Almost Home Read online

  I try to bend over, grab my waist and curl around it, not caring that they might jump on me again; but Julia and the redhead grab my wrists and stand me up, hold my arms behind my back so hard it feels like my shoulder blades overlap, and they turn me toward Mike and Marco and the guys. The guys are laughing, hitting each other and staring at me; I can’t even tell what they’re yelling. About a thousand different things. The snot is salty in my mouth, my neck and chin sticky with tears. I feel like a dog pinned to the ground by a pack of bigger ones, my stomach fat and naked, like all they’d have to do is dig in and I’d be dead.

  But then the fingernails pull out of my skin and the knuckles loosen around my wrists and the laughing gets quieter, like a car stereo driving away, and I crumple down to the ground and no one stops me. When I open my eyes the girls are all clustered up by the guys, picking up their backpacks, backs to me. I wait to look at them till I can tell from the corners of my eyes that they’re headed somewhere else, and I wait to pull my clothes on till they’re closer to the somewhere else than they are to me.

  The lot’s almost empty, except a couple seniors smoking by their cars and the after-school monitor, whistle around her neck like a gym teacher, so far on the other side of the lot that she’s just a little pinprick dot. Linda always says to call her if I miss the bus, but I’m sure she’s In a Meeting and if she’s not her first question will be what I did to be so late and I am not ever ever telling her why I missed the bus today, not ever. I’m thinking about walking, even though I’m about to puke and my eyes are so bloodshot the veins in them actually hurt, when I feel someone standing there again. I pull my breath in and hold it, ready for Julia or Jenny or the redhead, but then nothing happens so I look up. It’s Tracy.

  “Come on,” she says. “I’m not supposed to be on school property.” I don’t know what she’s talking about but somehow I know if I do what she says it’ll be better.

  I wipe the snot off from above my mouth and then go for my eyes. I don’t know what Tracy saw and what she didn’t so if there’s any way I can look like less of a pathetic dork I’m gonna try. But then she says “Come on” again like she thinks it’s way more lame that I’m wiping my face off than she does that I was crying. I leave the rest of the wet on my face. When I stand up I get a head rush and my stomach flops over inside and everything goes spotty and black. Before I even realize I’m about to fall down I think: shit I can’t fall on my ass in front of Tracy, and get this panicky feeling like right before Julia started running toward me. But Tracy just grabs my arm and even though I practically weigh twice as much as her she holds me up, even when I get dizzy again and lean all the way into her hand.

  Then the head rush goes away and I stand up straight but Tracy’s still holding on to my arm. Her fingers feel like they’re made only out of bones with no skin or anything around them but somehow they’re strong. She pulls on me and starts walking and I follow.

  Once we’re off the parking lot and across the street she turns to me. She’s four or five years older, Brian’s age, but also there’s this other thing I don’t know what it is that makes her look really old, like forty, which I’ve never seen before. Up close I can see her zits and the circles under her eyes which are really more like shadows and her eyes are the color of ice. Then she says “Are you okay?” to me and the look she has is the look that Linda’s always trying to fake when she asks me how school was but I can tell Tracy actually wants to know the answer.

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” I say but I can’t look at her and talk at the same time. I try to wipe some more snot off so she won’t see. By now what’s left is crusty.

  “Those kids are fuckin’ assholes,” she says to me.

  “Yeah, whatever, I know.” Still trying to get the crust off.

  “No, those kids are fucking assholes. They’re shit.” She says it like it’s really important that I understand; it kind of scares me. I look up at her. “Those kids are little shits, they don’t fucking know about anything and they’ll do that to people the rest of their lives because they’re fucking weak. You can’t let them make you fucking cry.”

  She has this look in her eyes like a really sharp knife and all I can say is “Okay.” It comes out really quiet.

  “What?” she says, all pissed.

