The Truth Beneath the Lies

by Amanda Searcy

  “The little boy had pneumonia. The mom was severely dehydrated.” I push my lips up into a smile to provoke him. “But they’re safe now.”

  It works. He clenches his fist, like he wants to take a swing at me. “They’ll be deported. Do you know what they were running away from? They might have still had a chance. But now you”—the tip of his pointed finger lands inches from my heart—“have sent them back.”

  His hands grip the first container they reach, one full of shiny, green jalapeños. He hoists it up and storms out of the walk-in.

  I drop my arms and let the cold seep into my body. I don’t understand. Adrian seems to really care about the people in the shack. Like on a human level, not like something is in it for him. What if Happy is right? What if Adrian is a nice guy who tries to do good things?

  Or maybe he’s a really good actor.

  I step out into the steamy air. Adrian chops peppers with a huge, deadly-looking knife. He pauses, his eyes meeting mine, the tip of the knife pointed at my heart. It’s a message. One I understand.

  Mr. Morales still washes but has stopped singing. I try to smile at him, but the corners of my mouth just twitch. I exit the kitchen and leave behind the sound of Adrian’s rhythmic chopping.

  Angie tracks my progress across the dining room. I pass Happy in the booth. She slurps up the dregs of her orange juice and scoots herself out. She bounces behind me. “Wanna go for a walk?”

  I shake my head. Happy ignores it. “The doctor said I should take a walk every day.”

  When I open the door that doesn’t jingle, she’s hot on my heels. The sun is going down and taking the warmth with it. “It’s too cold for a walk,” I say.

  Happy considers this for a second. “No, it’s still okay out here.” She hooks her arm around mine. “Let’s go to the park.” Even though she’s several inches shorter and moves with a pregnant waddle, she’s still strong.

  She drags me past the flower shop, where Mom has the phone up to her ear. She laughs and makes notes on a pad. It isn’t the brightly lit shop that makes her glow. I sigh deeply without realizing it. Happy squeezes my arm.

  She leads me around the back of the strip mall into the old but well-cared-for neighborhood where the Morales family lives. At the end of the street sits a square of open space. The grass is brown; the few trees stand naked. Strips of color peel off a play structure. Happy digs her toes into the ground and kicks at a rock. She hasn’t said a thing since we left.

  “Are you okay?” I ask. Happy looks at me, startled. I glance over my shoulder. We’re the only people in the park.

  She plops down on a bench, legs parted, belly balanced on top of them. “I’m Happy,” she says. “I don’t get to be anything else.”

  I sit down next to her. I don’t know what to do with my hands. They fold in my lap, and unfold, and fold again.

  “You probably think I’m stupid,” she says. My head shakes, but too quickly, too emphatically. She laughs. “It’s okay. Why would you think anything else? I’m sixteen, I’m pregnant, and I walk around acting like I won the lottery.” She leans her head back and closes her eyes against the sun.

  “Adrian gave me the name Happy. In first grade. Maybe I was happy then. Now I’m just living up to expectations.” She rubs her stomach. “When I told my grandma, she said she wasn’t raising no baby, and she kicked me out.”

  I force words from my mouth. “I’m sorry.”

  She opens one eye. “Yeah,” she says. “Tomás isn’t a bad guy. You probably think he is. I know he deals, but what are we supposed to do? We’re alone in this. Any day, I could be all alone.”

  I watch in horror as my hand pats her baby bump. She opens her other eye. Instead of irritation at my complete invasion of her personal space, she smiles.

  “I never knew my father,” I say. It’s the only true thing I have ever told her. Right now, after everything with Adrian, I feel like I need to grab on to something. Something that’s me. “There was this guy when I was little, but he didn’t stick around.”

  Happy nods along, like she’s heard this story before. Then we sit in silence. I’m afraid if I open my mouth again, the entire first sixteen years of my life will come tumbling out.

  “Adrian really is a good guy,” she says.

  I pull my hand away. “I don’t want to talk about Adrian.” How can Happy believe him? The orange fish, the group of little girls at the party, the woman and kid in the desert. The knife and duct tape in his truck. Everything is adding up. Still, when I look at Happy’s face, doubt creeps all around me.

