“Let’s go back and get the car,” Malcolm says.
“Nah,” I say. “We have to find Jessica. I’m not stopping.”
“Jessica?” a voice beside us says, and we stop and turn around. There’s a middle-aged woman with a white wig and red lipstick leaning against a building and holding a spare-change sign. “Did you say you’re looking for someone name Jessica?”
We stare at her unsure for a second. If she has any information about Jessica, I’m going to listen. “How do we know we’re talking about the same Jessica?” Malcolm asks, looking her up and down.
The woman shrugs. “Is your Jessica the woman with that pretty long hair, bandages, and nice smile?”
I walk closer to this woman. “Where is she?”
She smiles back. “My name is Compella, and I’ll take you to her—for a price.”
Chapter 20
I stare hard at Compella and wonder if she’s just trying to scam us. But how the fuck would she know about Jessica’s bandages if she hadn’t seen her? “You can be lying,” I say.
Compella shrugs like she doesn’t care one way or the other. “You can take that chance if you want to, but I’ve seen her. She’s actually pretty nice. Confused but nice.”
Malcolm speaks up. “Where you see her at?”
“That’s where the price comes in.”
“No,” Malcolm says, “you said if you take us to her there’s a price. We just wanna know where you seen her.”
“Oh.” She laughs. “Why didn’t you just say so? I saw her today, yesterday, and the day before. I see her all the time.”
“Just tell us where she is now. Fuck the damn price.”
Compella shakes her head. “She told me all about you . . . Chris.”
My eyes widen, then narrow. “I ain’t Chris,” I spit out. “I’m Jaylen, and this is Malcolm. She knows us.”
“Oh,” she says, but her blank expression doesn’t change. “That’s better, but it’s still not good enough. She told me what you said to her too.”
“What, are y’all friends or something?” Malcolm asks.
She nods. “You can say that. I don’t want you guys messing up what she has going for her.”
“What’s that?” I ask, and she shoots me a look. “No, I’m not trying to say she had nothing going for her before. I mean, what new thing is she doing?”
Compella rolls her eyes. “Nothing too new. She’s taking pictures a lot with a camera I stole for her.”
“Man, what the hell does this have to do with where Jessica’s at?” Malcolm asks. “We’ve been looking for her all day and ain’t found shit. You’re the best lead we’ve got, so tell us your price or tell us where she might be. No games.”
Compella stares at him for a moment. “My price is a hundred dollars cash.”
Malcolm looks at me with a blank face, and I shrug. “I guess we’re going to have to pay her, man. She’s serious.” I almost want to laugh, and I swear Malcolm’s reading me like a book.
“Damn, that’s fifty bucks a piece though, bro?” Malcolm says, rubbing his stubble. “That’s a lot.”
Compella starts to look worried. “I can do half now, half after you see her. I’m not impatient.”
We both smile at her and she smiles back. I turn around and walk a few feet away so she can’t see my wallet. I dig past the hundred-dollar bills until I get to my fifties pile. Jessica probably didn’t tell her I own my business and have been getting stacks since the second year, and this is the fifth year now.
I walk back to them and hand her a fifty-dollar bill, and her smile gets bigger. “Okay,” she says. “Do you have a car ’cause she’s a few miles away from here.”
I nod, and we all start walking back to Malcolm’s apartment three blocks from where I stormed off. She sits in the backseat of the car, but still directs us to make a U-turn so that we are heading back south. “You may have seen her if you’d kept going. You wouldn’t have known that, though, if I didn’t help you,” she says. “Just as well. We all win in this deal.”
I see Malcolm roll his eyes, and I feel like doing the same, but I’m too busy watching the streets for any signs of Jessica.
After a mile or two I get anxious. She couldn’t have walked this far from Malcolm’s. “Where are you taking us?”
Compella jerks a little at my tone, but tries to be reassuring when she speaks. “Where Jessica is. You said you wanted to find her.”
“Why the hell is she so far away?” Malcolm asks, getting annoyed.
“It’s just a few miles.”
“Is she staying at a specific place?” I ask, turning around to face her.
Her face is sweating, and I can tell we intimidate her. “Yes. It’s called Peace Tribe. It’s a homeless shelter.”
“You’re homeless too?” Malcolm asks Compella.
“Yes. But I’m fine with it. Much more affordable. I don’t have a family to live with in a house anyway. And you know houses run in the thousands. I get to eat for free, sleep for free, and I meet so many people, it’s crazy. I just don’t like the winter, though, or any bad weather. That shits a killer.”
We don’t say anything to that. She just told us the name of the place Jessica is staying, and even though Malcolm and I don’t need her help anymore, we let her enjoy the ride.
A few minutes later we pull up to Peace Tribe, and by the long lines I can tell people are either looking for dinner or a place to sleep for the night. Malcolm parks and we all get out. I start scanning the crowd for her, but Compella points at the door. “She’s probably already inside. She doesn’t go far from the building, and is first in line for everything.”
We walk straight to the door, and people look pretty pissed off and start complaining. Compella gets nervous again. “I’ll stay out here. I have to get in line anyway. Go ahead in. I’m sure you’ll find her,” she says, and then hops to the end of the line.
Malcolm and I squeeze through the crowd until we’re in the front door. The line for a mat to sleep on continues inside, and I see the lady behind the counter running low. She isn’t going to have enough for the next ten people, let alone Compella.
We walk around inside the building looking for Jessica. We step over a few sleeping bodies and look inside the cafeteria. It’s nearly empty, and a few people are sleeping on the floor, but none of them is Jessica. We walk around a little bit more, but neither of us knows where we’re going. Malcolm scans the whole area and picks a room to go in, but I look back at the crowd of people coming in. They’ve been here before, and they know where they’re going.
