“Yes. Meet me at noon in the last parking spot on the row directly in front of the entrance to the furniture store.”
“That’s oddly specific.”
“You asked for a place.” I shrugged. “I gave you one.”
“I know, but I wasn’t expecting such precision. What happens if I park in, say, the second to last spot?”
I shook my head, smiling. “I wouldn’t do it.”
“I mean, maybe I park, like, one row over. Or sideways. What happens then?”
“You’ll get stuck behind people driving slow in the fast lane forever.”
“Oh.” She laughed. “That’s not good. I suppose you’re right. We’ll go with your obsessive-compulsive spot then.”
I saw Hudson approaching his car and gestured toward him with my head. “Your ride is here.”
Twisting her head, Grace spotted him and stomped her foot like an insolent toddler. “Ugh, don’t make me go.”
“You have to,” I whispered, placing the bags of my dirty clothes in her hands, turning her around, and scooting her toward him. “Who else is going to wash my clothes and bake me cookies?”
She barked out a laugh. “I never said I was baking you cookies.”
“You never said you weren’t.”
She turned back around, her nose crinkling. “Are you going to be all right out there all by yourself?”
All by myself? Hell, I wished. When the sun went down in Los Angeles, the cretins crawled out of their holes and I was very muchnotalone.
“Don’t worry about me,” I reassured her. “I know how to disappear.”
She nodded, nibbling on her bottom lip. “But you won’t disappear on me, will you?”
How could I explain to her that she was the power player in this pairing? She was the one with the life to live. I had nothing. I’d always show up. I wasn’t sure she could say the same. “No. Now go. Don’t miss your ride.”
“Okay,” she said, walking away backward so that she was still staring at me. “Tomorrow. Noon. In that ridiculous spot of yours. Don’t be late.”
“I won’t. Oh, and Grace? That stuff…” I pointed to the plastic bags in her hands. “It’s all I own.”
“I got you, Beats.” She lifted the bags up to show me as she continued walking backward. “I promise I won’t let you down.”
I stayed behind the pillar, watching as Grace approached Hudson. The two exchanged words, and then she slipped into his car and away they went. A moment passed. And then another. I couldn’t seem to move my feet from this spot after she’d disappeared from sight. I’d watched people walk away plenty of times before, but it had never felt like this. As illogical as it seemed, I knew this privileged, inquisitive girl would come back for me. I couldn’t say how I knew; I just did.
Somewhere on a desk at The Department of Children and Family Services was a file with my name on it. Inside of that file was a psyche evaluation with a fancy diagnosis stamped on it: Reactive Attachment Disorder. An inability to show affection for others. To trust. To bond.
Grace had just proven the experts wrong.
* * *
Standing alonein the parking garage, I had a decision to make. Walk the four miles back to the part of the city I knew well, the part where cops didn’t bother the squatters and where the motel management was a little less beholden to the state ID laws, or find myself a place to crash around here for the night. Both held their risks. Remaining in an area I was unfamiliar with was dangerous but it would avoid me having to make the same trip back in the morning. I glanced around the garage, wondering if maybe I could get away with crashing here. I wandered the different levels until I found an out-of-the-way nook and settled in.
I must have fallen fast asleep because I had no idea where I was or what time I was awakened by the man in a security sweatshirt. “This is private property. Gotta move.”
I jolted upright, my heart racing at the unexpected intrusion.
“Okay, I’m going.”
Grabbing my buckets, I was already walking away when he called to me. “How much?”
