The Rules of Burken

by Traci Finlay

  I swallow and divert my gaze outside. “Oh. Your wife?”

  Spencer bursts out laughing, slapping his knee dramatically to really drive home that he’s single. “Nope! Ain’t my wife! But she gets to see the boy every other weekend.”

  So that means that Spencer the Super Dad has full custody of the child, which tells me loads about the mother, and I’m getting more uncomfortable by the minute. “Okay, well, I really appreciate the ride,” I say as I grab the door handle. The silver knob of freedom.

  “Well, wait a second, ay, dooncha need some money or something?”

  “Well, no, I have this.” I pull the dollar and twenty-seven cents from my pocket, but the change drops in the crack of the seat, and there goes twenty percent of my assets.

  “A dollar? You can’t just … just wander off in a strange place with a dollar,” he scolds, flicking his hand around at my audacity. And for a moment, I think I detect a glimmer of morale in ol’ Spence.

  I wait for him to give me some alternative. He’s going somewhere with this; the wheels—and swastikas—are turning in his head. “So … what do you suggest?” And, mustering all the courage I can, I look at him.

  His lips coil in a nasty grin. “Well, I got some, but I’m pretty sure I did you a favor already.” I watch him reach back into his pocket and pull out his wallet, and he spreads two-hundred dollars on the tattered leather seat. “You want it?” he asks.

  I swallow again and feel my knees trembling.

  “It’s all yours, but like I said, I did you a favor. Now you’ll have to do me one.”

  “What favor?” I ask, and as if those were the magic words, he reaches for his belt buckle.

  I’m out of the car, walking as fast as I can away from the pumpkin Dodge of debauchery. This can’t be happening. I was so stupid to get in the car with him. I left myself wide open for this.

  “Hey, wait up a sec! Hold on!”

  He trots up behind me and I spin around, stabbing my finger into his bony chest. “You sick fuck. I told you back in Lake City I didn’t have money, and that wasn’t an invitation for you to whip out your dick.”

  His dirty grin withers and reincarnates into an angry smirk. “Oh, what are you now? Some sort of rich girl? You a high-class feminist? Because if I know better, and I think I do, you’re pretty much homeless with nothin’ and no one! And I just did you a favor!” He closes in on me, backing me against the wall of a pawn shop. His hand rests on the bricks, inches from my face, and I stare at him indomitably.

  “Whatcha gonna do now? Whatcha gonna do, tough girl?” He leans down until he’s inches away and says slowly, “You dirty, fucking whore.”

  I slap him across the face.

  He grabs a handful of hair at my temple and shoves me into the wall, his face centimeters from mine. “You think you’re tough?” he growls through gravestone teeth. “I’ll show you tough!” He tightens his grip on my hair, sending my head dipping toward his fist to lessen the pain. I wince—he’s no stranger to strategic hair-pulling.

  “Hey. Hey, Romeo. Step off.”

  I jump and Spencer swears, both of us turning toward a girl with impossibly red hair and an intense Bronx accent. “What do you think you’re doing? She’s not one of those girls you pick up here. I’ve never seen her before.” She takes a drag of a cigarette and glares at Spencer. “Seriously, let go of her. What, you gonna rape her, or what? Getcher kid taken away? You wanna go to jail?”

  Spencer drops his hand from my hair and turns to this pixie that looks like a teenager. He could clobber this child. Heck, I could clobber her. But her attitude is fierce, and I can tell not many men mess with the Red Pixie. And I can’t blame them; besides hair the color of watermelon, she has one blue eye and one green. And while a perfect oil drop centers in her green eye, a strange tear-shaped pupil dilates in the blue. She looks like a human alley cat.

  “You know what this little tease did to me?” Spencer yells, pointing at me like he’s tattling.

  “Look, I don’t care what she did, Spence. Use your head. Get in your truck and go home.” She flicks the ashes off her cigarette and motions toward his truck.

  He turns back to me. “You’re welcome for the ride,” he sneers and mopes off to his truck.

  I watch him drive away as I rub my temple. Red Pixie saddles up next to me, one arm draped across her tiny waist and the other nursing her cigarette. “Welcome to Bay City,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I swear it’s not like this here. Where you from? Are you a Yooper?” she says, eyeing me up and down.

