it’ll motivate me.”

“They don’t want to enable you,” Felipe said.

A brief silence, and then they both burst out laughing.

“You can see how well it’s working out so far,” Billy said, taking a grand and flashy bow in his old red pajamas.

• • •

“Oops,” Felipe said. “I got news for you.”

He was sitting on Billy’s big stuffed chair, with Mr. Lafferty the Cat upside down on his lap, stretched out on his back and purring. Felipe was drinking his coffee with one hand and rubbing the cat’s tummy with the other.

“Bad news?”

“Just news news. We’re going to have to change Mr. Lafferty the Cat’s name to Ms. Lafferty the Cat.”

“Girl cat?”

“Girl cat.”

“Grace will be…”

Then, to his embarrassment, he had to stop talking. So he wouldn’t cry.

A long silence.

Then Felipe said, “I know. I miss her, too.”

“I feel like I’m supposed to be hoping her mom gets clean. You know, for Grace’s sake. But what about us? What about our sakes? What about if she never lets us see her again?”

“I don’t know,” Felipe said. “It’s messed up.” A pause. “Time’ll tell.” He glanced at his watch. “I better get ready for work.” He slugged down the rest of his coffee in one extended gulp. “Thanks for the coffee.”

Felipe slid the cat down on to the floor and headed for the door.

“Let me know if you see her again,” Billy said.

“I will. I mean, both. I’ll see her again, and I’ll let you know, both. I’m going to her school tomorrow, too. And every damn day after that. So if her mom ever screws up and doesn’t come for her? There I’ll be. So I’ll see her. Even if I don’t get to talk to her. And I’ll let you know.”

Felipe let himself out without saying more.

Billy began the process of locking the door after him, but, before he had even finished, he was startled by a sudden knock.

“Yes?”

Felipe’s voice echoed through the door.

“Don’t even bother to unlock it, Billy, it’s just me again. I just wanted to say one more thing. I just wanted to say I wouldn’t care if you were. I’m not like Lafferty. I’m not a prejudiced guy. My father taught me not to look down on nobody, not to think bad about nobody. Except assholes. He said it’s OK to be prejudiced against assholes, because nobody
has
to be an asshole. It’s voluntary.”

Silence. Billy seemed to have lost the ability to communicate.

“But you’re definitely not an asshole.”

“Thanks,” Billy said.

“Later,
mi amigo
.”

“Thanks,” Billy said.

If there were any other words in the universe, they were unavailable to him in that moment.

Grace

It was already last period at Grace’s school, and getting closer and closer to the final bell. And the closer it got, the more Grace felt like maybe she was about to throw up. Her face felt hot, and it tingled, and her stomach was feeling rocky, like that time when she had the flu.

But she didn’t have the flu, not this time, and she knew it.

What she had was one of those situations where you get more and more nervous and upset, and then after a while you’re so upset that you think you might throw up.

But there was really nothing much worse than throwing up in class in the fourth grade, unless it was peeing your pants, but even peeing your pants might only have been more or less a tie with throwing up. It was that bad.

So Grace asked her teacher for a hall pass to go to the bathroom.

It took the teacher a long time to write it out.

“Oh my gosh, please hurry,” Grace said, “because I think I’m about to throw up.”

“Oh, dear,” her teacher, Mrs. Placer, said, handing her the pass. “Go to the nurse as soon as you’re done.”

Which was an odd thing to say, since it was last period, and almost time to go home, but Grace figured maybe Mrs. Placer wasn’t thinking clearly about that. Grown-ups say all kinds of odd things, all the time, so this was just one more to add to the ever-growing list.

“OK,” Grace said, and ran down the hall as fast as she could.

It’s almost always better to just say OK. It’s better than arguing with them, just about every time.

She stood in the girls’ room for a while, right at the door of a stall, but now that she was in a place where she could throw up if she needed to, it seemed like maybe she wouldn’t need to after all.

After a while some older girls came in, three of them, maybe from the sixth grade, and they stood close to each other and passed a cigarette around, and one of them looked at Grace over her shoulder, and it wasn’t a friendly look.

Grace hoped they weren’t about to rob her, because that can happen in the bathroom. Not that she had anything to steal. But kids got hurt, too, especially if they didn’t have anything to steal.

“Flu,” she said, thinking if they knew she might be about to throw up on them, and if they thought what she had might be catching, they’d keep away.

Just then the bell rang.

Grace sprinted for the back door.

Her mom was there. And so was Felipe. Just like the day before.

Grace’s mom took her by the hand, too hard, and marched off toward home with her. Grace glanced over her shoulder at Felipe, but, the minute she did, her mom pulled her around by the arm so she faced forward again.

“I’m going to get to tap dance at my school,” she told her mom. “It’s for an assembly. I’ll be dancing in front of almost the whole school. First through sixth grades.”

“When?” her mom asked, sounding like she was thinking about something else entirely, and glancing over her shoulder at Felipe.

Grace turned to see if he was still back there — which he was — but then her mom turned her back around again.

“It’ll be in three months,” she said.

“Good. That’s plenty of time to learn to tap dance, I guess.”

“I already know how to tap dance.”

“Since when?”

“You missed a lot of stuff, you know. You’ve been gone a while.”

“Hasn’t been that long.”

“It’s been
weeks
.”

“It’s just been a few days.”

“Yeah, a few
weeks’
worth of days.”

She expected her mom to maybe yell at her for saying all that. But nothing happened. Her mom just looked back over her shoulder at Felipe again.

