Feeling sorry for herself and queasy about her betrayal of Dézhiree, Amaryllis begins to cry but stops quickly enough, not wishing to draw attention. Her progress now becomes hurly-burly, scattershot, vaudevillian: in any given broiling locale, she stands weirdly stock-still, flustered; then, realizing she is making a spectacle of herself, moves on with a jerk as if given the Hook. Nowhere to go … so she sticks to the impossibly long alley with dumpsters all around — blue for merchants, green for residences, brown for construction debris (these, big as trucks), gray for storage, yellow for recycling — dodging them as they close in on her like the living boulders she saw on an archaic Star Trek. Each path of escape seems the one that will end in Carceration — in the Valley, just like her father …
Amaryllis wheels pell-mell through humid air, her orbit in decay, instinctively gravitating toward places where children gather, but children are the worst bloodhounds of all, and they point and whisper at the sweaty loser until she gets the Hook again, and tears across the street like a lost panicked dog, through entries of stores perceived to have rear exits; as she passes through each garishly lit refuge the air-conditioning cools her body, though is not a comfort. Plunged again into the bustle of tarry parking lots, parking lots like cities, parking lots with whole populations, rhythms, moods and laws. She slows until standing stock-still, dazed and vacant in the warpy heat, staving off tears, no longer thinking of the babies or her mother (diseased) or her father (carcerated) or Topsy or Kristl or Dézhiree or anything—starving, yet without a single thought of food, and shamefully peeing in the brush behind Vons, where the bluest dumpster is, at a break in the bushes that leads to a slow-moving river in a concrete bed upon whose ceasing current she would most certainly not be borne back to the past. She squats and does her business, old breast wound aching again, tears like blisters on her cheeks, thinking of Pixies as she hikes up her pants — they’d be having dinner now and talking about her (though maybe not). The lonely Box of Saints tucked in a drawer, waiting …
She continues her locomotion to the redundant oasis of Moorpark Park, but the grown-ups notice when she sits on the bright orange slide for a while — then off again, ashamed and horrified that she left her post and might miss her ride as nightfall comes.
There she is! There! There! There!”
Headlamps light her up. Amaryllis stirs, half asleep in the bushes behind the blue dumpster, on the lip of the hillock that dips down to the river. Kristl is grabbing at her, and suddenly she finds herself in the enormous, slippery backseat of an old El Dorado. There’s even a pillow back there and a chewed-up dog bone on the carpet.
“We kept looking for you. My mom was gonna leave!”
Tina is at the wheel. Her long, squeezed-together face reminds Amaryllis of the Scream masks, but more pretty than scary.
“This is so fucked-up, Kristl Ann! Honey, I am on parole.”
“But she’s my friend—”
“You can never say I picked up this girl, Kristl Ann, never.” She turned back to Amaryllis. “You can never say I did this, OK? Because that’s kidnapping!” To her daughter: “I’ll tell you one thing, she is going back tomorrow.”
“Mom!—”
“And you are, too—”
“You can’t!”
“Well that’s just the way it’s going to be!”
Kristl started to talk, but her mother said, “Shut up!” and they drove in silence along Ventura Boulevard until rattling onto the 101. Once they were on the freeway, Tina got calmer but yelled more.
“Do you even know what they’ll do to your mother if they stop me with the two of you? Throw me in jail, that’s what. That’s right. And jail is not a place I want to be, huh-uh. Been there done that no way.”
“I’m sorry—”
“We can’t even go back to Lawndale. I can’t even put you with your grandma — she’s too sick. Though I may have to … don’t you think I’m the first one they will call? Huh? Don’t you know that? Well, you’re fucking right. Probably called already. I may be in violation just by not checking the messages! And Grandma? Would you really want to do that to your grandma? Would you, Kristl Ann? She’d call the cops on you for sure—you know Grandma don’t put up with no shit. And why should she? That’s why we’re gonna be with Mike in Topanga. We can’t go back home! I can’t believe I’m out here in the dark with you two fugitives on my way to fucking Topanga! I had to break away from business to come get your friend. I’m getting my real estate license, did you know that?”
Kristl shook her mortified head.
“Do you think that’s easy? Do you think anyone can get a real estate license? They just hand them out like candy? Here, Tina! Here’s your license! You are free now to go and sell yourself a mansion! I wish. One mansion and I could buy a house. I was doing business, Kristl; that’s why Mike had to come. You love your friend so much but not enough to say she was with you. Why didn’t you say you were with your friend when you called? Huh? Huh? The only reason I’m here — the only reason, Kristl Ann — is because I know how loyal you are to your friend, because I raised you like that. And that’s a nice quality. But I was doing mother-fucking business, do you understand?” Back to Amaryllis: “Excuse my language. I don’t usually talk that way, but sometimes the situation demands it.” To Kristclass="underline" “Do you know what kinda bills I have to pay, Kristl Ann? With your daddy in the penitentiary? He can’t help, I’m telling you. He may want to, but he can’t, OK? So it’s on me. And, honey, you do not want to see your mama back in that jail either, believe me. I know she’s your friend and she’s real cute, but I can’t be an accessory! Do you know what an accessory is? Because what you two have done is committed a crime. MacLaren Hall is an institution, and to leave an institution without permission as minors is a crime. They put their trust in you not to do that. They’re not all bad people. Some of them care; I know they do. ’Cause they weren’t all bad, even in jail. There’s always a few rotten apples, but there’s people who care, too. People that help you. Did you think I could just walk out of Central if I felt like it? It is not a perfect world. Do you think I could walk out of New Beginnings or wherever just because I didn’t like the way the sheets smelled? Or the food? Or because they made me mop the damn floor? No, I couldn’t. Because they gave me a trust and that is a sacred trust. And you know what? As far as the law stands, you may as well have robbed a bank and I’m the getaway.”