  “No, I’m not a Yooper,” I say defensively. I most certainly do not live in the U.P. I’ve only been to the Upper Peninsula once when going to Mackinac Island and Sault Ste. Marie on the most boring family vacation ever. “I’m … I’m here from Lake City,” I pseudo-lie.

  The girl flinches like I gleeked on her face. “Lake City? Where’s that?”

  I hold up my palm and point to the knuckle of my ring finger—a makeshift map. The best part about living in a state that looks like a hand. “This area.”

  Red Pixie gives a dramatic nod. “Oh, wow. So what brings you here?” And suddenly she sounds Midwestern.

  “Um, work. I mean, I need money,” I stumble, thinking of my glorious teaching position I’m supposed to be starting in just a few weeks, and has that all gone to hell? Has Ian ruined that, too?

  Red looks at me like I just recited the Greek alphabet. “Where are you staying? What line of work are you in?”

  I hesitate. What ever happened to good old-fashioned ambiguity? “Listen,” I begin, and I’ll be damned if my voice isn’t quivering. “I … I don’t have a home, I don’t have a job. Spencer—he gave me a ride from Lake City. I’m here because, well, this is where he was going, and I just needed to get out of there.”

  Red takes a deep drag of her cigarette and nods sympathetically. “Okay, follow me.” She flicks her cigarette on the ground and turns to strut down the sidewalk.

  I don’t know how Red understood anything I said. That explanation was more vague than the first. Regardless, I follow the black-booted pixie down the street.

  “What kind of work you looking for?” Red asks over her shoulder.

  “Uh, it doesn’t matter, really,” I answer, my long-legged strides barely keeping up with the firecracker pace of this tiny girl.

  “You dance?” she asks.

  I stop. I have a feeling Red isn’t talking about the Charleston. “Wait, no. No, I don’t … that’s not the kind of job I was looking for.”

  She comes to a halt, spins around, and grins at me. “So, if you don’t want to dance, does that mean you’re not up for turning tricks?”

  “Wow, I...”

  She laughs, and it’s quite obviously at me. She actually makes me feel stupid for not wanting to be a prostitute.

  “Listen,” she says patronizingly, turning back around and continuing her fast-paced shuttle. “If you’re wanting money, you can get it here. But you’ll get it faster if you incorporate a pole, some drugs, and…” She turns her head and eyes me up and down. “Being less of a prude.”

  I clear my throat. “Surely there are more ways of earning a buck around here. Maybe something old-fashioned? Like waitressing or shoe-shining?”

  Red giggles. It’s cute, and I think she likes me. “Now you sound like my brother.”

  “Oh,” I say, because I don’t know what that means.

  “It’s okay, you don’t have to get a job like that. But for real, selling coke is where it’s at. And like our guy Spence just illustrated, soliciting.”

  “Yeah, I know. Your pal Spence is a real charmer,” I remark, rubbing my temple as we hurry past storefront after storefront.

  She giggles again. “You’re funny. I’m Nikka, by the way. Nikka Swaring.”

  “I’m Charlotte. Thanks for saving my life back there.”

  Nikka waves it off. “Nah, not your life. Just your virginity.”

  God. Is it that obvious I’m still a virgin?
/>
  She makes an abrupt turn and advances up a paint-chipped wooden staircase. The planks groan under my weight as I look around. This building is the last one on the strip; had we kept going, we would’ve walked past an elaborate roundabout and downhill to a restaurant, a marina, and a pristine view of a lake that makes Lake Cadillac look like a quagmire.

  Nikka nods toward the water. “That’s the Saginaw Bay. Pretty, huh?”

  “Very.”

  “And expensive. I have to pay extra for a view like this.” Nikka pulls a single key from her pocket and shoves it in the door, throwing it open. “This is my place,” she says, ushering me inside.

  I gulp. A little wider than my wingspan, the kitchen is a Tetris game of miniature appliances. A TV tray with one cobbled chair sits punished in the corner. This place is all kinds of claustrophobic.

  “Sorry, it’s small. But perfect for a shrimp like me,” Nikka snorts.

  “No, it’s fine,” I say absently, looking at the clock on the stove and seeing it’s only ten a.m. I thought it was at least four in the afternoon. “Is that clock right?”

