A/N: PCH stands for "Pacific Coast Highway." This chapter is in no way accurate in terms of homes for foster children, I'm just going off of what I've seen on TV and movies.
Ch. 7
However bad Rose thought high school was, the Santa Monica Children's Home was even worse. Her tormenters at the home didn't need a reason to push her to the ground or spit on her food. They were all rejects like her, wide-eyed veterans of crackhead parents and abusive foster homes. Some, like Rosie, kept to themselves, huddled in their corners in the dining hall and reading out in the yard while white girls with cornrows eyed them snottily from their cliques.
Rosie had been in and out of the home all her life. She was used to the strict bedtimes, the random fights that erupted in the common rooms, the splatter of blood on the bathroom walls where girls would cut themselves or each other. Her roommate this time was a Latina girl named Celeste, with mocha skin and gorgeous wavy hair. She was new to the home and cried herself to sleep at night.
The day after she left Linda's, Rosie sat at a table in the yard as the other kids did homework or played cards or swapped insults. It was Saturday, which meant everyone was itching for a daytrip. Rose had her backpack laid across the wood picnic table, her art supplied spilled out before her. She sketched on the last page of her notebook (she really hoped Maggie was giving her a new sketchbook for her birthday), and stopped when a shadow crossed her page.
"What're you drawing?"
It was Celeste. She had been following Rosie around closely like a lost puppy. Rose erased a stray pencil line on her drawing and brushed the rubber crud away. She held up the picture to Celeste and the young girl, fourteen maybe, sat down next to her.
"She's pretty," Celeste said. "Who is she?"
Rosie looked at the picture and wish she knew. It was a face that bombarded her dreams, the face of a lovely woman with brown curls and blue eyes, who smiled so sweetly at Rose that she often woke up in tears. In some way, she felt connected to the face, but more than likely it was probably just someone she saw on the street once that stuck in her mind.
"I don't know who she is," Rosie said. "Probably no one."
Celeste nodded. She picked up one of Rosie's pencils and began drawing on the wooden table. "How long have you been here?"
Rosie shaded the nameless woman's hair and shrugged. "Off and on. What about you?"
"My mom died when I was born," Celeste said without hesitation. "Dad got shot by a rival gang. My grandma took care of me for a while, but she died."
Rosie lowered her pencil and looked over at Celeste. "I'm sorry."
Celeste shook her head. She drew a heart with an arrow going through it and said, "What about you? Got any family?"
"Somewhere." Rosie looked up, staring at the blank cement wall before her, then said, "When I was a baby, the police found me in a basket on the PCH. Some old woman was carrying me."
"Who was she?"
Rosie shrugged. "I don't know. They said she got hit by a car and died." The young girl touched the opal ring on her necklace. "I had my baby blanket and this necklace. It's the only thing from my past."
Celeste smiled warily. "Like in Annie."
Rose looked at her. "Huh?"
"Y'know, that movie Annie. She's got the locket from her parents. Maybe the ring is from your mom."
Rose looked down at her drawing of the mysterious beauty. "Maybe."
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The Children's Home took a day trip to the beach, and while the other kids rode the roller coaster on the pier and shopped for sandals along the boardwalk, Rosie sat with Celeste along the shore, finishing her sketch and trading foster home horror stories.
Celeste had gotten a bag of popcorn from a vendor on the sidewalk and munched as she looked out at the ocean. She offered Rosie some, but the teenager shook her head.
"You're real quiet," Celeste said.
Rosie glanced at her new friend. "Sorry."
"You don't have to be sorry. At least you're nice."
Rose smiled and held out her hand for some popcorn. Instead of giving her some, Celeste turned towards her new friend and made a motion to toss it in Rosie's mouth. Rose grinned and opened wide, but the popcorn kernel bounced off her lip and into her lap. The giggled as they practiced their aim, cheering when one finally landed in Celeste's mouth.
Some boys from the home— lanky, dark-haired boys with pimply faces—passed by the girls in their swim trunks. "Dykes!" One yelled.
"Piss off!" Rosie called back.
One of the boys, who had a scar on his chest, raised two fingers like a peace sign and stuck his tongue between them. "Sounds like someone needs a good dicking."
"Eat shit, douche-canoe!" Rosie spat, borrowing one of Maggie's words.
The boys laughed and ran into the ocean, splashing and kicking and pushing each other. Rosie looked at Celeste, who had her knees pulled up to her chest. Tears flooded her eyes.
"Are you okay?"
Celeste sniffled and looked at Rose helplessly. "I, um . . . I-I'm actually—"
Rosie sat up straight, her face softening. "Are you—?" She stopped, looked towards the boys in the water, then whispered, "Are you really a lesbian?"
Celeste nodded.
Rose's eyebrows shot up. "Oh."
"Please don't tell anyone."
"No, I—"
"If you don't wanna hang out anymore, I totally understand—"
Rosie smiled and put her hand on Celeste's arm. "Celeste, it's fine. Really."
