behind her big table with her big hands folded and said, ‘What would you like me to do about it? Bring his mother back?’
‘No,’ said Tully, disturbed by the response. ‘I would like for you to find him a suitable home.’
‘Miss, this is Foster Home Recruitment and Licensing. We do not find them suitable homes. We find them homes. If you would like suitable homes, you should speak to a private adoption agency. Besides,’ added Lillian, ‘his mother will almost certainly come back. They nearly always do, and always want their kids.’
Tully was aghast. ‘But he has no one to take care of him while he waits for his mother!’
‘Ah, but that’s not true,’ said Lillian White. ‘He has you.’
‘Me? I’m eighteen. I’m even less suitable than she is, if that’s possible. Besides, I am not available,’ Tully said, helplessly forced by this unfriendly, overweight woman to make some kind of a decision on her life. ‘I start Washburn this month.’
Lillian lifted her eyebrows. ‘You do? What are you studying?’
‘Child development,’ Tully said, suddenly remembering something from her life before March 26.
Lillian stared at Tully intently. ‘And you’re going to Washburn?’
‘Yes,’ said Tully, calmer. ‘I applied to Stanford, in California, but I didn’t get in. So I’m going to Washburn. Eighteen credits. Also I found myself a job,’ rattled Tully. ‘Carlos O’Kelly’s. It’s a Mexican –’
‘I know what Carlos O’Kelly’s is,’ Lillian cut her off. ‘And I know where Stanford is. Well, let’s see what we can do for him. Can you keep him with you until we find an available family?’
Tully nodded. ‘How long do you give the parents to come back before you put the children up to be adopted?’
‘Eighteen years,’ replied Lillian, and when Tully got up to leave, she strongly suspected that Lillian wasn’t joking.
Oh, man, she thought when she walked outside. Yuk. And they have her running the Foster Program?
Telling Lillian White about Washburn made it somehow real for Tully. She told that woman it was happening and now had to follow through.
It took Tully less than an hour to go to Morgan Hall – the Washburn Admissions Office – get an application, fill it out, drive to Topeka High, get a copy of her transcript, go to the trailer, find her SAT and ACT scores, and drive back to Washburn. Afterward, she went to Carlos O’Kelly’s, lied about her waitressing experience, and got a job. Four days later Tully was accepted for the fall semester – with a late registration fee. It took Tully about two minutes to dig out the cash she had stashed away, and another two minutes to pick out her courses from the catalog – all general education requirements. A little English Comp, a little Religion, a little Communication. ‘Have you thought about your major?’ she was asked by the Registrar’s secretary. ‘Child Development,’ she said dully. It really didn’t matter. She could have said Home Ec.
The State of Kansas quickly found Damien a place: the Baxters on Indian Hills Road. Bill and Rose Baxter were a couple in their fifties, and their two children had married and left. The Baxters said they wanted to make another child happy before the grandchildren came. But there was something about them that bugged Tully. Their house was too small to have housed four human beings, Tully thought. And there were no pictures. No pictures of chubby kids running around the yard or playing in the kiddie pool. Nothing.
‘Damien,’ Tully said to the boy that night. ‘Until your mommy comes back, you’re going to go and live with Aunt Rose and Uncle Bill, okay?’
Damien frowned. ‘Where is my mommy?’
Tully felt grateful that he was only three.
The next morning she drove Damien to Indian Hills Road, with his clothes and books and trucks, and tried to tell the Baxters what he needed and liked, but she was received with near indifference. How much are they getting paid to take care of Damien? Tully wondered achingly as she hugged him, telling him she was going to come by and visit him real soon. While driving away and waving to him Tully – in the sideview mirror – saw her own face. It looked as small and pinched as Damien’s.
3
At Carlos O’Kelly’s, the manager, a small, pretty Guatemalan woman named Sylvia Vasquez, tried Tully out in the part of the restaurant that did not serve alcohol. The tips were smaller, but it was slower, too; more to Tully’s speed, since she had never worked as a waitress.
Sylvia gave Tully a cute outfit – a solid blue shirt and a short, flowery cotton skirt. The first week Tully worked three nights, and with a salary of $1 an hour and tips made about $60. It was Tully’s very first $60 that she had made at a real job – a real job that did not involve dancing or running errands for Lynn Mandolini or babysitting. The second week, she made $80; the third, Sylvia gave Tully an extra ten hours and she made $120.
Tully continued to live in the trailer, having moved most of Tracy’s stuff to the spare room that once was Damien’s.
When Robin saw the trailer for the first time, he could not hide his disappointment.
‘Tully, why in heaven’s name would you want to live in a dump like this?’ he asked her.
‘It’s not a dump,’ Tully said defensively. ‘I cleaned and painted it. It doesn’t smell anymore. It’s only a hundred dollars a month. And for now, it’s all mine. How many trailers can you say that about?’
‘Tully, you have my whole house. Five bedrooms, a pool, a maid, and all freshly painted,’ said Robin. ‘Why would you choose this instead of that?’
‘Because this,’ said Tully, ‘is dirty, cheap, near the railroad, and all mine. How many places can you say that about?’
‘Who the fuck wants to be near the railroad?’ He grimaced. ‘When will it be time to get away from the railroad?’
‘Can I get away from the railroad?’ Tully wanted to know. ‘I’m a railroad girl, after all.’
Robin just sighed.
August was nearly at an end when Julie came to visit Tully at Carlos O’Kelly’s. Ordering a chimichanga and a Coke, Julie said, ‘I haven’t seen you for a while.’
‘No,’ said Tully, looking intently into her order pad. ‘I’ve been real busy. Will that be a Diet or a regular Coke?’
‘Make it regular,’ said Julie. ‘So Tom left for Brown a week ago.’
‘Oh,’ said Tully, going to clear off the adjacent table. ‘How do you feel about that?’
‘I don’t know. We haven’t spoken since he left.’
‘Now, there’s a surprise,’ said Tully.
‘Here’s a surprise for you,’ said Julie. ‘I don’t even miss him.’