  “Yep. Brewster never lies,” Nikka says, and she clicks her tongue as she leads me into the living room.

  “Brewster? You named your stove Brewster?” I ask, beholding rabbit ears jutting from a twenty-inch TV on the floor, playing host to a black futon and a department store’s worth of clothes laminating the room. I can’t even tell the color of the carpet. A coffee table floats in the middle of this sea of clothing, littered with a bong, an ashtray, remnants of white powder, and a bottle of Drano. I wonder what the Drano is doing there, then I remember I’m a virgin and just let it go.

  “Yeah, sorry about the mess,” Nikka says, looking around like she, too, is seeing it for the first time. “Ugh, in fact, come back here to my room. There’s more space.”

  If Nikka were a man (and double in size), I’d frisk the house for makeshift weapons and mace substitutes at a request like that. In my defense, I have been chased with an axe by my brother and attacked by Spencer all within the last twenty-four hours, so I have a right to be jittery, following this complete stranger with the Picasso eyes through her apartment.

  When I walk into Nikka’s bedroom, I prep to announce that there certainly is not more room here; in fact, this is the smallest, most cluttered room of all, until I see Nikka stepping over clothes and shoes and baggies of marijuana and a traffic cone—wait, what?—and condoms through a patio door and onto a balcony. Relaxing, I maneuver around the debris and follow Nikka into the chilly Michigan morning. The wind fans off the water, bringing my arms around my knees as we sit in squatty wicker chairs.

  “This is a beautiful view,” I say, briskly rubbing my shins.

  “I know. My apartment is small and cluttered and I hate it, but I wouldn’t give up this view for anything.” Nikka’s eyes meander across the metallic ripples as I watch her run her fingernails up the back of her spiky hair.

  I can’t quite figure out her haircut. Thick bangs sweep to her chin, framing her face with trendy chunks and wild pieces, while the rest of her hair skewers inches from her scalp. I wonder if she just couldn’t decide between long or short hair, so she opted for both. I imagine the discussion with her hairdresser: Length? Oh, I don’t know. Surprise me. Color? Oh, yes. Watermelon. Harvested in mid-July.

  “How old are you?” I ask quietly.

  “Twenty-four. And you?”

  “Me, too. Your eyes. They’re interesting.”

  Nikka raises her eyebrows and pinches her lips in a tight grin, nodding. I’m guessing this is her default reaction to this inquiry she’s undoubtedly heard a thousand times. “Yeah, I know. Minor accident while sledding.”

  I’m not sure how a sledding accident would result in multicolored eyes, so much so that I renounce the belief that ambiguity should be respected. “How did that happen?”

  Nikka squints as she lights up another cigarette. “I was only four, I think,” she says through a cloud of smoke. “And I slid right into a thorn bush. Thorn got me right in the eye.”

  “That actually made your eye change color?”

  “Yep. And disfigured my pupil.” Nikka shrugs, then she grins. “I’m like that Crash Test Dummies song. You know? The one? About the boy whose hair turned white after he got in a car accident?”

  I’ve never heard that disturbing song, and I’m surprised that Nikka didn’t lose her eye entirely, or at least her vision, but this is beginning to creep me out, and I remember why ambiguous answers should be left alone.

  Nikka kicks off her boots and pulls her legs underneath her, shrinking to the size of a kitten, and I’m wondering if this is the same tough street chick I met just a few minutes earlier. “Look, Charlotte. I don’t know you or your story. But I do know what it’s like to be on your own, without a job. Like, I don’t know if you’ve had a falling-out with your family or what, but I’ll help with whatever I can.”

  I bite my cheeks to keep from laughing. Falling-out with my family. Cute. Regardless, that was probably the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. And Nikka’s a complete stranger. “Thank you,” I manage.

  “So here’s what we’ll do. Go take a shower, and the best I can offer is to wash your clothes for you. I mean, I’d let you borrow something of mine, but I shop in the little girls’ section in Target.” She grins, and I laugh. “Then I’mma make my brother bring us some pizza. I’m starving. I’m sure you are, too.”

  Scalding water douses my shoulders, and I’m thanking my lucky stars for the unfortunate events that led me to Nikka when I’m interrupted by a soft knock on the door. “Charlotte?” her muffled voice calls.

  “Yeah?”

