Ch. 6
16 years later
The Murkowski twins were at it again. They were tall and gangly boys, with ash-blond hair and eyes so brown, they were almost black. They followed Rosie McLemmons as she went down the front steps of Santa Monica East High.
"Ring around the rosie . . ."
It was the same rhyme they teased her with since she started at that school three months ago. Rosie ignored them, holding her head up high. She instinctively clutched at the opal ring on her necklace, the only thing that gave her courage in times of distress.
"Pocket full of posies . . ."
Jamie, the slightly taller twin, chuckled and punched his brother, Jasper, in the arm.
"Ashes, ashes . . ."
As Rose neared the last step, the throng of other high schoolers pushing her along, she felt a pair of hands on her back.
"We all fall DOWN!"
Suddenly, she was pushed to her stomach, tripping on the last step and hurdling to the cement sidewalk. No one stopped to help or ask if she was okay. Rosie turned on her back and glowered at the twins. They laughed and high-fived each other.
"I hope you both get ass cancer!" she spat.
"Freak!" Jamie yelled. He and his brother ran off towards the corral of yellow buses.
Rosie groaned and struggled to her feet, feeling like an upturned turtle with her heavy backpack. She saw her friend Maggie coming down the sidewalk from the parking lot and jumped to her feet before the pretty redhead could help her.
"You okay, sweetie?" Mags asked.
"Yeah." Rosie brushed her long black hair from her face and hitched her backpack further up her shoulders. "Just another day in paradise."
Maggie took Rosie's arm and they walked down the street together. "I don't get why they pick on you. You're gorgeous."
"I'm a freak," Rosie said. "Everyone knows that." There was no bitterness to her tone or even sadness. Rosie had grown to live with this fact for a very long time now—that she was different from the other kids at her school, that she was too quiet and too secretive and she spoke too differently for anyone's liking.
"I wish I could be emancipated like you," Rose continued.
"You gotta have parents for that, Rose." Maggie stopped and put a hand to her freckled face. "Jeeze. I'm sorry, that was real shitty of me."
"It's fine." Rosie shrugged."It's true."
The two teenagers walked down the boulevard and stopped at Baskins Corner Market. It was Friday, which meant Maggie had to get surf wax for her boyfriend's board. Rosie usually picked up a magazine and some jelly beans for her foster sister, Tara.
"Your birthday's in a few days," Maggie said as she scanned the shelf of surf wax. "What do you want?"
"A home."
Rosie rolled her blue eyes, but there was a sad truth in her sarcasm. She had been to at least fifteen foster homes since she was two, and none of them lasted more than a year. It only added to Rosie's suspicion that she really was different. In the foster circuit, she should have been the Chanel handbags of children—decent grades, no criminal history, kept to herself—but all her foster parents saw something in her that they didn't like. It burned Rosie to know what it was.
Rose turned to her friend, who had picked out a sizeable jar of Bubble Gum Surfwax. "Why can't I live with you and Bug?"
Maggie snorted a laugh. She may have lived like an adult, but her laugh always gave her away as a high school junior. "You don't want to live with Bug. He snores."
Bug was Maggie's boyfriend. He was twenty, taught surf lessons for tourists, and occasionally smoked pot on the weekends. He called Rosie "princess" and grilled fish every Saturday for her and Maggie. He was the sweetest man Rosie had ever known.
"How 'bout some more art supplies?" Maggie asked as they perused the magazine rack.
"I guess I could use a new sketchbook . . ."
Rosie stopped in front of a rack of sunglasses and tried a pair on. Her skin was pale, despite years of California sun, and she needed a new bra for her growing B-cup. She hated how her shoulders stuck out and how flat her butt was, but compared to the clone-like Barbie dolls at her high school, Rosie was an exotic Byzantine princess.
Maybe it's my eyes, Rosie thought, wondering why everyone at school called her a freak. They're too far apart.
"C'mon," Maggie tugged Rose towards the cash register.
Rosie flashed a small grin at the cashier and the old man raised a brow. Is it my teeth? She thought. They're a little crooked on the bottom. . .
Rosie kept her head down as she paid for Tara's jelly beans. She and Maggie left the store and crossed the street to the business district. It was almost Spring Break and already buses were shuffling in from LA with tourists in bikinis.
"I saw this thing on the news last night," Rose said to Maggie. "This guy in Albania was adopted and when he was twelve, his killed his whole family."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah. The authorities said his birth father was also a serial killer." Rosie huffed as she struggled to catch up to her friend. Maggie had longer legs and walked faster than she did. "Do you think that's possible?"
"Sounds like bullshit to me."
"No, I mean . . . do you think that kind of thing is hereditary? I mean, maybe that's why no one at school likes me. Maybe my dad was a serial killer, and I give them the creeps because—"
"It's still bullshit," Maggie said. "The other kids are immature douche-canoes."