“I have to tell Billy about the dancing at school,” Grace said.

“You’re not telling Billy anything.”

“But I have to.”

“But you can’t.”

“But I have to!” Grace shouted, finding a place in herself that just would not back down. Then she said something even braver. Possibly the bravest thing she’d ever said to her mom. “And I will!”

But nobody was paying the slightest bit of attention.

Grace’s mom stopped suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk and turned around and started yelling at Felipe.

“Why are you following us?” she yelled. “Why don’t you just leave us alone?”

Grace said, “He’s not, he just lives the same place we do,” and Felipe said, “I’m not, I’m just going home,” and they both said it at almost exactly the same time.

“Why did you even come down to her school in the first place?” Grace’s mom shouted.

And Felipe said, “In case there was no one there to pick her up.”

“But I was there.”

“In case you weren’t, though,” Felipe said.

Grace looked at Felipe, and he looked so sad and helpless, and it started making her mad, that her mom was being so snotty to him, and not for any really good reason at all. She decided to take matters into her own hands, Mom or no Mom.

She ripped her hand free and ran to Felipe and threw her arms around his waist, one side of her face pressed against his belly. He was wearing a green flannel shirt, and it had been washed a lot of times. Grace could tell, because it was so soft.

“
Te amo, Felipe
,” she said, purposely loud enough for her mom to hear.

“
Te amo también, mi amiga.
”

“
Billy y Rayleen? Dice para mi, ‘Grace te amo.’
”

“
Sí, mi amiga. Sí, yo lo hare.
”

Then Grace ran back to her mom, who grabbed her arm and pulled her down the street again.

“Ow,” Grace said. “Could you loosen up on my arm? And slow down?”

“Just hurry up and walk with me.”

But it hurt, and that made Grace feel extra-defiant again. She stopped dead on the sidewalk, wrenching her arm free.

“Felipe! Would you go ahead of us? Please? Because I’m tired from trying to keep up with my mom, and she’s hurting me.”

Felipe crossed to the other side of the street, while Grace’s mom just stood and watched him, and then he got ahead, and crossed back. But he didn’t look over his shoulder or anything. He just kept walking.

Grace’s mom set off toward home again, but she walked more slowly this time, and didn’t grab on to any part of Grace, so that was an improvement.

“Since when do you speak Spanish?” her mom asked.

“Told you there’s a lot you missed,” Grace said.

• • •

When they got down the stairs to their basement apartment, they found a brown paper grocery sack in front of the door. With a big marking pen, in writing Grace didn’t recognize, someone had written on it, “
FOR GRACE
.”

Her mom picked it up and tried to look inside, but Grace, who was still feeling defiant, grabbed it out of her mom’s hands.

“It says for
Grace
, not for
Eileen
.”

“But I need to see what somebody’s giving you.”

“OK, fine, just give me a second and I’ll show you. Don’t have a total fit.”

Grace reached inside and felt soft cloth. She pulled it out of the bag, and let it unfold. It was a dress. A brand-new dress. Grace held it up in front of her, and it looked like it would fit just right, which was not too surprising, because Mrs. Hinman had measured all the different parts of Grace before she even ordered the pattern. It came down to just Grace’s knees, and it was the most perfect color of blue ever.

“That came out nice!” Grace said.

“Who bought you a dress?”

“Nobody bought it.”

“It just appeared?”

“Mrs. Hinman
made
it for me. I have to go tell her thank you.”

“Later,” her mom said.

“Why not now?”

“Because I have to go with you, and I’m tired, and I need to sit down for a minute.”

“You don’t have to go with me.”

“Oh, yes, I do.”

Grace sighed.

“OK, fine. Whatever. I’ll just practice my dancing and you tell me when you’re ready.”

Grace’s mom opened the door and let them both inside.

Grace ran straight to her tap shoes, thinking — for the twentieth time, at least — how lucky she was to have been wearing them when her mom stole her. She got them on in no time, too. It was easy with these tap shoes, because they fit. Just lace them up and dance.

But then she decided to take a minute to run into her bedroom and put on the new blue dress. She’d never danced in a dress before, and she wanted to see how it would feel. She slid it over her head, liking the soft feel of the cloth.

Then she looked at herself in the mirror, and drew in a loud breath.

“I look pretty,” she said out loud.

It wasn’t just the dress, but the dress definitely finished off the look. The dress took the newish haircut, and the nails (Rayleen had fixed the one she’d lost) and turned them into a package of…well…pretty. And there was another thing, but Grace was only just now noticing it. She’d lost weight, without even meaning to. Without even trying. Must have been all those hours of dance practice.

She smiled at herself in the mirror, which she had never done before, then ran into the kitchen to dance.

Grace’s mom was sitting on the coffee table lighting a cigarette, and she made a face when Grace began tapping on the kitchen linoleum.

“Whatever happened to smoking outside?” Grace asked, making a similar face.

“I need to keep an eye on you every minute. Do you have to do that tapping thing? The noise is giving me a headache.”

“Yes, I have to do it,” Grace said, without missing a step. “I have to do it for hours a day. I have a performing thingy coming up, and I want to be good.”

“It’s giving me a headache.”

“You said that already. I have to go to Rayleen’s and get my pajamas.”

“We’ve been through this.”

“I’m not sleeping in my clothes again tonight. I need my pajamas.”

“You can call her when she gets home and ask her to put them out in the hall. Since when do you need to dance for hours a day? You never did before.”