Free Best Boy by Eli Gottlieb

little short-staffed today and Todd is one of our most senior villagers and a total gentleman. Okay, Todd?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œMartine?”
    Martine said nothing and instead slowly raised an arm, swiveled her middle finger towards her mouth and then stuck it between her lips and began sucking on it.
    â€œShow her the grounds,” said Raykene to me, “the gardens, the Main Hall, the woodshop and some of the other places she might be working. Introduce her to people, okay?”
    â€œOkay,” I said.
    â€œGreat!” said Raykene. “I’ll meet you both back here in exactly one hour. We good?” she asked Martine.
    Martine said nothing but stared at the ground and swayed, while holding her finger in her mouth. Finally to no one in particular she said, “Ngggh!” softly. Raykene squinted at her for a second.
    â€œI’m taking that as a yes,” she said and shook her head a little bit. Then she left, fanning herself with a hand. The door shut behind her with a hiss. Tommy Doon had gone that morning on an overnight to his parents’ so there was no one in the house. I stood for a while listening to the sounds of water gurgling in pipes. Something ticked inside the wall like a clock.
    â€œDo you talk?” I asked.
    Martine took her middle finger out of her mouth. Her face looked tired.
    â€œOnly if I want to,” she said.
    â€œHello,” I said.
    â€œI shouldn’t be here,” she said.
    â€œPayton is nice,” I said.
    She looked at me with the eye.
    â€œNo it’s not,” she said.
    â€œAre there parts of the campus you want to see more than others?” I asked, because I remembered that this was what Ambassadors were supposed to say.
    â€œI’m too high-functioning to be here, but my mother said I had to because I have intrac”—her mouth caught up on one side—“table problems. But she’s wrong, as usual.”
    â€œWe have bingo every Friday night in the Main Hall,” I said.
    â€œThey’re hateful.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œMy parents.”
    â€œI wish my Momma was still alive,” I said.
    â€œYou’ve gotta be kidding.”
    â€œI miss her.”
    She snorted and rolled the one eye. “What’s your die?”
    â€œMy what?”
    â€œDiagnosis.”
    â€œI have autism and anxiety disorder. Also I’m developmentally disabled,” I said.
    She shut her eye and in a fast, bored voice she said, “First they thought I was an Aspie, and then they thought I was an Addie. I had six different syndromes at the same time, plus being depressed. But it was all a lie anyway because they knew I had brain damage from being pushed out of a car when I was a girl.”
    Her eye opened. “You’re kinda fat.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œSo are you taking me on a tour or not?”
    I couldn’t follow what she was saying and I felt my head lightly moving to and fro as I tried to look at the words going by quickly, zoom.
    â€œYes,” I said finally, “a tour.”
    â€œOkay let’s go.”
    We walked out the door and I began by slowly walking with her to the cottages. Each one had something special about it that you would only know if you’d been here a long time. She was staying in cottage number seven. It had a sewing machine in it. I told her that.
    â€œI thought every cottage had a sewing machine,” she said. “What does yours have that’s special?”
    â€œA back door,” I said, “and a big TV.”
    We cut across the main lawn to the library. It was a little darkened building and I turned on the lights.
    â€œOut the windows you can see Peace Cottage,” I said, “where if you’re high-functioning you stay and maybe even work at McDonald’s.”
    She looked at me with her one gray eye.
    â€œDo I seem disturbed to you?” she said.
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œMy father thinks