Chapter Text
"Hang in there, kiddo, we're almost there, Ruth lives just on the other side of town. Ready to check out our new digs?"
The car was dark and rattling. The wind made the snowflakes twist and curve by the windows, serpentine. A teenager sat in the back, the passenger seat too clogged with boxes for her; they shook and jumped for the ceiling. The sounds of glass and plastic meeting inside cardboard were incessant, grating, made her want to grit her teeth and close her eyes and wait for them to get where they were going. It couldn't be long now. Just a few more minutes with her mother.
"Kimmy, you hear me?" Her mother twisted her head partway around to face her, eyes near-totally removed from the road and the blankets of brittle ice crackling over its jet-black surface. Her hair, curls flashing as they passed by a streetlight, fell around her face. "Aren't you excited?"
Kim looked at her mother, at the loose drape of her wrist over the steering wheel, at the tucked-in electric-blue polo she wore with Gamgam's Bar & Grill embroidered in red over the breast, watching her mother watching her. She made eye contact for a second, maybe two, then couldn't anymore. "It's whatever."
She expected her mother to say something in response, scold her for her ungratefulness or accuse her of being so uptight, Jesus Christ, I can't believe my own daughter's a stuck-up little stuffed-shirt. But she didn't; maybe she was too tired or too sober or just too baffled by this teenager, so unlike her own flesh and blood, to think of anything more to say. With a scoff and a shake of her head, she turned her attention back to the frigid void outside the windshield.
Kim slumped down in her seat. How far could she shrink herself down, she wondered, to be out of range of her mother's eyes wandering towards the rearview mirror? She scooted her feet along the floor, compressing her spine lower and lower. She ridiculously imagined herself a Slinky, a toy she'd never found all that interesting but had never gotten to use in their assortment of one-room, stairless residences. The bones of her shoulders hit the seam where the back of the seat met the cushion. Being in the car felt different, like this.
She kept going until she was on the floor; she'd normally don her seatbelt and request the same of her mother, but not tonight. She felt better down here, down at the bottom of the tiny universe of their car, out of sight and alone with her thoughts. She tried to think about the world outside her and her mother and their shitty situation, about her schoolwork, about the day she'd step out of Nebraska. That day, the air would be cold and fresh and she'd breathe possibility in from it. It was coming soon. It had to.
The car finally turned left into a driveway, sinking down into a pothole and bouncing back, shaking her out of herself. She looked up and saw the headlights cutting twin paths through the night. A small ranch house was caught in their glow, burning white, everything a congealed mass, one with the flying snow. The car rolled down the driveway and settled to a halt.
A figure, presumably Ruth, was standing on the front porch, arms crossed. Kim looked at her warily as she got out, put her backpack on, leaped to grab two books that were falling out of it and replace them with their fellows, gripped the straps of her duffel bag in one hand. Kim had met plenty of her mom's friends, and she didn't usually like them. This woman was backlit by the glow of her home, revealing a white bathrobe, toussled black hair, and small glasses perched on a tan nose flanked by sharp cheekbones. Her guarded air was tangible. Her dark eyes were unscrutable.
Kim took a few slow steps closer as her mom approached the porch, not wanting to look like she was hiding behind her mother but not wanting to get closer to Ruth than she needed to. Her mother probably had sprung this on her at the last minute, with some frantic call late at night, as she usually did; Ruth might be angry with them. She inhaled through her nose and exhaled through her mouth, taking herself to that mental space she'd prepared long ago for situations like this.
A few moments of breathing took her there. She stood, tall and grown-up, at the highway sign welcoming her to some new state. Below her was a red line: sometimes glowing and inviting, other times radiating with danger, with the unknown. She didn't know quite what she wanted this to be yet. Was it the border between this nowhere land and the real world, or between two different versions of herself? Whatever it was, she had to step over it. She was preparing to raise her foot in an intrepid spirit, eyes cast towards the horizon of her future, when words pierced her fantasy.
"Kimmy! Just standing there, what, you catching flies?" Her mother was standing on the porch, beckoning her to follow with impatient sweeps of her arm. "Come here, introduce yourself to Ruth."