  I can’t tell if I said the wrong thing or I just said it too soft but I have to answer so I say “Okay” again, louder. I look at her eyes after. For practically thirty seconds she just watches me and I know I’m not supposed to look away so I don’t.

  Finally she goes “All right” and stops seeming mad. “They’re assholes, okay?”

  “Okay,” I say again, but I breathe first and look at her when I say it this time, and she looks at me back. She’s beautiful. I can’t really explain it since she has a face full of zits and her teeth are yellow like her hair and she looks like she hasn’t slept or showered in a week or eaten in a month. It’s not anything about the pieces of her fitting together right like Jenny Kirchner or matching up with anything I’ve seen before. It’s more about how Tracy’s got all this metal in her eyes like she knows five million things I’ve never even heard of, but then she looks at me like I know all those things too.

  I still can’t look at her, though, because I don’t know what’s supposed to happen next. I can’t get home unless I call Linda or walk, which’ll take at least an hour. And the idea of showing up two hours late, all bloodshot with my clothes ripped up, and getting the third degree is worse than what already happened. Not to even mention Brian. Who probably saw the whole thing. And when I realize that I actually almost throw up.

  “Wanna go get a taco?” Tracy asks me.

  I follow her all the way under the 101 and down to Sunset.

  The place on Sunset has some guy she doesn’t want to see, she says when we’re close enough to know, so she tells me keep going down to Benito’s on Santa Monica. When she says that I get a kind of flutter in my throat: Linda and I pass Benito’s sometimes on the way to the highway and there are always transvestites there, and I’m pretty sure they’re hookers. They’re tall and loud with big lips and leopard print and faces that look more like billboards than like either a man or a woman. On the way to Route 10 I always watch them out the window without letting Linda see my eyes.

  I’m kind of nervous to be near them and I wonder if Tracy knows that they hang out there. She doesn’t look nervous so I think she must not know. When we get close up their makeup is so thick you can’t see skin underneath but you can tell that it’s bumpy. They have long fake eyelashes and little red purses and their lip liner is perfect. One of them has a Spanish accent; I try to eavesdrop but Tracy interrupts. “Do you have five dollars? I’m out,” she says, and I’ve got some allowance left over so I buy her two chicken tacos and a large horchata. My stomach doesn’t feel great but I get a taco anyway: I know I always feel dumb when I’m the only one eating and I don’t want to make her feel bad.

  We sit on the stools while we’re waiting for the food; Tracy spins hers around and I watch the big slabs of meat sizzle on the grill. I’ve never gotten food someplace with anyone besides my dad or Linda. Jenny and Julia and the JV guys all go to In-N-Out Burger when they get a ride from someone’s older brother, or the food court at Hollywood and Highland, but I never have. It’s a whole different thing, being able to get whatever you want and having someone to eat it with too. I could have a large Coke for dinner or just some chips, and nobody’s going to tell me to watch my nutrition.

  I feel like a grown-up next to Tracy waiting for our food. Or not like a grown-up really, but something different from a kid. I feel like if someone saw me they would think that I looked cool. I’ve only ever thought that about other people. But now I think that I could lean against the counter and look just like a picture. I try it: lift my chin up, sort of squint my eyes. Tracy spins a half-circle toward me. “What are you doing?” she says. “You look fuckin’ weird.”

  My face gets hot and I know it’s red which makes i
t hotter. “Who’re you making that face for, anyway?” she asks me. I don’t want to tell her the answer, which is her.

  Just then our food comes up and I’m totally relieved: I can change my face without looking like I’m doing it on purpose. Tracy tears up the tinfoil around her tacos; the way she eats them reminds me of a dog who just got people food. “What’s your name?” she asks when she’s done swallowing.

  It’s weird she doesn’t know since I know hers, but I guess why would she. I tell her and she scrunches up her nose. “That’s not your name,” she says and I wonder if she heard people call me Tits and that’s what she means. I can’t ask her though so I just sit there and chew. “Who gave you that name? Your parents?” and I nod through the taco. “Yeah,” she says. “That’s why you need a new one.”

