In the Night of the Heat

by Blair Underwood

I lowered the CPU to the floor and sighed. My voice grew whisper-soft: “The phone.”

  This time, Chela reached under her mattress and pulled out a small black cell phone I didn’t recognize. When she gave it to me, she didn’t meet my eyes. For only the second time since I’d known her, Chela sobbed. She fled across the room, finding the bathroom. She slammed the door, and I heard it lock.

  Standing outside of that closed bathroom door, I remembered how tired I was. The racket in my head made it hard to sleep at night. All of April’s warnings blended with the clanging in my head: You’re in over your head, Ten.

  I stood in front of the bathroom door, trying to think of magic words. None came.

  “Did somebody used to hit you, Chela?”

  “Until I learned how to change their mood.” Her voice was muffled. She blew her nose.

  “Who was it?”

  “News flash: Who didn’t? What do you care? You don’t know shit about me!”

  “So tell me.”

  After a while, Chela came out of the bathroom, and we both sat on the carpet, avoiding the bed. She’d come on to me once, at the very beginning, and I was always careful when I was in her room. Most of the time, I didn’t enter her room at all.

  Chela took a deep breath before she began, as if she were jumping into a pool:

  “Nana was dead in her bed five days before anybody knew but me. She was the only one raising me, except she was dying, so she wasn’t taking care of me—mostly, it was me taking care of her. She signed the checks, and I tried to make life less shitty for her at the end. Literally. Made sure she was clean and had enough to eat. We were a pretty damn good team. And she felt so bad, always talking about how she wished she could do more, telling me she couldn’t believe how different my mom was after she started doing meth. She said it was like a demon came and took over my mom’s body.

  “So I try to remember my mom from Nana’s stories about what she was like in school, and how she got accepted into college, but by then she was off track. After that. Mom was just the same fuckup I already knew, who hadn’t come to visit us for two Christmases in a row. I try to feel sorry for her, but I spend most of my time hating her. It was bad enough to do that to your kid—but your dying mother? That’s sick. My father might have died over some stupid gangsta drug shit, but at least he had an excuse for not being there to make sure Nana didn’t die and leave me alone.

  “But that’s exactly what the fuck happened. I go to her room to make sure she’s breathing…and she’s not. She finally died. Finally. What did I do? I went to school. I wasn’t dealing with it. That night was a lot of crying and hating life—It’s not fair! It’s not fair! All that shit—but I went to school again the next day. I got one hundred percent on a vocab test in my English class. And you say I can’t concentrate on anything? No focus? My ass.

  “So there I am, ten years old, eating SpaghettiOs and stale bread. Living with a dead lady. And now I’m thinking I’ll be in trouble with the police for not saying anything sooner—I can just see myself on Cops, or in one of those interrogation rooms like on TV, with these cops standing over me with their arms folded, all like ‘So, young lady, why didn’t you report your grandmother’s death sooner? Was there foul play?’ This is what’s going on in my head. I used to pick up the phone and consider leaving anonymous tips, but then I’d think how stupid that was. They would know it was from me! And I even turned the heat off because…you know…I’m only ten, but I understand you can’t leave a dead body lying out when it’s hot. And this is Minneapolis, so let me tell you, house without heat gets pretty damn cold.

  “But I wasn’t ready to say, ‘Hey, okay, I give up my whole world now.’ Nana’s house was always too cold, and smelled like piss and vomit, but it was the only home I had. I liked my room. My school. My friends. I had this crazy fantasy that Mom would show up out of the blue, and suddenly she’d be off the meth, just in time to solve all my problems. That is definitely the way it would happen in a movie, so I even wasted time going through Nana’s pile of telephone numbers for Mom, Last Known Number kind of thing, trying to see if I could find her. I’m making all these calls, waking people up all times of day and night, but trying to act all casual, like, “Hey, is Sherry around?,” and some people were like “Sherry Who?” but most people said, “I didn’t know Sherry had a kid.” I couldn’t make myself say her mother was dead, or I was alone. I couldn’t say it to strangers, and they didn’t know shit anyway. I thought I had a lead, but it only went to a pay phone. I cried over that shit for about six hours.

