From Grouphome to Penthouse: Story of a Mob Princess

“We’ve got you a home.”

“Already?”

“Yep”

My counselor and group home advisor, Ms. Shultz, gives a fake smile.
“I wont go.” I say defiantly.

“Oh?” she questions, raising one of her penciled in eyebrows.
“Yes. Oh.” I say, returning her raised eyebrow.

Ms. Shultz is my counselor and my shrink. She’s a total pain in the neck and a crappy shrink, who I am convinced got her psychology degree of some cheap internet cite. Besides that she’s totally fake, the type of person who smiles to your face and then goes complaining about you behind your back.
Ms. Shultz rolls her crystalline blue eyes and all I can think is that I hope her eyes roll out the back of her head.
“You don’t have much of a choice, your group home advisor says he wants you in a home, and we’ve found another couple who wants to take you----so its either the foster home or you go out on the street.” She says knitting her thin eyebrows together so her whole eyebrow looks sort of like a worm crawling across her forehead.

“I’ll take the streets for three hundred, Diane” I say smartly. Diane. That’s her first name, and she hates when I use it. Ms. Shultz begins tapping her pen on a pad of paper furiously.
“I hope you never plan to play poker because you probably cant keep a straight face to save your life” I remark, leaning back in the leather chair Ms. Shultz had in her office.

“Look, pissant, you have a great couple who will be here any minute to interview you and you are going to sit her and pretend not to be the total idiot that you are” she growls, peering at me from behind a pair of her thick rimmed glasses. “Is it legal for a shrink to treat their client like total crap?” I ask, flicking some dirt from beneath my fingernail.

There is a knock at the door. Ms. Shultz sits up rigid.
“Come in” she chimes and puts on another one of her pretend smiles. A couple steps in the room. They looked to be in their late twenties. The man wore and ugly looking green polo and pleated khaki pants and the woman wore a black pencil skirt and a frilly looking white top. They came in with two totally cheesy smiles on their faces and were holding hands.
“You must be Mr. and Ms. Lauren, please take a seat” My shrink gets up greeting them and getting them two chairs.
“Whats up?” I greet from across the room, nodding. My shrink gives me a how-rude-stare and the couple gives me and awkward smile.
“You must be Jaylyn, we’ve heard so much about you and we’re absolutely ecstatic to meet you! I am Carrie and this is my husband Mark” Ms. Lauren says pointing to the man beside her. The couple looked extremely athletic, Carrie had brown hair and green eyes with a lean body structure and Mark had darker brown hair and brown eyes with a more muscular physic.

Yeah right. I want to gag. Where the hell did my shrink dig these peons up? “Why me?”

The couple exchange a confused look and Ms. Shultz looks mortified. Ms. Lauren regains composure and sticks another smile on her face.

“What do you mean? We heard a little about you and decided we wanted to meet you.” Ms Lauren says. The man nods in agreement.
“It doesn’t make sense, is all. I mean there are tons of kids out there better than me. Why would you want a pissy, attitudinal, trouble-attracting, almost-grown, moody seventeen year old?” I smirk crossing my arms, knowing this couple wasn’t gonna be here for long. This time the man speaks.
“We realize how old you are and the various things young adults like you go through and to me and my wife it would be much more satisfying knowing that we turned a young teenagers life around” he says.

Bull.

“What a load of crap.” I snort, flicking some more dirt from beneath my fingernail.

“Okay....okay....thats enough Jaylyn” Ms. Shultz intervenes in the conversation. “Forgive me, she’s very tired and hasn’t had much rest lately, so she’s a bit cranky.” Ms. Shultz lies. Wow. That was a terrible lie. If I wasn’t to busy trying to piss off the foster parents, I would have burst out laughing at the remark and made Ms. Shultz look like the liar she is. “Oh, its quite all right, we understand teenage deviancy, we all went through it.”

