Shoulders slumped, Jess laid back down beside Piers on their blanket. “Yeah. Good point. Did he ever talk of your folks much?” She shivered; Piers pulled her closer, willing her warm.
“He never told me about my father. Whenever I asked, he'd say, ‘What do you need a father for? You have me.’” Lots of truth there. Uncle Lee had been a good father figure. Gods and unknown ancestors, but Piers missed him. “He told me a little about my mother. She was apparently some kind of evil witch. Everybody hated her.”
“What a horrible thing to tell her son.”
“He never said that until the end. Uncle Lee came into my room in the middle of the night and told me.” Their last conversation. “He said good and evil were a choice, and I controlled my destiny. Then he ordered me to go down the fire escape and find a cop.” Piers steeled himself for this last part, spoken in barely a whisper. “I never saw him again.”
Jess shifted onto her side, propping on her elbow. Her natural curls poofed around her head like a halo under the streetlight in the background. “Good and evil are a choice, and we’re in control of our own lives. Isn’t that what all those motivational speakers tried to tell us in assembly?”
Piers snorted. “More or less. I think it’s a required speech by older people trying to give us the guidance of their wisdom.” Like: eighteen-year-olds could be turned loose into the wild, to fly or fall flat. Too many he’d met fell flat: living homeless, prostituting themselves, landing in prison—or dead. “I used to think that somewhere out there, someone cared about me, missed me. Wondered about me.” He’d abandoned those childish dreams long ago. “My uncle said his friend would come for me one day.” He gave a humorless laugh. “I’d say mysterious friend is a little late.”
“I care. I’ll wonder where you are once you’re gone from here,” Jess protested, bristling with indignation.
Yes, without a doubt. Piers’ heart warmed a bit. “Because you’re freaking awesome.”
Jess relaxed and grinned. “I am, aren’t I?” More seriously, she asked, “What you gonna do?”
Those words ushered in a lot of depression. What could Piers do? Not many options at eighteen, not yet out of high school, with no family or skills to rely on. “I really don’t know.”
“Have you thought about the program that extends foster care until you’re twenty-one?” Jess offered.
“But I’d have to leave you and go someplace else.”
“Only for a bit. You could at least think about it.”
Piers snorted. Eleven years of believing no one wanted him. He couldn’t imagine applying for a job, saying he lived in foster care. Besides, he’d heard the caregivers often talk, making plans for when he no longer needed his bed. Too many kids, not enough room.
Jess squeezed his hand. “If you can hold off a few months, I’ll be out of here too. We can get jobs, share an apartment.” She waggled her brows. “We could spend weekends at the mall, checking out men.”
“Like we don’t check out men together now.” Piers bumped his shoulder against hers. Besides none compared to the guy he still dreamed about, who’d aged along with Piers. White hair. Amber eyes.
“Who knows? Maybe in a few years, our tastes will improve.”
They exchanged a knowing look. “Billy Connelly,” they chorused, the guy they’d both crushed on in school who’d turned out to be a total loser.
Could Piers hold off a few months? Who’d hire two aged-out foster kids? Especially if he didn’t find a way to finish school while on his own.
Jess murmured, “You’ll think of something; you always do. Now, let’s get cozy and look at the stars.”
Piers trudged down the sidewalk alone. Thursday. Jess’s stay-after-school day for math tutoring. He took the long way. No need to hurry. The home would still be there. He wouldn't be questioned as long as he arrived within the hour.
His route took him past stores, through milling crowds of shoppers. Mid-November and already twinkling lights blinked from store windows and light poles, while snippets of Christmas music escaped onto the sidewalk whenever a customer opened a door.
Piers loved coming this way; the scents, the sounds. A few shopkeepers knew him—or rather, kept an eye on him.
Mostly, though, he remained anonymous, another face in the crowd. Here he could merely exist for a few moments, tuning out his problems. Paperwork sat on his nightstand. A few signatures, and on his eighteenth birthday he’d move into another house, where he could maybe go to trade school, learn a whole new group of people, establish the pecking order all over again.
He peered through the store windows at the latest fashions, pretending he could enter and buy whatever he wanted. No one around knew he couldn’t. Nice to dream.
A sign in a diner window caught his eye. “Dishwasher wanted.” The acid fear eating its way through his stomach eased with the hope of supporting himself legally. Could he? What a scary thought. Supporting himself. No one else to depend on.
Dishwasher. Probably didn’t pay much, but if he chose a subsidy instead of a group home, could he make enough to survive?
He took a deep breath and entered the diner. Bright afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows. A counter lined one wall, with a man sitting on a stool rolling spaghetti noodles around a fork. A trendily-dressed couple sat in the back, munching sandwiches. The whole place smelled heavenly: tomato sauce and spices. Piers’ stomach growled.
A rumbling laugh sounded behind him. “Time to feed the beast?”
Piers spun to find a man with heavy jowls and laugh lines around his eyes and mouth. Sparse gray hair crowned his head. The T-shirt stretching over his ample belly declared, “Never trust a skinny cook.”
