by Becky Melby
His eyes closed for a second then opened. Sad eyes. He sighed. “Can you?”
She nodded. “Sure.”
“What can I do?”
“Just pray.”
She had no idea where that had come from. Or why Nicky didn’t look surprised.
“I will.”
Walking into her room, she picked up her phone and punched Jarod’s number. No answer. She left a message.
“Hey, babe, I’m sorry about last night. I was scared for you. I just didn’t know how to process it, you know? Call me and I’ll make it all up to you.”
Pink and purple layered the western sky as Dani walked along Third Avenue with Evan on Sunday night. He’d left the H1 at her place, and they’d walked to their singles group meeting. Neither of them had said a word since leaving church a mile ago. They’d spent the entire meeting processing the death of one of their members. Two days ago Lori Mills, a girl Evan knew from high school, died of an intentional overdose.
Dani stopped in front of a two-story redbrick home with a gabled attic window. A black wrought iron fence surrounded the property. Tiny lights bordered a curved stone walk. Two children chased each other on a side lawn as wide as some parks in other neighborhoods.
“Where did Lori grow up?”
Evan stuck his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. “Four blocks from here.”
Two-story homes built in the sixties, well-kept yards, nice cars. It all negated Rena’s theory. “Geography. If I had all the same heredity but I was born to a rich family in a rich neighborhood, I’d be a whole different person.”
They walked along the sidewalk that bordered Eichelman Park. “When the weather’s decent, I pack rollerblades and try out different parks.” Did Nicky ever come to this one? Who would he be if he’d grown up in this neighborhood?
She thought of the girls in the pink jackets and sparkly shoes who walked groomed dogs with jeweled collars. Who knew what those girls would turn out to be? Maybe Lori Mills had worn cute shoes and walked spoiled dogs. Geography hadn’t made a difference to her. “Do you ever feel like a major hypocrite?”
“All the time. Why?”
“I see kids over by Bracciano. The little ones look scared. The big ones look cocky because they have to be to survive.” She pointed to a family with three little girls. The parents folded blankets and picked up toys while the girls twirled until they got dizzy then fell to the ground giggling. “Around here, you see little girls in boutique clothes dancing around without a care in the world. I want to do something about the scared kids, but what does that make me if I live in a place with marble countertops in a neighborhood of massive houses with stained glass windows and wrought-iron fences?”
She was working up the courage to tell him about the phone call she’d made after lunch with Rena.
“You live in a one-bedroom apartment. It’s not the Taj. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“But I’ve been thinking maybe I should downsize, you know?”
“Did all this start in Sunday school this morning?”
“It didn’t start there. It got worse there.”
“‘If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.’” He recited the verse scrolling through her brain. “So what good are you not doing that you know you should be doing but aren’t doing?”
She popped his arm with a slow-moving fist. “I’m trying to stay morose. Quit interfering.”
“Sorry. Okay, so you want to make a difference. Where, specifically?”
“I don’t know. If I did—” Her phone beeped. She pulled it out of her pocket. “If I knew what God was calling me to do—” Her words faltered as she read the text from Rena. WANT STORY? MEET ME @ COAL CHUTE 11 2NITE. PARK IN BACK. DISGUISE.
She answered with two letters—OK—and kept talking over the drumming in her ears. “Isn’t that the hard part? If God sent texts”—her laugh bordered on a squeak—“we’d know what we were supposed to do.”
“I’m guessing by the sudden giddiness that one was from the Italian rather than God.”
I wish. No, she didn’t. This—whatever Rena was pulling her into—was what she wanted. Still, a message from “the Italian” would be nice. She hadn’t second-guessed the kiss until a few hours ago. He had the diary, and he was off tomorrow, but she hadn’t heard a word from him. “Nicky? No.” God? Maybe. Thunder rumbled in the distance, promising a downpour. Phones, thunder… God could use anything to move a person in the right direction. “We should head to my place.”
Evan stared up at the pink-tinged sky. Black clouds hovered low over the lake, far to the east. “Whatever you say.” A thread of irritation wove through his answer. So unlike Evan. But then, it was unlike her not to tell him who’d sent the text.
