Getting Somewhere
Authors: Beth Neff
Beth Neff
VIKING
An Imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
VIKING
Published by Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
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First published in 2012 by Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
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Copyright © Beth Neff, 2012
All rights reserved
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Neff, Beth.
Getting somewhere / by Beth Neff.
p. cm.
Summary: Four teenaged girls participating in a progressive juvenile detention facility on a farm
have their lives changed by the experience.
ISBN 978-1-101-55973-4
[1. Emotional problemsâFiction. 2. Interpersonal relationsâFiction.
3. Juvenile detention homesâFiction. 4. FarmsâFiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.N387Ge 2012 [Fic]âdc23 2011011529
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Book design by Kate Renner
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Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.
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Contents
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SUNDAY, MAY 13
SHE NEEDS TO BE THE FIRST ONE OFF, CAN'T STAND THE
waiting one second longer.
Even as the bus slows to make its wide turn into the gravel driveway, Jenna is scooting to the edge of the worn seat, her seen-better-days backpack strap looped over her elbow. She stands almost before the bus has come to a complete stop. She doesn't even look out the dirty windows as she moves forward, leaves the dark hank of hair that curls under her chin in place, obscuring both her view and the view of her. No one else has gotten up yet so the way is clear. She has to wait for the door to open, ignores the driver who wishes her a cheery “Good luck,” and moves out toward the light.
Jenna pauses briefly on the last step, her piercing blue eyes appraisingâthe white house with its wraparound porch, the neat flower beds just beginning to color with blossoms, the fields and fences beyond. Her gaze lands on the two women standing at the edge of the driveway. Though they are apparently here to greet the bus, they have turned to focus instead on a figure moving across the fields in their direction.
The women don't actually speak to each other when the absentee arrives, but no words are necessary to reveal the crackle of tension produced by her lateness. The slim, blondish one sighs deeply, her features collapsed in disappointment, her head shaking slightly, and the short dark one is staring almost maliciously at the new arrival. Suddenly, they all turn toward the bus as if surprised to see Jenna descending from it. The taller thin one actually places her hand over her heart as if she has just received a shock or her dearest wish has suddenly come true.
But the latecomer plunges right on past and approaches Jenna, her smile forced, as if she is more interested in getting this over with than in welcoming the girls to the farm. Jenna makes the final leap to the ground, deliberately takes a few steps away from the woman, turns just enough in the opposite direction that the snub is felt. She stands with her back to the women and stares at the house as if it is a granite peak she is gathering her wits and energy to climb.
When Jenna casually turns around, the latecomer is still standing just a few feet away. She is facing the bus, her thumbs hooked into the front pocket of her jeans, causing her elbows to jut out in perfect triangles, her upper arm muscles stretching the sleeves of her black T-shirt. Her blocky stance, topped by a rather square head with cropped hair the color of summer wheat, suggests the contained physicality of a boxer dog, Jenna thinks.
“Is that all you brought with you?” she asks, gesturing with her head toward Jenna's pack.
Jenna continues to gaze straight ahead, answers, “Yeah.”
“Do you want to bring it on in or would you rather wait for the other girls?”
Before she can answer, the woman sticks out her hand and says, “I'm Grace, by the way. I can see that you're Jenna,” nodding in the direction of the name tag that hangs a little cockeyed from Jenna's Army Navy store jacket.
Jenna nods slightly, but doesn't take the hand, repeats, “Yeah.”
The other women have now drifted over, the taller blonde stepping around Grace to introduce herself. “I'm Ellie. We're so glad to have you here. Welcome. And this is Donna,” she says, stepping back to allow the dark-haired woman to move forward.
“Nice to meet you,” Donna says, and then the four of them stand there, a ragged little line, just likeâwell, like strangers waiting for a bus. Jenna would laugh if her heart weren't beating somewhere close to the gag spot in her throat.
The other girls are still bending to collect their things inside the bus. No one has spoken since they climbed aboard just after lunch, but no movement went unnoticed by any other. Now the sun has dipped low behind the distant trees, tinging the white siding of the house with an orange Kool-Aid-colored wash. Jenna clenches her jaw to control a slight shiver.
The three women are watching the open door of the bus fixedly, the taller blonde oneâEllieânow standing a few steps ahead of the others, her arms across her chest. Her shoulders are slumped a bit, and she is leaning forward, a smile still determined to characterize her expression.
Grace suddenly walks toward the bus and climbs the stairs. Jenna can hear her voice, as if in a tin can, asking, “You guys need any help?”
The three heads in the bus look up, shake back and forth as if choreographed, and slowly begin moving to the front. Once they are off, it will be real. Jenna stands rigid, watching as Ellie and Donna step forward to reach for bags and packs as the other girls emerge. She clutches the strap of her own backpack a little tighter to her side.
With everyone on the ground, Jenna is standing outside of a loose circle formed by the other girls, the women, the plastic shopping sacks and black garbage bags, one battered suitcase that looks like something Al Capone would have carried into a Chicago boardinghouse, and one whole set of real suitcases with leather straps and those little wheels that are making the biggest one teeter on the lumpy grass. She watches out of the corner of her eye as Ellie greets each girl, her head nodding with seismic force to each nameâSarah, Lauren, Cassie, or at least that's what Jenna thinks the last one says since the girl barely whispers it. Though Ellie repeats the words she said to Jenna with each introduction Jenna notes that now she has added a title to her name: director of the program.
Donna follows behind, saying her own name and “nice to meet you,” then peering intently for a long moment at each face. Even from her distance, Jenna is made uncomfortable by Donna's keen scrutiny and shuffles a bit with nervous impatience.
