by Wendy Heard
“Not at all. I came here to apologize. I shouldn’t have reacted like that.”
I shrug. “I fucked up.”
“No. It wasn’t anything you did. I was just so humiliated. Those goddamn photos. I felt like I would never be able to look at you again. It was so awful. It wasn’t that I was mad at you. I just couldn’t...” She slumps forward and presses her face into her hands.
I pet her hair, smoothing it over her shoulders. I wish I could take this from her. “How about I make you some tea, and we forget the photos exist? How does that sound?”
She nods into her hands.
I head into the kitchen, fill up the kettle and set it on the electric base. The everyday rhythm of making tea soothes me. I pick out my favorite mug, the one with two owls that Joaquin gave me for Christmas, and use two tea bags to make her chamomile extra strong.
I bring the mug to the couch, where she’s still sitting in the same position. “Here you go. Chamomile.”
She gives me a weak smile and reaches out for the cup.
I look around the apartment. What’s the plan? She needs to get back home. I feel dirty after the long, adrenaline-filled day, and I’d intended to take a shower and change out of these old workout clothes before heading back to Kevin’s. I wonder if I still have time. I say, “Here’s what I’m thinking. You hang tight and drink your tea. I’m going to take a quick shower and change, and then I’ll walk you to your car on my way out. Unless you want me to walk you to your car now, first?”
“No, that’s fine. It’ll be nice to relax for a minute.” She kicks her flip-flops off and curls up with her feet underneath her. “But you don’t have to walk me. I don’t want you to—”
“Quiet. Don’t be stupid.” I check the dead bolts again and head for the bathroom.
Alone, I crank the shower on and let it warm up while I pee. Normally I feel guilty for letting the water run, but I’m being hunted by a murder club and the drought can suck it. I shed my clothes, take some ibuprofen from the bottle in the cabinet and get underneath the hot water. It feels like heaven.
I lather my body up and wash my face, trying not to get the stitches wet, and when I wash my hair, I do it with my head leaning back as far as it goes so the soap and water sluice down my back. I’m rinsing the conditioner out when I hear the bathroom door open.
I freeze. I picture a stranger, someone sent to kill me, someone who’s already killed Sofia.
“Hello?” I call out, instantly feeling ridiculous, like a dumb girl in a horror movie.
“It’s me,” Sofia’s voice says.
I can breathe again. I go back to rinsing my hair. “You scared the shit out of me. What’s up?”
A long pause.
“Sofia? Is everything okay?”
The shower curtain slides aside. Naked, she steps into the shower. One arm is crossed over her chest, holding her boobs up. My head spins with surprise. She pulls the shower curtain shut behind her. The hot water pummels my back.
“You all right?” she asks.
The adrenaline drains from my limbs. “When the door opened, I thought someone had killed you and was coming in here to kill me. I’m losing it.”
“That wasn’t the reaction I was going for.” She takes another step closer. I should say something in return, but I can’t. She’s beautiful naked. Of course; I knew she would be.
She traces the fingers of her free hand along my collarbones and down my side to my hip. Her eyes follow her hand. She frowns at my stomach and rubs her thumb along a two-inch scar at the very base of my abdomen. “What’s this from?”
I can’t lie to her. “I usually say I had my appendix out.”
“Wrong spot.”
“I know.”
She looks at me, and I say, “It’s from Joaquin. From my C-section.” Her eyes go wide. I add, “I wasn’t on drugs or anything like that. That’s not why they took him. I was just really young. They thought he’d be better off with Carol.”
She lets go of her boobs and pulls me forward, wrapping her arms around my waist. She hugs me tight. It takes me by surprise, but it feels so good, I almost start crying. I wind my arms around her neck and press my face into her steam-soaked hair. Hot water patters against our arms and shoulders. I remember sitting in my car just an hour ago, yearning for someone to touch me. It feels like an answered prayer.
