A few people were gathered around a TV watching The Price Is Right and shouting, "Higher! Higher!" An older woman passed us on her way out and smiled a hello. Maybe I could live here, I thought. It feels welcoming.

I let Cece do the talking. She explained my situation to the receptionist, who kept shaking his head and saying how sorry he was. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I didn’t need his sympathy; I needed a home.

“Wait right here," he said. He shot out of his chair. “Donʼt move a muscle." Like I could.

He raced around the corner and down a hall. A minute later he reappeared. “Go on in. Third door to your right." His phone rang and he answered out of breath, "GLBT Center. We’re glad you called. My name's Terry. How can I help?”

A woman was waiting outside the office. “Hi, I’m Syd," she said, shaking our hands. "I’m the resource coordinator. Come on in, have a seat." She motioned us inside. “Terry told me what happened. I'm really sorry, Holland. You came to the right place.”

Syd circled her desk and sat. “The Center has a housing program for street youths.”

Street youths? God. I never thought I'd be a street youth.

Syd got on the phone. It took her a while to find a place with an opening. Everywhere was full. There were even waiting lists, which should’ve made me feel better, less alone. But it didn’t. I just felt freaked. What if I ended up living on the street?

Cece reached over and took my hand. It calmed me a little.

“You do? Fantastic!" Syd held up an index finger. “Great. Thanks, William. I’m sending them right over." She hung up. “There's a vacancy at Taggert House. Here’s the address.” She scribbled on a pink message pad.

“Do you want to talk to someone about this, Holland?" she asked, handing the page to me. “We have counselors here.”

“I’m fine," I mumbled.

“She's fine,” Cece echoed. “She has me to talk to.”

Syd smiled. It felt warm, wonderful, that she knew we were a couple. She gave us driving directions to Taggert House and we left.

When we pulled up at the building, I almost hurled. It was an old flea-bitten hotel downtown by the railroad tracks that had been converted to a shelter. A homeless shelter. Cece had to practically wrestle me out of the Jeep and drag me through the door.

"It ain’t the Ritz, but hey. What we lacks in looks, we makes up for in love.” The guy who managed the place, William, had a thick southern accent. Okay, he was sweet. He told us he and his partner shared an apartment on the main floor. “But the penthouse suites are on the second floor. This-a-way." He crooked a finger and bounded up the stairs.

As he unlocked my room at the top of the rickety steps, he added, “You’re lucky. This suite just opened up yesterday.”

I couldn’t contain the gasp that escaped from my mouth. The apartment was a dump. Wallpaper was peeling everywhere and the furniture, if you could call it that, was all ripped and filthy. The mattress – oh, my God – the mattress was stained. The whole place reeked of mold and rot and cat pee.

Cece entered the room and wandered around, fingering things. William pulled me aside in the hall. "Okay, hon, here’s your key. We really discourage you from making a copy for your girlfriend. We’ve had some problems with exes, if you know what I mean.”

No, I didn't know what he meant. Like what? Burglary? Domestic violence?

He pressed the key into my hand. “Let me give you the grand tour.” He crossed the threshold. “You have all your amenities. Salon, master bedroom, deluxe kitchen, den.” His arm swept across the one big room. There was the bed, a rusty sink, an ancient refrigerator, a crusted-over microwave, and a fifties dinette set. I spied the door to the bathroom on my right and decided against a preview. “There isn't a lot of storage space,” William said, “but if you need more there's a rental unit down the street. And if you want to use our kitchen for a party or something, just ask. We serve brunch on Sundays for everyone in the house, then afterwards we all gather for family hour. Just to see how everybody's doing."

“Is this the bathroom?” Cece asked. She popped her head in and pulled it out fast. The horror in her eyes spoke volumes.

William rattled off the rules: We were free to come and go, no parties on weekdays, be considerate noisewise. Not too restrictive. I asked the question I’d been avoiding, dreading the answer to: “How much is the rent?”

“For you?" He sized me up. “Free.”

"Free? Are you kidding?”

William winked and grinned.

For free, it was the Plaza.

"Until you get your feet on the ground," he added. "Then it's sliding scale.”

“What’s that?” Cece and I asked together.

“Means whatever you can afford. You just take care of you." He gave my arm a squeeze. "We have a philosophy here: Accept the help you need; give the help you can.”

Cece said, “How many other lesbians live in this place?”

William replied, “None – at the moment. To be honest, we don't get too many women.”

“That’s good," Cece said.

What was good about it? I wondered. That I was a rarity? Oh, yeah, I felt so special.

“Wait," I said to William as he headed for the stairs. “Is every one here homeless?”

He scrunched up his face. “Now, hon. You're not homeless. Are you? Ramon, is anyone here homeless?" he called down the hall.

A tall boy with dreads, who'd just exited his apartment, turned around. "Homeless?" he quipped. "Not us." A dimple dented his cheek.

"Get out here.” William shooed him down the stairs. “Everybody here is, what we like to call, in transition. Moving to a better place.” He waggled a finger in my face. “You are not homeless. Now, when you feel up to it, come on down and fill out the paperwork. Oh, and I have some clean sheets and towels. A hull welcome basket full of goodies from the Center, too.”

“It’s not so bad," Cece said as I shut the door. “We can paint and hang curtains. Buy some rugs and kitchen supplies at yard sales." The hand she dragged across the dinette table left tracks in the grime. She wiped her fingers on her pants. “Today we'll give it a good scrubbing down –”

"Not today," I cut in. “I need to be alone today.”

She frowned a little. Coming over to me, she said, “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

“Iʼm fine.”

She took my hands. “Holland…?”

“Please, Cece. Just go.”

She looked hurt, crushed, but must’ve sensed my need. She kissed me and said, “Don’t worry, baby. Everything'll work out. Your mom'll probably call next week and beg you to come home.”

