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  I raise the mug to my lips again, holding it high so she won’t see me watching her. She looks much younger lying down, like a little kid with her short pixie haircut and nightshirt with rolled-up sleeves. Her shoulders are twice the size of Judy’s but her wrists and hands are small, with short, stubby fingers that look almost like a child’s. For some reason this makes me feel like I can talk to her, or at least come closer without getting her mad.

  I spill the rest of the water out and put the mug back on the shelf. Behind me, someone sighs. I turn around to see Harriet staring at me and take a step forward.

  “What?”

  “Why did they bring you here?”

  “Same reason as you. Lousy parents.”

  “Yeah?”

  “What do you mean ‘yeah’?”

  “Nothing.”

  We’re silent for a minute but nobody moves and I get back into bed. Judy, who has either been asleep or pretending to be, opens her eyes and looks at us. Manuela sits up in bed. Harriet looks down at her hands and I’m getting the feeling she might start to say something. But all of a sudden, Mr. Sin walks in, going straight to Manuela’s bed and looking down at her.

  “Your father is being deported,” he says. “Do you know what that means?”

  Manuela doesn’t answer him.

  “He’s going back to Mexico,” Sin says. “So your mother and you will, too.”

  Manuela turns her face away from him without answering.

  “Do you want to go back there?”

  Silence.

  “Well,” he says, “whether you do or not, you will, Manuela. You have your father to thank for it.”

  No wonder they call him “Sin.” He turns away, nearly colliding with the nurse who stumbles past him, shaking a thermometer. She tries to get Harriet to open her mouth but has no luck and settles on Judy.

  Mr. Sin watches us awhile but we all ignore him. Meanwhile, Manuela starts to sing. She’s singing in Spanish so we can’t sing with her. But the chorus goes “Ai, ai, ai, ai, señor.” She sings this two or three times and after a while I catch the melody and start to join in. Judy pulls the thermometer out of her mouth, and Harriet starts clapping, which makes Manuela sing louder. The director snorts in disgust and leaves the room, punching the door with his fist.

  When Manuela’s song finishes, I remember something Sky taught us that’s supposed to be a protest song. “We shall over . . . come . . .” I sing softly, holding out the notes to see if Manuela will join in. She doesn’t, but in a minute Judy is singing with me. It’s the first time I’ve really heard her (besides the screams), because her voice is so tiny and squeaky, like a mouse. But now she’s singing like she’s onstage, loud and high and clear as a bell.

  “Ohh—oh, deep in my heart,” we sing. “I do believe. We shall overcome . . . some day.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Manuela looking over her shoulder at Rose, who is watching us from the doorway. Judy and I start on the second chorus, and I get a little louder, knowing we have an audience. Rose is as still as a statue, and if I didn’t know better I’d almost swear I could see her mouthing the words.

  I sit up and then kneel, leaning over Harriet’s bed. For some reason I can’t explain, I take her hand and continue singing. She turns to me and I think she’s going to smile only she doesn’t. A big, dark rumble comes out of her instead, like thunder at the beginning of a storm.

  “Mmmph,” Harriet groans. “Mooov—Maw-eee!” All of a sudden, she’s sobbing, with huge gulps shaking her shoulders. “Mawwww—meee! Mawwww-meee! Mawwww-meee!”

  Before I can even react, Rose shoos me away and wraps her arms around Harriet, who is shaking like a leaf. Rose rocks her, saying, “All right, all right,” over and over again. I lean back onto my pillow as Manuela reaches out to grab my hand. Judy stares at Harriet, holding her hand to her mouth like she’s trying to stop herself from crying. Meanwhile, Harriet’s sobs grow bigger and more broken-sounding until she runs out of breath and slows down. After a while, Rose pulls a tissue out of her pocket and Harriet blows her nose.

  I steal a glance at Manuela, wondering if what Mr. Sin said is really true. What will happen to her family in Mexico? Will it be good or bad? It has to be better than being here and I know she wants to see her parents again. I want it to work out, but the way Mr. Sin made it sound wasn’t so hot. Plus, I kind of want her to stay here, mostly for selfish reasons.

