Orphan Train

everywhere.
    “Okay,” Jack’s saying, “here’s the deal. She’s a nice lady, but kind of uptight. You
     know—not exactly a barrel of laughs.” He puts his car in park and squeezes Molly’s
     shoulder. “Just nod and smile and you’ll be fine.”
    “How old is she again?” Molly mumbles. She’s annoyed with herself for feeling nervous.
     Who cares? It’s just some ancient pack rat who needs help getting rid of her shit.
     She hopes it isn’t disgusting and smelly, like the houses of those hoarders on TV.
    “I don’t know—old. By the way, you look nice,” Jack adds.
    Molly scowls. She’s wearing a pink Lands’ End blouse that Dina loaned her for the
     occasion. “I barely recognize you,” Dina said drily when Molly emerged from her bedroom
     in it. “You look so . . . ladylike.”
    At Jack’s request Molly has taken out the nose ring and left only two studs in each
     ear. She spent more time than usual on her makeup, too—blending the foundation to
     a shade more pale than ghostly, going lighter on the kohl. She even bought a pink
     lipstick at the drugstore—Maybelline Wet Shine Lip Color in “Mauvelous,” a name that
     cracks her up. She stripped off her many thrift-store rings and is wearing the charm
     necklace from her dad instead of the usual chunky array of crucifixes and silver skulls.
     Her hair’s still black, with the white stripe on either side of her face, and her
     fingernails are black, too—but it’s clear she’s made an effort to look, as Dina remarked,
     “closer to a normal human being.”
    After Jack’s Hail Mary pass—or “Hail Molly,” as he called it—Dina grudgingly agreed
     to give her another chance. “Cleaning an old lady’s attic?” she snorted. “Yeah, right.
     I give it a week.”
    Molly hardly expected a big vote of confidence from Dina, but she has some doubts
     herself. Is she really going to devote fifty hours of her life to a crotchety dowager
     in a drafty attic, going through boxes filled with moths and dust mites and who knows
     what else? In juvie she’d be spending the same time in group therapy (always interesting)
     and watching The View (interesting enough). There’d be other girls to hang with. As it is she’ll have Dina
     at home and this old lady here watching her every move.
    Molly looks at her watch. They’re five minutes early, thanks to Jack, who hustled
     her out the door.
    “Remember: eye contact,” he says. “And be sure to smile.”
    “You are such a mom .”
    “You know what your problem is?”
    “That my boyfriend is acting like a mom?”
    “No. Your problem is you don’t seem to realize your ass is on the line here.”
    “What line? Where?” She looks around, wiggling her butt in the seat.
    “Listen.” He rubs his chin. “My ma didn’t tell Vivian about juvie and all that. As
     far as she knows, you’re doing a community service project for school.”
    “So she doesn’t know about my criminal past? Sucker.”
    “ Ay diablo, ” he says, opening the door and getting out.
    “Are you coming in with me?”
    He slams the door, then walks around the back of the car to the passenger side and
     opens the door. “No, I am escorting you to the front step.”
    “My, what a gentleman.” She slides out. “Or is it that you don’t trust me not to bolt?”
    “Truthfully, both,” he says.
    S TANDING BEFORE THE LARGE WALNUT DOOR , WITH ITS OVERSIZED brass knocker, Molly hesitates. She turns to look at Jack, who is already back in
     his car, headphones in his ears, flipping through what she knows is a dog-eared collection
     of Junot Díaz stories he keeps in the glove compartment. She stands straight, shoulders
     back, tucks her hair behind her ears, fiddles with the collar of her blouse (When’s
     the last time she wore a collar? A dog collar, maybe), and raps the knocker. No answer.
     She raps again, a little louder. Then she notices a buzzer to the left of the door
     and pushes it. Chimes gong loudly in the house, and within seconds she can see Jack’s
     mom, Terry, barreling toward her with a worried expression. It’s always startling
     to see Jack’s big brown eyes in his mother’s wide, soft-featured face.
    Though Jack has assured Molly that his mother is on board—“That damn attic project
     has been hanging over her head for so long, you have no idea”—Molly knows the reality
     is more complicated. Terry adores her only son, and would do just about anything to
     make him happy.