Kim removed herself from her sanctuary, the vision disappearing into the blizzardy night. Stuffing her hands in the pocket of her slippery winter coat, she stepped onto the porch. "Uh, hi."
Ruth narrowed her eyes for a moment, some sort of calculation in them, then smiled without showing her teeth. "Hey. It's been a long time since I've seen Betty here. Didn't know she went and had herself a kid."
Kim wondered why her mom had gone so long without seeing her supposed friend who lived just minutes away, but said nothing. The wind bit at her and scoured her face. She just wanted to go inside, away from the cold, find a private space where she could slip back into that dream again. She'd been through so many of these middle-of-the-night moves that each one blended into the next, all the double-wides and ranch houses and cars they'd lived in melting together into nowhere that felt like home. Doubtless this place would feel just as alien as all the rest.
"Sorry about her! She's, uh, not exactly happy with me." Her mother's voice was huffy. "But we're both so grateful to have a place to sleep, aren't we?"
Kim glanced up at her, noted the nettled, tired exasperation in her eyes. How ironic that the feeling was mutual. "Yeah, thanks."
Ruth looked her mother straight in the eyes. "Just what you do for a friend, I suppose." Something brimmed between these two; Kim could feel it in the space between them, heavy like each of them held a dagger pointed at the other. But it was hard to care much about that while her earlobes felt like they were about to turn into ice and fall off. She fixed her stare on the door, willing Ruth to open it.
"Come in." Her words were curt, measured. Ruth took the doorknob in her hand and twisted it this way and that several times before it finally opened with a succession of moaning, popping sounds. She didn't stop to show them the way, just swept inside, turned down a hallway to her right, and dragged her fingernails along the wall before vanishing into a room.
Okay. Kim blinked, set her backpack and duffel bag on the floor, took in her surroundings. They were in a living room, small but neat, with a TV on a stand, yellow-brown carpet, a couple of ill-fitting easy chairs, two lamps, and pretty if faded patterned wallpaper in baby pink and white. A futon had been hastily cleared of its throw pillows, and beside it was a bare mattress on the floor that looked like it had just been dragged down from some attic. Luckily, she'd brought her own blanket. She fiddled with her cheap plastic watch for a moment, took it off, and busied herself taking out her bedding and toiletries, laying them out as neatly as she could on a side table.
The sound of her mother unzipping her coat, tossing it onto one of the chairs, unzipping her own bag, the soft phwoosh as she laid her quilt out on the futon. Kim's mom slept on the world's flattest, most miserable pillow or sometimes without a pillow at all. This time she had no pillow, just buried herself under the blanket, still in her work clothes.
That usual Mom-and-Kim-are-in-a-bad-situation feeling filled the air. Half of Kim was just too tired of this to care, already mentally somewhere else, but the other half of her yearned to know. To tease out this weird thing her mother had going on with this woman and get to the bottom of it, like an investigator would. So she could one day avoid making the same mistakes and ending up in some shitty little room.
She turned to her mother. "Ruth, she's nice for helping us out, but why'd she act so weird towards you?" She didn't doubt that it was something her mother did, but of course she couldn't phrase it that day and get the usual Kimmy, I'm getting better, I went to AA last week, this new job's going really well, God, I'm putting in effort for you! She'd learned a while ago to stop believing her.
Her mother rolled to face her, putting her chin between the heels of her hands like the two of them were gossiping at a teenage slumber party. Kim had never felt like a teenager, but the comparison was apt. "We used to be roommates, and right before I moved out, she lost something of hers and has blamed me ever since."
"What'd she lose?"
Her mother gave her a who-the-hell-knows sort of smirk. "She collects rare miniature sculptures, I guess? It's all these, like, interpretive, abstract clay things that she gets from these hippy-dippy type artists. She keeps them all in cases under her bed and takes them out to stare at them. I don't even know how she finds these people. Anyways, apparently a very expensive one—" her fingers curled into sharp air quotes—"went missing and she's convinced I stole it and sold it to put the security deposit down on the apartment I moved into. I'm sure it was her boyfriend, 'cuz he was into all that far-out stuff."
Kim followed the stitches of the mattress, discordant colors revealing a history of rips and repairs. "If she thinks you're a thief, why'd she let you in?"
"Because she knows I'm not. She's just too stubborn to admit it. Or she's planning on killing me in my sleep tonight."
