Lola

by Melissa Scrivner Love

  Now, following Andrea the prosecutor toward the cafeteria, Lola doesn’t know how to answer Hector’s question. She doesn’t know what to do next. She watches Andrea, her heels clicking, her head bowed over her phone, not seeing the heads she turns. But Lola knows, even if Andrea’s not looking back, that the woman senses everyone’s turning to her, their true north.

  “Let’s see where she goes,” Lola says to Hector, because she doesn’t want to give her little brother the impression she hasn’t designed a foolproof plan that will land them on Eldridge Waterston’s doorstep before dinner.

  She hadn’t expected company on her courthouse stakeout, if that’s the proper term, but Hector had called this morning, on the landline, so Lola knew it was a personal call, nothing related to the Crenshaw Six. If it was a business call, Hector would have used one of the many burner phones Marcos is in charge of obtaining and discarding, over and over again, like paper plates good for a single backyard barbecue.

  “Any word?” Hector had started their morning conversation without a hello.

  “Would have called if there were,” Lola had responded. Most likely, there will be no word from their mother until she’s cuffed as a criminal or bagged as a corpse.

  “Okay,” Hector had said, and Lola could hear restless in his voice. In their family, a restless day, a day where one might seek a substance to soothe, is not a good one. Hector has never been a user, but he, like Lola, is one snort away from being consumed by their genetic quicksand.

  “You busy today?” she had asked. “I gotta track someone down.”

  “Sure,” Hector had replied, and they had both hung up as their personal conversation drifted into business waters.

  Now, sister and brother watch as Andrea purchases five soggy egg salad sandwiches from the courthouse cafeteria. She has smiles ready for the workers, knows their names—Harry, Lana, Renaldo—and tips well.

  “No way she eats that shit,” Lola mutters.

  “Egg salad? It ain’t bad,” Hector says, because he doesn’t mind any “salad” drenched in mayo and pressed between two pieces of spongy white bread.

  Outside, in the courthouse square, Andrea strides past vendor tents and carts peddling everything from scarves to hot dogs. She heads for underground parking, but Lola sees a homeless man and woman in her way. On instinct, Lola pats her pocket for a weapon—a simple blade would do.

  “Hey!” the homeless man calls to Andrea.

  “Hey!” the woman by his side repeats. They have the dirty, waifish look of regular humans gone to drugs. Even in the ninety-degree heat of Van Nuys, the couple, for Lola assumes they are together, wear bulky down coats that swallow their skeletal frames.

  “Hey,” Andrea responds, stopping, because the homeless man and woman have blocked her path to the underground parking garage. She looks up from her phone but keeps tapping on its touch screen.

  “We saw you yesterday,” the homeless man says. “You drive a real nice car.”

  Hector looks to Lola now, splinted hand feeling for his own weapon, but they are both unarmed. No heat would have made it through the courthouse metal detectors. Should they step in, he’s asking, but Lola’s gut tells her Andrea can handle herself.

  “I do,” Andrea responds to the homeless man. “Audi. Red. Too flashy, if you ask me, but my husband wanted to surprise me.”

  “What’s your husband do?” the woman asks, and as Lola takes two steps toward the scene, she catches the scent of homeless human—onions, sweat, cheese, fear.

  “He’s a psychiatrist,” Andrea says.

  “Must be nice,” the homeless woman says, and Lola notices the woman’s wistful look as her eyes dart from her own tall, drug addict, mental case of a life partner to the blue sky above her. What if.

  Andrea holds the bag of soggy courthouse sandwiches out to the couple. “Lunch. Egg salad.”

  They both reach for the bag, but the wife, smaller and quicker, wins.

  When Andrea starts for the parking garage again, she is moving slower, the clicks uncertain taps on the pavement. Why let people see her like this, a little downtrodden, a little tired? But Lola and Hector are the only two people with Andrea in this far corner of the courthouse square. The vendors are bright lines in the distance, weaving among one another, bobbing for business.