  I did the right thing, didn’t I? That boy was going to die. If it wasn’t because of Adrian, it would have been because of the pneumonia. Even though it exposed me further, getting him help was the right thing. Or not. I don’t know anymore. I’m not even sure there is a right thing.

  “Listen,” Happy says with a sternness that throws me for another loop. I concentrate on her face to show her I’m paying attention.

  “There was a girl named Raina. She lived here with her mom while her dad was working on an oil rig in the ocean. She went to private school, but in eighth grade, she transferred to our school.

  “She was really pretty, like a model or someone on TV. She had blond hair and blue eyes, and she was tall and skinny.” Happy can’t help but look down at her belly.

  “Adrian fell for her hard, like really hard. He was always in a good mood and had this stupid, goofy smile on his face all the time. Then one day he went over to her house. Her dad had come home for the week, and he answered the door. He told Adrian he couldn’t see Raina anymore. Ever. He didn’t want her bringing home any brown babies.”

  I suck in a sharp breath. Happy shakes her head. “I know, right? Raina and her family moved to Houston after that. Adrian never got over it, and he hasn’t been the same since.” She pauses to make sure I’m still listening. “But I wanted you to know, inside he’s a good person. The best.”

  “I did something,” I blurt out. “I made a choice.” Happy looks at me with interest. “I did what I thought was right, and it maybe wasn’t.”

  Happy nods. She rubs her stomach. “Me too,” she says.

  Our eyes meet. The sunset is reflected in hers. The wind blows against my ears, turning them cold. But I feel warm inside, and for a fleeting moment, I feel like everything might be okay. Then the sun disappears below the horizon, and Happy’s face is plunged into the shadows.

  The girl at the mall wouldn’t do it. She crossed her arms and told Paige absolutely not. She was barely older than us, and yet her face was covered with almost as many piercings as skin. No way did she get all of those after she turned eighteen.

  Carol Alexander and Paige had a disagreement about what Paige could get for her seventeenth birthday. Paige wanted her nose pierced. Carol gave her a coffee-colored cashmere sweater.

  Since Thanksgiving, Paige and I have been trying. We see each other at school, and we’ve hung out a couple of times, but there is an awkward tension surrounding us like a dark mist.

  Plus, I found the cashmere sweater in my locker with the tags still attached.

  The place we’re in now is Seedy with a capital S. Sierra’s sister knows a guy who will pierce anything. No ID. No questions.

  I stand over a glass case and peer at a thousand pieces of metal that can be poked through numerous body parts. Paige grabs my hand. “This is so exciting!” she squeals.

  I lift my head and catch sight of myself in the small, smudged mirror on the counter. My skin has a strange cast to it. My eyes are sunken, lips pale. I look gray, like someone who missed four days of school because of the “flu.” It’s going around, you know. But really, I couldn’t face the hallways full of people whose biggest concern is what to wear to the winter formal next month. Not after what I’ve seen.

  Every time I close my eyes, there she is. On the ground, bleeding. Girl Number Three. She has a name. Shonda. I don’t like to think about that. It’s easier to call her Girl Number Three, like
the robot reporters on the news.

  When I open my eyes, I can still see her.

  “What do you think of that one?” Paige points into the case. “A star? For Explorers?” She realizes her mistake and looks away. We don’t talk about my quitting the dance team.

  “Which one?” I ask, and try to seem engaged.

  “The third from the top.”

  I follow her finger. It points at a tiny silver star on a metal post that curves at the end. Like an earring that has been stepped on and bent.

  In the mirror, my skin turns green.

  I smile and nod. The guy comes out. Paige puts her money—cash up-front—on the counter.

  She screws up her face and cringes as the guy prepares to shove metal through it.

  It’s a coincidence. Hundreds of girls have nose piercings, not just Shonda. Even straight-laced Paige is about to have one.

  Jordan brought a girl with a nose piercing back to his house. She took it out and put it on the bedside table. It fell on the floor. A simple explanation. Pain hits me in the gut. Fear? Jealousy? I don’t have words to describe what I feel anymore.