“Let’s just follow one of these people ’cause they know where they’re going. They might take us to Jess.”
“No, they’re just gonna find a space to fall asleep. And if Jess was here earlier, she might be in the most crowded room. Let’s go find it,” Malcolm says. I turn back to the line and witness a man grab a mat, then take three steps to the wall and collapse.
I nod at Malcolm and start searching the rooms again. One room is the gymnasium, and I wonder if this place used to be a Boys and Girls Club or something. There are a lot of people inside, and most are sitting up talking. I can’t tell if Jessica is in here or not, but we start walking through anyway. We step around people talking and step over the sleeping ones. I want to shout out Jessica’s name through the whole room, but don’t want to bother the people sleeping. Besides, Jessica’s name was as common as fuck, and ten people in this room could turn their heads.
“Yo, Jay,” Malcolm says, but I see it happen.
Jessica walks in the room on the other side and stands over a mat someone is lying on. We can’t see exactly what’s going on, but we can see her trying to wake the person up. The man gets up and towers over Jessica, and I can see his frown.
I get close enough just as he grabs her arm and pull him to the ground. I take my right foot and slam it into his guts and groin. Malcolm kicks his face and shoulder muttering curses under his breath. We stop as soon as the crowd’s scream
ing gets too loud. We know that cops are on their way, and we need to get out of here fast.
Jessica’s breathing wildly, and I know she’s shaken up, but she stares in bewilderment at me and I stare back. I want to apologize and beg her forgiveness, but she shocks me when she runs into my arms and cries out how sorry she is. I cradle her and rock her back and forth. I haven’t seen her in so long. I never want to let go of her again.
Malcolm taps me on my shoulder and points to the crowd stirring and says we should get out of here. I can’t agree more. I grab Jessica by the hand, and we all storm out the way she came in.
Jessica leads us out the back door of the building, and we walk around to the front. We stop when we see Compella still near the back of the line. She waves when she sees us. “Glad you found her.”
“You know them?” Jessica asks her.
“We just ran into each other,” Compella says before giving a wink. I witness Malcolm shaking her hand and know he’s giving her the last fifty dollars. “Well, I’m going to miss you, girl. Good luck and have fun.”
Jessica and I ride in the backseat, and I hold her in my arms kissing her wounded forehead and eye. The eye doesn’t look so bad, and I can definitely tell it’s healing. I kiss her whole face, and she just rests her head on my shoulder and cries. I wipe the tears away as soon as they come. Malcolm keeps looking back at us, and I know he wants to ask Jessica some deep questions, but they can wait until later.
We ride back to the front of my new sports bar, and even though I want to tell Jessica all about it and how I left the contract signing to find her, I know it can wait as well. When you lose one of the most important things in your life, nothing else seems that important, and you realize it when you get back the thing you lost. If you do get it back, that is.
Malcolm gets out of the driver’s seat and waits outside the car. I open the door so Jessica can get out. As soon as she climbs over me, she wraps her arms around Malcolm, and they embrace. I close the door and get in the driver’s seat. I turned back to Malcolm. “Your place, right?”
He lets go of Jessica and gives her a peck. He nods yes to my question and walks in front to his car. Once Jessica gets in the passenger seat beside me, we trail Malcolm back to his place. We don’t say anything, but after five minutes of driving Angela calls.
“Where are you?” she asks, sounding more annoyed than worried.
“We found Jessica. I’ll be home in a little while, all right?” I say. She says okay and hangs up. We pull up to Malcolm’s house and follow him inside. I’m still holding Jessica’s hand as if she will run away again.
Just as we walk in Malcolm’s apartment, his phone rings. He smiles before he answers. “Yes, Mom, we got her. It’s all right,” he says. He says yes to a few other things while Jessica and I take a seat on the couch.
“Are you all right?” I ask, looking at her forehead.
Jessica nods. “Yes.”
“You feel okay?”
“Now.”
I stare at her. “I didn’t mean what I said, Jessica. I was just pissed and talking out of my ass. I wished you’d come to me when you needed help.”
I can tell she’s about to cry again, but just then Malcolm gets off the phone with Mom and sits on the other side of her. “Sorry I wasn’t here when you came. I was out of town going to this bachelor party for one of my homies down south. I had no idea you was in trouble or needed help, ’cause you know I got you.”
“I know you do. I know you guys are my family, and I know how much you love me. I just . . . feel so stupid.” She turns to me. “You were right about Chris, Jay. He hasn’t changed, and he never will. I just wanted him so bad that I started to believe it.” She sniffs. “I was trying to make a reality out of something fake.”
“You’re safe now, Jess. That’s all that matters,” I say, looking into her eyes. “I’m sorry about the ultimatum. Now that was stupid. I should’ve had your back no matter what happened.”
“It’s okay.” She shrugs and smiles. “I don’t want to talk about the should’ves and could’ves anymore.” She turns to Malcolm. “Can I stay here for a while?”
Malcolm looks hurt that she felt she had to ask, but I know Jess’s just trying to be polite and not assume anything. Malcolm nods. “Of course.”
“Thank you,” she mumbles.
“We can get you some more clothes tomorrow. A whole bunch of new stuff. What size shirt do you wear now?” I ask, teasing because I haven’t seen her in months.
She looks sad for a moment before whispering something I can’t hear at first. “What did you just say?” Malcolm shouts.
I’m still confused and look from Malcolm to her and back again. Jessica takes a deep breath. “I said maternity,” she says, avoiding my eyes. “Chris got me pregnant.”
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