Part 18 (1/2)

Then there was the loud sudden crack of a slap and a high female yelp of pain.

I burst out of the bathroom in time to see Becka sprawled on the floor with a pink splotch spreading on one side of her face. She leaped to her feet with a shriek of inarticulate fury and went for my brother with her nails in front of her like an irate cat. Without thinking I jumped between those bright red claws and my brother's face and threw up my arms to stop her.

”Get out of my way!” she screamed. She grabbed me by the shoulders and threw me against the nearest wall. I fell heavily and grunted in pain. Before I knew what was happening I was covered in Becka, enraged and vicious: her nails at my eyes, her hands in my hair, her tiny sharp shoes stabbing my thighs as she kicked at me.

Then Jack was on her. I heard two more slaps in quick succession, and then he tore her away from me and held her back by her upper arms.

Becka's nose was bleeding. ”I want you out of my house,” she spat at me through the blood. ”I want you out of my house now. This is my house.”

”Becka,” Jack said, his voice cruel and composed. ”Calm down.”

She wheeled around to face him. ”You too! Out! You think 'cause you're a good f.u.c.k I'm gonna let you walk all over me? You snake! You a.s.shole! You hitter!” Her face was purple with rage.

”You're right, Becka.” Jack was still calm. ”I shouldn't have hit you. But you shouldn't have said that about Josie.”

”Oh, I know. She's just a kid, isn't she? Innocent as can be, doesn't know nothing-well, I know exactly what she knows, I know enough to know that-but she's just a kid, she's not a cheap twisted little wh.o.r.e-”

Then he hit her again, with his fist this time. She fell to her knees, holding her face, and burst into a storm of tears.

”No,” he said. ”She's my sister.”

Then he came over and helped me up. ”Okay?” His voice was gentle.

I rubbed my thighs where they were beginning to bruise and nodded numbly. Becka was howling, letting loose great violent wails of frustration and pain. She sounded as if her heart was breaking. Maybe it was.

”Get your stuff.” Jack's face was grim.

Becka jumped up and ran into the bathroom, slamming the door hard behind her.

”Get your stuff,” he said again.

Outside of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, the bus that we were riding to New York began to make sick coughing noises. When we got to the bus stop, a wretched little cubicle tucked away in a sprawling, almost deserted strip mall, the driver told us that we were going to have to wait for a replacement bus, which would come from Harrisburg. It might be a while, he said. It might be hours.

The dingy little waiting room had two rows of hard plastic chairs that faced each other in one corner. The air was chilly and stale with air conditioning. We sat down to wait. We'd only been sitting there a few minutes when Jack got up and went to the restroom.

When he came back, he dropped back into his chair. ”Eleven hundred, including the three hundred Michael gave me last night.”

I knew he was talking about the fat roll of money that he'd saved while he lived with Becka. He'd gone to the bathroom to count it. ”That's not so bad,” I said.

”It is in New York,” he said. ”You know what we got the most for? That charm bracelet of yours. It was vintage, or something.”

”You sold it?”

Jack nodded. ”Hungry?”

I was too full of mine it was mine you sold it and it was mine to think about food. ”I guess so,” I said.

”Tough luck. We are embarking on hard times, my darling. You want a candy bar out of the machine?”

Mine, I thought. It was mine. ”I'll pa.s.s,” I said, ”but thanks loads.” My voice sounded normal.

”Anything for you.” He stretched out across a row of lime green chairs and rested his head on my thigh. Throwing an arm over his eyes, he didn't say anything else for a long time.

The waiting room was air-conditioned, but the sun streaming in through the smeared plate-gla.s.s windows was hot. As the afternoon wore on, the squares of sunlight on the floor came closer and closer to where I was sitting until they were directly on top of me. Soon the backs of my thighs were sticking to the plastic. I was stiff and sore where Becka had kicked me.

I wasn't sure if Jack was really asleep or pretending, so I tried to keep still. I started to count flecks. There were flecks everywhere I looked. Blue flecks in the green chairs. Yellow flecks in the orange chairs. Gray flecks in the white linoleum. The windows were streaked and spotted with brownish grime. A man in uniform came in and talked to the woman behind the counter for a long time. I listened to the way that they flattened and twisted their words out of shape, and I tried to ignore my legs.

Eventually I couldn't sit still anymore. My legs were aching and buzzing for motion and I needed to move. I shook Jack's shoulder until he woke up.

Irritated, he wouldn't answer any of my questions about New York-where we were going to stay, or how long we were going to live there. I told him that his personality was improved by unconsciousness and he said, ”Next time don't f.u.c.king wake me up then.”

I quit talking to him. He stared straight ahead, out the plate-gla.s.s windows. There was a vaguely disgusted look on his face. I'd never felt so lonely.

7.

MANY HOURS LATER I opened my eyes and found myself staring at a half-naked, too thin girl with incredibly dirty hair that might have been blond a long time ago, when it was clean.

Ah, I thought, only a little surprised by my lack of surprise. Mirrors on the ceiling. Trust my brother.

I had only faint memories of the night before, of climbing off the bus and walking for what seemed like miles along brightly lit streets until we came to a dimly lit stairway. I remembered standing behind a man in a silver s.h.i.+rt and a woman whose high black boots shone as brightly as her sequined dress, and I remembered telling Jack, as we followed a soiled carpet down the hall to our room, that they must have been to a costume party that night. He told me that I had a lot to learn; I told him I'd learn it tomorrow; then I used the bathroom, took off the clothes I'd been wearing for the past thirty hours, and went to sleep.

We were in New York City, in a hotel room. The shower was running.

I sat up in bed and examined my surroundings. The shade on the room's one window was pulled all the way up, but the light in the room was dim and pale. I could barely make out the only other piece of furniture in the room, a combination TV/VCR standing on a metal cabinet. There wasn't room for anything else. There was barely room to walk around the edges of the bed.

The shower stopped running and Jack came into the room, wrapped in a towel so small that he might as well have skipped it. ”Like the room?”

”Great.”

He sat down on the edge of the bed. Of course he did; there was nowhere else to sit. ”Don't panic. It's not permanent.”

”Great,” I said again. ”What's the permanent solution?”

”We look for a place. Like we've always talked about doing.”

”Then what?”

”Then we hope we find one before our money runs out. This place only looks cheap.”

”When we find a place. Then what?”

”Christ, Josie, don't nag,” he said. So I knew that there was no ”then what.”

”I'm going to take a shower,” I said.

Jack was propped up against the wall, with his legs sprawling and the towel cast casually across his lap. He picked up the remote control and said nothing.