Tempest Rising (20 page)

C
larise was on the way back. More than a week since she’d gone hysterical over the girls, and her thinking was shimmering like an icicle catching the sun and making rainbows as it melts. The haze had lifted. Once she’d come back to awareness from that powerful injection they’d given her that Sunday afternoon, and realized that her first thoughts in the mornings were clear as spring water, and as the day progressed they went to cloudy, to mud, she finally made the connection that it was the Elavil pills. So she stopped taking the pills whenever she could. Only when they stood right over her, handed her water, and watched her swallow did she take the pills. Otherwise, especially if it was the morning shift nurse, who always rushed through Clarise’s room in her street shoes while her nurse’s shoes sat in the utility room sopping up the White-All shoe
polish, Clarise would hold the pills in her hands, wrap them in the napkin on her breakfast tray, and leave them to go out with the garbage.

Now it was Monday evening, and she sat in the patients’ lounge, knitting and figuring things out. She tried to keep a blank look to her eyes the way she guessed someone’s eyes would look who was actually swallowing all the pills handed her in the pleated paper container. She didn’t even allow her reaction to show as Emma, the silver-blue haired woman who occupied the room next to Clarise’s, began pointing wildly at the window in the patients’ lounge and flailing her arms up and down, saying that the moon was falling out of the sky and it was headed straight for the window. About once a week Emma spotted such catastrophes on the way to happening and the staff would be called to arms, rushing from whatever else they were doing to restrain Emma, get her back to her room, shoot her up with a stream of narcotics that had her smiling and nodding for days after. Clarise had taken note of the beatific expression on Emma’s face before she emerged from her smiling and nodding state of mind. She would imitate that expression later this evening during her session with the psychiatrist; maybe he’d okay her full visiting privileges again. She had missed the aunts’ and uncles’ daylong stays, which had been reduced down to fifteen minutes twice a day after her ranting session the week before. And she certainly understood why the aunts and uncles had lied to her about the girls, knew that
the wall separating the aunts and uncles from the girls must have been impenetrable or surely her aunt Til would have knocked it down by now with her sledgehammer will. So she didn’t waste her clarity of thought bemoaning what was done and for the moment unchangeable. Nor did she try to guess where the girls might be. Of course they were alive, well too, she told herself. By law they couldn’t with-old drastic information about the girls from their own mother, she was sure of that. Plus, if she dwelled too much on the dearth of information she had about their whereabouts, she feared she’d drive herself right into another fit of hysteria and they’d shoot her full of that liquid that caused that black, gumbo-textured screen to fall all around her that let in only a pinhole of ether. So right now as she clicked her knitting needles which sounded melodious even against the backdrop of Emma’s screams about the moon falling, resounding through the hallway as Emma was being carried back to her room, Clarise counted the rows of knit and purl stitches she had to do yet before her bright purple shawl was completed. She yawned and settled back deeper in the chair and calmly knitted while she planned her escape.

C
larise wasn’t the only one planning an escape. Shern was too. Right now she was in the small bedroom at Mae’s, undoing the catch on the trunk to pull out extra leotards and sweaters because an un
seasonal March snowstorm had been forecast. It was just past one in the morning, and she felt unclasped for a change, a range of motion in her muscles and her feelings that was unusual for her in this house. She had moved the small table lamp to the floor to cast just a smattering of light from down low to guide her fast-moving hands, and suddenly the light shooting upward rounded the hard, angular lines of that room and opened it up some. Victoria and Bliss were snoring lightly, and their rhythmic breaths were settling to her as she worked as quickly and quietly as she could. She was judicious about what she packed; they would need to move like lightning through the night air, and she didn’t want them to be too loaded down. Plus she and Bliss would need to take turns helping Victoria, she was still limping so.

“Just a little infection,” Mae had said that afternoon when she’d finally gotten in after that el ride from the clinic with Victoria hobbling behind her. “The doctor gave her penicillin pills and said she’s got to keep that leg elevated at night.” Mae had fixed her lazy eye on Shern as she gave the doctor’s report. “So I’m trusting you to do that, dumpling.” She had squeezed Shern’s chin when she said it. “You girls not gonna be able to sleep all huddled on that one little bed with your sister needing to keep that leg raised, okay, sugarplum?”

