meaner than he’d needed to be. She didn’t know his name—it was the one with the pierced nose and the pretty girlfriend. My mother seemed to know him. He tried to take the dog. She wouldn’t let him. He told her she couldn’t leave, and that she had to come with him. And he kept calling her Mom.
Marley was surpised by what my mother did next, though when I heard, I wasn’t. She’d become fearless, but she wasn’t a fool. When Jimmy put his big hand on her elbow, she did what any middle-aged stowaway who had recently gone through Strength Camp might at least attempt when holding an elderly dog and confronted by vindicitive dorm security. She pointed over his shoulder, slipped into the crowd, and ran.
Gordon Goodman rubbed his eyes, one elbow propped on his desk. His white T-shirt was on backward, the tag sticking up under his chin.
“You can’t have dogs in the dorm,” he said. He turned and looked out his window, squinting at the rising sun. Just a half hour earlier, the fire trucks, unneeded once again, had turned off their lights and rolled away. I wondered if, on mornings like this, he regretted abandoning law.
“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
He looked back at me, annoyed. We both knew he wasn’t chastising me. He was just talking to himself, trying to sort through the problem. I’d already told him about my mother getting kicked out of her apartment, having nowhere to go.
Unfortunately, accidentally, I’d also told Jimmy Liff. He was on the other side of the interior window, pretending to fill out paperwork behind the front desk. Or maybe he really was filling out paperwork—on me and my mother. He stood just on the other side of the window, his head lowered, the top of his skullcap almost touching the glass. When I noticed him there, he looked up and smiled. I knew he’d heard every word.
Gordon tugged on his beard. “You don’t have any relatives in the area?”
I shook my head.
“Any friends? Anyone she can stay with?”
“I think she’s embarrassed. And it’s hard, because of the dog.”
On the other side of the window, Jimmy pouted. It was over the top. It was like he was making fun of himself, for just how much of a jerk he could be. Gordon saw my face change and followed my gaze. He stood, opened the door, and told Jimmy that he could finish up whatever he was working on later. His voice was stern, and that was a little vindicating, but not much. I didn’t care what Jimmy Liff thought about anything, and I doubted my mother did either. But I hated that he looked so pleased, keeping his eyes on mine as he sauntered past the window one last time.
As soon as he was gone, I started begging. I told Gordon my mother would only need to stay a few more days, and that Bowzer wasn’t bothering anyone. No one had complained. And it was my mother who had organized the luminarias. She was the one who drove everyone to the store for the bags and candles. She was doing my job better than I was.
Gordon raised his eyebrows. For a moment, I thought I had him. Of course he would relent. My mother was too nice of a person to have to sleep in a van.
But he shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “She can’t stay, not with the dog.” He frowned. He felt the tag under his chin, looked down, and tucked it back in his shirt. “Does she have anywhere to go tonight?”
“I don’t know.” I stood up slowly. My own head felt heavy on my shoulders. He was looking at his bookcase, at one of his glazed bowls.
“I’d like her to come back and talk to me. You think you can get her to do that? She’s not in any trouble, okay? I just want to help.”
“I’ll ask her,” I said. He was being polite. I kept moving to the door.
“Veronica!”
I turned around. He was on his feet.
“Are you going to talk to her today? Does she have a phone? Is there some way you can reach her?”
I nodded, though the answer to the last two questions was no.
She did call later that morning, from a pay phone outside a grocery store. But she didn’t want to go talk to Gordon. No, she said, she wasn’t scared of Jimmy. She hadn’t appreciated him cornering her like that, telling her where she