Better Than the Best Plan Read online

  “Maritza, this is Justin Fellows,” Tess says, and Justin stands and holds out his hand to shake. “He’s your court-appointed lawyer.”

  “Oh, okay,” I reply, my voice halting. This guy looks like he’s maybe seventeen, like he had to get a pass out of homeroom to be my lawyer today.

  “Don’t worry, having a lawyer doesn’t mean you did anything wrong,” he says with a warm smile, and though he looks young, he sounds self-assured, so I try to relax. “I’m just here to represent your interest. I can answer any of the legal questions for you when we’re done.”

  “Okay,” I say again.

  “It’s going to be easy,” Tess says for probably the tenth time this morning. “Remember, just answer the questions when the judge asks. It’ll be very clear.”

  “Okay.” I wish I had more to contribute, but my heart is pounding too hard for me to come up with anything else to say.

  The judge slams his gavel on the desk in front of us, sending my heart into my throat. But before I can really start to panic, he smiles a nice, wide smile. He’s old, someone I’d describe as a grandpa, though I really never know if someone like that is fifty or seventy. He’s got bushy gray hair and little wire-rimmed glasses. He looks like he’s about to ask me what I want for Christmas.

  “Welcome, everyone. We’re here to do our preliminary hearing for minor child, ah”—he glances over the top of his glasses at a stack of papers in front of him—“Maritza Reed. Maritza, that’s you, I take it?”

  “Yes,” I say. “I mean, yes, Your Honor.”

  He laughs. “Don’t worry about formalities, Miss Reed. Just talk to me like I’m normal people, okay?”

  “Okay. I mean, yes.” I cringe. I’ve been saying “okay” so much it’s like I don’t actually speak the language.

  Then the hearing begins, and there’s a bunch of technical jargon that sounds vaguely like something I’ve heard on TV. I only sort of understand what they’re talking about. Everyone gets introduced, including Justin, Tess, Kris, and Pete. Tess tells the judge my story and answers a few questions. And then there’s a long silence.

  Because they’re waiting for me to talk. Everyone is looking at me.

  “I’m sorry, what was the question?” I ask. Of course I’m screwing this up already.

  “I just wanted to hear, in your words, what happened, Maritza,” the judge says.

  “Oh, well, okay,” I say, wondering where to begin. How much context does he really need? Do I need to explain about my mother’s constant search for inner peace or whatever? But he must do this a lot, because he smiles again and says, “Just start with the last time you saw your mother.”

  “Right. Well, it was about two weeks ago. She said she was going to stay at this place, the Bodhi Foundation? I think it’s this school for meditation or something, and she said she was going to go study. And the next day she left.”

  “Did she tell you when she’d be back? Or if she’d be back?”

  “She said she could be there for up to six months, but she wasn’t super clear, no. I don’t really know the details.”

  “That’s just fine, Maritza.” He shuffles some papers on his desk. “And what attempts have been made to find Marybelle Reed?”

  Tess opens her folder. “Ms. Reed does not have a cell phone, so we’re forced to rely on alternate methods of communication. On Monday, I called the number listed for the Bodhi Foundation, but was unable to reach Ms. Reed or even confirm if she was there. That same day I sent a certified letter regarding the DCF case. I followed up with a letter regarding the hearing information. I have yet to receive any communication from her or confirmation of her whereabouts.”

  The judge nods, a little V of concern forming between his eyebrows. “Okay, well, in the absence of the custodial parent, we’re looking at an abandonment case under Florida statute. So let’s go ahead and create our permanency plan with the idea that Ms. Reed will reappear, noting that if there has been no contact within sixty days, parental rights will be severed.”

  He continues talking, with Tess and Justin chiming in about future hearing dates and details, but I completely stop listening as soon as I hear the part about parental rights being severed. Sixty days? That’s it? By the end of the summer, if my mother doesn’t emerge from whatever meditative trance she’s climbed into, she could wind up not being my mother anymore?

  I have that distinct dizzy feeling that accompanies waking up from a very deep sleep and not knowing where you are. A week ago I was getting ready for summer and looking ahead to senior year. I had a job and friends and a date with my crush. I had a mom. Now I’m standing in a courtroom while a judge talks about turning me into a legal orphan.

  Where is she?

  It was one thing when staying with Kris was just a temporary, if extended, solution. But to hear that it might very well become permanent? I don’t trust my mom to answer a letter within sixty days, even if she wanted to. That’s just not her style. And that could wind up costing me my only parent. I want to scream out, Wait! You don’t understand! This has all gone way too far! But before I know it, the gavel slams and a security guard is ushering us back through the door. In the lobby, another group stands as they hear their case being called over the intercom.

  “Well, I’ll see you all in thirty days for our next hearing,” Tess says. “Of course, I’ll be in touch if I hear anything from Maritza’s mother, and you’re welcome to contact me at any point with any questions.”

  “Tess will get in contact with me if there are any legal issues,” Justin adds, passing Kris a business card. “But of course you can always reach out to me as well. Otherwise, I’ll see you back here next month.”

  “Thank you,” Kris says, and all the adults shake hands. Then they all smile at me, and I realize once again everyone’s waiting for me to speak.