Celeste wiped her eyes. "Are you sure?"
Rose nodded. "This is California."
"Yeah, but I'm Puerto Rican," Celeste said with a laugh.
Rosie nudged her and laughed. She looked at the boys as they jumped around obnoxiously, calling each other "bitch" and "faggot" and Rosie rolled her eyes. "Whatever happened to chivalry?" she asked. "Guys used to bow when they passed a girl. They were respectful, y'know?"
"Doesn't sound like any guy I've ever met."
"Maybe I was born in the wrong time," Rose mumbled. She looked at Celeste, who still had sadness in her eyes. "You sure you're okay?"
Celeste nodded. "M'fine." She stood, tossed the rest of her popcorn in the trash, and brushed the sand from her jeans. "I'm gonna go to the boardwalk. Wanna come?"
Rosie shook her head. "Naw, I think I'll finish this." She tapped her pencil on her sketchpad. "Meet you on the pier in half an hour?"
"Sure." Celested smiled, waved, and made off up the beach to the sidewalk.
Rosie sighed and looked at her picture. The woman's large eyes stared back at her, a slight curl on her lips, as if she were looking at Rosie for the first time in a long time and was trying to hold back tears. The drawing was so familiar and yet so foreign, like the telenovelas that played in the common rooms on TV—a language she knew but couldn't decipher.
Rose looked up at the lapping ocean. The boys were whispering and staring at Rosie, giggling when she sneered at them. Just beyond the boys, a sparkle caught Rose's eye. At first it looked like sunlight gleaming off the waves, but the harder Rose stared, the more the light grew, floating upwards in a golden haze. She stood, alarmed by the sight, and glanced at the boys. They horsed around directly in the path of the golden light, but none of them seemed to see it. Rosie rubbed her eyes and the light was gone.
"Hey, lesbo," the one with the scar called out. "You wanna see a real man?" He stood in the shallow water and grabbed his crotch.
Rosie flipped him the bird and gathered her art supplies. She glanced at the water again to catch another look at the golden mist, but saw nothing. Just the sun, she thought, and headed towards the boardwalk.
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That night, Celeste fell asleep soundly without so much as a whimper. Rose drifted off to sleep with the image of the golden light on the water by the pier. It was oddly mesmerizing, like staring at specks of dust in a sunbeam on a hot day, and whether or not it was an illusion was no concern to her.
Rosie dreamed of the woman in her drawing. She came to life in a whirl of golden mist—her brown curly hair, her beautiful blue eyes, her sharp nose and upturned mouth that seemed to smile at her. Rosie reached out a hand to touch the woman, to hug her and bury herself in her chest.
"Where did they take you?" the woman asked. Her Australian accent surprised Rosie.
Rose mouthed the word "what" but no sound escaped her lips.
Suddenly, the two were having tea together, at a fancy table in a castle with yellow tablecloths and a fine china set. "You have two options," the woman said casually. She drank from a chipped cup.
"It's broken," Rosie wanted to say, but she was voiceless.
The woman looked at the cup in her hands. "I like it that way."
A slippery, wet feeling cascaded down Rosie's forehead, like a million tongues licking her to taste her skin. She felt small and hollow, slowly pulling away from the table and the woman into darkness. Rose felt pinpricks all over her body, as if needles were punching holes in her flesh and someone was calling out to her and the tongues lapped harder on her skin and—
"Rosie!"
A hand slapped Rose's face and her eyes opened. She was lost, delirious, about to scream until she saw Celeste looking down at her. Water ran down Rose's face. She groped around and finally saw that she was in the shower of the girl's room. She was soaked head to toe, her pajamas clinging to her body.
"What's—"
Celeste turned the water off and helped Rosie out of the shower. "You were sleepwalking," she said. "Jesus, are you okay?"
At first, Rose flopped along the floor like a fish out of water, and when the last bits of sleep dissipated from her foggy brain, she stood and leaned on Celeste. "Where'd she go?" she asked.
"Who?" Celeste's wiped the hair from Rose's eyes.
The door to the bathroom opened and a night worker entered. "What's going on in here?" she asked.
"She was sleepwalking," Celeste said.
"Get her back to her room," the woman instructed.
Rosie squinted at the harsh fluorescent lights of the bathroom. "I need to lie down." She stumbled out of the bathroom with Celeste's help. When they were back in their room, Celeste laid Rosie down on her bed and covered her up.
"Are you okay?" she asked again.
Rosie pulled the covers all the way up to her chin, her eyelids dropping. "I'm fine. I just . . ." She was still soaked from the shower, but didn't want to change clothes. She needed the water on her—it made her feel comfortable and connected to the blue-eyed woman in her dreams. She drifted off to sleep again, searching the corridors of her mind for a glimpse of the woman with the chipped tea cup, but was met with only darkness until morning came.
To be continued