  “We can’t follow her to her car,” Hector says, low, to Lola. It makes him nervous, being alone with his sister and this other woman. It hasn’t occurred to Lola until just this minute that Hector doesn’t know what they’re doing tracking Andrea. He knows Eldridge’s name, knows this prosecutor might have started a file on him, but he doesn’t know how Lola plans to solicit information from Andrea. He must think Lola’s going to beat the shit out of this woman, and he doesn’t want that to happen. Hector excels at tedium—calling rehab centers, observing in a courtroom—but the one time she allowed him to explore his potential to kill or maim, he failed her. Despite taking his trigger finger, Lola has given Hector a second chance. Everyone in the Crenshaw Six must be willing to pull a trigger if Lola deems it necessary. He seems to know he is on probation, that Lola could raise the call to violence at any time, and it’s making him jumpy.

  Lucky for him, Lola does not want him to go after Andrea now. She is not the enemy. She is a source of information. Lola needs her trust. Or her sympathy. She thinks back to the woman testifying in the courtroom. Who did this to you? He did. Your husband.

  “Hit me,” Lola says to Hector now.

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Lola, you already got a black eye, your fucking cheek’s all puffed up—”

  “I said. Hit me.” Lola speaks through gritted teeth, because Andrea has paused at the parking garage elevator, her profile toward them. She can see them, if she chooses. If they wait any longer, they lose her to a slow-moving metal box and her red Audi and her psychiatrist husband.

  “I don’t—” Hector hesitates.

  Lola turns to face him. “Don’t fuck this up, too.”

  Lola sees the flash of hurt feelings across her little brother’s face turn to anger. Good. A second later, she feels his fist connect with her puffy cheek, an explosion of knuckle popping swollen cells.

  Lola’s not acting when she screams.

  “Hey!” She hears Andrea’s voice, deeper now, downright fucking scary.

  Above her, Lola sees Hector through watery eyes, his hands folded, feet hip-width apart, a soldier waiting for orders.

  “Hector,” Lola whispers to him. He bends closer. “You did good.” Hector bows his head in silent thanks. Lola hears a thud of bulk on concrete, then the quick clicking of Andrea’s heels as she flies toward them. Lola can see the prosecutor has dropped her briefcase near the elevator. She can see files spilling from its discarded belly.

  “What do I do now?”

  “The briefcase,” Lola says. “Eldridge’s file.” Hector nods and starts for his mission, but Lola stops him. “One more time. The stomach. Use your foot.”

  Hector plugs the steel toe of his boot into Lola’s tummy and runs.

  “Hey,” Andrea shouts again, and Hector looks up at her, because Andrea’s voice commands attention, and Hector, the little brother, the constant soldier, craves orders and structure. Andrea is all these things, and she is smart, getting this assailant to look her in the eye so she can study his face. Lola wouldn’t be surprised if her brother bowed down and begged Andrea’s forgiveness. But he is Lola’s soldier, not Andrea’s, so he takes off running.

  Andrea watches him for no more than a second, and Lola can see the prosecutor memorizing stats: height, weight, race, distinguishing marks. Maybe Lola shouldn’t have added the stomach kick, but Hector had wanted more orders, and she had needed a reason for him to be standing over her. No more second-guessing, she thinks.

  “You okay?” Andrea asks, bending down, balancing her body on her stilettos like it’s nothing.

  “Yeah,” Lola says. She feels Andrea’s hand on the small of her ba
ck, tiny and strong, lifting her into a sitting position.

  Now that the two women are on the same level, Andrea studies Lola’s face. Lola wants to look for Hector, to see if he’s sifting through the briefcase files looking for Eldridge’s, but she can’t look away from Andrea.

  “Jesus,” Andrea whispers, her hand reaching out to touch Lola’s face: the black eye, the puffy cheek. Lola winces in half pain, half pleasure, as Andrea’s fingertips brush her busted lip. “Was this…did he do all this?”

  “No.” Lola shakes her head, pleased that she can tell this woman the truth.

  “If you’ve got more than one man in your life who’ll do this, you’re hanging with the wrong crowd,” Andrea says.

  No shit, Lola thinks, although she doesn’t consider her boys—Garcia, Hector, Marcos, Jorge—the wrong crowd. Where she lives, they are the only crowd. And though she’s had many men in her life hurt her, Lola’s troubles originated with one woman, Maria Vasquez. Even now, missing on the streets, Maria has not allowed her children to move on with their lives. She should’ve done the polite thing years ago and died quiet with a needle in her arm.

