Wanted

by Heidi Ayarbe

  Josh’s hand is slick with sweat. He pulls it away and wipes it on his jeans, then grabs the tips of my fingers with his. It feels like my stomach has become Lucifer’s dwelling place. The sense of bigness and wonder that once filled the gym when they chanted our name feels silly, like we’re just going to become an afterthought. Punks on a joyride.

  They’ve missed the point.

  We’re dismissed.

  Somebody jams into me. Nim grins. “Mooo,” he says, shooting me a look over his shoulder.

  Can’t find yesterday’s me in today.

  Chapter 38

  CASH REWARD OFFERED FOR BABYLONIA: 2K

  THE POSTERS WENT UP

  overnight—like some kind of Christo building wraps, inside out.

  TAKE THE COMMUNITY BACK!

  BABYLONIA = ANTI-AMERICAN

  GARBAGE DISPOSAL DOING WHAT LAW ENFORCEMENT CAN’T

  WHO’S NEXT? ARE YOU? ARE YOU PREPARED?

  By the end of first block most posters have been taken down. But the hate lingers.

  Nim comes up to me at lunchtime. “Sanctuary today?”

  “No,” I say, sipping on my staple beverage, 7Up.

  He raises his eyebrows.

  “I’m going to a funeral.” I stare at him. He wasn’t holding the bat but he was cheering Caleb on.

  I didn’t do anything.

  I’m doing it now. Luis’s family doesn’t have to pay for that funeral. I can’t begin to fathom what that medical bill looks like. He was hospitalized for weeks.

  “So?” Nim’s stupid, thug-head, unevolved self asks. “When?”

  “For you? Never.”

  “Christ, Mike, what’s this all about? That Babylonia shit? Those guys are total losers. You’re a bookie. Since when do you give a shit about . . . about anything but the bet?”

  “Take your business somewhere else.” Now even 7Up burns going down.

  “And half my guys.”

  “Be my guest.”

  “Fuck you, you dumb cow.”

  The only saving grace of Tuesday is when Josh texts me: You’re worth WAY more than 2K.

  I read it three times, then erase it.

  It’s been too long. I have the itch. The nights are the worst. I’m too tired to do anything but lie down on the bed and think. I think about Mrs. Mendez and Moch; Luis Sanchez and Caleb. I wish I could be thinking about proms and dances and graduation and U-Dub.

  But all I can think about is the next hit, the next bet, the next win.

  It’s hard to balance a life of burglary and guilt with midterms. It’s no wonder this stuff never gets into the yearbook.

  My phone beeps: Ready?

  Exhale.

  I listen for Lillian. She’s been asleep a long time. At dinner she decided to do the “involved” thing and ask about Josh and friends and when was I going shopping again. Finally, after dancing around the subject for what seemed like eternity, she blurted, “Are you using protection?”

  I felt a great relief. She’s worried about me getting pregnant. Something so basic, so normal.

  After nearly choking on my Tuna Helper, I assured her that I wasn’t having sex but would definitely use protection. She seemed happy—like we’d had a moment, we’d overcome a huge obstacle in the parent-child relationship.

  I leave the house and meet Josh at the end of the block.

  “How are we going to get past without tripping the alarm?” I ask.

  Josh smiles, hands me the drill. “It doesn’t work. It’s for show.” He points to the alarm business name. “They’ve been out of business for several years.”

  I shake my head and mutter, “Rookies. Cover your eyes.” Sometimes people think a flashy sticker will work. For a normal burglar, probably. Normal burglars, though, probably don’t break into building-supply offices.

  I drill into the keyhole—the shrill sound of metal on metal screechy and loud. Really loud. I don’t stop, though, until I can feel the bit hit something. Curls of metal drift to the floor.

  Josh hands me a screwdriver. I wiggle it until I hear the pins and springs fall out, then go back and drill again, repeating until the screwdriver turns, acting like a key. “Open sesame,” I say.

  Josh sweeps his hand in front. “After you.”

  We walk down the narrow corridor and kick in a flimsy aluminum door to the main floor of the supply house. The place smells like mechanic oil and metal, a faint whiff of oil-soaked sawdust.

