Peas and Carrots (5 page)

“I'm
four
!” Austin was indignant.

Mom said, “Austin, you
are
four. You can do a lot of things by yourself because you're a
big boy.
” She smoothed Austin's mutinous expression with her cheery-mommy voice. “Big boy, why don't you show Dess where the bathroom is, so she can wash her hands, please?”

“Come on.” Austin gave Dess an impatient look and stomped down the hall.

“Mom!” Hope whispered as Dess slouched after Austin. “What was that?”

“Let's give her some time, Hope.” Her mother refused to whisper. She reached into the cupboard, pulled out a can of dry formula, and continued making Jamaira's bottle. “We've had first-night adjustments with every foster child, hon. Don't let a little tension bother you.”

“But what about Austin?” Hope persisted. “Am I supposed to—”

“Are you done with that melon?” Hope's father breezed back into the kitchen, wiping his hands on his apron. “The chicken is almost ready. Let's go ahead and put everything on the table. It's nice out.”

“Hope, it'll be fine—don't worry about Austin. We'll all adjust. Be sure and bring a pitcher of water to the table, please.” Mom hurried her words, twisting to fasten the baby sling around her back, snuggling Jamaira's small body against her chest. “Russ, Dess might struggle a bit with that salad. Do you think I should—”

It'll be
fine
? Hope opened her mouth to protest, but her father interrupted. “She knows what it is. She'll cope,” he said, reaching for another set of tongs and grabbing the plate of melon. “Sweet, get Austin one of his plastic cups, will you?” He raised his voice. “To the table, folks. Let's eat!”

Apparently nobody around here has ever heard of barbecue sauce. The chicken tastes weird and has little twigs on it—rosemary, Mr. Carter says. His tub-of-lard daughter—oh, right, her name is Hope, or really
Hopeless
—scraped it off. Foster Lady isn't even eating the chicken—she's a vegetarian, she says—and she's balancing a bottle against her wrist, feeding the baby. Every other bite or so, she strokes its throat, trying to make it swallow or something. It keeps choking. Right now, a dribble of milk is running down the side of its neck.

That is straight nasty.

In the van, Foster Lady never shut up. She talked about Russell—Mr. Carter—and she talked about school—she just wants me to do my best—and about what she's adding to my clothing allowance, and about Mr. Bradbrook, who's coming on Thursday. She told me how she knows this might not be easy, with a new school and adjusting to a new “family,” and that she'll do her best to meet me halfway and be flexible. Blah, blah, blah—all the things that these foster people are paid to say.

Then she was all “Kindness is the only rule in this family,” and I just rolled my eyes. Kindness? That's not even a rule. Kindness doesn't say shit about how late I can stay out and what time I have to get up in the morning. Kindness isn't nothing about when to do laundry or how long I can take a shower. I wanted to say that, but I didn't. No point pissing her off the first day.

“I can see by the look on your face that I might have lost you,” Foster Lady told me, and then she laughed. “It's easier than it sounds, Dess—before you choose words or actions, think about kindness. Speak with kindness or choose not to speak. Act with kindness or wait to act. Just slow down and think of kindness. That's the rule we want to live by.”

Huh. Well, nobody told
Baby
about that rule. I tried to hold his hands under the water and make him wash long enough to get off all the germs, but he wouldn't. He screeched and jerked his hands, and I got water on me everywhere.

Little brat. I thought he'd be, you know,
nice.
Like, cute, like all the kids on YouTube that dance and know their states or stuff. All Baby wants to do is yell at me that he's big.

Baby makes me feel like I'm stupid, like I don't know how to be with him. He's my brother, and he won't let me touch him. He lets that cow of a girl, though. She wiped his hands—country cow Hopeless didn't think I washed them right—and sat him in his booster seat and gave him a piece of melon, which he is driving around his plate instead of eating. He asked for a corn dog, but Mr. Carter shook his head and said something like “You get what you get, and you don't pitch a fit,” which I guess Baby understands, but I don't.

And,
jeez,
nobody would have kids if they saw them eat. Baby has melon juice on his face and, now that he's whining, maybe snot. Makes me want to puke.