Jesus, it was like they had this all rehearsed. Mr. and Ms. Lauren turn back to me. “we look forward to having you stay in our home Jaylyn”
Before I could protest, they were out the door. “I am not going with them.” I say. “You are, next week in fact.” Ms. Shultz said. “I’ll go down kicking and screaming then. I’ll raise a lawsuit.” I protest. She laughs. “A lawsuit? It’s not illegal for me to place you in a foster home against your will. You will go and at least try living with the Laurens.” Ms. Shultz says. That’s what you think. I made quite a fuss the next two weeks all the way up until the time for me to go. Anyway, I went. And now, here I am, sitting in the backseat of the Lauren’s minivan on my way to Manhattan Island, New York.

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We were moving to Greenwich Village, a small sector in the southern tip of Manhattan to some apartments. Greenwich Village turned out to be rather upscale, and the apartments were penthouse style, rather than the run down buildings where we stayed in Brooklyn.
“You’re going to love Manhattan, there is so much to do here.” remarks Ms. Lauren as we pull in to a parking space in front of one of the penthouses.

“Doubt it.” I mutter under my breath. I follow the Lauren’s into their elaborate house. I was actually quite amazed, but there was no way in hell I would show it.

“And this is your room.” Carrie opens a door. It was humongous. Windows lined all of the walls. There was a queen sized bed pushed against the far a-lined wall. The headboard of the bed was iron wrought and so was all of the furniture, except for the drawers and the nightstand which were painted black ivory. There was a bookshelf on the other wall filled with almost every book imaginable, a television screen was mounted up on another wall, and there was also a small fire place on the same wall as the book shelf. I keep a blank expression.
“Well? How do you like it?” Mark asks.
“Its okay, I guess.” I respond carelessly, flinging myself on the bed. “Good, well, we’ll give you some time to familiarize yourself with your new room, and then later at dinner we’ll discuss some other things.” Carrie says, before closing me in the room.
This was too good to be true. My room was way cool, cooler than any other room I had by a foster parent. I start to run my finger over every surface in the room and jumped on the bed several times before finally closing my eyes for a nap

“Do you think Jaylyn likes it here?” I mutter taking the casserole out of the oven. Mark looks up from the newspaper.

“Jaylyn is a teenager, it’ll take some time for her to get used to her new surroundings.” he says returning his gaze to the local and state section.
“Do you think she likes us?” I ask, setting silverware on the glass kitchenette table.
“I think you’re being paranoid. Be patient. Jaylyn is a teenager and is having to get used to another family all over again.” He says flipping the page.

“I’m just worried....what if she finds out the truth about all this.......” I sigh, wiping off counter tops.
“She will find out....sooner or later, anyway.” Mark closes the paper. “But until then, it’s our job to look after her for mi familia.” He finishes, placing his lips on my forehead. I sigh, taking a step back and smiling at him.
“Hopefully later than sooner.......I mean......people will be after her......,and we constantly have to worry about the day she goes to school and someone puts a gun to her head.
“That’s why we have to Danver boys to look after her, so don’t worry, now call her down for dinner, I’m starved.” Mark takes his seat at the table.

------

“Jaylyn! Dinner’s ready!”

I sit up on the bed rubbing my eyes. “Piss off...” I mutter under my breath, getting off the bed. Jeez, what a rude awakening. I follow my nose downstairs to the smell of chicken casserole, mmmmm, smells good.
I walk downstairs to see Mark and Carrie sitting at the glass kitchenette table. “Do you think you could have been any louder?” I ask, my voice, dripping with sarcasm. They exchange surprised looks.
“.....Take a seat, Jaylyn...I made chicken casserole for dinner.” Carrie says. I pull out a seat sitting beside Mark. We say grace, well Mark says grace and we then commence to eating.
“How do you like the casserole?” Carrie smiles.
“It’s crap, I cant believe you’d feed this to a human.” I say.
Mark gapes and Carrie looks like she can’t decide whether to cry or yell at me.