  Mottled light seeps through greasy garage doors. It’s like piecing together a puzzle—giving shapes to the shadowy figures, finding the nuance in the spectrum of grays. Lights from big trucks stretch through the high garage-door windows, caressing the walls, a light show for a moment until the trucks pass, the darkness wrapping us in its million grays again. The office is upstairs—a glass room perched like an aquarium, with a view of the warehouse and building yard.

  I listen.

  Metal siding bangs and howls with gusts of wind. Cars rip along Highway 50, muffled and distant. There’s a soft hum somewhere—maybe a generator.

  We walk up the stairs—rubber soles tapping on metal. That familiar sound of kids going up and down bleachers. But softer. Softer.

  The office door is locked.

  I take out the screwdriver to open it, but Josh just bashes in the glass with the drill. It’s that windshield glass. A web of cracks forms—glinting. Pretty. An intricate design of Swarovski shards.

  Josh shrugs. I flick him in the temple. “Patience.”

  “Yes, Yoda,” he says, and fans his fingers on the outside of his head.

  I unscrew the doorknob and pop it in. It thuds on the thin carpeting, a soft singing-bowl-like hum hanging in the air.

  No safe.

  It takes all of two minutes to find the bank bag with four piles of cash—wrapped tightly in deposit slips. I sometimes wonder if anybody else in this world watches cable. One To Catch a Thief show is enough to teach these people to deposit their money. I hand Josh the bills. He takes out the spray paint and signs BABYLONIA on the glass. “They have to replace it anyway,” he says.

  On the way out, we tape up the manifesto.

  I like to think of somebody showing up, opening the manifesto, and knowing that they’ve been robbed. It’s better than them just entering and seeing it. It gives them time to anticipate it, think about it, dread it. And wonder who else knows.

  Conviction replaces ideals. Now black-white world.

  Chapter 39

  Sanctuary 3:30 Comma Coffee

  I CRADLE A CAFFEINE

  blaster in my hands. “Decaf?” Josh asks.

  I shake my head. “I fell off the wagon. I’m just so tired.”

  He sits next to me. We’re in the back room waiting for others to show. “Do you sleep? After?”

  I shake my head. “I just don’t sleep anymore at all. You?”

  “Yes and no. At first, when I get home, I crash, like my body needs to turn off. Then I wake up an hour or so later and just lie there—”

  “—replaying it all in my head. Going over and over the scene, hoping that—”

  “—we didn’t miss anything.”

  I bite into a blueberry muffin with crumble topping, sipping on my coffee, wondering why the Nevada Appeal didn’t print our manifesto. Why Seth didn’t. Maybe we’re old news. Maybe they don’t get it—why this is so important.

  It’s not about us. It’s about Mrs. Mendez and Luis Sanchez. It’s about Caleb and Comba and all the guys who think it’s okay to kill.

  It’s about justice—without a price tag attached to it.

  The room crams with kids from school. “Wow,” I say.

  “This tournament is crazy unpredictable,” Javier says. “It’s too hard not to bet.”

  “You all get your coffees?” I ask.

  A couple of kids groan.

  “Listen. Go buy a dollar cookie or something. Like we really need to be booted out of here because you’re cheap.”

  By the time everybody’s settled,
a calm enters the room. I clear my throat and begin with the reading of the day.

  What am I? I am zero—nothing. What shall I be tomorrow? I may be risen from the dead, and have begun life anew. For still, I may discover the man in myself, if only my manhood has not become utterly shattered.

  “Yeah. I don’t get that one,” some kid says. “I’m just here to place a bet.”

  I roll my eyes. No poetry. How can they not know they’ve all got the capacity to be something great—to start again—to be part of something way greater than placing bets and losing money?

  “Okay, ladies and gentlemen.” I look in the crowd of faces. “Sweet Sixteen. Big deal. Big upsets. Nothing weird today. Too many bets—straight up, money-line them, or bet the spread. And please, unless you’re twelve, don’t come to me with a parlay. I’m not in the mood for wiping up snotty tears Friday night. Saturday I’ll open up Sanctuary for Elite Eight. We’re going to Grandma Hattie’s. Eight o’clock a.m. All in person. No call-ins.”