  “He’s okay,” Lola says. Another truth. She likes being honest with Andrea. She peers over the prosecutor’s shoulder and sees Hector grabbing a manila file, then darting off, silent, hopping a concrete wall to somewhere. Shit, Lola thinks. He took the whole file. Andrea’s gonna fucking notice that. Lola’s got no one to blame but herself. Her orders weren’t specific enough.

  “You think it’s okay for someone to beat the shit out of you in a courthouse parking garage? I’d hate to see what you think is okay behind closed doors,” Andrea remarks.

  Lola wants to interject, to tell her that, come to think of it, she does have bad luck with parking structures and lots. Both recent altercations have occurred in these public places, and Lola can’t remember the last time someone fucked with her behind closed doors.

  “Do you need an ambulance?” Andrea asks.

  Lola shakes her head. The truth.

  “Will you press charges?” Andrea asks, her voice indicating she knows Lola won’t. Lola feels a pang slice through the pain in her stomach. She is sad to let Andrea down.

  “I’ll think about it,” Lola says, a flat-out lie, but one she hopes will keep this particular connection open, in case she needs Andrea again.

  Andrea presses her business card into Lola’s hand. Her palm is sweating, and the card sticks to skin. She hates that—her body betraying her poker face. This whole on-the-fly confrontation has unnerved her. She feels guilty, deceiving this woman. But why?

  “Call me,” Andrea says. No if you want to press charges, no if you need to talk. It is an order.

  Walking back to Hector’s car, slow, one foot in front of the other, Lola sees the homeless couple passed out in the courthouse square, the detritus of egg salad and plastic wrap surrounding them in a makeshift border. Lola notes the single leftover sandwich and guesses they couldn’t figure out how to divide it.

  Lola’s about to pass their sleeping, smelly bodies when she sees another square business card among their trash. Lola walks up and swipes the card, expecting to find it identical to the one Andrea gave her.

  Instead, the card Lola turns over reads NEW HORIZONS REHABILITATION FACILITY, with an address in Malibu. It’s the same place Sergeant Bubba stashed Sadie Perkins.

  Lola carries Eldridge Waterston’s file with her as she walks from Hector’s lowrider to her front door. The file isn’t as thick as she would have imagined for an up-and-coming Los Angeles drug lord. She wonders now how long it will take Andrea to realize her folder on Eldridge Waterston has gone missing. Will she connect the codependent, cliché domestic abuse couple from the parking structure to the file? Or will Andrea, like most upper-class citizens, dismiss the fighting man and woman as irrelevant? It would be easier for the Crenshaw Six if Andrea forgets Lola’s existence; yet part of her wants Andrea to piece it together and seek her out.

  Lola hasn’t opened the file yet, because she needs to look at the case Andrea is building against Eldridge Waterston without distractions. Hector drove her home in silence, but Lola could feel his adrenaline pumping in the driver’s seat. She could feel that, even if he would never admit it, part of him, that male, testosterone-driven part, had gotten off on hitting her. He would go see Amani now, if he is still seeing her, Lola had thought as she got out of the car, weary with the hatred she must carry for her brother’s secret girl. It’s too bad. In another world, Lola might have liked to sit across from Amani at a kitchen table and bitch about their respective men.

  Lola stops on the welcome mat, feeling a lump under its worn edges. The mat Garcia purchased doesn’t read welcome or bless this home. Instead, it has a picture of a cat, curled up asleep on a hearth. There are no words, and Garcia hates cats. He bought it four weeks after Kim’s miscarriage, four weeks after they lost their family, and six weeks after Lola murdered Carlos. He had watched Lola shoot Kim’s brother between the eyes, and he had bowed down to her. After that, there was no question of a life with Kim. The car accident was an accident, yes, but it drove him to where he belonged—Lola’s. Three years ago, when Lola had asked Garcia why he had brought her that mat, Garcia had explained it was the only one at the store, and they needed to make sure they never tracked blood into the house. He had unrolled it in an even square and pressed the edges down with his weight. Then, he and Lola had walked inside, and he had never left.

  The envelope poking out beneath the cat mat now is the standard brown of offices everywhere, not that Lola has ever worked in one. It appears to be a hand delivery, with no to or from address, only “Garcia” scrawled in Sharpie on the front. Like Eldridge’s file, it will have to wait until she has time to focus on it.