I smooth her hair back from her face and kiss her. Her lips are wet, water running down her face. I’m gentle with her, my palms pressed to her cheeks. She opens her lips and her tongue is soft against mine. It’s too much, all her skin slippery wet. Her lips move fast, urgent, and I can barely breathe through the roar of desire in my chest. Water soaks her hair and slips between us. She runs her hands up my spine into my hair, pulls my head back and kisses my neck. Into it, she murmurs, “Please.”
24
SOFIA
SOFIA LIES ON THE BED, head cradled in her left arm, her right fingers trailing along Jazz’s shoulder blades. She shivers lightly, unable to quell the chills that rake themselves up her breasts and arms. Her hair and the sheets are damp from the shower.
“You cold?” Jazz asks, raising her head from Sofia’s chest. She rubs Sofia’s arm gently. Jazz’s hands are always warm.
Sofia says, “I’m okay,” but then a whole-body shiver betrays her.
Jazz sits up and detangles the comforter from where it lies crumpled at their feet. She pulls it over them and snuggles underneath it beside Sofia. “You don’t have to be macho.”
Guilt boils inside Sofia’s throat. She swallows it down.
“What’s wrong?” Jazz asks.
“I’m worried about you. I don’t like sending you back out there.”
Jazz props herself onto an elbow and runs a hand through Sofia’s hair, combing it back from her forehead. Her eyeliner is smudged and smoky, black hair tangled around her shoulders. “I’ll be careful if you will. No crowded places. No parking garages. Do you promise?”
Sofia nods, but she feels sick. She traces the lines of the wings that are tattooed across Jazz’s chest. Over her left breast, just under the bottom feathers, the word Joaquin is written in loopy script. Jazz asks, “Do the tattoos bother you?”
“No,” Sofia says, surprised. “Why would they?”
“I feel like they might look trashy to you. You’re so clean and perfect.” She loops a tattooed middle finger under the thin gold chain Sofia wears around her neck.
“They look hot to me, if you want to know the truth.” Sofia touches the word Joaquin.
Jazz drops the chain and rests her hand on Sofia’s chest. Her face looks sad. Sofia pulls her closer and kisses her. Her lips are familiar now and bring back all kinds of images. “I feel like you’re about to say we need to go,” Sofia whispers.
Jazz groans. “I really, really hate to do this, but I have to get back to my friend’s house. I told him I’d be gone an hour, and that was, like, three hours ago.” Jazz pushes herself up so she’s hovering over Sofia, her hair falling down around Sofia’s face, making a little cave, and she kisses Sofia’s forehead.
Sofia raises her head. “Wait—are you in chaturanga?”
Jazz pushes herself all the way up—goes from chaturanga to a sitting position, just like it’s no big deal. “What’s chaturanga?” She starts pulling clothes out of the dresser.
“It’s a yoga pose. And I hate you.” Sofia gets up to retrieve her clothes from the bathroom.
Jazz presses her palms together at her chest and bows. “Namaste.”
“Oh my God. Where did you hear that?” Sofia returns with her clothes in hand and starts sifting through them while Jazz pulls on a fresh pair of jeans.
“Women say that to me at work. They Namaste me at the register.”
“No way. You’re lying.”
“Do you think I would make that up?”
Sofia shimmies into her leggings. “Do you work the cash register a lot? Is that your job?”
“We all do different stuff. Register, stocking, cart runs, whatever.”
“I want to come through your line pretending to be a nightmare customer. Demanding kale chips. Would you be mean to me?”
Jazz crooks an eyebrow at Sofia’s breasts. “Come through like that and you can have all the kale chips you want.”
“Jazz!” Sofia’s cheeks flush, and she crosses her arms across her chest.
Jazz laughs as she pulls a T-shirt over her head. “Now you’re shy?”
“Well, I wasn’t a second ago!”
“You bust into my shower butt ass naked begging me to fuck you, but now you’re shy.”
“Jazz!”
“Sofia!”
Sofia transfers her boobs to one arm and raises an index finger. “I did not bust in. I stepped in very seductively.”