  I never thought you could just change your name. Just decide it was something else and make it that. Names were something that you came with; they got decided somewhere way before you and then were part of you just like your skin or face. But Tracy goes “So what’ll it be?” and looks at me and I know I have to pick and once I do she’ll call me it and even if she’s the only one I won’t be exactly Elly anymore. I think: Amy Stacy Sarah Laura Beth but all of them are weird and sound like dolls. “Does it have to be a girl’s name?” I ask.

  “Fuck no,” Tracy snorts. “Who told you that? Pick a word or something,” but then there are so many words, and I can’t think of any except Taco or Pepsi, which are both retarded. She breathes out like I’m stupid. “Fine,” she goes finally. “What’s your favorite cartoon?” and my life fucking sucks because the true answer is Winnie the Pooh. And if she makes my name Pooh I’d honestly rather be Tits. But I have this feeling with Tracy that if I hide anything she’ll see right through to where it is, so I tell her.

  She spins her stool around again and thinks and when she comes back around to face me she says “Eeyore,” and then stands up, and that’s my name. The Spanish one of the transvestite hookers watches Tracy pick my backpack up and sling it on her back. I can tell she’s still watching when Tracy grabs my arm and pulls me down the sidewalk; I want to look back but I don’t.

  By now the sun is setting and the sky is orange and I’m starting to get kind of scared. You can see the hills from where we are, and the lights in the windows all gold-colored like polka dots in the dark green of the trees. I think about Whole Foods, prepackaged pesto pasta and the dinner table, and wonder if my dad has made a phone call to school or if he’s even home. Linda must be freaking out. That part makes me happy.

  Tracy asked if I had enough to buy us donuts in the morning but she hasn’t invited me to spend the night, which is weird. We keep going toward West Hollywood so I think that must be where she lives but she hasn’t mentioned it and I don’t know what I’m supposed to ask and what I’m not. Also I would think she’d have her license since she looks at least as old as Brian but we just keep walking everywhere and my feet are starting to get blisters on the bottoms.

  Finally when the sky starts to turn from pink to blue I ask her where we’re going. It comes out sort of mousey-sounding and right away I wish I hadn’t asked but it’s too late, she’s already answering. “This guy I know over by Fairfax. Probably we can crash there, plus Whole Foods throws the bread out when they close at nine.”

  “Aren’t we going home?” I ask her. She looks at me like I just talked to her in Japanese.

  “Home?” she goes. “What do you mean ‘home’?” She pronounces the word like Linda says “curriculum,” like it’s separate from all other words and special.

  “Aren’t we going to your house?” I say and right away I can tell it’s the wrong question. She looks at me like she looked at Jenny and the JV guys and the sidewalk sort of moves under my feet.

  “You want to hang out with me or not?” she asks and of course I tell her yes, which is the absolute truth, her yellow hair is beautiful and the way she scares me is brand new and so much better than how Brian does or the idea of going home so late, having to see his face after he probably saw me naked in the parking lot. “Okay, then,” she says. “We can probably crash with this guy. Otherwise it’s warm behind Whole Foods and they almost never bust you.”

  The bottom of my stomach feels like at the top of the first hill of the roller coaster just before you tip and go down: wanting to get out but knowing there’s no way so it just fills you up till you can feel all your veins and your blood and your insides lift up like something is about to happen and you just hope the bar over your lap holds. Tracy is talking about sleeping outside. I would never be allowed to do this, no way not ever. Sometimes Brian stays out past midnight but they always know where he is, and this isn’t one in the morning it’s all night; it’s not some soccer team kegger, it’s outdoors. I never even heard of sleeping outdoors besides camp. And this is not camp, it’s Hollywood. Somewhere underneath the feeling in all of my skin and stomach and veins I can tell that for about one more minute I could decide to go home, and I’d probably get yelled at but I’d be inside my house where it’s warm. But then I think about Brian maybe seeing me in the parking lot trying to cover up, him hearing everybody laugh, and somehow that makes him coming in at night not just a secret, now they all can see it, all those people sitting on the bus and watching me, their eyes are all so big and I am little like an ugly dirty bug. And then Tracy turns around and looks at me and makes all their eyes shrink down to tiny because when Tracy looks at me she sees an entire different thing. “Okay,” I say, and hurry to catch up.