  “Thank you,” I say, a sort of sweeping blanket expression of gratitude to the group. It’s the best I can do.

  I follow Kris and Pete back to the parking garage, climbing into the back seat of the Prius. Pete starts up the car, which makes no noise. Kris twists around in the front seat.

  “Do you have any questions?” she asks.

  I have a million questions, all circling me like a cloud of gnats. But I can only take a swipe at one.

  “Sixty days? If they don’t hear from her in sixty days, legally she’s abandoned me?”

  Kris takes a deep breath. “That’s what the judge says.”

  That doesn’t seem like enough time. My mom said she could be at that foundation place for six months. And if she doesn’t pick up a phone or answer a letter, that’s it.

  “So I’m sort of in limbo for sixty days?”

  “No! I mean, I guess legally, yes. But you live with us. And you’ll stay with us as long as necessary. No matter what happens, you’ll always have a place with us here. It’s important to me that you know that.”

  Pete shifts in his seat, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he puts the car in reverse, then pulls quietly out of the parking garage. Damn these stupid hybrid cars and their silent engines, making it blatantly obvious that there is a gaping silence between all of us. I wonder if Pete realized when I showed up at the house on Friday that he might just be gaining something like a daughter. The thought makes me squirm; I can’t imagine what he must be thinking. But Pete seems to specialize in saying nothing at all.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I’m out of bed early on Saturday morning, despite having stayed up far too late the night before. I shower and head down to the kitchen, where I find Kris and Pete. He’s still in his running gear, attacking a plateful of eggs. She’s paging through a thick binder, a highlighter in her hair and a pen in her teeth. At my appearance, they both stop what they’re doing and look up, their faces full of questions. I know how they feel.

  “How are you doing?” Kris asks as I pull a bowl from the cabinet and a box of granola from the pantry.

  “I’m okay,” I say. I decided last night, as I lay in be
d not sleeping but doing a whole lot of thinking, that I’d stop being so “on my best behavior” all the time and try my hand at being more honest. Frankly, the act is exhausting. “Yesterday was … not the greatest.”

  “I’m so sorry, Maritza,” Kris says, closing her binder. She caps her highlighter and places it on top of the binder, perfectly lined up with the title on the front: Issues in Alzheimer’s Care. “Like I said last night, you are always welcome here, so don’t feel like that’s in any way unstable.”

  “I don’t,” I say, and I mean it. Before I went to bed last night, I pulled everything out of my suitcase, putting my books on the shelf by the window and my clothes in the drawers. I took all my toiletries out of the shopping bag I’d brought them in, placed them on the counter and in the cabinet, and threw the bag away. I slid my suitcase, now empty, under the bed.

  I moved in.

  I pour myself a bowl of granola, but before I drench it in the fancy organic milk Kris buys that comes in a glass bottle, I pull the slip of paper from my pocket. It’s crumpled, but you can still make out the phone number and email address on the pink paper.

  “I think I’m going to call about a job at the Island Club,” I tell them. There’s a pause as they share a glance.

  “You really don’t have to do that,” Kris says. “We’re happy to provide whatever—”

  “I know you are, and I appreciate it. And I’m sure I’m still going to need a lot from you. But I would feel better having some of my own spending money. I also think I’ll get bored lounging around all summer. Having a job will give me something to do outside the house. And maybe I’ll even meet some people.”

  Pete looks impressed. “I think that sounds like a great idea,” he says, then pauses, gazing at me expectantly. “You look like you have more to say?”

  “I do.” I nod. “I’m going to need to go pack up the rest of the stuff in my old apartment. There’s not much, but the landlord’s not going to hold it past the end of the month.”

  “Well, I’d be happy to go with you and do that,” Kris says.

  “I know, but I think, if you don’t mind, I’d like to do it with Lainey.”

  I see Kris’s brow furrow, but again, Pete comes to the rescue. “We can clear out some space in the attic to store boxes. You pack everything up, and if you need help transporting it all, you let us know. Otherwise, I’ll be here to carry them up.”

  “Thanks. I want to get it done today. My friends back in Jacksonville are having a beach day, so I figured I could go do that, and then after that, Lainey and I could pack up.”

  Kris looks like it’s killing her not to have a job in all this other than to agree, but it’s a testament to her desire to help that she’s willing to give me that.

  * * *

  “Just call me your fairy god-friend!”

  Lainey opens Barney’s trunk to several shopping bags filled with packages of paper towels and what look like cleaning supplies.

  “There are a bunch of boxes underneath that I flattened, but we can get more. The guy at the liquor store around the corner from my house was fine with me scavenging,” she says. I want to hug her, because I hadn’t thought to pick up any of this stuff. “We are getting that deposit back if it kills us.”

  “You’re my hero. Seriously,” I tell her. I load my arms up with the plastic handles of shopping bags, while Lainey scoops up a giant stack of cardboard boxes in her arms. “We can use trash bags for the clothes. Too many boxes will be hard to cram in the car.”

  “Yup, I picked up a box of the giant black ones,” she says. “They’re in one of the bags.”