  “To be honest, I would have held out much longer than five days—I was thinking of long-term plans, maybe burying her in the backyard. But then the gas man came. I saw the truck drive up, and I run outside to make sure he isn’t from a SWAT team or something. And he’s walking around the house over to Nana’s window to read the meter. The meter’s right below Nana’s curtains. And I know I closed her curtain, but in my mind there’s just enough gap for him to see something’s not right: ‘Whoa—there’s a dead body in there.’

  “Or maybe he just seemed like a nice guy, somebody’s dad, and while he was standing next to that window, I thought about how sad he would feel for me if he knew. And, man, the floodgates just started. ‘My gramma’s dead! My gramma’s dead!’ I almost gave the poor guy a heart attack. He probably still sees my face in bad dreams. It made the news and everything—CHILD LEFT FOR DAYS WITH DEAD GRANDMOTHER. I think it was even on national news, someone told me that, but I had other fish to fry.

  “The child authorities, not knowing my mom like I did, were sure all the publicity would make her come flying in like Wonder Woman. So it wasn’t awful in the beginning—I was at this low-stress group home, and I thought of it like this summer camp I went to once, except with nicer beds. I cried a lot, but nobody gave me shit about it, and the caseworkers were really on top of my situation because it was in the news.

  “Six months go by. Nothing. Suddenly they’re talking about a foster family, and this couple comes and takes me home with them. They already had six other foster kids there, so it’s not like they were bad people, it was just an unhappy place to be. Not yelling, but too much noise. So I ran away—for the first time.

  “The funny part is, that was the best place I would be for a long time. I just didn’t know it yet. I wish I’d known. I would have stuck around.

  “But I was the Runaway Queen. Any shit I didn’t like, I was gone. I don’t like the way foster dad’s looking at me, I’m gone. Somebody tries to pull the my-thing-or-the-highway routine on me too hard-core, I’m taking the highway every time. Whatever. That’s me. I knew from jump that nobody could take care of me except M-E. A dead body under your roof will teach you that whole lesson about being alone in the world pretty damn quick. So one day I just said, “Fuck it!” and jumped in this guy’s Ford pickup, and by some miracle he didn’t murder me somewhere on the drive between Minneapolis and California. What he wanted in return for the ride didn’t seem like that big a deal.”

  I hated to even wonder.

  “How old were you?” I asked.

  “Old enough to eat corn bread without choking. Freak that he was, at least he was a freak who kept his word, and as soon as we crossed the California state line, I was like, “Okay, I gotta go.” And that was it, we parted ways. I figured that wasn’t my shining moment in terms of decisions, but I’d figure it out later. I didn’t know how far Los Angeles was from where I’d gotten out, so I was hungry that same day. Dumb luck, if you can call it that: I got caught stealing from a gas station right from the beginning. I think that guy was keeping his eye on me the whole time—I must have looked like I didn’t have shit, which I didn’t. He made me blow him, then called the cops anyway, and I got sent to juvie. I didn’t tell them my real name. I never said I was from Minneapolis. Nobody could get my story.

  “So they lost interest and flushed me into the system. First place they sent me, I said something smart to the guy’s wife, and he smacked me acr
oss the head. And he was a prison guard for a living, for real. Six months was like six hundred years.

  “Then my caseworker sent me to a group home, I got popped for trying to steal an iPod with this friend of mine—shit, everybody had iPods but us—and I spent six months in juvie. Let’s just say that I now understand what people mean when they say they’d rather die than go to prison. You don’t mean shit. You’re a number. You have no rights. Somebody’s telling you when to sleep, when to eat, when to turn the lights off. I lost fifteen pounds in six months, and I never weighed that much to begin with. I thought it was just the shitty food—Oh, I didn’t even mention how shitty the food is—but really I think I was on a hunger strike and didn’t know it. I threw up a lot.

  “I told God if he ever got me out of there alive, I would never go to juvie again. And that is one promise I definitely intend to keep. I was in another group home for a while, and I really tried to make that work, but one day I met Mother, and that was that.”

