Getting Somewhere (21 page)

T
HE WOMEN ARE
far ahead on the path, their heads leaning in close to each other, their hands gesturing in a whole other language to accompany the words that Sarah can't hear.

She is walking slowly, still conserving her limited energy, but Cassie is walking beside her, wearing the new swimming suit with one of the blue tank tops over it. Sarah is sorry to see that up ahead, Lauren has stopped, is waiting for them.

Sarah quickly says, before Lauren can hear, “She broke the rules for you.”

Cassie stops and turns to her. Her face looks a little stricken.

Sarah laughs. “No, it's a good thing. She wanted you to have clothes that fit you and, you know, be able to swim and stuff.”

Cassie still isn't walking. “Do you have a swimsuit?”

Sarah is now shaking her head. “Cassie. Stop. This is a good thing. Has anyone ever given you a gift before? You're supposed to be happy about it.”

“I am but I feel bad if they didn't get you anything.”

“I'm sure they would if I needed it. I just don't need anything right now. Did you know that you look like a fashion model or something? Even with the saggy butt on your brand-new Goodwill swimsuit.” Sarah is laughing gaily.

“Like a what?”

But, by now, Lauren has backtracked to join them, asks, “What are you guys laughing about?”

Sarah starts to move around Lauren, shrugs. “Nothing.”

Lauren looks at Cassie suspiciously. “Holy shit, girl. What happened to you? Where did you get that stuff, the new clothes?”

Cassie has started forward, too, glances at Sarah with a pleading look in her eyes.

Sarah jumps in. “They have a budget for this sort of thing, necessary items, you know. Cassie didn't have
appropriate
clothes”—and Sarah enunciates the word with precise exaggeration—“so they got some for her. Why would you care anyway?”

“That's total bullshit. She's just Ellie's little pet. Better watch out, Cassie. You don't know what she might want in return.”

“Okay, Lauren,” Sarah hisses.

“And you know,” Lauren continues, approaching Cassie and speaking barely inches from her face, “you'd have to give everything back if this got reported. They're not allowed to buy special little gifts for their special little pets, and Ellie would be in big trouble if anybody found out about it and maybe so would you. If I were you, I'd make absolutely sure nobody was tempted to report anything about this, wouldn't you?”

Sarah can't take it anymore. “Lauren, do you think you could shut up for once? It's a beautiful day. We're going swimming at the river. Why do you have to keep trying to hurt these people who care about us? Can't you be happy about one fucking thing?”

Lauren seems totally undaunted. “No, I can't. I can't be happy about being here for one stupid second. Maybe you can be a mindless slave and enjoy it but not me. And I don't give a holy shit about these people. I don't care about them, and you've got to be kidding if you actually think they care about us. Not in any way
I'm
interested in, that's for sure. All I see when I look around here is work.”

Sarah steps back toward Lauren, is surprising herself with her own furor. “You know what's weird? You're right. We are here to work. But the work we're really supposed to be doing, you can't see at all, you haven't even
started
yet.”

Sarah knows that, in some skewed way, her anger is misdirected. She is mostly angry at herself, for going along with Lauren, for taking her pills, for helping even slightly in her sabotage of the program. Ever since this morning, Sarah has been more jittery than ever, feels like her legs, her own mind, and certainly her actions, are beyond her control. She has to get away from Lauren, wishes she never had to see her again. She starts to march away, then realizes she has left Cassie behind, that she is still standing on the path looking stunned.

Sarah yells, louder than necessary, “Hey, Cassie, want to race?”

Cassie walks around Lauren with her head down, whispers to Sarah, “You're still sick.”

“I don't care. Let's go.” And they run, leaving Lauren walking slowly toward the bridge, shaking her head.

Sarah is completely winded when they arrive at the creek, even wonders if she should try to get back to the house, lie down some more.

Cassie peers at her out of the corner of her eye, knits her brow, and looks ahead to see if the women are still in view but they have turned into the woods.

“Do you want to keep going?” she asks.

Sarah nods, says, “Sure,” with a brightness she doesn't feel. She's pretty certain she can make it to the swimming hole, can sit down there.

