Marilyn Kaye - Better Late Than Never

For my friends who first heard this story on the beach at

Bandol: Thomas and Augustin Clerc; Emilie and Marion

Grimaud; Jeanne, Angele, and Baptiste Latil; Liona,

Fanny, and Alice Lutz -- je vous embrasse!

JENNA KELLEY STOOD AT her bedroom window and gazed outside without really seeing anything. Not that there was much to see---just another dull brick building, exactly like her own. Sometimes, if people left their curtains open, Jenna could see people moving around in their apartments, but they rarely did anything worth watching.

Without being able to see it, she knew there was another identical structure just beyond the one opposite. Together, the three buildings made up Brookside Towers, the low-income housing development where she'd moved with her mother two years before, when she was 11. It was a pretty dreary place, but it was home, and she wasn't thrilled with the prospect of leaving it. The gray sky and steady rain outside did nothing to improve her mood.

She turned away from the window and went to her chest of drawers. Taking up a stubby black pencil, she added another layer to the already thick line that circled her eyes and stepped back to admire the effect. Kohl-rimmed eyes, short spiked hair, black T-shirt, black jeans . . . No tattoos or piercings yet, but she had a stick-on fake diamond on her right nostril, and it looked real. She hoped the way she looked would startle--maybe even shock-- whomever she might be meeting.

In the mirror, behind her own reflection, she could see the empty suitcase lying open on her bed. Ignoring it, she left the room.

The sound of her footsteps on the bare floor echoed in the practically empty apartment. The silence gave her the creeps. She'd spent time alone here before, of course, but she'd always known that her mother would show up before too long. This time it was different. Her mother would be staying in the hospital rehab center for two weeks. Just knowing this made Jenna feel even more alone.

She considered turning on the TV for some companionship but then remembered that all she'd hear would be static and the screen would be a blur. Her mother hadn't paid the cable bill for three months, and the service had been cut off a while ago.

Instead, she went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door, even though she knew there wouldn't be anything edible inside. She removed a half-empty bottle of soda. There was no fizz left in it, but it was better than nothing, and she sat down at the rickety kitchen table to drink it.

What was her mother doing right now? she wondered. Screaming at a nurse? Demanding a gin and tonic? Jenna wanted to be optimistic. Maybe her mother would make it this time, but she couldn't count on it. Her mom had tried to stop drinking before but had never made it beyond a day or two. That very morning, before she'd left, she'd drained what was left in a bottle and then announced that this was the last alcohol she'd ever drink. Jenna had tried to read her mind, to get a more accurate picture of how serious and committed her mother was this time, but she couldn't get inside.

It was funny, when Jenna considered how easily she read minds. Young or old, male or female, smart or stupid--most people couldn't stop her from eavesdropping on their private thoughts. But there were some who were just not accessible. Like her mother.

She used to think her mother's mind was too cloudy and messed up to penetrate. Then she thought that maybe there was another reason, like a blood connection, that prevented her from reading the mind of a family member. Unfortunately, there were no other family members around, so she couldn't test that theory. She'd never known her father--according to her mother, he'd taken off before Jenna was even born. She had no brothers or sisters, and her mother had left her own family when she was young, so Jenna had never met any grandparents, aunts, uncles, or cousins.

One thing made her doubt that her inability to read her mother's mind was caused completely by the family connection. Just six months ago, when she'd been placed in the special so-called gifted class at Meadowbrook Middle School, she found that she couldn't read the mind of the teacher, a woman they called Madame. She'd tried and tried, but she was completely blocked from getting inside the teacher's head, and she'd finally given up. Maybe it was because Madame knew all their gifts so well that she was somehow able to protect herself from the special students. Gifts … It was a strange way to describe their unique abilities, Jenna thought. She certainly didn't feel gifted.

Having finished the flat soda, she got up and went back to her room. The suitcase on her bed reminded her that she still had a lot to do. She just didn't feel like doing it. Resolutely, she looked away and concentrated on the room that she would be bidding farewell to for at least the next two weeks.

She liked her room, and she'd spent a lot of time making it into a special place for herself---her own private, cozy cave, where she could close the door and shut out the sounds of her mother and her friends partying. The walls were a muddy gray color. She would have preferred them to be black, but beggars couldn't be choosers--the paint had been free. She'd found half-empty cans of black and white paint left on the ground behind a Dumpster, and mixing them together had given her enough to cover the walls. A dog-walking job for a neighbor had given her the resources to buy a black bedspread printed with white skulls as well as matching curtains. There were two vampire-movie posters-- one showed the vampire attacking a woman, while the other was a close-up of the vampire himself with blood dripping from his mouth. And just after last Christmas, someone in her building had thrown away a perfectly good set of twinkling lights, with only a few broken bulbs. She'd arranged some garland around her door, and when she turned off the overhead light and turned on the twinkling ones, it was nicely spooky.

What kind of room would she be sleeping in tonight? A basement dungeon? Somewhere pink and white, with ruffled curtains and shelves holding a variety of Barbies? She couldn't decide which would be worse. Both images made her shudder.

Her sad fantasy was interrupted by a knock at the front door, and she groaned. For one fleeting moment, she considered not going to the door and pretending that no one was home. Eventually her visitor would go away.

Only, what was the point? She knew who was standing just outside the door, and she knew the woman wouldn't give up so easily. Even if she went away, she'd only come back, possibly with a police officer or some other official type. And they'd break down the door to get in if they had to. There was probably a law. People who were Jenna's age weren't allowed to live alone, not even for two weeks.

There was another series of knocks, more insistent this time. Reluctantly, Jenna headed to the door. She opened it to see a woman dressed in a tan suit, her fair hair pulled back neatly in a bun. The briefcase in her hand completed her professional look, and she offered Jenna a practiced smile.

"Hello, Jenna. Are you ready to go?"

"No," Jenna replied, knowing full well how rude she sounded and not caring at all. "I haven't even started packing."

The woman's expression didn't change, but now her smile looked a little strained. "Well, perhaps you'd better get going. You won't need much, you know. It's for only two weeks."

"Yeah, whatever," Jenna muttered. Two weeks in a house full of strangers. It might as well be forever. She left the social worker and went back to her bedroom. As she began tossing whatever caught her eye into the suitcase, her thoughts went back to the two temporary foster homes that she'd stayed in before.