  Meanwhile, Harriet seems to have stopped crying, and Rose asks her if she wants some water. Harriet nods and Rose gets her a cup, but while Harriet is drinking, Rose walks over to me. She leans over and says, “Now, Ruby. You’ve got to stop all this. You hear?”

  “What?”

  “You know they’re starving themselves because of what you’re doing. You’re a bad influence. You understand?”

  I look at Rose, and then at Manuela, but before I can answer someone knocks on the infirmary door. The nurse is back with a doctor, who listens to our hearts and looks in our noses and ears. His breath smells like a sour pickle and I have to turn away when he talks. He wants to know how long it’s been since I’ve eaten and I shrug and say I have no clue. His little light shines into my eyes and ears, and then he clicks it off and turns to Manuela.

  I close my eyes, trying to sleep. The doctor is fussing with Harriet, who is yelling at him to get his hands off her. Slap! I open my eyes to see her smacking away his hand. I close my eyes again, sighing. For some reason the thought of Harriet hitting the doctor seems incredibly funny and it’s all I can do to keep myself from laughing.

  “What?” Manuela says, and I try not to look at her. I know as soon I do I’ll start sputtering, but she’s breathing so oddly I turn my head. Only it’s not Manuela I see—it’s Levitt. She’s standing in the corner with someone I don’t recognize. And then I do recognize her and sit up so fast I get woozy and have to lie down again.

  Levitt is smiling and looking straight at me like I’m her favorite person in the world. The woman next to her is Nell-mom, only she’s cut her long hair in a pageboy, just an inch or so longer than her chin. She’s wearing a blue shirtdress, the kind you might wear in Wisconsin, but never in Greenwich Village. And there’s something else that’s weird—really weird. Nell-mom is wearing pearls!

  “Hi, Ruby,” Levitt is saying, and I find myself staring at her bright red lipstick and small, even teeth. “It looks like your mother is getting married, isn’t that nice?”

  I can feel my mouth dropping as I stare.

  “So you know what that means, right?” Levitt says. “No more hunger striking! Your mom is taking you home.”

  15

  Bleak and Blue

  SOMETHING IS ROTTEN in the state of Denmark. That’s what Sky says when things don’t add up right on the cash register at Blue Skies. He got that saying from a Shakespeare play called Hamlet about a Danish prince whose life was in shambles. As I’m watching Nell-mom in her pearls and shirtdress, I’m thinking something’s rotten here, too—though I can’t exactly put my finger on it.

  Nell-mom’s in a hurry so I try to say good-bye to the girls as fast as I can. I borrow a pen from Levitt to give Manuela my address and she puts her arms around my neck. “Will be okay,” she whispers.

  “But—”

  “Mexico will be better,” she says. “I have experience now as organizadora, yes? I will try and be like Cesar—”

  “That’s enough,” says Mrs. Levitt. But it’s not enough. Manuela sits up straight, holding up her thumb like she did the first time she visited the infirmary and smiling her Robin Hood smile. I lock my thumb around Manuela’s, knowing Judy and Harriet are staring at us. Even though we’re not friends, I still feel bad that Judy and Harriet have to stay here. “Keep it up,” I tell them. “Keep striking.”

  “Now, Ruby,” Levitt says. “You’re going home because your mother is doing the right thing—not beca
use of a hunger strike.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” I say, but Nell-mom puts her hand on my shoulder and I can tell she’s losing patience.

  “You have to eat before you go, Ruby,” Levitt continues. “We have some oatmeal in the kitchen here.”

  “I’ve got some cheese in my bag,” Nell-mom says, but Levitt isn’t taking no for an answer.

  “I have to insist,” she says, and I can feel Nell-mom’s hand tightening. It’s as cold as ice, and I start getting scared that maybe she’ll have a tantrum again.

  I let go of Manuela’s hand and turn around to see Nell-mom hurry out of the room. Judy, Harriet, and Manuela call out their good-byes and I wave, following Nell-mom down the stairs.