She set a faster pace. “Were you happy with the pictures of the boys painting?”
“Yeah, I was. I mailed my finished project last night.”
“You did? And you didn’t tell me?”
He shrugged. “You’ve been pretty distracted lately.”
“I guess I have. I’m sorry.”
“No apologies. It’s not like I sit around with nothing to do. My schedule’s overloaded with all those girls clamoring for a little sliver of my time.”
She looked up into his elfish face and smiled as an idea sparked. “Did I tell you I know a girl who thinks you’re really cute?”
His head jerked back. He blinked four times in rapid succession. “Do I know her?”
“Yes. The text was from her, actually.”
“Who—”
“No questions. I’m the question-asker.”
“But—”
Nerves tingling about what lay ahead, she walked the rest of the way home a step ahead of Evan with one finger in the air and a “Shh” on her lips. As they walked, she wrote a mental list of everything she’d need.
Skinny jeans, hair color, tattoos, lip stud…
CHAPTER 24
Rena fluffed her hair. “Man, it’s hot.”Her hands needed something to do other than shake.
Yamile, self-proclaimed “Queen of the Sisters,” sat on the curb, hands clamped on her waist as she faced Dani. Her thick dark hair concealed the scar on her right cheek.
“Go easy on her.” Rena swallowed hard. “I’ve known Cerise for a long time. I checked stuff. She’s okay.” She picked a spot on the curb in front of a handicapped parking sign and sat next to Leah, Yamile’s shadow, who hadn’t said a word yet. Her spiky hair, white-blond over black, wobbled as she nodded with every question Yamile threw at Dani. A few feet away, Venus leaned on a parking meter, bracelets stacked on her wrists, green bandana tied around her forehead. Rena motioned for Dani to sit. “Park it, Cerise.”
“Nah. I’m good where I am.” Dani folded her arms across a faded green T-shirt.
Rena hid a smile. She’d been sure Dani was going to overplay it and act all gangster, but her attitude was perfect. Even her posture said, “Take me or leave me. I don’t care.” If she looked too anxious to be accepted, Yamile would have told her to leave. Yamile hated “cling-ons.”
Yamile took a step toward Dani. “You were at the memorial. You knew Miguel?”
“I know China.”
“Where you live?”
Alarm bells went off in Rena’s head. She tried to get Dani’s attention but couldn’t. You’re moving in with me, remember?
“Across from Bracciano.”
What?
“Haven’t moved in yet, but I rented Miguel’s old place.”
You did?
“Freaky.” Yamile laughed, deep and throaty. “Place is probably haunted. Where you get your money?”
Dani widened the distance between her feet and stuck out one hip. Way casual. “I got a job. Working for the Times.”
“La-de-da. Paper girl, huh? Make it sound all that when it ain’t.”
“It’s money.”
Rena let out a loud sigh. “Lay off, Yamile. You never asked me all these
crazy questions.”
“Didn’t have to. You had Jarod and Trish vettin’ you. This chick’s got nobody.” She tipped her head toward Leah and started a slow circle around Dani. Rena’s gut tightened. Dani didn’t have the sense to keep her back to the wall. Where she stood, out in the open, she was a perfect target from any angle. Leah slowly rose to her feet. Rena copied her.
Yamile slunk like a jungle cat. “Know what I’m thinkin’, girls?”
Leah fell in step behind her. “I got an idea.”
Dani didn’t move. To her credit, her fear wasn’t showing.
“I’m thinkin’ I don’t trust this”—she used a word that surprisingly didn’t make Dani cringe—“and I’m thinkin’ maybe she got to prove herself. Maybe she got to get jumped in.”
“Don’t be crazy.” Rena stepped toward Dani. “We never—”
Yamile lunged at Dani, arms outstretched. In a blur of motion, Dani’s right leg shot straight out and up, smacking Yamile’s chin with a thwack. Yamile slammed against a parked car, shook her head, and pushed off the car, eyes blazing. With a roar, she whipped a knife from her back pocket and charged. Dani stared her down. At the last second, she twirled away in a move that looked like ballet.