“Dad-
deeee,
I want a corn dog,” Baby says again, winding up for a good cry.
Shut up, Baby,
I want to say. Trish hates crying. If she were here, she'd belt him one like she belted me for whining, but skinny little Mr. Carter just says, “I heard you the first time, kiddo. Maybe next time,” and pokes a tiny piece of chicken into Baby's mouth, which he chews and—ugh, finally—swallows. Now he's eating by himself, fork in one hand and picking through the mess on his plate with the other. I can't even look at him. He's
my
brother. How can he make me sick?

“Use your fork, Austin Matthews. You know the rules.” Across the table, Foster Lady shifts the little one onto her shoulder, patting her back so she'll burp. I hope she doesn't—I saw her burp when we picked her up at the nursery, and she spit milk all down the nursery lady's shoulder. I can't deal with that crap at the table.

“Mom, I'll take her,” Boring Girl says, and I'm surprised when Foster Lady says thanks and hands her over, just like that. Nobody would give me a sick baby to hold.

Not that I want anybody's baby, sick or whatever. I don't need that drama.

Foster Lady gets more salad and talks to Mr. Carter while the girl cuddles the baby. The baby's little mouth is all pooched up, trying to suck at nothing, but when Hope tries the bottle again, she doesn't suck. “You all done?” Hope wipes the baby's mouth with the little burp cloth and shifts her elbow under her head, holding her like a newborn. The baby's muddy-green eyes roll back in her head. Her little back arches, and Hope holds her closer, rubbing a thumb across the baby's forehead. “Hold on. I've got you,” she says. “It's okay, I've got you.”

“You're supposed to make sure she doesn't bite her tongue,” I blurt out.

The girl looks up at me, her eyes all wide. “What?”

“When people have seizures. You're supposed to make sure they don't bite their tongues and choke. Don't you know anything?” I can feel Mr. Carter and Foster Lady looking over at us.

Hope's voice goes really, really quiet. “She doesn't have any teeth, Dess.”

“I know that,” I say, feeling red creep up my neck. I did. I
knew
that, obviously. She's a baby, duh. But Hopeless was just sitting there, not
doing
anything. At least I would have
done
something.

Hopeless clears her throat and looks up at me with these quick little glances. “Um, her seizures are really short, and you don't have to do anything. They…they don't hurt. Her brain isn't developed enough to allow her to feel much pain, so she doesn't know it's happening. Um, do you want to hold her?” Hope's voice is still that quiet.

I sputter. “Oh, eff
that
noise. I— Eww, she's puking.”

Hope's mouth gets tight. She swabs up more strings of spitty milk that are leaking from the corner of the baby's mouth. “It's not puke—it's just dribble. She's not that good at swallowing.”

My gut plunges. Well, hell. She's going to die, then. That's what Foster Lady was trying to tell me before. If her brain's “calcifying”—turning to calcium, like chalk or bones—and she can't even eat right, the baby's going to die. That is straight messed up. Why's Hope gotta sit with
a dying baby
right there at the table?

Why are these people so crazy?

“You're okay, Maira,” Hope says in a singsong voice. “You're a sweet girl.”

The smile is back. The baby's eyes are a little bit crossed, like she can't really focus, but she's smiling, big as anything, her little pink gums showing.

She likes Hopeless. And Mr. Carter. She likes voices, and she smiles whenever she hears them. Babies always think you're talking to them, and if you yell, they think you're hollering at them, too.

Baby used to cry every time the Felon—the man Trish says is my father, Eddie Griffiths—came over. The Felon straight hated Baby, since Baby wasn't his kid, and he was always yelling at Trish to shut him up. His tattooed hands never even touched him, but Baby knew even then that that man was no good. I bet he would have known if his own father was okay, if Trish had ever remembered who he was. Babies know stuff.

As I watch Jamaira, I suddenly remember being in a Laundromat with Trish. There was another little girl there, with metal fillings in her front teeth and a ponytail and little heeled cowboy boots. Her mother had a baby, too, just as brown as our Baby, but with a little shock of straight black hair. I remember Trish put Baby on the washer, and when it spun, he smiled big like that, with all his gums showing, like the washer was putting on a show, just for him.