  —

  Paige glances at herself in the rearview mirror for the hundredth time. A pinpoint of sparkle shines off her splotchy red nose. “Mom is going to freak,” she says, satisfied.

  We pull up to Bluebird Estates. I don’t think Paige ever cared about it before, but this time, now that I’ve wrecked our friendship, she sees it for what it really is. Her eyes are alert and her hands clamp down on the steering wheel, like she’s nervous. The faster she can get out of here, the better.

  “Thanks for the ride,” I say.

  She smiles at me. She looks like her mother. Polite, but fake, hiding the disgust. The gap between us in the car becomes a crevasse, a canyon, a gorge. I don’t know if there’s a bridge long enough to cross it again.

  I creep up the stairs. It’s too early for Mom to be staked out at the peephole. I stop in front of apartment 21.

  It’s Saturday, which would have been a workday for me at No Limit. I have nowhere to go. Jordan’s still not back, and Mom is already suspicious that something is going on. If I go to apartment 26, I will have to confess. Confess that I have no job, I have no dance team—I have nothing.

  I can’t go to McDonald’s. Anyone could be waiting for me there.

  I tap on the door with my fingernail. Finn opens it wearing boxers. He steps back. I walk past him but hesitate to sit on the couch. His phone rests on the coffee table. I shudder when my mind flashes to holding it. Dialing.

  The TV is on. Some loudmouthed talk-show host yells at her guests. Finn sits down and picks up a pipe. He offers it to me.

  I almost take it.

  A tear traces down my face.

  He sighs and puts the pipe down. He pats the sofa cushion next to him. I sit. “What’s going on, Kayla?”

  I jump in surprise. “You remember my name?”

  He shrugs. “I gave it to you.”

  I pull my right leg underneath me and turn to face him. “What?”

  “You were a pudgy, red, squalling thing, only a few days old, when your ma brought you here. I hadn’t seen her in years. I don’t know where she was living, but they wouldn’t take a baby.

  “She got clean when she found out she was pregnant, but when you arrived and were an actual baby to take care of, your ma didn’t know what to do. She hadn’t even given you a name. So I gave you one.” He picks up the pipe again and runs the flame of a disposable lighter under the bottom. “I thought Kayla was pretty.”

  “What happened to her?” I ask.

  He takes a drag off the pipe, holds the smoke in his lungs, and gazes up at the ceiling. He releases. “She tried hard for you, but once you’ve had a taste, it never goes away.”

  He lays his head back on the torn upholstery. “I loved her. Always have, always will.” He smiles his little-boy smile of approval—Drake’s smile—then his eyes close and flutter under his lids in starry oblivion.

  Drake’s smile. It’s been nagging at the back of my mind since I found Shonda. It was his car that sped past me the night of the first girl. His boots that were covered in mud the horrible night it was almost me. He was the last person to see Finn’s hooker. He’s always hanging around, watching people go in and out.

  Shonda left with him from McDonald’s.

  If I hadn’t gotten out of the car that night, would I have been next?

  I don’t want it to be him. I want it to be anyone else on the planet but Drake. It would destroy Jordan to know that his friend was the man in black.

  It would destroy me. If I hadn’t met Jordan, if Jordan hadn’t brought Drake to McDonald’s…

  I led him right to Shonda.

  —

  I ditch school. After the way I looked at the piercing place, Paige will tell everyone I’m still sick. Not that they’ll ask. After quitting the dance team and generally avoiding everyone, I’m running out of people to care about me.

  It takes three buses to get to the hospital, but I have to know if Drake attacked Shonda.

  When I step into the white, antiseptic-smelling lobby, my stomach growls and my butt’s sore from the hard plastic bus seats. A receptionist sits at a round desk under a sign that says INFORMATION. I give her my big Clairmont Explorers Dance Team smile. “Hi, which room is Shonda in?”

  She types into her computer. “Last name?”

  “Uh, I don’t really know. I go to her school. I have her homework.” I motion to a nonexistent backpack on my shoulder. My lying skills suck.

  The woman clicks her tongue. “Can’t do anything without a last name.” She stares me down. I’ve lost.

  “Excuse me.”

  I turn around. A thin, older African American woman holding a cup of coffee runs her eyes over my face. She looks like she’s dressed for church in a bright blue suit and hair in neat curls. Her lips part. She breathes in deeply.

