The Girl's Guide to Homelessness by Brianna Karp Page A

little, and I struggled to make my fingers obey my mind, even having trouble with simpler pieces that I could play easily as a child. To this day, I play very, very badly and rudimentarily. It sounds like I’m playing by numbers—extremely plonky and deliberate. I’ll never be a good pianist or even a decent one; that chance has passed me by. But I still take a great deal of pleasure in playing privately, as long as nobody is listening. It has a calming effect on me and gives me something to aspire to, something to improve.
    And now Ingrid was being shuttled off to storage. No playing at my mom’s house.
    I lovingly swept the hardwood floors free of any lingering dog hair and mopped them until they glistened. I scraped the ashes from the fireplace and scrubbed the counters and kitchen tiles until they were snowy-white.
    I made sure to be the last to leave my cottage, spending an hour inside sitting on the floors and working up the will to leave and turn in the keys. Having said goodbye to so many things that I loved in such a short span of time, it was all beginning to feel like just more of the same. I was nearly numb; only the faintest drooping inside my chest betrayed the ache of giving up my home and my privacy.
    I was resigned. I was moving back in with my parents.

Chapter Five
    I probably shouldn’t have been shocked to learn that Mom had been stealing money from me. Her sense of self-entitlement occasionally reared itself when she coveted something I owned. For instance, an eBay package mistakenly delivered to her house after I had moved out was opened without regard to pesky little details such as federal postal laws or statutes dealing with mail fraud. When she discovered the soft vintage Italian scarf inside, she confiscated it, refusing to return it even when confronted.
    â€œI spent twelve agonizing hours forcing your fat head out of my vagina. I fed you for years, cared for you, loved you, and now you won’t even give me something! Selfish, selfish girl. I deserve this.”
    Or she would wheedle.
    â€œI remember you liking that brooch/skirt/necklace/barrette of mine. If you let me keep this scarf, I’ll give you that instead.”
    Most of the time, it wasn’t worth the inevitable argument, fallout, screaming and crocodile tears, so I would just give up, throw my hands in the air and concede thedesired item. History may not have proven appeasement to be a particularly effective strategy in the long run, but, so help me, I just didn’t want to deal with it. I chose my battles, for all the good that did.
    My parents had also been having money problems for, well, ever. Mom often threw hapless Joe out of the house, thus shooting herself in the foot as far as financial support went for the weeks, months or years he was gone. Even when Joe was there, however, money from Hill & Canyon Aquatics was scarce. His head swam with visions of his own successful empire, but Joe lost many of his clients in the recession of 2008–2009, and had never been particularly good at managing his money anyway. The little that he made he was forever investing and losing in some farfetched proposal or another—stocks, commodities, pyramid schemes, you name it. I had moved back in with my parents only to be conscripted into driving my dad around from midnight to 5:00 a.m., so that he could nail signs to telephone poles, signs promising a Tidal Wave of Wealth. He tried to explain how the business model was not a pyramid scheme, but it sounded exactly like one to me.
    â€œDad, how long have you been putting up these signs?”
    â€œAbout a year.”
    â€œMmm. And have you received any results in that year?”
    Almost indignant, he retorted, “I’ve gotten ten phone calls inquiring about it.”
    â€œI see. Did any of these ten phone calls come to fruition? Did they lead to you making any money whatsoever?”
    He looked at me blankly. “Well, no, not yet. But they