  Lola pushes through the door and finds the first waft of home both welcoming and overwhelming, that same feeling women across the globe get, crossing their thresholds at the end of a long day knowing domestic chores and chaos await them. She checks off her own list of chores—start dinner, get clean sheets for Lucy, figure out how the fuck to infiltrate Eldridge Waterston’s organization using the information in Andrea’s file. Somewhere at the end of that list, Lola tacks on “find junkie mother,” but if her list were on paper, this last item would be in smaller print, an optional obligation.

  Lola hears female laughter in the kitchen, guttural, the kind of laughter that involves a tossing of hair. She finds Kim at her kitchen table, in her chair, across from Garcia. Lucy sits between them, her hand in Kim’s, and Lola feels the urge to leap onto Kim, to tear her black hair from its roots. Something is frying on the stove, and Lola takes stock of the skillet, her skillet’s, handle, calculating how many seconds it will take to get from the kitchen doorway to the skillet, then to get the skillet from the stove to Kim’s face.

  “Lola,” Garcia says, standing fast, as if Lola has caught him dick-deep in Kim instead of sitting across from her, his hands to himself.

  Lola doesn’t answer.

  “Kim,” Garcia says. “I need to talk to Lola.”

  “Just a sec,” Kim says. “Hold still, Lucy.”

  Lola sees that Kim is painting Lucy’s nails, bright red, and she speaks for the first time, keeping her voice even despite the angry froth she feels building in her throat. “No.”

  “What? Oh, Lola, turn down that skillet. Butter’s gonna scorch,” Kim says, as if she is the one to give the orders in Lola’s kitchen.

  “Kim,” Garcia says, because he can see where this is going, and Kim can’t.

  “I’m almost done,” Kim protests, and Lola hears a hint of whine in her voice. Lola can see Garcia hears it, too, and it turns him off. Lola never whines. She can protest in silence.

  “You have to leave,” Garcia says, and Kim looks up at him, finally getting it.

  “Lola,” Kim says, standing now, too. “Nothing happened.”

  “I’ll make sure it doesn’t burn,” Lola says, flicking her wrist at the food on her stove, he
r tone so polite it makes Kim back out of the kitchen on tiptoe.

  When Lola hears the front door shut behind Kim, she springs into action. She turns off the flame under Kim’s skillet, then dumps the entire concoction—beef and onions and butter, some sort of filling—into the trash can.

  “Can you take this outside, please?” she asks Garcia in the same polite tone she used on Kim, more electric than a Taser, and Garcia cinches the trash bag and heads outside without a word. Lola watches him from the kitchen window, sees him moving with the slow trudge and hanging head of a wounded animal.

  “Lola?” It’s Lucy, her voice louder and clearer than Lola has ever heard it.

  “What is it, honey?” Lola says, her own voice shifting from polite to genuine as she kneels in front of the girl.

  “I don’t like this nail polish,” Lucy says, and it’s more words than Lola has ever heard the girl say at once. Lola relishes the girl’s adamant tone, and she wants to tell Lucy to always speak like that, to know what she wants and go after it.

  Instead, Lola takes the nail polish remover and one of the cotton balls Kim had spread on the kitchen table. Bitch can’t even paint nails without fucking up, Lola thinks as she wipes the bright red from the little clear squares that are Lucy’s fingernails.

  By the time Garcia returns from the trash bins, Lola has cleaned off all the polish.

  “Kim just dropped by. She didn’t tell me she was coming,” Garcia tries.

  Lola knows Garcia is telling her the truth. She understands women like Kim, the ones who drop by and cook up a stick-to-your-ribs dinner and watch your kid and take their place at the kitchen table like they’ve earned it. The way to a man’s bedroom, Lola thinks, can be through the kitchen. She understands now why it jarred her to find Kim in her place, cooking on her stove, painting Lucy’s nails across from Garcia. It made Lola wonder if this was what Garcia’s life would have looked like if he hadn’t been driving Kim and their unborn child into a T-bone. Would Garcia be sitting at Lola’s kitchen table, or at Kim’s? And if he ever were to sit at Kim’s kitchen table again, would he feel obligated to rat out Lola, to tell Kim Lola’s the one who did her brother?