  Mother was Chela’s madam. Our madam.

  Mother had brought Chela into my life. Mother was worried about one of her prize breadwinners after Chela disappeared with a celebrity client—and I like to think Mother was genuinely worried about her, too, even if it’s best not to ascribe normal human emotion to her. Mother had asked me to find Chela; I did, but just never brought Chela back. I couldn’t.

  I started working for Mother when I was twenty-five, back when I was even more hardheaded when it came to seeing a mistake in plain sight. But Chela had been only thirteen when Mother found her. I’d figured out that much. Mother always said she didn’t send Chela out with clients until a year after taking her in, but you’re a fool to believe Mother at her word.

  “Where’d you meet her?” I said.

  Chela sighed. “This isn’t about her. She saw I was miserable, that’s all.”

  “Where?”

  “She didn’t get me into the business, if that’s what you’re wondering. Three other girls and I were splitting a room. I’d been in The Life for months. I found out about a big party at a hotel on the Strip, and talked my way in. Made serious money that night, and one of the other girls threw me a bone—an even bigger party up in the Hills. I didn’t realize it, but she was a scout, and that was an audition. I spent my entire roll to get better clothes, and spent all day on my makeup and hair. Walked into that party like I owned the place. My contact”—she looked at me shrewdly—“no, I’m not going to tell you her name, liked the way I handled myself, and sent me to meet Mother. At a place called ‘Mrs. Winston’s.’”

  “Green Grocery? Best salad bar in L.A.?”

  She nodded. “That’s the place.”

  Century City’s best “hidden” restaurant. So Mother had chosen a public, healthy, casual spot for her seduction.

  “The whole all-u-can-eat salad bar still blows my mind. She told me all these awesome war stories about Kosovo. She was like me—a survivor.”

  My stomach was an icy knot. “And you went with her?”

  “You didn’t see where I was living.”

  I was surprised it wasn’t under a bench in the park. Chela was a survivor. And she’d recognized a better berth when it was dangled in front of her.

  “Anyway…it worked out,” she said.

  “It worked out how?” I tried to wash the judgment and rage from my voice.

  “It was the best place I ever lived. She treated me nicer than anyone. I had my own room, I had spending money. After I started going out, I had thousands of dollars in the bank. And she didn’t treat me like a kid. She gave me credit for having a brain.”

  “You don’t see anything wrong with what she did?”

  “All I’m saying is, I don’t care what people think. If I wanted to go back there, I could’ve done that already. But that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate her giving me a life.”

  I rubbed my forehead, trying to quell the raucous pain between my ears. I wasn’t used to headaches with a sound track. If I’d seen someone like Chela at Mother’s when I first met her, I would have known to turn right around. I wouldn’t have associated with a madam who profited from child prostitution. I still hated to believe it. It made my time with Mother feel even more sordid.

  “How many other girls are there? Young ones?”

  “What—you think I’m about to rat out Mother?” Chela said. “Forget it. Number one, I don’t know. I never asked, and I was the only one who lived with her. Number two, I wouldn’t tell you. Or maybe you didn’t hear a word I just said.”

  “Oh, I heard you.”

  “Then get off your high horse,” Chela said. “You had a police captain to keep you safe. A house to sleep in. We’re not even on the same planet.”

  “Then how did I end up at Mother’s, too?”

  “Fast cash. Easy work. Just like everybody else.”

  I’d never told her the story. Maybe I’d finally found the right time. “When I was thirteen, one of my teachers invited me to swim at her house. Things went on between us that shouldn’t have, and it went on for a long time. The vibe was all wrong. I didn’t see it that way—hell, what boy past puberty would?—but a kid has a kid’s appetites. Suddenly sex was the only thing on my mind, and getting laid was my number one preoccupation. I’ve hung out with dozens of sex workers, and every one of them started having sex young. People don’t just wake up at eighteen and say, ‘Hey, I’m gonna go shoot some porn,’ or ‘Hey, I’m gonna go sell my ass.’ The more I heard their stories, one day I realized, ‘Hey, when I was a kid, I swam in those waters, too.’”