  The next morning before sunrise the sky turns the color of jeans; the light wakes me up before the traffic starts. It’s quiet back here by the Dumpster and the gravel in my back reminds me of the feeling of pebbles on a camping trip, except I don’t have a sleeping bag, just a T-shirt Tracy gave me. Her friend wasn’t home last night even when we came back to knock four times so we wound up here behind Whole Foods. I thought it’d take me forever to get to sleep but when I looked over and saw Tracy’s eyes still open, watching the alley around us, I must’ve stopped being scared because I don’t remember anything after that.

  Now it’s the other way around: my eyes are open, she’s still sleeping. It’s cold so I take her T-shirt from under my head and put it over me, trying not to make any noise. When Tracy’s awake I can’t watch her the way that I want to: I know she’d catch me. But now she’s sleeping so hard it barely seems like she’s breathing and I put my eyes on her and it feels like a kind of rest, like if I wanted to I could drink in some of her and make it part of me.

  It seems like forever that I lie there watching her eyeballs twitch from dreaming and her eyelashes move against her cheek. I think this is what dawn is, the part right before sunrise when the sky isn’t black but it isn’t blue yet and it isn’t orange either. After a while the cars start getting louder and the sky gets brighter too; it happens slow so I have a chance to get used to the idea that a day is going to start. In my head I say good-bye to Tracy sleeping and the dawn and the quiet, and then I hear myself and realize what a loser I must be.

  And then I remember it’s a school day. Which makes me realize last night was a school night, which makes me realize I never went home. And then my heart starts beating in my ears because what am I supposed to do? If I go home I’ll get killed and I’m sure Linda’s called the school by now which means the second I show up there they’ll call her in and then I’ll get killed too. I guess last night I just assumed I’d be in homeroom in the morning because that’s what happens every day but now I start thinking what kind of shit I’ll be in if I go back there, not to mention everyone will know what happened in the parking lot and my hoodie is still ripped. Not to mention Brian. And I start realizing that maybe I can’t go back to school today.

  Except you can’t just not go to school. You get expelled, or else in such huge trouble I can’t even picture what it’s like. I start really wanting Tracy to wake up.

  There’s sweat trickling down my sides from my armpits making m
e colder and my palms are all sticky but I tell myself Tracy will know what I should do and it calms me down a little. I roll onto my back and watch the sky, waiting. I count my breaths which almost always makes the time go faster; I know that from Brian.

  Finally after at least three people have come around to throw stuff in the Dumpster and almost seen us, Tracy opens her eyes. She sits up and then turns to me and says “Oh yeah,” like she forgot I was there. I have all these questions I want to ask right away but Linda always bites my head off if I talk too much before she’s had her coffee and I think Tracy might be the same. Yesterday Tracy asked if I’d buy her donuts in the morning so I owe her; I’m hoping on the way she’ll say what I’m supposed to do before I have to ask.

  The whole way to Winchell’s she doesn’t even talk except to ask me for five bucks to buy us breakfast. At the counter she leans forward on the white Formica and smiles at the guy, who doesn’t speak much English. She orders half a dozen, half jelly half glazed, and a coffee with four sugars and as he’s almost finished getting them she says “How about a discount” and sort of tilts her head. What’s weird is she kind of reminds me of Jenny Kirchner when she does that, but then the guy gives Tracy the donuts for only a dollar and she stuffs her pocket with the change, takes the bag and turns around and looks like herself again.