  “Are you the girl who found her? My granddaughter?”

  That night runs like a movie on fast-forward over and over again in my head, weakening my knees. She leads me over to a chair and presses the coffee into my hand. I gulp it and burn my tongue.

  I want to ask her a thousand things, but I can’t speak. My hand covers my mouth. I can’t stop seeing Shonda crumpled and bloody on the ground. I look at the floor, afraid her grandmother will see the picture reflected in my eyes.

  “She hasn’t woken up yet. The doctors say the rest of her will heal. She just has to wake up.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say with my head in my hands.

  The woman wraps her arms around my shoulders. “Thank you for helping my baby.” She stays that way, squeezing me tight until I stop crying.

  I give her Finn’s number. She promises to call when Shonda wakes up. I know now what I have to do.

  An ancient, much-abused pay phone is stuck to the wall outside. I dig Detective Cavallo’s card out of my pocket.

  There’s an ice cream shop around the corner and across a busy street from the hospital. I step inside. A bored guy in a stupid paper hat barely acknowledges me. It’s not even lunchtime. Too early for ice cream. I pick a table in the back corner. It smells like bleach with an undercurrent of sour milk. I’m the only one here.

  Ten minutes later, Detective Cavallo comes in. He wears a sharp gray suit with a yellow tie. When he leans over the ice cream case, I catch a glimpse of his badge and gun.

  He licks a sample spoon of something blue. He smacks it between his lips and nods. He points at me. “You want something?” I shake my head. He waves away Paper Hat Guy, who looks relieved at not having to work.

  The detective sits across from me. His huge nose shines under the bright lights of the shop. He seems different than at Bluebird Estates. Happier. Maybe everyone does.

  “I hate taking notes. I’m a terrible speller.” He laughs and pulls out a digital recorder. My stomach twists. I don’t want to do this.

  “Take your time, don’t leave anything ou
t. Even a small thing could be important.” He smiles. And I realize something. I can see it in the set of his shoulders, in his finger tapping the table, the way he glances over his shoulder at paper hat guy. It’s a well-practiced act. The ice cream shop. The Mr. Happy routine. Really, he’s hard, cold. He’s doing what he has to do so I’ll feel safe, talk, rat someone out.

  And I will. I’ll do it for Shonda. And I’ll do it because if I don’t, I might be Girl Number Four.

  “I think it was Drake.” My voice is weak and mouselike. As soon as I hear the words, I’m afraid I’m wrong. What if I’m wrong?

  Cavallo leans forward. “Last name?”

  I blink hard and look down at the table. Someone has carved their initials into the sticky wood. “I don’t know.”

  “Address?” Cavallo tries again. I shake my head. I can’t tell him where Drake lives. I can’t get Jordan caught up in this.

  “What’s he look like?”

  I give him a description of Drake that’s so generic it could be anyone. Cavallo nods along, humoring me.

  “What about a car? What’s he drive?”

  “A black Camaro with a Florida license plate,” I whisper.

  “Uh-huh.” Cavallo nods again, but a spark has appeared in his eyes. “Any identifying marks? Scars? Tattoos?”

  “He has a snake tattoo on his arm.”

  Cavallo sits back and turns off the tape recorder, looking satisfied. “Thank you, Kayla. That was very helpful. You’ve confirmed another tip we got.”

  “Really?” I can’t breathe. It was Drake. I gulp air, trying to get my lungs to work. “What happens now?” I squeak.

  “We’ll put an APB out for him as a person of interest. If officers see the car, they’ll pull him over.”

  That will take too long. All Drake needs is another night to find another girl.

  Cavallo stands up to leave. “Wait.” I reach my hands across the table, as if to grab him and pull him back. “I know where Drake’s supposed to be tonight.”

  Cavallo’s eyes widen. “Stay here,” he says. His purposeful footsteps echo through the empty ice cream shop. He exits and pulls out his cell phone. The guy at the counter glances at me. I feel my face burn. My insides are all mixed up. Cavallo all but confirmed that it was Drake, but part of me is still hoping that it isn’t, that I’m wrong.