Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
MOJAVE
Rachel was right that Frankie’s parents refused to take the time off after they learned that Frankie was suspended.
The only relief was that neither of them felt the need to raise a hand at her.
They gave her dirty looks filled with resentment, but they didn’t hurt her.
And when I showed up the next morning to pick her up, she didn’t have any bruises on her or anything that’d make me think they waited until after we left.
She was her normal spunky self, skipping down the steps to join me.
“What’re we doin’?”
“Breakfast,” I answered.
“What kinda breakfast?”
“You’ll see.”
I knew most kids would want donuts or pancakes or something like that, but that amount of sugar made me feel twitchy.
Instead, I led Frankie to a little Mexican restaurant off of Main Street.
It was a hole in the wall, owned by an older Mexican couple with peeling vinyl seats and sticky menus.
It was one of the few restaurants I frequented and Frankie looked curious as we climbed into a booth near the windows.
“What kinda food is this?”
“Mexican.”
She cocked her head at me. “Like tacos? You can have tacos for breakfast?”
“You can have whatever you want for breakfast. Food is food,” I replied, handing her the menu.
There was a kids section at the bottom, but it was all written in Spanish.
Thankfully, there were pictures next to everything, so Frankie only had to point at what she wanted without trying to replicate the language.
“Huevos con chorizo, por favor,” I murmured, handing the menu back to the owner who was taking our order. The owner asked a few questions about how I wanted my eggs, but I kept my answers short, and he was gone a minute later.
“What’d he say?” Frankie asked, leaning forward with her elbows on the table, eyes wide with curiosity.
“He asked how I wanted my eggs. What’d you order?”
She shrugged, ignoring my question in favor of one of her own. “What’re we doin’ today?”
“Nothing crazy. Rachel wants us to stop by her office later. She’s picking up your class work for you.”
Frankie made a face, but she wasn’t going to be able to wiggle her way out of it. The only reason Rachel agreed to let her come hang out with me was because I promised she’d get her work done and we wouldn’t just wander around town all day or hang out at the clubhouse and play pool.
“How come she always comes with?” she queried.
She never stopped moving, legs kicking and hands reaching for anything in her vicinity.
She grabbed the thing of sugar packets, dumping them out and putting them back in, rearranging the order a few times, then started playing with the sauces until I pulled her hands away.
To distract her, I grabbed one of the paper napkin holders and tore it free, folding it into a little triangle.
“Put your fingers up like this,” I told her, showing her how to put her thumbs together with pointer fingers up.
When I flicked the triangle between her fingers, she grinned, excitedly grabbing the paper so she could have a turn.
“Rachel comes with because she’s a social worker and she’s worried about you. ”
“Why?”
“‘Cause your parents aren’t around and they should be.”
“Why?”
“‘Cause you’re a kid.”
She wrinkled her nose. “So? I can be by myself. I’m fine.”
It took her a few tries to get the paper over my thumbs, but she grinned triumphantly once she did, putting her thumbs together again so I could take a turn.
Since I figured honesty was best with kids, I answered her as honestly as I could without making her feel bad. “Fine shouldn’t include bullying and bloody noses. Rachel wants you to be safe. So do I.”
She looked away, fiddling with the paper triangle. I never pushed her to say more, I hated when people tried to do that to me, so I let the silence hang, accepting the coffee the owner dropped off and pouring some creamer in from the little pitcher on the table.
“Kids make fun of me ‘cause of my hair,” she admitted, breaking the silence. “My mom told me if I couldn’t take care of it by myself, then she’d cut it short. I hated brushing my hair. It hurt. Short is better. I don’t have to do anything with it.”
Nodding slowly in agreement, I said, “Sounds smart.”
She sat straighter, seeming glad someone agreed with her. “They make fun of my clothes too, but skirts and dresses are stupid! They get in the way of climbing and I’ve seen boys try to flip them up to embarrass the girls! They can’t do anything like that if I’m wearing pants!”
I frowned. Were kids really that messed up that they exposed other kids like that? This was the second time she’d mentioned kids doing shit like that. What kind of school were they running if that was a common problem?
“Boys don’t have to wear dresses or skirts or have long hair–” She cut herself off, eyeing my hair. “Well, except you.”
I snorted, a ghost of a smile tugging at my lips. “I was in the military. They made me keep my hair short. Once I got out, I let it grow.”
The owner dropped off our plates, wandering away without a word. I tipped my head toward his back, raising my eyebrows at her. “He’s got long hair too.”
She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “I hate long hair.”
I shrugged. “Everyone’s different. Do what makes you happy. Ignore the rest.” I tapped the edge of her plate to remind her to eat. “You gonna be able to eat all that?”