  If I look at them now, I’ll start bawling. And I can’t.

  Mrs. Levitt is right behind us and steers me into the kitchen, where I take a few sips of water. Nell stands by the door with my suitcase while I spoon up some oatmeal. It tastes awful but I’m so hungry I start devouring it and Mrs. Levitt has to tell me to slow down. When I’m done, I hand the empty bowl to Levitt and she says we can go.

  Once we’re on the street, Nell flags down a taxi and I climb inside, thinking of a poem by Allen Ginsberg. It was about two people having the same thoughts, bleak and blue and sad-eyed. I don’t know why I’m thinking of it but you know how those things are—they just get in your head sometimes. Nell-mom jumps into the cab and tells the driver we’re going to Greenwich Village and it starts to hit me: we’re going home. It’s the first time I’ve ever been inside a cab and lucky for me, this one’s a Checker. I think Levitt gave Nell-mom money for a taxi because she figures I’m tired from all the hunger striking.

  From the window, I can see a mom pushing a black baby carriage, with the baby’s white sleeves sticking straight up in the air. A pushcart vendor is selling hot dogs to a man in a Panama hat, who’s fishing in his pockets for a tip. The cab stops at a light and I realize: Nell-mom is holding my hand.

  She has really cool hands, with long, long fingers and a lot of veins, like you might see in a ghost story or something. Usually, there’s paint stains on them, too, most often on the tips of her fingers. Today, though, they’re clean, with knuckles as round and pink as the baby shrimp at Ivy’s Seafood.

  I turn to face her and she smiles. There’s so many things to say I can’t say them fast enough.

  “How’s Gary Daddy-o? And Ray-boy?”

  Nell-mom puts her arm around my shoulders, pulling me into her like she did when I was a little girl. “Fine,” she says. “Come here.” I try to think how long it’s been since we hugged each other. It must have been a long time because I can’t remember it.

  We cross the Brooklyn Bridge and I remember how Nell-mom said it was painted a color called Rawlins Red. The mineral used to make the paint was from a mine near someplace called Rawlins in Wyoming. I want to ask her about it but it doesn’t feel right to move or say anything. So I lean back and watch cars moving over the bridge.

  Blu says a man named Washington Roebling built it. His wife had to help him finish because he went too deep in the water and got a disease called the bends that paralyzed him and ruined his eyes. Blu thinks you have to sacrifice sometimes to do great things, and Roebling sacrificed to make this bridge one of the wonders of the world. For some reason, that makes me think about Gandhi and Manuela and her father and Mexico, and I start to get sad again. I think Nell-mom can sense what I’m feeling because she asks, “Are you okay?”

  I lick my lips, trying to decide. I feel like the lady in King Kong when he picks her up and shakes her while he’s walking through the jungle. When he finally puts her down, it must have been strange to be standing on the ground again. But how do I say that?

  “I’m . . . fine. Yeah. Okay.”

  Nell-mom lifts her arm, shifting away from me. When I look up at her, she takes my hand again, bringing her face close to mine.

  “Were they mean to you?”

  “Not really.”

  “Tell me,” Nell-mom says. I see a muscle twitching in her cheek. “I want to know everything that happened there. Okay?”

  “Why?”

  “Why do you think, silly?” she says. “Because it happened to me, too.”

  I look at her, and then it hits me: since we got in the cab she’s been trying to blink back tears. I think Nell-mom is imagining that everything that happened to her when she was a kid is the same exact thing that happened to me.

  Only we’re not the same. And if I tell her, say, everything that happened from day one, will that make her feel better? Did another girl hit Nell in her foster home? Did she have to sleep without a pillow? Did she sneak away to a private place in the middle of the night and make a pact to go on a hunger strike? Did she miss her cat? Now that I think of it, where’s mine?

  “Wait,” I say. “Solange—”

  “She’s fine,” says Nell-mom. “Sophie took her.”

  “Did she get my letter?”

  “Solange?”

  “What?”

  Nell-mom is looking at me straight on, and all of a sudden we both start to giggle. It’s been so long that we had a joke about something—she used to joke with me all the time. Suddenly, I realize how much I missed it.

