All It Would Take

Chapter One

Her mama wasn’t doing so good. The Alzheimer’s was worsening every week now. Mama didn’t remember who Bobbi Jo was anymore. Half the time, Josie didn’t even know for sure who she was.

Daddy had died four years ago in a car crash, so Bobbi Jo had no one to turn to. Doc Jones said Mama didn’t have long now. A few months, maybe a year. Bobbi Jo had asked the guidance counsellor at school what would happen then. Ms. Ackerson had said she would probably be sent to her mama’s sister to live with, or Child Services would put her in foster care. Bobbi Jo knew her mama’s sister wouldn’t take her. The sisters hadn’t spoken since Josie had gotten pregnant before she was married, and wouldn’t tell who the daddy was. Aunt Mabel had married a preacher, she was so devout, so she didn’t like it too well, that Mama had fornicated and all that stuff they had learned about in health class last spring. Even though Mama had been pretty old, then—forty-two. Bobbi Jo had never met Aunt Mabel, and didn’t even know her husband the preacher’s name.

She also knew that she didn’t want to go into foster care. She had heard about all the horror stuff that could happen to you when you went into foster care. Plus, she would probably be separated from her little sister Karrie Lee, and that was just out of the question. Mama, in one of those ever-less-frequent lucid moments, made her promise she would take care of Karrie Lee.

But how could a fifteen-year-old do that?

But Bobbi Jo was very clever. All her teachers said so. She was officially going to be a sophomore in less than two weeks. She was going to be sixteen in March. She was a big girl, and she would find a solution to this. All it would take was a lot of plotting, and maybe a little legal manipulation. All it would take was an adult who would take legal responsibility for her and Karrie Lee.

All it would take was an eighteen-year-old.

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Jamie McIntire was a logical young man. He knew that he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in Podunk, Georgia. Logically, then, he would have to get an education that would enable him to earn the money necessary to cover the higher cost-of-living in Atlanta. He had, in fact, been planning just for that for the last three years. Even working two jobs during the summer, and thirty hours a week during the school year, he managed to get high scores in class. He knew he was in line for the valedictory if he kept his grades up this year. Already he had filled out a common application, just so he could be prepared for the college applications he would be completing this fall. He would double-major in history and political science, and then go to law school. Once he had passed the bar, he would be living large.

Despite the fact that Jamie was too busy to party, he was popular at school. He was good-looking, with his thick brown hair and green eyes, and his height. When a guy was six-foot-two, girls really liked to stare dreamily up into his eyes. Jamie liked girls, a lot, and he dated occasionally. He never let anything get serious, though. A girlfriend would demand too much time, and that would interfere with his plan. But, oh, man, he had fun in those few free hours he had. His old car might have some rust spots on the bottom, but the engine was good, and the fact that the thing was a boat just meant that the backseat was that much bigger. Yeah, no one could say that Jamie McIntire didn’t know how to have fun.

He contemplated all the fun he would fit in around work and school this year as he knocked on the Pearsons’ door on the first day of school. There was a doorbell, but it hadn’t worked in years. His mom had found out a few years ago that Josie Pearson was pretty sick, and had designated herself in making sure that her neighbor’s girls got walked to school every day. That chore, of course, fell to Jamie. He guessed he didn’t mind it so much. It meant he couldn’t drive his car to school, but since it was only a nine-block walk, he figured it probably would have been a waste of gasoline to drive anyway. And the girls weren’t so bad. Bobbi Jo was quiet and reserved, even though they had lived next door all their lives. Well, all of hers, anyway, since she was younger. And Karrie Lee was just a sweetie. She was going to be ten soon, Jamie remembered. Next month, he thought. He felt kind of bad for not visiting her all summer, even though he’d worked sixty hours a week. He could have found a little time to stop by. He could have taken her to the park for a few hours. He would have to do that some weekend, soon.

Karrie Lee threw open the door.

“Happy birthday!” she cried ecstatically, throwing her arms around Jamie.

“Hey, there, sweetheart. Yeah, your birthday is coming up, isn’t it? How old are you going to be?”

Karrie Lee put out all her fingers to show how old she was going to be. “I’m going to have a party, and there’ll be balloons!”

“Balloons? That’s awesome, Karrie Lee! What color will your balloons be?”

