Chapter 1

Sierra
“NO! The shoes!”
I jump back onto the WELCOME mat laid out in the front hallway. The sudden exclamation makes me think the room is full of snakes or something. I look at Debbie like she’s crazy, and she laughs to herself.
“I’m sorry.” Debbie says. “It’s just...no shoes on the carpet and hardwood floors.”
I glare at her as I slide my Mary Jane shoes off and leave them at the door. She smiles at me as I do so. In fact, she hasn’t stopped smiling since she picked me up from the group home.
Debbie’s apartment at first glance looks empty. The walls are brick and the furniture décor is contemporary. It’s chic in a modern sense. There’s no television in the main room. The living room couches are so thin I can’t see how anyone can relax on them. There aren’t even any armrests. The kitchen opens right up to the living room, there’s no wall separating. There is a kitchen island with bar stools surrounding it. There is also a table in the kitchen area, set off to the side. Debbie leads me straight to my room.
“I know you can’t wait to see your room.” She says with a big smile. She opens the door and I nearly vomit.
The room is pink, pink from floor to ceiling. It’s a huge contrast to the simple living room and kitchen that I just came from. I step into the room and I feel even worse.
My bare feet sink into the plush bright pink carpet. I think about my black patent leather Mary Janes that I was forced to leave at the front door because Debbie is so crazy about her carpet and hardwood floors. I wore them this morning because they were the perfect compliment to my white eyelet blouse and black pants.
As I look around at my new room more closely, my stomach illness does not subside. The room is completely overflown with the color pink. Other than the carpets, there’s pink wallpaper, pink paint where they couldn’t put the wall paper, and pink furniture. There is a desktop computer on a pink desk with a pink chair in the corner of the room. It’s nothing like my old room. My favorite color is purple, and while there was a purple theme, there is a such a thing as too much of a good thing. Up until this very moment, I liked the color pink too.
“Damn!” I mutter. “Who decorated this?”
Debbie stops talking. I realize I’ve interrupted her. I feel bad. She must think I’m this rude gangster who has no respect for white people. I figure I’d better apologize before she has second thoughts about inviting me to live with her.
“Sorry.” I apologize.
She laughs. Her white teeth remind me of milk for some reason, like those actresses you see in those MILK ads. I imagine her with a crème mustache and some catchy quote on top of her head.
“Don’t worry about it.” She says. “I know it’s bad. We’re going to get this taken care of. I have my interior decorator already in an appointment...”
She starts to babble again. Does she ever shut up? I wonder how she really is. I’m sure her real personality will show up soon.
Of course, Debbie’s my new white foster mom. Actually, she’s not white, she’s Jewish, like it makes a difference. She has super short dark brown hair, cut like Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby. She’s tall; I’m guessing about 5’8. Me being only 5’4, I feel like a midget standing next to her. She’s also very thin, but muscular. I bet she goes to the gym. They told me she had a daughter my age. I haven’t met her; she must look a lot like Debbie. I have to admit, Debbie’s pretty. I just hope her daughter’s not a total bitch.
“Through here is the bathroom.” Debbie finally leads me to the next room. I’m shocked that the bathroom is so huge. “You’ll share this with Taylor. My daughter.” Debbie explains.
“So where do you and your husband sleep?” I ask. Nobody mentioned a man in the house. Quite frankly I prefer a house with no men, but I have to take what I can get.
“I’m not married.” Debbie says in an airy voice. “Taylor’s father lives in Alabama with his family. It’s just us girls!” She says that last sentence with a big smile looking at me.
“Now,” She goes on. “All of the bathrooms have a spa tub for those days when you want to relax, and when you’re in a hurry there’s a shower. Now this is really cool...” Debbie opens the shower door to reveal two nozzles. “It’s a double shower.”
What is this woman, a real estate agent? Who is she trying to impress?
Debbie looks at me for a moment, like she wants me to say something. But I just want her to leave. I want a chance to bond with my new environment and quiet from Debbie’s perkiness. If I talk, that won’t happen anytime soon. So I keep my mouth shut.
“Well,” She says as she closes the shower door. “My room is down the hall. Do you want to see it?”
“Later.” I mutter as I walk back into my bedroom. I throw my heavy bag on the desk. My arm is relieved to get the weight off of it finally.