  “Eight? Fuck. That’s not human. My one day to sleep in.” Tim’s parents make him go to sunrise services at the Catholic church Sunday mornings. Brutal.

  I shrug. “It’s up to you.” I wink. “Think of it as tithing for a cause.”

  “Yeah. Some cause,” some guy says. “More like a money suck.”

  “You guys know the stakes. Am I right?”

  There’s some mumbling.

  I write everything down. This tournament has been especially fun because only two front-runners are still in the tournament. An amazing ride. So how can they not understand that we will rise from the dead, start life anew? And with U-Dub, we’ll have our resurrection. It’s serendipity.

  Nim waits until last. “I want to place a bet.” He’s cracking his knuckles. I can hear the pop of synovial fluid between his bones and cringe. I hate that sound.

  “Go ahead. Just not with me. We’re done, Nim.”

  He leans in, so close everything goes a little blurry. If it weren’t for the fact he shares over ninety-nine percent of his genetic material with me, I’d swear he was Saint John’s seven-headed blue beast.

  “Enough,” I say. “Just go away.”

  “You’re nothing,” he spits. Thousands of spittle dots of bad breath soak into my skin. I half expect it to sizzle. I’m probably going to have to run to CVS for Clearasil or some emergency skin-care product that removes Beelzebub’s acidic drool.

  That’s a product that would raise some eyebrows. There’s probably a decent market for it somewhere.

  “Nothing,” Nim repeats.

  Yeah, Nim, I heard you the first twenty thousand times.

  “Then why do you keep coming to me?” I ask. I lean in. “I saw you there cheering Caleb on, kicking Luis Sanchez. I know who was there that day.”

  Nim pales and grimaces; his seven heads return to his one big, dumb head. Even his helmetlike waves of hair have come ungelled. “My word against yours.” His voice wavers. He clears his throat. “All of our words against yours.”

  “Just remember.” I glare. “Just remember who nothing is.”

  Nim leaves, Medusa trailing behind him like she’s some kind of parasite and Nim’s the host.

  Josh hands me my caffeine blaster refill. A bitter coffee aroma clings to the furniture in the room. I feel like I’m suffocating. “Hey,” he says. He turns my face to his. “What was that about?”

  I bite down and clear my throat. “Saturday?”

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “He’s on the list.” Anger bubbles up inside me.

  “I’ve kind of got plans.” He flashes me tickets to the Aloha Dance.

  “Oh.” My heart sinks. I think it’s skipped a beat. I’m supposed to be Josh’s plans. “Sorry. Of course. I mean . . .” I shove my books into my backpack, palms slick, hot. I’ve seen Josh talking to Sadie, Marilyn’s friend, in the hallways. Of course he’s going to want to have a real life outside of what we do.

  “So?” he says.

  “Another day.”

  “I don’t mean that.” He smiles. “That’s a given. I mean this. Will you go with me?”

  I pause. I’ve just been asked to a dance. I expect, any moment, for lightning to crack in the sky and the world to turn to ash.

  “So?” Josh asks. “Man, you’d think it’d be easier to ask you to a dance since, well, we do lots of other stuff together.” He laughs. A flock of sandy hair flops into his eyes. “I am feeling totally lame right now.” He wrinkles his nose. “Um. Hello? Protocol here would be a response—verbal or otherwise—to put me out of my misery and make me feel like less of a jackass.”

  “Oh. Okay,” I say.

  “I’m waiting.”

  “That’s it. Um. Yes. Okay,” I say. “A dance.”

  “Okay,” Josh says. “So it’s a date.”

  “It’s a date.”

  This is probably the first awkward silence we’ve had, and I’m not sure whether I should high-five Josh or kiss him or shake his hand or . . . whatever. What’s the procedure for a platonic Hawaiian dance date? Or is it platonic?

  He breaks the silence. “Then we can sack Nim’s house for every last penny.”

  I smirk, back on comfortable ground. “Okay. Done.”

  Slipping into unmapped territory. Predictability gone.

  Chapter 40

  “MARILYN? HELP!” I CALL

  her after Sanctuary, and she squeals.