Her voice was low, hurried, nervous. It was an admission.
Kim walked over to her mother and stood over her, arms crossed. "Mom."
Her mother sat up with a scoff, a scowl taking the corners of her lips down. "What? Come on, what would I do with a little thing like that?"
"You just told me. You'd sell it."
She shook her head, laughed dismissively. "I could think of a lot of things that would make me more money than selling those pieces of crap. Please."
Kim let herself drop back onto her mattress, curled on her side. It was cold in here; she looked around the room for a thermostat and saw one, but it had some sort of clear locked box over it. Bizarre. She tucked her hands under her body for warmth. She didn't know what she wanted to do in here; it felt weird watching TV in a stranger's house, but she didn't feel like reading either. She wasn't ready to go to bed yet, but she was near the point of shivering and her pajamas were warmer, so she decided to put them on. She gathered them up along with her toothbrush and toothpaste and set off down the hall, looking for the bathroom.
"You act like you're so much better than me. Don't tell me you've already forgotten about last week."
Kim stopped in the hallway. Her pajamas hung from her hand like old rags.
"Don't walk away from me. We were having fun, weren't we? You were having fun. We totally pulled a fast one on that manager, and you started the whole thing! Now you're back to your old sanctimonious act. I'm tired of it, Kimmy."
She turned around and saw her mother standing up, looking at her. Her eyes were flint, were fire, but were also deeply tired. She broke eye contact, shook her head, scoffing again. "Okay, if you're just gonna stand there, then fine. I'm going outside for a smoke." She grabbed her bag, rustled through it for a few moments, found her cigarettes, and went outside, icy air and small flakes rushing in like a vortex as she opened the door. They settled on the floor with a dry shaking noise as it groaned shut, little travelers stranded from the outside world.
Kim's right hand subconsciously reached upward, felt her earring, moving to the other one, two little gold things on her ears that felt colder now. She was a hypocrite, she knew that. But that was just one time. And that shop manager had been so nasty. Maybe he deserved it. Maybe she was bringing about a little bit of justice for herself.
She started walking down the hall again.
Kim: Now in sweatpants and the long-sleeved flannel that after years of faithful service had grew too holey to wear in public and had thus been sent with great honors to the retirement community of her pajamas, teeth brushed. Her mother: Still outside. Her mother didn't know that she'd had a cigarette before, just once a few months ago, picked from the back pocket of her metal-studded classmate Jennifer Brooks' jeans and lighted in secret with her mother's own lighter once she'd gotten home. She'd spent that night looking over her notes from history class with the cigarette even after it was long dead, imagining herself some whisky-sipping academic in a tome-cluttered office. Kim liked thinking about that moment. Leaving the bathroom, she looked back at the living room, at their little setup, then turned to view the rest of the hall. It was nondescript but neater than the living room, with a couple of simple doors. The one at the end was ajar, yellow light beckoning to her. She crept over.
Inside, Ruth was resting on the side of her bed, clothed in that same bathrobe, legs crossed, left elbow on her knee, hand propping her head up while clenching her hair. Her eyes were open and wide, stressed in that sort of way that told Kim she'd been feeling this stress for years and had grown around it, but it was still there, a constant hum, a draining energy running through her. She noticed Kim standing there, turned just slightly. "Hey."
"Hi."
"You going to bed?"
"I don't know. Maybe not just yet."
"Good, 'cuz I have something for you." Ruth jerked her head to one side. "Come on in."
Kim didn't move for a moment, taken aback; she'd expected a night of stony silence, based on Ruth's initial reaction. But a small smile was there on Ruth's face now, and she felt curious about her. That curiosity. Her mother told her it was too much sometimes.
She opened the door wider and stepped inside. The room was nice, white bedsheets, worn but comfy carpet, only slightly peeling wallpaper, even a little bookshelf against one wall. Ruth stood and moved to it, sat in front of it while turning to her. "C'mere. You had all those books flying out your backpack, didn't you? Want to see if I've got anything you'd like to read?" Her expression was open, not exactly warm but not resentful, either.