Rena leaped back. Her mouth opened.
Leah and Venus closed in. Rena’s pulse thundered in her ears. She could take Leah down if she caught her off guard. Yamile spun around, four-inch blade glinting in the streetlight. Dani turned slowly, her chest heaving, but her face showing no emotion. Without warning, she kicked—a smooth arc—foot slamming Yamile’s wrist. The knife flew, clattering on the concrete. Venus bent to grab it, but Dani’s knee smashed into her shoulder. Leah backed away, hands up. Yamile held her wrist, spit out a string of dark words, and suddenly broke out laughing. Letting out a whoop, she raised her good hand in the air.
“Proud to call you a Sister, Cerise. You got wicked feet. I trust you to have my back any day.”
Dani slapped her hand.
Rena dropped to the curb, wondering if she was the only one who noticed just how bad her knees—and “Cerise’s” high-five hand—shook.
It worked. It actually worked.
Dani sat on the hood of a red Grand Am, repressing a grin. Every synapse quivered, and her legs had all the strength of bread dough. Her face felt cold and clammy, but the adrenaline rush, and Rena’s look of pure awe, rivaled any award she’d ever win. The words came together in her head. Change the names and the locations, and the identity of the girl with the wicked feet, and she’d have a story to razzle the socks off her boss. She bent down, under the pretense of rubbing her foot. What she really needed was blood to her head.
“Where’d you learn that?” Yamile still held her wrist, but her eyes held nothing but admiration.
“I took classes.”
“You pulled back, didn’t you? You coulda broke my face if you wanted.”
Dani pressed her hand against the back of her neck. “I could have.”
Venus rubbed her shoulder. “Can you teach us?” “Maybe. There are rules to it. You’d have to promise only to use it for self-defense.”
Leah nodded. “Like Karate Kid.”
“It’s an honor thing.” Dani straightened as her equilibrium returned to normal. “There’s a code, you know? You gotta respect the art.”
“I get it.” Yamile walked over to the curb. As she started to sit down, a siren blasted. Loud and close. Maybe a block away. “Let’s get.” She took off between two cars, crossed the street, and ran into the alley.
Dani looked at Rena, who nodded. “Follow her.”
The siren grew louder then stopped. Dani glanced over her shoulder as she ran. Red and blue lights swam across the garages at the end of the alley. Yamile crossed a second street, Venus and Leah close behind her. Dani heard Rena’s labored breathing.
Red and blue light splashed onto the garage next to her. She bent low and followed the two girls in front of her as they darted behind a garage and ran through two back yards and onto a back porch.
“Trish isn’t home,” Rena gasped.
“So what.” Yamile opened the back door and all five ran in. Rena caught the screen before it slammed. They passed through a porch strewn with beer cans. Towers of empty blue beer boxes tottered along the screened-in windows. Rena pulled her into a fluorescent-lit kitchen that smelled of rancid oil and burned food. A woman in her forties or early fifties sat at the table, cigarette in one hand, old-fashioned glass in the other. “What you girls up to?”
“Just havin’ fun.” Yamile answered.
“Any of you know where Trish went?” Her words ran together. “She left a note. Said she was going out with Rab, but she took clothes.” Red-rimmed eyes looked from Yamile to Rena. “She movin’ in with that boy?”
Rena’s mouth opened, but it was Yamile who answered. “Probably. She’ll get sick of him before long and be back.”
The woman shrugged. “Cheaper when she’s gone.”
Yamile laughed. “Can we hang out in her room?”
“Go ahead. Just don’t wake Buddy and whoever that is sleeping on the floor.”
Lungs burning and legs trembling, Rena sat on the floor, hugging her knees the way Trish had last night. Dani sat next to her. The other three poked around the room, looking in empty drawers. Rena stared at a stack of empty frames on the desk and a vacant spot on the bookshelf that had once held the scrapbook she and Trish started in fifth grade and traded back and forth on their birthdays. They were going to travel together someday. “See the world and fill the book,” they’d said.