I might’ve laughed.

“I’m sorry," she said. “It might take a little longer for her. But hey, look on the bright side." She removed her baseball cap and stuck it on my head, then pulled my face close to hers. “At least now we have a place.”

After I carted up my meager possessions, shut and locked the door, I wandered over to that dingy window. My view was the alley Dumpster, where some old bag lady was picking through the garbage. Yesterday, I thought, I was Holland Jaeger, regular parson, regular life. I had a home, a family, a history. Today I’m…

I don't know what I am, where I am, who I am.

I checked to make sure my phone was on, the batteries charged. I set it on the microwave. Without warning, a ground swell of sorrow overwhelmed me and my bones disintegrated. I slid down the wall to the floor, bawling into my hands.

Chapter 22

Cece and I scoured the apartment from top to bottom on Sunday. Either the Lysol fumes made me lightheaded, or being busy staved off my depression. “Mom’s sending over more sheets and blankets and towels,” Cece said. “Kitchen stuff, too. I think she feels guilty about abandoning you.”

“Don’t.” I stopped scraping the gunk off the microwave to look at her . “Your mom’s great. You’re lucky and you know it.”

Cece dipped her sponge into the bucket and continued scrubbing the wall.

“I was going to ask your mom…” I swallowed hard. “Never mind.”

"Ask her what?”

I sighed. "If she’d hire me part-time. I’m going to need more money. I’ll need to buy food and toothpaste and shampoo, every thing. My job at Children's Cottage pays like crap.”

“I wish you'd told me you were thinking about that." Cece swept a cobweb off her head. “Mom just hired a part-time helper. But," she snapped her lingers, “I bet my uncle would hire you at Hott ‘N Tott. He’s always looking for people to work the early shift.”

“Yeah?" My hopes soared. “That’d be great.”

“Iʼll talk to him tonight.”

I voiced my next thought: “I might have to quit school.”

Cece spun around. “No. What are you talking about? You can’t quit. You have to graduate. You have to. What kind of example would it set if the student body president dropped out?”

I rolled my eyes. “Who cares?”

She flung her sponge into the bucket and charged across the room. Clenching my arms, she spun me around to face her and said, "I care. You have to graduate. You have to go to college. You have to think about your future.”

“You sound like my mother.”

“Oh, puhllease –” Cece paused. She bit her lip. “You’re not serious, are you? You wouldn’t really quit school because of this. Because of…me?”

"It's not because of you. It’s not your fault.”

“Holland,” she said, shaking me, “don't do it. Don’t do anything youʼll regret.”

Like promising to keep us a secret? I didn’t say it. Her tightening grip was hurting my arms and I twisted away. “I probably wonʼt quit,” I muttered.

“Promise."

When I didn’t right away, Cece said in my face, “Promise!”

“Okay, I promise.” Geez.

Smiling, she patted my arms and said, “Thatʼs my girl.”

Why did she make me feel like she was my mother and father and friend and lover all rolled into one? Because she was. She was my everything. “What are you doing next year?" I asked as she returned to her bucket. "Staying at Southglenn or going back to Wash Central?”

“I’m never going back there,” she said. "I can't."

Canʼt? "What do you mean?”

She replied, “Turn up the radio. I love this song.”

I amped the volume on the portable radio Cece had brought over. She began to dance and rock out, obviously avoiding the question.

I resumed scraping. That solved one problem, anyway. I was’t leaving to go to college out of state – if I was going at all. Right now college was the furthest thing from my mind. Surviving day to day took priority.

The song finished and Cece’s sponge plopped in the water. She flung herself backward across the bed and said in a yawn, “Let’s go get a pizza or something. I’m wiped.”

I set my knife on top of the microwave, trudged over, and sprawled out beside her. We gazed up into the cracked and blistered ceiling. Facing her, I said, “You want to try it out?”

A slow smile snaked across her lips. "I thought you'd never ask.”

***

Quitting school was never an option, really. Well, maybe it was, but there were only eight weeks left. No sense throwing it all away, like Mom had. Like her life was so ruined. Her future destroyed.

The resentment, the anger toward her began to consume me and I couldn’t let it. I had three midterms and a presentation next week, not to mention the leadership conference. Seth had gone ahead and organised the whole event, which I felt guilty as hell about. I wanted to thank him, to tell him he’d done a fantastic job, but try to talk to him. He acted like I was the Scourge.

Art class was my salvation. I could totally zone while Mackal assumed I was visualising the next Sistine Chapel. Occasionally, Cece would glance back at me, looking worried, and press a fist to her heart, making me squeal with ecstasy. On the inside only, of course.

One Friday afternoon, feeling wasted from all the stress and overwork, I slid into my seat in art and ran through my usual rouine: Check the phone, pull out my sketchbook, stare at the back of Cece’s head. Mackel showed us slides of various objects and talked about how to draw perspective. How to give dimension to buildings, rooms, furniture.

A vision came to me. My dump. I dug out a pencil and began to sketch it. That was depressing. I ripped out the page.

Mackel eyed me. I grimaced an apology. What about drawing my vision of what the room could be?

Okay, it had possibilities. See beyond the surface, Mackal had said.

The act of creating, of transferring my altered vision to the page was oddly comforting. Possibilities. They were there.

***

We were sitting in a booth sharing a box of donut shards and refilling napkin holders when Cece looked up and smiled. I twisted around. Faith stood at the counter, hangdog. "I brought your stuff," she grumbled, shoving a couple of Hefty trash bags at me.

So this is what my life has been reduced to, I thought. Faith added, “She was going to throw it all out.”

An ache gnawed at my core. “Is my safe in there?" I sniped.

“No," Faith said. “She kept that. She said…” Faith stopped.

My eyes narrowed. “She said what?”