I smirk at their reactions. “Joking, only joking. It tastes okay I guess.” I say trying not to laugh.
Carrie recollects herself and Mark gives me a weak smile. Carrie clears her throat.
“We wanted to talk to you about school.” She starts.
“You’ll be attending P.S.105 high school, and your fist day will be tomorrow.” She says.
“Your point is?” I mutter, playing with the casserole. “
Well, we don’t want you to be nervous on your first day, we also need to give you your school supplies.” She says motioning to a book bag sitting in a chair.
“The bus arrives at 6:30, so you’ll need to wake up early......me and Mark will be gone to work by the time you wake up.” She says.
Jeez, where do these people work? “Continue.” I sigh, pretending to be bored with the conversation.
“Tomorrow afternoon, I’ll pick you up to go shopping.” She says. I nod.
We finished dinner and then I went up to the bathroom for a shower, and then to bed. As I lay in the Lauren’s bed, my new bed, I thought about what school would be like tomorrow. And then I thought about my parents. It had been a while since I’d thought about them. I missed them and I didn’t even know them.

6:00am

I blink open my eyes to the loud blaring of the alarm clock. I glare at the alarm clock for waking me up. The house was quiet without Mark and Carrie being here. Quickly, I freshened up, trying to find something to wear. I didn’t really care about looking pretty or whatever, just presentable. I had a very athletic figure, long, toned, thick thighs, long calf, a considerable butt, and no chest. I didn’t consider myself pretty either, just fair.
I had long, curly black hair, which I guess came from being biracial, dark mahogany eyes and golden brown skin. I threw on a pair of bilabong shorts and a fitted tee, putting my waist long hair into a ponytail. I decided to bypass breakfast and instead, was out the door. It was a fair morning for March, and there was no one at my bus stop, making it a fairly quiet morning.

The bus pulled up and contrary to what I told Mark and Carrie, I was nervous.
As I boarded the bus a guy that looked to be about sixteen took the liberty to stick his foot out, tripping me.
My first impulse: turn around and beat his face into the back of his skull. But I didn’t. I just kept going until I found a seat at the back of the bus.
“Hey”
I look up to see a boy that looked to be my age standing above me. He was, well gorgeous.
He had spiked dirty blonde hair that poked out from beneath his New York Yankees baseball cap, lightly tanned skin, and perfectly straight teeth. He was wearing vans sneakers, a pair of baggy jeans and a Calvin Klein polo.
“Hi.” I say casually, pretending not to be interested in his presence. “You’re in my seat.” He mutters.
I feel my cheeks grow warm beneath my skin. “Sorry, didn’t see your name on it.” Jerk. If he wanted an argument, he could have it.
He smirks. “Obviously you didn’t look hard enough, anyway, you can either get up, or scoot over.” he says, his brown eyes flash. I roll my eyes, scooting over for him to sit down. As he sits, the bus pulls off.
“By the way, my name’s Grant, Grant Danvers.” He says looking straight ahead. Hmm, Grant, cute.
“I’m Jaylyn.” I say.
“Jaylyn, huh? Cute name.” he mutters.
Once again I feel a fire being lit beneath my cheeks.
“Mind if I call you Jay?” he doesn’t wait for me to answer. “I’m a junior, you look to be too, do you have your schedule yet?” he questions.
“Yeah,” I take a folded sheet of paper out of my pocket, handing it to him.

“Damn, who’d you kill? They totally did you wrong.” He remarks looking at the paper.
I felt my spirits fade.
Crap.
That couldn’t be good.
“For homeroom you’ve got Smalls. He’s a giant douche bag and will give you a crap load of homework. You’ve got calculus with me, second period, Ms. Jade, she’s cool and hot. Uh-oh, you’ve got a prick for English. Mr. Carr. He’s strict and his punishment for everything is extra homework.” he finishes, handing me back my schedule.
The bus pulls into the parking lot and stops at a halt. Grant gets up.
“You coming, or do you plan to spend the day on the bus?” he questions. I get up following him into the school, he walks me to my locker and then we part as we head for homeroom.