Saving Grace

Chapter Six: The Visionary Center

The weekend ended much too early, and for once, even school seemed to fly by, much to Gracie's complete and utter dismay; and all at once she found herself sliding on her duct-taped sneakers and shrugging on the old patched up jean jacket that remained one of her mother's most prized possessions. Apparently some of the many fading black scribbles belonged to all four Beatles members, one or two members of The Who, and it was said that even Jimmy Hendrix had signed it somewhere too, but Gracie could barely tell because her mother had everyone who was anyone sign the damn thing. So it was said.

"Can I please go with you?" Charlie begged for probably the fortieth time, dropping to his knees in front of his older sister and clasping his hands together.

"For fuck's sake, Murray, how many times do I have to say no?" Gracie snapped throwing the strap of her book bag over her shoulder and attempting to mentally prepare herself to knock on Ms. Loudmouth's door.

"Why do you want to go so bad anyway?" Preston asked, unsuccessfully trying not to sound as hurt as he felt. "I thought you wanted to come to my hockey game?"

Charlie made a face at Gracie that Preston couldn't see, before quickly rearranging his features and spinning around to face his brother. "Well... it's just that my friend sometimes goes to Visionary and I wanted to hang out with her," he explained, putting on his best puppy dog expression. It almost never worked on Gracie, but Preston was a sissy, he couldn't resist.

"Alright... Gracie, just take the kid with you," Preston relented, pinching the bridge of his nose the way he always did when he was frustrated about something.

"Fine. But you so owe me for this one, bro." Gracie barely got the words out before Charlie was dancing like he won the lottery and rushing around pulling his pants on over his Superman whitey-tighties, and shoving his feet into shoes that didn't match, with his shirt inside out and on backwards. The kid was a hilarious disaster. But he was a free spirit, so neither of his siblings bothered to point out his flawed ways. He wouldn't have listened even if they had tried.

At one point their mother was positive he was going to end up a nudist.

"Hurry up, Murray! Don't wanna be late," Gracie called lazily behind her as she opened the front door, just before Clara Storm raised her fist to knock on it. "Oh. Hi," the girl greeted her neighbor awkwardly while Charlie practically tripped backwards into her, nearly knocking them both to the ground. "Goddammit-"

"Ahem," Clara interrupted, eyeing the teenager with that look that said, "you better stop there or we'll be sure to bring capital punishment back."

"Um... Charlie's coming with us," Gracie muttered, preferring to speak as little as possible with the wench who probably collaborated with her form of the devil to keep her out of juvie. Whatever "help" the righteous woman thought she was giving, it wasn't appreciated in the least.

When Clara noticed the boy she shot him the most genuine grin Gracie had seen in quite awhile. "Glad to have you come join us," she responded, gesturing toward the end of the hallway where the piss-scented elevator awaited them.

It didn't occur to Gracie to be grateful for Charlie's insistence on tagging along until she was sitting in the backseat of the brand new rental car Clara's insurance had paid for, listening to the wench and her brother's lively conversation about something so completely menial she'd already forgotten what it was. If it hadn't been for Charlie they'd have been sat in an eternally awkward silence for the entire forty-minute drive to the outskirts of the city where the Visionary Center for Youth with Disabilities stood proudly in all its sunshine-y glory.