  The door opens, and a cold draft makes the shower curtain puff up and cling to my ankles. “I’m leaving some stuff I found for you to wear until your clothes dry. I’m setting them on the toilet. I have tons of makeup and toiletries and whatever else you find, okay?”

  “Nikka, will you marry me?” I call as I rinse the shampoo from my hair. It may not be the most sanitary conditions, but it’s the best shower I’ve ever taken, and I already feel a million times better.

  Nikka chuckles. “I’m not interested in marriage, but for a hundred bucks an hour, I will—”

  “Bah, okay, never mind. I take back my marriage proposal and instead offer my utmost gratitude. It’s all I have.”

  “Fine. Fifty bucks. I’ll give you the friends-and-family discount.”

  “God, Nikka. Stop! Family? Are you kidding me?” I suddenly want to dump shampoo in my eyes.

  Nikka snickers. “I’m kidding. It’s fun making you uncomfortable. I’m not that bad, Charlotte. I promise. Close, but no.” And the door clicks shut.

  Cleaned, disturbed through and through, and confused why Nikka’s convincing me she’s not bad when she just saved me in more ways than one, I turn off the faucet and dry off, donning a Detroit Red Wings T-shirt and dark blue shorts that were once sweatpants until scissors happened. I take full advantage of my VIP access to Nikka’s toiletries, even daubing some blush and mascara to feel a little feminine, despite my wet hair and epicene clothing. By the time I emerge from the steamy bathroom, Nikka’s cleared all the clutter from the living room.

  I gawk as she stomps out of her bedroom and slams the door. “See?” she says as she spins circles in the middle of the living room, her petite arms stretching toward the ceiling. “Cleanliness really is next to Godliness.” Then she plops on the futon and splays herself in a dramatic fashion.

  “Seriously. The room has a holy glow to it now.” Although I’m not sure if it’s the actual cleanliness or the lack of drug paraphernalia that makes the room seem more sanctified.

  Nikka laughs as the doorbell rings. “Sit down. Get comfy,” she calls as she skips out of the room. I spot a fun-looking chair that resembles a huge bowl on a stand full of pillows. I climb inside, pretending to be sitting in a cozy emergency floating device. Razzle Dazzle would be so jealous.

  “Yum, it sme
lls so good,” Nikka says. “Come in.”

  “I can’t stay long, I have to get back to work,” I hear a guy’s voice say. “But apparently catering to you is more important.”

  Nikka reappears, carrying a pizza box bigger than she is, followed by a skinny guy with messy black hair and eyes the color of storm clouds. He looks like one of those solo rock musicians—depressed and angry because he’s so artsy he doesn’t know what to do with it all.

  “Charlotte, this is my brother, Jack. Jack, this is Charlotte. She’s new in town. I’m gonna get us some plates. Dig in, Charlotte.” She tosses the box on the coffee table before abandoning us.

  Jack—who looks about twenty-seven—seems just as shocked to see me as I am to see him. I give him an awkward smile.

  He diverts his eyes to the floor and gives me a subtle head-nod before lowering on the edge of the futon, pecking away at his phone.

  Suddenly it feels like a stupid idea to sit in the upside-down tortoise shell.

  We sit in horrifyingly uncomfortable silence until Nikka returns with a stack of paper plates. “Here, Charlotte. Eat.” She flips open the pizza box and disappears behind Oliver’s Stone Oven Pizza.

  I look down at my coiled legs. “I don’t think I can get out of this chair. Not without being offensive.”

  Nikka smirks. “Oh, I know. Once you get in Phineas, it’s really hard to get out.” She slaps a gooey cheese triangle on a plate and hands it to me.

  “Do you name all your furniture and appliances?” I ask, taking a huge bite and burning the roof of my mouth.

  “Yup. So Jack lives in the apartment directly above mine. Jack, have you introduced yourself to Charlotte?” Nikka plops on the futon next to him with her plate.

  Jack, still tinkering on his phone, doesn’t even look in my direction. “You already introduced us,” he mumbles.

  “Right, but can’t you be polite? Come on, don’t be such an introvert.” She nudges his shoulder.

  Jack sighs and stands. He looks at me and motions toward my chest. “You’re wearing my shirt.” He stuffs his phone in his pocket, trudging toward the door. “See ya.”