She thought of the moment the innocence had faded and her life took a wrong turn. A cold, moonless night in February. Walking home from a journalism club meeting at school. Alone.
Alone because Trish hadn’t shown up for the meeting and hadn’t called.
She stared at a single green bead on the floor under the dresser as a piece from the puzzle of that night chinked into place.
Trish had been in on it. Her best friend had set her up.
Rena shivered. Dani put her hand on her arm. “You okay?”
“Yeah. You were awesome,” she whispered.
“Can’t believe I pulled it off. I’ve only kicked dummies and punching bags.”
Yamile flopped down on Trish’s bed. Leah and Venus crawled around her and sat against the wall. “Rena tell you how we roll?”
“She told me you’re all about protecting each other, being a family. I like that.”
“Yeah.” Yamile looked down at her feet. “We do what we gotta do to take care of our own. If it’s fighting, we fight. If it’s gettin’ money to take care of somebody who gets pregnant or don’t have a place to stay, we do it.” She turned to Rena. “You hear what went down last night?”
“Heard some chatter before it.” She leaned against the wall and concentrated on even breathing. Jarod hadn’t returned her call.
“Rab almost got busted. Wasn’t your man in on it?”
“Not in the middle of it.” She talked about “it” like she knew.
Dani picked up the green bead and tossed it from one hand to the other. “What happened?”
“Rab got in on a payback with some Chi-town guys. Had it all set up with some chick going to let him in to grab some weed and coke from the Roses, but it went bad. Neighbors ratted to the cops and started screamin’, so he ran.”
Another chill shimmied up Rena’s spine. Jarod was in on this. Trish was an accomplice. What would the charges be if they got caught? Dani leaned toward her. “Is Rab the guy with the eagle tattoo?” she asked.
Rena nodded, forcing herself to look calm. She looked at Yamile. “What was the plan if they’d gotten it?”
“Doesn’t your man tell you nothin’?”
Pressing her knuckles into the carpet, Rena shrugged with one shoulder. “I knew enough. I was there when Jarod gave Rab the gun.”
Yamile smacked her lips, a weird sign that she approved. Only weeks ago Rena had craved that approval.
At the moment, it meant nothing. She waited for an answer.
“They were going to kill the girl and take the stuff.”
Dani fought nausea as she stared at the girl who’d just mentioned murder in the same tone anyone else would use to say she was going to brush her teeth.
Yamile lay on a pile of pillows, leaning on her elbow. She could have been any teen at a sleepover, except for the two-inch scar tugging at the tender skin beneath the outside corner of one eye. Yamile stretched and yawned. “I’m starving.”
Had this cold, hardened kid ever been a little girl who played with dolls and sang her ABCs? “How’d you get to be the leader, Yamile?”
“Blood.”
Dani winced.
Yamile laughed. “Not like that. My brother was one of the original Sevens, so I didn’t have to prove nothin’ to hang out with them. But they exclude females on lotsa stuff, so when I was like twelve, I decided the women oughta have their own thing, ya know?”
“So you started the Sisters.”
“Yeah. We got some wannabes hanging around, but there’s maybe fifteen solid. My girls take care of each other.” She sat up. “And now we got you.” She slid off the bed. “I gotta find some food.” She opened the door. “Hey,” she whispered. “You guys see who’s sleepin’ on the couch? It’s Chi.”
Bile rose in Dani’s throat. Her fingers curled around the green bead. “Chi…na?”
“Yeah.” Yamile closed the door. “She’s who we needed the money for. Her aunt kicked her out ’cause she found out she’s pregnant.”
The clamminess returned. Dani swallowed twice and sucked air through parted lips. She rose slowly on wobbling legs. “I have to get up early. I’m going to run.”
Yamile nodded. “We’re meeting at your place from now on.”
Dani wiped dampness from her upper lip and reached across Yamile to grab the door handle.
“Hey.” Venus pointed a black-nailed finger at her. “This is perfect. Chi can live with you.”
August 31, 1927
Francie straightened the papers and rose from her desk. Her desk in her office. Mama, if you could see me now. This part of my life is good.