Rosie laughed. She could always count on her friend to keep her grounded. Still, it didn't keep Rosie from tossing and turning at night, wondering who she really was and where her family had gone to. They came to a block of houses, Rosie's neighborhood, and Maggie stopped.
"Birthday dinner on Sunday? I'll make cobbler."
Rosie nodded and smiled. "Sure." She turned for her house and Maggie called to her.
"You're gonna find your birth parents someday," Mags said. "And they'll be millionaires with a hot tub and a Ferrari for your birthday."
Rosie chuckled. "Yeah, right. I'll see you." She waved and Maggie waved back, turning down the block to the shore where her and Bug's bungalow awaited.
Rose walked the block-and-a-half to her house, a little maroon rambler with crooked front steps, and stopped dead when she saw the car parked in the driveway. It was a blue Lincoln with a dented bumper, a regular Porsche in this kind of neighborhood.
The front door opened and Rose's foster mother, Linda, leaned in the frame. "You got a visitor."
Rosie clutched her backpack tighter, her heart seizing in her chest. She walked up to the house and Linda stared at her sadly the whole time, her nurse's scrubs stained with blood droplets and mustard. She smelled like cigarette's and Rosie knew she had had a bad day.
Instead of throwing her backpack down like she did every day, Rosie followed the sound of the TV to the living room, where a woman in a black suit sat cross-legged. Tara was next to her, doing a princess puzzle with her kinky hair puffed up in an afro. She smiled and stood when she saw Rose.
"Rosie! Did you get jelly beans?"
Rosie hugged the seven-year-old and pulled the bag of candy from her backpack. "Don't eat them all before dinner."
"Thanks!"
"Why don't you wait for me in our room?" Rosie said.
"Okay." Tara gave her a gap-toothed smile and skipped down the hallway.
Rosie turned to the woman on the couch and crossed her arms. "What did I do now?"
The woman stood. "You didn't do anything, Rosie. Linda just thinks—"
"Please don't say it, Annie." Rosie closed her eyes to keep from crying. She had heard this tune for years now from all her previous foster parents—it's just not working out, we just don't have the money to support you, you're just too old to be living here—and nothing surprised Rose anymore.
Linda appeared from the hallway, dark circles under her eyes. She didn't even look at the teenager, only at the social worker, Annie Sullivan.
"I'm sorry, Rosie," Annie said, "you have to pack your things now."
Rose sniffed as more tears scratched her eyelids. "But I've been good," she said, barely whispering. "I haven't gotten into any trouble. Tell her, Linda—"
Linda's eyes went to the TV.
Rose looked at her social worker. "Please. It's almost my birthday."
Annie pursed her lips, looking as if she might cry herself, then said quietly, "Happy birthday."
0000000
Rosie cried as she packed her bags. Tara sat on the twin bed opposite of hers, their shared room divided by pink color schemes and posters of David Bowie. Tara ate her jelly beans as she watched her foster sister.
"Where are you going?" the child asked.
"Away," Rosie said, her voice cracking.
She didn't have much to take with her. Everything that wasn't stored at Maggie's could fit into a duffel bag—clothes, CDs, her sketchbooks and pencils. She left her posters on the wall and double-checked to make sure she had her yellow baby blanket with her name stitched into the corner, the only clue into her past. She held the blanket to her face and breathed in, hoping to catch a whiff of who she was and where she came from. But it only smelled like fabric softener and deodorant.
A knock came at the door. Annie peeked her head in. "Two minutes, Rosie."
Rose wiped the tears from her cheeks, stuffed the blanket in her duffel bag, and slung it over her shoulder. She knelt in front of Tara and said, "I have to go now. You're not going to see me again."
Tara jumped down and wrapped her arms around Rosie's neck. She squeezed hard, the bag of jelly beans holding fast in her hand. "I don't want you to go."
"I know." Rose sniffled and pulled away. "Save those jelly beans, okay?"
Tara nodded. She looked sad, but she wore no tears. She had no doubt seen worse in her life, with her mother shooting heroin in front of her and her daddy cutting her hair until her scalp bled. Still, Rose was hurt that the child didn't shed one tear for her.
Rosie looked to the door and Annie was watching them. Annie never cried when she came to take Rose back to the children's home. She had known Rosie since she was five, had shared in every triumph and heartache of growing up in the foster system, but she had never cried when Rose was to be sent back to the home.
Until today.
Rosie saw a glimmer, a flicker of light on Annie's cheek, and knew the middle-aged woman was shedding a tear. Annie wiped it away casually as if someone had blow cigarette smoke in her face.
"Ready, kiddo?"
Rosie nodded, grabbed her backpack, and followed her social worker out of the house.
To be continued