  “Oh, Ruby,” says Nell-mom, wiping her eyes. “Did you write a letter to Sophie?”

  “Yeah, I did,” I say, but I don’t want to tell her what I wrote.

  “She didn’t tell me that,” Nell-mom replies. “She just came by and picked up the cat.”

  “Okay.”

  “So . . . are you ever going to tell me what happened?”

  We’re practically touching foreheads now and I draw back a little. I clear my throat but nothing comes out. If I tell Nell-mom what I’ve been through at the children’s home, she’ll get upset again and I like her laughing. She’ll start remembering stuff I don’t want her to remember and the day will be ruined.

  I look at my knees. “It was just a place, like those places are. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “But—”

  “I really, really don’t.”

  Two, three, four seconds go by. Then slowly, like you would with a sleeping baby, Nell-mom pulls her hand away and sighs. “Okay.” And everything that just happened—the hug, joke, laughing—seem to disappear in that sigh. If there was a chance the two of us could be tight like Sophie and her mom, it was fading fast and I didn’t see why. Nell-mom and I never talk much about the important stuff; if I’m going to do that, I talk to Gary Daddy-o because he listens more. Why should it matter so much now?

  The light changes and the cab starts up again, squeaking as we turn the corner. I try to touch her again but she moves away, leaning toward the driver.

  “Take us to Sorocco’s.”

  “Sorocco’s?”

  I feel the back of my neck tightening. Did Mr. Sorocco tell Nell-mom about the wine bottle?

  “Listen—” I start to say, but Nell-mom cuts me off.

  “Okay, I have to tell you something,” she says, and I clench my fists. “You can’t live with me until after the wedding.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “And another thing—”

  “When is the wedding?”

  “Week from tomorrow,” she says.

  “Really?”

  Nell-mom folds her arms like she’s waiting for an argument. “I wasn’t going to do it today and tomorrow’s your birthday.”

  My birthday. Is it really my birthday? I must have lost track. But Nell-mom is still talking. “You’ll be staying with Sophie this week,” she says.

  “Cool!” I feel myself blush as she looks at me. What is she thinking now? That I like Sophie better? Maybe I do.

  “Where’s Ray been?” I ask.

  “Les and Bo’s. He’s been there since you left—”

  “You’re
kidding.”

  “I told them he was touring with his father—”

  So Ray got to be with Les and Bo while I was at the children’s home.

  “That’s not fair—”

  “Ruby, don’t start with me.”

  “But—”

  “I don’t want to hear about it, okay?”

  “Fine,” I say. “When did Gary Daddy-o get back?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Did you call him? Did he know they took me?”

  “Of course he knew.”

  “Where are you getting married?”

  Nell-mom turns to the driver again. “Pull over.”

  “At our place?” I ask.

  “Let me pay the driver, okay? Hold on.”

  We pull over to the curb, and Nell-mom hands the driver five dollars, telling him to keep the change. “Come on,” she says, and her voice sounds clipped like when she’s with Mrs. Levitt.

  “Are you mad at me?” I ask.

  “Ruby! Come on!”

  I try to catch her eye but she opens the door quickly and steps out, shaking the hair from her eyes without looking back. I can tell the driver’s impatient, so I get out of the cab as fast as I can. By the time my feet hit the sidewalk, Nell-mom has disappeared.

  How did this happen? Fifteen minutes ago we got into a Checker cab holding hands and now she won’t even look at me. What did I do? And what’s the deal with the Soroccos? They must have told her I broke their stuff and she’s been so preoccupied with getting me home she forgot about it until now. I bet anything that’s why we’re here.

  I put down my suitcase, staring at the door. Since this whole thing started, all I wanted was to be back in the Village. Now that I am, I have a stomach full of butterflies. Of course, standing outside of Sorocco’s doesn’t help, but it’s a lot more than that. Let’s just say it’s a feeling, okay?

  Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark. And whatever it is—and it could be anything—it has something to do with Nell-mom’s weird, housewife-y blue dress.