Jazz cocks her head at Sofia, eyes scanning her like she’s reading words written on Sofia’s forehead. She closes the distance between them and picks Sofia’s bra up off the bed. She drapes it over Sofia’s shoulder and moves around behind her. “I’m sorry I made you self-conscious,” she says into Sofia’s ear, which sends little shivers down Sofia’s spine. Sofia loops her arms through the bra straps and settles it onto her chest, clasping it in the back. “Hand me that brush from the top of the dresser,” Jazz says. Sofia grabs it and passes it back over her shoulder. Jazz starts brushing her hair, beginning at the bottom and working her way up to the top, detangling it gently. Sofia can’t remember the last time someone brushed her hair. Her mother, maybe, when she was a child.
“Can I ask you a favor?” Jazz murmurs.
Sofia nods. She feels like she’s melting.
The brush traces ticklish paths down Sofia’s bare back. Jazz says, “If I die, will you look after Joaquin? Make sure he gets his insulin, that he gets to go to the high school he’s signed up for, that he gets to have a normal life? DCFS might listen to you.”
Oh, God. Sofia feels like she’s going to throw up. She blinks back tears. She forces the words out of her mouth. “Yes. I’ll make sure.”
“Thank you.”
Sofia says, “But that’s not going to be necessary because nothing is going to happen to you. Because you’re smart and you’re not someone who’s going to die this way.”
“This seems like exactly the way I would die—because of some stupid shit I got myself into.” From behind, Jazz wraps her arms around Sofia’s waist. “Promise me you’ll be careful. Don’t be stupid like me. Do whatever they tell you. And don’t tell them about this. Don’t tell them you were ever here.”
The guilt is like motion sickness. “I know.” Sofia looks down at the hands clasped tight around her stomach and runs her index finger along the knuckles. “Why is there a skull and crossbones tattooed on your ring finger? You don’t believe in marriage?”
“I didn’t when I was younger. Now I don’t know. You?”
“I believed in it when I was younger. Now I don’t know.”
Jazz gives her one last squeeze, releases her and digs a sweatshirt out of the dresser. Sofia puts her tank top on, and Jazz wraps the zip-up hoodie around Sofia’s shoulders. “There. You good?” she asks, her crooked smile tight, her eyes sad.
“I’m good,” Sofia lies, putting her arms through the sleeves.
Sofia’s car is a couple of blocks away. Jazz checks parked cars on their way, but all the cars are empty, the street quiet.
Jazz herds Sofia into her Camry and gives her the quickest of kisses before closing the car door. “Lock it,” she instructs through the window. Sofia makes a show of pushing the button.
Jazz watches her go, and the last thing Sofia sees of her is a slim figure in her rearview mirror. When Jazz is out of sight around a corner, Sofia presses a hand to her mouth. A sob escapes from behind her fingers.
She turns onto Glendale Boulevard and heads north. Tears drip onto the hand that covers her mouth. She wipes them away with impatient fists.
Jazz can take care of herself. She can. She has to.
That feels like a lie. Jazz is just one small, vulnerable person. She can’t defend herself against an army of strangers.
The sobs break through. The street blurs in front of her, streetlights and stoplights bleeding into each other like candle wax.
A buzzing sound issues from inside her purse.
Acid roils in her stomach.
She pulls into the parking lot of a closed auto body shop. She pulls the flip phone out of her purse and presses it to her ear. “Hello?”
“Sofia,” comes the warm, neutral voice through the disguiser. “We expected to hear back from you earlier. Is everything all right?”
She clears her throat. “Everything’s fine. She didn’t tell anyone anything.”
“She didn’t tell the police? Friends?”
She swallows down nausea. “No,” she spits out.
Sofia wants to say yes, to tell them that Jazz did tell the police, that they have to leave her alone. But she knows better than to lie to these people. They know everything about her. And they’ve promised to punish Olive if Sofia does anything wrong.