By the time they arrive, Ellie has already climbed the wooden ladder that leans against the giant cottonwood and is reaching for the rope with the special tool Grace's grandpa designed for the purpose, a hook that looks like it has been made out of a garden rake. Sarah is ready to collapse by now and is just about to sit down on the log bench beside the river when Lauren walks up behind her.

Neither of them says anything as Lauren spreads the towel she has brought along over the log, stretching her legs in front of her to catch the dappled sunlight filtering through the tree tops above them. Sarah changes her mind then about sitting down, wanders down to the river and steps into the water, wading in up to her knees, all while trying to recover her breath, slow her ragged heartbeat. She thinks about sitting down right here, in the water, but is afraid she wouldn't be able to get back up, so she locks her hips and knees in a standing position and tries to ignore the weakness, the feeling that her bones are ready to bend under her weight like a green willow branch.

Both Donna and Cassie are watching as Ellie grasps the rope, hangs the hook on a wire loop attached to the top of the ladder, and then places both hands on the rope, positioning the knot at the bottom to hang beside her feet so she can step on to it when she is ready to let go. There is a moment when her feet are leaping from the ladder and her hands are letting go that Sarah is sure she will fall, plunge into the river along the bank where the water is too shallow, lie in a crumpled heap that Sarah wishes she wasn't imaging. She shuts her eyes tightly, and when she opens them again, Ellie is flying over the river, and then drops, her feet meeting the surface of the sparkling water and disappearing, her hair spreading behind her. Sarah watches, waiting, needs her to come up and it is taking too long, and then Ellie emerges, blinking the water out of her eyes.

Sarah is telling herself that this is nothing like the High Street Bridge. The water here isn't brown, and there won't be something floating down that you don't want to know what it is. The kid who called himself Fagin said they once found a dead body, that it got wedged on one of the concrete bridge supports, all bloated and faceless, but Sarah didn't believe him. The High Street Bridge was where the old guys lived, the hard core homeless, most of them totally drugged out or completely crazy. The kids didn't mix with them, were even a little frightened by them, though they pretended not to be. Ty warned them to stay away, always insisting that the men there thought of the girl prostitutes as free for the taking.

Sarah doesn't know why they were down there that night. Maybe because they could feel the first hints of spring and were a little giddy from it, had the feeling that nothing bad could happen once the nights were no longer so cold that you had to give it up just for a warm place to sleep. It was like the river, however dirty and poisonous, was a place you needed to go, a ritual you needed to perform like dancing around the maypole or hunting for Easter eggs.

There were only about two or three guys under the bridge that night and there were more of them, the kids, maybe six or seven. They rarely hung out together in a group like that, because it attracted too much attention, lowered the chances of scoring, but they were daring and riding high that night.

Sarah was the one he approached. He said he'd scored, had actual money to pay her with and a hit besides. Even though he was missing most of his teeth and hadn't had a bath in like two hundred years, Sarah said yes.

It was the first time she and Shannon had ever argued. Shannon had whispered to Sarah that Ty was on her case, that she needed the money bad for him, the hit even worse. Sarah didn't want to go with him, knowing it would just be under a blanket since the guy had no room, but she didn't want to let Shannon do it either. She was jealous of Ty and her, she realizes now, didn't want Shannon to be the one to come back with the big score. So she'd said no. It turned out he didn't pay her after all, though he did have a hit she made him give her first. He told her it was all a lie, and she'd had to wait until he was asleep before she could fish a couple of wrinkled bills out of his pocket.

But that's why, the next night, she had pushed Shannon forward, made the guy take her, because she was feeling guilty that she'd acted so selfish even if it wasn't such a great deal after all. It wasn't until late the next day that they found her, some homeless kid Sarah didn't know running in and whispering to Ty that one of his girls had “got it” over by the warehouse on Seneca Boulevard. Ty didn't want Sarah to go, but she did anyway, screamed at Ty when he said there was nothing they could do, that it was the cops' business now. She rubs her arm, remembering how he had gripped it then, saying, “Leave it, Sarah. She's gone. She's not coming back,” not knowing that it was all Sarah's fault, that leaving it was something she would never be able to do.