“I’m ordering pizza for dinner.” Debbie says as she leans on the wall of my doorway. “What do you like?”
I catch sight of the window; actually it’s a sliding glass door that leads onto a closed in balcony. Debbie’s apartment is on the first floor. I open the curtain some more so that I can get a better look out. The only view I really have is of the parking lot with Lake Erie in the background. It’s busy outside because it’s late afternoon and the last week of summer. Her building is right in the heart of the warehouse district in Downtown Cleveland.
The thing I miss the most is my grandmother. She only died in a car accident about three months ago, back in May. She was the only authority figure I really knew. My mother left me with her when I was three, so I don’t remember her at all.
It’s funny, one minute I’m worrying about how I’m going to pass my Spanish final, and the next I’m being called into the office where the police, principal, and a social worker are waiting for me. Everything kind of rolled in together after that. I had to get my things from home and go straight to this group home for teenage girls.
I went from being at the top of my seventh grade class at my all girls’ private college preparatory school, to being strip searched and combed through for lice. I had to earn privileges to walk the facility or go to the store. I didn’t understand why I was being treated like a criminal, when I was still reeling from my grandmother’s funeral.
Since I went into the group home during the summer, I didn’t have to worry about school work so much, but they were talking about testing, school records and sending me to (gasp) public school in the fall. I didn’t want to leave my school. I had been there since preschool and I was pretty popular. The last thing I wanted was to start over now.
Then Debbie steps in. I’m not exactly sure how close she was to my grandmother. She worked under her. My grandmother was a dean at the university and Debbie’s a theater arts professor. I met her at my grandmother’s funeral. I wasn’t circulating and thanking people for coming like I was supposed to. I just found a dark corner in the church and tried to blend in with the brown walls. People still found me, and they kept coming over and asking me how I was feeling. I just wanted to shout at them “My friggin’ grandmother just died! How do you think I’m feeling?” But I just ignored them and they put a hand on my shoulder and left.
But Debbie was different somehow. She just sat next to me. She didn’t say anything for a few minutes.
“Strange weather we’re having, huh?” She finally said.
I just looked at her. She was talking about the weather?
“I mean, one day it’s seventy five and today is fifty. Quite a change, huh?” She went on.
I still looked at her. I was just waiting for her to ask me how I was doing. What’s on my mind? Something.
“I’m Debbie. Your grandmother was my boss.” She said, extending her hand.
I shook it.
“Sierra.”
“Sierra, that’s a pretty name. I have a daughter your age. Her name is Taylor.”
I just nodded.
“Your grandmother used to talk about you all the time. She would say what a good student you are, how always did what you were supposed to...she adored you.”
“Well, I’m missing her.”
“I’m sure you will. Where are you going after the funeral?”
I nodded across the aisle, where my social worker was sitting.
“I’m staying in a home. I don’t have any family.”
“Oh,” Debbie said as she looked at my social worker and back at me. She smiled a small smile. “Well, I wish you luck, Sierra.”
She stood up and walked off. I found out her name was Deborah Goldstein and she taught theater at the local university where my grandmother used to work. A few weeks later she came to visit me in the group home.
“Hi, Sierra!” She said with a bright smile. “Do you remember me?”
I nodded.
“What are you doing here?”
“Well, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. And I was wondering, how would you like to come live with me and my daughter?”
I needed a moment to register what she was saying. Was this woman for real?
“I hardly know you.”
“Well, I know. But we can get to know each other. There’s a new school a few blocks from our apartment, a private school. I can pull some strings to get you in. It’s on the same level of the school you came from if not better.”
Of course I wanted to say yes. I felt like I was going crazy in that prison, anything sounded better.
“That sounds cool.”
“So...” Debbie looks at me. “Did you want to give it a shot?”
I smile and nod.
“Great! I’ve already started the paperwork, but I wanted to see how you felt about it before I went any further. You should be out of here in about a month, tops.”
So here I am. Debbie picked me up just as she was scheduled. Of course I had some reservations about living with a white family. My grandmother always talking about not letting yourself get too close to white people because they’ll turn on you the first chance they get. Now here I am moving in with them. I wonder what her daughter, Taylor, is like. I picture her as this blonde cheerleader who constantly goes on dates. This is going to be interesting.