So she knew exactly how to phrase her request to Kim, Carla’s caseworker. The woman was fair and would realize the break from routine would benefit Carla. Still, Kim said she wouldn’t be able to get back with an official okay until late afternoon the next day. Kate decided to book a rental car for the twenty-fourth on the assumption that Carla’s permission would be given.
Everything was proceeding well until Rita called early the next morning while Kate was finishing her first cup of coffee in bed.
“Carla’s taken off,” she said.
Kate sagged against the headboard. “What?”
Rita gave a loud sigh. “It’s not as bad as it sounds, but she left in a huff right after breakfast. When I reminded her she’d have to do laundry for your trip north, she said she probably wouldn’t be allowed to go and what was the point. Then just as she walked out the door, she hollered back that maybe she didn’t want to go, anyway.”
“She’s just setting things up so she won’t be disappointed if it doesn’t work out. But it’s going to. Kim seemed very supportive. You haven’t spoken to her about it, have you?”
“Kim? No, I thought I should talk to you first.”
“Do me a favor, then, Rita? Wait until I get back to you. I’m going to have a talk with Carla. Where does she usually hang out with her friends?”
“They could be a couple of places. Either at the basketball hoops at the school playground or at the parkette at Vine and Broadview. It’s about two subway stops south of our place.”
“Right. Is that near where her friend Toni lives?”
“You know about Toni, eh? She’s bad news, that one.”
As soon as Kate hung up, she dashed into the shower and dressed in cutoffs, T-shirt and sneakers. Rather than take a fanny pack or wallet, she shoved her subway pass and a twenty-dollar bill deep into her shorts pocket. Then she searched in the bottom of her closet for her baseball cap and pulled it down over her hair, tucking the side tendrils back behind her ears and under the cap. She looked about seventeen, which was fine with her. As long as she eliminated her schoolteacher persona. She had a feeling that wouldn’t carry much weight with Toni and her gang.
Soon after, Kate arrived at the Brooklyn neighborhood where Carla and her friends hung out. They weren’t at the basketball court. Okay, she thought. On to the parkette. She didn’t want to think about what she’d do if Carla wasn’t there.
But she was. Coming up from the subway exit, Kate spotted a group of kids across the street. She paused at the top of the stairs, watching them. The parkette was merely a slightly bigger-than-room-size piece of sunburned grass a few yards from the intersection. A scattering of benches were chained to concrete posts, and there was a rusting combo of swings and teeter-totters around which a handful of mothers, shoulders drooping from the pull of plastic shopping bags, chatted as they watched their children shuffle from one swing or slide to another. It was only after ten, but already the heat was sucking energy from everyone, injecting them with a listless apathy. Except for the knot of teenagers who’d taken over the best benches—the ones in the shade at the edge of the sidewalk.
The large-framed girl standing, arms on hips, in the middle of the sidewalk was the focal point. The others around her were laughing at her impersonation of a suited executive type who’d just strode past them, cell phone clenched to his ear as he gesticulated with his free hand. The girl was good, Kate had to admit, watching her mincing mimicry of the man’s walk as he signaled his reactions to the phone conversation to the world at large. Then another passerby appeared.
Just a kid, but seriously obese. Laden with two bulky shopping bags, he waddled out of the corner fruit-and-vegetable store and headed their way. He was wearing shorts that ballooned out from his thick legs and a crumpled, wide-brimmed sun hat that might have sheltered an elderly woman’s head thirty years ago. Kate licked her dry lips, waiting for the gang to notice him.
Suddenly there was a flurry of elbow-poking as the girl was alerted to her new target by the kids around her. Kate looked at Carla, sitting at the farthest end of the bench with her knees tucked up against her chest. She, too, was looking at the boy, slowly making his way toward them. But she wasn’t laughing, Kate noticed with relief. Instead, she dropped her chin to her chest, as if hiding from what she knew was coming.
Oh, Carla. There’s hope for you yet.
Time to make my move, Kate thought. She sprinted to the corner, making it to the other side of the street just as the light changed. The girl had planted herself in the center of the walk, planning to block the boy’s way. She turned her head back to the others behind her, saying something that produced laughter from the bench-sitters. All but Carla, who now had her face completely buried in her upraised knees.
Kate marched toward them, easily overtaking the boy, who’d slowed his pace when he’d caught sight of the gang. Initially Kate had hoped to get Carla aside and talk to her in private. But now she realized she couldn’t avoid a confrontation with the performance artist herself. Was this the notorious Toni?
So she stopped dead center and mere inches from the girl, enjoying the surprise and then outrage that flitted across the teenager’s face.
“Where’s Carla?” Kate asked, her voice strong and confident.
The girl’s eyes narrowed, shifting from the approaching target to Kate. “Carla who?”
“Carla Lopez.” The second word was spoken like a taunt that conveyed the tag stupid.
Carla raised her head, and her eyes widened in disbelief. The boy was forgotten by the gang as all eyes shifted her way. Kate stepped forward, shortening the distance between her and the girl. When the girl stepped back, Kate knew she had the upper hand.
“So who are you?” the girl asked, her tone challenging.
Kate noticed Carla lower her feet to the pavement, start to get up off the bench.
“I’m her big sister, and I suppose you must be Toni.”
“Her sister?” Toni echoed with a glance back at Carla. The others looked back to Carla, as well. Sister? This was news to them.
“You don’t look like no Lopez,” jeered an acne-faced girl beside Toni.
Kate simply shrugged. She brushed past Toni to Carla. “Coming, Carly?”
Carla’s eyes flicked from her to Toni, held there a moment long enough to raise Kate’s blood pressure, then back to Kate. “Okay,” she whispered.
Kate draped her arms across Carla’s shoulders and the two stepped forward. But Toni wasn’t ready to let them go so easily.
She moved directly into their path. “She really your sister, Carla?”
“Well…yeah,” Carla mumbled.
“How come you never talked about her?”
“I don’t tell you everything!” Carla hotly declared.
Kate silently applauded the girl.
Toni raised her eyebrows. “So, you leavin’ for lunch or somethin’,” she sneered, “or you leavin’ the group for good?” The others stood round their leader, arms folded across their chests and nodding agreement.
Kate swallowed. Carla wasn’t ready to make that kind of a choice yet, and certainly not so publicly. She said, “What’s the big deal? I’ve come to get my little sister because I need her for something. Besides, it’s my job to look out for her, isn’t it?” She scanned the faces of each and every one. Then focused her attention on Toni.
“You got a big sister or brother?” she asked.
Toni