  “I knew that you and Josh had a thing. I mean, hello, all he’s done since he got here is follow you around. He’s adorable.”

  After we’ve decided that Josh looks best in green because it makes the flecks of green-gold in his eyes stand out, and his sandy-brown curls curlier, and the little scar above his left eyebrow sexier (how a color can do that is beyond me, but when we’re talking, Marilyn has me convinced as well), Marilyn calls in reinforcements and we plan a Friday emergency Hawaiian shopping trip. “What are you going to look for?” she asks.

  “I don’t know.” How many options are there for Hawaiian?

  “You’re so perfect for a Hawaiian dance theme. God, I wish I had your skin.”

  Where’s that coming from? I wonder who people see when they look at me.

  Thursday’s games had two more upsets. I had to deal with a couple of near-tears phone calls late into the night. Josh and I are ripping it up.

  We. Can’t. Lose.

  Four more games tonight, breakfast tomorrow, and we slide into the Elite Eight.

  When we come out ahead this weekend—with the bets we’re going to place—we’ll end up banking almost twelve thousand dollars.

  Twelve thousand dollars.

  Most kids don’t make that in four years of part-time work.

  That’s enough for Luis’s family and Mr. Mendez . . . enough to get Mr. Mendez back on his feet, to get him to set up his restaurant. To get Moch out of la Cordillera.

  It’s enough to give to Clinica Olé and Brain Food. This is our chance to make a big splash—not just some dinky donation.

  Twelve thousand dollars.

  I’m so busy spending our money that I don’t even see Seth’s paper until we’re in first period.

  Babylonia Backfire? Local Businesses Lay Off Workers Without Papers

  Cash Reward for Babylonia: $3500

  Babylonia backfire? I read the article—once again, filled with supposition. Are businesses firing undocumented workers?

  By the end of the school day, it’s hard to get excited about shopping. But with Marilyn’s infectious girl thing going on, I soon forget about Babylonia and a rise in homelessness, and focus on fabrics.

  I’m trying to shove my hips into some kind of shimmery mermaidlike dress that, on the model, flows in silvery-blue cascades, making her look like she’s from the lost island of Atlantis.

  “You okay in there?” Marilyn asks. She, Sadie, and three others I don’t know really well are trying to find me something Hawaiian.

  “I don’t think Hawaiian means b
eing some kind of amphibian mutant,” I say. I inhale, exhale, then peek from behind the dressing room door. “Help. I’m stuck.”

  Marilyn feeds me dresses. When I try to protest, she interrupts. “Just try.” It’s embarrassing and wonderful at the same time.

  After trying on approximately ten thousand ensembles from Bermudas and Hawaiian button-up shirts to sarongs and ridiculous dresses, we find the one. Though I’m not convinced a dress is the one out of desperation, lack of alternatives, or just plain exhaustion. But when I try it on, it is the one.

  “Oh my God, that’s it!”

  “Isn’t it a little dressy?” I ask. It’s a halter dress with a smocked top that goes into a full skirt.

  “Oh, no way,” Sadie says. “Just keep your hair down and wear flip-flops. It’s too perfect. Perfect. Can you put a flower behind your ear, like here?” They all surround me, tugging, pulling, until it’s decided my hair will be put back in a clip with a purple flower. Going to the accessory shop becomes the most urgent thing on our to-do list.

  After we find a clip and it’s been decided, democratically of course, that I need a real flower in my hair, we buy glittery body lotion, swipe miniature perfume samples from Sephora, then collapse in the overheated Starbucks in the mall. We talk about where we’re going to dinner, who’s double-dating, and who’s going to get lucky.

  I clear my throat. I so want to ask for kissing tips. I’ve Googled and bookmarked every kissing tip on the planet. There’s a deluge of information on circling tongues, sucking lips, nibbles. But I’m not sure where to begin.

  I hope Josh kisses me.

  “Hey. Earth to Mike. What about you and Josh? Have you?” Marilyn says, eyebrows dancing on her forehead.

  “Have we?”

  “Made out? Or more?”

  I shake my head and feel my face turn furnace hot.

  “Do you want to?” Marilyn asks.

  More than anything. I nod.