Tyson didn't understand. It now occurs to Sarah that maybe he didn't even care. Shannon was expendable to him, a commodity. Does that mean that's how he actually thought of Sarah, too? And the others—were they just following Ty's lead or didn't they care either? Sarah feels her teeth chattering, the skin puckering on her arms, though the air is warm. She kicks at the water with all her strength.

The water gives her the creeps, makes her feel like something terrible is going to happen, and she has to prevent it. Sarah watches in terror and amazement as Cassie climbs the ladder like a monkey, repeats Ellie's actions exactly, and, within moments, she, too, is sailing over the river, letting go, slipping under, and coming back to the surface unscathed.

Sarah finally decides to sit down beside Lauren, unable to stand any longer, and Lauren just ignores her, for which she is grateful. She can tell that even Lauren is watching the swimmers, both of them amused as the antics become sillier, the jumps and screeches wilder, though Lauren is trying not to show it, her lips pinched together and her eyes hidden behind her sunglasses.

Finally, Ellie joins Sarah and Lauren on the log, still laughing, stretches her own legs out a little distance away from Lauren's.

“Don't want to try, Lauren?”

Sarah is always a little amazed at how brave Ellie is with Lauren, the risks she is willing to take, the chances she gives her to attack. This time though, Lauren doesn't grab the opportunity to tell them how dirty the river water must be or how unwilling she is to mess up her hair, just shakes her head and says no.

“What about you, Sarah? Think you'll want to try when you feel better?”

Sarah doesn't want to say that she is afraid of the water, so she asks, “Isn't it cold?”

Ellie laughs and nods her head. “At first, it's kind of a shock, but I guess that's part of the fun and you do get used to it.”

Sarah scoots back a bit on the log so she can't see Ellie, wonders if she'll ever be able to look her in the eye again. It just can't be possible that Lauren would be able to bring the program down no matter who she calls or what letters she sends. Certainly no judge will care that the women are lesbians and probably everyone already knows anyway. Plus, nobody will believe her. She's a criminal. People, especially judges, don't believe girls like Lauren.

Still, Sarah vows not to take any more pills from Lauren, realizes even more now what a stupid thing that was to do. Besides, the high was hardly worth it.

By now Donna and Cassie have come over, and Donna is looking at Sarah with a concerned expression and asks if everyone is ready to head back up to the house.

This time, they are all walking up slowly together. As they approach the yard, Sarah can see that the truck is in the driveway, backed up to the produce shed and already emptied of crates. Something is moving farther out in the driveway, near the road, and as they get closer, Sarah can see that it's someone on a bicycle. They all stop to watch while Jenna wobbles uncertainly on the seat, Grace with one hand on the handlebar closest to her and the other around Jenna's waist. They are laughing and exclaiming until the front tire appears to hit a stone in the drive, the bike twists like it has broken in half, and both Jenna and Grace teeter and tumble in a heap with the bicycle falling on top of them.

Ellie and Donna run forward and by the time Sarah and the other girls get there, Jenna and Grace are just catching their breath, mostly from what must have been laughter. Grace jumps up and grasps Ellie's arm.

“Remember me talking about a friend I used to have named Barbara Morgan?” Grace asks excitedly. “Well, we ran into her at the market, and she loaned Jenna this bike. Jenna's never ridden before, can you believe it?”

Ellie doesn't say anything, simply stares at the bike with a blank look on her face, seemingly avoiding making eye contact with either Jenna or Grace.

“So I'm teaching her,” Grace continues. “Isn't that great?” Grace is looking at Ellie with expectation, willing her to respond with the same enthusiasm, but Ellie seems to be having a little trouble dredging it up. Sarah wonders if Grace has thought about Ellie being worried that they were so late, if she remembered about the counseling session, if she noticed when they got back that no one was around, suddenly thinks maybe that's the reason Ellie wanted to go swimming in the first place, so it would look like they hadn't been waiting.