She’d gotten an adult meal, not something off the kids menu like I thought. She looked determined, though, her eyes wide and full of determination. “Yeah! I’ll eat it all! Watch!”
She managed to pack away more than half the meal before she started to get full, and she would’ve kept going if I didn’t tell her it was okay to stop. I didn’t want her making herself sick just to prove herself. The kid's spunk was going to get her into trouble one day.
I got a message from Rachel letting me know she had Frankie’s work not long after breakfast. Since we’d only been wandering around, I hadn’t yet figured out what to do with a kid all day, we headed straight to Rachel’s office, which turned out not to be too far from Prez’s office.
I tracked familiar locations, watching for any signs of the troublemakers nearby.
I’d been helping Wraith look into the crew causing trouble when Frankie showed up.
I couldn’t bring her with me if he called for more information later.
Maybe I’d leave her with Rachel if that came up.
The family services office was in a building with a bunch of other offices in it, located on the first floor.
I expected something cold, similar to the military offices I was used to, with drab gray carpet and off white walls, each area separated and sterile and not some place people would want to visit for a long period of time.
Instead, the door opened to one large room, with two cubicles on opposite sides of the room, a play area in the middle with a colorful carpet and little tables with tiny chairs meant for kids, and a few playpens set up nearby.
I could see a break area in the corner near an ancient looking copier, a room off to one side with a big window looking into something that looked like a conference room, and not much else. This was a government office?
“Frankie! Mojave! Thanks for coming,” Rachel called, waving us over to the cubicle on the left.
When I stepped around the cubicle wall, I found a desk stacked with files, sticky notes stuck almost everywhere, including on the edges of her computer monitor, and a collage of pictures of smiling kids pinned to the wall.
Rachel noticed my attention on them and smiled at the pictures, gesturing at them.
“They’re all the placements I’ve done. I know I’ve done my job right when I get pictures sent to me like this, so I keep them up where I can see them on rough days. ”
Frankie was more interested in the rest of the office, standing on her tip toes to get a better look at the play area. “You’ve got toys in your office,” she pointed out.
“I do!” Rachel said brightly. “You can go look if you want.”
That was all the permission she needed. Frankie wandered off, poking around the toys and books curiously. I gave my attention back to Rachel after I was sure she was good, studying her as she watched Frankie with a soft smile.
Her copper colored hair was laying over one shoulder, long enough to rest on her chest and draw attention to the pretty blue sundress she wore.
Unwittingly, my eyes dragged to the rest of her, taking in her curvy figure all the way to the strappy sandals on her feet.
Heat curled low in my gut, unexpected and unwelcome.
I looked away before I could dwell on it.
I wasn’t in a place to think about shit like that.
I didn’t want to drag such a sweet woman into my mess.
“So what’d you two get up to this morning?” Rachel asked, turning to look at me again.
“Breakfast. She ate more than half an adult meal of breakfast tacos.”
Rachel’s smile grew, delight clear on her face. “Breakfast tacos? That’s a thing?”
I hummed, shifting to lean against the wall so I could watch Frankie and Rachel both without having my back to the door. “It’s a hole in the wall not far from here. You can join us tomorrow if you want.”
“I’d like that,” she agreed, then turned to ask Frankie, “Frankie? Can I join you for breakfast tomorrow? I want to try breakfast tacos.”
Frankie’s head popped up from where she’d been pawing through a chest of toys and she beamed. “Yeah! It was really good!”
It was good that Frankie was finally warming up to Rachel. She’d been a little standoffish with her and I wanted Frankie to have more than just me in her corner. Rachel was better equipped to handle things than I was anyway.
Lowering my voice so Frankie didn’t overhear, I murmured, “She told me a bit more about the bullying. That school’s got problems.”
Rachel’s smile fell, her attention turning to me and becoming more serious. “Why? What’d she say?”
I relayed what Frankie had told me, especially about the boys flipping up girls skirts, while Rachel took notes.
She didn’t look happy about the report, so obviously no one told her about it when she went to the school that morning.
I almost wished there was another school we could send Frankie to.
Somewhere with more attentive teachers who wouldn’t miss things as important as this.
“That is a problem,” Rachel agreed when I was through.
“I’ve got a few meetings with Frankie’s teachers for my investigation later this week.
I’ll ask around about the behavior. If it’s being reported and ignored, that’s a real issue, but there’s also the possibility that given the way she was raised, Frankie’s first thought wouldn’t be that an adult would help her.
She’s learned how to handle things herself.
If she hadn’t felt heard in the past, asking an adult for help might not have even occurred to her. ”