Kim's mouth opened, closed, opened; she had to look around for a moment before she could say anything, for some reason. She didn't consider herself shy or anxious, but this was new. An adult that wasn't a teacher who was trying to be her friend, not an adversary or some distant aspirational figure. She finally answered with a grateful reply before crossing the room to sit on the floor next to Ruth, crackling from the heater greeting her as she arrived.
The books looked like they'd been handpicked from Kim's recent library selections: Catch-22, The Women's Room, How Washington Really Works, The Catcher in the Rye, some so worn and yellowed with age that she couldn't make out the titles. She skimmed her fingertips across them, taking them all in. "Woah. These are great."
Ruth looked at her, smiled, looked back at the books. "Thanks. Used to be quite the reader. I still try to, but, you know, life. Adult things." Kim noticed the weariness etched into her features, the red dots of skin picked away from her arms. Ruth fought to withdraw a very stuck copy of a book she didn't recognize, all the books on that shelf collapsing as she pulled it out and handed it to her.
It was a hardcover copy of Vonnegut's Jailbird and it looked brand-new. "A friend of mine gave this to me, but I haven't had much time to read lately. I got a new second job that's been brutal. Maybe you could get some enjoyment out of it."
Kim put her hand under the cover, felt that the book's spine hadn't been cracked open yet. "Thank you… thanks so much."
Ruth looked fondly at the bookshelf, then at her. "No problem. Figured you'd need some reading material for when you're just kicking around here after school."
That took Kim aback. How long would she be letting them stay here? Before she could say anything, Ruth stood and moved over to her closet to the left of the bookshelf, opening it and slipping a nightgown off a plastic hanger. "I hate wearing a bathrobe to bed, I feel like a slob. Gonna go get changed." Her footsteps creaked out of the room, into the bathroom, punctuated by the shutting of the door.
Kim skimmed the early pages of the book, looked at the glossy dust jacket, put it on the floor next to her as she rose to look at the rest of the bookshelf. So many good things were here: legal books, crime thrillers, works of political analysis. Stuffed between each book were sheafs of paper, glowing with ink. Countless notes.
So Ruth was like her. She'd found someone like her.
A gleam from the closet caught her eye and she turned to it to see a lapel pin glinting off a woman's suit top. Behind it: formal skirts and more tops. Kim fancied herself wearing them, standing in some important role, something that was more than this town and this state. She wanted them, she wanted to deserve them. It wasn't about the clothes, not really. She looked towards the books again. Behind her, the bathroom door opened.
"Hey, kid." Ruth entered the room wearing her pink nightgown, leaned one shoulder against the wall, crossed her legs at the ankles. "Do you need anything to wear to school tomorrow? I'm not sure how much you were able to bring from your old place."
"Oh, no, but thank you," Kim said, then, in a moment that reminded her she was, despite her feelings to the contrary, a teenager as awkward as any other, "You have nice clothes."
Ruth laughed a little, a sound lighter than her speaking voice, but still spiked with roughness. "Thanks. Most of them are old. I need to sell them. You can still have them, if you want." Her eyes drifted towards another woman's professional top and skirt set hanging together, then back to Kim. "You seem like a girl who might know what to do with clothes like these."
Kim turned around quickly: awkward, again. "What do you mean?"
Ruth chuckled, unbothered by her Kim-ness. "I think you know what I mean. I see that look in your eye. You're out of here soon as the final bell of high school rings. I wanted the same. Can't say it worked out for me. Made some bad decisions, got into debt. Your mom knows how it is."
Kim put one hand on the door of the closet. Grief, unexpected but sharp, stabbed into her. "I'm sorry."
Ruth shrugged. "It is what it is, as they say. I'm fine. But I have a feeling you're going to get there."
Later, lying on her mattress, hearing her mother tossing and turning nearby, Kim looked at the speckled ceiling and let her mind wander and soar and swoop around. There was always a lot going on inside her head, but her conversation with Ruth had solidified everything into a knife of ambition, or maybe a lodestar. Her future would be about helping people like Ruth and like herself. She'd get out. She knew she could.
She thought about the friends she'd have for a few months at a time who would then abandon her for cooler friends, the teachers who helped her, the racket of her old school band. It hadn't all been bad. But it wasn't for her.
There was something else out there. There were other people like her out there. She'd make it there, and to them, herself.