Victoria had protested when Shern tucked her into the other twin bed. Said that she wanted to sleep with Shern and Bliss. Shern had consoled her,
though, persuaded her by reminding her how close the beds were in that tiny room. “All you have to do is stretch good and you’ll be able to touch me in the other bed.”

Now Shern was lining up their shoes in front of the velvet green couch; she laid a sock on each shoe. She almost started humming, the way she’d hum at home when she did some big-sisterly-type thing, like match three pair of ribbons for their hair, or spoon out the ice cream into the three bowls that she lined up neatly on the counter, or get their Sunday School money from their mother’s purse, three quarters that she’d place one each on top of their Sunday gloves. She stopped herself from humming here, too incongruent a thing to do in this house. She couldn’t stop the electricity in her bones, though. She was excited to be getting ready to steal away from here. They would take the bus that stopped at Sixtieth Street at 2:00
A.M
. to three blocks from the aunts and uncles. She had planned it out so well too, without a mention to Bliss and Victoria. Just like how she hadn’t mentioned to them Addison’s violation earlier that afternoon, when he’d trapped her in that shed.

She put a sweater and pair of corduroy pants for each of them on the green couch right above the shoes and socks. She wanted the clothes they would put on shortly to be organized so that they could get dressed while they argued. She knew they would argue. Especially she and Bliss. She had actually considered letting them in on her plan earlier as they
got ready for bed and even as they took turns crying the way they still cried some nights before they fell asleep. She didn’t. Thought it best to wake them quickly, tell them to be quiet and put the clothes on. Perhaps in their fogginess they might not even protest.

She started with Bliss.

“Go where?” Bliss said it so loudly Shern had to cup her hand over her mouth.

“To the aunts and uncles!” Shern put her mouth to Bliss’s ear and pushed the words in as hard as she could.

“We can’t just leave here,” Bliss said as she struggled with Shern to uncover her mouth. She grabbed a bit of the skin of Shern’s palm and held it between her teeth.

“Ouch, you didn’t have to bite me,” Shern snarled.

“Well, you didn’t have to try to smother me.”

“Keep your voice down then, or I will smother you for real. Now get up and get dressed while I help Victoria get up.”

“You must didn’t hear me.” Bliss flung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up and attempted to whisper. “We can’t just leave here. They’ll find us; then they’ll tag us runaways; they might even throw us in the Youth Study Center.”

Shern had considered that possibility. But she had to take the risk now while she could still walk from here with her knees facing forward, before Addison forced her knees apart and left her waddling in cir
cles like a confused, violated duck. “By the time they find us,” she said forcefully, “Mommie will be better and we’ll be back home.”

Shern could see even through the light of the low-sitting lamp that Bliss’s eyes were brimming over in disbelief that Shern had concocted such a plan.

“And how are we supposed to get there, Einstein?” Bliss had heard Mae use that expression with Ramona. She thought it was funny then; it wasn’t funny now.

“On the bus.”

“The bus?”

“Yes, the bus. I have my milk money from the past month wrapped up in a sock under the mattress. I called the PTC from the phone booth on the corner while you were jumping rope. The last bus that takes us within two blocks of the aunts and uncles leaves at two
A.M
.”

“And where we supposed to catch this bus?”

“On Sixtieth Street.”

“And how are we supposed to get out of this house with nobody knowing?”

“That’s why we have to go now. Ramona’s asleep, Mae’s out gambling, and who knows where that—that—” She couldn’t say his name or even utter a substitute for his name. She looked at her hands through the lamplight. “We just have to hurry.”

“And how’s Tore supposed to run? I’m sure you figured out in all of your figuring that we’ll probably have to do some running.”

“We’ll just have to help her.” She moved to the bed where Victoria was curved except for her hurt leg, which looked straight and stiff resting atop one of the pillows from the green velvet couch. “Victoria.” She sat on the side of the bed and whispered into Victoria’s ear. “Come on, wake up, and be very quiet.”

“Wha—” Victoria sat straight up and then grimaced and stretched to bring her leg down from the pillow. She let out a small moan.

“Unhunh,” Bliss said. “She’s really gonna be able to tiptoe on out of here tonight quietly. I guess she’ll be able to leap over tall buildings in a single bounce too, huh, Shern?”