The girl’s happy smile fell into a frown of confusion. Her eyes filled up with tears. “Not orange ones? Please?”

Jamie smiled reassuringly. “I’m sure there won’t be any orange ones, baby. Lots of, um, purple ones, though. Does that sound good?”

Karrie Lee’s facial light bulb lit again. “Purple ones? Really, Jamie? Oh, yay!” She turned to her sister, who had finally rushed through the door, looking harried.

“Purple ones! I’m gonna have purple ones, Bobbi Jo!”

Bobbi Jo looked suspiciously at Jamie. “Purple what?” She didn’t think they could afford much anything right now except the essentials. She couldn’t think of anything purple that was essential.

“Balloons. For her birthday,” Jamie explained.

“Oh. That’s all right, then. Sure, you can have purple balloons, Karrie Lee. We’ll tie them all to your chair and bake you a cake, okay?”

“Okay.”

Jamie looked at the Bobbi Jo, took in tension around her mouth and the worry in her brown eyes. Suddenly, he wondered what it was like for her, trying to take care of her mother and her sister. Especially as it became more apparent that Karrie Lee’s mind wasn’t going to progress past six years old.

“You know, if you ever need someone to watch Karrie Lee while you take care of things, my mama’s home all day. She wouldn’t mind giving a hand. Or if you just needed some time to yourself, or something,” he offered.

Bobbi Jo wanted to bristle at the implication that she couldn’t manage taking care of her family. But the truth was, she did need some help sometimes. Now that Mama was getting so bad, she could make things difficult. Her fits often upset Karrie Lee. It would be nice to be able to remove Karrie Lee from that stress, at least sometimes. So she shoved her pride down her throat, and said, “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

What she hadn’t kept in mind, she realized, were the lunches she had meant to make for herself and her sister. She dug for her wallet at the bottom of her old backpack, an ugly stained nylon thing she had gotten for fifty cents at the thrift store, and counted out enough change to buy Karrie Lee a hot lunch. She carefully kept it close to her chest, where Jamie couldn’t see how little was left. Certainly not enough for a lunch for herself. That was okay, though. She could wait until three-thirty to have a peanut butter sandwich. A few hours wouldn’t stunt her growth or anything. Plus, this way she could use the lunch hour to do some research for her plan in the library. She needed to know if the idea niggling in her brain was actually something she could pull off, without breaking too many laws.

Jamie knew she didn’t have enough left over for herself, and knew she must have planned on making lunches, which was much cheaper. He had offered to buy her lunch once, but she had archly informed him that she could handle her own financial situation, thank you very much. He hadn’t mentioned it since, though he wondered just how often she “forgot” to make herself a lunch. Actually, Bobbi Jo didn’t really act like your normal sophomore, now that he thought about it. She had never told him another boy was going to walk her home, so he didn’t think she dated. She didn’t really dress like the other girls, either, in their short skirts and tight shirts. He thought maybe it would be a bit silly to wear one of those skirts when your only plans for the day were to wash the dishes and get everybody fed. The worn blue jeans she preferred would be more practical and more comfortable.

Bobbi Jo hooked her thumbs in the belt loops of her jeans and didn’t say anything as they walked. That was okay, because she usually didn’t—hadn’t for years. Even now, Karrie Lee was filling the silence with excited chatter about the new things she had gotten for the school year. Which wasn’t actually a lot, since most stuff they could recycle from the previous year, like crayons and folders, and half-used notebooks. And she hadn’t even wanted a replacement for her Trapper Keeper, which had a purple pony on it. But sweet Karrie Lee was very happy with the neon pencil top erasers they had splurged on. It would have been nice to have some help around the house, now that the girl was going to be ten, but that wasn’t to be. Still, Karrie Lee was a blessing that far outweighed any additional burden on Bobbi Jo’s shoulders. Would any foster parent realize that?

The thought brought Bobbi Jo back to her idea. It terrified her. She would have to do a lot of manipulating to pull it off, and the thought of that made her a little sick. But, damn it, she wouldn’t let her family fall apart. She had promised her mama. She kept reassuring herself as they arrived at the school, and Jamie went to his locker while she took her sister to the special ed room. She would do what had to be done. For her family, it would be okay. She would sell her soul to the devil for her family, and it would be okay.