  “There you go, always making it negative. Like sex is evil.”

  “No, it’s not evil,” I said. “But it’s powerful, Chela. It’s powerful. It’s like fire. It can cook your eggs or burn your damned house down. The results are unpredictable. Like the way you can’t keep away from this guy, even though I think you really want to.”

  She hid her eyes from mine. I’d broadsided her by bringing up Internet Stud. For a while, we’d allowed ourselves to forget about him.

  “I haven’t had sex with him,” she said.

  “Would you tell me if you had?”

  A half smile. “No. But I hate lying to you, so it’s my lucky day.”

  I was too tired for ultimatums. Do-what-I-say-or-else. Her childhood story had just told me she would bolt if I came on too strong.

  “Chela, you’re gonna get me sent to jail. Do you understand that?”

  She sighed but didn’t answer.

  “Do you love this guy?” I said, petrified to hear the answer. If she loved him, there was nothing I could say. Nothing.

  “Hell, no. He’s married. We’re just friends.”

  “What about the pictures?”

  “We don’t do that anymore.” She said it like it was nothing. It was all right now.

  “Chela, in your world, you think adults and kids can hang out like that. His attraction flatters you, you like teasing him, you’re having fun. He told you what you think is his life story. To you, he’s a great guy, misunderstood by everyone but you. But look at what he is to me: To me, he’s the turd in my punch bowl. His very existence hurts you, and that makes me want to hurt him back.”

  “All we do is talk on the phone. Not even sex stuff. We started over.”

  “You think he doesn’t want a shot at you? Get real.”

  “I told him it’s just talking,” she said.

  “For now.”

  “Now is all there is, Ten. I don’t worry about later.”

  I didn’t know how to reach her, until I heard the muffled sound of my father’s voice beyond the door. Suddenly, I had a brainstorm: My father was Chela’s hero. He reminded her of her dead grandmother, the symbol of all that was right and good.

  “What would my dad have done if he’d known about my teacher and her pool?”

  “Captain Hardwick?” Chela laughed. “Put her ass in jail, probably.”

  “What would have been the right thing?”

  Chela�
��s face darkened. “Jail is bullshit. But he would have made you stop going over there, gotten her ass fired from the school. For sure.” I was relieved she had a moral compass still working somewhere. After a pause, Chela said. “Don’t tell him about me and Mother.”

  “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

  We smiled. But my smile disappeared.

  “I will hurt this man,” I said. “I might do worse than hurt him.”

  “Yeah, you’d probably kill him,” Chela said. She had met me under a crazy spell, when I was waving a gun.

  “Bet on it.”

  Chela shrugged. “I can’t do that to a friend, so it’s over. Promise.” She tried to sound detached, but I heard how much it hurt her to let him go. She didn’t have many friends.

  “There won’t be any warning next time,” I said. “I hope you know I’m not playing.”

  That seemed like the right note, so I left.

  When I emerged from Chela’s room with the CPU and both cell phones, Dad was waiting for me at the foot of the stairs. His wheelchair lay on its side, empty. Dad sat on the bottom step with his hand on the railing, perspiration gleaming from his brow. He’d been trying to climb up.

  For a moment, feeling horror for him, I stood up high without moving. If I’d ever seen that angry, humiliated shadow across his face when I was a kid, I would have soiled my pants.

  “Boy, get your ass down here,” Dad said. He didn’t have any trouble speaking, and I didn’t have any trouble hearing. We were a medical miracle.

  Both of us were perspiring by the time I’d helped Dad back into his chair. Dad was too pissed off to be embarrassed by his limbs’ jerky motions. He was glad to lean on me so he could get as close as possible to eye level. His open palm was shaking; he wanted to slap me.

  “Dintchu hear me calling?” he said.

  “I had a problem with Chela.”

  Jaw locked like a trap, Dad propellered his arms across his wheels to send his chair speeding across the floor, toward his room. “Comewithme,” he said.

  “Long day, Dad. Let me catch my breath.”

  He ignored me, rolling like Speed Racer. I had to follow.