Shern reached over to the other bed and punched Bliss on the shoulder with all the strength she could call. “Just stop being so contrary,” she almost yelled. “And stop saying ‘huh’ and ‘unhunh.’ That’s why Mommie almost yanked your head off that Tuesday night.”

Bliss starting crying. “You didn’t have to hit me,” she said. “And you didn’t have to hurt my feelings reminding me of that night. You’re mean, Shern, just plain old mean.”

“Tiptoe out of here?” Victoria was sitting with both feet on the floor now, and she leaned her weight on her hands. “What’s going on?”

“Go ahead.” Bliss sniffed. “Tell her about your brilliant scheme to run away from here.”

“Run away?” It was Victoria’s turn to look at Shern in disbelief. “Run away to where? How? Run away?”

“Thank you, Tore.” Bliss stood in front of Shern with her arms folded. “That was exactly my question. But big sister here has this grand idea that we can get out of here unnoticed and make it to Sixtieth Street to get on a bus that’s supposed to take us to the aunts and uncles.”

“Shern, are you serious?” Victoria asked it without the sarcasm.

“Does it look like I’m playing?”

“You might as well be playing,” Bliss said as she went over and sat on the bed next to Shern. “I think it’s a stupid idea, and you’re dumb and stupid for suggesting it.”

“I don’t know, Shern,” Victoria said slowly. “It might not be the best idea. I mean, what about when they come looking for us, have you thought about that part of it?”

“Yes, I thought about that part of it. I’ve thought about every part of it, from getting on the bus to how much I want to feel Aunt Til’s arms around me. I mean, I have everything packed and all organized. Do you think I would have suggested it if I’d thought it wouldn’t work or if it was like we could be harmed?” Shern’s voice shook as she looked from one sister to the other staring at her through the light coming from the floor like she was a lunatic or, worse, a fool. She wasn’t a fool. She thought she was being the oldest, the decision maker, the action taker. She was proud of herself, had even felt a fragment of something that approached happiness in this house as she’d arranged for their escape. And
now they were staring at her and just snatching her swatch of happiness right from her. Didn’t they know what would happen to her if she stayed? Didn’t they even care? Bliss had her buddy Tyrone; Victoria and Ramona were like girlfriends. Whom did she have? Mae with her drooping eye? Addison with his snake of a thing that he couldn’t wait to ram inside her? She hated both Victoria and Bliss right now. Was so angry at their selfishness that she just wanted to mash her hands into both of their staring, disbelieving faces.

“Then don’t go, you little selfish bitches.” She cried the words out and picked up the neatly packed double-handled shopping bag and dumped it on the floor by the green velvet couch.

“Oh, no, you didn’t.” Bliss ran up behind Shern and grabbed the back of the neckline of Shern’s lace-trimmed flannel pajama top. “I know you, Miss perfect-grammared, never curses, gonna-remind-someone-what-Mommie-said-about-them, didn’t just call us bitches.”

Shern pulled away from Bliss, and the lacy neckline of her pajama top made a searing sound as it ripped along the back. “See what you did.” Shern turned around and knocked Bliss to the floor right on top of the bag of dumped-over clothes.

Bliss kicked up at Shern again and again, and then Shern was all over her, and they were both kicking up the dark air in that bedroom and making slapping sounds and saying “ouch” and “you bitch” this and “you bitch” that.

Victoria tried to get to them, to break it up. She was crying now too. “Stop it. Have you gone crazy? Just stop it.” Before she could hobble to where they were, a rush of bright yellow light pushed into the room like a missile landing and fell right over Shern and Bliss.

Ramona was behind the light as she pushed the door all the way opened and walked in the room. “What the hell is happening in here?” she said. She clicked the switch on the wall, and the low lamplight retreated completely under the beds. She ran straight to Victoria, who was sobbing in the middle of the room, pointing to her sisters, crying, “Make them stop, Ramona. Please make them stop fighting.”

“Wait, wait, are you all right? Come on, first let’s get you off of that leg,” Ramona said as she guided Victoria back to the bed. “And they are gonna stop fighting, hell, yeah, they are. Because if they don’t, I’ll have to get in it, and if I have to get in it, both their behinds gonna be kicked to kingdom Kong.”