SUNDAY
25
JAZZ
The tiny white building sits on a small, forgotten street that abuts the dry concrete bed of the LA River. The church is barely bigger than Carol’s house, and its dirt-packed parking lot is crammed full of cars. Next door, a row of abandoned warehouses watch me with broken window eyes. The sun is too bright, even through my sunglasses and my truck’s dirty windshield.
I pull into the lot, stirring up dust, and park next to a rusty VW Bug. It’s eight forty. Church starts at nine, and small groups of congregants knot together in the parking lot despite the heat and the dust. I should stay in my truck until they start doing music. My old-lady getup isn’t going to fool anyone in broad daylight. I adjust the ugly gray wig, which has bangs that hang low over my eyes.
I don’t see Carol’s Ford, but I don’t plan on driving around in circles to look for it. It’s fine, though. This is such a small church. It won’t be hard to find her inside.
I sit watching the street and the entrance to the parking lot, waiting to see if anyone followed me. I was so careful driving here, but still, I can’t relax. I feel like the murder club is right behind me, breathing down my neck, an invisible army with soldiers on every street corner, in every car, in the window of every building.
Last night, after I left Sofia, I came here and parked in almost this exact spot. I sat in the dark, alone, thinking about what I was going to do. I sat here remembering Carol, racking my brain, trying to find some reason not to do this. I tried to think of any other way to get Joaquin safe, to get him his insulin, to get him into the care of a different family.
I came up empty. So here I am.
I pray that Carol’s God, if he’s real, will have mercy on her soul.
At last, I pull the paper Trader Joe’s bag out from under my seat. I check its contents. My hands tremble; the trembling goes all the way up my muumuu-sleeved arms and into my chest. I feel a sudden need to go to the bathroom, but it fades into a shaky queasiness all through my abdomen.
I pull out the Ziploc bag and flip it over to look at the blackbirds-and-flowers design on the back. The blackbirds on the card look like they know things. They have beady little eyes.
I pull a pair of latex gloves out of their Ziploc bag and stretch them onto my hands. My tattoos are faintly visible underneath. I wrap the fanny pack around my waist and place the card inside it. I follow it with the yellow sharps container and the Ziploc of latex gloves.
I review my plan. I’ve been thinking about this all night as I tried to sleep on Kevin’s sticky white leather couch, a pillow over my head to block out the sounds of him banging some chick
in his bedroom.
I left both the iPhone and flip phone back at Kevin’s in case of GPS tracking. I turned them both off, too, just to make sure no calls came through while I was gone that Kevin would be tempted to answer.
I plan to kill Carol during the worship part of the service. It will be dark and chaotic with loud music and people praying. I’ll just sneak up behind her and inject her in the back, then slip out the back door before anyone can see me.
I have clothes on underneath the muumuu; I’ll take the outfit off real fast as I’m driving and put all the murder stuff in a Trader Joe’s bag, which I’ll burn in a trash can by the homeless encampment on Cesar Chavez Avenue. Then I’ll head back to Kevin’s, where I’ll chill out until I hear from the cops. I’m sure they’ll call me to check my alibi. And then once I’m clear...will they let me have Joaquin? Maybe. I’m his only relative. It’s a long shot, but there’s a chance.
The sun suddenly doesn’t seem too bright at all.
If they give me Joaquin, I can’t take any chances; I can’t get caught by the murder club. I have enough savings to stay off the radar for a while. Maybe we can do a road trip and wait to see if the cops catch up with the murder club. What if we left the country? We could live abroad. That’d be fine. Without Carol in the picture, who could stop me?
A small voice in my head asks: What about Sofia? Would she be in danger if I left? Should I offer to take her with me? But then, what about her daughter?
I don’t know. First things first. There will be time for thinking and planning later. For now, I need to take care of business.
The ladies in church dresses disperse, heading for the front doors. I watch the group on the small front porch disappear inside and the simple wooden door close behind them. Across the parking lot, another few cars pile in, releasing surprisingly young people in jeans and T-shirts. When the lot has been empty for the longest five minutes of my life, I turn the engine off, get out and stash my keys in the fanny pack.
