is a ragamuffin, a street urchin. She’s barely older than Zoe. She won’t make eye contact with me, not when Heidi tells me her name is Willow or when I say lackadaisically (I don’t want to appear too stupid when the cameramen appear to inform me that I’m on the next installment of Candid Camera) that mine is Chris.
Heidi announces, “She’s going to stay with us tonight,” just like that. Like those damn kittens, and I’m too stupefied to say yes or no, not that anyone bothered to ask my opinion. Heidi shepherds the girl into our home, and suggests she remove the soused boots from her feet, and as she does so, about a gallon of water pours from their insides and onto the floor. Beneath those boots, her feet are bare. No socks, her feet macerated and covered in blisters. I wince, and Heidi and the girl’s eyes follow mine down to the bare feet. I know Heidi’s thinking about how to remedy the girl’s ailing feet, but I’m just hoping whatever she’s got isn’t contagious.
Zoe appears from her bedroom, the words “what the...” dropping from a gaping mouth. I’m guessing our daughter isn’t overly familiar with the f word that follows that statement, so I nearly say it aloud for her. What the fuck are you thinking, Heidi? But already Heidi is showing the girl into our home, introducing her to our daughter, who stares dumbly at this waif and then looks to me for an explanation. I can only shrug.
The girl’s eyes get lost on the TV, on some basketball game: Chicago Bulls versus the Pistons, and I hear myself ask—for lack of anything better to say—“You like basketball?” and she flatly answers, “No,” and yet she’s staring at that TV as though she’s never seen an electrical appliance before in her life. When she talks, I catch a scent of bacteria fermenting in her mouth: halitosis. I wonder when she last brushed her teeth. They’ve probably got that “fuzzy sweater” thing going on. There’s an ungodly smell coming from her and when I move to the window and open it a crack, Heidi shoots me an evil eye, to which I reply, “What? It’s stuffy in here,” and hope the rain stays at bay long enough to air out the stench.
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