  We cross the hot blacktop and head up the stairs to 12C, my home for the last year and a half. But I guess this will be the last day of that. I unlock the door, shoving it open with my knee as my arms start to shake with the weight of the bags. Inside, the familiar smell of dust and something burnt from Mrs. Sazonov’s apartment fills my nose. I’d forgotten about that smell, or maybe I’d just stopped noticing it. But living at Kris’s, which always smells like essential oils and baked goods, suddenly makes me realize how noxious the odor is in here.

  “Okay, so game plan,” I say, dropping the grocery bags just inside the door. “Clothes in black trash bags, bulky stuff in the boxes. Use the white trash bags under the sink for actual trash, so we know what goes in the dumpsters versus what goes in the car.”

  “Aye, aye, captain,” Lainey says. She gives me a quick salute, then digs in a plastic shopping bag for a roll of packing tape, setting about taping a box to prepare to fill it.

  While she does that, I find the box of black trash bags, ripping it open to pull one off the roll. Then I head straight back to my mom’s room. I want to get that one done as soon as possible. When I open the door, the room is pitch-black, the shades drawn tight. When I try to flick on the light, nothing happens, and I wonder how long the bulb has been out.

  I cross the floor and open the shades, clouds of dust spinning in little tornadoes in the sunbeams now streaming in. My mother, never much of a housekeeper, at least contained her mess to her own room. Which is an utter disaster. There are clothes strewn about from one end to the other, with no indication as to what’s clean and what’s dirty. It looks like the “after” scene in a movie makeover montage, where the main character tries on everything in her closet and tosses it around while some boppy pop song plays in the background. I shake out the trash bag and start scooping and dumping, not caring if things are inside out or zipped, or if shoes are winding up with their mates. There are several half-finished knitting projects still on needles, big skeins of yarn dragging behind them like anchors. I dump them into the bag, needles and all. Just get it packed, that’s my only goal.

  I fill one trash bag, then two. I’m midway through the third when I’ve cleaned everything off the floor and bed and swiped everything out of her closet. There’s so much strewn about that it almost doesn’t occur to me to check in the dresser drawers. No one who kept her clothes in such a state used her dresser, right? Still, I know it’ll nag at me if I don’t check, so I start pulling out drawers. As I suspected, they’re mostly empty. A few lone socks waiting in one (their mates woefully absent), a ratty old T-shirt that probably only had life left as a dustrag in another. Still, I toss everything in the third bag, because I don’t know what has meaning to her, and besides, I have room before I close this one up. I tell myself that’s the reason, and not because there’s any lingering part of me that thinks she might come back.

  When I open the bottom drawer, I find the only thing in the entire room that is folded up. It’s an old beach towel, the colors once vibrant, I imagine, but now faded, the edges frayed. I reach for it and find that it’s folded around something more solid. I unwrap the towel and find an oversized manila envelope, crinkled and worn. On the front, hastily scrawled in an unfamiliar hand, is my name.

  I glance over my shoulder, like my mother is going to pop out and chastise me for going through her things, but of course I could just yell back, You’re in Mexico and also a figment of my imagination! Plus, this has my name on it! Then I flip the envelope over and pop open the little metal prongs on the closure. They don’t bend that easy, and I have to use a fingernail to get under one side, telling me that this envelope is very old and hasn’t been opened very often. I peek inside and find a stack of paper and more envelopes, these white like bills.

  I turn the entire thing upside down and let the contents fall onto the carpet in front of me. My birth certificate is there, along with my Social Security card. I set those aside immediately, knowing they’ll come in handy, especially if my mother never comes back. There’s a brown file folder, the kind with the bracket inside to hold the papers in. As soon as I open it, I see the words FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILIES. My hands start to shake, my breath catching in my throat. The top looks like a standard biographical form, the kind you’d fill out to register for school or a gymnastics class. There’s my name and birthday, and an address I don’t
recognize: 865 Walker Road, Jacksonville. My mother’s name is there, my father’s name blank, as usual.

  At the bottom, folded up into a little square, is a piece of newspaper. I have to be careful as I unfold it, because age has made it tissue thin, the folds ready to let go at any moment. I smooth it out on the back of the file folder, careful not to smudge the ink.

  LOCAL ORGANIC FARM RAIDED

  by Susannah Womack, staff reporter

  Acting on an anonymous tip, police and agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency raided Plough and Stars, an artist colony and cooperative farm, in the early hours of Friday morning. Police, accompanied by agents with the Drug Enforcement Agency, raided the property at 865 Walker Road after reports that the farm was growing marijuana for distribution.

  The property, owned by commune leader Joshua Boland and his wife, Louisa, features several small homes and approximately twenty acres of farmland.

  More than 40 adults and 12 children, ranging in age from six months to 13 years old, were said to be living on the property. The minors were taken into custody by the Florida Department of Children and Families, where they will be placed in foster care until an investigation can be completed. The adult residents were processed by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. Several have since been released on bail.

  Plough and Stars can regularly be found at farmers’ markets around northeast Florida selling organic fruits and vegetables. Several members of the commune are also noted artists, with works displayed at local galleries.