Once around the circle, both Ellie and Donna turn to Grace, who makes no effort to step forward at all, simply says, “And I'm Grace.”
Everyone but Jenna gives a little tepid wave as the bus pulls around the circle drive and heads back down the road. The others seem tempted to watch it travel away from them, but Jenna forces herself to face the house and move in the direction of its bulky welcome.
E
LEVEN SHINY, WOODEN
stairs, then a landing, then three more. A bright white railing at the top so nobody falls. Four bedrooms, a girl to each room. Cassie's is the second one on the right, the door creaking a bit as Donna opens it. “Not much closet space,” she says, “but I think all your clothes will fit in the dresser. You might have to put your suitcase under the bed.”
When she leaves, she pulls the door shut behind her with a soft
click
and Cassie is alone. She places her suitcase on the bed and turns once, slowly, her eyes scanning the walls, the dresser, the bedspread, the curtains fluttering a bit in the breeze from the open window, the small picture on the wall of daffodils in a vase. Getting settled. That's what she's supposed to be doing in this room. Then dinner. Gram called the meal at midday “dinner,” liked lots of little dishes and something cooked special, plus a dessert. Cassie wonders, if the evening meal is dinner, what do they call the other meals?
She steps to the window, parts the curtain to peer out. Cassie has never been in a two-story house before, never been higher than the low branches of the sprawling sugar maple tree that stood just outside the small tacked-on back porch of Gram's trailer. Cassie presses her fist to her chest as if to calm the frantic thrumming inside, turns away from the window and tries to breathe, closes her ears and her mind to the legion of unknowns beyond her door. Her eyes, too, flutter shut, and she is countingâthe heartbeats beneath her palm, the number of turns the bus made before arriving here, the days since that snowy one in February when she felt the cramping beginâno. Her eyes fly open and the suitcase is still lying where she placed it. Getting settled means taking her things out, putting them away. She rushes to the side of the bed and struggles with the ancient latch until it finally pops open.
It takes Cassie exactly five minutes to unpack her suitcase, even with carefully folding and organizing her shirts on one side of the drawer, sweaters on the other, pants in the second long drawer beside two pairs of shorts she has never worn. Underwear she lays in one of the top smaller drawers with her extra bra. Her socks and her one pair of nylons go in the other. She has two dresses but can't decide what to do with them. Finally, she leaves them in the battered suitcase, along with a pair of black slip-on dress shoes and the two plastic headbands she used to like, one yellow, one pink, and slides it under the bed. This, she thinks, is everything she owns and wonders, if she got rid of these clothes who she would be.
She sits down directly above the suitcase and opens her pocketbook, withdrawing a compact she took from a drawer in Gram's bathroom. The worn clasp is a comfort to her, the way it still flips open with enthusiasm when she presses the little gold button just as it always has. When she was younger, she liked to dab the crumbled powder onto her face, breathe in the deep perfumey smell of her grandmother's youth, or at least middle age, but now she just gazes into the tiny, smudgy mirror. She is checking for herself, almost surprised to see the same brown eyes blinking back at her, the same straight brown hair that frames her round face and ends in a wispy tail at her waist. She watches that girl look away and then back again, examines the ridges of her nose, the slight bump at the end, the place where her lip dips like the top of a Valentine heart.
That one girl at the Center had said to her, “You might be pretty if you weren't fat.”
The womanâDonnaâhad asked if she needed anything. Cassie had shaken her head, having no idea what that might be. Now she wishes she had asked if she has to stay in this room until they call her, even if she is done “getting settled.” She wonders if they will check her unpacking, if they inspect the room like at the detention center, shine flashlights across her face to be sure she's in bed.
She is startled by a light tap on the door.
“Cassie?”
“Yes?”
“Um, may I come in?”
Cassie gets up and opens the door.
“Would you like to come down for dinner?”
Cassie didn't know it was an option. Maybe she will just stay here. But Donna is holding the door open, standing back, clearly expecting Cassie to follow.
Yes, it is like detention. Asking a question is just another way of telling you what to do.
I
T'S NOT HUNGER
that has drawn Lauren to the dining room but curiosity. She didn't quite expect the large dining room table, a festive tablecloth covering its expanse, the lit candles flickering in the center, china plates with a repeating blue and gold pattern scalloping the edges at each place. Though the table is lovely, she is secretly gratified that the contrived mood-setting fails to penetrate the demeanor of the people gathered around it. The other girls are already seated, but Grace is the only one of the adults at the table, her plate pushed aside to make room for a paperback book she holds open with one hand, her other hand running through her cropped hair. Clattering can be heard from the kitchen, just on the other side of a doorway that stands open, wafting cooking odors and a current of slightly warmer air into the dining room. Lauren sits rigidly alert as Ellie and Donna appear through the doorway carrying a full and steaming bowl or platter in each hand. Once the women are seated, Lauren distractedly takes each dish as it is handed to her while putting almost nothing on her plate, dutifully lifts her fork but barely touches it to her food.
Lauren looks up when the woman Ellie seems to be addressing her.
“All settled in?” she asks with exaggerated cheer, her voice pitched as for a toddler. Lauren nods, doesn't think this inane question requires an answer.
“We didn't know if you guys would be starving or too nervous to eat.” Lauren has no answer for that either since it's not really a question anyway. Maybe if she keeps her face down, Ellie will just talk to someone else.
After a moment, Lauren sees Ellie considering Cassie, but Cassie has her head and shoulders slumped so far over her food that Lauren thinks she might get some rice stuck to the end of her nose. Ellie finally just turns to Donna on her other side, says something about the food. Whatever it is, it gets the two of them chattering like they haven't seen each other for a long time and are desperate to catch up.