Across from me, Jamaira's eyes roll up in her head again. I turn away fast.

Hopeless clears her throat. “Um…so, you have nice hair.”

“What? Oh. Thanks.” I glance over at Baby, who has actually cleaned his plate. I check out the grass and the little sandbox under the tree and the fence around the pool, making sure to look at anything but Jamaira. How long does a seizure take?

“Is that your natural hair color?”

I scowl. What does she care?

Down the table, Foster Lady is watching. She smiles.

“Mostly,” I mutter, instead of
What makes it your business?
like I want to.

“It's a lot different than Austin's.”

She has my full attention now. I narrow my eyes. “Yeah? What's your point?”

Hopeless looks away. “Um…nothing. I just was thinking, now that you've pulled your hair back, how much you two look alike, except for your coloring and your hair.”

“Baby and me don't look alike.”

She shrugs. “I can see you have the same eyes and the same shape of face.”

Now I want to stare into a mirror and make Baby stand next to me until I can see it. Until I can tell. I always thought I didn't look like anybody—not Trish, not Granny Doris, not anybody. It makes me feel weird to think we could be alike. Me and Baby, with his soft brown skin and his Charlie Brown head.

A shout comes from inside the house. “Rob-
bee
! You guys out back?”

“Enry!” Austin bellows, wriggling down from his seat.

“Wait a minute, buddy. Wipe your hands,” Foster Lady says, grabbing a paper napkin and dunking it in her glass of water. She barely gets the kid de-smeared before he's sprinting toward the house, little arms and legs churning.

“Enry! Un' Tenry!” he screams, and I don't know what that even means. And then, just before he gets to the sliding glass door, he trips over nothing at all and goes flying.

“Baby!”
I'm up out of my seat and halfway across the lawn.

But Baby's on his feet again, body-slamming into an absolute god who looks like a cross between that guy on the Lakers—yummy tall—and a model from a magazine. “Tenry!” Baby shouts, and wraps his arms around the guy's legs. “I have a new sister.”

Day-um.
I take two wobbly-legged steps back toward the table.

“You do, huh?” Hottie picks up Baby and looks him over. “You all right, brah? You fall like a boss, man.”

“Let me down,” Baby orders him. “Come see.”

“All right, man, all right,” the god says, and he swings Baby back and forth before setting him on the ground next to the table. He thumps Mr. Carter's shoulder and leans across the table to kiss Foster Lady. A medal on a silver chain swings from his collar.

“S'up, Russ. Robbi.”

Foster Lady pats him on the arm. “Dess Matthews, this is my brother, Henry Larsen, who somehow manages to show up every time there's food on the table. Henry, this is Dess Matthews, our new foster daughter.”

“It's not like
you're
going to eat the chicken,” Henry protests to Foster Lady while grabbing a drumstick and setting it on a napkin. He wipes his hands on his jeans and extends one to me. “Nice to meet you. Dess, is it?”

Henry.
Henry.
Wow. I'm standing there, still staring like a loser. I force myself to shake his hand and nod, unable to speak while looking at his beautiful eyes. He has earrings in both ears, and barely any hair; it's even shorter than Mr. Carter's. I look at his hands. No rings. Thick, blunt fingers. Scars on his wrist. No tattoos. Ripped.

He sits across the table from me, but even that far away, I can smell him. He smells…kind of like soap and wood polish, all lemony and spicy, the way the cologne counter at the mall smells. He lifts the chicken to his mouth to take a bite, and I zero in on his arms—muscles clearly defined. The man is a dime, the full ten, smokin' hot,
hot.

“Thanks for getting my girl,” Foster Lady is saying, and Henry nods, chewing. Even the muscles in his jaw are amazing.

He swallows and says, “No problem, Rob,” then says to Hope, “I came to see if you needed me to bust you out of here.”

He and Hope laugh at their private joke; then Foster Lady says something, and they laugh some more. Hope's sitting so close, she's practically in his lap.