III
Left Behind
The closet was dark and close and smelled weird. There was a skittering noise by Beth's left hand. Maybe a spider. Probably a roach. Beth hoped Ms. Ibañez let her out soon. Not that she wanted to see anyone ever again, but she was getting hungry. It was too late for dinner, but she could probably sneak a snack before bed. Beth scrubbed at her face as the shelves dug into her back, but she'd stopped crying a while back. Her backside had long since stopped hurting, she probably hadn't been in here for more than an hour, and she deserved all that anyway. What stung worse was no one would ever adopt her now. Ever. And Carrie-Ann was gone.
Ms. Brown had shown up for Carrie-Ann yesterday. Given Beth a little wave, like she was sorry, guilty, then taken Carrie-Ann away to her new home, her new family.
And she wasn't, she really wasn't that different from Beth. Carrie-Ann didn't have family or relatives, either. Well, none that would come for her, anyway. No dad, her grandparents were dead, her mom was an only child, and her mom was in jail and had signed her over to the state last year. But Ms. Brown had found a family for Carrie-Ann, and Beth was still here. Like the other kid at Ms. Ibañez's, Jimmy. Jimmy never washed. He cussed all the time for no reason, smoked in the backyard, and Beth and Carrie-Ann had seen him kick Ms. Ibañez's dog, Teddy. Jimmy was fourteen. He hadn't been adopted, either. Beth had thought yesterday that if she didn't do something, she'd end up like Jimmy. She snorted. She definitely would now.
She'd guessed when Ms. Brown had come for Carrie-Ann not her that Ms. Brown's boss hadn't been able to help her fill in the blanks in the file, the ones that would keep the families from adopting Beth. Beth knew she couldn't change that, but she'd thought that maybe she could do something about the rest of it.
Beth made a face at the darkness and tugged her hair. Even six washings hadn't changed what she'd done. That's why she was in here. Ms. Ibañez was mad she'd have to take her to a salon tomorrow. She said she couldn't afford it, and it was ridiculous taking a six-year-old, anyway. Beth had pointed out Ms. Ibañez could just cut it all off with scissors, but Ms. Ibañez at least wouldn't let her show up to school next week bald. She wasn't a monster.
Carrie-Ann was pretty, with shiny, brown hair and freckles, and dimples in her cheeks. Beth had thought, yesterday, that maybe she couldn't do anything about the blanks in her file, but maybe she could be pretty, too, so that the next time Ms. Brown showed a family her picture, they might look at it, and forget the file, and say yes, they wanted her.
Ms. Brown hadn't been wrong, all those months ago when they'd met the first time and Beth had heard her talking to her boss. She was freaky-looking. Sharp elbows and knees, way too skinny for the clothes Ms. Ibañez picked up from the secondhand store. Too skinny, anyway. She was like a skeleton person, and her nose and chin were all pointy. But that was fine. The bad part, Beth had decided, was the hair. She did look Greek, or like she was fresh off the rez, or like maybe her mom or dad had been black, even, or Latina like Ms. Ibañez. Or she would, but her stupid hair was long and yellow and just weird. And Beth had thought, if only it were dark, then maybe she'd be pretty. Prettier, anyway.
So she'd taken money from Ms. Ibañez's sock drawer and gone to the corner store and bought a box of hair dye. It was supposed to turn her hair chocolate brown, but she'd done it wrong, and it'd come out like some sort of perverted bronzy-green and blonde zebra in the end, with dark places on her neck, cheeks, and forehead where she'd missed with the bottle and dyed her skin by mistake. Jimmy had laughed so hard.
Ms. Ibañez hadn't, but she'd pursed her lips and marched Beth right back into the bathroom once she'd made her open up, and right back into the shower. Except Beth had stayed on the floor too long, horrified by what she'd done, before Jimmy had started banging on the door and yelling that he had to shit, and Ms. Ibañez had come to see about the fuss. The dye had set, Ms. Ibañez said, after she'd tried for an hour to make it unset, and it couldn't be washed out. She'd punished Beth then, but promised they'd fix it, anyway. Beth didn't believe it could be fixed.
Even if it did, though, even if they did something at the salon to make her hair go back to normal, it'd be just like it was before, and she'd be just as freaky-looking as before. Or just plain ugly. And it'd go in her blank file that she'd been bad today, and Ms. Brown would probably take her away from Ms. Ibañez to someone that maybe wouldn't even try to be nice in this shitty neighborhood where everything was so hard. And Carrie-Ann was gone, with her laugh and her jokes and the candy she'd lift from the teacher's desk at school, and Beth would never, ever find a family.
Beth kicked the shelving opposite, and her insect friends skittered around her dye-spotted hands. She bit her tongue to keep from crying again as her stomach growled, and she waited for Ms. Ibañez to come tell her it was okay to come out.
A/N: Thanks for reading. If you're enjoying the story or have anything to say, please take a moment to do so. I wrote this for fun and not for reviews, and right now I'm far, far ahead of my postings, so the updates will continue regardless, but I'd love to hear what you have to say!
Always,
LMS