In the three months since Amaryllis became a Pixie, she had been taken to children’s court on the occasions that her stay at Mac exceeded the amount of time prescribed by law; in those same three months, two suitable placements had been found that were quickly deemed otherwise (though not at all in the league of the perilous Canyon klatch of E. Woolery).
For example, on the weekend of her arrival at the well-kept, super-stuccoed home of the Barnard Tofflers of Rosemead, she was sent packing due to an allergic reaction to the family cat — severe enough to require a trip to the emergency room at the ungodly hour such trips typically demand. Rosemead was not big enough for both of them, but Mrs. Toffler would not part with her beloved. This standoff, coupled with the girl’s habitual under-sheet flashlight explorations of the machinery of martyrdom, had the effect of making the whippet-size, already skittish Mrs. Toffler more skittish still. After a day or so of relative segregation from the pet, Amaryllis was remanded to Mac. To be fair, the Tofflers bought her a dress in consolation.
In the second instance, she remained with the Alfredo Quiñoneses of Diamond Bar for a relatively carefree three weeks. The rural home had a big backyard with swings, barbecue and aboveground pool. Besides Amaryllis, five children lived there, all told; two were “real” Quiñoneses, while three were adopted (a palsied one among the latter, the disabled being a sacrosanct — and lucrative — cliché of Adoption World). A few weekends in, before school began, the mellow Mr. Quiñones, aged fifty, had a coronary and died. Soon after, a wet-eyed Quiñones aunt dutifully returned Amaryllis to MacLaren, along with Palsy Girl, who barked and wept the whole ride back.
Yet the vicissitudes of an adoptee’s life were nothing compared to Amaryllis’s wrenching separation from the babies. Their initial reunion was short-lived; knowing the inevitable, the Mac staff was more lenient than usual in providing the star-crossed family with “together time.” (Only once did Saffron ask where her mother was. “Heaven,” said Amaryllis, and her sister seemed satisfied. When she inquired if it would be possible to visit that place for a picnic, Amaryllis wished her nominated to the Congregation for the Causes right then.) The age and adorableness of the babies made them “bull’s-eyes”: within five days of their arrival at the center, they were placed in a private home. Amaryllis dehydrated herself with tears. Lani Mott showed up to reassure that “family lawful visits” would be arranged — as the girl’s official CASA (the court paperwork had just gone through), the baker’s wife informed that she was “launching a third world war” to find a single placement for the three siblings so they could remain together. Everyone knew the chances of that were almost nil. But each time Amaryllis returned to Mac, she futilely asked for her Saffron and Cody, awaiting word that never came. No one would tell her where they were; she couldn’t even call them on the phone.
Mac’s familiar surroundings, never so wonderful, were now a lonelier haven than she could bear. Except for Cindra, the children Amaryllis had befriended earlier had long since cycled or recycled out — to hospitals, foster families or residential homes (or just plain AWOL); even counselors had moved on, never to be seen again. Favorite volunteer grannies vanished, through attrition born of old age. Against her nature, Amaryllis began to harden. She frowned and sassed through the days, and if our orphan had been a shark, she would surely have eaten a mosasaur with the same consuming indifference that Dézhiree noshed a lunchtime sandwich. Rarely anymore did she seek comfort in the Box of Saints; and went hours without speaking. She huffed air freshener with the new girl, Kristl, and grew antagonistic with staffers. For a few days she proudly sported her very own one-on-one.
At night in her bed, it didn’t take much for Amaryllis to imagine the babies already in Mrs. Woolery’s satanic hatchery, outfitted in his-and-her helmets, rocketing into walls or drooling on urine-soaked futons. More than once, standing before the backdrop of unfinished mural or empty Streisand pool, she came close to enlisting Kristl on a Tunga Canyon search-and-rescue. Her fearless friend was up for anything.
“Did your CASA tell you where they were?”
“She said she would.”
“They’re probably waiting to see if you act out. You know: they’re not quite sure you’re worthy of knowing where those babies are. I could find them — it’s not even legal, keeping you separated.”
“How? How could you?”
“I could find them anytime,” said Kristl smugly, as if talking to a cretin.
Freshly fourteen, blond and sinewy, with nacreous glued-on fingernails and bleachy crosshatched suicide scars at the wrists, she was of the sorority of children of the damned (Crissie Fits of Tunga Canyon, naturally, included) fondly named after Godmother Meth: a veritable Kristallnacht.
“I could find out when we leave.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re getting out,” she whispered.
“When?”
“Field trip on Monday. Huntington Gardens.”
“Where’s that?”
“Don’t ask so many questions. Do you want to go or not?”
“I have court,” Amaryllis said timorously.
“Court is bullshit!”
“Lani said the babies’ll be there. The judge can put us together.”
“That is so much bullshit. You are such a fucking victim! You’re too old. They’re never gonna put you with your brother and sister.”
Amaryllis chewed on a nail. “Are you going to run away by yourself?”
“I don’t know,” said Kristl haughtily. “It looks like it, since you’re such a pussy — and you better not say anything.” Pause. She seemed to be thinking. Then: “If I find out where they are, will you go?”
“If you find out?”
“About your brother and sister! Are you retarded?”
“But how—”
“I’ve done much harder shit. Will you go?”
Amaryllis solemnly nodded her assent. “Did you hear what Dézhiree said at group? ‘Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, and today is a gift — that’s why we call it the “present.” ’ Don’t you love that?”
Amaryllis Kornfeld, albeit in exhausted, febrile state, had first been brought to children’s court for the legally mandated hearing that took place within seventy-two hours of her placement chez Woolery.
Earlymae dressed her up, restoring color to her cheeks with rouge.
Intake and Detention Control had already prepared the petition. Adjudged to be abandoned without provision for support (as the whereabouts of parent or parents was deemed unknown), the girl was thus declared under WIC300(g) to be a dependent child of the Court. Facing the bench, Mrs. Woolery threw a tanned, turquoise-jeweled arm protectively around the shoulder of her “Dillo”—the fact was that she couldn’t be paid until the newbie was formally recognized by the system. So: on a scrubby hill in Monterey Park, hard by the sheriff’s headquarters and impoverished fields of the defunct Sybil Brand Institute for Women, a judicial referee sat on high, surrounded by his partisans: stenographer, attorneys, social workers, dependency investigators, clerks and bailiffs. Counsel and CSW were dutifully assigned — due diligence search for parents ordered — stuffed animals proffered — tears wiped away — beleaguered child swept back to Canyon.
That was then. Now that she has returned to court, the author is compelled to freshly set the scene.
It is September, though the buildings of which we speak are anything but autumnal. They possess the artificial palette and gallingly “whimsical” tubular outcroppings popular to the aforementioned IMAX aesthetic, and proudly tout their child-friendliness. Yet no stylistic fillip, not even a swooping superimposed Bilbao, might quash the collective misery of its legion of disenfranchised guests. A plethora of female attorneys in black hose and shabby miniskirts pass through the weapons’ detector, pagers vibrating in purses with the subtlety of lawn mowers. Adorning lobby walls are the homespun crayon-drawn murals and bland archival photo histories characteristic of such institutions. A vast downstairs holding pen is for charges bused in from group homes and residential-treatment facilities; nearby cells, hidden from view, are for parents in custody, most of whom attend their doomed progeny’s hearings in plastic cuffs. Not infrequently, a lady lawyer will mistakenly interrupt one of her inmate clients in the middle of a bowel movement. There are no provisions for privacy.